Advice for anyone starting a Minecraft server.

[Damarioecom]

Hi,
I've seen on this forum that there's too many people spending money on detailed custom plugins and websites. In my personal opinion, if you don't have a huge budget (under $1000) you should create a well known game mode such as Skyblock which requires minimal investment and then just put all your money into advertising. People like to play on a server that has a good community and a thriving economy. You can have all these special features but if the economy and community is dead people won't continue to stay on the server. People donate to servers to get a head of other players and to be the best, you need to have a good community for that. Remember that people don't donate to a server the minute they join, you need to keep them active and on the server for a long period of time and a thriving economy and community is the best way.

I believe the reason people put a majority of their money into builds, plugins etc instead of advertising is because of the risk factor. When paying for a build or plugin you know that you're going to get that product. Advertising has the fear of the unknown. You don't know if the method will be affective or if people will even donate. Often people get past the building of the server but then end up selling it due to this fear. Selling it does not turn much of a profit, you need to take risk because without risk there is no reward. Focus on what the players want and will pay for, not what you want. Once you've built capital from these servers you can then venture into more detailed and customized servers.

Thanks.

 

[Damarioecom]

I usually never pay for custom plugins unless I really need it. Builds? I just get some free ones on the internet and modify them a little. Or then I just get non-exclusive ones for super cheap price. I tend to put tons of money into advertising actually, perhaps that is what makes my servers succeed?

dw you also must know where to put the ad money to lol otherwise u wont get nothing

Building the brand and having quality look is important and shouldn't be looked over. It's not necessary to have everything custom but having quality builds and plugin configurations will be. Most people overspend on cores and custom plugins where there are already free versions and overspending on hosting with a dedicated server. I recommend for advertising that you find YouTubers within your price range and contact them directly via their business email which is usually listed in their about page. The typical price would be $10 per thousand views but this can vary depending on how many video's you pay for and if the YouTuber actually knows their worth, if you search around you can usually find a deal.

 

[inferno]

I feel like you make a good point but are missing many key features. Per example, custom plugins allow a lot of space for customization and to add anything you'd like. Not many public plugin devs will share to you their source code or allow edits. Builds too, you want to look professional, get your own builds and make your server unique.

 

[Damarioecom]

I feel like you make a good point but are missing many key features. Per example, custom plugins allow a lot of space for customization and to add anything you'd like. Not many public plugin devs will share to you their source code or allow edits. Builds too, you want to look professional, get your own builds and make your server unique.

I definitely believe you need custom builds but people often have custom plugins made when it’s unnecessary and it’s often better to put that money into advertising.