minecraft-server/docs/RACKED_BRAND.md

racked.ru — In-Game Brand Design

Last updated: 2026-05-01 Scope: every player-facing string the Minecraft server emits — chat, MOTD, kick screens, /help, tablist, broadcasts.

This document is the canonical reference for in-game text styling. Pair with MISSION.md (mission-mode copy) and THANKS.md (third-party attributions). For surface-by-surface rewrite history see docs/REBRAND_2026-04-30.md.

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1. Palette

Five legacy & codes only. Anything outside this set is banned.

Code	Hex	Use
&f	#FFFFFF	primary text, brand wordmark, key values
&7	#AAAAAA	body / descriptive text
&8	#555555	brackets, dividers &8------------------------------------
&e	#FFFF55	interactive tokens only: command names, player names, URLs, placeholders (%player%, {PLAYER})
&r	reset	end every styled segment to prevent colour bleed

Hard-error escape: &c light red — for catastrophic states only (auth failure, kick reason, ban, whitelist deny). Sparingly. Anything that's "wrong, try again" should be &7 body + the relevant token in &e, not &c.

Banned codes: &0 &1 &2 &3 &4 &5 &9 &a &b &d &l &o &m &k. Replace any of these with the equivalent from the palette.

Style modifiers:

• &n underline — only on /help section titles, never on body text or links.
• &o italic — single exception preserved for the выживание Russian flavour subtitle in MiniMOTD line 2. Don't introduce elsewhere.
• &l bold, &m strikethrough, &k obfuscated — never.

MiniMessage equivalents (used by ComfyWhitelist, GrimAC, MarriageMaster, etc.): <white>, <gray>, <dark_gray>, <yellow>, <red>, <reset>. Same palette rules apply.

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2. Wordmark

Four written forms, each scoped to a specific surface:

1. Bracketed prefix (chat) — &8[&fracked.ru&8]&r (note trailing space, then &7 body). Universal per-line prefix for all plugin chat output.
2. Pipe form (window titles, display names) — racked.ru | <surface>. Examples: racked.ru | client, racked.ru | launcher.
3. Hero form (MOTD line 1, TAB footer, banners) — ʀ ᴀ ᴄ ᴋ ᴇ ᴅ . ʀ ᴜ (small-caps unicode glyphs, single space between each).
4. Plain form (inside body sentences) — racked.ru (lowercase, no spaces).

Casing rule: brand is always lowercase. The small-caps unicode hero is visually larger but semantically lowercase.

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3. Tagline

Canonical, in current use:

experience the game the way it should have always been

• All-lowercase. No closing punctuation.
• Em-dash separator from the brand when paired: racked.ru — experience the game the way it should have always been.
• Used in server.properties (motd=), docker-compose.yml, MISSION.md, README.md.

Mission-mode quote (separate from tagline, ToS / About surfaces only):

all software should be free and open-source — racked.ru

Not for in-chat use. Don't lecture players in chat.

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4. Tone

• Pragmatic-not-preachy. Privacy + perf claims only. No FOSS speeches in chat.
• Short sentences, declarative. "Pick a username, play offline." "You don't have to trust me — read the source."
• No exclamation marks. Strip every ! from upstream defaults. Exclamation reads as upstream-template noise, not brand voice.
• Lowercase body where it reads naturally. Sentence case acceptable for longer prose.
• No emojis. No ASCII art beyond the canonical divider.
• Period punctuation for full sentences. Many short messages can drop the trailing period.
• English primary. Russian (выживание) is a single italic-yellow flavour token in MiniMOTD — never a localisation channel for the rest of the server. Server is EN-only.

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5. Templates

Drop-in shapes for new strings. Match these exactly.

