Yesterday I was approached by a player who wanted to know whether gold farms were allowed or not. I told him that overworld portal gold farms had been disabled, and that gold farms were generally not allowed due to PvP balance and mob spawning issues. Afterwards I did however realise that I might have been giving outdated advice. With the advent of 1.9, gapples are no longer craftable. What does this mean for nether gold farms?

Now that gapples are no longer craftable, gold is far less of a PvP issue than it used to be. You still use small amounts to create certain potions and you require 8 bars to craft a crapple. Donators currently get two free crapples every four hours. That means if you log once a day, you’ll have a grand total of 730 free crapples or more than 12 stacks over the course of a year. It is even more if you log on twice or three times a day regularly.

Overworld farms are disabled, but nether farms are still possible to build. You basically need to plaster a huuuge area with slabs to be able to get one to function. I don’t think they’d cause too many mob spawning issues, mainly because the nether and the overworld are two different maps. Or am I mistaken?

What does this mean for nether gold farms? Are they permitted, banned or simply frowned upon?