Server Player Retention Suggestions.

I believe I have identified two roadblocks to player retention and potentially optimal solutions.

One, integral reason players decide to stay with a server is absolutely prosperity. Players don't want the game to be too easy but they don't want it to feel impossible either, and when you come into an economy where the average balance gap between the highest end and the lowest end for regular players is well over 2,000,000 units of currency in a server where diamonds cost 150, and towns cost 150k, things can feel a little bleak, especially when not only are spawners not mineable, but they've been nerfed all together.

So how do we remedy this solution without breaking the server? We can't just increase the starting meebles players begin with, because then towns can just scoop up newbies and give them plots to leach free money at much higher levels than they already do knowing the player is going to disappear from the server 2 days later.

Here are my solutions:

Firstly, the cost of towns, I like the cost of towns, I don't think it should go up or down, but what I do think is that maybe there should be a ramping up period for plot cost, like maybe the first 9-10 plots you buy increase in cost at increments of 50 or 100 meebles until capping off at 1k per plot.

Secondly, limiting the ability of the already existing towns to spiral out of control and gobble up the entire server. In the peak of meep's activity it seemed like a town would be discovered every other day having sat untouched for days or weeks in the wild after crumbling. Now everyone and their mother knows when the next town is going to crumble because the mayor quit, sets a home, and is waiting there to outpost it the moment taxes roll around. This causes two problems, one it leaves less for the little guys (I'm not complaining for my own benefit, I don't claim anything I don't intend to restore anyways) and it spreads the net of towny power too wide to where all of the best spots (hence why a town was built there to begin with) get stolen up by the richest people in the server leaving lack of opportunity for the new comers. My solution: Limit maximum number of outposts to 15 or 20. This will still allow large towns to be large, and even claim out crumbled towns, but it will force them to think a little harder whether or not it's worth it and maybe save some for Joe-Shmo who joins the server next week.

Thirdly, I feel there needs to be a town warp room where towns with an open door policy are able to setup a portal to their town, where once there, players can hit a sign and that one single action allows them to claim a plot (with the plot price/taxes clearly listed but preferably free) and start playing no strings attached.

Lastly, lack of activities and self reliant economical growth. Let players help each other by posting a pwarp board or room in spawn dedicated only for helpful pwarps like grinders, enchanting rooms, etc, things which don't have a sole purpose of turning newbies into slaves but instead give them a chance to survive. Here is an example, in the spirit of getting back to what I used to do I am building a one stop shop for newbies to use. Players can pwarp to this room and instantly start making money for themselves while contributing to the economy, and even have space dedicated for new players who have played on the server for more than a day, and less than a month to open up shops. In this pwarp will be a free enchanting room, free brewing room, free food, free anvils, and a free guardian grinder. There will be swords for sale for only the fair market value of the iron or diamonds it took to make them, and they will be able to 1hit kill guardians to gain levels and enchant their own gear, sell me the lanterns/prismarine at a fair price etc, and everything they need to thrive in meep and hopefully stick around and start their own towns/projects in the future.

In conclusion I believe one of the biggest issues we have to surmount in order to come back from this EULA hit is to reform the way our economy works. Right now it revolves entirely around 10 or so players and 3 towns, we need to de-centralize the balance of power and allow people to be independent or the server will never regrow it's population. Thank you for your time, and for reading this, I am open to all suggestions and criticism.

 

This is impossible without heavily modifying the existing towny plugin. Currently, the cost to claim a normal plot is 350 Meebles, outposts cost 1,500, and upkeep on them all is 50.

This has always happened. Players have camped towns that are about to fall the entire time the server has existed. As it currently stands, the towny plugin bugs out and makes you lose track of outposts when you hit 30 outposts anyways, so this is probably already completed.

Overall, Minecraft terrain generation isn't that great, so I do understand the lack of good areas, but most of the time when a town falls, and another town claims it, they just want free stuff. Most often, it gets unclaimed shortly after.

Despite my own town falling under this, I heavily disagree with any implementation of this. This will create even more monopoly towns. Picture I set up one of these for Legend. If it's the closest one to the portal, players will just run through it, and ignore all the others. With the current invitation system, it gives new and old towns the same opportunity to recruit.

I do agree there is a lack of ways for new players to make money, but this can easily be done by players. For example, look at @bloodyghost's pwarp sell. It has a guardian farm they buy access to, and then they can sell xp. Do I ever use that? Nah, not at all, but it's a small example of how players can implement things better than from an official server staff side.

