Events

The Specialization Experiment

Event 0 | Trial 0

Trial 0 (T0) was the first trial with the Specialization Experiment plugin, and acted as test trial for the plugin, server, and data collection methods. It started on Sunday 20th July, 2025 at 12:00 UTC. Its schedule was to run two 3-hour sessions per day: one starting at 12:00 UTC, and the other at 23:00 UTC.
All participating players were in the same test-group for this trial, and could join during either, or both, time slots.

By its nature as a test trial, there was occasionally downtime when serious bugs or exploits were found, or from other server issues.
For example, Session 8 was paused while an anti-combat logging system was added to the server; and Sessions 11 and 12 were affected by server downtime (the latter session being cancelled).

Session 14, the 13th session, ended on Sunday 27th July, 2o25, at 02:00 UTC.

ShotRush subsequently made a youtube video about the trial, from an experiment stand-point, with an accompanying report.

Start Date	Sun, 20/07/25
End Date	Sun, 27/07/25
No. Sessions	13
Avg. Player Count	~75 (?)
Minecraft Version	1.21.4
World Seed
World Download(s)	ShotRush link

Event 1 | Trial 1

Trial 1 (T1) was to be the first full trial for collecting data, after the test T0.

The schedule was kept as two 3-hour sessions a day, but at different times: one starting at 15:00 UTC, and the other at 22:00 UTC. The times were chosen so players in both North America and Europe had at least one favourable timeslot per day.

T1 was preceded by a few test sessions to iron out bugs present in the plugin, rebuilt since T0. The first session was on Sunday, 10th August at 22:00 UTC.

Some changes from T0 included: updating to Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.6; the removal of a danger bar that indicated distance from spawn; removal of leashing; and addition of features such as equipment blueprints.

Like with T0, some changes were made during T1, including adding recipes for netherwart and blaze rods; and re-implementing leashing.

All sessions ran for around 3 hours, and session 14 ended on Sunday, 17th August at 19:00 UTC (running longer by an hour for games at spawn).

Unfortunately, the data collection for this trial was limited, however ShotRush did make a youtube video about it in advance of E2, and reports were written by participants.

Start Date	10/08/25
End Date	17/08/25
No. Sessions	14
Avg. Player Count	~60 (?)
Minecraft Version	1.21.6
World Seed	8923491230123
World Download(s)	ShotRush link

Event 2

Event 2 (E2) was the first event to include more than one trial running in parallel. Session 1 started on Saturday 13th September at 13:30 UTC. For E2, sessions wouldn't be on every day of the week, instead the server had the following openning times:
Thursday and Friday: 16:30 - 19:30 (UTC), and 22:30 - 01:30 (UTC);
Saturday and Sunday: 13:30 - 16:30 (UTC), and 18:30 - 21:30 (UTC).

E2 was originally due to start on or before the weekend of the 6th of September. A video by Joyfuul in the week leading up to it, which discussed T1, brought renewed attention to the experiment discord, increasing its numbers from ~700 to ~3500 users in a matter of days. This increase in potential players caused a postponement of the start of the event by a week as more servers were acquired. Test sessions were run instead, to gauge the limits of the servers.

Due to increased player numbers, E2 had four worlds, Trials 2-5 (T2-5). The players were randomly allocated a world upon joining the queue server, and were not told which world (and so which trial) they had joined.
Unlike with previous trials, players were not told exactly how many sessions E2 would run for, only that it was between 14 and 18. Ultimately, there were 13 experiment sessions, with a 14th non-experiment session.