Hi, I run a spigot 1.9, mcph, minecraft server, and theirs something I don't get, how do servers get so popular? My survival server gets about 5-10 players a day, while other servers are getting over 100! I feel like i'm wasting my money on tgis. I really would like to see more players on my server. Does anyone know a good way to do that?
Cauldron Universe = My server, join today! cauldronuniverse.mcph.co
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Join my server Cauldron Universe! (play.cauldronuniverse.com)
Unique features, experienced administrators, professionalism, and money. Simple as that.
All of this and luck, sadly. There's always the servers that get a well known YouTuber playing, or a rich guy who donates to give the server a leg up. This isn't really bad, particularly because the servers who benefit tend to deserve it, but it does suck for other servers.
If you want more players, here's what I'd do. First, up the professionalism. Your banner looks like it was made in MS Paint. I get that some people aren't going to be very good at graphic design, but imagine it was you. If you are looking through a list of hundreds of servers, you are more likely to click on a server with a cool banner, because you assume it is more professional. If you see a banner like yours, you would probably guess that the server is run by an eight year old or something. Again, I'm not trying to insult you, but that's what you'd think, right?
Then, I highly recommend you advertise on a ton of websites. Get your players to tell their friends. Do anything. Make sure your advertisements use the cool art. Write a really good introduction on the websites with perfect grammar and some compelling reasons people should play. Keep it short and sweet. Make your server stand out. Don't just put generic things like "good staff". Instead of "good staff", for example, talk about some of your policies and say how your rules are different and more fair to players. I personally really hate it when server staff never listen to players and just act superior, you know?
So now you might have people joining. It'll be slow at first, but that's how it is. Make sure you have a nice, well designed spawn area with clear information boards. Make your server professional - use good grammar and have pretty titles in front of people's names or something. You know what I mean, just borrow ideas from the big servers. Look how their server are different to yours.
Edit
So I joined the server. I don't really intend to stick around, I've only been on for about a minute or so for the first impressions. Those first few minutes are the most important on a server. Well, lucky for you, the server doesn't look like it was made by a seven year old who stole his mother's laptop when she wasn't looking. Good for you mate, most of my advice above has been made a little obsolete.
So I was greeted with only one player, a moderator. This is obviously bad because people will instantly leave servers with no players. It's a really sucky but understandable thing - small servers get players slowly, big servers get players quickly. Your rate of player gain thus accelerates, in a sense. The only thing you can do about it is wait until you have enough players willing to give it a chance that the skeptics are willing to give it more of a chance. Obviously, this is the slowest part of growing a server, and you just need to give it time.
Obviously, at this stage, you need to make every player super welcome so that they stick around, which won't always work. This moderator (_XNoGameNoLifeX_) was friendly enough, and he gave me two donor keys (whether you want him to be doing that is up to you), and I got two pieces of 'Doom' armour, a chestplate and some leggings. I'm not sure this is the best tactic to make players stick around, but I was pretty happy at least and made the server a bit more interesting than some others. The lack of players did get me (I'm the kind who rarely gives servers I'm unsure of a chance), though.
I also noticed some spelling errors in the broadcasts. Might wanna fix those up. Anyway, I'll be leaving the server now. I might come back if you want to talk about something specific. Let me know if you have any questions, bye now.
I should also add that you need a website or forum. Do not even think about using Enjin.
A real domain is a nice addition as well (this kind of ties into professionalism). If I see subdomains (like mcph.co), it's kind of an instant no-join for me since I figure if you can't buy a real domain, you're not serious enough about your server and it'll probably be gone in a month or two (which is unfortunately, quite accurate from my experience).
Ok thanks for the help, and also no offense taken XD. Btw, what do you think is a good program to make a banner, because I was using MS paint... and thanks for pointing out the donor key thing, no wonder so many people on my server have donor crate items.
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Join my server Cauldron Universe! (play.cauldronuniverse.com)
I recommend Paint.NET, it's MS Paint on steroids and very easy to use. If you feel like being more advanced, GIMP is great as well, though it's a pretty steep learning curve, but it's the closest you'll get to Photoshop without shelling out cash for Creative Cloud.
I should also add that you need a website or forum. Do not even think about using Enjin.
I think Enjin works if you're after just a decent community. I mean, if you want hundreds of players, yeah, get something better, but Enjin is used by tons of servers with decent playerbases.
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Formerly Gamelord. Pixelmon Server Owner. Server IP: pixelmonprisma.mc-server.net | Server Discord:https://discord.gg/HkK855b
First off when you go into server hosting expect to lose money. Your business model should be to run this out of pocket, if your goal is to make a profit out of this you're not going to do very well.
The big servers with lots of players have probably been around for several years to build that player base. Also don't forget how much money they spend on advertising. If you don't mind forking out a few hundred to a few thousand dollars you can instantly have a server of 100+ players. It won't be a great community but hey, big numbers right.