# Standard info line
&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r &7<message>

# Info with command reference
&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r &7<verb> &e/<cmd>

# Info with player reference
&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r &7<verb> &e<player>

# Hard error (rare)
&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r &cerror: &7<reason>

# Section header (paginated /help, /rules)
&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r
&8------------------------------------
&r&n<Section title>&r

# Status row (tablist-style)
&7<sᴍᴀʟʟ-ᴄᴀᴘ ʟᴀʙᴇʟ>: &f<value>

# Multi-line kick screen
[racked.ru]

<reason>

<recovery action> at racked.ru

The 36-dash divider is &8------------------------------------ — exactly 36 dashes. Don't shorten or pad.

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6. Surface map

Surface	File on server	Brand element
Server-list MOTD	MiniMOTD/main.conf	hero wordmark + Russian flavour subtitle
motd=	server.properties	plain wordmark + tagline
Per-join chat	Essentials/motd.txt	branded prefix + /help hint
Post-auth confirmation	AuthMe/welcome.txt	branded prefix + &e{PLAYER}
Login/register flow	AuthMe/messages/messages_en.yml	branded prefix on every key
/help pages	HelpCommand/config.yml	header + 36-dash dividers + monochrome page
Whitelist kick	ComfyWhitelist/locales/messages_en.yml	multi-line apply at racked.ru screen
Anti-cheat alerts	GrimAC/messages.yml	branded prefix; hard kicks keep &c
Tab list	TAB/config.yml	small-caps footer wordmark + status rows
Block-log output	CoreProtect/language.yml	branded prefix on every line
Marriage chat	MarriageMaster/lang/en.yml	branded prefix on tellraw blocks
Skin change	SkinsRestorer/config.yml (custom help)	branded prefix
Land claim	Homestead/config.yml, Lands/Language/*	prefix on broadcasts (Lands lang deferred)
Global chat	LPC/config.yml	chat-format: {suffix}{prefix}&f{name}&r &8> &7{message}
Limbo entry	AuthLimbo/config.yml	already on-brand (custom plugin)

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7. Plugin-name leaks — banned

Every upstream plugin tag is replaced with the canonical chat prefix:

Banned	Replace with
[Lands], [Homestead], [SkinsRestorer], [TAB], [ProAntiTab], [PAT], Grim », [VoiceChat], [Multiverse-Core], [WorldEdit], [MarriageMaster], [LPC], [PhantomSMP], [Essentials], [CoreProtect], [CO], [Vault], AuthMe, AuthMeReloaded	&8[&fracked.ru&8]&r

Strip "Join our Discord", "Visit our website" lines that link to upstream plugin authors. Never link to the plugin author's domain.

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8. Colour-code reference card

Code	Sample	Allowed in chat?
&f	white	✓ primary
&7	grey	✓ body
&8	dark grey	✓ structure
&e	yellow	✓ tokens only
&r	reset	✓ always close styled segments
&c	red	⚠ hard errors only
&n	underline	⚠ /help titles only
&o	italic	⚠ Russian flavour token only
any other	—	✗ banned

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9. Validation

Before shipping a string:

1. Does it start with &8[&fracked.ru&8]&r (chat) or use a documented form (MOTD, kick, /help header)?
2. Are colour codes inside the 5+1 allowed set?
3. Is body lowercase and exclamation-free?
4. Are commands / player names / URLs in &e?
5. Does the file still parse as valid YAML/HOCON/JSON? (Quote &-prefixed strings: '&7text'.)
6. Are placeholders preserved verbatim (%player%, {PLAYER}, <player>)?

If yes to all — ship.

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10. Out of scope (deferred)

These surfaces remain on upstream defaults pending a future pass:

• Lands Language/en-US.yml (~6,975 lines). Body text rebrand deferred; broadcast prefixes in config.yml are already branded.
• Homestead languages/en-US.yml (~645 lines). Same posture as Lands.
• Jar-locale extraction for plugins where chat output is shipped inside the JAR (no on-disk lang file): SkinsRestorer (locale_en.json), Multiverse-Core (en.properties), WorldEdit / FAWE (strings.json), LuckPerms (lp_en.properties). Admin/builder-facing surfaces, low priority.
• GrimAC database.yml, discord.yml, punishments.yml — secondary message files not yet touched.

When picking these up: same palette, same prefix, same templates. No new design decisions required.