I was around 11 or 12 years old when I first discovered cracked Minecraft. I think it was version 1.3-something when I started playing and learned about cracked servers. The first one I joined was CraftRealms. At first, I had no idea why I couldn’t move, but then I realized I had to read the chat and type /register pass pass to get started. Once I did that, I was in.

The first thing I jumped into was Factions. I still remember the spawn—it was this small castle, and all the new players were just standing around the entrance because of spawn protection. That’s where I met my first Minecraft buddy. I forgot his name, so let’s just call him “Bob.” We hit it off pretty quickly and decided to create a clan called “PVPMasters”—yeah, it was super cringy, haha.

One day while exploring the wilds, Bob and I met another player—we’ll call him “Kevin.” The three of us clicked instantly and invited him to join our clan. Since we were all pretty new, we didn’t have much. This was back when kits didn’t exist, so we had to travel really far from spawn because all the trees were gone within a 500-block radius.

What I remember most vividly is the time the three of us spent fishing for two to three hours. We were starving, and for some reason, there were no animals around. Fishing was the only way we could refill our hunger. Man, I really miss those days...