It’s no secret that the PC community houses the most ambitious players in the world, and there’s no better evidence of this than Minecraft.

The architectural artist’s paradise, Minecraft has been a great creative outlet for players who can build without necessarily having to be a coding genius.

Here are  the top 15 of the very best, featuring anything from breathtaking constructions and vistas to worlds with whole new rules and game modes.

15. PrisonTech

PrisonTech is one of the best examples of an exceptionally popular Minecraft role playing game where the server acts as a jail.

Split into several cellblocks, players act as prisoners attempting break free.

The rules of the prison are enforced by senior server players fulfilling the roles of Junior Wardens and Guards. 

Getting out of your cell block requires paying a hefty price, and money is earned by selling stacks of mined elements. Y

ou mine materials from vast pits that tunnel down hundred of layers.Yeah; this is essentially a forced labour camp. 

As you work your way to higher-tier cell blocks, areas become PvP, meaning other players can shank you and steal your materials.

Murdering others is illegal and prison guards can lock you in solitary if you’re found with a weapon, but a little stealth can go a long way if you’re looking for a cash boost. 

14. MafiaCraft

A roleplaying server, MafiaCraft relocates you to an NYC-like city and asks what you will make of yourself.

Will you join the police and uphold the law, or join the underworld and make money on the drug circuit? 

As a gangster, you can farm various illegal substances and sell them on the black market.

You can become part of player gangs and take part in raids on enemy safehouses, ransacking their stashes and causing a lot of murder.

Being part of the mob wouldn’t be appealing without a bit of heat, so MafiaCraft has a full armoury that can be crafted.

Of course, shooting people is a federal offence, and should you be caught by police players you can be locked up and serve time (a cushy 2 minutes). 

There’s something slightly childish about MafiaCraft, with its ‘drugs’ being nothing more than sugar, carrots, seeds, and mushrooms simply renamed, and the progression from street corner seller to dealer baron being the stuff of straight-to-DVD fluff rather than a Scorsese flick.

But there’s also a thrill in raiding rival gangs’ hideouts and performing drive-by shootings. Not quite GTA on blocks, but close enough. 

13. Mineplex 

Mineplex is the largest Minecraft server in existence.

Containing multiple arenas and zones for a hefty amount of game types, Mineplex is populated by thousands of players at any one time.

The level of detail in its design makes Mineplex feel like a studio-built MMO, and the ever-present community of staff and players are both great sports and a continual promise of people to play with.

The variety of game options means that realistically you can make Mineplex your sole destination and still take part in two thirds of the experiences on this list.

Mineplex is also a great destination to play Minekart; a blocky recreation of Mario Kart.

With recreated tracks, power-ups, and karting without actual karts, Minekart is a great change from the normal murder-prevalent game types or hitting things with pickaxes. 

12. PixelmonCraft 

PixemonCraft takes the popular Pokémon-themed Pixelmon mod and makes it multiplayer.

Split over two servers based on the Kanto and Johto regions from the super-popular Nintendo games, PixelmonCraft not only recreates the areas and towns of those games, but also replicates as much of the gameplay as possible.

Animals in Minecraft are not only replaced with Pokémon, but they can be caught and battled with. There are gym leaders to fight, Pokémarts to shop in, and long-grass to avoid. 

The blocky nature of Minecraft cutely replicates the feel of the Pokémon games, and makes this genuinely feel like an accurate depiction of a Pokémon MMO.

There’s an authentic feel of love on the server, with a friendliness and warmth that only forcing cute animals to maul each other to near-death can provide.

11. Zero.Minir

Demonstrating Minecraft’s ever-versatile nature, Zero.Minir is a parkour server.

Filled with a great variety of challenging maps, crafting and killing is thrown aside in favour of running and climbing an ever more intricate web of towers and paths.

The overly-dramatic trailer above shows off some of the more challenging routes, spiralling skyward with jumps sure to send many players flailing to their doom. 

Frustrating to start with, Minecraft parkour is a skill to work on, but with a little practise it can become one of Minecraft’s great pleasures.

Zero.Minir is certainly one of the best server to free-run.

10. PirateCraft

Sail, build, and plunder in PirateCraft, a server dedicated to the golden age of scurvy and theft.

One of the most ambitious servers we’ve played on, PirateCraft has a fully-functioning ship-to-ship combat mechanic.

As with all Minecraft ideas of such magnitude it’s a little clunky, but it works. Ships can be built and sailed across the seas, and cannons mounted to the hull and fired into enemy vessels. 

On land a simple but functional economy replicates the trade and booty of the period, and players can build their own houses on ‘safe zones’ in order to bunk and store treasures in.

Safe Zones are protected from griefers, meaning you can build as much as you like without fear of others trashing your masterpieces. 

Of course, if you’re roleplaying a pirate there’s going to be some grief involved, and provided the owner is in a safe zone, other players can siege them.

Attackers can destroy ‘soft’ blocks, and generally make a nuisance of themselves until they either walk away or the defender surrenders.

Similarly ships can be stolen, provided the owner is not onboard at the time.

9. Imagineering

A server for those looking to pretend to be a thrill-seeking tourist, Imagineering recreates Disney Land in almost its entirety.

150 different rides have been recreated by the two-strong building team, as well as two hotels to accommodate you, and shopping resort Disney City. 

Imagineering is purely for spectacle; there’s no crafting, economy, or quests.

