WorldGuard on Your Minecraft Server: Protect Spawn and Other Areas with Regions

What it's for (and when GriefPrevention is better)

WorldGuard protects the server's areas: spawn, the shopping district, a PvP arena, a minigame lobby. The admin creates and manages them.

If what you want is for each player to protect their own house by themselves, GriefPrevention does that better (claiming land with a golden shovel, no commands). Many servers run both: WorldGuard for spawn and GriefPrevention for everything else. More about griefers in the guide to protecting the server.

It's a Paper plugin (also Spigot and Purpur) and it needs WorldEdit, which provides the axe you mark areas with. Players don't have to install anything. At NapNodes, Minecraft servers are delivered with Paper.

Installing it

1. Make a backup

   In the panel, “Backups”. Installing plugins doesn't break the world, but it's a good habit.

2. Install WorldEdit and WorldGuard

   Search for them in “Mods & plugins”: the panel shows what works for your version and your server type. If WorldGuard doesn't show up, download it from the official EngineHub page (its authors) and upload it with “Files” to the plugins folder, next to WorldEdit.

3. Make the versions match

   Each WorldGuard version needs a particular Minecraft version: the latest needs the latest Paper. If your server runs an older version, use the WorldGuard from that time, or it won't start.

4. Restart and check

   In the “Console”, wg version tells you which version loaded. If you see a WorldEdit error, WorldEdit is missing or isn't for your version.

Protecting spawn, step by step

You need to be op (in the console: op YourName). All of this is done in-game, because the area is marked with the axe.

1. Grab the axe

   //wand gives you a wooden axe. Left-click a block to mark one corner; right-click for the opposite corner. Put them diagonally, covering the whole spawn.

2. Make it reach from bedrock to sky

   //expand vert stretches the selection from the very bottom to the very top. Without it, the region only covers the height between your two clicks, and someone could dig in underneath or build on top.

3. Create the region

   /rg define spawn. “spawn” is the name: whatever you like, no spaces. From this moment, anyone who isn't a member of the region can't break or place blocks, or open chests or doors inside.

4. Look at it

   /rg info spawn shows its corners, its members and its flags. /rg list, every region in the world.

5. Got the area wrong?

   Mark the corners again and /rg redefine spawn: the region changes shape and keeps its flags and members. To delete it, /rg remove spawn.

The flags you set at spawn

A flag is a rule for the region. You set it with /rg flag <region> <flag> <value>, almost always allow or deny, and you clear it by typing the same thing with no value: /rg flag spawn pvp.

No PvP: /rg flag spawn pvp deny. No mobs spawning by themselves: /rg flag spawn mob-spawning deny. No explosion damage: /rg flag spawn creeper-explosion deny, and the same with tnt and other-explosion. No fires: fire-spread deny and lava-fire deny.

Nobody dies at spawn: /rg flag spawn invincible allow. No hunger loss: natural-hunger-drain deny.

Letting people use things: since the region protects everything, at first players can't open doors or press buttons. /rg flag spawn use allow permits it (doors, buttons, levers) and /rg flag spawn chest-access allow, opening chests (think twice: they can empty them). They still can't break or build.

A message on entry and exit: /rg flag spawn greeting Welcome to spawn! and /rg flag spawn farewell You're leaving the safe zone. With greeting-title and farewell-title it appears large, in the middle of the screen.

A flag for some players only: -g

With -g you decide who a flag affects: members, nonmembers, owners, nonowners or all. For example, a staff area only its members can enter: /rg flag staff entry -g nonmembers deny.

Another typical use: an arena where fighting is allowed, but only inside. /rg flag arena pvp allow in the arena, while the spawn around it has pvp deny (to make the arena win, see priorities below).

Members and owners: who can build inside

/rg addmember spawn Ana lets Ana build at spawn; /rg removemember spawn Ana takes it away. /rg addowner makes someone an owner, who besides building counts as responsible for the region.

For a whole LuckPerms group, with g: in front: /rg addmember spawn g:builders. That way anyone who joins that group gets it without touching the region. How to create groups, in the LuckPerms guide.

An idea that works: one region per shop or per spawn plot, with its owner as a member. Nobody else can touch anything.

Regions inside regions: priority

If two regions overlap (a shop inside spawn, an arena inside the lobby), the one with the higher priority wins. They're all born with 0: /rg setpriority arena 10 makes the arena's flags apply inside it instead of spawn's.

With /rg setparent shop spawn, the shop inherits spawn's settings (members and flags) and you only change what's different. Handy when you have lots of shops with the same rules.

Rules for the whole world: __global__

There's a region that always exists and covers the entire world: __global__. Whatever you set on it applies wherever no other region says otherwise. /rg flag __global__ creeper-explosion deny removes creeper damage across the world and /rg flag __global__ enderman-grief deny stops endermen from carrying blocks off.

From the server console

In the panel's “Console”, commands go without the slash and, since the console isn't in any world, you have to tell it which one with -w: rg flag spawn pvp deny -w world. The name is the main world's: the one in “Settings” → “World folder” (level-name; by default, world).

Creating or redefining a region, on the other hand, can't be done from the console: it needs the axe selection, and only a player has one. Everything else (flags, members, priorities, info) works.

The usual mistakes

“I'm op and I can break blocks inside my region”: that's normal. Ops bypass regions so they can fix them. To see what a player sees, /rg bypass turns that bypass off (and /rg bypass again turns it back on), or test with another account that isn't op.

“Hey! Sorry, but you can't break that block here.”: that's WorldGuard's message to non-members. With the deny-message flag you replace it with your own: /rg flag spawn deny-message You can't break anything at spawn.

“Someone dug in under spawn”: the region doesn't reach the bottom. Mark the corners again, //expand vert and /rg redefine spawn.

“Nobody can break blocks near spawn, not even outside my region”: that isn't WorldGuard, it's Minecraft's own spawn protection, which only lets ops build within a few blocks of the spawn point. With WorldGuard you don't need it: set it to 0 in “Settings” → “Spawn protection” (spawn-protection) and restart.

“I set a flag and it does nothing”: check /rg info. If there's another region on top with a higher priority, its flags win; and if you're testing as op, remember the bypass.

Where regions are stored

In plugins/WorldGuard/worlds/<world>/regions.yml, one folder per world. You can view and download it from “Files”. If you move the server to another machine or host, take the whole plugins folder along with the world and the regions come with it.

Frequently asked questions