The Different Types of Minecraft Servers

Ever wondered why specific servers are more liked than others? Or why certain servers are able to get so popular, so quickly? Well in this blog, as well as my future blogs, I intend to answer those questions using my knowledge of server hosting attained over the years. My name is The_Mind and I've run many succesful minecraft servers in my days. I've run probably 3 or 4 survival server, an extremely popular dwarves vs. zombies server, and now a mid-sized creative server. With each one of these servers, I've attained a greater knowledge of how a server ticks, and what makes a server grow quickly. Now I intend to share my secrets with you. Read below and enjoy the blog :D.

The Server Types

Here I have tips on how to run your server in each one of these categories, or read all of them to figure out which type is best for you.

Survival Servers

For a server to truly become popular, the owner has to love what they're hosting. If you love survival, go ahead and create a server around it, but first know what your getting yourself into. To truly succeed at making a survival server, you must follow the common principle that will be repeated many times in this blog, make it unique. So many times you see a server rise and fall, due to the fact that it's just "nothing new". To fix this problem for your server, you have to add something that 90% of other survival servers don't have. For example, my bland faction survival server never really took off in the public and became popular, because many other people host similiar gametypes. However, my faction survival server with MobArena, a stabile economy, and a daily "War Hour" grew faster than my staff were able to keep up with. Simple plugins can make a big change for your server. This means NO vanilla. Don't even consider semi-vanilla, go 100% bukkit with as many USEFUL plugins as possible. By useful, I mean the kind of the that a regular player would use at least once an hour. For example...

Auto-refilling dispensers = NOT Useful
Chestshop = Useful
Mobarena = Useful
Funny Death Messages = NOT Useful

And remember, keep it unique. If you are running a faction survival server, shame on you. Faction survival has been drained of popularity and fun for the past few years and a start up server in that area is 100% going to fail. Instead try something like a "Towny Economy Ranking" server, or a "Clan Wars PvP" server. Remember, it has to be something unique AND something you love to do. If you love PvP, throw your own twist on it and maybe consider adding Piston Jumping, or custom bow arrows, or making bow arrows semi-spammable like the old days. People will see the unique quality of your server and stick around because of it.

Creative Servers

On to creative servers. Personally, this is a realm that I am very comfortable with and have a lot of experience in. The first golden rule of a succesful creative server is kicking out the noobs. A LOT of people will not be able to build with any sort of decency at all, so don't let them build on the mainworld on your server. Although, one problem with having a trial world is that you end up needing active staff members online at all times to review plots. One solution to this is maybe having ModReq for people to use when they need a plot rated. On my creative server we use a custom-coded /RateMe command that people can use to get their plot reviewed. This brings me to another problem with creative servers, annoying people. This is a problem regardless of what server-type you decide to run, just make sure that the cool-people outway the annoying-people on your server. When rating plots or moderating in general, remember that most minecrafters are either really young kids with no idea that they're build is bad, or delinquent teens that use MC to escape real life. Be harsh on them though, it's the best way to get through to new players that are working to get better. Also, if they complain or give up, they aren't the kind of people you want on your server anyway. You really have to trim down your community if you're starting a creative server, and expect it to take the most effort out of all server types.

Minigame Servers

We've all done it, right? Gone on a hub server and played around in the various minigames before realizing we've wasted three hours of our life. Let me tell you, if you want to grow a server quickly and get a lot of members, minigames are SOMETIMES the way to go. Although, some minigames are way over-used and will not be effective if on your server. If you have a set of minigames that lots of other servers have, but those other servers have more minigames than a player likes, you will lose that player because your server has nothing unique to bring to the table. To fix this stay clear of these minigames...

Skyblock
Survival Games
KitPvP

If you're starting a minigame server, be prepared to fork out a lot of money towards your server before getting a return on your investment. Different from other servers, players on a minigame server never really become a community, so donations will most likely be for perks, rather than to help out the server. This is not a bad thing however, just prepare for lots of players, and not a lot of money at first.

Custom Servers

Want a truly unique server? Go for a custom server. What is a custom server, though? It's basically a server with completely unique principles and a different style of gameplay from most other servers out there. An example is Dwarves VS Zombies. Back in the old-days DvZ used to be extremely popular, but only one guy hosted a server for it. If you have lots of plugin experience, you can remake other people's server types too if the demand is larger than the supply. Just remember to still mix it up. For example, when DvZ upgraded to a completely new way of gameplay that was more focused on building than crafting, I ran a DvZ server that used the old style of play and LOTS of players loved the server. Don't copy me though, custom servers are fun but if they are not your unique ideas, the long-term will look bleak. Part of the reason I stopped DvZ was because of the boring aspects of the game, players only wanted the old dvz exactly as-is, as a result of this I was getting bored of having the same game play over and over again with no chance of development. Good custom server ideas that I've come up with (and will probably run in my future server HUB) are...

Life: Start in a prison style server except a lot easier, when you work your way up to freedom it becomes a survival economy server. When you earn enough money you can purchase heaven which is a creative server.

BetterRPG: Basically 20 people are in 1 enourmous city. You start as a peason working your way up. As you work up you get a new home that is higher and higher and more centered in the city until you become a noble. The city would go 1000 blocks up with an enourmous build height on it.

In Conclusion

I've run out of time, so I'll get to the point with this blog. Basically what I'm trying to say is you need two things to make a successful long-term server.

1.) A unique game-type with unpopular plugins that enhance gameplay.
2.) A server type that YOU enjoy and feel like you would never get bored of.

If you want your server to grow quickly and get a lot of players, make it a server type that can't be found elsewhere and offers a unique experience to it's players. I have a favorite quote that I always think back to when I run my servers.

"When a player joins, if they build themselves a house, then you've succeeded."

Basically if players see that the server has something unique to offer them, they will stick around. If they really like the server then they will donate. But, if it's something that they could get elsewhere with more people playing on it, then they won't want to stay. So try to make something other than the standard faction survival or kitpvp. Be unique with your server type and always keep adding creative and new ideas.

Server Tips #3 should be coming out within a week or 2. It will most likely have more to cover and be better written than this one was, so subscribe for that.

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~ The_Mind (Owner of MindCreative)