This is simply to experience the magic of Disney Land without having to spend a fortune on air and hotel fares and wait half the day in ride queues.

And whilst it’s no substitute for a real holiday, there’s no denying the awe that seeing all these Minecraft-recreated rides in action. All hand built, there’s a special kind of magic in this server. 

If you want to help out, you can even become staff at this virtual Disney Land.

This could be in the form of assistants to help visitors out, or as an actual Imagineer, recreating rides for new areas of the park.   

8. Denmark

We often talk about the mind-boggling when it comes to Minecraft because of the frequent examples of awe-inspiring builds. But this is bigger than awe.

This is country-sized construction, quite literally. The entirety of Denmark has been recreated in Minecraft by the Danish GeoData Agency.

1TB in size, spread across three servers, this is an unprecedented scale of Minecraft construction. What's more, you can even destroy and rebuild parts of it.

If you’ve ever wanted to play god with a real country, this is probably your best chance. Be quick about it though; these colossal servers shut down on October 23rd.

7. The Hive

The Hive is a multiple game-mode server with plenty of choice, from Hide and Seek to Cowboys and Indians (both self explanatory, and a quick escape back to your childhood).

But its crowning achievement is Survival Games. 

Also known as Hunger Games, this mode is insanely popular in Minecraft communities, and based upon the book/film sensation of the same name.

24 players (or ‘tributes’) enter an arena, run away to find food and weapons, and then stalk each other until only a final victor remains.

Its popularity is easy to understand, being one of the most compelling modes available due to mixing Minecraft’s survival elements with the thrill of deathmatch.

When played on excellent maps the enjoyment is massively increased, and The Hive has some truly phenomenal arenas. Take a look at the video above to see a game fought on Futuristic City.

6.Minecraft Middle-earth

If ever there were a classic world that would inevitably end up immortalised in textured blocks, it was Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Primarily based on Peter Jackson’s cinematic vision of Middle-earth, this is a vast project still under construction.

You can help push forward with the building of the world of men, elves, and creatures of shorter stature, so long as you follow a fairly specific set of rules.

Current project is Gondor capital Minas Tirith, and helping out on the construction will allow you to make your own mark with a house for yourself. 

5. Arkham Network

Not actually a Batman-themed server like its name suggests, Arham Network is similar to Mineplex: a vast, multi-game server with massive player counts and a strong community.

Among its numerous game types is Sky Wars, a hilariously tricky PvP deathmatch that takes place over several tiny islands suspended in mid air, making jumps and falls as lethal as a well placed headshot.

Arkham is also well known for its great Prison zones, which whilst not as intricately designed as PrisonTech do offer consistent fun and some pretty good exchange rates on materials. 

4. WesterosCraft

If Middle-earth is our classic fantasy Minecraft server, the WesterosCraft is our modern great.

From the Wall right down to The Red Keep at King’s Landing, WesterosCraft is a vast server with many of Game of Thrones’ landmarks built in astonishing detail.

Most areas are built from their TV show designs, making much of this server like a trip inside HBO. Kings Landing is especially awe-inspiring. 

Like Minecraft Middle-earth, it’s still very much a project underway, with work currently being done to the Lannister bastion of Casterly Rock.

Should you know your Winterfell from your Dreadfort you can join in and help prop up the next house of death and tyranny.

Just head over to the server’s website to find out what the current project is and what dates build sessions are happening on. 

3. Hardcore Games

We’ve already established the popularity of The Hunger Games in Minecraft, but 24 players is a bit on the generic side.

Bigger is better is the mantra behind Hardcore Games, a 120 player survival match. The main rules remain the same, but significant additions keep players together and in the fight. 

At the 22 minute mark ‘The Feast’ occurs, spawning several chests filled with vital equipment.

This draws players in with the promise of new weapons, but also encourages a bloodbath as everyone fights over the loot.

Later on, with just the final few players left, survivors are dumped into a deep pit with no escape, forcing the final showdown. 

2. Crafting Azeroth

A combination of programming magic and Minecraft blocks, Crafting Azeroth is a purely explore-only server with no building or mining allowed.

It’s all about exploring Azeroth - the world of Warcraft itself - recreated in blocky form.

Unlike Minecraft Middle-earth and WesterosCraft, Crafting Azeroth is not a hand built world.

Instead creator Rumsey wrote his own software that converts World of Warcraft’s maps into voxel data, which is then interpreted by Minecraft to build a world.

The whole conversion is a 48 hour job, but assigning Minecraft blocks to the different colours picked up in the voxelization process was a much bigger task.

The result is a stunningly well-realised clone of MMO gaming’s most beloved world, 500 square kilometers in size and comprised of 100 billion blocks.

Outland is included, although off-map instanced dungeons are not.

1. Shotbow

Another popular amusement park of a server, Shotbow is a community paradise host to a great selection of mini games.

There’s an excellent abstract-like parkour route, but the real star of Shotbow’s stage is MC Smash! 

There are a few variants of Super Smash Bros. in the Minecraft community, but MC Smash! is arguably the closest to replicating the Nintendo classic’s rule set.

Three lives, colourful maps, and a cool selection of items to use on enemies, MC Smash is an excellent ‘smack people in the face’ minigame.

Check out the video above to see how it captures the tension of a Smash Bros match, especially when both players are teetering on the edge of a map, desperate to push their adversary into the dark pit of oblivion.

(source:pcgamesn.com)