There's a few things you should know about running a successful server before you host.
1) Have a set of rules before posting anything first off. A "Standards and procedures". Not to the point where you're holding a 5 year old, unless you really want to go that far.
2) Have a select few who you absolutely trust. This works best if you have a couple of long-term friends or real life friends. If you have any sort of doubt they'll go behind your back for any reason, don't let them be any kind of staff.
3) Have a website. One thing I've noticed between these big pop servers, and tight knit servers is a way of back-logging conversations, rules, tutorials, questions, etc. It's also somewhere someone can vent frustrations of a player, server rules (If it has an open door policy, which is healthy for a strong community), explain various ways to alter the configs on servers, and many other things. It's kind of nice going to a website to find out all the change-logs of a server, moderator/admin's Q & A's, and other information.
4) Have some sort of application. It weeds out the "ZOMG SERVERS" from the "I would like to find a server" most of the time. If you have a 20 question application, you can usually tell if it's some troll, or someone that wants to find a good/decent server to stay for a long time. You can even tell if the person will get along with the rest of your community.
5) Players vs Hosters. If you gain anyone that's hosted servers before, weather it is a private server owner, or public server owner, you are warned now... You're going to get a ton of questions, random statements, "What if's", "Why's..." And a bunch of other stuff. If you don't like to answer repeated questions, on your website, have it dedicated to prior server owners, or something like that. The last thing you want, is the prior server owner to take your members and start their own server.
6) Set up weekly/Monthly events. The best kind of community is an active community. Events are the best way to boost morale on a server.
7) Be interactive. No matter if you want to take a 1 or 2 week break, every other day, at least make a news post, or blog on the website, or just login and say hey to your members. Knowing they have a confident administrator/owner/moderator makes people want to stay, and get that family feeling.
8) This is the most important rule. If you decide to pay for a host, or host from home, make sure your net can withstand an X amount of people. I have a PC dedicated to just hosting MC, wired connection, the works. With a 5MB upload speed, with a 26mb download speed. The server I hosted could run up to 25 people with no lag via FTB (With MCPC Plus Installed) or 75 players on regular MC (Bukkit and Nolagg installed), and that's also with me and my wife playing World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, with someone playing a PS3 game online.
9) Keep a positive outlook. No matter how grim, or low the population gets, remember people do have lives outside the game. If you wonder if people are going away, or getting drawn from the game more than not, have a section on your website where they can post their availability to play the game. Or, if they're going to be absent for a long period of time, have them post. Not to be nosy, something like, "Hey, out of town for a month" would do just fine.
I wanted to blah all this because... I was a server owner since Minecraft 1.3 Beta. Over 2 years, and I've seen a lot of people come to, and from. I don't know if FTB was around back then... I ran a Bukkit server for the longest time. It was originally just a couple of friends and family, then I decided to become a public host, taking on responsibilities of other's creations. Our server population went from 12, to 40, to 50 some. (Yeah it was whitelisted) It was epic, because I didn't have moderators and all that to manage. I had a website, (Www.shavercraft.com) and took care of issues at 6am every morning. It was a lot of fun... Then, after 1.2.4, there was a large uprising of trolls, hackers, etc. After putting up, weeding through the trolls with the players that actually wanted to play, it just came to a head. The community I pushed so hard to build began falling apart. (I.E. Boredom, Adventure maps, Hunger games, etc). I know, things don't last forever.
So I shut down buikkit, and went to FTB in November. And I started hosting public for that too. I'm sad to say, the majority of people that came through did not make me happy one bit. It felt more like a job to upkeep/handle everyone's crying and complaining. For example, GregTech, the Portal Gun (I had the fuel turned on, due to spam of the portals) and a ton of other stuff. Long story short, with the "Expert server owners" coming on the server, taking members to host a more "Secure" server (Meaning no "Risk" of map restarts or world corruptions, lol. I even went out of my way, and each update, I'd have everyone post their home coords and anything special in the world, use MCEDIT and cut out squares in the world and have it re-generate. And no, the world didn't look jacked up.), I just got fed up with how people are now. Everyone, instead of researching the answer, they want the answers laid to them in a formal, large explanation. Saying "Research it yourself" or "Go to www.ftbwiki.com" is like a punch to their ego, or it's like "OMG you're a jerk. I'm going to ask someone to answer it for me...". or the best one I've heard, "I've looked everywhere, youtube, wiki, google/Bing and it doesn't work. Can you help me?" I don't understand the community anymore. Here recently, I closed off my public server, and it's only private to a couple friends now... And I'll never go public again. Ever.
*******OPINION COMING!! ********
I feel the community of MC has changed from a year ago. :\ I used to login to a server full of awesome people, and have just an amazing time... Here it is a year later, and if you're staff, you're either answering questions, or you get avoided like the plague. It's like in high school/college/work, you have your "Clicks". It's expected, but eh... Maybe I just expect too much. One thing that annoyed me the most is previous server owners. Oh my goodness they would annoy me the most... Because the questions would never end. When I'd login, in 5 minutes I'd get asked like 10 questions. Even when I had a rule, if you had questions put them on the website, I'd still get bombarded with questions in the game. Instead of playing the game, I'd play "100 questions" Then if I said "Just go to the website and post it there, I'll answer it later" I got looked upon as a douche, and they'd scheme behind my back to start their own server because I wasn't as "Interactive". I dunno. The community has definitely changed though since 2011. I don't know if it's because I'm 27, or the main pop of MC is kids (Attitudes included...), or the game and all is just getting old... I haven't lost interest in the game at all, not one bit... But I have given up trying to be that starlight server host.
Sorry, rant over. Have a great evening Minecrafters, Feed the beasters, server owners, and formers, lol.
