The Largest Minecraft World Download: 15 TB of 2b2t History Archived
The largest available Minecraft world, totalling 15 TB
I led a team to archive the largest available Minecraft world, capturing 15 TB of data from the anarchy server 2b2t. Using 28 bot accounts over a year, we downloaded a 1 million block squared area of the Overworld, plus sections of the Nether and End. This massive public dataset preserves the server's chaotic history before it faces increasing censorship and rule changes, ensuring this unique digital landscape remains accessible forever.
Given how interesting this premise is, the server constantly sees hundreds of players online, and many more hundreds of players sitting in a queue, with the option to pay $20 monthly to skip that queue instantly.
- kyledrake
Oh wow, they actually provided the full torrent. I was always hoping they would so it could be studied.
For those unfamiliar, 2B2T was a Minecraft anarchy server that had almost no restrictions. It devolved into roving gangs of people trying to kill each other, use cheats to find secret bases, etc. The trick to hiding on this server was to go as far away as possible from the center, which led to an enormous map size.
I joined with a friend several years ago to see if we could survive, and it took days just to get out of the spawn, which was completely destroyed, surrounded by massive walls, and flooded with Withers (very difficult to kill enemies).
Fascinating study and perhaps the biggest metaverse experiment that's ever happened (but definitely the most lawless one).
This is what spawn looked like from above https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vrKyqEBoNvRVbCtHoG6BGX-970...
- jorl17
I have such fond memories of venturing into 2b2t in 2016! I think it was one of the last times I truly felt like a kid in my life. As if I was a part of something larger than me. Multiple factions, and people betraying each other. Secrecy abound. The scarcity of resources leading to small groups forming joining for survival. Item duplication bugs being exploited all the time! Oh, and of course, the wonderful world of hacked clients. The idea of anarchy was gripping!
It was so thrilling! I'd wait hours in a queue and then explore. The difficulty of escaping spawn in the first day, and only surviving because of an apple that a kind stranger gifted me before they died has stuck with me for 10 years (10 years?!!). Contributing to a nether highway (I believe it was +xy?), creating small bases for millions and millions of blocks all with my signature style and leaving a sign. I wonder how many of them are still standing? And I wonder if the last place I logged out of has ever been found.
Imagination does wonders if it's nudged just right :)
- fcatalan
I spent a few weeks there back in the day. After the ordeal of surviving the spawn I remember it as a haunting and melancholic experience: you kept finding decayed places, huge projects long abandoned, vandalized monuments, vague traces of simpler dwellings, hidden orchards.
I haven't played a lot of Minecraft but I'm glad that most of the little I played was there.
- sourweasel
>"The data provided is NOT a single playable Minecraft world, but rather a highly compressed collection of several world downloads of 2b2t."
I feel like HN needs to have a small model that compares post title to the article content and assigns it an accuracy score.
- smithcoin
SalC1 made a great video about how this was accomplished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDyze1YlOrI