Where are all the decent servers?

[TwiiCe]

Recently a server I played on shut down. From that moment on I've been looking for a new server to call home.
One of them was very promising, but in the end started lagging so badly.. And with the owner not having enough time to fix it, I had to move on.
Now I've been hopping server to server with a friend, and they all have either a ridiculous amount of items banned so they can enforce towny (and promote griefing if you don't want to vote for the server daily to get enough points to keep your town up), or have an obnoxious community of people logging in, getting your taglock and messing with you through witchery, "for teh lulz".

Where are the decent servers that allow for a friendly gameplay, pvp only enabled to make pve harder (I.E. not shooting your buddies), no banned items so you can play the modpack as intended..
Right now I'm not even interested in what modpack it is, so long as no items have been banned.

So, here's my question.. Where are all the decent servers? Your turn.

 

[rhn]

Well they are sure as heck not with a bunch of random people from the internet that you don't know

Look for a closed community or guild that plays games together, where Minecraft is among them.

IMO you must have tendencies towards sadomasochism or a troll to want to play on a public server

 

[asb3pe]

I finally found a decent server where nobody is mean and destructive, and people help each other out, friendly. But most days I'm the only person playing. It seems like, for most people, they join a server, play for a few weeks, and then disappear permanently. They leave their houses and their stuff behind, never to return. It's kinda sad, in a way. I'll fly by their base and say to myself "Oh yeah I remember that guy, he was cool." So even when you find a "good server", there's no guarantee it makes the minecraft experience any better. I wish I knew what was missing from the minecraft multiplayer experience and how to fix it. Back in the xbox days (which is where I began playing), we had our "friends list" and it was such a vibrant experience because it was so easy to join a game with people you knew. But on the PC there's none of that. If you don't have PC friends who play Minecraft, it just becomes random luck if you find a "good server" or not.

I'm certain there are decent servers out there, but as rhn says, they're not "public". You need to know someone to get in, and like I say, there isn't really a good method on PC to bring Minecrafters together. I was hoping the Curse client might be such a thing, but I'm not sure it's gonna be from what I've seen and heard so far.

Posting on these forums can help a bit, it's how I found the server I'm playing on... but I got like two responses to my posting requesting a "good server". If someone has a good server, they're typically not in need of people to fill it, so they're not searching the forums looking for people to invite to it.

Another problem is the lag, most servers I've joined to try out have had massive lag which totally ruins the experience. The one server I found with zero lag, no banned items, etc. doesn't have a big population, as I said, I'm usually the only player on the server at any given time.

 

[Harvest88]

Recently a server I played on shut down. From that moment on I've been looking for a new server to call home.
One of them was very promising, but in the end started lagging so badly.. And with the owner not having enough time to fix it, I had to move on.
Now I've been hopping server to server with a friend, and they all have either a ridiculous amount of items banned so they can enforce towny (and promote griefing if you don't want to vote for the server daily to get enough points to keep your town up), or have an obnoxious community of people logging in, getting your taglock and messing with you through witchery, "for teh lulz".

Where are the decent servers that allow for a friendly gameplay, pvp only enabled to make pve harder (I.E. not shooting your buddies), no banned items so you can play the modpack as intended..
Right now I'm not even interested in what modpack it is, so long as no items have been banned.

So, here's my question.. Where are all the decent servers? Your turn.

Been there, done that... That's why I have my own server now. If your interested feel free to drop me a PM as I don't have any banned items as you mentioned you wanted.

 

[lenscas]

The reason the multiplayer experience is so dull is because modded minecarft breaks to much stuff to quickly, add in a a good amount of random minecraft players and welcome to server hell

 

[Harvest88]

The reason the multiplayer experience is so dull is because modded minecarft breaks to much stuff to quickly, add in a a good amount of random minecraft players and welcome to server hell

Exactly so that why in order to get "good old" freedom is to join a small whitelisted server whose have an owner that will respect that players deserve to do what they want. Then just "clears" out those people who act stupid.

 

[lenscas]

Exactly so that why in order to get "good old" freedom is to join a small whitelisted server whose have an owner that will respect that players deserve to do what they want. Then just "clears" out those people who act stupid.

Indeed but that is something that is not possible for a open server and thus they are all bad with a few exceptions as there are for some weird reason always exceptions.

