My idea for a survival server is this: There are 3 main areas. The building area, the resource gathering area, and the PvP area. Every player is given two plots in the creative-style building area. One is for their living space, the other is for an aspect I will explain later. The resource-gathering world is a vanilla generated world that will be reset every month. You can build here, but it is not intended for general living. Lastly is the PvP area. It would be a huge PvP arena somewhere around 1000 blocks in radius (maybe smaller).
The second plot in the building area is for a monthly building contest. There will be a keyword and you then have one month to collect resources to build it. Please note that this will all be built in survival mode, so scaffolding would be advised. There will be no judges. Instead the community can wonder through all the builds and talk about which ones look good. When the building period for the contest ends, players will give votes to the ones they thought looked good. I haven't decided an exact ratio yet, but a certain amount of votes will equal one point. Points will be explained later in my post.
In the resource gathering area, PvP is off. (I forgot to mention, but it will be off in the building area as well.) Your goal is to gather resources for building your base and your build. Now diamonds you find in this area have 3 purposes. First, they are used as part of your build, if you so choose. Second, they can be traded in for points. And third, they can be used to craft items for the PvP area. As mentioned before, the world will be reset every month, in time with the building contest. Emeralds, considering their rarity will also be worth points, and quite a bit at that.
The PvP area will be very similar to WarZone from the survival server, while mixed with elements of the KitPvP servers. While in the PvP area, it's a no-holds barred fight, provided you follow the rules. Points can be used to buy kits for use in this area, as well as other uses that I will talk about later. This will let people get out the aggressiveness that always seems to come with survival.
Now, be aware that mobs will spawn in all 3 of these areas, so when you're building, a creeper could come along and blow up half of your build. Also, I want to be able to incorporate raiding into this, but I'm not sure how. Bases and homes could be raided, but not builds.
Now, I'll explain the points. If my idea gets used, then perhaps we could somehow incorporate the points gained in MCSG and use those. Anyways, points can be used to buy various things. As mentioned earlier, you get points by having votes and by finding certain items in the resource world. These points can be used to buy monthly kits for the PvP area. These would only be monthly so you have to work to get that kit again. Points could also be used to buy certain items for building. Like a stack of stone brick is worth one point, or something of the sort. A player's building plot will be cleared monthly, with the contest. However, the player's other base, their home won't be cleared on a regular basis. To prevent some builders from being too powerful by having a lot of blocks to start off the new building contest, the entire server will be reset. New plots, new worlds, and nothing saved from before, aside from point counts. One way to keep this from hurting too much would be this: In the point store, players can buy something that makes it so when the server does a total restart, they keep whatever they have in their inventory.
Now, I'm sure there will be inappropriate plots, because of this, staff will have the ability to reset a plot. However, instead of just getting rid of the items, the blocks will appear in a chest next to the player's other plot. And one last thing I would like to mention. Players can create their own custom kits for a cost of points. A staff member will then evaluate the kit based on what's in it and set a point cost for it. Players can then purchase that kit when ever they want.
Sorry for wall of text, but that was my idea for an interesting survival server.
-Lively