Best Posts in Thread: Make Earning Money Fun + Assorted goodies

Like all suggestion threads I post, please be open minded and borderline respectful. I welcome a good debate. I understand that this entire thread has a passive-aggressive undertone, and I'm sure many people will read this is a load of rambling BS.

This is a follow on from a previous post (Is it too hard to make money?).

Currently, myself and the majority of the people I've talked to feel that the economy is too strict.

Making money in this economy is a chore. It's not FUN. The point of a Minecraft server is to have FUN and the point of an economy server is to become rich (i.e. make lots of money), and it's incredibly BORING trying to become rich when the only legitimate way to do so is to do hours upon hours of mundane, repetitive work. This is why we are currently seeing so many ban appeals of players who've resorted to all sorts of illegal activities in order to get the same rush they used to get out of being rich.

As a more experienced player (joined Nov 2012), I find it incredibly underwhelming earning a fraction of what I used to while working infinitely harder. I have to place blocks for an hour straight to earn 10-15k, and I'm a level 54 builder. Think about that for a second, the highest ranked builder on the server having to slave away for an hour to earn what he used to be able to in a few minutes. It's not fun and if I were new I certainly wouldn't hang around for long.

And it's not just experienced players who find this new economy off-putting; put yourself in the shoes of a brand new player. They come to this server, have no clue how to talk in shout to ask for assistance or simply introduce themselves, they have no sense of direction and don't know how to get to towns, they see the quest masters and just go 'wtf is they' and walk off, they realise that making money is boring and simply log off, never to be seen again. No wonder our player count is declining. We need a short, sharp tutorial.

Now enough of my (hopefully) refined ranting, time for some proposals.
-Bring back paid minigames, you know, things that are actually fun to do. *By minigames, I'm referring to simple, easy to learn, games which don't require a huge number of players (which, let's face it, we don't have) and are popular among the community. Infected in particular <3 <3
-Buff jobs: Yes Klutch, you've buffed jobs a thousand and one times. But many older players will gain no satisfaction from earning a meagre 2.5 meebles for cutting a log or 1.3 for placing a block. I remember when I got paid 12 meebles for chopping a log and 4 for placing a block, those days appear to be long gone. I'm no economist, but if jobs are buffed then shouldn't inflation allow the value of the meeble to remain relative anyway?
-More donor shop options: We have nothing to spend our earnings on. Yesterday, Vkl earned 325k from dicing. I asked him what we were going to do with it, he responded with something along the lines of "idk, let it rot in the town bank". Ten minutes later he decided just to dice it away because there was nothing fun to spend it on. Bring back grappling hooks, bring back tnt, bring back glass picks, bring back fun.
-Add a tutorial: We need a short, sharp tutorial that will teach players how to teleport to towns, earn money, join a town and talk in shout. Keep it literally that simple. We don't need signs telling players how to /plot set perm ally itemuse on, we don't need signs advertising our empty and too often broken minigames, and for the love of Jay-Zus Christ we don't need a plethora of signs attempting to indoctrinate a moral code into players.

TLR:
This is a Minecraft server, making money should be fun. We shouldn't be confined to hours of mundane work to earn what feels like a fraction of what we used to, and then find out that the only thing we have to spend it on is paying upkeep and dicing.

Now to lighten the mood, please enjoy this picture of a baby sloth sitting in a mug.

 

Im gunna break this down Muunkee style.

Making money in this economy is a chore. It's not FUN. The point of a Minecraft server is to have FUN and the point of an economy server is to become rich (i.e. make lots of money), and it's incredibly BORING trying to become rich when the only legitimate way to do so is to do hours upon hours of mundane, repetitive work. This is why we are currently seeing so many ban appeals of players who've resorted to all sorts of illegal activities in order to get the same rush they used to get out of being rich.
This is a hard thing to argue because yes, The point is fun, but this isnt any Minecraft server. Its an eco server where the point is to become rich, however whats rich? Rich as in everyone has everything and god gear costs 100,000 instead of 20,000? What defines rich? Ninjaroxy, Epixaid, and a few others seem to have no problem getting rich. It seems to be a lazy problem where you want to do 1 thing while afk for the majority of the server.

As a more experienced player (joined Nov 2012), I find it incredibly underwhelming earning a fraction of what I used to while working infinitely harder. I have to place blocks for an hour straight to earn 10-15k, and I'm a level 54 builder. Think about that for a second, the highest ranked builder on the server having to slave away for an hour to earn what he used to be able to in a few minutes. It's not fun and if I were new I certainly wouldn't hang around for long.

Its incredibly offsetting when you tell me you make a fraction of what you used to when everything is buffed lol. Just because back in the day we had 1,000,000 events, doesnt mean we need to kill the eco like it was in alpha. Youre comparing 3 years of an eco growth to 2 months and youre mad about it. Yes, you now only earn 10-15k but whats a god pick cost. 10-15k. So you want to earn a god pick+ per hour? 1,000,000 is now worth 150,000. Same value, less numbers. I dont really understand your side when you make this part of your argument.

And it's not just experienced players who find this new economy off-putting; put yourself in the shoes of a brand new player. They come to this server, have no clue how to talk in shout to ask for assistance or simply introduce themselves, they have no sense of direction and don't know how to get to towns, they see the quest masters and just go 'wtf is they' and walk off, they realise that making money is boring and simply log off, never to be seen again. No wonder our player count is declining. We need a short, sharp tutorial.
Make a tutorial script then.

