So why this.Originally Posted by Benz282
Re: Forum Closed
So why this.
Liberalism is a Socially Transmitted Disease
Re: Forum Closed
What I said to you was that the way NEW players are absolutely gang raped by masses of established players is ridiculous. You guys drove off more new people than I care to remember by doing this. The second weekend on the server a new group of four people literally had only a hole in the ground with one row of crops and a few stacks of dirt, and they got spawn killed for 2 hours for absolutely no reason at all. I ended up relocating them by teleport and giving them starter kits again to keep them from leaving. Half of them left anyways and never came back. I heard about this happening with lots of new people, so I sent in my son. The same thing happened to him, he was given a choice: Join the Dwarves or never have any peace.
That is completely counterproductive and drives off players. What you want is to have LOTS of big factions, not 3-4 super factions that never give anyone else a chance to compete with them. When you and I spoke at length about it on TS, absolutely we disagreed.
I considered MCC to be something like the NFL or the UEFA. Yes, they all want to beat each other. But what you don't want is the other teams to disappear, otherwise they have nobody to play against. The goal of the NFL or any other sports league is to have lots of good teams so that there are lots of good games. If the other teams go out of business then there are no good games. The same thing applies here, lots of good teams = lots of good battles. My philosophy of allowing a team to get established is actually going to bring about more PvP action than simply ganging up on people the first night they join. Its called sportsmanship and that is what I wanted to see from the PvP side of things.
And that is still the way it was, though they wanted all kinds of rules about running from combat into safe zones and other crap in order to force people to fight. At one point they decided to build redstone devices that delayed entry into safe zones for a bit so you could get killed right outside the gates. I completely disagreed with that, but I never forced that opinion on anyone either.
You need to go read this thread again if that is what you think. I only had two major rules: No cheating and at least some sense of decorum both in game and on the forum. When I have a former admin blatantly insulting a current admin on the forums, and then tells me on TeamSpeak he is GLAD the other person is insulted, there is a problem. When I came back to MCC the atmosphere was so toxic I damned near shut it down right then and there. Current admins and former admins at each others throats in public, a completely disorganized plugin system, and a completely disorganized forum in which NOTHING was being utilized to anything remotely resembling its full capacity. In hindsight I probably should have, and started completely fresh. Instead I tried to bandaid it and get things going which was a mistake.Why we went from this to a philosophy of forcing people to behave a certain way is beyond me. I'm clearly missing a part of the story, but maybe it was the moment GED started thinking of it all as "his".
If you want a list of things on the forum that were wrong I can give you a quick one:
1. Tournaments plugin, installed and not touched for 2 years. Not once.
2. Content section of the site moved into the PvP forums. Hello... not everyone in the world is interested in PvP.
3. Some moron deleted my Linux tutorial and custom scripts I posted for other admins to use, and closed the Server Admin tips/tricks forum.
4. Nobody ever implemented the rep system properly like it is on TWC.
5. Squid installed his Awards plugin (same one as on TWC) which was never used.
6. Several other entire sections of the forums, never used.
7. Moderation section moved to inside PvP, which meant no forum moderation was happening at all. In fact the wiki had 3,000+ spam entries on it and the Q & S had hundreds of unmoderated posts that Pev and I spent probably 12 hours removing.
I could go on forever here.
Everyone wanted to PvP as described above, but nobody wanted to maintain/grow the site. That's far more than a one man job. We had hundreds of registered members that were allowed to play that had 0 posts on the site. We gave them no incentive to post (awards, rep, entering tournaments, etc) and we gave them no requirements to post to do things in game (form factions, towns, whatever) which meant that we had lots of in game traffic and very little forum traffic. That meant the site as a whole was losing money to the tune of about $100 or so a month, while the posting that was happening on the site was severely hostile. Poach himself came to me in Hex and suggested I shut it down then.
Exactly, and that was the straw that broke the camels back.
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Minecraft sounds a lot like Travian. I remember starting to play completely unaware on how the game is played. I joined a server late and I found it early why that was not good. I manage through good diplomacy to escape being endlessly attacked. In fact, I manage to develop so quickly that some alliances were "keeping an eye" on me. I played for bit then decided to stop playing on that server and join a new one. More or less lucked out because I was placed away from established alliances. Moreover, I found out later that most of the best alliances were already on other servers. I manage to join a new alliance. I actually prefer a small group, but I ended up out of necessity joining a "Meta" alliance. The problem with Travian is that it 24/7. There are tricks, but I found myself pacing my day to check on my settlement(s). There are people who work with other people in other time zones to make sure there is always someone watching the settlement(s). Eventually, I gave it up and I haven't played since.
