Setting Up a Minecraft Server

Hey PMC!, I'm Ferox VII, founder of the creative server Vindicta UK and in this essential blog I'll be showing you how to set up a great Minecraft server based upon my past experiences as a founder and from speaking to other server owners. If you enjoyed it, please leave me a diamond or subscribe, and if you'd like to join an awesome creative server rather than spend time setting one up you can apply to join Vindicta UK by following the instructions at http://www.planetminecraft.com/server/vindictacraft-1916266/

Setting up a server


Planning
Before you download anything you should plan what you're going to do to create your server and get a rough idea of what you want your server to be. Even if you just want to play vanilla Minecraft you should set up a Bukkit server as opposed to using the vanilla Minecraft server, you can download and set up Bukkit by visiting http://wiki.bukkit.org/Setting_up_a_server

- Primary Gamemode/Theme (Creative, PVP, Roleplay, etc.)
- Whitelisted/Non-Whitelisted
- Number of players on average
- How to host it (dedicated, localhost)
- Prediction of set up costs & monthly costs
- Staff

Assigning staff
Whatever you do, do not create applications for new members to become staff, either start off by finding someone you know or trust and assign them a staff position or simply run the server by yourself during the first few weeks. Giving someone you don't know admin access to your server is just asking for something to go wrong so appoint your staff after you get to know them, not before. It's harder to fix mistakes than to prevent them happening in the first place.

Creating worlds & spawns
A spawn and great worlds are vital parts of any server, as first impressions count! Decide whether you have the time and skills to create your own or find one of the hundreds in the PMC archives. If you're planning to have multiple worlds you still want one main world just like a book needs one main character, and keep things easy to understand for players! Have it so they can easily access your worlds and make sure their names relate to what the world's like. For example, on Vindicta UK we have Creative3 for creative building, the 3 standing for the third creative world we've had, Freebuild for survival, and Vindicta as the Main world. Although we have a few others, those are the main worlds and everyone knows what they're about and how to get to them.

Creating a player base
This is one of the most vital parts of setting up a server, if there's no one on your server there would be no point in setting it up! PMC is a great place to find new members, if you're a whitelisted server you can either send messages to particular people inviting them to join or advertise in the description of anything you upload. For non-whitelisted servers you can still contact people, although it's easier to just advertise in the description, upload your server to the server list on PMC or add your server to websites such as https://mcservers.org/ or http://minecraft-server-list.com/

Donations
Although donations aren't critical they'll help to cover the costs you will incur as a server founder. From experience, if you provide a good server and good enough benefits for donators people will want to give you their money. To get people to donate, you should have a strong server economy, particularly if you're giving them in-game cash as a reward, an easy way to donate and, believe it or not, not too many benefits or over-the-top benefits. If you give donators too much, regular players will feel cheated and most will prefergo to another server rather than pay to keep up with other players on yours. In my opinion, the two best ways of receiving donations are though http://buycraft.net/ or by setting up an Enjin website and using their free plugin to receive donations though your server's donation page which you can easily set up. Both of these methods you can use for free, although I prefer to use Enjin as it gives greater flexibility, more packages, and runs alongside my server's website.