Grief Prevention Plugin Setup Guide for Minecraft Servers

Why Grief Prevention is Worth Installing

Few things kill a Minecraft community faster than waking up to find your base reduced to a smoking crater. Grief Prevention is a long running plugin that focuses on stopping that kind of damage before it happens, by letting players claim land and lock down what is theirs. Setting it up on a HolyHosting server takes only a few minutes.

Installing the Plugin

1. Open your control panel and stop the server.
2. Confirm the JAR is a plugin compatible build such as Paper or Spigot. Vanilla and Forge only setups will not load it.

1. From the side menu, open the file manager and log in.
2. Find the `plugins` folder, or create it if it does not exist yet, and step inside.
3. Grab the latest Grief Prevention `.jar` from its official Spigot page.
4. Back in the panel, click Upload in the top corner and drop the file in.

1. Wait for the transfer to hit 100%, then start the server again.

On first boot the plugin generates its config files inside `plugins/GriefPreventionData/`.

Getting Familiar With Claims

The core tool is a humble golden shovel. Players hold it, click two opposite corners of an area, and the plugin draws a protected region between them. There are two flavors to know about:

• Player claims: created by regular users. Their maximum size depends on accrued claim blocks, which grow the more time they put into the server.
• Admin claims: identical in function but free of the block cost, and editable by any staff member with the right permission.

Player Side Features

• Land claims are user managed, so staff are not stuck approving every wall and farm.
• The first chest a player drops is auto claimed, which is a nice safety net for newcomers.
• Claim blocks can be tied to in game currency, voting rewards or donations through companion plugins.
• Built in PvP protections discourage combat logging and harassment of fresh accounts.

Anti Grief Features

• Blocks inside a claim cannot be broken, placed on, looted or set on fire by outsiders.
• Chat spam filters cut down on flood text and repeat messages.
• Wilderness damage can be rolled back if a raider escapes outside claimed areas.
• Optional toggle to disable explosions above sea level, useful for creeper heavy worlds.
• Bans extend to a user's alternate accounts instead of relying purely on IP.

Editing the Configuration

1. Stop the server from the panel.
2. Open the file manager again and head into `plugins/GriefPreventionData`.
3. Locate `config.yml` or `messages.yml`, then use the edit button on the right side of the row.

1. Save your changes and start the server back up.

Keep YAML indentation consistent. A single stray tab character is enough to make the plugin refuse to load.

Commands and Permissions

Grief Prevention ships with a long list of player and admin commands, covering claim creation, trust levels, abandoning land and transferring ownership. The full reference is available on the plugin's official page. Permissions follow the standard Bukkit naming convention and pair cleanly with LuckPerms or any similar manager.

Troubleshooting

Commands return as unknown in chat. The plugin probably did not load. Confirm the server is on Paper or Spigot and that the `.jar` actually sits inside the `plugins` folder, not next to it.

Behavior breaks after editing the config. Almost always a YAML formatting issue. Drop the file into any online YAML validator, fix what it flags, then restart.

Players cannot run any commands. They need explicit permission through your permissions plugin. Assign the relevant Grief Prevention nodes to the right rank and the commands will show up.

Once claims are live, your players can finally focus on building cool things instead of worrying about whether the cool things will still exist tomorrow.