Moribund

For many of you, I'm sure that's the first time you've seen that word. It means death. Our server has been in decline for months going on years - I haven't kept count. Now that's a great way to argue your point; by not having the research, charts, and data. But I do know that I haven't played on the server for some time now, and that a large number of people are not playing because they're waiting for a map reset. And in my opinion, that's just really sad.

I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately. A large number of Blizzard's playerbase has unsubscribed from the game because there has, and will be, no new content for 14 months now. I'd ask if you can imagine 14 months without new content, but I can tell you that you've already experienced it. People don't stay on this server because they like how it is run, or because there is plenty of things to do on the server; they stay because they've planted roots and made friends. I've played a lot of games in the past and never have I seen such tight knit groups of friends. It's why I have been here for 3+ years, because I'm comfortable with the people around the server. Sure we fight and have occasional issues, but the fact that we all know each other speaks volumes. If you haven't figured it out already, Deity, your server is run by the people. We pay for it to continue, and we create artificial content in lieu of developer content being released. But we can only do so much.

The last content 'patch' we have had, and I personally do not consider it content, is FTB. I love and many others love FTB, but I see it as just a transferring of the reigns. It's almost as if Deity handed over the developing rights of this server to the Magic Farm 2 team. It seems to me that Deity has just given up on the server. Now that may not be true - I hope it's not - but I have no other way of knowing.

You keep us in the dark. Being kept in the dark isn't a bad thing, but this version of it is. The way it's done here, it would be like throwing us in a pitch black cell for months compared to blindfolding us before the surprise. It's good to not tell us too much, but it's bad to not tell us anything. The way I see it, you're simply waiting for the right time to press the reset button and that's all you have planned - and we don't even know IF that's going to happen in the nearby future. And when it does happen, we'll be satisfied for 6 months before people start waiting for the next reset. That's not a way to run a server. However, it is a good way to run a psychological experiment.

I used to be able to refresh the forum's page every hour or so and find something to comment on. Now I have to create my own posts to feel I'm partaking in an intellectual conversation or debate. Something needs to change - if you've got something you're working on, tell us. Drop us a hint like you did with the castle being built last reset. But if you don't... Well then that's even worse. We all think you hold the magic stick, Deity. It's hard to tell from your position, but really all us veterans are no different from the noobs who scream "Omg it's ImDeity!" at the NPC of you. We all have this grand idea of who your are and what you're capable of, even me. And for the first time in 3 years, even though I've criticized you on multiple occasions, my view and perspective on you has changed. From a Deity to a once-was.

I love this server and it's sad to see it in such a poor state. People need to speak up because what is going on is not right. I know another one of your excuses will be not having another dev by your side, but I'm sure the donors wouldn't have a problem with you tossing some cash aside for a decent dev. It would pay off in the long run.

Speak up if you agree or if you'd like to voice opinions of your own. Your voices wont be heard if you keep them confined to your head. I want to see this server alive and kicking again.

Edit: For those whom seem to misunderstand my point, I'm not here to say the server is going to fall apart. I'm saying that this is not a good way to run a server. Players aren't enjoying their current experience. Don't believe me? We used to have a lot more players than we currently do. Take your mind off the statistics and put them on a moral scale. What we're on now is like feeding your dog once a week and giving it water every other day.

 

I just wanted to say, from my perspective, I hope this thread does NOT get shut down and locked or deleted. I want this thread to have a good discussion, so please, hear this dude out.

 

Hopefully just a discussion. A debate, I'm sure, will be shut down. So please keep it civil, as I will do my best.

 

http://imdeity.com/threads/repopulate-imdeity-kingdoms.18802/#post-235373

 

It would take a blind fool to say that the server hasn't been on a decline for a while now, but in my opinion, it seems a bit hasty and rude to assume that the server owner is giving up on something that has thrived and prospered for the past three years. No, we are not at the state that we used to be at, and quite honestly I never hope we top at 200 or more online players again. It was complete chaos. For someone who says they've been around for three years, then you should remember how things used to be. When we had all of these new players running around, there was a ton more for the team to take care of. Be it griefs, thefts, chat spamming, trolls, DDOS attacks, or whatever else. That (as it seems you may not have considered) can put a halt on progress.

Now, with that being said, have you also considered that there are things being worked on that the majority of the playerbase is not aware of? The staff is not going to inform us of every little thing that they're working on as they're working on it. Take our current spawn for example. It was kept a secret for a bit until they decided to release the news of its upbringing. If most of the server is given awareness of plans and such, it can cause chaos. For example, when there was nobody thwarting the rumors of all of the server's donators losing their perks as well as the ability to donate. Players (donators especially, obviously) were having a bout of panic, only to find out that we get to keep the ability to donate to the server.

