Nodes logo.

Nodes is a land-claiming plugin used on, and created for, /int/craft, as an alternative to the previously-used Towny plugin. It was developed by Xethyr.

The original idea for Nodes was designed by 4craft player MonkeysInSpace. In a Google Doc titled “Nodes: The Meme: The Game: The Document”, published in 2018, Monkeys explained the concept of a “Nodes” plugin to replace the Factions plugin used by 4craft. Interestingly, the problems he identified and the solutions he came up with markedly differ from the eventual implementation of the /int/craft version of Nodes. However, both Monkeys' original concept and Xeth's subsequent project share the core feature of dividing the map into provinces.

Monkeys seems to have made a small amount of progress coding his version of the plugin, but gave up. Nonetheless, his ideas had a large influence on Xeth's project, including the name itself.

An early version of Nodes on dynmap.

Nodes dynmap of i32.

Nodes dynmap of i34.

Xeth began work on his version of the Nodes plugin just after the end of iteration 31 in 2020. The first step was to write the dynmap overlay. In March, he recruited Jonathan and Onions to help with the plugin, however their actual code contributions would be minor. Xeth would write over 90% of the “over 12,000 lines of code”.¹⁾ The plugin was written 100% from scratch, contrary to conception that it is a modified version of Towny. Even though many features are based on the old Towny plugin, and Towny is open source, it was determined early on that the Towny codebase was such a clusterfuck, it was better to redo everything from the ground up.

The plugin was used for the first time on i32, in which the implementation received mixed opinion, but the concept was generally praised as an improvement to Towny.²⁾ After i32, the three contributors signed a contract to determine ownership and distribution rights for Nodes. It was originally debated whether to sell the plugin on the Spigot marketplace, but with little interest from anyone to make it presentable, this didn't happen.

The original Nodes was for Minecraft version 1.12. It was updated to version 1.16 for i34, and 1.18 for i38. The plugin was released to the public, with open source, on 16 May 2022, 2 years after its first appearance on /int/craft. Nodes has been used on iterations 32, 34, 37, and 38, and Epochcrafts 3 and 4. Since being open-sourced, Nodes has been used on some other servers, such as Crusalis.

Before Nodes was open source, there was some criticism for Xeth keeping his plugin private and restricted to only his and Onions' iterations. In 2021, TriageOne developed an alternate version called “ApexNodes” for i35, which sought to be a clone of the original Nodes. Unlike the original Nodes, this plugin was actually an addition on top of Towny. The plugin had some bugs, but also had some features that the original Nodes didn't have, such as node tiers and physical chest collection. It was used on i35, i36, and Crusalis 1, but became defunct after the original was open-sourced.

Another plugin, similar to Nodes, was made by the TaP community for their modded “Art of War 3” server. Like Nodes, the map was divided into painted provinces, and had a dynmap overlay, but in-game, the claim system worked somewhat differently. Their provinces were painted on an image editor by using different colors to represent different provinces, rather than the browser editor Nodes has. This was similar to how map mods are made for some Paradox games, and also like Monkeys originally envisioned in his proposal.

In 2023, Rurik made a fork of Nodes for the Crusalis 2 server, rewriting some parts and adding some new features. This version was updated to 1.19. It was also used for Epochcraft 4.

It is a common mistake to refer to the provinces on the map as “nodes” (e.g. “I just captured that node!”). However, in the Nodes plugin documentation, these are officially called “territories”. Furthermore, the dictionary definition of a node is “a point at which lines or pathways intersect or branch; a central or connecting point”, so, to call a piece of land a node is a bit imprecise.

In the original Monkeys concept, the “node” actually referred to the central chunk that, when captured, would flip the territory's control between factions. In the Xeth version, though, this chunk is called the “core” or “home” chunk. So what are the nodes in Nodes? In the plugin, the only things explicitly called nodes are the “resource nodes”. So, the name “Nodes” actually refers to the individual resources that are associated with a territory. The concept of a “resource node” is found in some other games.

Nodes on Github