The advantage of Travian is that the map is huge. You can easily hide in a little corner and not be bothered for a while. Eventually, as people around you join alliances, you will have to as well. Moreover, you cannot "win" the game on your own. Some players were really good.... developing a dozen or so settlements within weeks of the start up of the server. However, even these players would join "small alliances" with similar players. It is a kill or be kill world. There is also a beginner's protection that last up to 15 days. However, if you are new, there isn't anyway you can develop enough in two weeks time to hold off an experience player that has been on the server longer than you. (even if you both started at the same time, you will be puny in comparison and easy prey. It sad really, I had people complain to me that I shouldn't attack them. But if I didn't, then someone else would and those people would then attack me. In a world of either me or you, I will choose you.
I see what you are saying, but Major League Soccer would be the best example. Many of the clubs started off as league owned franchises. Plus, club spending was tightly controlled. This was done to prevent the over spending that helped doomed NASL. The league is enormously successful and has plans to continue to expand. In the case of UEFA, it could be argued that European- wide club tournaments actually promote greater disparities between clubs within domestic leagues.
I am not really getting why they acted so harmoniously on this forum, but suddenly became unreasonable on MCC? What I am gathering is that moderation was not has proactive on that forum as here and when the cat is away the mouse will play. IDK. It sounds like there was a difference of expectations on the part of every one.
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That sounds frustrating. None of it sounds damaged beyond repair. None of it seems to justify destroying what was, regardless of everything above, the most successful non-TWC community anybody created for you.
Biarchus
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Let me tell you the tale of when I first joined this server on the first TWC server, something about four years ago.
Week 1: Joined some nice guys called the Monks headed by a guy named Daily, I think many of the TWC old timers will know him. Anyways first day I just travel a few thousand blocks to their base and generally just explore it then log off.
The Stalkers, a notorious raiding faction of 3 members at the time, raid the Monks and completely devastates their storage's and kill us multiple times.
I leave the now dead Monk faction and found my own faction named Imperium and over the course of a few days gather some members and build a moderate sized base.
Week 2: We get hit by the Stalkers. Its bad. Multiple deaths and pretty much our entire storage, all of our iron and diamonds are gone. We are basically back to square 1.
Week 3: I am approached by members of the Order, a small faction but also one of the strongest on the server. After seeing my looted base they invite me to join. This invitation begins my first friendships I earned on this server. I am still friends with several members from the Order and talk/play with them today.
Summary: My first couple of weeks on this map were awful. I was killed many times, two different factions and two different bases were attacked and destroyed by raiders. But I integrated into the server and have made great friends and have had an amazing few years playing Minecraft with them.
So you know what I say to your stories of people getting gang banged. Tough crap. THAT was the server we loved and all enjoyed. You, GED, were so distant from what the players wanted. You wanted to expand and grow and become a big server but you forgot who was playing on the server and what we wanted. I know pretty much everyone playing on the community server that I'm an admin of right now. Could you ever have said that about your own server? I was playing on that thing since like a month past day 1 and I know for a fact I never knew who you were as a player.
Sure having a lot of factions would be nice and a big population. But we've NEVER had that. Yet still the same people come back year after year and we get new regulars slowly but surely. The prospect of growth isn't what kept us playing, it was each other.
Yea we get angry and go at each other and there are times I've had to force myself to stop playing for a week or two to get over myself. You can bet your butt there are times if I could I woulda banned like half the server. But in the end I loved every moment of it. It got personal and it made playing Minecraft so much more than just a simple arcade game.
Let me take a second look at this list and see who is involved with these problems of yours.
1. Admins, unless the average player was supposed to be given the power to implement plugins.
2. Admins, last I checked no one else had the ability to move entire sections.
3. Admins, no one else would delete an entire thread.
4. Admins, see #1
5. Admins, see #4
6. Admins, this was a problem after the first few months of the site even being open, since I assume you're talking about all the modification forums. The people put in charge of advertising just dropped off the map with zero progress. The fact you are bringing this up now even though those have always been dead tells you really didn't pay attention to that site at all, that or had no power to tell your admins you wanted something to be done about it.
7. Admins in control of the moderation force.
Well I reached the end of the list and what do you know, every single one of those problems has a root in administration. And as far as I can tell you are the head of it all, I mean obviously since you know so much about the situation that you can judge us all and shut it all down. Clearly you have the power to promote and demote admins on sites you own else Poach would still have a gaming admin job.
