Configuring McMyAdmin Game Settings

You can manage and configure your server with McMyAdmin 2 panel in many ways since the panel is very easy to use. In particular, you can create certain rules, environments, and worlds that wildly differ from the standard Minecraft gameplay found in a single player.

To help you get your server tailor-made to your desires, we're going to go over each section in the Configurations so that you know exactly what options are available and what they would do to your server.

Game Settings

Game Mode

The game mode determines the general feel of the server in question.

Survival is the standard model for Minecraft, which requires your users to start from scratch. They have to gather materials, survive against monsters, explore the world, and delve deep underground to find all of the resources they need. To build anything in the game, your players will need to collect all of the required materials and craft the components as needed.

Creative is a mode of Minecraft that focuses less on gameplay and more on sandbox creations. It allows users to build using any number of materials without collecting or crafting them and lets players create great, large projects with ease. Players cannot be defeated normally and can fly around the map to build great towering structures.

Adventure is a mode for use if the world you are using or built is meant for all other players to interact with as explorers and adventurers, rather than builders and creators. Users are unable to destroy any blocks with tools directly, nor can they place blocks. They may only craft items and may interact with mobs, items, or paintings only. This is a great way to create a world you want your users to explore but not mess with.

Game Difficulty

This setting determines how dangerous it is in your world and how difficult it will be for your players to survive it during Survival and Adventure modes.

Peaceful means that no hostile mobs can spawn within the game naturally, and those that are forced to spawn (or already exist on the server) will be instantly removed from the game. Those mobs that are not removed, such as wolves that can be tamed, will attack the player but not damage them. While mobs cannot attack and defeat players, and the hunger bar never empties, taking excessive fall damage can defeat players.

Easy means that hostile mobs will spawn, but they will deal less damage than they normally do. The hunger bar can also deplete but will leave the player with ten health points to survive on. Additionally, players cannot be poisoned by mobs, and villagers cannot be turned into zombies.

Normal is the standard model for Minecraft. All mobs will deal normal damage, and if the hunger bar depletes, players will lose health down to 1 health point. Villager mobs who zombies defeat have a 50% chance to turn into villager zombies.

The hardness makes the game very challenging for players, as all hostile mobs do much more damage than normal. Players can also starve if they run out of hunger for too long. Additionally, zombie mobs can break down doors, spawn reinforcement zombie waves when attacked, and villager mobs are always turned into villager zombies when defeated by zombies. Spider mobs also can spawn with special status effects that make them more dangerous for players.

Hardcore Mode

Hardcore Mode is initially designed for single-player games, where when a player is defeated, the game world they were in is either deleted or only allowed to be a spectator and will not respawn. In a multiplayer context, Hardcore mode means that players will be banned from the server if they are defeated. The recommendation is to set this configuration to No unless in specific circumstances.

For example, perhaps you have an Adventure mode or Survival mode game where the map's object is to survive to the end. If you have it set to Hardcore mode, you can have many players attempt to survive to the end, with the last survivor being the winner. You can then reset the server and do it again as needed.

Enable Monsters

This setting determines if monster mobs such as zombies and skeletons will spawn on the server. This can be useful if you want to have a Survival or Adventure world but do not want monsters to spawn normally. This setting is set to Yes by default, but if you want all of the fun of exploring, crafting, and mining without the hassle of monsters, you can turn this setting to No.

Enable Animals

This will determine whether or not friendly animals like cows and cats are allowed to spawn on the server. You would want this set to No so that animals do not spawn in many Creative or Adventure servers. This way, your Adventure games force players to work with the materials you give them, and your Creative games can run smoother without the server using resources to manage the animals.

Enable NPCs

This setting will allow or prevent the spawning of neutral NPC mobs such as Villagers. This can prevent zombies from overwhelming areas in Hard game modes simply by attacking defenseless villagers and preventing the ability for users in Adventure mode from trading with villagers for items you do not want them to have.

