"It's not easy to turn the #1 Minecraft server in the world, with 1,100 players online simultaneously and one of the most active online communities in Minecraft into a small hamlet hardly peaking at 300 players." -Fuzzlr

As Fuzzlr stated in the thread "A New Meepcraft" in 2013, it's a hard job to screw up this badly, not to mention that this is the second time it's happened, and this time the reason is less clear with even graver consequences. While a super-villian like CrueltyGaming is relatively easy to fix, a server with under 50 people online with little interaction from the owner combined with overall poor management is doomed to fail no matter what. Someone put CG in charge, he didn't get there by himself, and in a similar way, someone hasn't bothered to check up on us, and right now Meep feels like a forgotten houseplant. So, without further ado,

But this isn't a Fuzzlr hate thread. I know that Fuzzlr probably has more responsibilities than he did in 2012, which is understandable, and that's why I'm supporting Sirrr_Pig as high position staff to take over most daily operations. Remember: Fuzzlr makes money off Meepcraft, and therefore has a personal interest in it succeeding. I'm sure Sirrr_Pig, Fuzzlr, and the rest of the community would be happy to see Meepcraft back up at 1k players again. We all have something to gain. This post was made to help point out the root problems of Meepcraft, and how to fix them.

To begin, let's point out the problems (solutions will be discussed later).

-Revenue
-Player Count (Dead economy)
-Disorganization of staff/server

REVENUE
"My explanation for this is that MeepCraft is based heavily around the economy. An economy server is dependent on factors such as power, wealth, and economic advantages. In the past, our revenue model has been dependent on players seeking economic advantages. Giving those advantages to paying players is what has driven our revenue model for almost 4 years." -Fuzzlr

As we all know, the EULA has crippled Meepcraft's and many other servers funding. The Mojang EULA basically tells all servers that they can't sell things to players that make them better than other players(like /fly). Apparently, Mojang sees this as forcing players to pay for what they already bought (Like a server with custom plugins and dedicated hardware! *sarcasm*) There is no doubt that this is part of a strategy by Microsoft (owner of Mojang and Minecraft) to force players into Minecraft Realms, (a paid hosting run by Mojang for small groups of players) as other larger multiplayer servers crumble. As further proof, recently Mojang/Microsoft took down their easy to run .exe vanilla server, making only the harder to run .jar version available to users as a sneaky way of dissuading casual servers from using the free software. In addition, Microsoft has recently shown interest on running Minecraft on C++ instead of Java, crippling any third-party mods and server software, and forcing them to be re-coded by scratch, all in the name of "efficiency." The point being, there are forces at play greater than Meepcraft or the number of minigames available. But it is what it is, and we will need to adapt no matter what.

By law, the only thing that "regular" servers like Meep can sell directly to players is:
A. Initial access to the server. EX: Be able to play Meepcraft forever for only $5!
B. Sell cosmetic items. EX: Exclusive members of Meepcraft can change the time of day.
Most servers have gone with option B, as almost no person, including me, would pay for initial access to a server they may not even like.
More info can be found here.

Lack of funds affects the following things:
-No more paid ads promoting Meepcraft (reduces new players who might donate, further reducing player count)
-Because of lack of new players providing cheap labor/buying goods, the in-game economy, Meepcraft's central feature, is dead.
-Smaller group of players=smaller talent pool=less talented staff

Notice how they're all connected?

Now, if servers cannot get money from players, where can they?
Many people have looked upon advertising as the future of Minecraft servers. The biggest issue with advertising is that players gain nothing when the server gains. When the server gets X dollars worth of rank-purchasing revenue, players would receive ranks that would make their game "funner" through the various perks gained. [B]When the server gets X dollars worth of advertising-based revenue, players get nothing that makes their game play better.

[/B]
PLAYER IMPLEMENTED ADVERTISING
"You are allowed to provide in-game advertising or sponsorship opportunities" -Mojang

One of the brightest solutions to the issue of advertising is making it player implemented.

In player-implemented adverting, players choose where they want their advertisements, and rank-up and receive pre-EULA like benefits based on how many people they can get to view those ads.

For example, a mayor could put a billboard/sign in their town that advertises a real life-product that the advertiser pays the server for in real currency based on views, and then as the server gains revenue, the owner of that sign/billboard would be able to exchange their "advertising credits" for a virtual good in return, such as a rank. This fullfills the EULA's requirement as making every player equal.

Ideally, any player would be able to use a command and say "I want an advertisement here," advertisements would auto-update themselves as the server cycles the ads, and could be removed just as easily by the player, but would stop producing credits. High resolution images wold be possible through map-art and other pixel based imagery. As players walk into the vincinity of the ad and view it, the owner would get advertising credits. The more views, the more credits.

Small ads would produce less credits but be easier to place. Each map "tile" can support up to 2048×2048 pixels and be combined to form large HD billboards. This map tile is just 128x128 pixels.

Large billboard. 16x16 pixels.

Advertisers would pay more for better resolution/bigger ads in more populated places.

Because towny allows players to own virtual property, Meepcraft has this revenue model as an advantage against larger, less population dense minigame hub servers that cannot use this model and do not allow players to own virtual property.

What about server population?
Because placing ads in more populated areas would be more profitable for their owners, players would want as many people as possible around their ads. So how would a player do that?

The player placement of ads encourages players to create content for others in order to get them to view those ads. Suddenly player-drawing activities like horse racing and planned pvp-matches seem much more useful to the players when they can make money off of them. This creates a stronger community and a "virutal urbanization" affect as players try to get other players to condense closer and closer. No longer will people have empty streets in towny or abandoned plots that make the server seem "hollow."

Eventually, Meep will see it's population grow due to player made content, not server made content like spleef or new minigames. And even better, the content machine will run itself. I hope that Meepcraft can reacheive its place as the #1 server in the world and fix its major issues.This whole thing was going to be longer but I got all these funky error codes if it was bigger. I literally could not fit in another sentence.Just to clarify players never actually spend money. The server pays them in virtual currency that they then use to upgrade rank.