SO really what I'm dying to say, is congratulations. I've never seen someone set themselves up for failure, watch it over the course of over a year, and then act so surprised and outraged when it happened. Class act there mate.
P.S. We've had multiple individuals come forward with offers to donate on our new site and its completely paid for by the people who love to play on it. Guess that shows how much love you earned on your own servers.
Civitate
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I feel what I said was a condensed version of the above. "Keeping lots of players active on the server" was in reference to new people, the old ones were active anyway.
Well, it was a PvP server. Creative, Collaborative and Tekkit servers were all attempted several times and never kept activity beyond the initial "oooh new map/playstyle" period. The existing playerbase had no appetite for anything else and launching a server with no one to play on it was proven to be impossible several times.And that is still the way it was, though they wanted all kinds of rules about running from combat into safe zones and other crap in order to force people to fight. At one point they decided to build redstone devices that delayed entry into safe zones for a bit so you could get killed right outside the gates. I completely disagreed with that, but I never forced that opinion on anyone either.
Little wonder former admins were upset with the described state of affairs. Though the lack of forum use was because the forum failed to attract the modding scene it was opened for: the vision as a whole fell through, leaving only the servers. Non-PvP servers also fell through, because no one was interested in them. That's why I advocated bringing it back here when I made that thread in Hex: it was no longer a website with a server, it was a server with a website that served no real function beyond a social area.You need to go read this thread again if that is what you think. I only had two major rules: No cheating and at least some sense of decorum both in game and on the forum. When I have a former admin blatantly insulting a current admin on the forums, and then tells me on TeamSpeak he is GLAD the other person is insulted, there is a problem. When I came back to MCC the atmosphere was so toxic I damned near shut it down right then and there. Current admins and former admins at each others throats in public, a completely disorganized plugin system, and a completely disorganized forum in which NOTHING was being utilized to anything remotely resembling its full capacity.
1. It's not being used on TWC either. Chess and the Clans are only currently using it now because I went and asked them to start using it.1. Tournaments plugin, installed and not touched for 2 years. Not once.
2. Content section of the site moved into the PvP forums. Hello... not everyone in the world is interested in PvP.
3. Some moron deleted my Linux tutorial and custom scripts I posted for other admins to use, and closed the Server Admin tips/tricks forum.
4. Nobody ever implemented the rep system properly like it is on TWC.
5. Squid installed his Awards plugin (same one as on TWC) which was never used.
6. Several other entire sections of the forums, never used.
7. Moderation section moved to inside PvP, which meant no forum moderation was happening at all. In fact the wiki had 3,000+ spam entries on it and the Q & S had hundreds of unmoderated posts that Pev and I spent probably 12 hours removing.
2, 4, 5, 6, 7. When everything on the forum died except the PvP server, it made no further sense to maintain the rest. One of the decisions the Admins after me took that I largely agreed with was stopping any effort to keep everything else on life support. Remlap moved PvP to the top of the list and let everything else fall by the wayside, which was the right decision.
3. I can't comment, because I don't know where it was or where it ended up.
I suggested you move it back here, because MCC as a site had failed, not that you should shut it dwn. All that was left was the PvP server, which would've been safer, stronger, and more appealing as part of a larger site. You know I had a feeling of deep disagreement with the side you took after I made that thread, but I suspect now you took the side you took because anything, even a rigged election of supposedly un-electable positions, was better than bringing it back here.Everyone wanted to PvP as described above, but nobody wanted to maintain/grow the site. That's far more than a one man job. We had hundreds of registered members that were allowed to play that had 0 posts on the site. We gave them no incentive to post (awards, rep, entering tournaments, etc) and we gave them no requirements to post to do things in game (form factions, towns, whatever) which meant that we had lots of in game traffic and very little forum traffic. That meant the site as a whole was losing money to the tune of about $100 or so a month, while the posting that was happening on the site was severely hostile. Poach himself came to me in Hex and suggested I shut it down then.
I specifically complained to you about the farce that was the amnesty, and you didn't do anything about it.Exactly, and that was the straw that broke the camels back.
Last edited by Poach; February 06, 2015 at 10:39 AM.
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This was actually the group I was in and we weren't new players, we were veterans, but I completely agree with you. And thank you, I'll never forget the steps you took to keep us from leaving at that time, it may of seemed immoral to other players that helping harassed players out in such a situation, and I realise the flak you could of got from the community and Administration for doing that.
