Lore SMPs are amazing! They allow people to combine the amazing and fun times of normal SMPs with a storyline that the members and viewers can see, dive into, make theories about, and so much more!

Whether you see Lore SMPs as your start in the world of acting, or it’s your first place trying to voice act, most of us are all here for one reason, to have fun and make friends!

Hosting

When making a Lore SMP, one of the first things to think about, is how you want to host it, do you want to use Hosting Services, like Bispect Hosting, Webwawet Hosting, MCHostingPro, or whatever it might be? Or if you want to host it yourself.

Hosting Services, pro’s and con’s

To come up with the good things first, hosting services provide dedicated servers or cloud-based solutions that offer reliable uptime and stability.
Another thing, these services often use high-performance hardware, and optimized network configurations.
They also typically have DDoS protection and regular backups, so you don’t lose stuff, and they usually have amazing customer support.

The bad things about using hosting services, there are at times Performance Issues, but I haven’t experienced that so much that it becomes a problem, some hosting providers don’t give you limited customizations, and there will be downtime at times.

Self-hosting, pros and cons

Let’s start with the good things first again. It is more cost-efficient, and it is often cheaper than renting a VPS/using hosting providers, but one thing you need to know, is that there will be upfront costs, like purchasing hardware to store the data and the server if needed, but long-term expenses can be lower.
You will have full control over server settings, mods, and more.
And you can usually achieve better performance than shared hosting.

To the bad things, self-hosted servers may suffer from inconsistent uptime and performance issues, and there are also security concerns, since hosting providers have DDoS Protections and you don’t, you might have to buy that also.

Make Lore

Usually, if I were you, I would write and get the ground idea in place, before you begin thinking about hosting, and please don’t begin using money on hosting services before you have the base ideas down, it will just waste money.

But yeah, making Lore is not that hard, I would first find a theme, it can be “egg-smp”, “apocalypse”, “based-on-movies/TV series”, or something completely new.

It is all up to you, to decide how and what the Lore will be, so we are not going to come into that stuff.

Advertisement

Advertisement is everything, without recognition, you will not get very far.
And some good ways to do that, for example, SMP Accounts on social media, which can be Twitter, BlueSky, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, or other places, trust me, I have seen SMP Accounts in many different places.

Then there is Press Coverage, and the 2 big dogs for coverage in the community are Lore News and SphereNews.
SphereNews has made an article/blog about how to improve your chances of getting Press Coverage, for example, being professional, making project/smp info clear and easy to find, letting the press know about news before it’s publically announced, and more!
More information about Press Coverage can be found in Sphere News’s article/blog about it, which can be found here.

Applications

Applications are a thing that most SMPs will get, some SMPs are of course private between friends, but most SMPs will have to open applications at some point.

What to use for applications

What to use for applications is up to you, but most SMPs use either Google Forms or just Discord Tickets, there is of course other things to use, but these 2 work for like, all SMPs, so I would just stick with those 2.

When to close Applications

Fellow SMP Owners/staff, and upcoming SMP Owners/staff, we need to talk, because I and a few others are a bit irritated about the fact that some SMPs just close applications once they have enough people.

I have seen applications be open for 3 hours, sometimes even 30 minutes, THAT IS TOO LITTLE!
I am not mad, but please, allow me to tell you this one time, applications should at least be open for 1-2 days, happily more than that. Let’s say you open applications around 1 pm in the US, that will be at 5am in Canberra for example.
The Lore Community is all about inclusion, and applications should be open until around 2 days after opening, at least, and then you choose the people you think would fit best to the SMP, of the ones applying.

Launch

The launch is one of the most important days for any SMP, if the Launch Flops, people might not want to watch the rest of the series, but as long as you are doing your best, it will be alright, don’t worry.

But if the launch will be a Lore Episode, then please make sure everyone knows their role.
I have tried a lot of times, not knowing my role in an episode, so please just make sure everyone knows their roles and is okay with them.

Tips from SMP Owners!

I asked all the SMP owners I am friends with, and 6 people answered me, so here are their tips.

First, we have Poffy, who is the owner of Florial SMP, who said that you shouldn’t always expect things to go as planned.

Then we have Maggie, who is the owner of Once Upon A SMP (OUASMP), who said that you should always keep the members informed before Lore Events and other stuff, so they know where their place is, and they don’t feel left out.

We also have Taya, who is the owner of Moist Productions, said that you should keep it lightly scripted, like, keeping the start and end, giving everyone a general idea of the start and end, but keeping the middle guided improv.

Then we have Deity, who is one of the owners of Lumille SMP, now, Deity gave me the longest answer ever, but what they basically said was to take your time, have an amazing support system/admin team, and keep the players and community updated on Lore.
And also to do a lot of research on your name, there are too many SMPs with the same name.

Our 2nd last SMP Owner is IcyIsTired, who is the creator of Escaped SMP and owner of Blue Lemon Studios, who said that you wouldn’t have a story right off the bat, and that’s fine.

And at last, we have Cody, who is the owner of PokéSMP, who said that you should find something you enjoy and run with it.

And that concludes the end of our guide on how to make a Lore SMP.
This guide has been in the works for way too long, and I am so sorry for that.<3