1.21.6/7 Update - (1.21.2 through 1.21.7) 6/28/2025

Today I am releasing the culmination of work to get us updated to the latest Vanilla version of Minecraft! Now, give it two days and 1.21.7 is going to release. That update is very small, and expecting it to be just about waiting for the couple 3rd party plugins we use to update.

Remember! Updates have bugs and I need to know about them to fix them.
Please report all bugs to me at https://pmdev.emc.gs/

The wastelands have been reset. So enjoy the fresh exploration!
This update is mainly focused on the vanilla updates. You can read about them at the following links.

• Bundles of Bravery - https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_1.21.2
• The Garden Awakens - https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_1.21.4
• Spring to Life - https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_1.21.5
• Chase the Skies - https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_1.21.6

In the first reply to this thread. You can see some of my technical ramblings about this update.

Let me just jump into some EMC-specific changelog notes. In no particular order.

• Vanilla removed the Wolf howl, so netherhounds are going to sound a bit different.
• Vanilla has pigs and striders now having their saddles sheared off. For now, this requires build flag and possibly shear. For horses, it requires you to be the owner as well.
• New entity data is stored with eggifying. Including the variants of chickens, cows, pigs, salmon, and wolf sounds.
• Bundles with other bundles are not allowed in /vault. And other normally non-vaultable items.
• Non-empty bundles cannot be sold through shops, just as with shulker boxes.
• The Locator Bar feature is currently disabled while we figure out how to have that best integrated into EMC.
• Happy Ghast is eggable. And should mostly stay inside of your residence. Its behavior may be subject to change as this update settles. There are not initially flags on riding them.
• The /ping command has been renamed to /latency to better reflect that it is an aggregate of general latency to the server instead of an actual ping.
• If you want to put a brick in an itemframe, you will now have to sneak.
• Hopefully improved the URL detection in chat a bit.
• Fixed wastelands portals and utilized some text displays for the world reset warning.
• Custom items should be less craftable into vanilla crafting recipes.
• Fixed a lore issue on eggified pandas.
• Implemented some updates to new player signs. As talked about in this thread. https://empireminecraft.com/threads/suggestion-update-new-player-residence-signs-asap.87933/

A more intense note. Is that recently it was brought to my attention that Aikar had put an abnormally high enchant on one of the voters gear. LINK. I have put in a change to have that brought down to vanilla levels. But also added a token purchasable pickaxe that is final and has Efficiency 9. It costs 25k tokens, and according to MrSocks75, it should be good for mining out a 16x16x16 cuboid. It is called Dolabra. Enjoy, if you want!

Note... Please don't spend all of your tokens on these pickaxes. We are going to try and keep adding stuff. We have no idea what tokens are worth... So don't think that there is some grand plan on the worth of tokens just yet...

Since we last updated Minecraft versions. There has been major moves going on in the server development space. Our 'upstream', Paper, has hard-forked away from Spigot.
If you want more information about that - https://forums.papermc.io/threads/the-future-of-paper-hard-fork.1451/

As a result of these changes. The update process for us was severely changed. We run our own fork of Paper called EmpireCraft - https://github.com/starlis/empirecraft
But now that it is updated. I am hopeful we will be stable and easy to update for quite a while... Until Mojang does its next major overhaul of an internal system...

One of the things that caused A LOT of issues with our 1.21.1 update back in December. Was all of our old data stored in Vault, etc. In that time I not only had to repair by hand all of the things that broke. But I also triggered manual conversion to the latest data safe versions. This includes vault, mail, promos, stable, vault icons, bookmark icons, and stashed inventories (/games smp inventory). In theory, those things should not have any data loss ever again. (knock on wood). I also reconstructed the wastelands spawn so the teleports work with this update.

Final note. Is that I have been putting in a lot of work to ensure that our EMC plugin code is fully up to date with the latest API. Not allowing us to fall behind and create issues down the road. The next udpate 1.22 or 1.21.8 - I fully expect to be quick. Or at least it won't be my fault if it takes time.

mfw 🤔

Sent out an update this morning that fixed an issue with boat pickup delay after being destroyed.

Also did some backend fixings to prevent some errors being thrown in our server console. Specifically relating to our cross-server tab list.
Mojang did not like us asking each server to complete the textures for people. haha

No new mob heads have been added. The skins need created for them. Mooples has been doing them, but she has been busy - so no mob heads

This is something I am looking into.
Not trying to be too snobby. To encourage the full experience, I don't want 'ALL' versions that ViaBackwards allows onto EMC. And then also want to make sure users are notified if they connect with an older version than what we are running.

Going forward. I really want us to be able to release vanilla updates as quickly possible - not being held back by the modding community's speed of updating their mods. I will post when I have an update from my investigations.

I have updated us to Minecraft 1.21.7.

With this update I have included the ViaBackwards plugin. https://hangar.papermc.io/ViaVersion/ViaBackwards

This allows you to connect with old versions of Minecraft. Now...
I have added some extra code to prevent you from connecting with versions before 1.21.1. This plugin is only in place to allow people flexibility with their mods getting updated that they want to enjoy the game with. Over time, we will constrain the versions closer to what version we are actually running.

There is also a warning message when you login that you are not running the latest/correct version. This is intentional. And if you want to ignore it - go for it. I will not be removing the message.

Please report any issues you experience.

Note: there has been a report about compasses and clocks not working properly. I will be looking into this... Not sure what is going on

I will look into changing it up.

Note that compasses and clocks work as normal in the frontier - the original default worlds for the server.

Seems there is a vanilla bug that is causing this. https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC/issues/MC-274635

Long story short. The compass will ONLY point in worlds that it thinks are the primary overworld (that you will respawn in). It used to be just ANY overworld. There isn't many easy things that can be done about this... Probably the easiest would be a method to create easily customizable lodestone compasses via command. It will be on the todo list... just not super high. Sorry everybody.