Bump as there are more things to add.

1. The server's on an outdated version.
2. Minecraft's literally just minigames now. Few care about survival vanilla.
3. No one joins through PlanetMinecraft anymore.

On the third point, I remember a time where I advertised a server here and there would be like 30+ people join in like under 10 minutes. Now not even one joins. Is it related to point 2, or just a wider concern about general apathy?

How does one deal with these newer problems?

Chickens4Life...anyways ive moved on from vanilla servers cause survival on them has gotten boring and youve done mostly everything on other servers so thats why i moved to modded survival as it allows more things for me to do and build

Yes, It Does Get Old,
I Normaly Swap Mods On About A 1 week basis, so i can find the best ones.
BTW I Am Currently Making A Mod For My Brother Called "SheepyDreams", It Turns You Into A Sheep XD

-snip-

dooly123anyway its been 14 days since i started work on it and we have had around 400 users join and only a 23% more then 1hour stay witch is alot better then most and most go onto creating a legacy on our server as many of thing things that can be done have only been done in early days of servers like cobalt-mc its been a good week to see my server grow i suspect it will get worse soon....

400 unique users visiting in a measly couple of weeks? How'd you accomplish that?

https://i.gyazo.com/384680671589d934c37 ... df5807.png

This is MY thread. @Chron y u do this

Yeah I just started playing on -snip- and I am already liking it. You have a great server so keep it up.

I used to play a wide mix of servers, both vanilla or ones with mini games. I used to enjoy one survival server a ton...but it changed so much, too much PVP on there now, you can't even build a house without being killed, so I kinda quit there, I'm a builder, not a fighter. XD
Otherwise honestly I wouldn't know, I've been running a small server for around 3 years now, and mostly my friends just used to play on it with me. I shut it down a few times to work on it, and now it's finally almost back up in a new version. Basically I try to add many different things now, a normal survival world, a world for PVP and then some mini games on the side, etc.

on many of my servers over the 4-5 years my most recent one is TerraTerma can be found on my home page of pmc i found that the only way to clench a grip on the community would be multi world multigamemode setup where its a all in one so far i have a stable 3Gb test that has been rated to take up to 13 users while there world editing building command poking. that's minigames,creative,survival,pvp,nether,end,skyblocks on the same server we combine different people into the game this way

but it does help when you have that extra 2 devs the help make things for the server

anyway its been 14 days since i started work on it and we have had around 400 users join and only a 23% more then 1hour stay witch is alot better then most and most go onto creating a legacy on our server as many of thing things that can be done have only been done in early days of servers like cobalt-mc its been a good week to see my server grow i suspect it will get worse soon....

Can confirm. Started a new server recently which does not use Factions or mcMMO. Can't count how many players joined, typed commands for Factions and mcMMO, then tried Kits (which we don't have) and then left. They would be on the server all of 5 seconds or less.

How can anyone create a server that's different if you won't even give it a chance. I even created a short demo video to explain how the server works and that doesn't help. What's a server host supposed to do when players ask for something different but won't try it?

I stopped my server which I worked few months on just because players couldn't stay more than 3 seconds to finish tutorial and get to know how servers work, nooooooooooo they have to leave because they cant be admin, grief or something isn't how they want it to be.

To those players that are like described, grow up, nothings gonna be like you ever want just because of you... unless you are some popular millioner, than things change.

Anyways what was my server about?

Well something different, instead of server shops it had player run shops(never happened due lack of players), instead of just vanilla survival there were custom items(that again no one wanted to find out because they were to busy clicking disconnect button), than we did not have P2W donator ranks, rather one normal which gave you only cosmetic items and list can go on about server features... but again noooooooooooo they have to spin, say server sucks apple and leave...

The community is kind of full with young people now. I rarely find older people. I started a vanilla survival server for people to be friends and play around a bit. But no one wanted to get to know each other. And they were mostly around 12-14 y/o and I guess most of the people don't like community based servers anymore. (I'm looking for a server that is community based btw, pm me ) ok

Look... sorry but there is one thing which is very obvious. 1.7.10? At this point people are now waiting expectantly for 1.9... I can't understand why the owner is using 1.7.10. A lot of people don't wish to use several versions on their profile, so for starters that fact alone is off putting. Not even mentioning the fact I don't find that server to sound safe, considering the amount of security updates since. Either no one is telling you this or simply just ignores the fact, but any sensible player wouldn't touch that server simply on this fact.

Well personally i feel that vanilla MC doesn't just appeal to many players. As a person who loves to play private vanilla minecraft with my friends i love vanilla, but to most people it just doesn't seem the same way.

CaptainMuricaI think the biggest issue with MinecraftOnline is the fact that it's running over a year behind everyone else when it comes to server version. Minecraft 1.8 has been out since late 2014, so they should really consider updating.

But this:

samyboyz2. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg. New players will never stay because no one likes an unpopulated server.

This is an issue I've been struggling with for over 3 years with my server. People join and tell me they love it, but they don't stay because there's hardly anyone else on to interact with.

That ^

Exactly that.... it's murdering new servers like a beast....

