How to Make a Minecraft Survival Server

Survival is the most popular Minecraft server type and the easiest to get wrong. The plugins, the claims, the economy and the rules all interact. This guide gives you a working setup blueprint , plugin order, config defaults, and the decisions to make up front.

The decisions you make on day one

• Hardcore vs softcore? Hardcore = death on death. Softcore = respawn, maybe with a penalty.
• Claims? GriefPrevention (player claims) or WorldGuard (staff regions) or both.
• Economy? See the economy plugin overview.
• PvP? Always on, opt-in, or designated PvP world?
• Custom content? Vanilla+ feel or full custom items + bosses?

The standard plugin stack

1. EssentialsX + Chat + Spawn
2. LuckPerms
3. Vault
4. WorldGuard + GriefPrevention
5. WorldEdit (staff only)
6. CoreProtect
7. PlaceholderAPI
8. ShopGUIPlus
9. AuctionHouse
10. Jobs Reborn (optional)
11. DiscordSRV
12. Multiverse-Core + NetherPortals + Inventories

World setup

• spawn , flat or built world, PvP off, build off, mob-spawn off.
• survival , main world, claims on, normal difficulty.
• survival_nether , linked via Multiverse-NetherPortals.
• survival_end , same.
• resource , weekly-reset world for mining without claims.

Claim defaults that work

For GriefPrevention, in config.yml:

GriefPrevention.Claims.InitialBlocks: 100
GriefPrevention.Claims.BlocksAccruedPerHour: 50
GriefPrevention.Claims.MaxAccruedBlocks: 80000
GriefPrevention.Claims.MinimumWidth: 5
GriefPrevention.Claims.MinimumArea: 100

Spawn essentials

At spawn, players need:

• An NPC to /warp to first , see Citizens.
• An info board with rules and Discord.
• The shop NPC (ShopGUIPlus open).
• The auction NPC.
• Free-rotate elytra-launch or warp pad to /warp wild with random teleport.

Performance baselines

For the first month, target:

• view-distance=8, simulation-distance=6
• spawn-protection=0 (let WorldGuard handle it)
• Paper config: per-player-mob-spawns: true

See the full optimization guide.

Rules and moderation

Write three pages:

1. Rules , shown on the join screen.
2. Punishments , how staff handle each rule.
3. Appeals , how players contest a ban.

Add LiteBans for proper bans/mutes that survive restarts and sync across servers.

Common mistakes

• Launching without CoreProtect , you can't recover from grief.
• Letting /back work after death.
• Setting starting balance too high , the economy never gets going.
• Opening to the public before testing TPS at 30 fake players.

Want to see all this in action? Astroworld MC runs a custom-built economy survival server with custom bosses, eternal enchants, crates and an auction house. Join at astroworldmc.com , IP play.astroworldmc.com, Java + Bedrock crossplay.