Hoping EMC gets to 1.13

Hey EMC Community!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

It's me SSRC/Windylava. Ya'll may or may not know me but I've been trying to get back into EMC lately but I have been hitting some barriers.

So I find it curious how EMC still has not updated to 1.13 yet. I really hope 2019 is a great year for the server but I think as a community we have to watch-out for Hytale. I believe Minecraft is here to stay and will develop a community much like Gmod has and I think we can all agree EMC should be part of that long-term community. One of the biggest problems has to be all the players EMC has missed ever since 1.13 came out. Now, I know that it does take lots of time and energy to formulate and update hundreds of thousands of lines of code but this isn't 2012 anymore and if EMC wishes to survive it needs to be ready to compete. (I was curious as to the progress on 1.13?)

I am ready and willing to fight for EMC like a good "Subscribe to Pewdiepie" soldier. Together, we can defeat the enemy T-Series, Hytale, and time itself!

EMC attracts people from so many age groups and backgrounds and that universal appeal is what "can" keep it going for many more years. I put "can" because we have a choice to make not only as a community but for our endearing server owners.

Consequently, I am worried and I wonder what the community thought about these ideas for EMC.

Quick list of general suggestions for this discussion - not formal suggestions.

• Removing the Frontier Portal at the end of the Tutorial because a lot of times new players are confused and choose it because it "sounds" cooler.
  • Frontier is a great addition to EMC but town is and always will be the core design feature as intended by the original creators. Many new players miss out on the steady start town provides and frontier kinda just abandons new players at the gates to a generic survival world.
• Bring back even the most bare-bones of an Empire Shop
  • EMC's economy is functionally dead. The point of getting rid of the Empire shop was to promote player shops. Yet, as predicted in the case that there would be little to no shops, the player (no matter how much money they have) will have no choice but to obtain resources the boring, grindy way. As someone who has millions of rupees the fact I can't find anyone to buy even the simplest of items from makes EMC downright unplayable at times. If you had told me when I first joined that by the time I made substantial amounts of money on EMC that it would be practically worthless because there is nothing to buy I would have probably quit and never came back. EMC can do this, it has, and we are more than capable, all it takes is the "will" to do it. (Just copy paste the old one back) And before suggestions of making your own shop come up I own and stock a mega-mall and I can't really buy from myself. Finally, if the answer to this problem is to just get it yourself than EMC needs to remove Economy server from its banner. So this is kind of a plea, please, please, please, please, please bring back the Empire shop so people can play the game.
• Prioritize updating to the latest version of Minecraft always!
  • In regards to attracting new players and keeping the community alive you need to be able to access the population. Being outdated will cause us to be phased out of existence. Mini-games and events are great but mean nothing if there no one to attend them.

To show as proof (even though tbh they are not all gems and as a human I have made mistakes. My intentions really are good and I love EMC as it has been such a significant part of my life for 7 years.) that I am hopefully not preaching to a wall and that I have an understanding of the Dynamic of EMC here are other posts about different improvements I have made regarding EMC)

• https://empireminecraft.com/threads/rules-updates-august-11-2018.77914/page-11#post-1461380
• https://empireminecraft.com/threads/the-emc-shop-and-the-daily-sign-in-bonus.77144/#post-1442855

SSRC Related

• https://empireminecraft.com/threads/newest-additions-to-smp2-downtown.63600/#post-1149940
• https://empireminecraft.com/threads/the-ssrc-downtown-in-smp2.58389/
• https://empireminecraft.com/threads...-redevelopment-corporation.40825/#post-795006

On a more positive note I want to celebrate fantastic developments that have kept EMC alive to show this is not one-sided.