I think the biggest issue with MinecraftOnline is the fact that it's running over a year behind everyone else when it comes to server version. Minecraft 1.8 has been out since late 2014, so they should really consider updating.

But this:

samyboyz2. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg. New players will never stay because no one likes an unpopulated server.

This is an issue I've been struggling with for over 3 years with my server. People join and tell me they love it, but they don't stay because there's hardly anyone else on to interact with.

Ivain
For that you have to have some factor that sets you apart from other servers on whatever type you chose

Like what?

I think the biggest spoilers of a server are poor management and owners who are either greedy or bad at financial planning. It all comes back to poor management though really.

It isn't hard or expensive to start a server, you can learn everything in a couple of weeks and get a server off the ground. The problem is too many don't have a "business plan" or a goal for the server. They just start downloading plugins and going crazy and before you know it there is no theme or direction, it's just a hot mess of mismatched plugins.

The other angle is that server owners are either greedy, or they simply aren't fiscally responsible. Many people get into this to make a profit and run this like a business, which is fine however that doesn't work long term. The hungrier the owner is the more pay2win oriented the server becomes and eventually you have a handful of people who have donated hundreds of dollars and everyone else has left. Those who are just fiscally irresponsible don't plan ahead. Yeah a server might only be $25/month and you just got $30 in donations this month, but what happens if nobody donates the next month, or the month after that? Too many people rely on donations to pay the bills instead of using them as supplemental and that's the biggest killer of all. When you open a server you should always intend to spend, if you get enough donations to cover your costs that's great, if you find yourself in the situation of a surplus bank it for a rainy day.

I've hosted several servers and I always hated renting from a host. I got tired of it and saved up enough to become my own host for my servers. This allows me to keep maintenance and downtime to a minimum as well as costs which means people aren't in a position they feel forced to donate in order to keep the server alive and it will be around for years to come.

I feel the pain of people joining with the "u need staff?" and when you ask them to fill out an application or politely say no not right now, they say something ignorant and are gone forever. Generally online gaming was very different years ago, the communities were different. It's not that you can't have a great long lasting server, it's just get exponentially more difficult as each day passes to stand out from the sea of fly by night servers.

Just my 2 cents on the situation, you decide how to spend it.

PanPanyTo recap servers are dying because these kids think they can be the next mineplex so they go out and rent 1 gig servers for $3 which closes down at the end of the month

Rant much. and no, this is not the reason servers are dying, nor is it the reason we have a EULA.
First of all, every major game has a EULA. It's basically a form of "terms of agreement" that says what you can and cannot do with the game.
After a LOT of server networks had made donator ranks pretty much pay to win, Mojang decided to put a stop to that by updating their eula.
The result of this is that it is a lot harder to start up a self-sustaining server, and anyone starting one is basically paying from their own funds unless they get extremely lucky. For many people having a server is little more than a pastime, not a professional venture aimed at making money.

Yes, there are "9-y olds" that rent a crappy server for a small amount per month using their daddy's creditcard. However, I am not in the least bit convinced that this is in any way harming the other servers. An existing server with a stable playerbase is NOT going to be affected by a kid starting up a shitty server with a handful of standard plugins.

The problem is GETTING to the stable playerbase. For that you have to have some factor that sets you apart from other servers on whatever type you chose, and provides enjoyment for long enough that people are tempted to come there again and again.
However, most beginning servers cannot expect a larger playerbase than 20 people or so, spread across timezones. So it will not always be fun for those players if it is a minigame server or similar server that requires multiple people to have fun.

Few people seem to understand the correct way to start up a server publicly. I didn't, for the longest time. But this thread being posted started me thinking, and I'm figuring a few things out. It does not mean that those things are at all helpful to the OP or anyone else looking to start a server, but they might be.

Anyway, Don't you think its people with prejudice like you that are doing the very damage you attribute to a few kids that are running a server like their parents would have run a lemonade stand at their age?

(end of rant)(hypocrisy, I know, but one fights fire with fire sometimes)

The reason why wonderful gamemodes are dying is because every -wonderful- 9 year old thinks they can make a successful server so they go rent a 1 gig server for like $3. They do it with the intention of making money and thats why we now have a minecraft eula because these kids think they can move -ponies-. They are the reason why the original gamemodes like factions survival etc are dying. These kids have school and homework to do so they barely have enough time to work on their server. They are just hurting the game for all the other servers that people have the time to work on. My server is custom coded by my team and i and we are still struggling to get a player base. New players wont even try out some minigames they literally join the hub and ask for staff and if they cant get staff they leave forever. This wasnt like this before players actually wanted to play. "Staff" nowadays is just an alternative to a donor rank i mean these kids expect to have op when their staff. Making silly nicknames and just abusing their powers to make them feel good.

To recap servers are dying because these kids think they can be the next mineplex so they go out and rent 1 gig servers for $3 which closes down at the end of the month

No word of a lie... I just had this join,

<Player> Joined the game
>This is boring
>You have lots of servers
>Give me one
>Bam
>Bam
>Bam
>This is boring
<Player> left the game

People don't play survival as much. Ever since factions started people got more, and more aggressive. Not that many people wanted to enjoy building, and survival.