Minecraft is not and should not be a game about tons of new things and loads of features to keep people playing. Minecraft is a game based on surviving and prospering. That's it. ImDeity should not need to be adding a plethora of new things in to the server to make it amazing. If he so chooses to, it should not be expected. It's baffling that some people aren't grateful for all of the work that has been put into the server, and that some cannot be content with the already absolutely fabulous server we get the privilege of saying we've been playing on for years.

No. ImDeity Kingdoms is not, and will most likely not ever be as active as it used to be. Yes, map resets in the past have been a leading cause of losing players. Also, yes, I'm sure new features would draw in more active players. However this server isn't based off of loads and loads of new things being added on a monthly basis. This server is based off of the community, and that is why we are currently one of the longest lasting Minecraft servers out there now.

I'd be interested to see you make a server as successful.

 

He is correct however about a lot of long time players no longer very active as they're waiting for a reset. I think Deity is the only person that they would listen to at this stage. If he says a reset isn't imminent; that would help.

 

I'm aware that it's frowned upon to talk about, but a ridiculous amount of ImDeity veterans have been banned for varying reasons. The reason behind this comes down to the stupidity of theirs that we were to blind to see in years prior.

As far as any plausibility of a map reset goes, the staff (who speak for ImDeity in his absence) have repeatedly said to the player base that "There is no map reset planned in the foreseeable future." If there were a map reset planned, we would be informed of such in a relatively timely fashion. We have the last two times, so there is no reason we wouldn't be a third time. If the only reason that some are playing is in hope of a map reset, and they cannot find the time to wait for the server they claim to adore to have this, then they do not belong here. A map reset is not necessary for a good time on this server, and one is far from being needed. The staff has said repeatedly that there will be no reset in the foreseeable future, and they are speaking in Deity's absence. I would take their word for it, being that the staff would be the first to know.

 

Moji, although i understand why you are concerned about the lack of population, you are wrong. It is back to school time, the least busy time of the year, and we experienced this decline of activity year ago and two years ago as well. That time i was asking and complaining about the same things you are now, and it took me a while to understand this lifecycle. What i dont understand is why it is YOU complaining, you are here for over three years, longer than me, and you must have seen the same thing happening every year too - i would understand Melvin or Niall having these questions about lack of population as they havent been here for so long, but you as a veteran must know this happens every year.

How is Stalingrad? For us who started towns and are serious about playing here and helping the community, there is no break possible as the town activity is determined by mayor's activity. The only way how to keep the server alive is to keep towns alive and you cannot keep your town alive by playing a lot of World of Warcraft. And if Blizzard told they "will not do anything" in upcoming 14 months, its the opposite of what Mojang is doing, getting the 1.8 update ready. Plenty of new things are coming and we will need plenty of patience to wait for admins to overcome fixing plugins. I am excited to see new materials and im excited to replace some old stuff with new one. The server is made the way players make it, we dont and should not wait for admins to update/change something when there is still plenty of things to build. If you dont like playing this way, may The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog slay you as soon as the 1.8 update comes.

Waiting for a reset? Why? I heard about Skyhold waiting but first, i dont know if its true and second, if its true i dont think it helps them. If they see no point in developing the town, Creative World still works. Yes its laggy and we can #blametaco but with some patience we can still build and prepare new ideas, not mentioning that once you need to rank up in Creative in order to get next Craftsman rank, it can be endless waiting. Oh let me complain too. I would like to see more reviewers for higher creative ranks as over a month of waiting for two comments really kills the activity.

To end the waiting for a reset, my opinion is:
There will be no map reset for Main World in at least one year. Whoever is being inactive and waiting for a reset is making a huge mistake.

Why do i think so: If we dont have a serious reason for a reset, we shouldnt have one. It is based on experience from PvP World which has been reset just to reset inventories, money etc. and have new map with 1.7 biomes. Okay, so we have new biomes there but there is the same spawn, the same plugins, there is little to no change in the way how the world works. And lets be honest, landscape isnt the reason to play pvp. So there must be some very important reason to reset the Main World.

What reason?
- data storage disaster. Unlikely to happen. If some map chunks are lost, they can be easily regenerated, we saw that before when some dead/inactive towns have been deleted or when there was a wilderness cleanup. In towns there may be some accidental rollbacks but nothing major.
- plugin crash. It is possible that my prediction will be wrong because inner changes in 1.8 will be so massive that our plugins will not fit, but this map survived 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 updates already. Some times it took few weeks and i expect that 1.8 will take long time but in the end our current Main World can stay.
- Minecraft feature that would make the current map obsolete. But what feature? New blocks will always be obtainable in mining world and i doubt there would be any biome-specific feature that we would need in Main World.

