Personal project · 2025 - 2026
Novania
A French-speaking Minecraft server on a 1:1000 map of the Earth. I launched it in May 2025, it ran for two seasons, and it closes on November 1, 2026. Here is how it was built and how it went.
- unique players across both seasons
- ~6,250
- players online at once, on July 3, 2026
- 137
- accounts created on the website
- 1,056
- ranked towns
- 131
- hours played in season 2
- ~34,500
- world: the Earth at 1:1000
- 35 GB
- plugins on the server, to configure and update
- 107
- Java plugins written by me
- 24
The story
May 2025
Season 1 launch
The website opens on May 1, the server on May 21. In June, 206 accounts are created on the site, the best month of season 1.
2025 - 2026
A year of season 1
About 4,600 unique players join. Towns grow, nations form, and I keep adding features along the way.
April 2026
Preparing season 2
On April 22, I set up the season 2 server. Ten weeks of preparation before opening: plugins, configuration, testing.
June 2026
End of season 1
The first season ends on June 21.
July 2026
Season 2 launch
On July 3, 137 players are online at the same time on launch night, the server record. Season 2 gets 1,651 unique players.
November 2026
Closing
Novania closes on November 1, 2026. With my VIE in the US, I no longer had time to run it.
Website sign-ups, month by month
Both launches stand out right away. In between, sign-ups slowly go down.
accounts
Show the data
| Month | Accounts created |
|---|---|
| May 2025 | 142 |
| June 2025 | 206 |
| July 2025 | 102 |
| August 2025 | 75 |
| September 2025 | 61 |
| October 2025 | 50 |
| November 2025 | 50 |
| December 2025 | 43 |
| January 2026 | 32 |
| February 2026 | 30 |
| March 2026 | 25 |
| April 2026 | 19 |
| May 2026 | 20 |
| June 2026 | 17 |
| July 2026 | 123 |
| August 2026 | 53 |
| September 2026 (as of Sep 30) | 8 |
What I built
24 Java plugins of my own
Everything that didn't exist: the in-game shop connected to the website (NovaShop), town scoring (NovaniaTownRating), jobs, honor, KOTH events, marriages, districts…
A 107-plugin server
Paper, with Towny, BlueMap, Geyser for Bedrock, MythicMobs, LuckPerms, CoreProtect, an anti-cheat… All of it to configure, keep compatible and update with every new Minecraft version.
The Django website
Accounts, Minecraft account linking with a code, player and town pages with their story and a guestbook, notifications.
The town ranking
A score out of 1,000 across five categories. Four are computed by a plugin that sends scores to the API, building quality is graded by hand by the staff.
The shop
Stripe payments, the in-game currency (Novas), ranks, keys, bundles, and gifts between players, delivered in game automatically.
Hosting
The game at Minestrator (24 GB of RAM, hourly backups, a 35 GB world). The website on a VPS with Docker Compose: Django, a worker, PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx and the wiki, with database backups and two-factor authentication on the admin.
How it all fits together
The website, before closing
What I take away from it
3,000+
hours spent on the project, all tasks included. I didn't really keep count, it's an estimate.
01
A project like this can't be done alone
For a year and a half I was the only one on development and updates. I did the TikTok promotion with two friends. I handled some of the community management, together with volunteers who joined the project along the way.
02
On top of everything else
All of it at the same time as my Master's, my CDA degree and my work-study job. I spent most of 2025 and 2026 working.
03
Why it ends
With my VIE in the US and the time difference, I no longer had time for it. A large part of the community left, and that is what led to the closing.