Preface: This thread is entirely opinion. It is not meant to spark hate or start any wars or anything. This is all just personal preference of mine. There is no such thing as a perfect server, this is just the stuff I like to see. I don't play Minecraft enough for my opinion to matter for real.
Hello everyone! ProjectKorra has really taken off with now over 200 public servers using the plugin. There are several types of servers that are around, you can find a decent amount of them on the server list. From time to time I hop on a few servers on the list to check to see how they are doing. Some of them are run well, some aren't. Some have minor things that really bring down the server enough to where I don't even want to think about playing it (because realistically, I don't play on many at all).
But what qualifies me to talk about such a thing? I ran a Minecraft server for a little over two years. I sort of have an idea of what works and what doesn't. I know first hand what makes players leave and what makes them stay (but again, there isn't a fool proof algorithm involved).
Spawn
This is really the first thing people will notice. Your server spawn can often decide who stays and who goes. Your spawn should be nice, it should be neat, however, I often find servers over-doing it. Their spawn will become over-complicated, full of signs that, to be honest, nobody reads, full of the holographic text that clutters your screen, and impossible to leave.
This doesn't mean spawns shouldn't be minimalistic, like just a dirt block or something like that. This is the first impression someone has of your server. The reaction should be "woah", not "why?". A lot of people feel the need to clutter their spawn with all of the information on their server, and don't realize that there are several other ways to get information across (Books are always a great idea). My personal preference is a spawn that is easy to navigate, clean, and to the point. I don't need to tour the whole world of Avatar before I can even play. Yes, tutorials are cool and all, and I think I've hammered this point enough. But to make the point clear: If I have to think about how to leave your spawn (Meaning it isn't just walking out the door), I'll probably leave your server.
Chat
So your spawn is decent and I've decided to stay for a couple of minutes. This is the next thing that changes my mind almost IMMEDIATELY. It is by far my #1 pet peeve with most Minecraft servers. ProjectKorra provides a nice way to keep your chat clean - use it. Chats really, in my opinion, should not be more than this:
[Rank] Name: <message>
And even then the rank isn't always necessary. The name should be the color of the element, the message should be white. The rank should be some color that stands out, but isn't blinding. I was always a fan of the dark aqua color (&9 is the code).
However, when I see names such as:
[FACTION GOD][KUVIRA LOVER][KINDA EARTHBENDER][FIREBENDER][FORMER AVATAR][MODERATOR] stupidname: who even cares what the message says at this point
It makes me leave the server almost immediately. The rainbow colors / bold text are the worst too. They're hard to read and they look stupid.
Donation Perks
This is something that really gets a lot of people. A lot of people believe that in order to bring in donations (and profit - which is abysmal, but different topic for a different time) you must offer these stupid overpowered donor perks that are both against the EULA and pay-to-win. This is horrible. What I found is that if you run a half decent server, players will contribute to keep it alive. However, it is nice to reward players for such perks. The main sell back when I ran a server was the ability to set more than one home, tpa, or change your element. Selling diamond tools and weapons on a bending server is NEVER a good idea. (Really depends on the server for real).
Also, create some fair way to determine Avatar. You shouldn't have more than one, and nobody other than the Avatar should bend more than one element. Don't be ridiculous. Please.
Server Icon / MOTD
This is something that can make your server look extremely professional. If you have a clean MOTD on the server list and a nice icon, it goes a LONG way. However, if it looks like it was poorly drawn in Microsoft paint, and your MOTD contains no real information and is just spam, it looks bad and I never want to look at your server.
Chat
I've already covered this, but I'm really passionate about it.
Forum / Website
This is a personal thing for me. A nice forum / website is always a plus for a server, especially one that is up to date and active. This is the best place to store any information you need and really makes your server more of a community. When your server becomes a community, people stick around.
There are several free forum options out there, some better than others. Some cost money and are usually worth it. (For example: Look at how nice the ProjectKorra Website / Forum is, I didn't get it for free, but it sure as hell feels like a community). If you go through the server list and click on the websites, it becomes clear who puts times in it and who doesn't. There are too many tools available to not have a place to put your server information up.
When I ran a server, and it was fairly active and had a tight knit community, the forum was an essential part of everything. The discussions we had there really kept the server going. It allows for the staff to interact with the player base and it's an all around good time.
However, the only thing worse than not having a forum / website is not keeping it updated. So if you have one, use it.
Voting
This is a thing and I really don't understand why. Most servers that promote voting, don't get enough votes to make a difference (you need a significant amount to do anything). On top of that, you give out ridiculous awards for it and irritate the hell out of your users until they do it. If you feel like this is an absolute must, go for it. Just don't go overboard. Everything is fine in Moderation.
Factions
I'm personally not a big fan of factions, but it doesn't make a server unplayable. What will make a server unplayable is when all of the land around spawn is claimed and you can't do anything without walking through 1,000 other faction's land and there is no supporting documentation other than the commands.
