How to Maintain a Minecraft Server/Community

So you’ve started to your own minecraft server maybe even watched a few videos on how to do so but now you’re in the thick of it and you need a little more guidance on where to go from here let’s talk about that this is my ultimate guide to maintaining a minecraft server

And community what I’d like to cover in this video is how to effectively operate as an owner or admin in your community what you can do to ensure the success of your server through interacting with your members and a little bit of behind the scenes of operating a server so

Let’s get into it first off how you should behave as an owner or admin let’s take this comment from my reddit post this user offered their opinion that it is important to maintain an active role on the server though I disagree that this is what you would call micromanaging I think it is

Important to talk about if you’re starting out it is crucial that the players see you as an active participant on the server whether it be participating in community activities heading large-scale projects or just being there in chat to talk to them you have to be there for your players not

Only is it important to show your players that your server is worth playing on but also so they immediately see you as a resource if they need anything a while back I attempted to start a server with a different group of people and one of the major conflicts

Between myself and the other people starting the server was they strongly believe that you cannot play on a server you run they believed it was a conflict of interest and that the only way to effectively run a server was if the players only saw you in an administrative role I strongly disagreed

With this notion and eventually left that group of players to form unity you have to be your servers biggest fan you have to want to be there even if no one else is on if you don’t love and play on your server how can you expect anyone

Else to if you’re a backseat admin that only shows up once in a blue moon the server base will not see you as being there for them or for the server a little tangent here about my personal experience in real life I worked in the film industry as a rigger and main

Company grip in 2019 I landed a gig on a major network television show and I was working 50 to 70 hours a week I knew I would not be able to be there for my server so I handed the reins over to fit link in the description for about four

Months then ran the server and kept the community alive in a way I would have been unable to because I couldn’t be there for my players so yes you have to be active on the server and present in the discord to effectively run a server otherwise your community will be

Short-lived without someone there to lead it the next part of being an owner or admin is how you act I talked about this in my guide to starting a minecraft server video but I think it’s worth mentioning again so don’t get all power-hungry and demand your player base

Worship you and never question your decisions players should see you as a resource not as someone they need to mind their P’s and Q’s around if your player base thinks that nothing they want or need is important because you’re the one with the final say they won’t want to stick around essentially your

Aim is to be seen as just another player just one that has the power to help them out if they need it you want to be on an equal playing field with your server members if you behave correctly as an admin respect from your players will come naturally and you won’t ruffle any

Feathers if you are responsible with how and when you exert your power on the server ultimately you do have the final say and you can do whatever you want as an owner but if you allow your community to have input and see you as trustworthy and looking out for them will feel more

Like a part of a community and not just ahead on the tab list this blends into the next point make sure you communicate effectively with your members any significant changes to the server or gameplay experience should be open to discussion and debate within your community decisions should be a group

Effort your players have a voice and it’s your role as the owner or admin to listen to them and respect them you don’t have to run every single minor change to the server by them but with big topics such as community projects data packs and gameplay changes you have

To discuss them with your players on unity we have a suggestion box Google form this allows my players to anonymously make suggestions about the server and the submissions are reviewed by myself and the admins this is a great way to give your players a voice even if they’re worried about their opinions

Affecting their social status on the server when 1.16 was around the corner I also sent out a forum for my players to fill out that was full of questions related to updating and general questions about the sir itself I felt it was very important to gauge how the playerbase wanted to move

Forward and not to just arbitrarily thrust my decisions about updating upon them now you can’t please everyone and you’ll end up tearing your hair out if you try but taking the time to at least get the majority’s feeling on subjects is important just a note here you don’t

Need to do these things just to make your players feel like they have a voice you need to take them seriously and make sure they know they are heard this doesn’t mean you have to blindly follow any suggestions or comments given to you but you do need to take the time to

Discuss it so they know that they are being heard otherwise you risk players feeling unimportant and ignored which is not the environment you want for your server so you’re doing all of the things we’ve discussed so far you’re being the best admin you can be and you’re running

The server to the best of your abilities but players start to go inactive this sucks let’s look at another comment I received on reddit keeping a server alive is probably the most difficult part of owning a server without question as it’s almost entirely out of your control if

You’re like me you begin to take it a little personally was it something I said was it something I did was it something I didn’t do you can’t think that way at the end of the day it’s only a game players will come and go whether it’s because IRL stuff takes

