Creating a Successful Server

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Table of Contents
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1. Important Information
1.1 Essential Plugins
1.2 How to put together a good staff team
1.3 How to put together a good build team
2. How to setup GroupManager
2.1 How to setup Essentials
(More information will be added as it is suggested)

1. Important Information

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    There is some mandatory information that you, as a server owner, should know before creating a server. Attempting to create a successful server requires time and effort. This is not a 30 minute to 1 hour project, then you're ready to launch. Do you think any of the larger servers such as Hypixel and Mineplex to 30 minutes to an hour to create? If you do, then I recommend not creating a server. How about some smaller servers with about 100 players online, such as Pure Realms and WafflezMC (just taking some names off my server list). Pure Realms was created over the course of 3 years, starting out as just a small Survival server.
 
    My point is, if you want to try to create a successful server, be prepared to start dedicating a lot of time and work into it. Well, now we got some mandatory information out of the way, let's start with some of the boring stuff.

Before you create a server:
Budget. How much can you spend? How many strings can you pull? Budget is surely difficult when it comes to creating a server, as that small amount of money decides the amount of RAM you have, if you have a domain, if you have a website, if you can get a custom banner, if you want to hire developers, if you want to hire builders, and so on and so forth. Let's prioritize real quick.

Most Important:
Server. This is pretty obvious, and should go without saying. I recommend at least 1 or 2GB starting out, depending on what host you decide on. I recommend BeastNode personally, as their 1024MB (1GB) server comes stock with standard DDoS protection, and a dedicated IP. If you decide buying a domain (e.g hypixel.net), then your players will be able to connect to server.com or play.server.com. Oppose to, if you had a port, your players could connect to (again, if you had a domain) server.com:12345 or player.server.com:12345. Port numbers vary. Ugly, right? Long and confusing is not what you're aiming for, if you decide to purchase a domain. Their 1024MB plan is surely enough ram to get you started, but I don't recommend it for longterm. Anything below is simply not enough, and will likely make your server lag with plugins.

$10. This is the amount we've spent so far. Some have a larger budget, some can stretch it. To those who can stretch it, I'd recommend purchasing an animated banner here. This will be for when you launch your server. For those who are just saying "Oh Ware, why can't I just use one of those free banner creators?" Just... please don't. Go into the 'Servers' tab of PMC. There you'll see a bunch of the same banners from this one free banner website (forget what website it was). Those banners are severly unattractive, and you're better off with no banner at all.

Extras:
Domain
Server Icon
GFX Banner
Enjin website (some people hate enjin, others who know HTML/CSS can make great websites)

This is all I have compiled right now, but more will be added in the future

1.1 Essential Plugins

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Now that we've got all that out of the way, let's get started on some essential plugins you should install and setup. This part is probably gonna be the smallest part of the tutorial, but I'll tell you how to setup/format Essentials and GroupManager a bit later.


Essentials
Essentials is easily the most mandatory plugin that you will need to begin your journey on creating a server. If you've been on a server, you probably already know what the plugin's capabilities are. For those of you who have been living under a rock, this is what Essentials has to offer.

1. - /home
   
2. - /sethome
   
3. - /msg
   
4. - /sell
   
5. - /suicide
   
6. - /help
   
7. - /rules
   
8. - Includes chat formatting capabilities
   
9. - Includes kits // Creating kits
   
10. - A very informative configuration file
    

This plugin probably should seem somewhat familiar by now.


WorldGuard
This plugin is pretty self explanatory. Well not really, besides the fact it has 'WorldGuard' in the name. WorldGuard allows you to protects selected regions with WorldEdit (which is next down the line), allowing you to protect spawn, pvp arenas, etc. It also allows you to (within the region) disable pvp, disable losing hunger, disable building, disable entities from being removed, disable monsters/animals being spawned. Because I don't feel like creating a localhost server and creating a youtube how-to tutorial (maybe I will in the future if this tutorial gets enough publicity), here's a video tutorial by the creators of WorldGuard



WorldEdit
WorldEdit, you've heard of it. Think deep down. You know you've heard about this plugin one time or another. If you haven't, then I simply don't know what to say. I don't know how else to explain worldedit either than you can edit the world. By doing this, you can create spheres, cubes, floors, of any block/shape/size of your liking. This plugin is pretty darn useful for your builders.


ClearLagg
There's not too much to say about this plugin. ClearLag removes server entities (e.g when you drop an item, that becomes an entity). This plugin will remove those entities on an interval you set in the config. Once you load in the plugin, the config allows you to change the prefix, removal interval, etc. That's really all this plugin does, but it sure is useful when you first launch a server.


GroupManager
GroupManager is one of those need-to-have plugins. Commonly referred to as GM, GM is a permissions plugins. If you're a server owner who's looking for a more of advanced and professional approach, then I'd recommend installing PermissionsEx. Though, I will not be covering PermissionsEx configuration in this tutorial. GroupManager is probably the most easiest and simplest permissions plugin, considering you can add/remove permissions/prefixes/ranks. As you can do this with PermissionsEx, I find it much more simpler doing /manuadd [player] [group] then doing /pex user [username] group add [group].  A bit of GroupManager configuration will be explained in this tutorial as well.


These are only the plugins I recommend to get your server started. Depending on what server you're going to create (Prison, SMP, Factions), other plugins will be required. This plugin list will be updated as people suggest more.