 

[rhn]

I finally found a decent server where nobody is mean and destructive, and people help each other out, friendly. But most days I'm the only person playing. It seems like, for most people, they join a server, play for a few weeks, and then disappear permanently. They leave their houses and their stuff behind, never to return. It's kinda sad, in a way. I'll fly by their base and say to myself "Oh yeah I remember that guy, he was cool." So even when you find a "good server", there's no guarantee it makes the minecraft experience any better. I wish I knew what was missing from the minecraft multiplayer experience and how to fix it. Back in the xbox days (which is where I began playing), we had our "friends list" and it was such a vibrant experience because it was so easy to join a game with people you knew. But on the PC there's none of that. If you don't have PC friends who play Minecraft, it just becomes random luck if you find a "good server" or not.

I'm certain there are decent servers out there, but as rhn says, they're not "public". You need to know someone to get in, and like I say, there isn't really a good method on PC to bring Minecrafters together. I was hoping the Curse client might be such a thing, but I'm not sure it's gonna be from what I've seen and heard so far.

Posting on these forums can help a bit, it's how I found the server I'm playing on... but I got like two responses to my posting requesting a "good server". If someone has a good server, they're typically not in need to people to fill it, so they're not searching the forums looking for people to invite to it.

Yeah the big problem with modded MC multiplayer as I see it, is that everyone wants to play it differently. So many people are just in it for: Using most OP route of gathering materials as they can get their hands on, browse through tech/magic trees as fast as possible, set up some rudimentary systems, go over the top on something, get bored half way, quit playing. I lost count how many times I have seen this.

I you want to play the pop-packs with no removed items and no balancing, then this is pretty much impossible to prevent as I see it unless you personally know and handpick the people you play with. But I suppose you could help the problem by choosing a narrower, more balanced modpack that is more focused on exactly what you enjoy the most. Then there is the best chance that the other people playing the server feel the same way.

 

[asb3pe]

I seem to be eternally conflicted as to whether I should play Minecraft offline, solo, in my own lonely world... or play online, on a server.

Single player is lonely, but you have full control over everything.

Multiplayer is not lonely, but you have zero control over anything - from latency/lag to banned items to vandalism to world backups. You are at the complete mercy of the server operator who could end your fun at any time, unannounced.

It's sorta like a decision between two bad choices.

 

[rhn]

I seem to be eternally conflicted as to whether I should play Minecraft offline, solo, in my own lonely world... or play online, on a server.

Single player is lonely, but you have full control over everything.

Multiplayer is not lonely, but you have zero control over anything - from latency/lag to banned items to vandalism to world backups. You are at the complete mercy of the server operator who could end your fun at any time, unannounced.

It's sorta like a decision between two bad choices.

I know exactly the feeling.

I am heavily swayed towards the solo play now, but I have had some good times on some smaller friendly community servers. But put in WAY too much effort on something I had no control of, and was really gutted when the server died/was discontinued.

 

[asb3pe]

I know exactly the feeling.

I am heavily swayed towards the solo play now, but I have had some good times on some smaller friendly community servers. But put in WAY too much effort on something I had no control of, and was really gutted when the server died/was discontinued.

I've always been a solo player but I got so bored/lonely playing by myself I decided I had to try playing on a server for Infinity modpack. But what I found is that, even tho there are sometimes people to chat with, we're all basically playing solo, but we're all doing it on the same server. There's minimal interaction, everybody is 1000+ blocks away in their own base doing their own thing. Yeah, it's "multiplayer", but almost in name only, with few exceptions. The only difference is that I can type words into chat and get a reply. Otherwise, 99% of the time, my multiplayer experience is almost identical to my solo experience. I don't know what Mojangcrosoft could do with the game to fix this issue, I guess it really isn't their problem to solve? It's the player's problem to solve.

 

[rhn]

I've always been a solo player but I got so bored/lonely playing by myself I decided I had to try playing on a server for Infinity modpack. But what I found is that, even tho there are sometimes people to chat with, we're all basically playing solo, but we're all doing it on the same server. There's minimal interaction, everybody is 1000+ blocks away in their own base doing their own thing. Yeah, it's "multiplayer", but almost in name only, with few exceptions. The only difference is that I can type words into chat and get a reply. Otherwise, 99% of the time, my multiplayer experience is almost identical to my solo experience. I don't know what Mojangcrosoft could do with the game to fix this issue, I guess it really isn't their problem to solve? It's the player's problem to solve.

I think it all depends on who you play with, how well you know then, and how "compatible" you are. I have had some good times building stuff together with other people, but I really think I am a bit incompatible with most people as I tend to go a bit overboard But I do believe that if you can find some people who are motivated by the same things as you are, like the same things and on the same "creative level" as you, then you can have some amazing times in multiplayer. But finding such people is/can be just as hard(if not harder due to social interaction limitations of the internet) as it is to find "compatible" people in RL.

 

[Harvest88]

But I do believe that if you can find some people who are motivated by the same things as you are, like the same things and on the same "creative level" as you, then you can have some amazing times in multiplayer.