Over they get burned out on the game or just lose interest in general very few players will stick around forever so let’s talk about what you can do first off you can’t wait until the server’s dead or dying to start getting new players in if you wait until then you’re

Essentially starting back at square one with an empty server and it’s even harder to entice players to stick around when the server is already developed and they feel behind it’s important to regularly add new players to the server regardless of how well it’s thriving if

Your server is in a great place and you have a bunch of super active players maybe you have some leeway and don’t need to be adding new people but even on a well-established server like unity we post ads to join about every two weeks this may seem like a lot but when it

Comes to landing a good player that will invest their time and effort into your community the ratio of people that join and don’t fit to good players is very low you can add 10 people a week and if it’s anything like my experience you get one or two winners out of the bunch

So get new blood in your server regularly this provides a fresh rotation of players and you don’t open yourself up to the burden of trying to breathe new life into an already dead server another thing that’s important but kind of out of control is how your current player base interacts with new players

On unity our player base is very kind and welcoming to new players whether it’s through hooking them up with food or tools when they join or just being nice in the chat Unity’s players do their best to make unity feel as welcoming as possible and that’s amazing as I said this is

Somewhat out of your control but if you encourage your players to be nice and have built your server upon the principles of forming a community like I have your players will act this way even without being asked the last thing which can affect new players and current players is making sure you have

Community activities and projects that they can get involved in I mentioned in my first unity SMP video that we try and do a trivia night almost every Saturday this gives new and old players a chance to jump in voice chat and feel connected to one another in a setting that isn’t

Based upon their progression or time spent on the server another thing we do on unity is our game day we have a gaming district full of minigames that various players have built having a game day or similar community event is a great way for new players to instantly

Feel welcomed into the community and an opportunity for current players to get a renewed sense of belonging so whether it’s through large-scale community projects that players contribute to or community events you need to have opportunities for your players to feel connected to the server in my experience

If a player feels connected to the server through these things they’ll be motivated to be more active on the server okay quickly before we wrap up let’s talk a little bit about the behind the scenes of running a server and how it can keep your community active and

Happy though unity is a vanilla server in spirit we are not technically a vanilla server I would make this distinction and server ads and when I talk about the server however we maintain a vanilla play experience so it’s not worth arguing over we run paper instead of the vanilla server jar

Briefly during our update to 116 we had to run vanilla for a few days and it was a huge reminder of why we run paper paper has integrated features that severely reduce lag and optimize server performance so if you run a server of really any size Center moving to a lag optimize server

Jar like paper the second thing is data packs now this is a hot-button issue when people start debating what a vanilla server is as data packs can alter gameplay from the vanilla experience but the experience they can offer your players is far more important than winning an argument with a

Neckbeard who takes pride in the fact that he runs a vanilla server let those people enjoy their 18 fps and void chunks and we’ll get into some data packs that can make the game a lot more enjoyable some data packs are just for fun but one that is an absolute must is

Multiplayer sleep the chances of aligning all players online sleeping at once is very low on a server with two or three more players online at a time so go ahead and add that to your server as soon as possible other data packs like anti creeper grease show curse dropping

Two shells and improved crafting recipes can really enhance your players experience but it should be a community decision to add any data packs that significantly altered the gameplay I personally chose to model unities data packs off of the hermit craft server as they are sort of the golden standard for

Community oriented vanilla servers but you can pick and choose how you want your server to be and install data packs that achieve that goal so let’s review the things I’ve covered in this video I know it’s been a lot of talking and not a whole lot of snappy editing so here

The bullet points be active on your server if you aren’t there both in game and on discord for your players they won’t stick around and your community will begin to fade be seen as a resource not as an admin your players should feel comfortable talking to you you should be

A friend and a fellow player not just the big bad owner communicate with your community ensure that your players know they have a voice and that that voice is respected by you and your admins this not only gives a better sense of community but will also lead to your

Players respecting you and your decisions as they know you aren’t just a dictator maintain a constant flow of new players into the community getting new players involved while you still have an active player base ensures that the server won’t as there is always a steady rotation of

Players there to fill up the tab list create opportunities for new and current players to interact in low pressure environments whether it’s through community projects or server wide events you want to make sure your players can fill it involved regardless of how far along they are in the game and lastly

Through back-end solutions and data packs improve the multiplayer experience for your players if the server runs poorly and has no cool features they might choose to move on alright that’s all I’ve got for now hope you found this helpful or at least somewhat interesting and until next time bye [Applause]