Custom Advancement Messages: Personalize Your Server’s Broadcasts
Every Minecraft server owner knows the thrill of seeing a player earn their first diamond or conquer a challenging goal. The vanilla advancement messages that pop up in chat are a great way to celebrate these moments, but they can quickly become repetitive and impersonal. What if you could rewrite those broadcasts to match your server’s unique personality, humor, or theme? That’s exactly what the Custom Advancement Messages plugin allows you to do, giving you full control over the text that appears when someone reaches a milestone.
What Are Advancement Messages?
In Minecraft, advancements are in-game achievements that guide players through the game’s progression. When a player completes an advancement, a message is broadcast to the entire server, announcing their success. These messages are split into three categories: normal advancements, goal advancements, and challenge advancements. Each has a slightly different visual style, but the text is hardcoded by Mojang. While you can tweak join, quit, and death messages with plugins like Essentials, advancement broadcasts have remained stubbornly fixed—until now.
The Problem with Vanilla Messages
Default advancement messages are functional but lack flair. They follow a predictable pattern: “[Player] has made the advancement [Advancement Name].” For servers with custom themes, roleplay elements, or a tight-knit community, this generic format can feel out of place. Server admins often want to inject inside jokes, lore-friendly announcements, or simply a more congratulatory tone. The Custom Advancement Messages plugin fills this gap by letting you rewrite every broadcast exactly how you want it.
Introducing the Custom Advancement Messages Plugin
This lightweight plugin intercepts the vanilla advancement system and replaces its broadcasts with your own custom text. You can edit messages for normal advancements, challenges, and goals separately, ensuring each type of achievement gets the treatment it deserves. Whether you want to shout “Our hero has tamed the Ender Dragon!” or whisper a subtle nod to a player’s dedication, the plugin makes it possible without touching any core game files.
How to Configure the Plugin
Setting up your custom messages is straightforward. After installing the plugin on your Spigot or Paper server, you’ll find a configuration file at CustomAdvancements/config.yml. Open it with any text editor, and you’ll see sections for each advancement category. Simply replace the default placeholders with your own text, using Minecraft color codes to add visual pop. Color codes follow the standard format (e.g., &a for green, &l for bold) and can be referenced on the Essentials wiki if you need a refresher.
Once you’ve tailored the messages to your liking, save the file and run the command /advreload in-game or through the console. This instantly applies your changes without requiring a server restart. The plugin also respects the permission customadvancements.reload, so only trusted staff members can trigger a reload. Additionally, make sure the permission bukkit.broadcast is not disabled for any player group—this doesn’t grant the ability to send broadcasts, only to receive them, so it’s safe to leave enabled for everyone.
How It Works Under the Hood
The plugin takes a clever approach to override the vanilla system. It automatically disables the game rule announceAdvancements in every world, which stops the default messages from appearing. Then, it listens for advancement events and constructs an entirely new broadcast message using your configured text. This means no conflicts with other plugins that might also try to modify chat, and it keeps the server lightweight. The result is a seamless experience where players see only your custom announcements, as if they were part of the game all along.
Permissions and Broadcast Settings
Managing who can reload the configuration is simple with the customadvancements.reload permission node. Assign it to your admin group, and you’re set. The plugin also relies on the bukkit.broadcast permission, which is typically granted to all players by default. If you’ve previously restricted this permission to prevent spam, you’ll need to ensure it’s still allowed so that everyone can see the custom advancement messages. Remember, this permission only controls receiving broadcasts, not sending them, so there’s no risk of abuse.
Limitations and Future Plans
While the plugin works across versions 1.12 to 1.16 (with confirmed testing on 1.15+), there are a couple of current drawbacks. The most noticeable is that players cannot hover over the custom advancement message in chat to view details like the advancement description or icon, a feature present in vanilla broadcasts. The developer is actively looking into adding this functionality in a future update. Another limitation is that custom advancements from other plugins or data packs may not display correctly. However, the developer is open to requests for adding support for specific custom advancements, so if your server relies on a particular set, reaching out could lead to compatibility.
Enhancing Your Server’s Personality
Custom advancement messages are more than just a cosmetic tweak—they’re a tool for community building. Imagine a hardcore survival server where every milestone is met with a dramatic, lore-driven proclamation, or a minigame hub where achievements trigger funny, self-aware quips. The plugin’s flexibility means you can adapt the tone to fit any server style. While this plugin works on the server side, players looking to enhance their own game can use the foxygame.net launcher, a convenient and modern Minecraft launcher that lets you download mods right from the menu, making it easy to add visual improvements or utility mods alongside server plugins like this one. This combination of server-side customization and client-side mods can transform the entire multiplayer experience into something truly unique.
Getting Started with Your Own Messages
To begin, download the plugin and place it in your server’s plugins folder. After a restart or a plugman load, the configuration file will generate. Spend some time brainstorming messages that resonate with your player base. Use color codes sparingly to highlight key words, and test different phrasings to see what gets the best reaction. The /advreload command makes iteration painless, so you can tweak on the fly during a live session.
Conclusion
The Custom Advancement Messages plugin solves a small but impactful limitation of vanilla Minecraft servers. By giving you the power to rewrite advancement broadcasts, it lets you infuse your server with personality and keep players engaged. Despite minor limitations like the missing hover feature, the plugin is stable, easy to configure, and compatible with a wide range of versions. Whether you run a small private server or a large public network, custom messages can make every achievement feel special. Take control of your server’s narrative and turn ordinary advancements into memorable moments that your community will talk about long after they log off.