It's great to see people announcing servers here. It's disheartening to see how little response they receive (in most cases). A lot of work goes into setting up a decent, stable server.
Personally, I really like playing on servers.
Pros
* Playing the game with other people makes the Minecraft world seem more alive
* Finding a friend or two to build a base with is fun, makes everything easier and faster
* It's also fun to have a few enemies, the greatest play experiences involve healthy competition
* A good spawn area makes you feel like you are playing on a quality server
* Standard Bukkit commands like /home and /tpa are handy timesavers
* Because there's no possibility of cheats (no NEI cheats on a server) you play the game as it's intended
* If you know how to play, PvP and griefing (if allowed) actually enhance the game
Cons
* The big public servers (like SkyWars) full of whiny, entitled kids are not so fun (but I'd hope a Galacticraft server would not be like that)
* Foul / juvenile language in chat is a turn off - depends on good moderators or chat filters (or turn off chat)
* There's always some risk of griefing, even on "no grief" servers there will always eventually be some guy who finds a workaround (so protect yourself - keep your base or storage rooms well hidden, have a backup storage somewhere so you don't lose everything - EnderChest?)
* Always a risk of arbitrary owner / admin decisions - e.g. map resets, bans, modlist update which takes out your favourite mod
* Always a risk that the server will close at any time due to lack of funding / support - this really sucks if you spent 1 month building a really great base on it
If you are a player on a newly setup server, I think as a player you have a right to ask about their funding arrangements.
The reality is most servers are run by guys who are still at school (maybe under the age of 18), and don't last even 2/3 months. In North America a server needs income of typically $100-200 a month to cover server hosting costs, domain name, website, DDOS protection, etc. The owner won't want to pay that himself. He might pay it the first month, and the server will close down in month 2 if there is not enough income. Most servers operate a "donations" model but realistically that won't produce enough income unless there are 200+ active players on the server, and it's tough for a new server to get that many.
So where does this leave players?
IMHO the best options are:
1) Established large public modded servers, which have typically 50-100 players online any time you look (that means they probably have 1000+ regular active players) - these are more likely to last the distance, take a look at their website and community / forum pages to get an idea. Even so, they will still arbitrarily take a server offline if it is not making enough money.
Warning: servers which use BungeeCord and a lobby system to link several different servers together report their total numbers when reporting the number of players online - it might only be 5 people on the Galacticraft server, so beware.
Normally public servers will be offering a popular modpack (like Tekkit or FTB or one of the other modpacks available through those launchers) to make sure that average players all use the same modpack.
2) Niche servers with a loyal community - for example servers with a custom modpack which is well-supported.
3) Servers which do not need funding for some reason - maybe somebody set one up in their home or as a project at a college IT department? If there is a good internet connection (fibre) there's no reason why this type of homebrew server is any less good than a server hosted by a hosting company.
4) Private servers for you and your friends - but this only works as long as your friends want to keep on playing Minecraft as long as you do (like the guys in the famous YouTube vids...)
This makes it tough for new servers to get started, obviously. A new server really needs a ready made community or guaranteed funding for the first few months.
Personally, I really like playing on servers.
Pros
* Playing the game with other people makes the Minecraft world seem more alive
* Finding a friend or two to build a base with is fun, makes everything easier and faster
* It's also fun to have a few enemies, the greatest play experiences involve healthy competition
* A good spawn area makes you feel like you are playing on a quality server
* Standard Bukkit commands like /home and /tpa are handy timesavers
* Because there's no possibility of cheats (no NEI cheats on a server) you play the game as it's intended
* If you know how to play, PvP and griefing (if allowed) actually enhance the game
Cons
* The big public servers (like SkyWars) full of whiny, entitled kids are not so fun (but I'd hope a Galacticraft server would not be like that)
* Foul / juvenile language in chat is a turn off - depends on good moderators or chat filters (or turn off chat)
* There's always some risk of griefing, even on "no grief" servers there will always eventually be some guy who finds a workaround (so protect yourself - keep your base or storage rooms well hidden, have a backup storage somewhere so you don't lose everything - EnderChest?)
* Always a risk of arbitrary owner / admin decisions - e.g. map resets, bans, modlist update which takes out your favourite mod
* Always a risk that the server will close at any time due to lack of funding / support - this really sucks if you spent 1 month building a really great base on it
If you are a player on a newly setup server, I think as a player you have a right to ask about their funding arrangements.
The reality is most servers are run by guys who are still at school (maybe under the age of 18), and don't last even 2/3 months. In North America a server needs income of typically $100-200 a month to cover server hosting costs, domain name, website, DDOS protection, etc. The owner won't want to pay that himself. He might pay it the first month, and the server will close down in month 2 if there is not enough income. Most servers operate a "donations" model but realistically that won't produce enough income unless there are 200+ active players on the server, and it's tough for a new server to get that many.
So where does this leave players?
IMHO the best options are:
1) Established large public modded servers, which have typically 50-100 players online any time you look (that means they probably have 1000+ regular active players) - these are more likely to last the distance, take a look at their website and community / forum pages to get an idea. Even so, they will still arbitrarily take a server offline if it is not making enough money.
Warning: servers which use BungeeCord and a lobby system to link several different servers together report their total numbers when reporting the number of players online - it might only be 5 people on the Galacticraft server, so beware.
Normally public servers will be offering a popular modpack (like Tekkit or FTB or one of the other modpacks available through those launchers) to make sure that average players all use the same modpack.
2) Niche servers with a loyal community - for example servers with a custom modpack which is well-supported.
3) Servers which do not need funding for some reason - maybe somebody set one up in their home or as a project at a college IT department? If there is a good internet connection (fibre) there's no reason why this type of homebrew server is any less good than a server hosted by a hosting company.
4) Private servers for you and your friends - but this only works as long as your friends want to keep on playing Minecraft as long as you do (like the guys in the famous YouTube vids...)
This makes it tough for new servers to get started, obviously. A new server really needs a ready made community or guaranteed funding for the first few months.
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