Survival SMP Feedback Form - We need your help!

Jolterino

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It's not a very well kept secret that a SMP server is currently being developed. The team has come to a crossroads and decided to reach out at the community for help. Progress hasn't been very high and we feel a detailed survey will help move things into gear.

Survey Link

We realise that our Legacies of Primordia didn't go so well and we are taking measures to prevent the same sort of thing from happening again. We appreciate every piece of feedback and promise to read every word. Thank you for sticking with us.

Thanks to Arelic for the banner.
 

Rune

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Just make something original instead of making something relying on nostalgia. It doesn't work, it's evident from servers such as TNT which died in a day (no offense Tnm, you did a great job on the server!). We keep doing the same mistake over and over, make something original which we can actually advertise instead of an SMP which will basically be a rehash of a previous server such as DoD. I don't understand how we can keep doing the same mistake constantly. Stop relying on nostalgia, stop relying on bloody Minecraft and stop relying on the fact that we are a close-knit community. So yeah, if you're going to make an SMP server then make it something unique and something which isn't reliant on nostalgia or our current playerbase. We need new players, badly and if anything; I got a bad feeling that this SMP will die as quickly as it did with Kami's Realm.

I don't think we can advertise SMP, no offence. There are thousands of different servers, probably a lot better than ours. I have been playing since Alpha, I know about SMP and Factions and the new craze isn't Factions anymore; it's servers such as Hypixel who make minigames which will draw in little kids. And yes, there is really popular Factions servers too; but it's pretty much impossible for us to get ourselves known anymore because of the saturated market of Minecraft servers. That ship sailed long ago, and if we actually started to expand back then and not sit on our arses thinking everything is going to be ok was a huge mistake. Instead, EVEN to this day we still think that Minecraft will get new players for us.

Why the hell have we not started to expand to other games, when players keep begging the higher ups to do exactly that. One day, Minecraft will die and what the hell will we do then? TTT turned out to be quite great, Chand/Inffy did a great job on it and I salute him. Gmod is a constantly evoving game with multiple gamemodes and THE POTENTIAL to make ourselves unique. Instead, we rely on unoriginal ideas. I'll keep repeating this over and over, it's time TO EXPAND TO OTHER GAMES. I don't understand why the CA's keep saying "We will expand" and all of that shit but we STILL HAVEN'T DONE THAT. I can count on one hand on how many times we expanded to GMod, one hand.

I'm sick and tired of relying on Minecraft for getting new players on. We did the 'Overhaul' for a reason which killed some if not most of our playerbase and the main goal that we set with the Overhaul is still not even close to being completed. I admit that the DarkRP server was poorly managed, and I apologise on behalf of the DarkRP staff team but there was still potential even though it did not work out and most importantly; it was a step forward. but if I had the opportunity to be able to make a GMod server instead of a Minecraft one; I would instantly take up that offer.

We repeat that we want to be more of a gaming community than a Minecraft one, maybe it's time to actually do it instead of repeating it over and over.

-Rune

./rantover
 

Jolterino

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So yeah, if you're going to make an SMP server then make it something unique and something which isn't reliant on nostalgia or our current playerbase. We need new players, badly and if anything; I got a bad feeling that this SMP will die as quickly as it did with Kami's Realm.
This server's core is trying to figure out what worked best for our past SMP's and tying that together with new and fresh features. We already tried using nostalgia in Legacies of Primordia so I agree it is time to focus on other things.

don't think we can advertise SMP, no offence. There are thousands of different servers, probably a lot better than ours. I have been playing since Alpha, I know about SMP and Factions and the new craze isn't Factions anymore; it's servers such as Hypixel who make minigames which will draw in little kids. And yes, there is really popular Factions servers too; but it's pretty much impossible for us to get ourselves known anymore because of the saturated market of Minecraft servers. That ship sailed long ago, and if we actually started to expand back then and not sit on our arses thinking everything is going to be ok was a huge mistake. Instead, EVEN to this day we still think that Minecraft will get new players for us.

Why the hell have we not started to expand to other games, when players keep begging the higher ups to do exactly that. One day, Minecraft will die and what the hell will we do then? TTT turned out to be quite great, Chand/Inffy did a great job on it and I salute him. Gmod is a constantly evoving game with multiple gamemodes and THE POTENTIAL to make ourselves unique. Instead, we rely on unoriginal ideas. I'll keep repeating this over and over, it's time TO EXPAND TO OTHER GAMES. I don't understand why the CA's keep saying "We will expand" and all of that shit but we STILL HAVEN'T DONE THAT. I can count on one hand on how many times we expanded to GMod, one hand.

I'm sick and tired of relying on Minecraft for getting new players on. We did the 'Overhaul' for a reason which killed some if not most of our playerbase and the main goal that we set with the Overhaul is still not even close to being completed. I admit that the DarkRP server was poorly managed, and I apologise on behalf of the DarkRP staff team but there was still potential even though it did not work out and most importantly; it was a step forward. but if I had the opportunity to be able to make a GMod server instead of a Minecraft one; I would instantly take up that offer.

We repeat that we want to be more of a gaming community than a Minecraft one, maybe it's time to actually do it instead of repeating it over and over.

