StrikeMC.

Why I started it

At thirteen I wanted a competitive PvP server that was fast and fair. I could not pay anyone, so I did every job myself: programmer, server admin, community manager, and later the person a staff team of thirty reported to. It still runs today at strikemc.net.

How it works

I wrote over 10,000 lines of Java for matchmaking, arenas, ranks, and player stats. It runs on dedicated servers I set up and maintain myself, not a managed host.

• Game codeCustom Java plugins: matchmaking, arena mechanics, ranks, and stats.
• ProxyFlameCord, so players join one address and get sent to the right server.
• ManagementPterodactyl Panel for starting, updating, and limiting each server.
• HardwareOVH dedicated machines with DDoS protection, which I configure.
• DiscordAutomatic moderation, rank syncing, and tools for running events.
• StoreTebex, selling ranks and cosmetics.

Public Minecraft servers get attacked constantly: DDoS attacks, people looking for bugs to exploit, players testing every rule. Running one taught me a lot about security and planning ahead.

Paying for it

Dedicated servers and DDoS protection cost money every month. The store covers it. The rule I kept was to sell cosmetics and ranks, never anything that gives an advantage in a fight, because that would ruin a competitive server.

I also handled the advertising that brought players in and the events that kept them.

Managing people

I recruited, trained, and managed more than thirty staff across support, anti-cheat, and moderation, and grew the Discord past 2,000 members. Most of the staff were older than me. What worked was writing the rules down, applying them the same way every time, and explaining any change.

Rebuilding after outages

A run of serious outages took the network down and players lost trust in it. I rebuilt the server setup from scratch, got it stable again, and posted publicly about what had gone wrong. The second version was better than the first, and since then I always plan for what happens when something goes down.