• Promos and special tools that make the economy and resource gathering even more efficient!
• A friendly, stable, hardworking team of moderators that truly love and care for this community!
• Winter/Holiday chest hunt event!
• Strong support for Auction on the Forum! - Honestly this has made EMC so different from it's counterparts.
• Residences and Plots - The freedom of Town and the plots really has given EMC the foundation for what makes me come back for more. The ability to work your way up and be rewarded with more land gives players satisfaction for their hard work.
• Special and custom Mobs - Have given us endless hours of fun and excitement!
• The core focus on the economy and town - Many MC servers are the same, or they have an economy but it's really only a bartering economy without any real entrepreneurship, creativity, and stability. EMC was different because I had never seen mega-malls quite like EMC on any other server. I never seen Mining Companies, or Hotels, or even restaurants on other servers. EMC's economy was the foundation for an immersive creative platform where you could role-play and create your own fun.

My final note, and if EMC is not up to the task of maybe listening to the communities suggestions and it becomes just a footnote in many peoples lives, than let me thank EMC for the economy server it has been. However, with a few simple fixes I believe we stand a fighting chance of survival for another 2-3 years.

To me, no matter how much EMC has changed, grown, declined, suffered; whatever adjective you want to use, it was most popular when the economy was the core and I will always remember the server that awoken my love for helping people and consequently public service (politics). In a terribly overused saying "Make Empire Minecraft Great Again!"

Let me know what you think in the comment section below and don't forget to smack that like button! Discuss these ideas! How do you think EMC can stay relevant in the changing times? Are you willing to fight to keep EMC thriving? Think about it.

SMP2 Supportive Reinvestment Corporation CEO and President

- Kyle Thomas McIntyre (aka. Windylava/SSRC)

I was going to hold off commenting on this beautifully written post, but this is something I simply cannot hold back on.

I for one cannot comprehend why Empire Minecraft is among those who have not yet updated to 1.13. Granted 1.13 is worse for performance in comparison to 1.12, we cannot choose not to update. The server software EMC depends on, Paper, has been stably update to 1.13.2 since December 1st, 2018. While I do understand that EMC has a lot of custom code on top of Paper, there is no reason we should not at least be informed by Aikar as to what the hold up is. I do also understand that developers need a break from time to time, and we have had several holidays come by over the last weeks, but all we are asking for is some sort of "State of Development" update. There have been countless threads asking about when 1.13 is coming to the Empire, and I've not seen one response from the developers. There have been staff who have commented along the lines of "It'll get here when it's ready" but how about we get an actual, helpful answer to this? Is that too much to ask for?

I have seen quite the number of players lose interest in the Empire simply due to not being updated to 1.13, and I firmly believe that a "State of Development" post by our beloved developers would help not only to keep people a part of the Empire, but also bring in new faces.

Regarding the Frontier Portal, I do partially agree to this. I can recall on multiple occasions seeing new players choose the Frontier over the Town as it sounds more fun and engaging. But then the issue arises of them never coming to town, or not understanding that they can be in the Town on one SMP whilst staying out in the Frontier on another SMP. The other issue I have CONSTANTLY seen with these new faces going straight into the Frontier is the lack of understanding of what exactly the Frontier is. This is an issue that is not caused by the player, simply the tutorial not fully explaining what the Frontier is. I cannot think of a time when I haven't seen a new player asking what to do in the Frontier. I would assume most players first instinct on a new Minecraft server is to mine ans gather materials, in which the Frontier is NOT meant for, so why allow them to go directly to the Frontier lost and asking questions?

I agree with bringing back some sort of Empire Shop. Even whilst using the lovely EMC Shop Locator mod, it is hard to find what you are looking for in shops. Don't get me wrong, shops are all over the Empire. The issue is finding a shop that is in stock. It should not take 20 minutes jumping shop to shop to shop just to find one that I could buy even the simplest item, a stack of Stone. This is ridiculous. We need some sort of way to revive the Economy of the Empire, and I stand with Kyle in belief that the Empire Shop could bring that relief we need.

As stated above, Make the Empire Great Again!

Ooof

I don't think I have anything more to add...