I do agree with this base premise, but currently one of the biggest issues I see is the sheer number of towns we have that don't contribute to the server. As I am writing this, there are over 90 towns that exist on the server. Of those, 70 or more have less than five residents. Towns are centralized powers not because of the economy, the cost of towns, or anything of that sort, but the fact most players are living in small hermitages that do not actively recruit people. So there are only 5-10 towns that are even open for new players to join, with those three having the most active recruiters to add people.


The solution to all of these issues is not to limit players, limit towns, or limit anything else, but for the community to step up, open up some resident-friendly towns, build ways for them to make money, and be friendly enough to get people to stay.

 

no this would screw mayors big time.

all you would need to do is claim a plot next to it and then unclaim the outpost

ok, in doing this you will kill mine, alexxx's and bloody's business. thx dude!

the main problem with player retention is lack of knowledge. sorry clue but the tutorial sucks. bad. it has no helpful information in it. like really? /modreq ? you get a server broadcast like every 25 minutes with the /modreq message. also, dont make players do a quiz when they first join. your just wasting space. tell them essential things like /warp wild to collect resources, /warp towns to use those resources, /request to join a town, /plot claim to claim a protected plot. dont rely on town mayors to give players a proper tutorial. its annoying!

 

I used to think this was a problem but you can't "limit" towns or eventually you'll hit a point where there isn't anything to do. This problem is actually resolving itself as Peachstreet dies and Legend's entire community is inactive.

you know why it's that way? Because 10 players and 3 towns work insanely hard to succeed. Bloodyghost and I, for example, do a lot of work to fill our bals and our town bank. (Including dealing with people a lot of the time who are harassing us about things we've long forgotten because they see our money and want some for themselves) People like Pluto, Epix, Jeter, bloody, all the baltop players who don't sell ranks really have worked really hard to get there and eventually turn around and benefit the server. (example: pwarp grind is planned to become free at some point, also we changed diamond prices to make new players profit better) it's really about work put in. -1 on all this

 

I can code it and would be more than happy to if @Cooleysworld or another admin would be willing to send me a copy of their specific plugin to edit.

This hasn't always happened tho because before there was a Towns Alpha and a Towns Beta, I personally came across untouched towns on a daily basis. Furthermore even if they do want just free stuff it's probably better suited in a new players pocket than someone who could literally afk for a month and come back with as much or more money left after a month of taxes than the avg player has all together. If nothing else there should at least be a plugin modifier that unsets all homes of players from different towns when a town collapses within it's premises.

Then maybe we set a population cap so when a town has more than 25-50 citizens they lose their slot in the portal hall.

I'm not saying there aren't some fairly viable alternatives already, I'm saying they're not quite attainable enough to keep 12-14 year olds coming back which is fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you see it, the average player on minecraft's age.

I completely agree that more towns need to contribute and as soon as I finish my town's capitol we will be contributing to that end of the solution as well, but I do however disagree with you saying it's one of the biggest issues, I know plenty of players in other servers who never even joined a town just saved up in the wild til they could afford it, which of course only becomes an issue when diamond prices are controlled by 1-2 players (as seen last night with bloodyghost) and towns are so expensive to create to begin with (which I am not in particular complaining about)

In old meep I made the pwarp which made /pwarp grind famous (not bloody's one but most likely the reason he bought the pwarp in new meep) which out competed every other grinder in meep of all mob types, the result was a huge increase in at bare minimum first week player retention. You couldn't go to /pwarp grind at any time of the day and not run into a new player selling me blaze rods, bones, string, and flesh. You already have a ton of money, I don't even intend to make any, you'll adapt and survive or you'll lose your monopoly and crumble. That's how a prosperous free market works.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 17, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 17, 2018 ---

Then maybe the solution is for players who have been inactive for more than 30 days to automatically be booted from a town so that they don't just end up being a voucher for free plot claims indefinitely. However I disagree that being in baltop means you worked hard, half of the first page is lucky betters and people who inherited wealth. But you can't say for a second you changed diamond prices for new players benefit lol. I mean maybe they might inadvertently benefit but that is not why it was done and you can't think for a second people will believe otherwise lol! I do want to disillusion you of one thing tho, the only people who truly work hard to make meep prosper are the rank sellers and staff. We are playing a game, they are the ones who work for real money, to pay to keep running the server, and monitor it to keep from falling apart. Any animosity people have like it's unfair they can just instantly attain wealth or something need to abandon that notion post haste. Last night ghost made more money manipulating diamond prices in a hand full of hours than he ever earned by actually mining diamonds if you want to talk about working hard. I'm not upset about it I'm just saying let's keep things in perspective here.