1.2 // 1.3 How to put together a good staff/build team

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This is probably one of the most difficult parts of creating a successful server. The reason I conjoined 1.2 and 1.3, is because they're both semi-related, and therefore have almost the same steps. As a server owner, you're going to need to tell who is a good staff member that you should hire, and who is a good builder that you should hire. I don't believe in an age limit in staff applications. Why you may ask? Because, you may find some 11 year olds are much more mature than some 15 year olds. Would you hire an 11 year old who practically wrote a novel on why he/she is fit for staff on your server, or a 15 year old that says "i should b staf on ur server because i can moderate goodly". I've seen applications that people make claiming to be 15, 16, or 17, and looking similar to that. I'm not saying that all 15, 16, or 17 year olds are immature, I'm just stating that you shouldn't hire someone based on their age, but based on their maturity.

Another aspect that you should include in your application process (this is for builders), is the builder applying should have some sort of portfolio. Either if it's some screenshots or a server setup purely for this reason, they should be able to represent their builds in some way. Something else I should include, is that you should use Google's handy-dandy screenshot search tool. Haven't really used it myself, but I believe that all you have to do, is drag and drop a picture/screenshot into Google's search bar, and it should look up the image. This is surely a great tool to use for builder applications; because for all you know the person could've just download the image. That is a common issue found in Builder applications, so optionally you can have the applicant build something for your server before you accept him/her.

Some basic stuff you should include in your application is age (even though I said it doesn't matter, it's good to know their age), their IGN [In Game Name], Their real name (so you know how to refer them as), Past experiences (pretty self-explanatory), and how long they've been playing Minecraft (just so you know how long they've been doing what they've been doing). You can add anything else to the application process, these are just the aspects I recommend.

A website that I recommend using is not commonly used for applications, and I think it should be used a lot more personally. That website is Google Forms. It's a very neat and simple way for the server owner to recieve applications, and a simple way for users to submit applications. Google Forms is slightly hidden, so here's a link to the website. Obviously, you need to have a google account in order to create a Form.

A Quick Rundown
For those who are impatient and don't like reading, I'll bullet the important stuff
- Age doesn't matter
- Maturity matters
- Include the following in an application
-- IGN
-- Real name
-- Past experiences
-- How long they've been playing Minecraft
- Use Google Forms for creating applications

2. How to setup GroupManager

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GroupManager. Boy, do I have a love-hate relationship with GM. My reasoning for this is simply because the plugin itself is not always stable. Sometimes you add someone to a rank, and for some reason the prefix just sort of sticks there, even if you remove all the variables from the users, remove all the permissions, and practically reset/delete their player files, that darn prefix will just linger. Though, GM is not as reliable as PermissionsEx, but PermissionsEx is much more difficult to setup. As in if you get one tiny thing wrong in the config, the whole plugin just breaks. Enough ranting, let's get forth with some commands.


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To create a new group, type
/mangadd Builder
That will create a new group called Builder.

Now we need to have our group inherit abilities from our Default group. Lets type
/mangaddi Builder Default
Builder now inherits all the commands from our Default group.



Lets add a permission to our new group.
/mangaddp Builder essentials.warp
We've now giving the Builder group the ability to use Essentials' /warp
command. They can't create or delete warps but can teleport to them.

note: see our Adding permissions to GroupManager page for how to add permissions to GroupManager.

Here are some other Essentials permissions:
essentials.sethome.# (# represents the number of homes)
essentials.home
essentials.setwarp
essentials.warp
essentials.warp.name
essentials.feed (feeds the user to full hunger)
essentials.tpa
essentials.tpaccept
essentials.tpdeny
essentials.tp
essentials.heal (heals the user to full health)


Now lets add a chat tag for our new group.
/mangaddv Builder prefix [Builder]


Now when a user of that group talks in chat they'll have [Builder] before their name.


Note: if you want colored chat tags, checkout our Group chat [tags] page.


Now lets add a user to our new group.
/manuadd Bob Builder
Now Bob's in the group Builder. He'll have access to /warp and have a [Builder] tag before his name.


Note: If you receive the message "Couldn't retrieve your world. World selection is needed." Type /manselect world. Then you can proceed with your other commands.
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This was roughly* copied from MinecraftServerHost. I do not take credit for the previous tutorial.
roughly* - Some things were deleted and added to the tutorial.

2.1 Essentials

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"Why do we have to setup Essentials, Ware? Isn't already setup?" Yes, Essentials comes pre-configured and ready to use. This is the one part of the tutorial you can skip. For people who want their chat to look somewhat fancy. Instead of telling you what to do in the config, I'll post a config file I already edited and run through it.

Essentials Configuration
http://pastebin.com/sKTyakdh

What I did:
- Removed the '~' before a nickname
- Made OP color light red
- Enabled buy/sell/weather/time/gamemode/etc. signs
- Removed the greater/less than signs for chat, added a colon
- Created a starter kit

This config file is 100% editable. As in you can edit it to your likings in any way or form. Make sure, though, if you do decide to edit it, one incorrect spacing can break the whole config. Always be sure to follow the provided parameters for yml configs.

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Thanks for reading my first tutorial guide!

Please note that this is currently a work in progress and is not close to completion. More sections will be added and sections will be given more guidance on how to do certain things. This is purely a rough draft on what will come in the future. Also note, for all of you who like to be dickheads and go on PMC posts and try to find the stupidest things wrong with it and like to criticize, please kindly take notice this is only starting point for server owners. This is in no way a 100% guaranteed guide on how to be a successful server. This is only a guide on how to start creating one.