Each player has a permanent item: a "personal" chest. It is around this chest which they spawn. If they have a compass, it will point them to this chest. If they have not laid their personal chest somewhere, they will spawn at the default spawn for all players. The default spawn location can be controlled by an admin. Lastly, an admin should be able to set whether players spawn at a single default spawn coordinate, or each player is uniquely assigned a location within some specified radius of the default spawn (so as to spread players out around the land more). Why? Because all other mods are cheap, cheat, and too easy and are only a command away from teleporting players from place to place. This is stupid and lame. No combination of mods, at least to my knowledge, ultimately bring the result I desire. ;o I wrote a cleaner version of this post and first posted it on my blog and on the official Minecraft forums, but here it is:
