While many Minecraft servers undergo map resets, /int/craft is defined by it. The server has gone through the cycle of launch, death, and relaunch no less than 38 times in its 8-year history, and early players began the tradition of numbering these “iterations”. In the early days, one iteration would often lead right into another, and each could last up to 2 months before players would find their progress reset by a new map. In more recent years, however, iterations are expected to last 1-3 weeks, and are often separated by months-long gaps where there is no online server at all.

Iterations are themed around a historical period, for example, 500 BC Europe, World War 1, or Sengoku Japan. Each server is played on a map of the Earth, often the whole world, but sometimes localized to a specific region (a “crop”) when the theme is more restricted. Players are encouraged (and sometimes mandated) to roleplay as nations or factions relevant to the region and contemporary to the setting, and to build their towns in the appropriate architectural style. Due to the nature of vanilla Minecraft gameplay, the earliest iterations were set in ancient history. With the deployment of gun plugins beginning in late 2015, roleplaying modern-era or even futuristic conflicts is now possible.

The responsibility of organizing, setting up, and paying for an iteration has passed between many different people over the years. Sometimes, control is split between a server owner, who runs the hardware, and a head admin, who gathers and polices the playerbase. Other times, the roles of owner, admin, and developer are all held by one authoritarian “host”. There is no official process to becoming a host; anyone with the knowledge to can run an /int/craft, assuming they can gather the support of a critical mass of the community. There have been as many as 20 different hosts in /int/craft history. In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on hosts to put together a well-packaged iteration, including the development of custom maps and custom plugins.

While some newfags, and even some older players, detest the ephemeral format of the iterations, it has generally become accepted by the community as a core feature of /int/craft. Iterations are a sprint, not a marathon: 2 weeks of intense high-effort concentrated autism, followed by a period of hibernation. This leads to high peak playercounts and keeps things fresh. Due to the iteration system, /int/craft is not really one server with a continuity, but a series of servers sharing the same name.

For a list of iterations, see the main page.

Early servers are generally known as 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc. The exception is 10.0, which was also marketed as “/int/craft X”. The two “pre-history” test servers are known as 0.1 and 0.5.

In 2019, during the lead-up to the Yugo Wars server, Jonathan devised a new nomenclature, dropping the “.0” from iteration numbers and preceding the number with an “i”, standing for “iteration”; for example, Yugo Wars was called i30, as opposed to 30.0. This new system was based on that used by 4craft, where servers are known as v1, v2, v3, etc., and it quickly became popular among newer players.

While some oldfags continue to use the “.0” numbering system, the “i” system has become prevalent in the modern era. For example, the 2021 World War 1 server is known as iteration 34, i34, or just 34, but rarely 34.0. Servers before Filicraft (i28) are almost always named with the “.0” system.

The numbering of iterations is not consistent, and only loosely agreed upon. In one famous example of inconsistency, the server succeeding 12.0 was actually called 14.0, skipping 13 because of the bad luck meme. Pandacraft failed so spectacularly that it wasn't counted at all.

In mid-2016, the iteration numbering became muddied by a series of short-lived shitpost-tier servers, and with the exception of the historically-attested 20.0, the servers of this period are not well remembered by anyone at all besides Falklands, who wrote their respective articles. This was further complicated by the January 2017 server being marketed as “Cold War”, an attempt by the hosts to break from previous tradition, even going as far as a short-lived rebranding to “/int/pires”. The following three servers were also better known by their themes than any numbers.

The result of this confusion was that, by June 2019's Filicraft, the iteration number was unclear. Later that year, a study was done by Jonathan to determine the proper number for Yugo Wars before its launch, and it was determined to be 30, making the first Filicraft i28. This numbering was confirmed by Ghoul in another investigation in 2022. Iterations 28 to 32 are widely associated with their given numbers.

The modern naming dispute began with the server now known as Epochcraft 1 in late 2020, which was at the time marketed as an /int/craft server. Aware of the development and imminent launch of Xeth's WW1 server, the hosts called their lower-effort project “32.5”. This numbering was challenged by a small but influential minority, including YouTuber SpookyBone and blog editor Ghoul, who insisted it should be called 33, and their view eventually prevailed. Despite Xeth also calling his server i33 (dubs checkem), it is now generally known as i34. “i32.5” was retroactively rebranded as Epochcraft i1 with the launch of Epochcraft i2 by the same hosts, to be distinct from /int/craft.

More dispute arose from Onions' failed Ukraine server. This server was widely boycotted by the community, and was declared dead by the host after only a few hours due to low player count. This failure, as well as Onions' bellicosity, led Ghoul to declare the server illegitimate in a blogpost, claiming it is not worthy to be called “i37”. Most players still consider it to be a canon server regardless in spite of its failure.

While World War 2 is generally known as i38, host Xeth referred to it as “i37” on his server website. Whether this is a knock against Ukrainecraft or against “32.5” is unknown.