In 2014, with a group of friends, I co-founded the Railmine Community, a Minecraft community focused on pushing the gameplay experience to new heights. Our collective goal was to create a fun, immersive environment while learning and growing together. Without fixed roles, we collaboratively managed this complex project from all angles, gaining valuable experience along the way.

Strategy and Management

We conducted numerous meetings to discuss business strategies, including renting and managing bare metal servers. Marketing efforts were primarily through Facebook, where we engaged with our player base and promoted our servers. The gameplay strategy was particularly enjoyable, as we launched two fully customized Minecraft servers. Our in-house development of custom mods and plugins allowed us to introduce new game logics, races, blocks, and weapons, which required extensive research and balancing to enhance and prolong the Minecraft experience.

Technical Achievements

One of my favorite projects during this time was developing the Remote Console for our servers. We built a web panel in PHP where admin users could monitor server logs and interact with the terminal. The server-side manager handled starting the server, transmitting server logs to the remote console, and executing commands sent from the console, all facilitated through Websockets.

Overcoming Challenges

Managing bare metal servers was a significant challenge initially. We received training from a system manager at IBM, which was invaluable. Without AI to aid in developing mods and plugins, we relied heavily on research and troubleshooting, often obsessing over small details to ensure everything worked flawlessly. Another challenge was maintaining a source of income to sustain the servers. Although the project was initially funded by the founders, our goal was to achieve self-sustainability.

Conclusion

After several years of growth and learning, we decided to close the Railmine Community in August 2017 as we each embarked on different paths. This experience was a tremendous learning opportunity, providing us with skills in community management, technical development, and strategic planning.