So you want to start your own Minecraft server? Heres 5 things to know. These are things that Ive learned and I firmly believe that might help you in having a server of your own. 1. Start it for you, run it for your members Lets say you want a PVP server, or a creative server or a modded server... so you start a server of your very own and set it up to work how you want it. Thats great! Once you have it set up the way you want, thats where what you want ends. Im not saying that you become the slave to the players but if you want your server to grow at all, you need those players. Getting a server started, thats all you. Paying the bill, choosing a name, building spawn, adding the plugins or changing the settings.. you do those things. But the moment that your servers IP is out there, you need for it to grow and the only way to do that is to have players want to join it. If what you want is not what those players want, or if youre not willing to listen to those players, then those players wont stay. This is the big one... if you started your server just to be bossy over everyone, there will not be anyone. No one plays on a server with an owner that just wants to rule the kingdom. 2. There is a fine line between a democracy and a dictatorship Now, having said all that, you must also understand that there is a big difference between giving players everything they want and giving them nothing. If you start a survival server and people want creative, dont give it to them. If you start a creative server and people want modded Minecraft, dont give it to them. Stick to the original game plan. You started a server that you wanted to exist in the world and those players came to your server because they wanted the same thing. Dont let anyone steer you away from your dream. However, this does not mean that you get to be ruler supreme that never listens. If all the players that join your server feel strongly about a certain rule, it would be in your best interest to listen to their concerns. If you start a minigame server and everyone wants a certain minigame, maybe adding it would be a good idea. If you started a modded server and everyone thinks a certain mod would be a great addition, maybe theyre right! Players making suggestions to better a server do have that servers best interest at heart. Players wanting to change the server into something its not are really only wishing they could start their own server the way they want it. You need to hold firm to the dream you started but also be willing to listen to criticism, suggestions and feedback. 3. Other server admins are not tech support Starting a new server is a lot more work than more people realize. Thats probably because its so easy to start one... but not so easy to make it into what your vision is. The best advice is to talk to other server owners or at the very least, the admins that run those servers. Especially if those servers are doing well. However, you have to remember that if those servers are doing well, and starting and running a server is not easy, those other admins/owners are likely very busy. Throwing questions after questions after questions at them every time you run into a new problem or think of something new is really only going to upset those people as they dont have the time to be your go to tech support person. Problem solve things on your own as best you can. Almost every problem you can run into has been run into by a server owner before you and theyve written out the answers somewhere on the internet. If you have spent a lot of time (and I dont mean an hour or two, I mean, days) and still cant get it, present it to someone that you feel would know. But, dont pressure them. Chances are theyre busy. Put it into a forum post, a private message, an email or something that they can get back to you in their free time. If you spring it on them in the middle of something else theyre doing, youre probably only going to anger them. 4. Your reputation is everything When you are trying to get your server off the ground and have people join it and like it, the last thing you want is players that annoy you. But heres the thing... if you start banning everyone that you dont like, just because you dont like them, you set that as your reputation. The Minecraft community is massive but word spreads quickly. In fact, for how huge it is, theres only a few places that people talk and if someone talks in one of those places, everyone knows it. So being quick with the ban command on anyone and everyone that you just feel like not having around will likely result in very slow growth for your server, if any at all. Because all it takes is just one of those people to go back to one of those forums or websites and tell everyone what you did. From that moment on, your reputation is out there. Believe me, your reputation will grow fast. Very fast. Almost over night. And if more than one player says youve banned them? 3? 4? 10? Your server will likely never have players on it again. 5. Your drama is your drama Server owners are business owners and as such, theyll help each other out if they think its good for business. See, my server is a survival server. If I know a good server owner that I trust and their server is a modded Minecraft server and some of my players say that they want to play modded Minecraft... guess where Ill send them. But being a business, you have to realize that, like your reputation, what you do on your server will be found out by others in the community. If you have issues with a player, or players, and those issues spill out over to another server, say... mine... then I will have very little interest in doing business with you. I wont help you with your server, I wont answer your questions and I most certainly wont recommend it to other players. Server owners have seen it all and theyll know when someone was banned because they deserved to be banned and are simply crying foul because they just feel like they shouldnt have been banned. Weve all seen that and we all recognize that. Some people just try to make drama when there is none. However, we also recognize it when another server owner just simply abuses their powers and make enemies out of good players and are unable to contain their own drama. If you cant stop drama from happening on your server, you had best stop it from spreading to other servers because it wont be the players that suffer for it... it will be you. Conclusion We dont allow advertising your server on Autcraft but we still want you to do well if you start a server of your own. Please take what you learn on Autcraft and be understanding, be patient and be kind. Your server can be great if you continue to be great yourself. - AF
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 00:16:38 +0000