Players don't stay on server?

Hello everyone, I'd like a little help with my server. I have a 24/7 PvP survival server with little to no lagg, and I just can't seem to keep players. I have owned and spent countless hours trying to make this server good and fun for a YEAR, and I don't even have 10 players consistently. I have tried about 15 websites of advertising, and while players usually do connect, they leave within a matter of 5 minutes and never return. Players that even get on, play for about 30 minutes to an hour, say the server is great and they love it...but then they literally leave and never return. I am not advetising my server here but does anyone have any advice? This is my server IP: 108.226.65.149:25566
(I have ranks, warps, regions, and permissions fully enabled and working without bugs, so that is not an issue) I get about 30-50 players a day but most leave in amatter of seconds, probably because they are turned away by the lack of players. I will present a typically newcomer situation:
[Player] has joined the server! Me: Welcome [Player]: Thanks, this is looks like a cool server, what is there to do? [Me]: We have survival pvp, shops, and minigames to play on. [Player]: Sounds fun! *Leaves 2 minutes later, never comes back* I am posting here because I believe someone must have a somewhat succesful server, and I am getting kind of tired using up hours and energy improving on a server that can't get 10 players in a year. I believe if I dont gain some players this month will be giving up on my server.

 

(Excuse the long post, JUST had this discussion with a friend of mine about how MC servers and playerbase has changed over the years, and getting new people that want a survival server is getting harder and harder)

I've been running a server since um..whatever year Hmod came out (the goto plugin server before bukkit 2010 I think?). And Im hovering around 30-40ish members..95% of them the same ones I started with back in the early days, or been around a year or 2.

I have the same issue. and as time goes on its harder and harder to find/keep new players.
I can advertise like crazy, post on ever list I find, tell people to invite others. But many dont stay and I seem to notice this is why:
From my experience these are the reasons I cant get a huge base of players anymore:
For one, back in hmod servers wasn't near as numerous as there is now. So was easier to get people. Nowadays everyone and their brother runs a server. And they range from "someone that has no idea what they are doing, but wanted to have unlimited god/give so started his own" to "amazing servers with mature dedicated staff" and everywhere inbetween. This means that players literally have 10's of thousands of servers to sort thru to find one. Which means less random people popping in to try it.

And for the list below, it doesnt apply to ALL players. there is quite a few that arent like the examples. But mix the 10,000's of servers, with less and less of them...:

It seems more and more players 'want' something for playing on your server. 'Vote for us to get diamonds' seems a staple option bigger servers give out. I refuse to do it. IF you vote for my server, I want it to be because you wanted to because you liked it, not because I bribed you to do it so I go higher on the list.
I've had players login, ask if they can vote to get diamonds daily..tell them no, I prefer reputation over bribery as a gauge of the servers standing..and they leave..knowing they cant get free stuff everyday for clicking things.

Also, and not SURE why. It seems if you dont offer ranks/items/titles/whatever for donations..people wont see your server as professional. I've had people go "So how much is it to buy member rank?" I tell them the server is free, and I foot all the bills, member is after 24 hours play time and cant buy it..and I've actually got "OH, sorry thought this was a professional 24/7 server players payed to be on" and he logged out...not quit sure why people think "they don't charge me, it must not be well ran..because if I pay, it means they must be worth the money!".

Also I seem to notice a lot of players want the theme park type servers: hunger games, prison, drug, etc..And if they do want survival, they want 'survival without the effort of surviving'. if they cant use /back when they die, they fuss..if they cant AFK mob grind items, they fuss..if they cant just /tpa to a friend 400 blocks away they fuss..
Granted my server is "survival by effort" and there is no easy way to do anything.
But i cant help but feel bitter some of the "look at me I can port forward! I R ADMIN of a server now! everyone that logs in gets diamond tools and a house of gold blocks!" Has tainted the userbase into wanting less rewarding challenging gameplay..and just rewards for being there.

So now I think we are down to 3 types of servers:
The larger servers, that have dedicated plugin staff to make a server that no one else is like, with large populations for that fact.
The 'survival mode but with tons of free stuff daily for doing nothing but logging in' types that have decent player counts just by that fact of them logging in to play and get items.
Then there is my/your type. The general, none gimmicky, or non fully unique server types with all custom plugins, where as us, there is 1000's of variations of that cant attract players, because we don't have the playerbase active to get noticed to attract them

Granted I LOVE my 50 or so members, some I've become great friends with over the 3-4 years. but getting new ones..even the ones that stay, aren't like the good old players of years gone by..

 

I completely agree Lock. I am building games on my server to cater to the people that don't want to work. I also have lots of eye candy but I started my server because I couldn't seem to find any good servers you can just logon to and play. I only have a 27 person player base but the people that are on the server a lot are very dedicated. I'm not sure the goal should be to have 100 people on at a time. I just have to believe if you work hard and try and create a great server for your players, over time people will show up. I just don't see the value in trying to find some formula to get lots of players on.

 

schtooping dxwarlock arourke0299

I think a lot of this depends. I think I've posted on this topic 1,001 times. You can't look at things as if this is a zero sum situation here. I haven't seen the statistics, but I'm fairly certain that as the number of servers has increased, so has the playerbase. This means, that while there are a ton of servers out there, it doesnt' necessarily mean you're competing for fewer players.

