The Minecraft first join message, kit, spawn and quest: designing the first five minutes

A player who joins your server from a list gives it about five minutes. In that time they need three answers: where am I, what do I do first, and is anyone here. The first-join message answers the second, spawn answers the first, and the third is a scheduling problem this guide touches only briefly. Get the first two right and most of the players who would have left in minute one stay to minute ten, which is where the server itself takes over.

This guide sets up the pieces in the order a new player meets them: the message, the kit and any commands that run on first join, the direction spawn gives, a first quest, and then how to measure whether the changes worked. It ends with the list of things to remove, because the fastest wins here are subtractions. For the observation test itself (watching a stranger join), see the ten-minute test in our get-players guide; this guide does not repeat it.

What the first five minutes have to do

Break the five minutes into what the player is doing, and the job of each piece becomes obvious.

The first-join message in EssentialsX

Most Paper servers run EssentialsX, and it has a dedicated first-join section. The settings below are quoted from the plugin's default config.yml under the newbies: key.

newbies:
  # Set to '' to disable. {DISPLAYNAME} is replaced with the player name.
  announce-format: '&dWelcome {DISPLAYNAME}&d to the server!'
  # Which spawn new players use. 'none' uses the world spawn.
  # Set a named spawn with /setspawn newbies
  spawnpoint: newbies
  # Kit given on first join, regardless of cost or permission, no cooldown.
  # Set to '' to disable.
  kit: tools

Three things to change from the defaults:

• Rewrite announce-format as an instruction, not a greeting. The default tells everyone a name. New players need "Welcome {DISPLAYNAME}! Walk through the green portal ahead for a free plot, or type /rtp to start anywhere." Keep it to one line; a wall of colored text is skipped.
• Give new players their own spawn. Stand where you want them to appear (facing the exit) and run /setspawn newbies. Returning players can spawn at the plaza; new ones spawn at the start of the path.
• Point kit at a real starter kit, covered next. The kit named here is free and skips the cooldown, so it is the one place a kit can be generous.

Two related keys: custom-join-message (default "none") replaces the ordinary "Steve joined the game" line for everyone, and custom-new-username-message handles players who joined before under a different name. If you would rather write logic than config, Skript has an on first join: event (added to Skript for exactly this) that can send messages, run commands and set variables for a new player only.

First-join commands and the starter kit

EssentialsX kits live in kits.yml (not the main config), and you can build one from your inventory with /createkit. Since the first-join kit is handed out automatically, anything in it runs on first join, and kits can contain commands as well as items, with the player's name substituted:

kits:
  starter:
    delay: 0
    items:
      - stone_axe 1
      - stone_pickaxe 1
      - bread 16
      - white_bed 1
      - /warp start {USERNAME}
      - /title {USERNAME} title {"text":"Type /rtp to begin"}

The command lines come from the plugin's own kits documentation on essentialsx.net; the {USERNAME} placeholder is theirs. What to put in the kit:

• Stone tools, food and a bed. Enough to survive the first night without being a gift that makes mining pointless.
• Something that explains. A written book with three rules and three commands is more likely to be read than a rules board.
• Not diamonds, not money. A rich first join removes the reason to play. It also attracts alt accounts farming the kit.
• One command that sets direction. A warp to the start of the path, or a title that names the first action.

Spawn direction and signs

Spawn's job for a new player is to make the exit obvious. The layout rules are in the spawn ideas guide; here is only the first-join part.

1. Face the newbie spawn at the path. When they appear, the way forward is in front of them, not behind or to the side.
2. One sign per decision. "Survival this way", "Free plot", "Shops". Where two paths split, one sign. Where nothing splits, no sign.
3. A hologram over the goal. "Walk here to start" floating over the portal or the /rtp sign, with DecentHolograms or similar. Visible from the spawn point.
4. Keep the rules off the path. A rules board beside the route, not across it. Anyone who reads it can; nobody has to. The rules guide covers keeping them short.
5. Light it, and keep it small. A spawn a new player can cross in twenty seconds beats a showpiece they get lost in.

Tutorial NPCs and a first quest

A first quest is the piece that turns "I know where to go" into "I want to come back". It should finish in two or three minutes and pay something visible.

• A tutorial NPC. Citizens creates server-side NPCs that can run a command when clicked. One NPC at the start of the path that teleports the player into the world, or hands them the quest, replaces three signs.
• A quest plugin. Quests is free and open source: "Chop 10 logs, craft a table, claim your first chunk" with a reward at the end is a full first-session loop. Our quests plugin guide compares the options.
• Make the quest teach the server's one unusual thing. If your server is about land claims, the quest ends with a claim. If it is lifesteal, it ends with a heart. The reward is the mechanic itself.
• Keep it optional. A forced tutorial world that takes ten minutes loses players who have played Minecraft for years. A quest they can ignore loses nobody.

Measuring day-1 and day-7 retention

Joins tell you the listing works. Returns tell you the first five minutes work. The free Plan plugin (Paper, Velocity, Fabric, Sponge and others, one jar) runs a web panel with daily and monthly active users and new player retention, so you can see how many of the players who first joined in a given week were still playing a day and a week later. Install it a week before you change anything, so you have a baseline.

Then change one thing at a time and watch the new-player retention line move. A first-join message rewrite and a starter kit are a weekend's work and usually the biggest jump. If you do not want a plugin, the crude version works: count new files in world/playerdata this week, then check next week how many of those UUIDs have logged in again. Your listing's 7-day chart here shows the other half, whether the evening peak grew, and our player count tracker guide explains how to read it.

What to remove

Every item below costs new players and adds nothing for the ones who stay. Removing them is faster than anything above.

• A Discord verification wall. Linking an account before placing a block. Ask after the first session, not before.
• A rules screen you must click through. Nobody reads it, and the ones who would have read a sign now resent the server.
• A login plugin on a premium server. Mojang already verified them. Password prompts belong on cracked servers only.
• A forced resource pack on join. A 200 MB download before the first frame loses half your mobile and slow-connection players. Prompt later, or make it optional; the resource pack guide covers the settings.
• Ten lines of join spam. Broadcast messages, region titles, vote reminders and a scoreboard all firing in the first second. One message. The rest can wait a minute.
• A spawn you can get lost in. If your ten-minute tester asked "where do I go", the spawn is the problem, however good it looks.

Once the first five minutes hold, the players your listing sends actually stay, which is when filling in that listing pays off. List the server if it is not here yet, or claim it from its server page, and put the first-join promise ("free starter kit, /rtp, land claims") in the first line of your description so the right players arrive expecting it.

Quick questions