But I agree with you, that attitude of raping new players absolutely stinked and made me hate Map 5 most of all. The community is to blame for that. Then again, I've watched the launch of "Map 6" and no such action was taken this time round, by the factions you named, and we did have a lot of new + very old players joining the server. So honestly, its not necessary to blame a whole collection of players, blame the one or two individuals for MCC's demise, all you need is one idiot faction leader with "world dominance" on their mind to carry this sort of thing out. The majority of the community, are nice enough people. I'm not even kidding. Even if they all did seem "toxic" to you, I think it was just a lack of respect towards Staff because they were unhappy with the server. I know myself, the community jumped at me when I was in Content Staff because I told them to "go play elsewhere if they were unhappy and that Staff do not owe the community anything" in an attempt to shut some of them up. Which resulted in me being targeted by the community and kicked out of Staff for that remark. Though it had to be said, I do agree it was a very silly remark to make and I potentially made things worse.
Regarding the Wiki, the spam pages were noted, as I discussed with LukasVerdansky once whilst in Content Staff, he was actually taking time out to try and get rid of the spam pages (some of which were templates), and create a better structure on the Wiki. It wasn't like nobody at all was doing anything, he cared about the Wiki, I cared about the Wiki, but the fault lies in only a handful of people had Administrative access on the Wiki. Most of whom retired. I was only a normal user, approved by Remlap to use the Wiki.
I'm very sorry for your financial loss GED. But on the bright side, you did provide hundreds of hours of fun and enjoyment to some players who deserved to have it. I believe there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this, for all of us involved. Even though MCC isn't properly dead, as a friend, I would kindly advise you not venture your interests in Minecraft any further, because this will turn into the same old toxicity, with different/new people. You've also got to take into account the maturity and age-group of the majority of players of Minecraft nowadays. Most of them weren't after what MCC was trying to offer, which was complex sophisticated and mature gameplay.
As for me, I've taken a step back from Minecraft, after having resigned from my Administration position of that community. Because in the end, what's it all worth? The constant drama? All of us falling out with each other over a game that's about 3-dimensional things called blocks created in Java? Seriously. I've pretty much lost some very dear friends of mine due to this whole situation, and also in the past, with another failed Community Minecraft server. Enjoyment and fun should never turn into hatred and squabbles, it's just a game. A lot of us fail to remember that. Anyway I'm done. Thanks GED for providing fun over the years, all the best to you.
Last edited by Sanny; February 07, 2015 at 12:23 PM.
Bloodthirsty Lunatic
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I know a lot of player that were in it due to their friends, in fact i was one of them.
At the launch of the 5th MCC map half my faction considered quitting. At that point there were 120-ish players on.
Sure, the only way to break even financially with a minecraft server might be having in the area of 250 players (just a guess).
But the way it was imposed upon this community was wrong. We didn't ask for MCC. We didn't want a server with 250 active players.
All i and a number of other players wanted to do was play minecraft with a selection of individuals which we were familiar.
That's the opposite of an open server with active recruitment.
Why was there so little dialogue between the leadership of MCC and the players regarding the future of the servers?
I'm sure MCC looked like a good idea on the paper but look at where we are now.....
Demanding that a group of players who had created their own server and hosted in among themselves with votes on all important matter move over to a centrally led site where a small number of players selected by the site owner held all the power was in no way an improvement.
That the server had higher ping and more downtime than the community server was another problem.
I'm sure it makes perfect sense for you, GED to host the server together with those of TWC, i'd guess i'm the last person you'd take advice from on this matter but it's a bad idea!
Although i'm not an experienced PvP figher in the way that most players on MCC were the basics of it are easy:
If player 1 and player 2 attacks each other at the same time the damage will register as soon as they reach the server, which would've been located in Denver, CO.
If player 1 resides in Springfield, IL. then that'd take in the area of 40ms.
If player 2 resides in Ĺre, Sweden then that'd be almost 220ms.
Of course once the rapid clicking starts they'll be dealing the same amount of DPS but in those first 180ms Player one landed two hits.
Assuming that they have the same gear, click at the same time and always hit then player 1 is guaranteed to win.
That's not always how it goes, as skilled PvP players know how to use their ping to their advantage.
That would be the core of PvP, which does matter quite a lot since the vast majority of the players reside in either the EU or on the US East coast.
The result is that the American players gain an advantage.
That'd applies no matter where the server was hosted but it was enhanced by having it far from the coast, further increasing the advantage of American players.
That same lag also made mining less enjoyable (It is!, ask the Dwarves!) for EU players due to block lag (confirmation of a block breaking takes 440ms to Ĺre, Sweden).
A server hosted in a location so far away from a large part of the playerbase was, at least in my eyes the greatest problem with MCC through my stay there.
Now i haven't really been around during this entire transfer debacle and i certainly don't intend to ever again play MC again.
