Discussion: Player Retention Rates

I'm definitely in the camp for a global chat for all could be beneficial. Maybe we can brainstorm another perk for supporters? Like mail anywhere?

Pls

I appear to have forgotten to add my point about old players :/
I do also see a problem with keeping old players due to lack of interest in the game, or due to the change in the minecraft community, as I stated in my post, they want to stick with the community and branch off into this new style.

Your point about people not reading

You will be surprised how many people don't read descriptions, join servers saying I want this, just to be told it isn't on that server, then they leave, sometimes without a fuss, sometimes with.

Lemme focus on this point mainly, the EMC community is nothing like it used to be a few years back because what used to make EMC "EMC" was the older players who did that kind of stuff in the first place, and because quite a few of them have left we don't really have the same interaction. The community now is made up mainly of the newer players who don't do that kind of stuff.

It's not that people stopped doing that all of a sudden, it's that the older players got replaced by newer players

It's a supporter feature because it's meant to be a wilderness/wasteland, outside communication is not something to be expected in these places.

The problem is that you find yourself doing the same thing pretty much everyday, there's updates, yes, but nothing is ever drastically changed. All there is a small bug fixes. The developer team is shambles, MrSocks hasn't done anything for a while and BreezyMan quit. The only person who does coding work for EMC is Aikar, because he gets payed to do it. Hopefully JesusPower will give EMC the spark it needs.

When I first joined I was really excited for DT but you might as well just give up on the idea, you've been "working" on it for so long and the only thing you've actually added is little shiny pieces of flint and coal with a fancy purple name and lore, I could do that in 5 minutes. Yes, we voted for empire's and land claiming before DT but there was a few years between you announcing it and that vote.

EMC is the some thing everyday and I'm pretty sure around a third of people here only stay because of the community.

Would like to point out that chickeneer has also done a lot of work on creating features for EMC, and is responsible for some of the features we have today.

As for the development team in general, just because 1 dev left and the other has not been as active does not mean the entire team is "in shambles." Keep in mind, that updating EMC to the next version is the priority for Aikar, so other projects take a back seat to that. While I understand the excitement about Dragon Tombs, we have received plenty of much more important added features and updates on EMC.

As for my response to this thread:

I think part of the issue is people are expecting EMC to be something that it is not. EMC is a vanilla survival Minecraft server, with some extra features that improve the quality of play. We are not a mini game server that seeks to constantly keep the attention of our players. Remember, part of our focus is "Play your way." Meaning, you have to create your own play style. We as staff enjoy entertaining players by hosting events, but the majority of the time players spend on EMC, they are responsible to entertain themselves. This is no different than if you played in a single player survival world, where you are responsible to find things to do.

This is in part what Runder was talking about, that the focus has shifted within the Minecraft community to mini-game servers. Players are looking to be entertained, not find ways to entertain themselves.

It has been mentioned before in this thread, but part of the problem might be the community not engaging as much. Players are just as capable in hosting events for the rest of the community to enjoy, and they do this quite often. I also have noticed that certain SMPs are very quiet compared to others. On SMP7, my home SMP, town chat is one of two things: dead silent or non-stop talking from multiple people. It all depends on what time of day it is, and who is online at the time.

However, I don't find this to be as big of an issue, because it just means that the atmosphere on EMC might be changing. If that is the case, I don't believe we should try to revert EMC to the way it used to be. Rather, we need to see EMC as it is, if it has changed, and decide how to move forward. Find new ways as a community to engage.

This is part of the reason why I applied to the staff team and was so excited when I was accepted. As staff I have a unique opportunity to engage with players. However, before I was staff, the lack of green in my name didn't stop me. I constantly held different events as a regular player and found ways to engage with other players.

The direction the community moves in is not the fault of one person or group of people: it's the responsibility of the community as a whole. We, as a community, have the responsibility to engage with each other.

To use a quote that is over-used but still useful:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Lmao totally forgot about chicken,

Thing is EMC is always playing catch up with the updates, when we've finally finished updating to one version, the next one comes out and we probably do lose a substantial amount of players because of that. They might try to log onto the server for the first time and they can't because it's outdated, they'd likely just remove the server from the server list and find a different one. Or people stop playing because they want to use the new featres.

Apart from block protection, it's only been small features

True, the feature itself (enchanted custom named item which can be changed into another enchanted custom named item) is relatively simple. However, I can't help share that I think the comparison is a little bit unfair here.

First, and foremost, what updates did we get in 2015? Here's a list I made. I'm not going to count 'm again, but the amount didn't even fit one poll. Sure, some updates are bigger than others, but it does show that there's a constant drive at work here.

Second, also just as important, Aikar clearly said time and time again that the whole system is interwoven. And I think he proved as much with Anti-Griefing, I mean, it's a bit obvious how it fully hooks into the Friends system (note: included in that 2015 list I might add) as well as the /ps system. When I started playing we didn't have that Friends system yet.

Even better: the Anti-grief system was more or less already in effect around mid 2014. And it tied into the Friends system which didn't exist back then.

All of that is part of the grand scheme.

We only saw dragon fragments around 2015, but only this year did we learn about uncommon blocks. Which had been with us for much longer.

Sorry, but I really think you can' t make comparisons like this without knowing the full extend of the Empire framework.

(edit, also in response of your last message):

Programming a system is one thing, and I agree: it can be very easy. Designing one where you also make sure that all parts "fit" and that the system is still manageable when you expand... That is the real trick. It's why models such as UML, SysML and Agile exist. It's why several very popular open source projects had to be rewritten from the ground up at some point (which includes the Linux kernel and the MySQL project, to name some). And it's also where plenty time and effort goes into without the end users ever realizing.

You need to take that into account as well.

The /ps system cool, but it's nothing you'd really use to entice new players or serve as a use for a veteran to stay

I'm not too sure. Plenty of new(er) players (also new to Minecraft) enjoy playing on lower difficulty settings. Veterans like playing on higher settings (or on 1 when building I suppose ). And that's only /diff. There's also friends, custom mob spawning, group control (amongst which /gtp), chat alerts, system message controls, shop alerts....

There's a lot which we can control and customize using the /ps system.

One of the things I often see mentioned on the Spigot forums is servers where the chat continues flowing with announcements and how that often annoys players. The major difference between those servers and EMC is that we (the players) are pretty much in control.

I get your point, really, but I also think you're overlooking some things as well. Or, more likely: have grown accustomed to them so that you take 'm for granted. Nothing wrong with that, but... yah, there's more to this story I think.

I love the diff system. Usually I have it on 5 6 or 7. Unless I feel like not dying. Then this veteran also uses 1. I use 10 for amusement sometimes. I love how op mobs get.

Closing per request by OP