1) Have a set of rules before posting anything first off. A "Standards and procedures". Not to the point where you're holding a 5 year old, unless you really want to go that far.
2) Have a select few who you absolutely trust. This works best if you have a couple of long-term friends or real life friends. If you have any sort of doubt they'll go behind your back for any reason, don't let them be any kind of staff.
3) Have a website. One thing I've noticed between these big pop servers, and tight knit servers is a way of back-logging conversations, rules, tutorials, questions, etc. It's also somewhere someone can vent frustrations of a player, server rules (If it has an open door policy, which is healthy for a strong community), explain various ways to alter the configs on servers, and many other things. It's kind of nice going to a website to find out all the change-logs of a server, moderator/admin's Q & A's, and other information.
4) Have some sort of application. It weeds out the "ZOMG SERVERS" from the "I would like to find a server" most of the time. If you have a 20 question application, you can usually tell if it's some troll, or someone that wants to find a good/decent server to stay for a long time. You can even tell if the person will get along with the rest of your community.
5) Players vs Hosters. If you gain anyone that's hosted servers before, weather it is a private server owner, or public server owner, you are warned now... You're going to get a ton of questions, random statements, "What if's", "Why's..." And a bunch of other stuff. If you don't like to answer repeated questions, on your website, have it dedicated to prior server owners, or something like that. The last thing you want, is the prior server owner to take your members and start their own server.
6) Set up weekly/Monthly events. The best kind of community is an active community. Events are the best way to boost morale on a server.
7) Be interactive. No matter if you want to take a 1 or 2 week break, every other day, at least make a news post, or blog on the website, or just login and say hey to your members. Knowing they have a confident administrator/owner/moderator makes people want to stay, and get that family feeling.
8) This is the most important rule. If you decide to pay for a host, or host from home, make sure your net can withstand an X amount of people. I have a PC dedicated to just hosting MC, wired connection, the works. With a 5MB upload speed, with a 26mb download speed. The server I hosted could run up to 25 people with no lag via FTB (With MCPC Plus Installed) or 75 players on regular MC (Bukkit and Nolagg installed), and that's also with me and my wife playing World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, with someone playing a PS3 game online.
9) Keep a positive outlook. No matter how grim, or low the population gets, remember people do have lives outside the game. If you wonder if people are going away, or getting drawn from the game more than not, have a section on your website where they can post their availability to play the game. Or, if they're going to be absent for a long period of time, have them post. Not to be nosy, something like, "Hey, out of town for a month" would do just fine.
I wanted to blah all this because... I was a server owner since Minecraft 1.3 Beta. Over 2 years, and I've seen a lot of people come to, and from. I don't know if FTB was around back then... I ran a Bukkit server for the longest time. It was originally just a couple of friends and family, then I decided to become a public host, taking on responsibilities of other's creations. Our server population went from 12, to 40, to 50 some. (Yeah it was whitelisted) It was epic, because I didn't have moderators and all that to manage. I had a website, (Www.shavercraft.com) and took care of issues at 6am every morning. It was a lot of fun... Then, after 1.2.4, there was a large uprising of trolls, hackers, etc. After putting up, weeding through the trolls with the players that actually wanted to play, it just came to a head. The community I pushed so hard to build began falling apart. (I.E. Boredom, Adventure maps, Hunger games, etc). I know, things don't last forever.
So I shut down buikkit, and went to FTB in November. And I started hosting public for that too. I'm sad to say, the majority of people that came through did not make me happy one bit. It felt more like a job to upkeep/handle everyone's crying and complaining. For example, GregTech, the Portal Gun (I had the fuel turned on, due to spam of the portals) and a ton of other stuff. Long story short, with the "Expert server owners" coming on the server, taking members to host a more "Secure" server (Meaning no "Risk" of map restarts or world corruptions, lol. I even went out of my way, and each update, I'd have everyone post their home coords and anything special in the world, use MCEDIT and cut out squares in the world and have it re-generate. And no, the world didn't look jacked up.), I just got fed up with how people are now. Everyone, instead of researching the answer, they want the answers laid to them in a formal, large explanation. Saying "Research it yourself" or "Go to www.ftbwiki.com" is like a punch to their ego, or it's like "OMG you're a jerk. I'm going to ask someone to answer it for me...". or the best one I've heard, "I've looked everywhere, youtube, wiki, google/Bing and it doesn't work. Can you help me?" I don't understand the community anymore. Here recently, I closed off my public server, and it's only private to a couple friends now... And I'll never go public again. Ever.
*******OPINION COMING!! ********
I feel the community of MC has changed from a year ago. :\ I used to login to a server full of awesome people, and have just an amazing time... Here it is a year later, and if you're staff, you're either answering questions, or you get avoided like the plague. It's like in high school/college/work, you have your "Clicks". It's expected, but eh... Maybe I just expect too much. One thing that annoyed me the most is previous server owners. Oh my goodness they would annoy me the most... Because the questions would never end. When I'd login, in 5 minutes I'd get asked like 10 questions. Even when I had a rule, if you had questions put them on the website, I'd still get bombarded with questions in the game. Instead of playing the game, I'd play "100 questions" Then if I said "Just go to the website and post it there, I'll answer it later" I got looked upon as a douche, and they'd scheme behind my back to start their own server because I wasn't as "Interactive". I dunno. The community has definitely changed though since 2011. I don't know if it's because I'm 27, or the main pop of MC is kids (Attitudes included...), or the game and all is just getting old... I haven't lost interest in the game at all, not one bit... But I have given up trying to be that starlight server host.
Sorry, rant over. Have a great evening Minecrafters, Feed the beasters, server owners, and formers, lol.
