PURE VANILLA.

Maybe just a factions - minigames server (both). My friend tried a skyblock server and ended up with 0 players.

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The plugins I would suggest are:

PermissionsEx: Create groups and give certain people permissions
PermissionsRanks: Easy manage ranks
Essentials: Some classic MP commands
LWC (or lockette but I prefer LWC): Lock your chests and furnaces and stuff
WorldEdit: Edit the world (Duh) with cool admin tools
WorldGuard: Create areas that only admins can edit, or create areas with a number of other options such as welcome messages or make it so noone can enter a certain are.
CoreProtect (Or maybe LogBlock): Check who broke/placed a block where/when.

What do you mean creative plugin? Like some players are in creative and some not? I think you can just use Permissions for that and set some ranks with the ability to choose what mode they are in.

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Maybe make a server with ONLY the plugin BukkitGames, and sell kits? Bukkit games makes it so that the WHOLE server is sg, but if you want only part of the server sg, then dowload the SG plugin.

I really suggest you don't do anything that EVERY SERVER does, like HardCore PvP, Factions, Survival Games, or SkyBlock.

A while back I made a very unique tekkit server called CompanyCraft (The name says what the server is mainly about). It wasn't just about hard core PvP, or whatever.

It had towny and it had some other simple plugins, but mainly people used tekkit to create big factories and such and they built some cool companies and all sorts of interactions happened between companies and towns. PvP was allowed but griefing wasn't.

Thinking up unique server types is difficult but it pays off if you put in the time. My server was full most of the time (32 people) but eventually I had to shut it down.

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I say nothing like PvP, factions and that crap. Too many and I don't wanna see more.

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tdm and any custom team game mode plugin usually gets a shit ton of money in since people basically pay to win which makes it very un fun for other players

bump

You can make a "multiserver" so you have survival games in one world, PVP in another and survival in another.

If you want to make money, you can have different donation ranks in each of the worlds, but that seems kinda sleezy.

It is also good for money because people could donate for an extra element or avatar.

My favorite type of server would have to be a "Avatar The Last Air bender" server. Its a plugin called "Bending" and is based off the Avatar The Last Air bender show. Its a fun plugin to enhance pvp or Role playing and it allows you to bend the four elements just like in the show.