Going through being a server owner takes a lot more than I thought, when I got my 1st server. The to do list was huge. Starting off, I had to find a server with enough space, then plugins and permissions, and last was builds. It was hard, but I found my way through it all. Our server has 3 owners, each paying or doing something to better the server. Plus we had 2 servers that we knew of that were looking to merge with ours, so we had an instant player base as soon as we released.

First I had to look through tons of ways to host my server. Deciding what would be the cheapest way to host my server, whether that would be a dedicated server, or a VPS, or maybe even a minecraft hosting site. I started off with a minecraft hosting site, but then I ran into this issue of space on the disk, plus the site I was hosting it off of was using multicraft. I hated multicraft, it was always down and was always having so many issues. I lost a lot of players because of this. So I moved to a VPS hosting, which offered the correct amount of space, because I could upgrade it and keep up with the demand my server was asking for. This VPS could only go up to about 8GB of RAM which I thought was good with 8GB of RAM, I figured that would be enough just to start off with. So I moved on to plugins.

Since my server wasn't a vanilla server, the thought of what plugins to use and what plugins are good. As an owner I have had to go through millions of plugins, and probably spent hours searching for the plugin that would do what I need them to. However, running into a good plugin doesn't mean its going to work, it just means you found a good plugin. I had found dozens of plugins that were good, but they were either no longer up-to-date or the person that had made the plugin had moved on. So I said a few words and moved on. Once I found all the plugins I needed I began to installing them, which was very easy. My next challenge was getting them to work with each other and setting them up. Some plugins were easy to set up others took some work, which required me to look up how to use youtube videos, or new programs so I could just read the files in that plugin. Thanks to a few friends I had, they helped me with installing the plugins and getting them to work.

The permissions were one of the hardest things or easiest things to do, I am still not sure which one it is. Permissions are fairly simple, once you figure out how to write them and space them out correctly. Took me almost an entire day just to write out all the permissions. I had to take into account donator perks and staff ranks. These accounts require specific or certain permissions from a plugin. I researched all the information on the plugins that were going to be used in this way. Going permission by permission, I eventually got through them all. I do believe after this stage I was greater for the knowledge I had gained from doing all of this. Permissions will be one of the biggest plugins you will ever work on, at least in my opinion it is.

I then moved on to building. We needed support buildings where players could read information such as: Donations, Rules, website, and teamspeak information. We also needed to make it look organized and have good builds for spawn. With that I set off to build what was needed, and had some of the others already on staff help out. Some of them turned out to be better builders than I thought. Once we finished spawn, we were ready to launch.

Our first day was great we had a lot of players join and check out the server, we had a walls server, skyblocks, and some other neat plugins that made the server fun. Since this server was a survival server(not sure if I mentioned that) we did not allow pvp in the main world. We started looking for pvp arenas and other ways players could pvp with each other. Our goal was to have 2 main servers, one pvp and the other survival. However, after running the server for a couple of days we noticed the RAM was not enough. We were using 50% of the RAM that the VPS offered and the thought occurred in our heads. We need to find a VPS hosting that hosted more than 8GB. We found a few of them and even looked into a Dedicated Server, but we couldn't get a Dedi because it was just to much in cost.

Our first day and the days following were great, we have a lot of people coming on our server. We are always looking for more players. We don't allow griefing on our server and have a plugin called Towny, as I am sure you all are aware of. We ran into trouble with a player who had been griefed by someone and the admin didn't know how to roll back the player. It caused the player to rage a little because they had lost almost everything. We then issued a notice to all that they need to know how to use the commands and plugins, if they don't know then they must look it up and learn. The player decide to stay with our server, and has since moved to a new spot and rebuilt.

All in all, the server is running great. We are still with our current VPS and are looking to upgrade to a different one for reasons of RAM. As of right now, we can't get a dedi because of cost issues. Hopefully in the near future we can with the help of our players.

I hope you all enjoy this little blog, as you will as a Server Owner run into the same issues. Training admins, dealing with players, and over all issues with the server. Please leave a comment about this little story and tell me what you think. Maybe you can suggest some ways to handle the issues we have had a little differently. I do plan on submitting more stories of "Life of a Server Owner" as more issues and greatness occur.