Just because you have used factions for years does not mean everyone else has. Documentation is key to running a plugin like Factions (or ProjectKorra). It isn't something that is necessarily easy for everyone to jump into, keep that in mind.
Rules
What I learned from running a server is that you can't assume that things are common-sense. If it isn't written down somewhere, someone will violate it. However, you know it is excessive when your rules take anywhere more than 10 minutes to read.
I'll be the first to admit I had a bit of an extensive rules list, and most were common sense. However, you did not have to type /rules to read them, nor were you required to walk past a million signs to read them 4 lines at a time. When you signed in, a link popped up, you were told to click it and you were held accountable for knowing them. That was it. We didn't have much problems with rule violations in comparison to servers where people just ran past the signs (we tried that at one point and it was bad).
Addon Abilities
One of the coolest parts of ProjectKorra is the modular function to it. Addon abilities will really allow servers to be diverse and unique, however, nothing is worse than having a million different addons on your server and only 5 of them are even worth using. A lot of addons are duplicates of abilities that already exist or aren't really "all the way" done. (I won't talk about which ones).
We have tried to craft a balanced plugin, and many install addons and it throws the balance off (and then they complain about an element being OP). Addons can be a good thing, just remember, everything in Moderation.
Spawn Kits / Books
If I spawn on your server with a full set of armor / weapons I leave. Simple as that. It's a game based on Survival and being the capitalist that I am, I like to work for the stuff I have and not have it handed to me. The best part of Minecraft, in my opinion, is building up your empire or whatever from absolutely nothing. Being able to do that is what makes the game what it is to me. I hate that servers feel the need to help players out with that, as it usually isn't even that hard to do. (Food in Moderation is nice).
Many servers use books to inform players of things as they sign on. This is cool, do it. However, it is pretty bad to have a hotbar full of books as soon as you login. Nobody reads them. When I ran a server we had several books, however, you only spawned with 2. Rules and General Server Information (i.e. who the staff is, how we select the avatar, and what the different worlds are for). The rest of the books were available via a command. If a player needed a guide on Airbending, they would use a command like /book Air and it would give them a guide. This worked. I don't remember the plugin I used, if I did I would recommend it ^^. (It is/was on Bukkit)
Raiding / PvP
The coolest thing about this plugin is that is makes PvP / Combat so much more interesting. Why run a Bending server without PvP?
Also, raiding and being able to conquer makes the game fun, this is a completely personal opinion of mine. When servers have griefing / raiding completely disabled using a plugin like this one, I tend not to stick around. It doesn't have to be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible / illegal.
Thoughts / Comments / Concerns?
Hello everyone! ProjectKorra has really taken off with now over 200 public servers using the plugin. There are several types of servers that are around, you can find a decent amount of them on the server list. From time to time I hop on a few servers on the list to check to see how they are doing. Some of them are run well, some aren't. Some have minor things that really bring down the server enough to where I don't even want to think about playing it (because realistically, I don't play on many at all).
But what qualifies me to talk about such a thing? I ran a Minecraft server for a little over two years. I sort of have an idea of what works and what doesn't. I know first hand what makes players leave and what makes them stay (but again, there isn't a fool proof algorithm involved).
Spawn
This is really the first thing people will notice. Your server spawn can often decide who stays and who goes. Your spawn should be nice, it should be neat, however, I often find servers over-doing it. Their spawn will become over-complicated, full of signs that, to be honest, nobody reads, full of the holographic text that clutters your screen, and impossible to leave.
This doesn't mean spawns shouldn't be minimalistic, like just a dirt block or something like that. This is the first impression someone has of your server. The reaction should be "woah", not "why?". A lot of people feel the need to clutter their spawn with all of the information on their server, and don't realize that there are several other ways to get information across (Books are always a great idea). My personal preference is a spawn that is easy to navigate, clean, and to the point. I don't need to tour the whole world of Avatar before I can even play. Yes, tutorials are cool and all, and I think I've hammered this point enough. But to make the point clear: If I have to think about how to leave your spawn (Meaning it isn't just walking out the door), I'll probably leave your server.
Chat
So your spawn is decent and I've decided to stay for a couple of minutes. This is the next thing that changes my mind almost IMMEDIATELY. It is by far my #1 pet peeve with most Minecraft servers. ProjectKorra provides a nice way to keep your chat clean - use it. Chats really, in my opinion, should not be more than this:
[Rank] Name: <message>
And even then the rank isn't always necessary. The name should be the color of the element, the message should be white. The rank should be some color that stands out, but isn't blinding. I was always a fan of the dark aqua color (&9 is the code).
However, when I see names such as:
[FACTION GOD][KUVIRA LOVER][KINDA EARTHBENDER][FIREBENDER][FORMER AVATAR][MODERATOR] stupidname: who even cares what the message says at this point
It makes me leave the server almost immediately. The rainbow colors / bold text are the worst too. They're hard to read and they look stupid.
