Tech Time and Effort: Where should it go?

Stemming from a conversation in /shout with Dblosevn, I'm curious what the community has to say about this thought.

What should the focus of the server be on? Should development be more directed toward minigames, or improving Towny.

I will begin with my point of view, and then we'll open it up for discussion.

Meepcraft is a fantastic server, supported by hundreds and hundreds of dedicated players. There are dozens of towns across both Alpha and Beta, with hundreds of citizens. Towny is the very fabric of Meepcraft. Meepcraft prides itself as the world's largest towny server. It is, has been, and always will be the trademark of the server. So why would we dedicate our time to unoriginal minigames such as Hunger Games? Minigames are a fun side activity, but one would think that the majority of the effort would be exerted onto improving Towny.

"Well, if that's the case, what would you even have them improve in towny? Isn't it as good as it can get?" That's a silly question, easy to answer and rhetorical question asker! Well, good sir or madam, there are countless accepted suggestions in the suggestion forum that have yet to be touched. Some of these include adding commands to towny such as /t set outpost spawn, and http://meepcraft.com/threads/town-plot-biome-change.53881/. Those are just two examples of many, many more suggestions that need to be implemented.
Aside from implementation of new features, many people have had issues with server-side lag in /warp wild. I am unaware of what's involved in this or how to fix it. I do, however, know that there is a significant drop in performance for me personally, and I know a few others have said the same, between the towny servers and wild.

"Ok, Mr. Oreo, so you say that Towny is the biggest and most popular part of Meepcraft, but can you even prove it?" Why yes I can, Mr./Mrs. Skeptical! At the time this article was written, the Towny servers alone consisted of exactly 50% of the online player base. Add Wild into the mix, since the items obtained in wild are used in Towny, and that number jumps 67% of all online players. At the time this test was done, Spawn contained 16.5% of all online players, leaving 16.5% of the player base playing the minigames Meepcraft has to offer. Even this numbers are skewed in favor of the minigames, due to the time that the poll was taken. During the heavier traffic flows of the day, the advantage for Towny and Wild is even greater.

One of the points Dblosevn brought up was Meepcraft's advertising. That's one of the things I was least familiar with, given that I've only recently come back from my hiatus from Meepcraft, and therefore haven't seen any ads recently. He claims that Meepcraft's advertising campaigns aren't directed towards Towny at all, but instead are directed toward Meepcraft's minigames. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to come across any true advertisements, but I did look at several Minecraft server list websites, and in each and every one of them, the first word that I came across when looking at features: Towny.

It is for these reasons that I feel, as a citizen of Meepcraft, the effort that is currently being put into the minigames should be shifted to focus more on the development, improvement, and maintenance of the Towny and Wild servers.

Please put forth either further argument for Towny focus, or a counterargument against now. Thank you for participating!

 

Towny is a risky plugin to touch. We go over this with every towny suggestion that is put into the suggestion thread when we go over them. Also with the minigame thing, I seem many new players log on or even /modreq asking "Where is halo" "How do I get to Halo". So the minigame focus isn't a major issue.

http://meepcraft.com/threads/town-hall-notes.54967/#post-556670

 

I agree with you. The minigames are popular the first week or so they exist. After that they're a waste of money to keep running. One of the things that I would love to have come is factions. For me Halo is more of a "I'm bored and have nothing to do" sort of thing

 

Hue.

Minigames are very important to meepcraft. They are one of the best ways and more known ways for new players to make money as well as provide entertainment for themselves, and that's the best way to hang with their friends. Aye, it gets boring, but it is something that needs to be worked on.

Towny, not so much. (dev wise.) Except for the below, I think towny is amazing. It's got a good system, a nice eco flow, pretty damn good stability if you even have a tiny but of common sense.

But, there are things more important than this, and this doesn't strictly apply to any server in general. Bugs, and things that have been promised for some time.

There are a lot of game-breaking bugs out right now, some that have been 'worked on' for quite some time. some, not so much, but still really need a fix.

Also, a lot of features that have yet to be added. How long have we been promised pets before it was implemented? A year? More? I don't remember. Now pets have been around for months, and they are still bugging out and not doing what they are supposed to.

How about that stock market bug? A simple solution is to delay the opening by 15 minutes. Not a hard concept. Yet, it's still there and hasn't been touched for a while.

Stuff like that, that's what really bugs me. We're all focused on these new amazing things that are coming out, we aren't paying as much attention to the stuff that really hurts the game the most.

 

If the towny plugin is so risky to touch, then why would there be so many suggestions for modifying it that are being accepted? If there are suggestions for modifications to the towny plugin that would jeopardize the server, why even consider accepting them? A suggestion should only be accepted if it's practical and easily possible to implement.

As for your second argument, that is very, very weak. Obviously there are players that are asking where Halo is, but if you watch in chat, you will find the overwhelming majority of questions asked by all players are in regards to towny. Despite not having been on staff since April of last year, I find it somewhat hard to believe that questions have changed that drastically from then to now.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 6, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 6, 2016 ---

This is a fantastic third side to this argument that hasn't been pointed out yet, and a very valid one as well.

 

This is also a good point. I've been constantly active on this server except for 2 months when I was banned. The questions pretty much have stayed the same in shout.
Can I join a town, how to I add a friend, how do I set plot perms, how much is this...

I've never seen those stopping. I see sooo many less questions about minigames, though they are there, SO much less.

 

I agree with you and apparently, the way fuzzlr thinks, he thinks factions will cause 'a divide' in the 'community'

 

FACTIONS

edit: surely we could make a factions server just as easily as making boomo, and seeing that boomo has not much popularity and I'm pretty sure much more popularity would go to factions so maybe remove boomo and add factions

 

What would Factions add? How is it original? How would it work? What would make it successful?

Explain your logic and thinking, and back it up with facts and statistics.

 

How would Factions Cause a divide into the Community?
@Fuzzlr Why is this so?

 

It would divide the Towny players from the Factions players, but that's not the point of this debate. The point of this debate is where the focus of the server's techs should be.

 

It would bring in more players to the server and would make the server more enjoyable for people that don't just want to play the towny server all the time. I see people saying "I'm bored" in chat all the time, adding factions would cure that boredom. It doesn't have to be original, it is a widely known plugin that lots of people like and play. It would work by having a separate server for factions and having new mods or existing mods moderating the server.

 

Alright but I was mainly asking da Boss.

 

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THE ANSWER IS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

(This might be the first time I've agreed with Oreo)

- MeepCraft, since MeepNetworks, has continuously tried to become a hub server, essentially failing the entire time. -- Stop trying to do what everyone else is doing, and focus on what we that have is unique - Towny.

 

How do you know it would draw in players? It's unoriginal. Why go to a towny server with factions when I can go to a dedicated factions server? All factions is is Towny with MMO and PvP.

Also, the whole seperate server and new/old staff for it is exactly what they did with MeepNetworks. It did not go smoothly.

 

Unfortunately it's not that easy. A 15 minute delay won't resolve the issue at all. If that would have been the solution then it would already have been implemented .

Sjoe

 

What is wrong w/ stocks though

 

You have not played factions if you think that.

 

They way I think of it is that towny is for long-term players, and minigames are for short-term players. People come in here for minigames and only some stay for towny. In my opinion though, minigames are very important, as they are a good way to make money without having to gamble or grind for hours straight for a decent stack of cash.

 

minigames are kinda "grindy" though if you play them frequently