You do not need a network to have more than one world. A single server can hold as many as you like, with players moving between them by command — and it costs far less than running separate servers, because only the loaded parts tick.
What the server gives you by default
Three: the Overworld, the Nether and the End. They are already separate worlds with separate folders, which is why world, world_nether and world_the_end all exist side by side. Adding a fourth is the same idea.
What to do
- Install a multi-world plugin
The server itself can hold several worlds; a plugin is what creates them, loads them at startup and gives players a command to travel between them.
- Create the world with the settings you want
Seed, world type and generator are chosen at creation and cannot be changed afterwards without regenerating. Decide flat versus normal before, not after.
- Set per-world rules
Most multi-world plugins let each world have its own difficulty, game mode and PvP setting. A creative world with survival rules is the classic thing people forget.
- Decide whether inventories are shared
This is the important one. By default a player carries the same inventory everywhere, which means creative items reach your survival economy in about ten minutes.
Without an inventory-separation plugin, a player can fill their inventory in a creative world and walk into survival with it. If you are running creative alongside survival, this is not a nice-to-have — it is the whole thing that makes the arrangement work.
Common world layouts
| World | Why |
|---|---|
| A resource world, reset monthly | Mining without scarring the main map. Reset instead of expanding. |
| A creative world | Building and testing. Needs separate inventories. |
| An events world | Loaded only when you need it, so it costs nothing the rest of the month. |
| A separate Nether for resources | Keeps the main Nether's roads and portals intact. |
A world nobody is standing in costs nothing but disk space. You can keep an events world for years and only pay for it on the evenings people are in it, which is why this is cheaper than a second server.
You can travel to the new world by command, the correct game mode applies on arrival, and your inventory behaves the way you configured.