Judging from the comments here there's quite a bit of anger against everyone here and that's tragic.
Despite all of it's flaws MCC was quite good for several years, the first and second servers in particular.
It really does sadden me to see so many fling insults at GED for hosting a server at what i can only imagine to be great expense with nothing in return.
However i'm convinced that the downfall of MCC was assured from the moment the fifth server launched.
The lifeblood of any Minecraft server are it's veterans, the player that have been there and that knows the rules. On the original Community server a number of renowned players were given seats in a council which would act as the administrative backbone of the community.
That was never present on MCC, however up to the fourth map or i would say that the majority of the playerbase was somewhat content with the administration of the site, as it was mainly handled (as i saw it at least) by a number of worthy players hand-picked for their ability.
This has all become incoherent rambling hasn't it?
Oh well.
In the end, MCC was a bad idea. Turning a democracy into a monarchy doesn't work. Insults are not justified.
Sure, you can lock the thread and be done with it.
Or you could let the community sever stay under whoever the new Gaming staff admin will be.
Your decision.
Your consequences.
And i'm going to blame all of this on North Korea cause i can.
NOT Illuminati
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That's not entirely true. The official servers themselves were widely anticipated and supported by the community. As I recall, the original community servers died out of disinterest after the official server was announced, rather than any sort of imposition.
People wanted a lag-free, reliable hosted server. They liked the Wiki, dynmap, and other MCC features. They wanted a larger player base, both because, at that point, the community servers lacked the critical population threshold for sustained activity. And they were seduced (I remember quite clearly, because so was I) by GED's vision of battles with 50, 100, 200 participants. Not everyone supported the official server, and certainly not everyone supported the move to MCC. But the majority supported the former, and the latter was probably a necessary development (for the ad revenue, for the forum space).
Regarding admins, I thought the administration was rather closed off in the first/second map but it got a lot worse by the third and thereafter. In my uninformed opinion, it seems the plugin staff treated itself more like a mod than a support team, with previews, release dates, and closed development. That's hard to pull off for any mod, as you know, and usually results in failure. That's not to mention that, unlike a mod, the plugin was not an optional game/server feature, and major design decisions shouldn't be made behind closed doors. Maybe Rem et al. will contest that, but that's the impression I got from occasional visits.
Funny, but I recall arguing something similar three years ago. For reasons unknown to me, I tend to be a libertarian when it comes to MC matters (free markets/trade, democracy, states' rights, etc).In the end, MCC was a bad idea. Turning a democracy into a monarchy doesn't work. Insults are not justified.
Developer of The Great War | Leader of WW2: Sandstorm | Under the Woolen Patronage of Mitch | King of All
Vicarius
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Read the whole thread if you're still unclear as to why the MCC community was kicked off TWC.
Libertus
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Heartless.
MCC: ajr914oh
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May I remind you that admins silence people's suggestions because changes could only be done through dev dairies. Take Donmegel for instance who kept suggesting improvements to the server only to have his threads locked for not being a part of the bureaucracy. A good many of these players who tried to help were basically told to go away by staff (one's closest to you that is), which they did.
People who weren't part of staff were considered insuitable to make suggestions on the forum and even told to be silent to make suggestions because everything has to come from GED or Remlap/Hawk.
As I posted in the other forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDmfnzr3594
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I do not see the point of further discussion. It is clear that there was a miscommunication of expectation of what the community should and ought to be and how it should be managed. It is perhaps best that they (MC community) go on their own. Sometimes, communities just happen naturally, and maybe, this is better. Who knows; maybe in 10 years time the community borne out of the disaster of MCC would by itself become a thriving community.
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If you going to send this as a rep, please have the courtesy to identify yourself. This why I can address you directly and privately, rather than publicly.I disagree, and honestly i dont quite understand why you continue to get involved with this. Are you a minecrafter or someone on staff?
I am currently part of the Vault Staff. I am also currently serving as Censor within the Curia. I once served as a Librarian. I like to do the odds and ends. However, none of these positions have any relevance to the administration of TWC or MMC. I jave not formal or informal association with the administration of this site or MCC. I also have no desire to be part of the administration of this site. The views I express are my own. [The weird thing is I have taken no side on the issue]
Civis
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Big picture seems like GED wanted something grandiose out of MCC that the community didn't really want, nor could deliver even of they did want it. Implementing MCC as desired, probably would have been an enormous development. Hundreds of man-months sustained effort. Part time and transient volunteers - never have cut it. Especially when most didn't believe in that grand a vision. Mostly they just wanted to play the game.
