This is a very important post for anyone looking to become a Hytale server-owner/content-creator, I know many people who are itching to start up the next Wynncraft/DungeonRealms for when Hytale comes out. Even as a almost nine-year Minecraft veteran, I still had much to learn to handle the workload from all the players I had. I hope the knowledge I spread about running a Minecraft server can apply to starting up a Hytale-related business. I also plan on coding and working on this gamemode from scratch, which has received very much praise from people I’ve talked to and I have gotten approval from the people at r/competitiveminecraft. When I launch this gamemode, I will make an another post on what it’s like to start up something as big as a project like that.
Flash forward a year ago, after the Hytale trailer had came out, I was preparing to learn everything I could so I could work on a Hytale server network. I watched many videos on running servers, refreshed my knowledge on coding Bukkit plugins, and, did my research on fallen successful servers.
Very clearly none of that knowledge could be used due to Hytale’s delay, but, a month ago, I realized that there was a perfect opportunity to use that knowledge towards starting a Minecraft server.
When everything was getting cancelled because of COVID-19, I started up a faction-based Minecraft server. Through word-of-mouth and some advertising my server had grown to 150 concurrent players in the first couple of days. This was when everyone’s school got cancelled for a week, with the following week for many to either have distance learning or school cancelled entirely. To this day I currently have a decent concurrent player-count of 30 players. I put in around $200 of my own money in hosting fees, and I have gotten over $1,000 in donations out through over 200 hours of work running the server.
Yesterday I recently paid the server bills. After doing so, I went to reflect on the amount of work I’ve put into my server. In the first week of my server coming out, I woke up, would work on my server, take breaks to eat and drink, go to sleep, and then wake up the next day again to continue working. I did this for an entire week, and, while it was stressing, it was the most alive I’ve felt in years.
These tasks involved installing and configuring plugins, finding plugins, keeping the server running, dealing with hackers and problematic players, hiring staff, setting up the discord, setting up a Tebex, and more.
Every time (and still now) when I take a couple hour break from my business Discord, I always come back to around 5-10 DMs. I recently had to make my Discord status invisible 24/7 as I can’t handle the workload. I went from getting a DM every couple of weeks, to getting DMs from tens of people a day in my first week.
I estimate for the past month that I put around 150-200 hours of work through running this server. I never made a network or bought a setup, I installed and configured all the plugins from scratch, had to skim through Minecraft plugin tutorials to learn how to use Luckperms, Worldguard, FastAsyncWorldEdit, and other plugins.
With many of the resources given for free on the Spigot website, it made my life a lot easier. But it was still difficult. I had reports of staff abuse (and am still learning how to hire good staff), plugins conflicting with each other, exploits, and hacking. it was a lot of stress. Whenever I installed a plugin I had to go in and set permissions for the default players. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun.
How can this apply to Hytale? It’s very clear. History will repeat. To this day there are tons of drama in the Minecraft community and within individual server communities. Not one month had passed and many of us had to witness the drama between the two big Hytale startup giants attempting to monetize the community from the start.
There is a lot of money in the Hytale community, as there is in the Minecraft community. After time flies, players will flock to one server, one website. Hypixel is the one who won the server wars and holds most of the market cap. If you study business, in an over-saturated market, the winner takes it all. That’s why Mineplex, the second biggest network is standing at thousands of players while the number one network can barely hold the demand of 100K. The biggest HCF server, VeltPVP took it all, with the former owner making at one point 250K month, and in total 2.5 million before selling the company.
When Hytale does come out, there will be competition, but, there won’t be as much competition as there is in the Minecraft industry. If you start a survival or faction server today you are competing with the thousands of other servers. There will be no countless free plugins on Spigot to start off with, you will either need to wait on that casual developer to rewrite Towny or Factions which could take weeks. There will be no world protection, staff report plugins, Skript, or anything at the beginning. The people who either have developers or can develop and run a server will be the first ones to grab the piece of the Hytale pie.
Once the OP faction/prison, HCF, and network server owners decide that it is time to expand to Hytale with their limitless money to throw at developers, your chance for this window of opportunity closes. That could be the first couple of years, months, or even weeks. Take advantage of your time now to prepare, to learn to run a server, write plugins, and to create. Save your money for whatever tools you’ll need, whether it’s for Adobe Creative Cloud, a Wacom tablet, or server hosting costs. If Hytale hadn’t been announced last year, my server launch would have been an absolute disaster from the inches away it was from.
I had money saved up for a year to start up a Hytale server network in the future, and, I happened to use that money to buy servers to handle the load of the first week. The knowledge I learned from the servers that died at the beginning allowed me to know exactly what to do and expect. I could barely handle the load, but, I made it.
We will have the people very passionate about creating and will give away their stuff for free just because they truly want people to experience their creations. But, the P2W servers will always win. They have the money, but, they lack the creativity because everyone is attempting to buy the same MC-Market setups and start up the exact same server. If you have a unique idea, write it down, make a prototype in Minecraft, to see what you will need in the future.
I want the people with unique ideas to succeed, but, your MMO will have no chance when the large networks take control of 95% of the player market, which, is what is going on right now. The only way to get players on your server today is to throw thousands of dollars at server list slots and large you-tubers. Your starting capital will have to be thousands of dollars today to even get a chance. I simply got lucky because of COVID-19 which allowed me to get around that.
If you can’t develop, look for people who can. If you can’t make art, look for people who can. Do a profit share deal. If you can’t do that when you don’t have a budget, you are screwed. Save your money for server hosting costs and hiring developers. Most importantly, if you have any friends, ask for their help in the future.
If you don’t feel like reading this whole post I wrote (don’t be ashamed, I had to skim through tons of videos and r/admincraft posts to get by this past month!) here are the key pointers.
Running a server/business is a lot of stress. Know that bad things will happen and be mentally prepared for it.
When Hytale comes out there will be no setups, templates, plugins, art, for you to use at the start. To the artists and plugin developers, it’s your time to shine. To the server owners, look for developers or learn how to code yourself as there is nothing you can do until you obtain plugins you need to get up and running. If want to be the first Hytale towny server, you’ll need to work for it. People make a lot of money from writing plugins and there will be people starting up who will pay $10-$50 for your Hytale rewrite of Factions until the people who want to give away their stuff for free show up.
If you have no money, there is a window of opportunity for when Hytale releases to start up the next server/server network. You don’t have to be original either, there will be the demand for SMP and Faction servers. You barely need any money to start, but, you should save up.
Most of the business losers on MC-Market aren’t very creative but they do know how suck as much money out of their players as possible. You can compete with them, but, you’ll need to do something so fun and unique that you’ll get word-of-mouth to beat them. Many of us here don’t have a couple thousand dollars to bribe youtubers into promoting our servers, but, the people who know how to monetize the living hell out of Minecraft do. I’ve gotten many players through word-of-mouth which has helped me tremendously. A player I didn’t even know of brought someone my server to purchase a $200 rank. Word-of-mouth works.
Save your money, build a network of people who can help you if you decide to start up a server or network. If you are an independent 2D/3D artist, or plugin developer, just keep doing you and building up your knowledge. Challenge yourself and prepare to create stuff from scratch as you have no templates to go off of other than what has worked for Minecraft.
I hope many of you have learned something from reading this post. I now need to get back to working on my server and Dimension Wars.
By the way… If it does succeed in Minecraft, I’ll be very happy to create a version for Hytale.
3 votes and 2 comments so far on Reddit
