Season 3

Before Season 3 even opened on 7 March 2022, Bufong had started recruiting for a town. Hasty would be vice mayor. There would be houses underground, a church, a hospital and a fishing area, with Dio and Nexus among the people expected to help. A reset usually left everyone hunting for basic equipment. Bufong had decided it was also an opportunity to establish a government.

The town never quite became what he intended. Exe opened a hotel, and by 9 March Bufong had cancelled the underground project in its favour. The hotel offered something easier to join than a grand plan: rooms were available, players were already there, and the place could grow as people added to it. Dio suggested making parts of it more like a mansion. Drako helped with the building community around it, while resources and decorations found their way into the rooms.

Bufong also had a smaller responsibility. His golden squirrel, James, had somehow ended up in KDY's possession. Getting him back involved bargaining, demands that nobody hurt him, and the arrival of ordinary squirrels who were promptly assigned places in James's family. A Terraria critter now had a little sister, a mother and a custody dispute. Bufong eventually recovered him.

On 10 March, Drako greeted Bufong with news that the hotel had been blown up. Jeff joined the alarm. Bufong reported that James had been caught in it too. The damage had landed on something people had chosen to share, and the squirrel gave the incident a name everyone could remember. There was suddenly a great deal of interest in who had been responsible.

Dio was repeatedly accused. Exe described damage to two rooms and Scarab Bombs placed around the hotel, allegedly as a prank. But the accounts did not settle into one agreed version. Dio disputed parts of the story, and KDY questioned the accusations being passed around. More than a week later, Bufong was still asking who had destroyed the hotel and James. The season would end without a verdict that everyone accepted.

Elsewhere, keeping the world intact was becoming a daily occupation. KDY challenged suspicious items and behaviour. Jeff offered the memorable defence that he was an undercover hacker trying to catch other hackers; KDY wanted him to stop cheating items in regardless. As amusing as the explanation sounded, it belonged to a persistent problem. Staff could not watch every player, and stopping explosives did little against someone willing to dismantle a build with a pickaxe.

Oz kept adding tools to make that work manageable. The anti-cheat began catching actions without waiting for a moderator to notice them. The Discord bridge acquired visible ranks and more ways to inspect the game. By 15 March, moderators could kick and ban from Discord, allowing somebody outside Terraria to help the people still inside it. Between the arguments in chat, the server was becoming easier to look after.

The quieter forms of help continued as well. Returning players could check the Dumpster for equipment. Drako worked on hellevators and arenas, and people traded whatever they needed for the next fight. Wall of Flesh had fallen by 10 March. A few days later, the mechanical bosses, Plantera, Golem and Duke Fishron were on the defeated list. The hotel story kept resurfacing, but nobody waited for the mystery to be solved before moving into Hardmode.

Moon Lord was confirmed defeated by the morning of 18 March. More summons followed, including a fight KDY credited to the mob farm. The world had become capable of producing the equipment, arenas and shared facilities needed to fight the final boss repeatedly. Some players stayed to collect drops. Others, like Ludaw, were already waiting for another fresh start.

The last morning supplied very little peace. A command forced through KDY summoned an extraordinary collection of bosses, and the bridge filled with their arrivals. The early bosses appeared alongside the mechanical bosses, Plantera, Duke Fishron and Moon Lord. After thirteen days of steadily filling the defeated list, the server had found a way to bring almost everything back at once.

At 9:51 am on 20 March, Oz announced nine minutes until reset. Drako checked what would go: the world, the items, the inventories. There would be a downloadable copy of the old map, but the live server was starting again. Exe's hotel would no longer be somewhere players could casually wander into. Whatever remained of its rooms, and whatever each person believed about James, would belong to the finished season.

The new world was running shortly after shutdown. Oz checked it, KDY joined, and a fresh set of permission problems needed attention. Then the conversation turned to difficulty. KDY thought Normal Mode would have everyone back at Moon Lord in ten minutes. There was another argument ready to take the place of the old ones, and another world in which to have it.