New Features:

• Always-awake mode - Keep Herobrine permanently summoned without the altar. He is automatically awakened on every server start, so his active status survives daily restarts (no more rebuilding the altar after a restart)
• Per-player spawn cooldowns - Cooldowns are now individual per player instead of one global timer. A recently-targeted player is left alone for the cooldown while everyone else keeps being hunted normally
• Stalker-only effects - Optionally restrict ALL ambient effects (sounds, particles, environmental noises, hallucinations, whispers) to only the player Herobrine is actively stalking - for a true classic experience where nobody else notices a thing
• Dedicated hallucination timer - Heartbeat and phantom footsteps now run on their own configurable interval, independent of the main spawn task - so you can keep spawns rare while hallucinations stay responsive

New Config Options:

• herobrine.always-awake.enabled / .world - Auto-summon Herobrine in a world on startup (disabled by default)
• herobrine.effects.only-for-stalked-player - Restrict ambient effects and hallucinations to the stalked player only (disabled by default)
• hallucinations.interval - How often (seconds) heartbeat/footsteps roll, independent of the spawn task (default 10)

Improvements:

• Heartbeat and phantom footsteps were previously tied to the main spawn task, if you set a long spawn interval they would almost never play. They now have their own loop and fire reliably
• Spawning is never affected by the new effect restrictions - only ambient flavor is gated, Herobrine still appears as normal

Fixes:

• Fixed the spawn cooldown being global a single spawn no longer blocks Herobrine from appearing for every other player on the server
• Improved thread-safety of the active-NPC list to prevent rare errors on Folia

New Features:

• Altar permission - Optionally require the "herobrine.usealtar" permission to summon/banish Herobrine via the ritual altar, so regular players can no longer trigger an altar they build
• Silenceable distant sounds - Distant block-breaking hallucinations can now be toggled off
• NONE screen-shake type - Screen-shake can now be fully disabled (no blindness, no damage flash)

New Config Options:

• ritual.require-permission: false - Require the "herobrine.usealtar" permission to use the altar (disabled by default, any player can use a built altar)
• hallucinations.distant-sounds: true - Toggle distant block-breaking sounds (something digging far away)
• screen-shake.type now also accepts NONE to disable the effect entirely

Improvements:

• Heartbeat and phantom footsteps now work even with the fear system disabled (they still grow more frequent as fear rises) - previously they were locked behind fear and could never trigger

Note:

• Random ambient sounds, particles, and door/torch effects are controlled by the percentage values under herobrine.effects (sound-chance, particle-chance, environment-chance) - set them to 0 to disable

New Features:

• Folia support - Full compatibility with Folia servers (regionized multithreading)
• Multi-skin system - Configure multiple Herobrine skins with weighted random selection
• Update checker - Notifies admins when a new version is available (configurable, can be disabled)

v1.5 - Configurable Effects Update

New Features:

• All effects are now fully configurable - create your own atmosphere!
• Added silent mode support - Herobrine can now appear and vanish without any effects
• Added configurable ambient effects (sounds & particles around Herobrine)
• Added configurable despawn interaction effects (when player looks at or approaches Herobrine)

New Features:

• Added PacketEvents-based NPC engine (recommended) - no longer requires FancyNPCs!
• Added Fear System - players accumulate fear over time, affecting Herobrine's behavior and spawn rates
• Added world blacklist - prevent Herobrine from spawning in specific worlds (default: world_the_end, world_nether)
• Added atmosphere toggles - configure dark sky and rain effects in config
• Added configurable spawn chances and distances in config
• Added configurable screen shake effects
• Added hallucination settings (phantom footsteps, heartbeat sounds, breath effects)
• Full Spigot support

Changes:

• FancyNPCs engine is now deprecated - PacketEvents is the recommended engine
• Skin configuration moved to config.yml
• Improved NPC rotation - Herobrine now smoothly tracks and looks directly at players

Fixes:

• Fixed NPC body rotation not following head rotation
• Fixed nametag visibility
• Fixed compatibility issues with Spigot 1.21.x
• Fixed "Protocol Error" kick

Bug Fixes
- Fixed errors when players changed worlds while Herobrine was tracking them

New Features:
- Added /herobrine status command that shows 20s advance spawn warnings.
- Added /herobrine jumpscare <nick> command to instantly spawn Herobrine for the specified player.
Changes:
- Herobrine now stays for 60 seconds (previously 5–15s).
- Added 1.5s look delay for more realistic behavior.
- 50% knockback chance when too close (no damage).
- Performance optimizations.
Fixes:
- Fixed NPC rotation, nametags, and visibility issues.