Hi, I run a spigot 1.9, mcph, minecraft server, and theirs something I don't get, how do servers get so popular? My survival server gets about 5-10 players a day, while other servers are getting over 100! I feel like i'm wasting my money on tgis. I really would like to see more players on my server. Does anyone know a good way to do that?
Cauldron Universe = My server, join today! cauldronuniverse.mcph.co
Join my server Cauldron Universe! (play.cauldronuniverse.com)
Unique features, experienced administrators, professionalism, and money. Simple as that.
All of this and luck, sadly. There's always the servers that get a well known YouTuber playing, or a rich guy who donates to give the server a leg up. This isn't really bad, particularly because the servers who benefit tend to deserve it, but it does suck for other servers.
If you want more players, here's what I'd do. First, up the professionalism. Your banner looks like it was made in MS Paint. I get that some people aren't going to be very good at graphic design, but imagine it was you. If you are looking through a list of hundreds of servers, you are more likely to click on a server with a cool banner, because you assume it is more professional. If you see a banner like yours, you would probably guess that the server is run by an eight year old or something. Again, I'm not trying to insult you, but that's what you'd think, right?
Then, I highly recommend you advertise on a ton of websites. Get your players to tell their friends. Do anything. Make sure your advertisements use the cool art. Write a really good introduction on the websites with perfect grammar and some compelling reasons people should play. Keep it short and sweet. Make your server stand out. Don't just put generic things like "good staff". Instead of "good staff", for example, talk about some of your policies and say how your rules are different and more fair to players. I personally really hate it when server staff never listen to players and just act superior, you know?
So now you might have people joining. It'll be slow at first, but that's how it is. Make sure you have a nice, well designed spawn area with clear information boards. Make your server professional - use good grammar and have pretty titles in front of people's names or something. You know what I mean, just borrow ideas from the big servers. Look how their server are different to yours.
Edit
So I joined the server. I don't really intend to stick around, I've only been on for about a minute or so for the first impressions. Those first few minutes are the most important on a server. Well, lucky for you, the server doesn't look like it was made by a seven year old who stole his mother's laptop when she wasn't looking. Good for you mate, most of my advice above has been made a little obsolete.
So I was greeted with only one player, a moderator. This is obviously bad because people will instantly leave servers with no players. It's a really sucky but understandable thing - small servers get players slowly, big servers get players quickly. Your rate of player gain thus accelerates, in a sense. The only thing you can do about it is wait until you have enough players willing to give it a chance that the skeptics are willing to give it more of a chance. Obviously, this is the slowest part of growing a server, and you just need to give it time.
Obviously, at this stage, you need to make every player super welcome so that they stick around, which won't always work. This moderator (_XNoGameNoLifeX_) was friendly enough, and he gave me two donor keys (whether you want him to be doing that is up to you), and I got two pieces of 'Doom' armour, a chestplate and some leggings. I'm not sure this is the best tactic to make players stick around, but I was pretty happy at least and made the server a bit more interesting than some others. The lack of players did get me (I'm the kind who rarely gives servers I'm unsure of a chance), though.
I also noticed some spelling errors in the broadcasts. Might wanna fix those up. Anyway, I'll be leaving the server now. I might come back if you want to talk about something specific. Let me know if you have any questions, bye now.
I should also add that you need a website or forum. Do not even think about using Enjin.
A real domain is a nice addition as well (this kind of ties into professionalism). If I see subdomains (like mcph.co), it's kind of an instant no-join for me since I figure if you can't buy a real domain, you're not serious enough about your server and it'll probably be gone in a month or two (which is unfortunately, quite accurate from my experience).
Ok, I would get a custom domain, but how? I don't know at all.
Join my server Cauldron Universe! (play.cauldronuniverse.com)
http://namecheap.com
Tutorials on how to point it to your server are all over the internet. Same goes for your website.
Ok thanks for the help, and also no offense taken XD. Btw, what do you think is a good program to make a banner, because I was using MS paint... and thanks for pointing out the donor key thing, no wonder so many people on my server have donor crate items.
Join my server Cauldron Universe! (play.cauldronuniverse.com)
I recommend Paint.NET, it's MS Paint on steroids and very easy to use. If you feel like being more advanced, GIMP is great as well, though it's a pretty steep learning curve, but it's the closest you'll get to Photoshop without shelling out cash for Creative Cloud.
I think Enjin works if you're after just a decent community. I mean, if you want hundreds of players, yeah, get something better, but Enjin is used by tons of servers with decent playerbases.
Ben, you can thank me later for the player.
First off when you go into server hosting expect to lose money. Your business model should be to run this out of pocket, if your goal is to make a profit out of this you're not going to do very well.
The big servers with lots of players have probably been around for several years to build that player base. Also don't forget how much money they spend on advertising. If you don't mind forking out a few hundred to a few thousand dollars you can instantly have a server of 100+ players. It won't be a great community but hey, big numbers right.