A Change in Direction

4 years on Meepcraft, you say? You were here when there was only Towny. You were here before there were any minigames, long before a focus on them. Heck, you were here when MCMMO was a thing. You and I both know that a primarily Economy/Towny server can be successful. It was. It still can be.

I don't see much hope for Meepcraft until we quit working on minigames and start fixing the server itself. We need to return to our roots or we're doomed. I'll tentatively say we're doomed already.

 

I don't think I could agree any more with this.

Meepcraft focuses way too much on the little things, like annoying plugins (why do we need a bookshelf plugin? really?) and mini-games that barely any people play. Do you see how many people plead for someone to join CTF or Boomo? No one really uses or plays those things. Meepcraft is supposed to be solely an economy server, but it isn't. This server is all over the place; it's like Meepcraft tries something and hopes for the best before even putting any thought into it's plans. We just opened UHC... why? How is that supposed to make Meepcraft any better than it already is?

In order to make Meepcraft the best it can be we need to plan more, and focus on one thing and then go through with it, after much careful thought. If you want a full-on Towny server you have to make a full-on Towny server, and right now the server is about half Towny, half random nothingness.

 

I'm alright with a few minigames and such. The original Hunger Games was cool, UHC and Boomo are cool, but they shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be on Towny, the Economy, and keeping both those and the server running smoothly. I'm pretty sure that vShop has been broken in towns for the entirety of UHC's development. vShop being broken isn't even on Trello, ffs.

Meep was at it's largest when things worked. Minigames and Towny alike were implemented and working perfectly fine. Staff was alright, things were kept under control, bugs were fixed promptly, and most importantly, there was a steady flow of money and players on Meep. Things worked during MN, much better than at any other point in Meepcraft's history, IIRC.

 

Yes. Agreed. 100%. But my reasoning is that we have fallen too far. We need a boost to get people back into the server so they can PLAY towny. Improved Halo + Advertising would mean that players would stick. And at some point, a good amount of them would move over to the towny server, and then we can begin improving it.

 

No, in the past, the influx of players brought in by advertising generally leaves after they realize that so many things are broken. Before we do anything, we need to fix all the broken plugins and make the server playable. When tbnrfrags did a video on boomo, a massive amount of players played boomo for about a week, then disappeared after they realized the bugs weren't going to get fixed. We need to learn from that failure and do something differently this time.

As soon as new players see that towny is broken, they'll leave. In order for players to move over to the towny server, towny must actually be appealing.

 

Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. That's pretty accurate. But what exactly is so broken about towny? It's still playable, and is still entertaining. I agree though. We can't keep adding new features, we need to fix the ones we have first.

 

To clarify, I'm totally fine with improving halo and attempting to get a player boost that way. However, in advance of advertising, if we're going to try to lure players into towny, it needs to carry a certain degree of appeal to it.

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

Sure, towny is still playable--I wasn't specifically referring to towny as a broken plugin, per se. I was more saying that the rest of the server's plugins (including vshop in towny, this is critical) need to be maintained before we add new content or advertise.

 

Yes we tried them. But they were not done the best way.

New Spawn
The current spawn is laggy and unnecessarily big (and some might say that it's ugly). Looking back into meep's "glory" days and better servers, the main spawn is usually simple, a lot smaller, and better looking. I'm a big fan of the second (and first spawn) we had. The second spawn had a lively feeling to it and had a variety of blocks. The main concept of first spawning into the castle with the tutorial and when done, you walk out to see the courtyard with the different spawns was cool.

The second spawn terrarium was in a cool location and had a slightly different design on the outskirts of the arena (there were balconies that you could pvp on). It had a simple entrance, but yet it was sufficient. When you enter, there was a board with all the rules clearly laid out. In the current spawn, I feel like it's in an awkward place. It's right in the center of all the warps and it's only 12 blocks away from the main spawn. I also don't like how the spectator part isn't accessible unless you warp into it.

Also is it just be or is the speed in the new spawn annoying as heck?

Advertisements
I may be wrong but aren't the advertisements we currently have are on less known websites? Also there's the whole "What are we doing to keep new players in?"

Hyping Donations
Main reason why people donate is for the towns aspect. I feel like with the decreased community and other factors, towny is getting boring. You build a town, or get a plot, build something and that's fairly it right now. You also can't hype donations when there's a lot of things needing to be fixed, made, replaced, etc.

We shouldn't strive just for "it's playable." Also basically what I said earlier: with the decreased community and other factors, towny isn't just as entertaining. There needs to be more content in towny added like achievements, towny war, etc. There are always great idea waiting to be thought of.

 

This is all true. Towny does need to be improved. You both have good opinions, so what are your opinions on towny war?

 

I actually don't know the whole towny war rules and how it works . I was just giving an example of additional towny content. But when it was enabled I remember it was pretty chaotic but yet people said it was fun and suggestions popped up asking for it to be enabled permanently. I'll definitely do research on it though .

 

We appreciate your input, but we're constantly working on and modifying mini-games. We're trying to balance priorities between towns and minigames (see Trello), as we think that would be the best option to satisfy the most amount of people. Thank you for the suggestions though!