Moving the spawn

[A. Pippenger]

It doesn't matter to me how long the new spawn looks nice for. It just needs to last long enough to get a new generation of players. Once we get a bit of a population boost, and some interesting new builds going on, new teams formed, etc, I think the changes will be self sustaining. The main reason noobs quit is because spawn is ugly and too difficult to survive in. The main reason non-noobs quit is that the server is too empty. Even if spawn turns to complete shit again after a few months, we'll have an entire summer break where we get lots of new players.

I don't know if I'm making much sense, but basically, I think a server population is an ecosystem. You can't just bring in one type of animal without bringing in the thing it eats first. If you put a tiger in a desert, it will starve to death. First you have to put in some water, then plant trees, then bring in wild herbivores for the tiger to eat. I think the same thing applies to bringing in good players. Noobs leave because spawn is shit. But decent players leave just because everyone else has left.

Sure, any competent player can survive a wasteland. But can they survive the feeling of being on a dead empty server, where the only other players have been here for years and won't give them the time of day? The emptiness of the server becomes like a black hole. We're reaching an event horizon where no player, no matter how skilled, has any real desire to play here because the server is so empty, especially around spawn.

A few experienced players hanging around, occasionally planting trees and condescendingly teaming with noobs, is not the same as a vibrant, living server where you can get right into the action. What I want to see is people building cities at 5k and not having any idea it's a bad decision. What I want to see is people getting into legitimate fights and feuds with each other, not casual nobody-gives-a-shit pvp twice a week in /world. What I want to see is people acting like we did when we started.

I think moving spawn, and maybe moving it far, like 20k or 30k, would be a way to make this server actually feel new again. That's kind of drastic, I think some people might prefer it to be moved less than 1K. Some people would also prefer to randomize spawning, and some would prefer to reset a 300 block radius around spawn.

The exact method isn't important in my opinion. But we need to do something to stop this place from turning into a museum.

[EggThief]

I agree with pippenger, some of us have been talking on the server and we agree we need to change something to bring in new players. We always say that if a new player can't survive in the wasteland when we don't need them in our server. But without noobs the decent players won't hang around like pip said because the server feels so empty. I know we want to preserve the cool stuff about our server but we need to sacrifice some things for an increase of players, otherwise like pip said our server will become a museum.

Edit: I won't pretend to know what will bring in new players but we need to give some things a try. If we're too afraid of losing things then we'll continue down the same path

[Mattias480]

20-30k sounds good. It doesnt make much difference, if it is 500 blocks or a few k away. New biomes should be in reach. That would give a huge effect. 0,0 is good centerpoint, but thats all it is, numbers.

[FoSchnizzle]

If we randomize spawning to 20-30k, new players are going to have one hell of a hard time meeting other new players.

[A. Pippenger]

Yeah, if we go with randomized it should be within 1k of spawn probably. But if we put a new protected spawn area at 30k, new players get to explore new stuff and all that without having much trouble finding each other.

[Mattias480]

I was thinking moving the protected spawn into new biomes (20-30k or more). Why do new players need to see this junkyard, after dieing first time? Lag will still be there, theres not much to do, all griefed, no players.

[LoneSoldier55]

Because that ruins the point of an anarchy server. If people want to see new biomes they can go ahead and travel to it. You're pretty much asking god to grab a chunk of earth and plop it down in a new eden so you can "explore" "new biomes".

[A. Pippenger]

Lone, the point of an anarchy server is to have pvp without unnecessary mod interference. It's a set of rules, not a particular way the terrain looks.

I don't really care if the new spawn is near any fancy new biomes or not, I just want the terrain itself to look newer. It should still be anarchy, it should feel like a new anarchy server instead of a really really old one.

Let's look at the current state of the server: Valhalla was griefed a year ago and nothing similar replaced it, the castle was abandoned, the empire collapsed, a lot of old players have left and there are way less new players than there used to be. It's funny that you'd mention Eden, because it was griefed over a year ago as well and most of the players have left. How often do you even log on? It says right on your wiki page that you "log on scarcely to SimPvP, mainly to see current events and take some pot shots at making new players mad."

Seriously, this server has gotten boring as shit, and you realize that more than anyone. You don't even play here anymore cause nothing is fucking happening. We could make this server interesting again if we got over some arbitrary definitions of anarchy. Right now it feels about as anarchistic as the fucking Smithsonian.

To me, anarchy means pvp, exploration, griefing, and just general excitement. It doesn't mean a couple old timers remembering the good old days.

[LoneSoldier55]

You forget that Minecraft is on the verge of becoming a dead game.

You either get the server you have now, or you're getting a generic 10 year old kiddie donator perks server with build protection and admin favoritism. Even if the terrain does become reset, it's just going to get destroyed again within a month. The state of the server has been declining steadily since we've allowed obvious shits like Lyser to loiter around the place, thank god we put up with him long enough for him to fuck off on his own, or lord knows how long he would have stuck around.

People aren't just leaving the server when they quit, they usually leave the game. You don't hear about them playing on other servers because either there are none that fit the SimPvP doctrine, or they're sick of Minecraft. The reason people abandoned Eden/Vahalla/Avalon/Hive/Damoceles is because they have done all they wanted to do in Minecraft with their pals or buddies or whatever. Now that they've gotten their hours out of the game, they're playing something else.

Minecraft had its time in the spotlight as an amazing new Indie game about creation and exploration, then it was promptly picked up by the media and cancerous things like Reddit and children. Now you get the festering dying shithole that is this game. I heavily doubt this server will ever return to its prime-time of 50/50 players, maybe it will never even reach 30 players again. The last time I saw the server full was when the limit was still up and someone had connected about 40 bots to the server to spam the shit out of it. The "Good Old Days" are gone.

[Mattias480]

So conclusion to this would be: lets give up and not even try. Usually players who join, they complain about lag, about no animals, obviously they are expecting to find new biomes, which they don't. They would stay, but they leave just because of these reasons. How more simple can i make it? All these reasons, but only few people seems to have the interest to make it better. I'm sure we would have MORE players, if these weakpoints would be eliminated. But we can't, cause we are anarchy, and someone wrote general rules about not moving the spawn in any anarchy server. It's forbidden and even shameful to think that way.