The only valid reason to reset the map is some new feature developed on the server:
- DeityMMO to replace currently useless MCMMO. As much as i used to defend MCMMO, it has been made obsolete by vanilla features - mining speed increase is surpassed by Efficiency enchant, double drops by Fortune enchant, rare drops.... Do you remember how we used to harvest glowstone? If you dont want to pay 50 dei in DeityShop, go hunt witches. Fall damage? another enchant... Combat skills? Seriously, getting a Power 5 bow is no problem, neither is getting a chest of arrows. My alt account recently got level 198 in repair skill, just 2 levels under the level cap - but its still useless with cheap diamonds everywhere. Plus the basic concept of MCMMO when you keep your achievements forever means the effort will gradually slow down. So if i am talking about DeityMMO skill system, we need 1. some ideas for skills and 2. someone to do all the coding - and it would take a lot of time to make this kind of plugin working fluently. I dont expect anything like this happening in next year.
- New features in Kingdoms/Classes. This development can slowly go on and upgrades in Kingdoms can come gradually with no need to reset the map. Do you want outposts, do you want shop plots, do you want more blocks to be placed by craftsmen, do you want more noble salary? Everything can be done with no map reset, the only thing we have to be careful about is - will these features help us? For example the shop plot - if in old /mall there were 40 shops of 5x5x5 blocks size generating awful amount of lag, i can guarantee you that 16x16x256 shop plot in town will crash your client immediately after it loads it. More than coding, this needs thinking of possible advantages and damages.

My ideal way of playing in the future:
1. Safe 1.8 update and as few restrictions as possible. Let me guess, slime blocks wont be able to be placed until we will be able to check all its mechanics. On the other hand, new materials are awesome building resources. I hope we will have 1.8 in October at most (dont tell me there is a week to official release, i want to use 1.8 blocks here in creative, not in singleplayer).
2. Current map cleanup to be ready for christmas time with more new people coming. This involves admins regenerating of chunks in wilderness and deleting inactive towns as well as town staff plot cleanups in active towns.
3. Donator/sponsor perks review, changes, tweaks. For example, do we gold/diamond/sponsor donors need set of tools 4 times per day? One per day is more than enough imo, it can bring the value of diamonds a bit higher.
4. Development of ideas how the server should work, review of difficulties and possible dangers. We know there are some ideas already but putting them together and especially removing problematic ones requires plenty of effort. Coding of new features gradually rather than having some huge updates.
5. Seeing long-time town survival, fight against taxes. If you remember previous map, BV being the superior town, last month or two was just downhill for it and it wouldnt survive more than half year longer even when having 300k in the town bank by the time of the reset. Now Doha, Eclipse, Anvil and other big towns are on top of the hill and the question is, will they keep on top for long time? Will they be able to survive at least? I am very interested in seeing this so please, give this map some more time.
6. More minecraft updates, more new blocks to build with, more new mobs to fight or tame.
7. Planning new town ideas for after-the-reset time, whenever it happens. Yes, i am saying this in the same moment when i am saying that the reset will take a long time. I am doing it already, just to be prepared, to have everything perfect, and meanwhile i still keep playing, supplying my shop and bringing ideas. I know for a fact that after a reset i am going to retire from being a mayor so i will start a small town just for myself and pass the great town community to someone who can keep it up, then i can finally derp around with no worries and be happy.
8. The reset. Whether it will happen in two or five years is not important for me.

 

If I could, I'd like to suggest a working model. You keep us updated at least once a month on what is going on behind the scenes

If you mistake my concern for ungratefulness, you're sorely mistaken. People donate thousands of dollars and my time here is a testament to my gratefulness for Deity. But that doesn't mean I can't complain or wish a few things would change. If you honestly look at this server and say it is perfect, I'd ask you to look again. It's not the player's faults that they're bored. Barry I know you could go on 3 more years without anything interesting from Mojang or Deity and you'd be just happy doing so. You have the patience and your love for the game is building - whether that be buildings, friendships, or towns. What tells me this? The fact that I've known you for a while and I know your views, and also the fact that you look forward to 1.8 (Mojang creates that) and things being taken away from people on our server. That's like opening all your presents at Christmas and getting school supplies.

Stalingrad is dead. Reason why? Because I realize that I can play other games that have enough current content to keep me happy on a weekly basis, or I can watch Lost. Doing anything but keeping money in my town bank every month is a waste of my time. I've been over the towns making people feel welcome and coddling the new people material, you know that Barry. I'm on your side when it comes to towns retaining people. But right now we're fishing for cod in a swimming pool, and we're lucky to somehow catch a few. I don't get why everyone is anti-blame devs? We all loved it when btarb was around and progress was being made. We all loved the horse market and plugin and other such things he created. And when he left everything fell to shambles. Hell, is horse market even up again? So what I get from this is that people don't want another btarb.