Donation Perks
This is something that really gets a lot of people. A lot of people believe that in order to bring in donations (and profit - which is abysmal, but different topic for a different time) you must offer these stupid overpowered donor perks that are both against the EULA and pay-to-win. This is horrible. What I found is that if you run a half decent server, players will contribute to keep it alive. However, it is nice to reward players for such perks. The main sell back when I ran a server was the ability to set more than one home, tpa, or change your element. Selling diamond tools and weapons on a bending server is NEVER a good idea. (Really depends on the server for real).
Also, create some fair way to determine Avatar. You shouldn't have more than one, and nobody other than the Avatar should bend more than one element. Don't be ridiculous. Please.
Server Icon / MOTD
This is something that can make your server look extremely professional. If you have a clean MOTD on the server list and a nice icon, it goes a LONG way. However, if it looks like it was poorly drawn in Microsoft paint, and your MOTD contains no real information and is just spam, it looks bad and I never want to look at your server.
Chat
I've already covered this, but I'm really passionate about it.
Forum / Website
This is a personal thing for me. A nice forum / website is always a plus for a server, especially one that is up to date and active. This is the best place to store any information you need and really makes your server more of a community. When your server becomes a community, people stick around.
There are several free forum options out there, some better than others. Some cost money and are usually worth it. (For example: Look at how nice the ProjectKorra Website / Forum is, I didn't get it for free, but it sure as hell feels like a community). If you go through the server list and click on the websites, it becomes clear who puts times in it and who doesn't. There are too many tools available to not have a place to put your server information up.
When I ran a server, and it was fairly active and had a tight knit community, the forum was an essential part of everything. The discussions we had there really kept the server going. It allows for the staff to interact with the player base and it's an all around good time.
However, the only thing worse than not having a forum / website is not keeping it updated. So if you have one, use it.
Voting
This is a thing and I really don't understand why. Most servers that promote voting, don't get enough votes to make a difference (you need a significant amount to do anything). On top of that, you give out ridiculous awards for it and irritate the hell out of your users until they do it. If you feel like this is an absolute must, go for it. Just don't go overboard. Everything is fine in Moderation.
Factions
I'm personally not a big fan of factions, but it doesn't make a server unplayable. What will make a server unplayable is when all of the land around spawn is claimed and you can't do anything without walking through 1,000 other faction's land and there is no supporting documentation other than the commands.
Just because you have used factions for years does not mean everyone else has. Documentation is key to running a plugin like Factions (or ProjectKorra). It isn't something that is necessarily easy for everyone to jump into, keep that in mind.
Rules
What I learned from running a server is that you can't assume that things are common-sense. If it isn't written down somewhere, someone will violate it. However, you know it is excessive when your rules take anywhere more than 10 minutes to read.
I'll be the first to admit I had a bit of an extensive rules list, and most were common sense. However, you did not have to type /rules to read them, nor were you required to walk past a million signs to read them 4 lines at a time. When you signed in, a link popped up, you were told to click it and you were held accountable for knowing them. That was it. We didn't have much problems with rule violations in comparison to servers where people just ran past the signs (we tried that at one point and it was bad).
Addon Abilities
One of the coolest parts of ProjectKorra is the modular function to it. Addon abilities will really allow servers to be diverse and unique, however, nothing is worse than having a million different addons on your server and only 5 of them are even worth using. A lot of addons are duplicates of abilities that already exist or aren't really "all the way" done. (I won't talk about which ones).
We have tried to craft a balanced plugin, and many install addons and it throws the balance off (and then they complain about an element being OP). Addons can be a good thing, just remember, everything in Moderation.
Spawn Kits / Books
If I spawn on your server with a full set of armor / weapons I leave. Simple as that. It's a game based on Survival and being the capitalist that I am, I like to work for the stuff I have and not have it handed to me. The best part of Minecraft, in my opinion, is building up your empire or whatever from absolutely nothing. Being able to do that is what makes the game what it is to me. I hate that servers feel the need to help players out with that, as it usually isn't even that hard to do. (Food in Moderation is nice).
Many servers use books to inform players of things as they sign on. This is cool, do it. However, it is pretty bad to have a hotbar full of books as soon as you login. Nobody reads them. When I ran a server we had several books, however, you only spawned with 2. Rules and General Server Information (i.e. who the staff is, how we select the avatar, and what the different worlds are for). The rest of the books were available via a command. If a player needed a guide on Airbending, they would use a command like /book Air and it would give them a guide. This worked. I don't remember the plugin I used, if I did I would recommend it ^^. (It is/was on Bukkit)
Raiding / PvP
The coolest thing about this plugin is that is makes PvP / Combat so much more interesting. Why run a Bending server without PvP?
Also, raiding and being able to conquer makes the game fun, this is a completely personal opinion of mine. When servers have griefing / raiding completely disabled using a plugin like this one, I tend not to stick around. It doesn't have to be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible / illegal.
Thoughts / Comments / Concerns?