There's nothing wrong with the vision, nor with what the players wanted. There's just a mismatch. GED primarily wanted website clicks and posts, the community primarily wanted to play. Mistakes and miscommunication on all sides yes. But this is normal for any human activity frankly. It only gets worse when there's a mismatch of expectations. I didn't know that there was a difference before, but reading this thread, it becomes clear.
Bottom line, what the community implemented was not what GED wanted. So he can pull the plug, its his choice. Likewise we move on and go our own way now too.
The timing is just sad though. At the moment GED pulled the plug, the community had found a way to move forward positively by returning to TWC. Nobody was doing anything inherently wrong, nor having nefarious motives. There was no discord or drama, and the player base was growing. People were happy to be active, felt good about TWC, and frankly had no animosity towards GED that I could see. Play was also fair across the board - even from those granted amnesty from past misdeeds.
But whatever, thanks GED for the support you did extend the past few years. Too bad we couldn't be what you wanted.
Firebird
Last edited by firebird1170; February 08, 2015 at 12:41 PM.
Liberalism is a Socially Transmitted Disease
Re: Forum Closed
I disagree.
The Tekkit server was a novelty and mostly a test platform. The Creative server became a waste as people were just testing redstone devices or any number of other things they can just as easily do on single player.
But the Collab server had a few (granted very few) dedicated players but was taken down after only a couple of months for absolutely no reason at all. It was never given a chance to grow, and it wasn't hurting anything sitting there running even if nobody was on it. Nobody ever tried to promote it at all, and at the very least if it had been left up there would have been something for people to do when the PvP server was taken down and then took forever to get back up.
[quote]Little wonder former admins were upset with the described state of affairs.[quote]
But they fail to realize that they contributed to the state of affairs.
That's one reason, but hardly the only reason. There are TONS of other things that can be done on a forum, as you know full well since we do them on TWC.Though the lack of forum use was because the forum failed to attract the modding scene it was opened for:
Setting up the Faction Leaders as a Curial type body is a no brainer. Why the hell would you not tap the inherent leadership of a faction leader and use it for something like this? All the award stuff I mentioned earlier could be voted on here, any other changes that affect the site as a whole could be voted on here. There are a LOT of things a body like this could do, if it was even half assed organized.
No picture/screenshot of the week contest? No Seed of the Week/Month contest? No building contests? No factions posting pics of their builds?
But there is no structure in place (yet) for how its going to be run. Soon there will be a director in charge of running the tournies and working with Content to announce tournies and winners, handing out prizes and promoting other stuff. You cant just turn it loose to the general public and give them no incentive to get involved.1. It's not being used on TWC either. Chess and the Clans are only currently using it now because I went and asked them to start using it.
No, it was completely the wrong decision.2, 4, 5, 6, 7. When everything on the forum died except the PvP server, it made no further sense to maintain the rest. One of the decisions the Admins after me took that I largely agreed with was stopping any effort to keep everything else on life support. Remlap moved PvP to the top of the list and let everything else fall by the wayside, which was the right decision.
Actually I did do something about it, but what I couldn't do was reban people after another admin granted them amnesty. That just wouldn't be fair to those granted amnesty and sure as hell wouldn't be fair to the admins to cut their legs out from under them like that. So I made a very specific rule announcement that it would never happen again and that cheating would never be tolerated on MCC. And I caught hell for that announcement.I specifically complained to you about the farce that was the amnesty, and you didn't do anything about it.
But now you are willing to play with these people that you agree should never had been let back?
I honestly haven't decided. What I did do is buy another motherboard for the server having problems. No matter what I do with those two servers they still have to function properly so I had to do that anyways, or throw the box in the trash.
But to be honest I do not have the time to dedicate to running it like I think it needs to be run. So I have to decide if I want to spend a few months putting a structure in place that should have been done over the course of the last 2 years and then risk having other people not follow up and maintain it so things fall apart again, or cut my losses now and do something else with the servers.
I will keep the database, but only visible to me on a local copy at my house. If I start fresh that means totally fresh.Keep the old threads. There's a lot of cool stuff there.
No, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to give people something fun to do, and MC can be fun.
But we do have to face reality here. Setting this stuff up isn't free, so I set an initial goal of the site generating enough traffic to cover operating expenses and I would eat the initial server purchase cost. The original date for reaching that goal was Dec 31st, 2014 (two years after launch), which Poach and all the other admins knew about. This is why the decision to focus only on the PvP aspects of MCC was completely wrong. Because when there are problems with PvP there is no other traffic at all. Zero.