-Rune

./rantover
The responses so far indicate a significant interest in a new SMP server, while I appreciate your input this thread is for discussing our future SMP.
I would appreciate if this thread would not turn into another "community is dying" discussion like we've had dozens of times.

Deadlines. It's not too late to implement them if progress has stagnated.
Find other people who are willing to help and deliver.
We will consider adding deadlines when we achieve more progress.
The last question in the survey asks for people's names if they wish to help so we're already doing that.
 

Rune

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The responses so far indicate a significant interest in a new SMP server, while I appreciate your input this thread is for discussing our future SMP.
I would appreciate if this thread would not turn into another "community is dying" discussion like we've had dozens of times
There is a difference between the "community is dying" discussions and talking about expanding which we always talk about and never do. I don't mind if there is a significant interest in a new SMP server but does it really tell the full story or is it from the people who will join SMP because they want to see EscRestart grow in what ever way. To be honest, anything is better than doing nothing but we could be doing more. We're running out of ideas for Minecraft and it shows in this thread.
 

Jolterino

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There is a difference between the "community is dying" discussions and talking about expanding which we always talk about and never do. I don't mind if there is a significant interest in a new SMP server but does it really tell the full story or is it from the people who will join SMP because they want to see EscRestart grow in what ever way. To be honest, anything is better than doing nothing but we could be doing more. We're running out of ideas for Minecraft and it shows in this thread.
I understand what you're saying but this isn't the thread to discuss it in.
 

Enderfive

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oh boy here we go again

I haven't played Minecraft regularly in, what, two or three years now. I can't really say I know what's going on with the game any more. What I can say is that watching the various Minecraft servers that have tried to get off the ground in this community and elsewhere in those last two or three years, I've formed some semblance of an opinion as to why they've all failed.

Let's take a quick look at the situation we're in right now.

I'm pretty sure in three things:
a) Minecraft is still a fairly massive game,
b) it's easy to set up a server for Minecraft,
and c) for various reasons, many players are interested in setting up their own server.

That means that:
a) there are more servers out there than is really necessary,
b) any unique idea you can think of for a server has probably already been done, and more times than you would expect
and c) if you want to get any new players at all, you're going to have to set yourself apart from the masses of generic SMPs.

When you look at the two latter conclusions together, you can see a certain problem starting to emerge. How do you set your server apart from all the rest, if it's probably not that unique? I think it's possible, but it's going to be a lot more difficult than just making a good server and thinking that's going to be enough.

Here's what you need for a successful server, one that not only draws in new players, but also retains them and the players that are already part of this community:

Firstly, exceptional quality. It's not good enough to simply be good, you have to be better. The server has to be polished, the bugs fixed, the gameplay exciting, the looks pretty. The server has to be finished before you launch it. And it's all doable, but it's going to take effort. I believe that the people in this community are capable and even willing to put in that effort, but it's not going to be easy.

Secondly, advertising. It has to be there, it has to be inviting and it has to make a good first impression that already sets the server out from all the rest.

Thirdly, a friendly, welcoming playerbase and staff that is not rude to newcomers, but is also not overly sensitive. We have to be able to not fall into technicalities, but rather judge every situation separately and according to the spirit of the rules, not the letter of them.

Fourthly, and I can not stress this enough because this is what Minecraft fails in on its own, gameplay that doesn't get repetitive after a few days or weeks. I think it can be achieved, for example, perhaps a progressing storyline told through quests and events that get released every now and then, or maybe new dungeons every few weeks. The point is, if you want this to work, I think you have to constantly give players new things to do, otherwise they get bored and you're left with a declining server.

And finally, which I think is the most important bit, and something this particular community struggles with especially, is that you have to stop trying to cater to the people that are already here. It's unsustainable. No one is going to stay here forever. Of the people who were here back when this was still TheOnes, how many are still here? Of the people who have left, how many are actually going to come back? Times change, and we have to be able to change with them. Normally this would be the point where I'd start asking the same questions Rune asked, like "Why haven't we still really done the overhaul?", but Jolt is right in saying that this isn't really the place for it. Instead, I want to tell you to start thinking about what you can do to bring new people here and retain them, not what you can do to bring old people back and retain them, because, honestly, for some of us, I think our days of playing Minecraft are simply over and there's no amount of quality servers that can change that fact.

Ultimately, I think that luck also has a part to play in any potential server's failure or success. You can make a shitty server with almost no advertising and the most generic gameplay imaginable, and it can still be successful, for a time, and you can make a completely unique, polished, well-advertised, friendly server and it can still fail. But there are things you can do to tip the scales ever so slightly in your favour, and I hope it all works out this time, if only because I can't even find it in myself to mockingly laugh anymore whenever I see an announcement for a new SMP in this community.
 
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Catcocomics

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Can we just demote the current staff and make Ender supreme overlord, I genuinely feel like we'd make more progress that way :^)
Ender/Aqua 2017

"A quick death for the community instead of whatever this dragged out torture is!"
Bring DoD back and i will die with happiness.
I swear you guys specifically have said almost exactly this some time before on a previous smp thread. History repeating itself?

