How to make a lobby on a Minecraft server: world, protection and mode selector

In short: on a single server the lobby is its own world — create it with Multiverse-Core and turn on join-destination so every login starts there. On a network the lobby is its own Paper server, first in the try list of velocity.toml. The rest is the same: a void world with a build at the spawn point, players spawning there on every join, damage, hunger, PvP and building switched off, and a mode picked through a menu, an NPC or a compass from a hub plugin.

Lobby world or lobby server#

How a second world differs from a separate server is covered in Multiverse-Core, and how a proxy network fits together in Minecraft server networks and setting up Velocity.

A void world to build in#

A lobby is built from scratch or pasted in with WorldEdit — //schem load and //paste, see WorldEdit — so you don't need terrain around it. On a separate lobby server you get a void world without plugins: a flat world of a single air layer with the the_void biome.

# server.properties of the lobby server — before the first start
level-type=minecraft\:flat
generator-settings={"biome":"minecraft:the_void","layers":[{"block":"minecraft:air","height":1}]}

Generation settings only apply when the world is created: if the world already exists, stop the server and delete its folder or set a different level-name. On a shared server Multiverse-Core creates the lobby world and a generator plugin makes it empty — for example VoidGen from the generator list in the Multiverse docs.

Players always spawn in the lobby#

# a lobby world on a shared server: Multiverse-Core + the VoidGen generator
/mv create lobby normal --generator VoidGen
/mv tp lobby
# build or paste a platform, stand on it:
/mv setspawn
/mv config enable-join-destination true
/mv config join-destination lobby

• Lobby world. With enable-join-destination: true Multiverse puts the player in the join-destination world on every login instead of where they logged out. The option is off by default.
• Lobby server. Velocity sends the player to the server in try on login and when they're kicked from another server. Inside the lobby, set the point with /setworldspawn and /setspawn from EssentialsX Spawn; spawn-on-join: true in the EssentialsX config.yml teleports everyone who joins to spawn — or only listed groups.
• Getting back to the lobby. In one world — /spawn from EssentialsX Spawn. On a network — Velocity's built-in /server lobby; the familiar /hub and /lobby aren't built into Velocity, plugins add them.

No damage, hunger, PvP or building#

# in the lobby world: rules for the whole world via the __global__ region
/rg flag __global__ pvp deny
/rg flag __global__ invincible allow
/rg flag __global__ natural-hunger-drain deny
/rg flag __global__ mob-spawning deny
/rg flag __global__ item-drop deny
/rg flag __global__ passthrough deny     # only region members can build

# the same from the console — with the world named
rg flag __global__ pvp -w lobby deny

Test the lobby from a regular account without OP: operators bypass WorldGuard protection, which makes the flags look broken. Region priorities and the other flags are in WorldGuard.

Picking a mode: menu, NPC and compass#

• Menu. A chest with a button per mode. In DeluxeMenus a button with the [connect] survival action sends the player to that network server — on Velocity this needs bungee-plugin-message-channel; for a world on the same server the button runs a world-switch command. Details in menu plugins.
• NPC. A character by the portal: a click opens a menu or runs a command. Plugins and first commands are in NPC plugins, a label above the NPC in hologram plugins.
• A compass in the inventory. An item the player gets on joining that opens the mode selector. Ready-made hub plugins provide it — and they also cover world rules and spawn.

A lobby server on a network#

A lobby server is set up like any server behind a proxy: online-mode=false, player info forwarding from Velocity and a port closed by the firewall — step by step in setting up Velocity. Keep it on the same version as the modes, and recheck [connect] menus whenever you rename servers in [servers].

The lobby and cheaters#

The lobby is the first place a cheater switches the client on: Fly and Speed on the parkour, KillAura in the PvP zone. DGuard — the best anticheat for a modern Minecraft server — goes on the lobby server too, with its own key and the latest PacketEvents next to it, and checks combat, movement, packets, inventory, building and the world the same way on every server of the network. Hidden mode never tells a cheater he's been caught while DGuard collects evidence, and you set the strictness of punishments.

If the lobby is a world on the same server, no extra install is needed: the anticheat sees players in every world of its server. A separate lobby server is one more server in the DGuard panel; protection is the same on every plan, and you pay for online players and the number of servers — see pricing.

FAQ#