Creating a Server Community for your Minecraft Server!

Have you ever tried starting your own server? If you did, it was probably a pretty rough experience. One major problem with creating new minecraft servers now days is getting people to join your community. With this tutorial you'll learn exactly how to create and grow your own community and notice results within days!

My Experience:

Everything that I'll be explaining in this blog has been proven to work with my server and other servers that I've had experience with. I recently created a new minecraft server exactly 2 weeks from today. In that time we're nearing 1000 unique visitors, we've earned $42 in donations, we remain constantly at over 10 people online at a time, and most importantly, we're a community. But how do you achieve a community like that? Well it takes persistance and many special techniques that I've refined over my many years of server hosting.

Tip 1: Timing the Wave

If you post a server without having a knowledge of popular times to post, then you're missing out on a lot of new people. I've mastered the PMC popularity schedule, and I'm ready to share that with you. Okay for starters, lets pretend that your server is not up yet, but the plugins are ready and you have the funds to buy the host. Just because you have all the physical aspects of the server ready, doesn't mean your ready to go public. You have to work on the internals first, and wait for your moment to post your thread and hit the peak of PMC times. First what you'll need is a server banner. If you don't have a GIF banner yet you're absolutely going to need one. An easy way to get a fast and free banner made is to go into the MinecraftForums and search under "Art Shops".

PROTIP: Do NOT go under "Art Requests" and make a request for your banner to be made. The only people that hang around those forums are art makers that are going to charge you expensively for their work. Instead go to the "Art Shops" part of the forum, you can request free artwork there from people who care much more about getting better at their art than they do about earning money off of it.

Next, you need to time when you post on the forums. This not only has to fit in with the PlanetMinecraft cycle, but also with your schedule. If you're going to post your new server, make sure you have at least 2 COMPLETE days to stay on the server and moderate it. In doing this you can patch bugs before they become exploited and connect with your community more. And finally, you need to time your post with PMC's schedule. I posted my server on Monday morning on a snow-day for monday and tuesday. This gave me time to bond with my community, and at the same time not get my server flushed by all the owners that post servers on the weekends. DO NOT EVER post a new server on the weekend, post it during a holiday break or when you pretend to be "sick" from school (xD don't ask). This will keep your server at the top for longer, and allow you to get more players

Tip 2: Team Building

Let the community know you care by hosting special events for them on release day. Plan out your entire day with an hourly activity for players to look forward to, and share this schedule with your server. I own a creative server, so I did a build-off every 4 hours as well as did a rank giveaway for the top person on the "tab" list every hour. My creative server has many ranks though, so this didn't hurt the community at all. If you have a community without lots of ranks or that is survival, do an hourly item-drop and maybe a faction vs. faction all out pvp fight after a few hours with prizes for the winners.

Tip 3: Be Unique

Your server doesn't need to have entirely original ideas, but pull your creativity from different sources. For example: On my server I took the "creative-ranks" idea from an already developed server, and put my own twist on it. I used the staff ranks from a game called "toribash", and for certain builds, I took their ideas from other builders I know. As long as you take a current idea and add on to it, people will want to play. If you like towny AND factions for example, maybe combine the 2 in your server. Try adding an economy system to factions, or even making towny more team vs. team pvp based.

Tip 4: Getting Staff

Believe it or not, servers with less staff members are far more respected by their communities as a whole. Make players feel special by only having 1 or 2 staff above them that can boss them around, people don't like being moderated all the time, so don't do it. I promoted 1 guy to staff after a week and a half of being extremely helpful to the community, and although the community is growing, we don't need many more staff for a while. When staff aren't in control of everything in the server, it gives power to the players and ultimately adds to the maturity of the community.

Tip 5: The Donation Fork

Donations. The word on every server owner's mind. You might not be thinking about it yet, but I suggest you do. At some point or another somebody will want to donate, or you will want somebody to donate. When this comes, make it easy for the community by adding a plugin such as BuyCraft on release day of the server. Set up donation packages that catch the eye of the potential buyer. On my server, you can donate for the mid-range ranks, a custom prefix, or just to help out the server. So far I've made $40 off of people buying ranks, and $2 from somebody who simply wanted to help out, expecting no reward in return. Here is where the donation fork comes in. There are 2 different types of donators, those who want to help out the server, and those who want to help out themselves, As a server owner you need to cater to both types of donators, as well as the general population of the server. That's why all my perks are either:

A. Attainable over long periods if time
or
B. None game-changing features

If donators want to help out the server, then they will probably donate small amounts and expect little in reward. But, for the larger donators, have big packages set up to cater to their needs. Don't go over $40 though, and don't give any game-changing features

In Conclusion...

Basically if you don't want to read any of the rest of the thread, at least read this. When you make your server, it is YOUR server, so dedicate to it, and don't make any promotions or mistakes that you may regret later, If you want your server to be succesful you have to be hands-on at first, and then the money will start rolling in. I made a server with NO money, NO experience, and not even a minecraft account all those years back. Now I'm here with a creative server that is about to grow into a gaming network, and a small cushion of money to keep the community afloat. If I could do it, you can do it, so get out there and show the community what unique ideas your server has to bring to the table. Thanks for reading.

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~ The_Mind (Proud Owner of MindCreative)