 

buying a rank is not work, and spending hundreds of dollars on a minecraft server is a bit ridiculous.
Do some staff work hard? yeah of course, but I don't even know who you're arguing with since nobody ever said staff don't work.

Those people don't stay there though. Bloody, Pluto, and Epix have all been up there for months because of hard work. All you do is occasionally blow things up as far as I can tell (although you removed like 3 nutcrackers from the eco so that's actually really helping the economy lol but still)

yes of course it's all you who did everything ever. He bought it because he runs a grinder, and /pwarp grind is the most logical, simple choice XD you're not some kind of hot shot people impersonate

if you're this worried about the server and are appropriately skilled apply for tech

I agree with clue. If you care so much, stop being a toxic jerk in global and try to help people out. You have to walk the walk before you tell other people to run, you know?

he spent maybe 8 hours and 100k on actually doing it, and you aren't saying it was work? did it end up benefiting him? yes. Did it require hours of hard work, advertising, making connections, and a risky amount of money involved? Yes.

of course it was for money it's an economy server. Why do you think my town drains cit's bals? It sure as heck isn't because I actually want or need players or extra plots, it's just more cash to help offset the cost of the town. It's just business

 

Buying a rank requires money which is the only work involved in minecraft, every other part of it other than being high level staff maintaining the server is a game and by definition not work. Spening $100's on a game is what keeps the server alive because I promise it's a lot more expensive than you think it is even being based in the Philippines.

I definitely don't just blow things up but you're welcome to believe that if you'd like. My town is under construction and scheduled to have a public opening before the end of the month at which point I assure you, removing your foot from your mouth may take professional help.

No one owned /pwarp grind at all the entire time leading up to me buying it and everyone who played old meep knows my version of /pwarp grind whether they know me or not. Those aren't coincidences.

I would if I had time but I don't believe plugins are the primary solution anyways.

I'm toxic because you disagree with me but if I was really toxic you would have reported me so watch your mouth before you start slandering people there if you aren't going to back it up fella.

Not even going to touch this if we're calling it work still.

Obviously it was for money, all I am saying is don't attempt to play it off like it was done for the good of meep lol. It was for the good of your pockets and there's nothing wrong with that but let's call a spade a spade. I still 100% agree/feel that players who have been inactive from a town for more than x days (a month would probably suffice) should be booted from a town automatically (except for maybe a mayor as long as the town /bal supports the taxes)

 

I spent far to long spewing out facts about individual faults in the suggestion, but I think the problems presented here can be explained in two parts.

Part 1
The server's systems are fine. There's heart behind the suggestion, but the ideas aren't going to improve the current experience or do much to effect the server at all. You want more detailed information, you can read all the other comments.

Part 2
This is where we get to the heart of the suggested issues. I'll start with this quote from near the top of the forum:

It may be the job of all Meepcraft's staff to run and grow the server, but it's the job of the players to be a community. The power of a community is huge because they can create change and grow or create a stagnant environment. The problems described here focus on what needs to be done to retain players and there are great ideas, but the suggested execution is wrong. As I said before, it is the community which really creates change. Every suggestion in this second part is possible without the aid of staff. Perhaps they are too much for one single person to complete all alone, but that's what the community is here for. Don't call the staff to action: call the community to action!

Let us speak not of what's wrong but how to fix it. You yourself say what we need: simple job opportunities for new players, simple access to /pwarps that help players, creating shops which are fair, and expanding knowledge about the server to all. These opportunities exist and are graspable now! Change is possible now with the correct drive and correct goals, not to change the server systems but to change the community.

 

Prelude + Part 1

Since you're not giving any reasoning as to why they're not good suggestions, and I've already rebutted the other comments we'll have to just agree to disagree then I guess.


Part 2

I agree and if you really, thoroughly read my post you'll know community building is one of the things I support and said we do absolutely need, but just because players need to be more proactive doesn't mean that the server infrastructure doesn't need to be bolstered to help support the shift. The way meep is structured is a niche for the few meepers who have survived and thrived within it, of course people who are already successful don't want the system to change because they already have it figured out. I know changing hearts and minds isn't going to be easy or necessarily even likely but just because you don't like the suggestions doesn't make them bad or inopperable. But I want to dispell this myth that I'm making suggestions here which require a massive overhaul of the current server system, these are very small and low impact changes that don't break the current system they expand it's support for new growth and that is all I'm interested in.