Proposal from an on and off regular

[BrentwoodBay]

Perhaps automated messages would be too much, but one message with vote links upon login wouldnt be comparable to spam at all.

I suppose spawn is just fine the way it is, I agree with Lone that its almost pointless to "jack up" spawn with fresh landscape resets all the time and whatnot... because the challenge of escaping spawns chaos and the history of the grief is pretty cool and sort of represents SIMPVP in a way, SO

touching back on the alt world, I remain adamant that it needs to be bigger. It would cover the needs and wants of everyone who is debating over how to increase server popularity in these ways:

1) It would allow new players the brief buffer period of time to go to the alt world for basic resource and therefore exponentially increase the odds of them returning (instead of leaving in less than five minutes) thus hopefully solving or improving the low playerbase issue.

2) The two main concerns I have read about a bigger alt world is a)Basemoving b)Easy resources : I still do both of these activities with relative safety on the smaller map, so really having it smaller does not solve these "problems", though I dont even consider them problematic.

3) It wouldnt make the overworld too "hugbox" (for lack of a better word) because frankly a noob is a noob and a stone sword wont do shit in the chaos of spawn for their kind..

4) even if the server is filled with noobs for a while because of the alt world, it wil also attract more mature players over time who like the idea of a more busy and full server.

Also I remain firm that events on fixed intervals would also improve player retention rates, though I am against prize handouts because thats just lame and not really doing anything for the problem we would be trying to solve by hosting events.

And finally i have no clue why I'm signing my posts

-Brent

[Mattias480]

I give a vote to mitte90's idea, disable the beds. Simple and solves pretty much everything. Why don't you people build your castles and farms in single player and then share pictures in forum? I mean, most will never wish to travel to your far away base just to see it. Is it even worth it.. u can just sit there gather resources build stuff. But you're alone(maybe u have few teammates there). but basically no action.

[LoneSoldier55]

Brent why the fuck are you signing your posts?

[Mr_Hole_Digger1]

The change that wouldn't affect world drastically would probably be to increase the safe-zone of spawn a bit; 100-200 blocks or so. Just an idea that would help newcomers get past the craters and possible stay on the server, it seems like one of the reasons they leave.

[LoneSoldier55]

The change that wouldn't affect world drastically would probably be to increase the safe-zone of spawn a bit; 100-200 blocks or so. Just an idea that would help newcomers get past the craters and possible stay on the server, it seems like one of the reasons they leave.

Sure, why don't you go tip a vote in favor of it?

[A. Pippenger]

Here are my thoughts on our spawn:

As long as it's griefed, it will drive away a certain type of player. Most of the time, this is the kind of player we don't want. A small portion will stay, and they tend to be more mature and just generally more fun to be around. I don't feel like it's a controversial opinion that we have an older and better player base than most servers. If you don't believe me, check literally any other public server and you'll see what I mean.

I think the function of spawn is to weed out immature players. This is vital to the health of the server. The problem, as many people see it, is that it drives away so many people that the server feels too empty. I agree with this, but you can be absolutely sure we'll regret it if we give up the character of our server and flood it with ten year olds just cause we want more players in the short term. Even if 90% of people leave instantly, that's better than the alternative, because most of that 90% would hurt the server by sticking around.

What we really need is slightly more mature frequent players, packed together a little more densely.

The best way to attract more good players is to all vote more often so more people total come to the server. If 30 people a month log on for the first time and the 3 most mature stay, then if we can bring in 90 a month then the 9 most mature will stay. (Numbers are very loose estimates but you get the idea) However, if we increase voting AND change spawn, the 81 other noobs will stick around too and ruin the server.

Basically what I'm saying is that we need to advertise the server to more of the type of people who actually belong here, not try to get any random noobs to play here. Cast a wider net, but still take only the highest quality fish, if that makes sense.

A single automated voting link when you first log on would be enough to do this, and wouldn't be distracting. But for the good of the server, keep spawn a bit shitty.


I also still want /world to be bigger and undergo changes, like Brent has been discussing and like I've been talking about on my suggestions thread. A bigger /world gives more regulars a chance to interact with each other and more reason to stick around. Player retention is more important than attraction IMO, because we know we already have good people.

[Mattias480]

Terrible, terrible idea. Do you want to know why people want to build 'castles' and 'farms'? Because people like being challanged. That's why. If you want more players you should start of with fixing the spawn entirely. And everyone needs to vote a few times a week. And fix the bloody world, I liked Brent's suggestions.

Im saying that most people play like in single player mode in this server. Not very challenging for me. It would be cool, if u and others come back near spawn. If the beds and even enderchests were disabled.. just try to imagine, how it would change the game.

Playing near spawn, lets say 5 to 10k radius, is way more challenging, than playing 100k or half a million blocks away.

[A. Pippenger]

Mattias, I have an account that lives near spawn. I move it between about 150 blocks out and a 20K-ish farther group base where I live with brent, hole, doggychow, ostrich, and pretty much anyone who wants to come by. That's the closest I'm willing to build anything remotely permanent, and moving there from spawn is still a hassle. It's a lot of fun building little castles and stuff, seeing what cool stuff other people build, and working together to improve the base. Now, maybe we could do this without beds, but I think it would be impractical, meaning we'd have to live closer, meaning people would have to be paranoid and hide their stuff, meaning the base would be less fun.

And this isn't even mentioning my other account, which I'm using to build a giant city at 100K. There's no fucking way I could keep that up without beds, and nobody else living there would stay or give me any kind of help ever. Maybe you find it silly to do an ambitious build on an anarchy server, but I like the feeling of achievement of having to mine all the resources myself and protect it from griefing. It makes it feel almost like a real place, instead of just a file on my computer, because other people can see it too. Also, while I'm working or hanging out at my city I still like to talk to people, do events, make trips to /world, and stuff like that, which I can't do on singleplayer.

I also enjoy playing on a server where I know there are cool landmarks, even though I'll never see them probably. There are teams like the castle and Nirvana that I could conceivably join but probably won't, and old abandoned bases that I know I'll never find. Still, I enjoy the sense of history and community that exists on a server with epic builds and secret bases. Have you ever seen the Pyramids of Giza? Have you ever seen the Great Wall of China? Have you ever seen the Eiffel Tower? Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty? Most people here have seen one of these famous landmarks of the real world at most, but that doesn't mean the world wouldn't be a poorer place without them. It's the same with MC servers.

[LoneSoldier55]

Mattias you're trying to force people to play how you want.

That's not how it works.

[Mr_Hole_Digger1]

Yuk, have you ever thoroughly looked back at how the server used to be managed when we had the most people regularly playing?

Maybe however it was being run then might be worth reverting too if it seems like it could make a positive impact. I'm not saying we should get nether roof travel back since that is a glitch but maybe just change it back the way it used to be. Should I see if I can find some other community that might be interested in playing here with us?