Let’s wait for the mojang plugin api 
Do servers in limbo count? :3
Servers in limbo, in my experience, can be counted as dead. (Assuming you mean no one plays on it)
What’s your Minecraft Multiplayer history? Why did you host your own
server, and when? Start date/MC Version?
Well… i cant remember the date but i took over a server called dutchcraft . they where side project from a illegal wow server i was playing on we where playing on 1.2 Beta at the time , i renamed it Dcraft.
The story behind the server’s name.
well dcraft/dutchcraft (for the dutch but english allowed) dcraft.nl it new redirects until the name is ownerless again)
Gamemode? Plugins? Mods? Maybe your own special plugins?
Just bukkit and about 120 plugins
How did you advertise it?
Mostly mouth to mouth and some forums here and there
Who paid the rent? And how many slots did it have?
I did i rented a customized VPS with centos loaden on a overkill of hardware. payed 300 euros every 3 months
we had a minimum of 100 slots with in our busiest time back then with 30 players on minimum
Did all players have a similar rank? Or was it based on experience, or even pay-to-win?
We had 4 ranks for players + a donator rank
Builder/Advbuilder and survivor/advsurvivor
the rest was admin staff i was host then we had admin then player helper
Was there an active community, with forums or voice servers?
for a while
What did you experience as a leader of a community? Stories from your server!
to much work for people who aren’t willingly to read rules …
Screenshots!
you can google Dcraft.nl but most screens are old and the general spawn area (big dome with 4 admin statues is long time not used XD
Why did it shut down? And when?
Hmm march this year. the cost where to big and we had only 10 players a week or so.
Do you plan to host a server again?
hmm depends on how good sponge powered is and if the server market aint over saturated anymore (aka there are to many servers
Well, at first i was playing an a LAN-Server with a few Friends. They all had Laptops and for half a jear, we came together nearly every day, to play. That was quite fun
Minecraft Version: about 2 Werks before first bukkit Versions were released, so we started with hMod as i remember but soon Switched to bukkit.
But after a time, all of my Friends loose intrest in MC and we all stop playing this game for a while.
Server shutdown (but i have this old world)
A year later, i’ve started playing Minecraft again, i got somehow involved in one of Germanys biggest server, First as support, than Moderator and at last as kind of sysAdmin. At this Time i learned massive about how plugins working together, about testing and on top of that i learned how to make People working together and coordinate them.
Minecraft Version: idk…
I stayed there for about a year, at that time there were about 600 aktive players at this server.
Then school got harder and actually i dont want to leave. But the Owner only give me the choice to stay “full Time” or quit out of the teaml. Some people try to speak to the owner, and soon there were two “fighting” partys (well you know what i mean) and as i don’t want to break the whole community, I bought another MC-Account (cad435) and vanished away.
Afaik the Server is still running, but not as big as it was.
At this time i dont want to be ever active as a admin of an MC-Server.
But it seems Minecraft wanted me (again) 
One year ago, i meet a very old friend, which i haven’t seen for years and he is really a Minecraft freak. And he is able to handle communitys in a way a haven’t seen before (In a good way), alsways near to users always supporting good ideas, ability to bringing communitys together and make them going together in one direction. At the same time a friend of mine learned java.
Short Story:
They persuade me to setup a Server again…
Im pretty sure today we would have a stable playerbase, if bukkit weren’t DMCA’ed
As we received the takedown notice we quickly decided to Freeze this project, because we don’t want to start a Server with a dying Software
The Server is now not shut down, but its kind of IDLEing and we will asap try to set up a Spongeserver
Payment: 4 Admins (which know each other IRL) thats not a problem if erverybody have to pay a fourth
Slots: well, this is not hosted on a “minecraft-Host” this is a V-Server, wich we have full access so we could install what we want and declare as many Slots as we want^^
(A Stress-Test for Spigot said it’ll be able to handle about 80-100 Slots)
Gamemode/plugins: Survival, but we have some very cool ideas (in our opinion)
We currently have a website and TS3
End of the Wall-Of-Text, but you wanted to hear our storys
So, here some screenshots
Sometimes im bored (waiting for sponge ) results in stuff like that:
(C4D, “TNL” = The Next Level, don’t wonder internal stuff…)
1 Like
120?? That’s a lot
1 Like
in my defense we had 22 gig of ram to spent and no there was no burst ram XD
- 4 diffrent worlds. diffrenct classes ect ect plugins went from admin tools to anti xray/hack/bot to password systems to rollback ect ect ect ect
and just some plugins to mess shit for the giggles
What’s your Minecraft Multiplayer history? Why did you host your own server, and when? Start date/MC Version?
I started Minecraft in Beta 1.7.3 and began multiplayer in 1.2.2. I didn’t join many servers (I’ve actually been active on about five servers only), But I met a really nice guy on the second server I joined. I joined the server he was co-owner on weeks after I met him, and I can say, it was a friendly large community and I became administrator in a year. I’m not so sure why I started a Minecraft server but it was for people from the server I was administrator on. I liked it, just to be creative with plugins I think.
The story behind the server’s name?
Um well, I started Minecraft on a friend’s account called Dr_CIay so, my first server was CiayCraft (online from around October 2012 till the 25th of February 2014) and I bought my own account while I had that server (JustEli). I created a second server CiaoPvP (active from the 11th of July 2013 till the 10th of May 2014). It was a successful server and I ‘sold’ the server (it’s not running anymore). I created another server after that one, called JuelCraft (the 31th of May was its first online day). And yeah… the story behind the server’s name, well, all the server names are similar to my Minecraft usernames. (JustEli > JU st EL i > Juel + Craft)
Gamemode? Plugins? Mods? Maybe your own special plugins?
I loved plugins, that’s I think, the main reason why I created a server, because you can make it as you like. On CiayCraft I had many plugins, I think about 60. CiaoPvP was more like a public server, many people were online and it wasn’t smart to have too many plugins, it had about 30 plugins. JuelCraft has 40 plugins currently but I haven’t advertised it yet because I wanted to wait for 1.8 and wanted to start with a new map.
How did you advertise it?
I used PlanetMinecraft and voting sites, but that’s what everyone did to advertise his/her server, right?
Who paid the rent? And how many slots did it have?
Uh, I’ve always ran CiayCraft from my computer. CiaoPvP was hosted from my computer the first month, but I bought a host for it later because it was too laggy. JuelCraft has also been hosted from my computer from the begin. And… I paid the host for CiaoPvP (of course) but I had money for it from the donations I received. CiayCraft had 24 slots, CiaoPvP 36 slots and JuelCraft has currently 8 slots.
Did all players have a similar rank? Or was it based on experience, or even pay-to-win?
CiayCraft never had donation ranks, or anything similar to that. CiaoPvP had a pay-to-win system of ranks. JuelCraft does have a $2, $5 and $8 donation currently. 
Was there an active community, with forums or voice servers?
Yeah! CiaoPvP had a big forum, and I’ve had a TeamSpeak server for it with 20 slots. It was an active community, I miss it actually. CiayCraft also had a forum but, there wasn’t posted much in it at all lol.
What did you experience as a leader of a community? Stories from your server!
I like(d) it! It’s fun when people say ‘hey owner!’ and stuff like that. Also that moment when people ask ‘Can I be staff?’, it was really often asked. Or at the begin of CiaoPvP, I’ve had people saying they’re from PlanetMinecraft. <3
Screenshots!
Why did it shut down? And when?
I shut down CiayCraft because I wanted to focus on CiaoPvP and continue with that server. And an administrator on CiaoPvP had reset the map for no reason without me knowing about it and most people quit, and that administrator wanted to buy the server, so he bought it kind of. But… It got actually shut down about a month later, because too many people had quit.
Do you plan to host a server again?
Yep I’m not planning to stop hosting a server. I like it! 
JuelCraft will be online when Sponge is released and I have set up everything for it.
Oh and my English may be bad but that’s because I’m Dutch 
I only used the Minecraft Forums server section. I tried PMC, but then so many people came claiming they were from PMC 
[quote=“JustEli, post:28, topic:3434”]
and that administrator wanted to buy the server, so he bought it. But… It got actually shut down about a month later, because too many people had quit.
[/quote]Why would you buy a server?
I’m from germany, and I think your english is pretty good.
1 Like
Hmm, I used Minecraft Forum in the begin, but I didn’t feel like many people joined when I advertised on there.
Lol, I don’t know, he wanted it. :3
Thanks, but I’m 15. 