But I do want to comment on something:

(though I argree with you) There is a work-around for this:

Tom and I buy all regular items when in auction / in bulk shops if the price is right, which is how the monstrocety of 859 & 753 came to be. It does have one serious advantage: we have at least a DC of every item you'd need for a building, and at least 10DC of every "base item" you use to craft normal building materials. That way, you never have to go to a shop for anything. It does take some time to set up, and you'll probably end up with 10 million worth of normal building materials in your storage, but, belive me, it really is worth it.
Also, if you happen to need some (large amount of) building materials you can't find anywhere else, We'll probably have some, just shoot a PM

I have an idea that might address this which I'll discuss with Krysyy.

I'm not sure that I understand this view? If the economy is dead - for obvious reasons I don't participate in it, and I'm not especially involving in overseeing it, so I can't say either way - how would re-introducing it revive the economy? If the prices were reasonable (resolving your supply problems), player shops would lose all their business and the ES would impose arbitrary price caps which would stifle suppliers and therefore stock. If the prices were high, the shop would still be redundant because people would buy elsewhere. That's especially probable for the most price-elastic, common items like stone. It honestly sounds like vendors are aren't stocked because they're trying to offer too many items at margins which are too slim, and/or they're not offering suppliers enough. I ran the first mega-mall for many years, and it was not well-stocked for those reasons.

Lol I appreciate the work around! I'll make sure to remember in the future!

Thank you Alex. So to answer your questions and speak on this arguments behalf PS would not lose business. Most of this would be because there is no player shops. A quick search of /v +shop or /v +mall will yeild that conclusion. The only few decent shops are rarely if ever in stock because of a low player base. I would say vendors are not stocked because there is no vendors. I for one run (finally after 3 tries) a large mega-mall with adequet and good prices. Yet I make 0r because there are no new players. If I was to reset that res there would only be one decently sized mall on all of EMC - Azoundria's. I feel like when the server obtain many new players and there are more playershops again than the Empire shop might not be needed. However, ICC and Justinguy understood a ES was needed when there where very little amount of players when they started off. It's honestly a crisis at this point. There simply isn't a player base to support the new players joining that could save the server. I hope this answers you questions and agrues for the pro-ES position.

Also as a mega mall owner. The low player base has made is nearly impossible to get people to sell stock to you. There really is no incentive for people to stock malls by selling to them because even if they did there is nothing to buy with the money they make cause noone is in stock. It's honestly really sad

Thank you Krysyy I really do appreciate it!

Due to still being a relatively new SS and still being semi-involved with the economy (my alts still do a lot of buying when I play survival with them ), I am familiar with the issues you're describing. However, I disagree that an Empire Shop would solve the issue.

There are more player shops than you think, actually. As I said, my alts do quite a bit of shopping still, and I regularly shop on multiple SMPs. I could even send you a list of the shops I regularly go to for the resources I need, if you like.

Despite that though, the issue is that finding shops that are stocked is extremely difficult, due to how many player shops exist that aren't stocked. I can find items easily because I always go to the same list of shops to make my purchases. Yet attempting to find those shops using /v +shop or /v +mall would be extremely difficult, since they would consistently send you to many out-of-stock player shops, or player reses that don't even have any shop signs on them.

In my opinion, an Empire Shop would make the situation worse, not better, since the Empire Shop would prevent even more players from finding the shops that are stocked. Players would use /v +shop a few times, not find a shop with what they want, then head to the Empire Shop rather than keep looking for a player shop that does have what they want.

Then, these players would end up spending extreme amounts of rupees on fewer items, burning through all of their purchase power. Don't forget that while you may have millions of rupees, majority of players on EMC hold a rupee balance that is regularly below 100k rupees. Stone blocks at 5r per block would burn through that extremely quickly.