Now enough of my (hopefully) refined ranting, time for some proposals.
-Bring back paid minigames, you know, things that are actually fun to do. *By minigames, I'm referring to simple, easy to learn, games which don't require a huge number of players (which, let's face it, we don't have) and are popular among the community. Infected in particular <3 <3
They are coming back. we have 1 part time tech and t3k and I grind additions every day. They are coming back as are events and other small games like the soccer we added.
-Buff jobs: Yes Klutch, you've buffed jobs a thousand and one times. But many older players will gain no satisfaction from earning a meagre 2.5 meebles for cutting a log or 1.3 for placing a block. I remember when I got paid 12 meebles for chopping a log and 4 for placing a block, those days appear to be long gone. I'm no economist, but if jobs are buffed then shouldn't inflation allow the value of the meeble to remain relative anyway?
Ive buffed jobs time and time again. As mentioned before, Im not buffing at any extreme. I will continue to move values until theyre good and happy. Its been about 3 weeks since the eco actually balanced and the dupe bugs have all been fixed. Stop being impatient, or dont play on a recently opened server and come back in a year.
-More donor shop options: We have nothing to spend our earnings on. Yesterday, Vkl earned 325k from dicing. I asked him what we were going to do with it, he responded with something along the lines of "idk, let it rot in the town bank". Ten minutes later he decided just to dice it away because there was nothing fun to spend it on. Bring back grappling hooks, bring back tnt, bring back glass picks, bring back fun.
The hook plugin doesnt work with 1.11 and it goes back to the tech issue. We have 100 more things to worry about at the moment but we will certainly be adding new features and items to spend money on. This is a given.
-Add a tutorial: We need a short, sharp tutorial that will teach players how to teleport to towns, earn money, join a town and talk in shout. Keep it literally that simple. We don't need signs telling players how to /plot set perm ally itemuse on, we don't need signs advertising our empty and too often broken minigames, and for the love of Jay-Zus Christ we don't need a plethora of signs attempting to indoctrinate a moral code into players.
Make a script.
TLR:
This is a Minecraft server, making money should be fun. We shouldn't be confined to hours of mundane work to earn what feels like a fraction of what we used to, and then find out that the only thing we have to spend it on is paying upkeep and dicing.
I added mcmmo, a new jobs plugin with ranks, and actually pay for 6 times the amount of things you do. What is "Fun money?" I can make a spot in spawn that you just stand and earn 1,000,000 meebles fireworks will go off constantly. Will that help?

Spend time making money = have the best things on the server.
This isnt a server where you sign in and have everything. Otherwise it would be like alpha where the ONLY COLLECTIBLE ITEM is heads.

 

I don't have the time to grind 6h a day to obtain meebles. +1

 

I love this, and I love you, you beautiful carrot-wielding monster. All in all - We keep

Cannot tell you how much in support I am of this.

Kind of curious why they aren't paid now - Is the payment dealio broken? Or was it a specific choice? o.o

Again, I'll +1, because I fully agree with your point. I sold a rank because I got bored with how money was made. I can't vote or play minigames, so I'm left with jobs and shop. Granted, people are lazy, I"m hella lazy, but I don't see why grinding placing blocks for 2 hours sounds like something a player, especially a new player, would want to do for 20, 30K.

Absolutely a +1 because we not only need donations, but hella money sink

Meh, a warning is always nice. I don't think the signs do any harm. It's not so overdone it's annoying, IMO.

Think of this from a player retention standpoint. I'm not sure what the stats are exactly so I'm going to make some educated guesses, they may be partly off but they'll get my point across

Lets say we get an average of 50 new players a day. That's a player just logging in. Probably at least half will log off immediately after logging on, so we'll count the 25 players. Of those 25, probably 10-15 will wander around spawn a little bit, not know how to use /g, and figure either A. This is boring. I don't see anything I can do. or B. No one is responding to me ugh, I'm getting off.
So now we have 10. Several of these will inevitably quit within a day or two due to lack of understanding or lack of activity. Some will quit because they are ignored in global when asking about towns and get frustrated. Some will build a wild house, get griefed and leave. At the end of the day, we keep maybe 1 or 2 of these players. Out of the players we get in a week, we'll probably keep 1 or two players a WEEK for over a month.

A tutorial is more important than you think. With this spawn, it's not super hard to find all the minigames (I mean there are giant letters in the sky lol) but seeing as half our minigames don't currently work and there is little to no instruction to towny or skyblock or anything beyond /help which most new players probably dont even know exists.
Something like a tutorial, and adding more fun ways to make money, and being able to achieve things besides owning a town that are smaller, will help increase that total. 1-2 turns to 5-10. And with some changes, those players are more likely to stay for longer periods of time. So the 1-2 players per week we keep for a month + turn into 5-10 as well, and maybe some of those stay for even a longer period of time. We now have over twice the amount of opportunity for these newbies to tell their friends, and/or donate, which is what we want.

The problem is not so much an existing player or we the players that have been around for a good long time. The ones who are stuck here because of our friends lol. If we want the server to be a success and be able to grow, we have to find the heaviest problems and hit them hard. Right now I think our biggest problem, not counting serverside issues such as the bugs with the reset and development etc, is player retention. If we can't keep the players, and we slowly lose what we have, we are never going to grow.

Plus, more of a side note, as said above it's a game. People play the game to have fun. If you say to someone, "Hey, do you want to play this game where alll you do is chop down trees for 2 hours for 2 weeks and then you may be able to possibly get one of the end goals? Maybe? no?" they're gonna laugh at you. I do understand the nerf of the jobs and totally agree with it, but now that the reset has settled a little bit, I think it's time to make more additions to both add and remove money from the eco. We can always change things again later.

 

Minecraft as a whole has been getting worse. Older, more mature players/people move on to different things, so there's a ton more kids who do kid things. Minecraft is an old game, almost as old as TF2, believe it or not. Old Towny/iConomy servers like this aren't popular, all people care about now is small niche servers, hubs, and modded Minecraft. I bet you we're the last major server like this.