Anyways, I'm gonna keep it short and just suggest that maybe we take a few ideas from Chronicles of Elyria, a new MMO under development designed to completely revolutionize the MMO genre by having a player-driven story, among other features that separate it vastly from both theme park and sandbox MMOs.

And I guess if all else fails, we could literally wait until Elyria releases and have a community guild in there. It'll be a lot different (and fresher) than what people are normally used to in MMOs, and there are already several thousand people who are highly interested in the game.
 

Aqua

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What would you like to see as an alternative?
I'd rather nothing so we could focus on branching out into alternative mediums like Gmod games (such as Deathrun, Cinema, That base building shooter one (whatever it's called)); Otherwise it's an incentive to fall into old habits.
 
D

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I suppose with all the opinions expressed in the thread above, I’ll just give an evaluation of the whole community as a whole and how we should ideally be moving forward if we truly were trying to create a gaming community that isn’t wholly focused on Minecraft. But to fully understand the situation at hand you have to acknowledge something that is very important:

EscapeRestart is ultimately at its core a Minecraft community.
I am not saying that it shall remain this way forever, nor do I expect it to be; this is the current state. We are a Minecraft community and we are inseparable from Minecraft. We know how to operate a Minecraft community and that knowledge is currently the only knowledge we possess – this community runs with Minecraft at its centre. We cannot by any means shift its focus significantly by creating a server on another platform – such a platform will beyond any doubt not receive any attention and will be drowned out by the mere presence of our Minecraft servers.

For us to transition into a gaming community, we must increase the presence of non-Minecraft games; EscapeRestart will fundamentally have to change its structure to accommodate the discussion of other games and platforms. Reducing the presence of Minecraft servers does nothing to do that, nor does creating servers on other game platforms, unless handled well. The transition must start with the details – we must work our way up, making the community feel like a multi-game community, before we shift our main platform from Minecraft onto the forums.

Why SMP?
Because the main problem with our community and its servers is not that it’s not keeping its old members playing; its main problem is that it’s not drawing in new players who are willing to stay. It is a player retention problem, and a publicity problem. The key to retaining players is not game diversity, but server quality.

If we are going to bring people in, we might as well do that with the game that we are most familiar with, a platform where we have established a niche on. Nowhere else will you find a lava survival server as established as ours, or a TNT gamemode or Infection quite like AoD. Our SMPs have always, to the best efforts of the past SMP teams, been focused on in some sense server originality, and they have succeeded and failed to various extents.

We have gradually begun to realise the importance of server quality, and all the Minecraft servers are going through changes right now, details that aim to make them feel more complete, finished, polished, and solid; SMP is part of that – we are filling up the gap of a survival Minecraft server, and this time something that has far more focus on server quality, something which past SMPs have missed due to impatience and lack of motivation.

A new Minecraft server is not going to do anything to help us?
Not a lot of people know this, but the average number of new players that log in onto our servers is around 180 per month during non-peak season. We have a serious retention problem, but by no means do we have a problem with getting people onto our servers in the first place. We have a solid presence in Minecraft and that is what we aim to take advantage of.

Transitioning into a gaming community is not a matter of reducing the number of Minecraft servers we have, or opening up more servers in more games. We require a comprehensive plan that covers every minute detail; that plan has not come yet, but eventually it has to. The previous attempt at an overhaul lacked a plan that was comprehensive enough to understand the importance of detail – the name change and staff restructuring were the only two significant things that happened – but it had demonstrated the complexity of the task. Opening a new SMP is not a statement that we shall be sticking with Minecraft forever; it is an attempt to create a new, quality server as part of an effort for us to take advantage of our presence in Minecraft.

Edit: Shoot me a message on Discord if you wanna talk about the community and its future; I'd be glad to talk to you about this stuff.
Edit #2: If y'all want actual data, here you go: Between 19 June 2017 and 19 July 2017, 188 new players joined RoF, 106 new players joined Create. I don't have the data for AoD or TTT; many of these are overlaps.
 
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Sam_Winchester

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My two cents in the matter:
The reason servers like Hypixel bring in a lot of players is not JUST because it's all mini-games that appeal to kids, but because of THE QUALITY of said games. Custom textures, good scripts, etc. If we are to make a good SMP, we need to stop getting so comfy with vanilla Minecraft, and start adding new elements, objects and decor that can't be found in vanilla--items and stories people are so lazy to even bother installing on their own that they feel forced to come to your server instead!.

The "YOU NEED US/OUR PRODUCT" catch always works best!
When you go to a store because you ran out of milk, you go there because you need it and you can't make milk at home because you don't have a cow (and if you're lucky to own one, it's probably miles away) The problem we have as a community is that we have spent the past few years trying to sell milk to farmers. Maybe give them some f*cking tech and I bet you'll get your cash?


TL;DR - If people already own vanilla minecraft with vanilla items, why the hell would they come to you? Offer things they can't replicate in singleplayer/realms/private-servers/or most servers. Offer them the hard work they don't wanna put in. It's a consumerist society y'all. (Make em' donate for ranks/power ups/etc (eventually that is)
 
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