Allow Player v.s. Player Combat

Player vs. Player (PvP) is a prevalent theme for Minecraft servers, and with the setting, you can determine how you want that to be handled. Many servers that focus more on exploration, adventure, or cooperation will often turn this setting off so that players cannot attack one another. This also ensures one unwanted player can't spend their entire time attacking defenseless players and ruining their enjoyment of your server.

On the other hand, perhaps you want a Hardcore Adventure world, where players have to reach a lofty goal at the end for a reward. You could turn Player vs. Player on and ensure that they can fight one another for the right to determine who the true victor is. Many servers also allow gladiator fights or arena games for players to fight in during survival modes, so it's completely up to you and what sort of server culture you want to foster!

Enable The Nether

The Nether is a special level of Minecraft that can only be reached through special portals. This area is deep underground, with far more dangers than the main world and far greater rewards. Due to these great rewards, often many servers will disable the Nether to prevent players from accessing them. The other most common reason is to disable the Nether in Creative mode, thus saving on server resources not needing to rent a whole second world.

Allow Flight

In Creative mode, players can easily fly around the map by jumping twice very quickly. However, by default, in Survival and Adventure modes, many server owners want their players to all be at the same level of fairness when it comes to the game. This option will ensure that anyone who tries to hack your server will not be able to fly around at all.

Allow Command Blocks

Command blocks are special blocks that can execute Minecraft commands when activated. These blocks are not accessible naturally in Survival mode without using cheats. Many server admins will turn this feature off, as the commands will run as the admin user on the server, and as such, any command in the Minecraft Commands List can be run when the block is used.

These blocks are great for Adventure mode, where the map builder can set blocks to do special commands such as changing the weather or time of day when players activate it (whether purposefully or accidentally). However, given their power, they are almost always disallowed on almost all servers, especially in Survival and Creative modes.

Player Idle Timeout Minutes

This determines how long players are allowed to stay logged in but inactive on the server before they are automatically logged out of the server. This is particularly useful on servers with more players who wish to play on your server than allowed slots for players. Many servers will set the idle timeouts to either 5, 10, or 15 minutes, depending on other players' demand to join. Since each active player on the server also increases the number of resources needed to continue running the game, these timers can help reduce the server load by removing inactive players.

Resource Pack

While Minecraft's 16-bit graphics are charming to some, many desire their games to look more detailed or have thematic styles in their world. Using a resource pack, one can have the server prompt players to download a resource pack and run it every time they log in to your server, giving your server a distinctive feel compared to normal ones. You can get a resource pack that makes the theme dark and gothic, bright and fantastical, gritty and realistic, or bombastic and colorful.

To use a resource pack with McMyAdmin, you need to have a publicly accessible link to a .zip file of the resource pack. For instance, if there is a resource pack called TestPack on testdomain.com, you would need a link such as http://www.testdomain.com/TestPack.zip placed in this area.

Sometimes, especially if you use a service like Dropbox to host the file, you need to indicate to the server that the link is allowed for download. In this case, add ?dl=1 at the end of the domain, such as the following example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/testuser/TestPack.zip?dl=1

Some HD texture packs cannot normally work, as they require certain plugins or services installed with the server or with the players' game clients. Hostwinds cannot help troubleshoot if a resource pack does not work on the service, and as such, we highly recommend checking with either the creator of the resource pack or with McMyAdmin support.

More Information

If you wish to learn more about our services, please review the Hostwinds Minecraft Servers information page.

If you've purchased a new Minecraft server and don't know what to do next, feel free to review our Getting Started with McMyAdmin guide.

You can also check whether your Minecraft server is running by checking the McMyAdmin Server Status.

We also have guides explaining all configuration options for your McMyAdmin Preferences, McMyAdmin Features, and McMyAdmin Server Settings.

If you require a list of commands to use for your server, please review our McMyAdmin Console guide.