Another thing to consider is the actual make up of your playerbase. What kinds of players do you want to join your server? Why? This is really important. If you're making a no nonsense survival server, you have to know that your players are likely to be fewer and far between. You can expect players to want the goodies that dxwarlock mentioned. That's fine, that's to be expected. As the game has grown in popularity, it's shifted from more of a niche indie game to one that has mass appeal... mostly among young boys. That's another factor to consider. The current generation is quite ADD, hyper-stimulated, and incredibly lazy. That is, they don't want to be creative, they don't see the reward in working for things, and they want things handed to them. You see this in flashy banners, customized premade 'gamemodes' where little is left to the imagination, free items/stuff, and so on. It's one of the reasons on servers like dxwarlock you're more likely to see older and more mature players. However, this isn't really that surprising, and I'm not sure that's changed much.

When new updates are released, I'm always quick to get a nice little 'prerelease server' with vanilla and it's quite surprising how many regular players I can get with little to no advertising. The last update I averaged 10-30 players having listed the server once and the rest of the players found me by word of mouth. But when the big servers updated, they all left. So, we see a general interest in new features. That's not surprising, and definitely with the player-base, its to be expected.

So, I guess the question is what do you want to accomplish? Why are you hosting? If its for the fun of hosting, then the fact that multiple people are having fun on your server already means you've succeeded. However, if you want a lot of players, the idea is to create something that fits your audience. Do the market research! New gamemodes, custom and appealing features, and so on are likely to get you a lot of players.

However, a lot of its psychology too. For example, ranks and privileges that you have to work toward are psychologically more engaging. If they're too easy to get, people won't value them. If they're too difficult, people wont' regard them. If they're unbalanced, they'll break your system. However, designed in the right way ranks and rewards can create a powerful attractant to new players who want to complete tasks (think of games like AngryBirds...just one more level!) and when they have, they're invested. It's a lot harder to walk away from a weeks worth of work than it is something you haven't invested anything into.

 

arourke0299
I just think it's because there are now 10,000s of servers, and also, most servers are now all just becoming quite the same... For example, almost EVERY server has Essentials.. Factions... etc.. I think servers need to be more unique to have more players, and not just be the same boring old "Factions/PVP HungerGames server 24/7 Great Staff!"

 

I host a server because I like to know its going to disappear without notice, its a survival build server online for nearly two years; no pvp, no factions, no towny, no free stuff, no voting, no 2nd chance for stealing/pvp, no offensive language in chat and banned players can never return even when they offer to donate.

Run the server they way you believe it should be run. Don't keep making changes to try and attract more players, its more important to be consistent in how you run your server, eg if you ban a player on first offence for stealing then you have to treat everyone the same. I make it very clear that donaters for VIP rank are not protected from being banned. Its taken a long time to build up the player numbers, with a large number of new players referred by current players.

I am not trying to get as many players as possible, I don't care about the number of players we have. and yet there are over 200 regular players, anyone who does not log in after four weeks gets removed. I run the server as I like to play minecraft.

 

arourke0299
You need to get creative. Many servers like TheHive and MCSG keep nearly 8,000 players online constantly because of the custom game types and competitive gameplay. You want people to think your server is different in a great way, make your server unique, interesting. Overtime, if people keep making servers saying "Hunger games! Factions! Survival!" No one is going to come, literally. Think game types, mini games, notice how Super Craft Bros was a HUGE hit when it came out, it attracted hordes of YouTubers, or pretty much free advertising. Try to mimic that.

 

Well, technically the literal definition of "professional" is that it's a job you make money at - it's your profession.
If someone says they were looking for a professional server and a free one doesn't count, this could have been the meaning they had in mind. It doesn't necessarily imply low quality to point out that a thing you do that isn't your job isn't a professional thing.

The idea that "professional" and "amateur" are terms that describe quality is one of those cases where people have allowed a common prejudice about a thing taint the definition of the thing. - In this case that paid-for things must necessarily be higher quality than free things.

 

It's actually pretty simple. First of all, make sure you create something unique. Don't create what has already been created, or you will obviously fail. You can create a factions server, and make it popular IF you add unique aspects to to the server, such as custom plugins that no other server has. I also learned this over my server experiences:
If you can get the player to start building instantly, they will want to come back for more tomorrow.

 

My daughter and I run a whitelisted survival/PVP/MobArena server for her online friends. Although we used to have up to 15 people online at any time, most have drifted away.* For example, right now, no one is online.

Anyway, regarding this comment:

We had someone ask for a special rank yesterday. So we gave him the rank "Resident_Moron". He was happy.

We've also had people ask if they could donate. When I said we didn't accept donations, they didn't understand why not. I guess they were looking for something in return.

Some of the remaining players come on just to derp around. Others are annoying 10 year-olds who keep asking to be mods (why be a mod on a server with hardly any players?) that I don't ban only because I'm too nice. But there are a group of about a half-dozen players who are playing the game the way it is meant to be played and I keep it running so they can have fun.

* Some of those who drifted away invested a lot of time in the beginning building elaborate underground bases with mob grinders and other automated systems. I think once they established everything, had their enchanted diamond armor, etc., they felt there was nothing else to accomplish, so they moved on.