Offline Mode

This is a note for server administrators who are choosing to run their servers in offline mode and using BanHammer.

This is bad practice for the following reasons.

You may not ban the right person

When running in offline mode people are able to join your server with any name they choose. This means if you use a name banning plugin such as BanHammer, it is easy for them to change their name and rejoin the server. You have no guarantee you are banning an account when you run your server in offline mode.

It is slower to check for bans

When your server is running in offline mode it is not possible to use the AsyncPlayerPreLoginEvent. This is useful since BanHammer can look for bans while letting the player login normally. Without using this event, ban lookups happen in the main thread, which depending on how many people are joining and how busy your server is, can slow down login times.

People who have not bought the game are able to join

Running in offline mode allows people who have not paid for the game ability to play on your server. It is ethically dubious to allow people to not pay for the game by running a offline server.

Ask yourself if you really want people who are dishonest enough to avoid paying for the game on your server at all.