This is why it was wrong to take down the Collab server and close other parts of the site. That at least keeps players around and if you have forum traffic based on that player traffic (contests, awards, etc) then you can keep things going. But if the only discussion on the site revolves around PvP in-game play then you are setting up to fail. I mentioned the server admin section of the forum earlier, what I didn't tell you was that I had about 50 old PMs with people asking questions on that. Questions that should have been posted in a forum (and shame on me for leaving PMs on when I was absent) so that anyone with any knowledge at all could respond to them. Likewise with other sections of the forum, closing them means you get 0 traffic. Leaving them open hurts nothing and just might attract someone who runs across it on Google or whatever.
The complete focus on only the in-game aspects of PvP was a dismal failure and anyone that thinks about it for 10 seconds can easily see that. Sadly, nobody thought about it.
You cannot have a community with no communication, and you cannot have communication without a method to communicate (the forum) but there was no real communication going on. If the only communication is going to be about PvP rules then having the forum is a complete waste.
So shame on me for leaving for more than a year and not following up on things, but if one person can make or break a community then shame on the community for not caring about anything other than playing.
The timing was a server failure. I should have moved the site database to another machine as I knew the one it was on was having issues. I patched it together for now but I wouldn't trust it in a production environment. But things were limping along badly anyways even before that. In retrospect I should have shut everything down in August last year and rebooted the entire thing.The timing is just sad though.
Civitate
Re: Forum Closed
Having a server that has 1 or 2 players that log on every so often next to a server with 30-50 people on at any one time doesn't make it a 2 server website. The Collab had no community at all after the first couple of weeks. Leaving it up to be empty was a waste of time, they invariably crashed for something or other after being empty for a month and simply weren't restored.
We also did promote them: every MCC advert we put out included reference to every server we had going at the time of the advert. PvP, Creative, Collab, all of it. Creative even had its own dedicated staff. Everyone that came did so for PvP. The other servers all failed regardless of what we did, and we know because we tried more than once.
You're damn right we did and I stand by every word I typed on MCC or spoke on Teamspeak. You demanded Rickie and I toe the party line simply because you decided we should and a whole lot of good that did the site: our "private channels" for airing grievances outside the public eye only worked for as long as you personally supervised them and even then both Rickie and I generally felt we were treated as nuisances to be heard then forgotten about. There was no cooperation, no accepting of criticism, no compromise, nothing. Every disagreement was 'settled' by letting the Admins do what they were trying to do anyway. I kept posting in public because posting in private, be it PM, Steam or TWC Hex, resulted inBut they fail to realize that they contributed to the state of affairs.all happening.
And what ultimately happened? The server launched with intensive life support from you failed shortly after your attention was called to other matters and the Staff you left behind vanished into thin air at the first sign of difficulty.
Have you still got the MCC forum contents? Go look at all the "X of the week" contests we tried to do and which failed. Go look at the Content department that turned over active staff with amazing rapidity because no one read what they did or contributed to what they tried to do.That's one reason, but hardly the only reason. There are TONS of other things that can be done on a forum, as you know full well since we do them on TWC.
Setting up the Faction Leaders as a Curial type body is a no brainer. Why the hell would you not tap the inherent leadership of a faction leader and use it for something like this? All the award stuff I mentioned earlier could be voted on here, any other changes that affect the site as a whole could be voted on here. There are a LOT of things a body like this could do, if it was even half assed organized.
No picture/screenshot of the week contest? No Seed of the Week/Month contest? No building contests? No factions posting pics of their builds?
The site failed. Only the PvP server worked. You showing up to firefight at the end of a long decline doesn't give you the understanding to hand-wave it all away as "you guys just didn't try". We very much did and it very much fell apart through lack of interest in anything that wasn't the PvP discussion forum.
I haven't been an admin there for 18 months, but I was the admin that was going to try to turn MCC around before you elected to side with the sham election that gave you the final admin team the site had. I'm also the (ex-) admin here that started using the Tournament plugin and created the Olympics contests. Finally, I was the admin that tried to rescue the community by bringing them back here, where all that good stuff was happening.But there is no structure in place (yet) for how its going to be run. Soon there will be a director in charge of running the tournies and working with Content to announce tournies and winners, handing out prizes and promoting other stuff. You cant just turn it loose to the general public and give them no incentive to get involved.
The person that stopped that stuff taking off one month ago was you. The community were on the verge of making a major turnaround after 2 years of poor administration where the server that Rickie and I left running was the last server to run before the one that Hawk & Co very briefly ran under your heavy supervision.