Mannke
So how, can you ensure a stable playerbase ?
Use Twitch. I can only recommend it. Get some streamer, with around 10-20 regular viewers to play ur server and let other people join through him. People love playing together with some1, whos a little fame and appear in his/her stream.

The most useful post so far. Thank you a lot.

If you still want a honest answer towards the main topic of minigames growing and survival dying:

- Simplicity.
Its fukin easy to join a Lobby, click on the sign and boom you get thrown into game, where you kill ppl. Heck, even a trained parrot could do that. Especially since the PvP is just spamming this or that.

- Competition
Well, back in my days we had pokecards and whoever got that shiny charizard was the big boss. Now, you have minigames (or other games with a Ranking system) and can compare to others. Worldwide.
This a huge motivation + the thrilling element of surviving against others does the rest.

- Idolization
Your favorite Youtuber/Streamer plays it. So ofc you also want to play it (with him), cause he is cool and stuff. Minigames wouldn't be as popular if people wouldn't promote them constantly


And now lets look, what most survival server needs you to do:

1. Read them rules.
Ofc we got the netiquette, which is often mentioned but some server simply go further and set up a huge bunch of rules, so that they can monitor the server better.
This can be alot of info and most players don't read it anyways, if they are not forced to.
2. Getting familar with commands & locals.
A Survival server will at some point, force you to contact other users in order to ask/learn/trade. Furthermore the commands can be quite alot and ppl will start to feel overwhelmed by it.
3. Gathering resources
You need them. Badly. Some players like it alot to farm and build, but alot of players also find it a chore, if they dig in dirt for a hour and "just" earn a few diamonds.

In fact, we also got a generation gap. The older ones, are moving onwards or trying huge modpacks, while the young generation simply enjoys PvP. This might change within time, like in 2-3 yrs they all want to play some survial/freebuild in order to get creative.
And ofc the fact, that literally every 12yr old can buy a server is definetly a reason aswell. Back in the older days, ppl would actually run some crappy server software from their own PC/root and were really into it.
But the market reacted and delivered us glorious prepaid gameserver. 10 bucks and you get a decent server for a month, where you can manage around 6-10 players and couple of plugins. And it often comes with a handy webinterface and point & click plugin installation.

So how, can you ensure a stable playerbase ?
Use Twitch. I can only recommend it. Get some streamer, with around 10-20 regular viewers to play ur server and let other people join through him. People love playing together with some1, whos a little fame and appear in his/her stream.

evading? i dont know what that is suppose to mean, my old name was sippiboy1234 but i changed it like a couple months ago

Instantly banned, all i did was join i got teleported somewhere then i saw there was a translating plugins and i said "wow that cool" then i did /rules got teleported to the same area and banned, my ign is Sippoboy if you want to unban me but if your having trouble with having players on your server maybe you should have it so it doesnt ban them, i also saw that on your website there are like 17k bans idk if there is like an insta ban thing but that crazy

samyboyz

TheOfficialNanoIts not that their dying
its just that everyone has a server nowadays, so its impossible to get noticed.
Good luck, you need it.

This isn't the issue. The survival server I play on is actually the oldest one with a map that's five years old. The issue is that the:

samyboyz
"veterans" of the server have exhausted play and have done everything that is possible. For them it's simply tiresome to play now and many of them have moved on to bigger and better things.

The server has been noticed and yet over the past year it has been dying . Have any tips?

Tips? Don't give up on the server. If anyone here has played or knows anyone who has played WoW, then you know the community is always crying about the game dieing. Minecraft servers don't just die overnight, maybe tell your friends about the server and help with advertisement.

Survival servers are dieing because the true soul of minecraft is gone. Its not about "Building something cool" or "Testing your survival skills" anymore, its about getting lots of points in minigames and then making a crappy vid about it on youtube.

Yea, Wow, with 1.9 in the snapshots, 1.7.10 is definitely out... I feel your pain about the new people who come on frequently just wanting staff, to build a shop/spawn/whatever, or to just be annoying to any new players who come on.

Honestly, I think most people are just bored with survival.

Bemp

I find the same thing to be honest, used to have a thriving community... now have very little!

It's so hard to get people to stay long enough to even say hello!

In my opinion that is one of the most boring servers, factions, minigames, vanilla etc. Those all sound generic and un-interesting. I used to play on a small airship and factions server, just that additional plugin added tons more content. The sever you play on needs to spice it up really.

Is it me, or is that your server?

Wow, racist against survival servers much?

bump

[Redacted]

I used to play a ton of survival servers but every time I start liking one the owner/ staff make me mad...

If what you are saying is true about the world being 5 years old that could be your problem.... if the new players join and see that the world has very little resources left why would they want to play there? There is also the issue of the veterans having everything they would ever need thus having no reason to play. Survival isn't dying it just gets less entertaining the further along you go.

oolliiee123most people just want staff and if they don't get it they will leave. Sadly that's the way it is...

so true


Thanks for the advice