FakePresence

Fake players for your tab list and server list – no entities, no chunks, no lag.

FakePresence makes a quiet server look alive. It shows configurable fake players in the tab list and in the server list (player count + hover names), with realistic join/leave rotation, real skins and rank prefixes that sort correctly between your real players. Nothing is spawned in the world: everything is done through packets, so there is zero impact on TPS.

Features

• Tab list – fake players with name, ping and skin, rendered client-side via PacketEvents
• Server list – player count (real + fake + extra), custom max players, fake names in the hover list
• Realistic rotation – a random number of fakes is "online"; every few minutes one leaves and a replacement joins shortly after
• Join/leave messages – MiniMessage format, match your existing chat plugin (<green>[+] <gold><name>)
• Real skins – texture list of Minecraft names, fetched once from Mojang and cached locally
• Ranks – weighted rank pool with prefix/suffix and name color; fakes can join existing scoreboard teams (LuckTAB, TAB, …) so they sort exactly like real players
• Self-healing – intercepts tab packets from other plugins that would overwrite or remove fake entries
• Server-list-only mode – disable the tab list and keep the rotating player count for the server menu
• Live commands – change count, range and timing in game, saved to config

Requirements

• Paper 26.2 (Java 25)
• PacketEvents – required for the tab list; the server list works without it

Commands

Permission fakepresence.admin (default: op). Alias /fpres.

Configuration (excerpt)

names: [Lukas_B, Finn2009, Bergfex, Nele_Craft, ...]

tab-list:
  enabled: true
  min-online: 3
  max-online: 7
  change-interval-min-seconds: 90
  change-interval-max-seconds: 400
  rejoin-after-min-seconds: 10
  rejoin-after-max-seconds: 60
  join-message: "<yellow><name> joined the game"
  leave-message: "<yellow><name> left the game"

server-list:
  enabled: true
  extra: 0
  max-players: 0
  show-names: true

skins:
  enabled: true
  sources: [Grian, Mumbo, Etho, ...]

ranks:
  default:
    weight: 70
    team: "lt_004_default"   # existing scoreboard team (see /team list)
    prefix: "<gray>[Player] "
    name-color: "gray"
  vip:
    weight: 25
    team: "lt_003_vip"
    prefix: "<gold>[VIP] "

Set team to a scoreboard team created by your tab plugin (check /team list) and fakes will be sorted together with real players of that rank. Leave team empty to use FakePresence's own sorting via the sort key.

Notes

• Fake players are not real players: they cannot chat, move or be interacted with, and other plugins do not see them.
• Skins are fetched only for the names you list, once, and stored in skin-cache.yml.
• No metrics, no update checks, no outbound connections except the one-time skin fetch.