If you'd let me do what I wanted to do on MCC, or given me the benefit of the doubt with the TWC move, all this stuff you wanted would be gearing up right now. I was going to give them the Tournament plugin (as I had with Chess and Wargame), and I was going to put them in the Olympics, and I was going to go cap in hand to Content to ask for anything they'd give me.
An opportunity lost.
MCC failed. Magefsx attracted a grand total of zero mod teams to the site and everything that wasn't the PvP server limped on for a few weeks before dying. "Everything else" became nothing but clutter. Moving it back here would've been the best thing to do if you wanted to try to nurse any sort of community larger than a single server, but you vetoed that.No, it was completely the wrong decision.
My point was that you come in here talking down to us about an amnesty that had widespread and vocal opposition among the community you're villifying for the very acts we wanted nothing to do with, and that I personally came to you begging for an intervention in.Actually I did do something about it, but what I couldn't do was reban people after another admin granted them amnesty. That just wouldn't be fair to those granted amnesty and sure as hell wouldn't be fair to the admins to cut their legs out from under them like that. So I made a very specific rule announcement that it would never happen again and that cheating would never be tolerated on MCC. And I caught hell for that announcement.
I'd have happily re-banned them all if you'd let me do what I said I was going to do rather than leave Hawk in charge. I want nothing to do with them.But now you are willing to play with these people that you agree should never had been let back?
* * *
I get that you got pissed at the PvP community based on watching them for a few days on server launch and on watching them get rightly upset when you showed up at the end of Remlap's tenure to leave unpopular and unprepared people in charge.
The community existed for around 3 years officially with great success and enjoyment. What you witnessed was a very small and very selective sample of behaviour and even at that you're twisting it to your own opinions: don't people (including me) have a right to be very, very upset at what happened with the final server? Was your own son not pretty happy being a Dwarf? Was he not contributing to their wars and projects?
You based your entire ingame behaviour conclusions based on watching a single faction that opted to build their base right next to other people's bases, on a server where the whole point of playing was to control territory. The server was not a "buddy buddy" PvP server, it was competitive. It always was, even when you played on your alt account on the very first official server. That aspect was the same then as it is now and as it was when you decided the whole community was "toxic".
If you're even remotely open to trying this again I strongly urge that you do, because fundamentally there's nothing wrong with the community. They got upset over some terrible admin choices and they attacked some newbies that picked the wrong place to settle down on a server with a "control land" playstyle. Neither of those behaviours are even remotely toxic.
The past 18 months have seen two failed servers and have been all-round a dark time for MCC. Don't judge 3 excellent, long-lived servers on the failings and accompanying unrest of 2 bad very ones.
Last edited by Poach; February 16, 2015 at 04:14 PM.
Civis
Re: Forum Closed
Regarding amnesty - Practically speaking, giving someone a second chance is fairly self-regulating. Those who reform, play normally and become a positive asset. Those who don't, end up getting themselves banned again.
Regarding what type of servers succeed - What I've seen the successful ones which have players are PvP/Factions. Haven't seen examples of creative/collab servers which have any significant populations. Not to say one couldn't make one successful, just that what MCC ran into seemed pretty normal for Minecraft.
The servers with enormous populations, are those who go crazy with enchants, allow buying of privileges, unlimited griefing, few ban reasons and no permanent ones, and its pretty much ape behavior instead of building anything lasting. I don't like that style, but seeing what servers are successful, apparently most MC players like all the monkey crap throwing.
Not recommending you go that direction GED, but its one reason why Collab/Creative failed on MCC, and why the MCC-style PvP community was pretty small.
Our experience with KaW also repeated this. 80% of new visitors were little kid trolls, or griefers we were constantly busy weeding out. Of the rest, some rage quit when we tried restrictions such as a greylist, removing /spawn, etc. Others rage quit if we didn't add their pet feature or plug in like brewery. In the end, the number of people who wanted to play in the MCC/CaW style, and stick with it long-term, was fairly limited.
At any rate, I personally think a Factions server should want to keep around collab-minded builders as well as PvPers. If they all stay on the server and be encouraged to do their various tastes of play, it would seem to give the most broad appeal without becoming a total ape server. Just my opinion though.
Firebird
Last edited by firebird1170; February 17, 2015 at 02:14 PM.
Civitate
Re: Forum Closed
Also if "controlling land" as a playstyle isn't working for what you want TWC to represent I propose you move back to the Map 1 style where there's a gigantic map (36k diameter, was it?) and everyone can buy publicly-accessible portals.
Re: Forum Closed
Use the original threads, GED. This is an old community now and there's value in having my original intro threads and the screenshot threads.
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