I don't know if anyone remembers my short-lived PvP server, The Shootout. Basically it was intended as a server where one would start in a tiny spawn castle (similar to the spawn building in The Valleys, but smaller and with no roof), and would leave into a flat map, building defenses with cobblestone, wood, or whatever and hiding behind them, while shooting at each other. Hostile monster mobs would come out at night, and one could kill animals or get apples to restore health. I don't remember how people got cheap weapons. However, I ran into some problems which convinced me to shut it down. I was hoping someone could give me some advice before setting it up again, because I really liked the idea, and people on my other servers are asking for this as well.
- Camping in the spawn building. People were spawn camping with BFG-9000s, making it hard to escape or flee. Perhaps there could be a safe area, or a timer.
- Players not reading the rules. This was most likely due to the spawn camping issue. This can be dealt with by a popup rather than on the wall of the spawn castle, but that doesn't guarantee someone might click without reading or forget the rules later on.
- Using locked items as fortification. People were building structures out of locked chests and steel doors which provided permanent protection. Is there a way to remove "lockability" from all items?
- I seem to remember the mod which provided all the weapons crashing. Not sure of the mod's name (it had lots of guns, ninja weapons, spears, etc) or if it has since fixed crashing, but I remember it being released once or twice on the forum and not having a Github page. I seem to remember occasional server crashes from it, though I might be wrong.