Even then.. a few people are so suborn on things that doesn't matters that they "hate" you so much just because of it. That is main reason I decided to boot up a server of my own. Then from there I can "filter out" such people who act so disrespectful in those regards should it happens again.

 

[lenscas]

oh that kind of sounds like a friend of me, he really doesn't like it when you place cobble or torches in the nether

 

[Harvest88]

oh that kind of sounds like a friend of me, he really doesn't like it when you place cobble or torches in the nether

No that just him being annoyed by those things, I am talking about even more personal stuffs to say the least..

 

[rhn]

Even then.. a few people are so suborn on things that doesn't matters that they "hate" you so much just because of it. That is main reason I decided to boot up a server of my own. Then from there I can "filter out" such people who act so disrespectful in those regards should it happens again.

Yeah I was not speaking of public servers. Your experience is bound to end in misery on those in IMO. I was talking about multiplayer as a whole. Preferably with friends or at least on a close-knit community.

 

[Harvest88]

Yeah I was not speaking of public servers. Your experience is bound to end in misery on those in IMO.

You would expects but no it happened on a very private server..

 

[Acredium]

I've always been a solo player but I got so bored/lonely playing by myself I decided I had to try playing on a server for Infinity modpack. But what I found is that, even tho there are sometimes people to chat with, we're all basically playing solo, but we're all doing it on the same server. There's minimal interaction, everybody is 1000+ blocks away in their own base doing their own thing. Yeah, it's "multiplayer", but almost in name only, with few exceptions. The only difference is that I can type words into chat and get a reply. Otherwise, 99% of the time, my multiplayer experience is almost identical to my solo experience.

This is exactly what most servers is like. Still trying to find the server that has a strong community that builds together .... one day ... you got to believe!

 

[jordsta95]

I think your best bet would be to look into a server that doesn't run an FTB pack, or packs with lots of mods. As they have those mods which you complained about, and big mod packs get laggy fast.
Your best bet would be to look into a mod pack that has a small amount of mods, maybe ones that you haven't heard of before?, and see if you can find something good that way?

It costs a lot to host a server that is decent enough to run a mod pack lag free. And for one that is running something like Infinity, or DW20? Yeah, you're looking at close to, if not more, $100 a month. And when a server costs that much to run, the server host will most likely be running off of donations/perks (get user text, priority entry, etc.).

Then you have your banned items conundrum.
You have 3 types of servers:
Whitelist, Greylist, Open.
Open servers are great, you are able to go on to the server and access all features of the server, and any mods it is running... Only issue with this is that anyone who joins will have access to any greifing tools/tools that will make life hell for other players... so, because any Tom, Dick, or Harry can join the server and potentially use these tools to annoy anyone on the server (even those who have paid money to keep the server going - see reasoning above), server owners will ban these items to try and keep order. Which is fine, but it does limit you sometimes.

Greylist servers are, in my opinion, the worst. Just because it's like giving everyone a chance to look at the server, but only the select few to actually do anything. If you don't know what a greylist server is, it is basically a whitelisted server, but anyone can come on and look around; anyone can join, but only people who are "whitelisted" can actually build/kill mobs/pick up items/etc.
This is good in one respect, because you can see whether you like the community before you ask for whitelist. But at the same time, you are on a server, unable to do anything (sometimes even eat, because you spawn with no food, and cannot pick stuff up) so you just wonder around aimlessly waiting to be added to the "whitelist".

Whitelist servers are a hit and miss. Sometimes they are great, sometime they are crap. It depends on who runs them.
If it's just someone who says "post your username, and I'll add you to the whitelist", you can expect greifers and trolls to be applying, and then having a jolly good laugh on that server.
However, if a server is whitelisted, most of the time you have to fill out a few questions, and the server owner will then make an informed decision whether to add you or not.
Pros: Only "good" people on the server, rarely going to be a full server, a more tight-knit community, there'll rarely be banned items unless they cause issues with the server
Cons: You don't get to see the world before hand, you may not know the community, and there may be a lot of other issues that you don't know about.


If you want a good idea for somewhere to look for the "perfect server pack" (low mod count, but lots of fun) head over to the third party pack section, and look at some of the user created packs there.
Then, if there is no server promotion/official server sort of thing, ask in the thread "does anyone know of a server running this pack" you never know, there may be a small private server that'll take you.


Finding the perfect server is always hard, and it's even harder to find a new one after an old one goes.
Happy hunting

 

[RedBoss]

Guys who play Minecraft for a living via streams and YouTube have problems keeping servers alive. I guess there's no absolute solution.