Released 2017-09-18
Minecraft 1.12.2: Java 8
1.12.2 is the most important modded version ever released. The Forge ecosystem built up here over five years before the 1.13 rewrite scattered it, and a large share of the best-known modpacks have never moved.
Java version required
8or newer
Older Java will refuse to start. Much newer Java usually works, but the server software is what decides that, not Minecraft.
Availability
Paper is available for 1.12.2
It accepts Bukkit / Spigot / Paper plugins.
Will what I downloaded work?
Mods and plugins are different things that both arrive as a .jar file. Putting the wrong one in usually produces no error at all — the server starts, and the content simply is not there.
running on Paper
No. Forge produces mods and Paper runs plugins — they are different systems that happen to share a file extension. Nothing will load, and nothing will warn you.
What to watch for on this version
It needs Java 8, and this is the version where that bites hardest — a heavily modded 1.12.2 pack is exactly the workload people try to run on a modern machine with modern Java, and it simply will not start. Also budget for memory: 1.12.2 packs are old enough to predate a lot of optimisation work, and a hundred-mod pack asks for more RAM than a current-version pack of the same size.
Where this sits in the Java timeline
- Java 81.7 through 1.16.5
- Java 161.17 and 1.17.1
- Java 171.18 through 1.20.4
- Java 211.20.5 and everything after