Stop with the damn idea of making money so hard to get. It doesn't help things.
One of the things that made old Meepcraft flourish, was that money was easy to get. New players could join and easily begin making a profit. I'm not typically one to compare old and current Meepcraft, or to say things like, "Old Meep was soooo much better; only noobs are here now", and I do think that the server is currently good, but the economy was one thing that was sincerely better back then.
I realize the reasoning behind making money harder to get. And, in theory, nerfing things, adding taxes, and so on, in order to make money harder to get, is a good idea. But, in reality, it doesn't work. Yes, for the current players, it makes it harder for them to get insanely rich, but it makes the server less appealing to the general public. Players won't stay on a server if it's too hard to make money, and pleasing the players and striving for a bigger playerbase should take precedence over preventing the current players from getting rich, because new players joining is how the server grows.
So, put the prizes for mini-games back up to more money, remove the V-shop tax, stop nerfing everything, etc. Just make the server generally more friendly to new players who are trying to earn money, because that's how the server grows and prospers.