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How to solve this problem is more difficult than just opening an Empire Shop. While an Empire Shop would solve the immediate pains of buyers, in the long run it would only damage the economy even more. Rather, there are other ways to solve this issue that would be more work, but would create lasting change. Some of them are things that I'd need to discuss with SS/Krysyy/Aikar first before mentioning them to the community, so I'll do that first

Although I can see to some degree what you mean by this, it dawned on me for you to consider the players whom are loyal to mega mall owners. (12255 - Anony) (12249 - Bitemenow15) (12221 - M4ster_M1ner) Yes, we are fewer players, which in turn means less income in both stock and profits. Businesses slow down and some people close down altogether. The problem lies in it, that we can't help everyone with PS. Unless somehow you can't be bought out, there'll always be a struggle. ES, couldn't be bought out, but at the supreme cost. Only the more experienced shop owners will survive the drought, but it isn't easy. Many shops/malls I have searched for throughout are usually out of stock, leaving me empty handed and a loss for time. In light of all of this, I do lean towards the ES revival, but the uncertainty of how it affects the economy as a whole leaves me wondering. It could be doing us justice to our perspectives, but flip the coin... what's it affecting on the other side ? Balance is key to stability.

Of course there is plenty of incentive to sell to malls, if you're open minded and looking forward to the next release of a Promo for your museum or collection. It might be a long uncertain wait, but being optimistic about the future is a reward in itself.

My personal suggestions to revitalize EMC:

In progress:

• Update to 1.13 - Extremely needed, but currently unstable.
• Land Claiming / Empires completion - Honestly if we are waiting for 1.13 to be more stable, why not go hardcore on finishing this up? I can't tell you how many times I STILL see people asking to join a town or ask how to claim land.

Possible Implementation:

• A complete reworking of games server - add more minigames / new code system
• A possible second gameplay style? Such as skyblock (attached to games server?)
• I agree with windy, removing the frontier tp in the tutorial is much needed.
• Cross-Server chat
• Have everyone show up in tab on ALL smps
• Looking-for-Group system (used in finding groups for mining, building, mini-games etc - this could also be helpful for player events)
• In-Game auction system - this might help with shop/economy issues - or perhaps some kind of central market system? There are a few different player ran farmers markets that happen weekly, but the issue with those is participation, unfortunately.
• Rework of daily rewards - perhaps a system that gives higher rewards based on consecutive days logging in.
• Perhaps a slight rebranding of EMC - something more flashy or something lol - which coincides with suggestion below this one.
• Rework of outdated website - this has been suggested a few times, and even though there are complications, it could overall be worth it.

I think that's good for now - just a few more suggestions for discussion - would love to see EMC have a resurgence!

Very good points. Read the purple for my viewpoints or agreements.
I disagree with an EMC shop. I do agree that the economy needs to be adjusted somehow.

+infinite

Hello I mit as well join this topic.
Ok so the frontier portal thing,doesent really affect the new players, beacuse, players either know it’s a mostly towny server, and they’ll think, really there’s nothing in the wild, so they’ll go straight to town, and live there lives there, but if they stumble on the server by a friend, they’ll most likely go to town or even waste. But I think they should add a little discription of that the frontier is or, the waste is, or even town is.


About the empire shop thingy,
The empire shop is just infinite materials supplied by staff.so it would be a better, economy wise, to let the players gather the resources, beacuse the empire shop is super rich, and new shop owners won’t make any ruppes, for example, ‘the rich get richer, the poar get poarer’. So I think it’s a better thing to have many shops, so everyone makes some money, rather then one alt account make millions. That would just even the economy and make people grind more for more ruppes. That’s all I have to say.

I would also like to add a tweak to the survival difficulties. For whatever reason, you can no longer two-shot creepers with a plain Sharpness V diamond sword on the default Difficulty 5.

This isn't a critique of anything, but rather a genuine question. How do certain minigame servers (don't think I can name them for advertising reasons) function on 1.13 with upwards of 20000 players connected at any time? I've wondered that for a while as it seems that the more people you add the more unstable things would get.

That's usually as simple as the server being still on 1.12.2, and they're just using their own protocolhack to allow 1.13 clients to join said server. Their own, because the publicly available ones usually aren't stable enough for such servers.

On another note, it would be great if people could report faulty res tags. It is quite annoying to jump around res's looking for a shop, and passing multiple res's that do not have such a thing.