Making An Rp Server

[River 555]

How to: RP Server

 

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So time in and time again, we have all heard the "New roleplay" server that a random lotc player has left to start in hopes of vanquishing lotc and rising to the top, and time in and time again, we've seen just about every server fail. It's a joke. This post is to list off some things that someone (probably from this server because it will always happen) has to meet to EVEN CONSIDER making a new roleplay server. This post is less a way to show people the path of how to even make a notable attempt of making an rp server, and more a deterant to all of those who decide they want to create their own roleplay server.

 

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GOALS

Alright, the first step in creating a roleplay server, is thinking what you want to focus on. LotC has gone between different shades of roleplay, the aegis rpg elements, Asulon full on roleplay, moderate rp with pvp and full faction based server in a roleplay environment. You have to decide what you want your players to be doing, and build off of that. For the sake of argument and the direction this post will go in the other sections, we'll go for a mix between aegis and asulon. A large map with a large number of biomes, special regions with something around each corner, and the rpg elements that will help people explore, and the mix of a grand adventure and threat of a great evil that brings all the races together.

 

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TEAM

The next step in even thinking of making a roleplay server, is gathering very, very capable people in each of the respected areas. Server managment and console knowledge, an experienced lore writer, a plugin developer, and someone familiar with events who can tell a story, and make use of different elements to make the server "fun." Once you have your team to start theory crafting and lore writing, you'll need to spend about 2 months theory crafting for the server and writing lore.

 

Also, make sure your group isn't a circle jerk, and that you've actually taken your time to seek people who are very very good at what their job is, and not just a friend who is sligtly capable or "could" do it. You should keep this mentality when building your staff. Keep your staff small, but good at their jobs.

 

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EXPERIENCE

If you do not have experience being from start to finish on decently successful servers, other servers or a long standing position on an lotc staff position, do not even bother. I say one reason these new servers drop like flies is because the people developing them are developing them for the wrong reasons, and have a major lack of experience developing.

 

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MAP

The next step comes in making a map for your server. This will vary depending on what you want for your server, there is no point in labeling your server as "a roleplay server". You have to decide what exactly, you want your servers roleplay to encompass, and your players ingame experience.

 

Assuming we're going for a large adventure based map with every kind of biome similar to Asulon, you'll need a WORLD PAINTED MAP, somewhere 6k - 6k minimum. Keeping in mind you're going to have every kind of biome, and you'll need every type of terrain, all done at a moderate level using world painting skill. 

 

Here are some general tips when you're planning other things. Think of how many races, their culture, and where they might be placed so that you can use that information when making the map. You want the map to be huge, but think of putting the server spawn and main area where the races and spawn will be in the middle so there's room to expand in every direction. 

 

Make sure your cities or villages aren't more than a 5 minute walk from spawn, that is crucial, don't think fast travel is a solution because it's not when it comes to the distance from spawn to those racial capitals or starting points. Another point, is DO NOT IMPLEMENT ROAD SIDE PLOTS, IT'S F*****G STUPID, and is cancer, anyone in their right mind who has seen the transition from Asulon to 3.0 has seen that it's one of the obvious factors in lotc becoming less of a roleplaying server and more of a pvp faction based server (Says at least 30 people I've talked to randomly, with not a single one saying otherwise). But then again, it comes to what you agreed on for the development stage for what you want your server to be.

 

Another point, is if you're going to make a large map, with biomes and a reason for someone to go there, here's another tip that I'm surprised roleplaying servers aren't doing, when it adds so much immersion. Is use MythicMobs, it's past due that roleplaying servers are still sticking to vanilla mob spawning when it could be modified. Instead of having random mob spawns in those custom biomes, have animals with custom drops bound to certain regions, have boars in dwarvish areas, bears, goats turkey and ducks. Invest in it, there is no reason you shouldn't, it solves the (not really an issue, but something that could be improved majorly) the dull useless regions on the map that serve no purpose but 1 time events, if unique mobs spawn there with unique drops.

 

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CENTRALIZED RP

Like I said earlier, this one focus point is key, your roleplay hubs need to be close together, 4-7 minutes is a healthy walk so long as there's something to do along the way, and bam. Have mythicmobs along the transitions of areas and biomes from one to another as people travel to other locations.

 

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PLUGINS

You need a professions plugin of some kind, you need to think of gameplay needs that need to be satisfied by players. If you expect "roleplay" to be the only thing that keeps players on your server, YOU ARE WRONG, AND YOU WILL FAIL. You're going to have some kind of professions/skills plugin, at the very least, McMMO configured for your server. The other plugins need to help support the idea of role playing, and not support PvP, but then again, that'd depend on what your goal was to begin with. Make sure you have plugins that support the ideals you want to create.

 

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GOING PUBLIC

If you're secretly gathered everyone you need to make your server, and you want to do this secretly, you're going to have to make your server in secret, over half of your server development time will be spent in secret, because the earlier you tell people you're making a server, the longer and less likely it is you'll get off your feet. Also, the longer people know about it, the less likely it is they'll stick around to see the end.

 

2 months is the perfect time to go public with all your friends and other people. 2 months before you launch, and this means your server has to be nearly DONE  when this happens. Make sure you advertise on local Minecraft forums and sites, try to spend the rest of the time advertising. 