History
I’ve hosted a server pretty constantly since 2011, it’s continued by the current server. But each server was pretty independent, I would reset the world and new people would stumble across it.
Names
The names of all the servers were like: GoldenApple, Modwiz (domain name so more than one of them was called this), Modwizcode Minecraft Server (M2S) (original name).
Why’d it change/stop?
I ended several of them because I ran out of time/patience with the community. Or I just wanted to try a new lineup of plugins to run it because I couldn’t find a nice configuration that was clean and felt good to work worth.
Where’d the code run?
I self hosted, GASP, I know it’s crazy but I could reasonably run a self hosted server with 5 players on average, my friend offered to give me a dedicated computer connected to his internet, which has more than enough bandwidth for 50+ players absolutely free. That’s the hosting setup I use to this day.
Plugins?
The reason I started making plugins was because I noticed that there wasn’t a great number of plugins to do simple chat color formatting like there are now. The ones that existed were too bloated for something simple. So I wrote my first plugin and put it up on DBO, it’s very basic but fitted a simple gap.
Ranks
Ranks varied all the time because I wanted to give friends and supporters recognition without making moderation biased. So I ended up having like Friend, OG, Supporter, Mod and Staff Mod, Host (me), and occasionally I gave Owner to someone because I was too busy. That was my favorite setup, I based the permissions on Runescape’s very well thought out Community Moderator and Staff Moderator system using some leaked docs.
Advertising
I advertised using as many server lists as I could find, originally I made a Google doc and updated them with the new server name and description and screenshots, but it just got too difficult and I have probably forgotten half the listings. I ended up having it get swept into a few mobile apps and stuff from various people. The server almost always had a website so it would be pretty easy to find based on a Google search of my username.
1 Like
What’s your Minecraft Multiplayer history? Why did you host your own server, and when? Start date/MC Version?
Ah, plenty of these. I’m going to just focus on the venture that actually worked. January 1, 2013 with 1.6.x.
The story behind the server’s name?
It was a vanilla server at first.
Gamemode? Plugins? Mods? Maybe your own special plugins?
Just your plain survival.
How did you advertise it?
Who paid the rent? And how many slots did it have?
I did, it had 18 slots. It was hosted with RamNode.
Did all players have a similar rank? Or was it based on experience, or even pay-to-win?
Pretty much everyone had non-OP…
Was there an active community, with forums or voice servers?
Yes, on reddit
What did you experience as a leader of a community? Stories from your server!
Lots of drama, and ugly messes to clean up.
Screenshots!
http://www.reddit.com/r/plainjanegallery
Why did it shut down? And when?
I shut it down in September 2013 because The Chunk happened
Do you plan to host a server again?
Possibly
1 Like
I started playing in the multiplayer area as soon as I got an account, and tried many servers. Around October of 2012, I started my own server because my friends wanted to play on one, and I was the only one who really cared to attempt it.
The server was called ShzyloCraft because my in-game-name is Shzylo, but I’m wanting to change it soon, or just buy a whole new account.
After getting started, I wanted all players to spawn at the same location. This is because I’ve been on servers where everyone spawned at the same spot when they first logged on, and I loved that. So I did some googling, and I found bukkit, and I did all of that. I started with Essentials, then worked to WorldEdit, and much more.
My advertising was done online on forums, but I do admit I went onto other servers to try to get people to join it, but it didn’t take me long to realize that wasn’t polite, as I was banned from just one server, and I stopped.
The server was hosted on my home desktop, and I played on my laptop, so rent was free. Although, it wasn’t 24/7, and I had it with 20.
I used PermissionsEx for my permissions, and I had a whole load of different ranks, but I never did exceed 13 players on it.
No, the community was not active, or have any forums, or anything.
My experience of hosting a server actually was quite a learning experience for me. I learned how to set up bukkit, and how to do basic, and more intermediate to advanced things with the server.
// no screenshots
I shut it down sometime the next year, either February or March, because i had the issue with resetting the server too much, and it just didn’t feel fun anymore.
I have planned to host a server again, but never did I pull it off. If I’m able to have a partner with me, and we can actually earn money to pay for the hosting, then maybe I’ll want to again.
