Multiplayer hardcore plugin that simulates a true one-life hardcore experience.
This is an admin/operator guide. For developer context see CLAUDE.md.
Players opt in to a dedicated hardcore world with /th play. They are dropped at a
randomised far-away spawn and play near-vanilla survival across the Overworld, Nether
and End of that world. Death is permanent for that life:
- Their world changes are rolled back (via Prism).
- They are banned from re-entering for the configured ban time (default 12h).
- They are ejected to the lobby; their build, items and progress are gone.
Because a death wipes everything a player built, death and respawn issues are treated as high severity. Worlds are left in debug mode permanently so these can be diagnosed.
Each hardcore world runs on its own server, each with one hardcore world and its own config (intentionally split so each world can be tuned independently):
- HC1 / HC2 — main public near-vanilla worlds.
- HC3 — experimental seasonal world for special events (non-vanilla, rotating plugins).
- HC4 — not public; used for testing.
A server's hardcore world spans three dimensions (<world>, <world>_nether,
<world>_the_end) which are all treated as the same hardcore game. The lobby is a
separate world (hclobby).
All commands are under /th (alias /truehardcore).
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/th play |
Start a new life, or resume your saved life |
/th leave |
Exit hardcore (progress saved). 5s warm-up; cancelled if you move, are in combat, or monsters are nearby |
/th info [player] |
Show game info (state, score, deaths, game time, top score) |
/th stats [player] |
Show kill statistics |
/th list (or who) |
List players currently in hardcore worlds |
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/th dump [player] |
Dump a player's full record (or a summary of all) |
/th dumpworlds |
Dump world settings and currently held chunks |
/th set exit |
Set the lobby/exit position to your current location |
/th whitelist add <player> |
Add a player to the TrueHardcore whitelist |
/th load <player> |
Reload a player's record from the database |
/th forcealive <player> |
Force a player out of "in game" state (recovery for stuck players). Player must be in the lobby, not the HC world |
/th reducetime <player> <hours> |
Reduce a dead player's remaining ban wait (player must be online) |
/th account <player> [primary|alt] |
View or set a player's account type |
/th tp <player> <player> |
Teleport one player to another |
/th save |
Save all buffered player data to the database |
/th bcast <msg> |
Broadcast a message to all hardcore players |
/th queue |
Show the Prism rollback queue and lock status |
/th enable / /th disable |
Enable/disable new games (until restart) |
/th debug |
Toggle debug logging (until restart) |
Note:
/th whitelist delandlistare not yet implemented.
| Permission | Grants |
|---|---|
truehardcore.* |
Full admin access (default: ops) |
truehardcore.use |
Play hardcore (/th play) |
truehardcore.info / .info.other |
View own / others' info |
truehardcore.stats / .stats.other |
View own / others' stats |
truehardcore.list |
Use /th list |
truehardcore.admin |
All admin commands |
truehardcore.endteleport |
Allowed to use the End portal (otherwise blocked) |
truehardcore.bypass.teleport |
Bypass the no-teleport rule within a hardcore world |
truehardcore.bypass.teleportin |
Bypass the block on teleporting into a hardcore world |
truehardcore.bypass.teleportout |
Bypass the block on teleporting out of a hardcore world |
Ops also bypass the teleport restrictions automatically.
Prerequisites (managed outside this plugin):
- Worlds (
<world>,_nether,_the_end,hclobby) are created and managed by MyWorlds — TrueHardcore only looks them up, it does not create them. - A WorldBorder should be set on the hardcore world. Spawn-finding and portal destinations are both constrained to inside the border; border size varies per world.
- A reachable MySQL database. Account/whitelist data lives in the shared
truehardcore_globaldatabase; the player table is keyed by world so multiple servers can coexist. - Prism (required for rollback) plus optional integrations: Vault (economy rewards), LWC (lock cleanup on death), PremiumVanish, PlayerParticles, ProtocolLib (hardcore hearts display), PlaceholderAPI.
Key config (config.yml) settings to be aware of:
world— the hardcore world name for this server.lobbyWorld/exitPos— where players are sent on death/leave.banTime— wait time after death before a player can start a new life.spawnDistance— how far out new spawns are searched for.spawnProtection— invincibility window on a new life.whitelisted— whether the world requires the TrueHardcore whitelist.rollbackdelay— grace period after death before rollback runs (lets others loot first).chunkHoldOnDeath— how long the death-site chunk stays loaded for looting.difficulty— world difficulty (default HARD).deathcommand/dragonkillcommand/dragonrespawncommand/newlifecommand— console commands run on those events (support placeholders and<player>,<world>,<score>,<cause>).
- Worlds run in debug mode permanently — detailed logs (especially around death, respawn and teleports) are written to the plugin's debug log. Leave debug on.
- Player stuck in/out of the world: ask them to return to the lobby, then use
/th forcealive <player>. As a last resort, a relog reconciles their state on join. - World not fully restored after a death: Prism only rolls back player-triggered
changes. Environmental knock-on effects (e.g. leaf decay after a player fells a tree)
are not rolled back — this is a known Prism limitation, not a bug. Use
/th queueto confirm the rollback was queued/processed. - Player can't start a new life: check their account type (
/th account), whitelist status, and remaining ban time (/th info//th dump). Use/th reducetimeto shorten a ban if appropriate. - Alt-account false positive: detection is IP-based. Use
/th account <player> primaryto clear an incorrect "alt" flag.
Ideas we'd like TrueHardcore to own itself, so they don't have to be maintained across external plugins and kept in sync across the three dimensions. Not yet implemented.
-
In-game command blocking. Currently we rely on WorldGuard region "deny-commands" to block commands that would feel like cheating. TH already knows when a player is in game in a TH world (vs the lobby), so it could block a configurable command list only while in game — removing the need to sync WorldGuard regions across the Overworld/Nether/End and manage the include/exclude list there.
-
Built-in permission/action restrictions. We maintain a complex LuckPerms structure to keep things fair and vanilla-like (mostly blocking elevated staff/admin privileges, plus some player actions). TH could automatically enforce a core set of these while a player is in game. Requires clearly identifying and documenting exactly which actions/permissions it takes over, so it doesn't silently conflict with LuckPerms.
-
Take over portal/dimension travel. Nether/End/exit portal routing is fragile and sometimes misfires (sends players to
hclobby, or fails entirely). It currently depends on careful MyWorlds configuration to cover every case. TH already gates and validates portal use, so it could fully own dimension travel for TH worlds to guarantee correct, consistent routing without relying on MyWorlds portal config.- Fix the End exit portal return (currently broken). TH already tries to send End-exit-portal users back to their per-life spawn instead of the Overworld world spawn (0,0) — but in practice players still land at 0,0. The TH logic appears to be losing a fight with MyWorlds: either MyWorlds overrides the respawn destination last (event priority/load-order), or it intercepts the travel as a portal event so TH's respawn handler is never the deciding factor. (The existing "portal teleport cause is UNKNOWN" workaround in that path is a sign it's already unreliable.) The fix belongs with TH fully owning this routing rather than competing with MyWorlds. 0,0 is wrong regardless — each life uses a pseudo-random safe spawn — so the target should be the player's original per-life spawn, or a fresh safe RTP.