 

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TIME SCALING REVIEW

So, in order yo even think of making a roleplay server, you have to have been in development FOR AT LEAST 8 MONTHS. This is assuming you have the best of the best at your disposal with a tremendous amount of experience in the kind of server you want to achieve, 2 months of planning server rules and server mechanics, depending on how good you are at world painting, it could take you a few days, a week, or 2 months to make an amazing map Another 4-5 months at least going around each biome making it look amazing, adding areas of interest so those areas aren't completely useless, adding mythic mobs (or skip those steps all together.) and depending on the size of the builds and number of builds, somewhere around 2 days for a village with the highest tier builders lotc has known, maybe a week for mediocre builders, and if you can't build faster than that, there are issues A large city could take a higher tier builder maybe... a month?. Then another 2 months of advertising before your launch, or, you can launch at any time except November or December, you could theoretically launch any time of the year except those times. The latter stages of summer is alright but still not as good as January - Summer start.

 

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CONCLUSION

So if you're not capable of putting around a year of development into your server, there's little chance it would be taken seriously, or if any of these other steps haven't been taken it couldn't be taken seriously.

 

If you're making a server to spite lotc, to get away from it, just for fun with your friends, those are the wrong reasons for trying to make a roleplay server. Unless you, and other people developing it are trying to make a roleplay server on the sole purpose of trying to make a fun environment for roleplayers bringing a lot more to the table than what the current megapower provides (lotc) then don't bother.

 

Keep in mind, a lot of this is variable, and a lot of what making a server in general is variable and dependent on what you aim to achieve. It just matters about how satisfying your end result is and how devoted you are to the idea. If you can't spend this much time, don't even bother. 90% of those random servers will come up in 2 months, 4 months, 7 months max on average, you just need a lot more work, and much, much higher quality.

 

I guess the reality of the situation, is DON'T make a roleplay server. It's a waste of time, and it will very much, statisticly fail. Unless you're confident you can follow this, and feel as though you were born to make the server you want to make.

[River 555]

And just if you skip over it or don't get the message, the basic idea is don't do it.

[Space 2335]

I think the largest reason LotC is successful is due to it being one of the first RP servers.

[lawnmowerman 3040]

Pretty sure you shouldn't be advertising other servers etc. on the forums, maybe that's just me.

 

Anyways...

 

 

[GodEmperorFlam 3447]

 

And just if you skip over it or don't get the message, the basic idea is don't do it.

 

[River 555]

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Pretty sure you shouldn't be advertising other servers etc. on the forums, maybe that's just me.

 

Anyways...

 

 

 

I probably should have added another "In case you skip or don't get the massage of this post..." so I'll say is now.

 

"In case you skip over the rest of this post or don't get the message, this is in no way advertising any server"

 

As to Space's comment, it was successful because it started when minecraft was popular, pulled an Arberak and said it was the best in it's genre so it morphed into it. It started out as a mix between of an RPG and RP server, and the reason it's still alive is because there is no where else, and all their friends are here, plus this is a place someone can always come back to because of that.

[mmat 7460]

Lord of the Craft has World of Warcraft syndrome. Not needing anything too new or innovative, just consistent quality. And all of it's competitors are terrible.

[Hiebe 2493]

People stay cause they dont want to start anew. Other servers have better ways of working but wont be able to cash in on the fact Lotc was the first. It will only doe of two ways, shutting itself down, or too many people.leaving at one time.

[Free The Hobbits 859]

whats with the weird links in the post?

[JVQ 1719]

ur making ur own server tho

[River 555]

ur making ur own server tho

There's an exception to everything, and not going to talk about that here. 

[XSKip 40]

Lord of the Craft has World of Warcraft syndrome. Not needing anything too new or innovative, just consistent quality. And all of it's competitors are terrible.

[Cyndikate 2303]

I think the largest reason LotC is successful is due to it being one of the first RP servers.

And the largest

[argonian 14254]

Whenever someone makes an RP server, they can never attract enough players quick enough. The players that join get bored because there aren't enough other players so they leave and then the server dies. Either that or most of the players they attract are LOTC players who end up leaving really fast because they miss their friends or whatever.

 

I remember with LoA, tons of LOTCers and others joined on the first few days and there was like 80 at peak times(on the very first day there was way more again). Then most of the LOTC people left and the server suddenly had 20 people on at peak times. A lot of the remaining players got bored and left because of this. That server did a lot wrong but even if it did everything right it probably wouldn't have survived. LOTC is just too big and the amount of people interested in Minecraft RP servers is too small.

 

Availer was a great owner and he gave the server a great start. The server became really popular and continued to grow throughout Aegis. He did a lot of things right and the server was fun when Minecraft was all the rage. Word spread and the server grew exponentially. The MC forum thread was active and there were lots of highly viewed Youtube videos of the server. At some point in Aegis it reached the point of no return where the server became too big to die. No matter how annoyed or bored people get, they'll always come back. The new player retention rate is low but there's still players from 4 years ago here and that's not something very many other servers can say. So LOTC will continue to live and kill off any competitors in their infancy for a few more years I reckon. By that point Minecraft will be way less popular and the playerbase for RP servers on it will be tiny and nearly non-existent.

[Cooonie 55]

as long as LoTC continues to grow (at the rate in which it is expanding currently) it will always be superior to the other RP servers out there. Let's just say that LoTC is a seed that Availer planted, but swore  never to tamper with it unless it was absolutely necessary. That's exactly what he did. He let the seed grow independently- in other words, the server wouldn't have grown without us. We were water and soil to that seed, we gave it nutrients to grow. That's what I believed what made this server to be so successful. We're not one of those communist RP servers in which one group or person decides the flow of the story. We're one big community :) and thats why you should be friends with good ol' zilean. 

 

i did this just to get closer to 666 posts.