I’ll be honest, it was a fun run to do all of this, and it has led me to a lot of things, and I won’t forget it. I met many friends, and I still remember them, but the sad part is we don’t talk anymore. I suppose we’ve moved on, but they were great people. It led me to developing plugins, and helping other people with their servers. I did find a server that I absolutely loved, and I played on it all of the time, because the community was small, it was great, and we all knew everybody. Whether that community will survive, I don’t know, but I know it’s still attempting to at the writing of this.
Have a nice day!
1 Like
It’s The Chunk. As for my original server, it basically ended up going south on its own.
I had a server since we actually had the abilities to make one, back when there was no bukkit and very few mods and when the community was rather tiny.
I actually really loved hosting a server back then because everyone was friendly. In about half a year, there was only one griefing that I’ve seen, and it was in good humor. The victim laughed along with the griefer! Owning a server was very rewarding back then, and fully worth the power bills for me leaving my pc on all the time (There wasn’t very game server providers that supported minecraft back then). My server always had a balance of 50-200 people, simply because there wasn’t too many servers to choose from at the time.
But then bukkit and custom plugins came in along with factions (which in my opinion is one of the things that made the players more focus on pvp and griefing, which I find rather disappointing).
Anyway, enough of my nostalgia. More recently when I came back to server hosting I found it rather shocking how much it had changed. Nobody wanted to play on a no-pvp server or a no-griefing server. Everything went downhill for me from that point. To be honest, I really do believe that not many people have been as affected with the downfall of bukkit as I am as I have been with it since the beginning and have seen it grow and switch leadership over the years.
But I do think that it’s past time for bukkit to be replaced. And that’s where Sponge comes in. Hopefully it is able to survive.
Yes, I do plan on hosting a server again, but I just feel that the community needs some more time to settle before I do, there has been a lot going on lately.
Good day everybody, I wish everyone the best of luck with these changes and with Sponge’s development!
Is it me or are their a lot of (ex-)server owners who are dutch (no offence)? I count myself as native dutch speaking.
@Sniddunc: I love legit survival servers with limited pvp (e.g. Only in nether). With strict anti-grief (ban any player taking something another player built), and a persistent map (at least 2 years).
The only problem if the map never regenerates is that new Minecraft biomes and blocks won’t show up, but in that case you can still add new regions far away, only connected by nether portals.
I always wanted to make something like that.
What’s your Minecraft Multiplayer history? Why did you host your own server, and when? Start date/MC Version?
I decided to make a server after being fired from an admin team on one server. I somewhen in 2013 i think, version 1.2.5 (sweet one) .
The story behind the server’s name?
ImperiumCraft - Random words that me and my friend, co-owner put together. But they earned a big meaing for us and our players.
Gamemode? Plugins? Mods? Maybe your own special plugins?
Gamemode? Free4all, all-ore mines, truly over-worked PVP and factions system.
Plugins? Not that many, about 40 i think. Every single one was used.
Mods? Nope.
My plugins? Im not that good to make plugins, but I was able to edit some of them somehow.
How did you advertise it?
My server advertised by itself, I did absolutely nothing about ads and so on.
Our players were our ads. But they decided to do so, cause they liked to play with friends.
Who paid the rent? And how many slots did it have?
My and my friend paid 5 € and 9€ for frist 16 slots. We later moved to 250 .
But these slots were not enough for our players. I was lot of fun with 250 other people on my own server, how many people can experience that feeling?
Did all players have a similar rank? Or was it based on experience, or even pay-to-win?
Not no P2W , everyone was free to not buy our VIPs, and many of them were on top of skill and score boards even without VIP. Buying VIP meaned for them saying “thanks for making such a great server” to us. All money were put into server, I did not used event that 5€ i put in it.
Was there an active community, with forums or voice servers?
Hell yes, community was truly without kids. Even so, there were kids, but everyone knew how should they act like to others. I havent seen that friendly comunity for such long time.
What did you experience as a leader of a community? Stories from your server!
Oh stop it you. I experienced many good players, admins and funny events they did by themselves.
I was surprised how can players do events even without admin support. And no one broke them.
Stories, there were so many stories, ask me if you want to hear one!
Screenshots!
Screenshots? Pfffft, weak. There were many many videos made about this server, just say in youtube “ImperiumCraft”, ignore the polish ones and enjoy.
Why did it shut down? And when?
I did so because of my stupidness with support of other events that happened.
ImperiumCraft ended in October 2013 (approx)
Do you plan to host a server again?
Im planning just right now! How did you even know that?
1 Like