I get it - Deity is working as fast as he can and he too has a personal life. But for many of us our Saturday night includes sitting down and playing some games. You can't blame me for not playing Minecraft anymore. You're wrong, Qazz. The game is more than survival and if you disagree with that you disagree with /spleef, parkour, horse markets, malls, etc. Like I said, I've been watching Lost and one of my favorite episodes is when Hurley builds a golf course to take surviving day-to-day off the mind of the other survivor's just for at least a minute. That's all I'm asking. Throw us a bone.

I ask for change because the current situation makes me uncomfortable. Russians weren't allowed to leave Russia during and long after the times of the French Revolution in hope that they would never learn such a revolution is possible, as Russia itself was in a worse state than France was. People need to step up every once in a while and make a change. If you do not question the man in power, you leave your fate entirely to him. Some are content with the carrot in front of their face and never in their reach. I am not.

 

*clapclapclapclap*

I do agree with you Mojinax, I also agree with you Qazz. I understand you have faith, but really, for some of us thats not enough. It HAS been on a steady decline, and thats almost fact, and if you can't see that then I don't know whats wrong with you. I have been here for a year, so sure, I don't understand alot of the past stuff. But I can see how boring its gotten. I do like playing with friends, but its not like that anymore. We barely have anybody on and when you do you get bored so fast. I wish for new things, wether it be a reset or a good interaction with us players, deity. We want to have fun again, but sadly its really hard too.

 

There aren't many devs for the server, Deity and Taco are the only active ones as far as I know. All I suggest is one or two more developers, who are generally active and willing to devote some of their town to improve the quality of Kingdoms. Perhaps more people would be attracted if they could retain their horse or know anything about it?

Other than that we could *try* fixing /pvp. Its situation is a bit of a viscious cycle; people won't play because it's apparently unattended with few server resources devoted to it, and it's unattended with few server resources to its name because of the lack of players. I can't speak for anyone else, but the constant lag that bombards /pvp is the reason I no longer play it; personally I would rather not be sent to hub during a battle, and lose for something that was not in my control.

I was going to note how often chat crashes, but it seems that has diminished as of late

My two cents,
-Maj

 

Someone yesterday said to me "Quality over quantity". The truth is that quality amasses quantity. I've got the answer I sought from this, though. Not the answer I had hoped for, but an answer.

 

Say you have a fish tank. The owner of the tank replaces the water filter every month (think Finding Neemo). But for some reason, the owner has let the filter go without replacing it for two months now. The water is turning green and fish are dying. Is it fair to blame the fish for dirtying the water or is it the owner's fault for not changing the filter?

So if you're the owner in this situation, you can either make the fish stop pooping somehow, replace the filter, or get rid of the fish tank altogether. We've ran our course on the content Deity and Mojang has provided us. It's not natural boredom. Natural boredom is when I go to play league because I've had enough of minecraft for the day.

This is pure and simple stringing us along, intentional or unintentional. And if people were complaining SIXTEEN months ago - nearly a year and a half ago about this stuff, why should it be put off now? To put it in retrospect, it would be like the guy in 127 Hours intentionally breaking his arm (post 16 months ago) compared to after he completely cut it of (now). How can you say it like it is ONLY 16 months of nothing new? We've actually lost content in that time, too. Are you seriously that blind? That statement makes what lemmings do seem justifiable and sane.

Mind blown.

 

You say it's a normal cycle like it's okay... A slave picks a rock up, a slave puts a rock down. That's a cycle - that doesn't mean it's justified. I don't want to be part of any cycle that involves starving people of content and shrugging it off on a normal basis. You use it all as an excuse to halt any change and to put in an effort.

And so I'm going to stop trying. It's a dictatorship and I'm not fine with how things are run even though I too want the best for this server. I hope to see you all in the future.

 

I think people should just let go of the past, because it's exactly that. The past. Who cares if we don't have 200 people on 24/7. Is that all this server is to you? A competition? A trophy so that you can declare you are part of the biggest server ever? After being a member for 2+ years, I can say that although many people don't play anymore, other new people get on and find the server amazing. How many of the 200 people did you know well? To be honest, I'd rather have only 20 players and be the best of chums than have 200 people and only know a few of them. As someone up there said (to much text to find who) quality over quantity.

I think that people who want a map reset should stick to creative, where you can do your own. Personally, I don't see why a map reset is so great. You spend two years building up a house and a community, and then your just happy for that to be wiped? I don't want to loose the map, because all of the places I know are good.

Finally, blaming the mods for this isn't good. They work hard to make this server enjoyable, and you guys just want want want and can't be happy with what you've got. If I were a mod, I would be put off if no one takes what I made.

Change is natural, everyone changes preferences. And if people stop coming on and the server does stop, well then there's nothing the mods can do.

Rant over.