EMC Final Election Debate 2019

Thank you and good morning Krysyy. The heart of EMC is the community. When I first joined I thought it was simply the player or the economy however over the last few years I have come to understand what makes EMC special is the community. Now I'm not just saying in general because of our great community but because from the second you join an SMP you became part of a smaller ecosystem within EMC. I had the privilege of finding my community on SMP2 while many others found theirs on their respective SMP. At every step along my journey I have embraced this mentality. SSRC itself is a community and by working together we achieved monumental goals. I never had the nicest res, biggest mall, or most money. But I did have my community. Community is what brings each and everyone of us on each day. It's why after 7 years I find myself unable to peel away from the greatest community I know. Consequently we need to support and foster our communities. Listening to community suggestions is the first and most important change that must continue to be embraced. To go against the community is to stab ourselves in the foot. It creates a hostile and unwelcoming environment which we must do everything to avoid. One such example that I feel shows the consequences of disregarding the community was the Auction rule changes. The community should have been consulted before the changes were implemented, not after. Now I know things have changed regarding future changes but it is important to reiterate that point. This brings me to my next point. New players are often lost from this community at the start. The largest culprit is the the structure of the tutorial. I was so pleased to seeing the removal of the frontier teleport from the end of tutorial. I am profrontier and protown and they both have their place but frontier abandons and confuses new players leaving them with a terrible first impression of EMC and of the community. Seeing the torn up frontier and not knowing you need to build thousands of blocks out is a problem which future tutorials should solve. Integration of new players into the community should be priority numero uno. When a player is engaged with the community and feels that they have a place here they are so much more likely to stay. This is why I have personally helped so many players feel apart of something by inviting them to SSRC. Through a sense of community I have tried to keep SMP2 populated. Saying “welcome to EMC” is not enough and we can do so much more! Everything I have done has revolved around one core premise, strengthening the community which is at the heart of EMC and I'm excited to answer the other questions. (response to first question).

Examples of my embracement of the vision of EMC are numerous. From it's inception as the Southern SMP2 Redevelopment Corporation I have worked to create a sense of community, set out long term goals for us to complete as a community on Smp2.

On SMP2, together we have created a Corporation which isn't set out to make money but make the lives of people on EMC better. From hosting events like jeopardy, drop parties, and horse races we strived to provide an outlet for community engagement and growth. SSRC has never had any membership requirements other than believing in our mission to help the greater community. Many of our members felt disconnected from the community.

They found a home in SSRC and EMC. Many of our members can attest to that story and once they joined, SSRC became theirs as it is mine. We're a family dedicated to enjoying/providing for EMC. One of the areas we strived to assist is the economy. Throughout the years I sought to help stabilize the economy. Not a task that can be done alone or even on a small order. We coordinated with malls around us to ensure a stable economy so that small business could open and grow. There have been many examples of people SSRC has helped grow like their own shop or mall. My VP who wasn't always my VP started off as a mall construction contract in which I helped him start and setup a mall. Later on he became so involved and believed so strongly in our mission that he became our VP. SSRC never asked for payment and instead we asked those who joined that in exchange for access to the full fiscal, material, and labor support of SSRC they were asked but never forced to help us complete public works projects. Nearly everyone did help when asked because they supported our mission which remains the same today.

My strategy has always been a four legged stool. Supporting the community through improvements in the economy, events, construction, and new player retention.

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  Economy: Through supporting new shops, helping them get set up, and working to provide pricing and mall strategies such as chest capping, what materials are the most profitable, etc.
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  Events: Jeopardy, horse races, etc. where we use the money made from our shop to give back to the community through events that are fun, engage the community, and give people a reason to come on.
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  Construction: Buying materials locally and at small shops that helps improve the economy for small business owners. Public works 3385, 3307, Subway project, increasing land value, and funding public iron and gold farms.
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  New player retention: All of the above are meant to improve the quality of play on EMC. Doing my small part to make EMC fun and interesting for my fellow community members. If a new player needs help I am always ready to stop what I am doing and tp to them to assist in anyway possible.

There was a time between Fall of 2016 - 2017 that I took an extended break. Usually during the winter months I have been less active because of school and work but I usually make great strides during the summer months and am very active. The reason I took a break was because it was my first year in College. This was a very tense and complicated time for me so I had to focus on school. However, I did come back in the summer of 2017 as well as throughout fall of 2017 and most of 2018. I came back after one of my friends asked me to. He felt that I was needed again and I heard about the declining conditions on EMC concerning the economy and player base. I felt a duty to do what I could to help as I love EMC and the server which has meant so much to me over the years. The community drew me back. <3

Active In-game player activity as it stands today is dismal at best compared to the past. Part of this is because of the aging player base that has less and less free time (like myself), boredom, and people who have felt turned away, the last I will explain in greater detail. We have already discussed events as a way to improve player activity. However, one of the best parts of EMC that I believe helped keep EMC’s population massive in the beginning was the plentiful community that EMC provided compared to other servers. Looking at one of the major problems that caused the first wave of quitting in 2012 was unfair and bias application of rules, and overall hostile actions against the community, and the loss of big important players which cascaded to low player density. This lead to EMC being transferred to Aikar.


Today the situation is not as simple. The low player activity is a result of a few instances of drama directed towards the community as well as the increasing time it takes to achieve that “sense of accomplishment”. It is becoming increasingly difficult for older players who are left with no other choice but to leave because of restrictive structural aspects of EMC that make it difficult for players to accomplish much without extensive grinding.


We must pay attention to older players as much as we do newer ones. Many older players felt as if their concerns and suggestions went ignored. Because of this disconnect many great players felt the situation to be hopeless and that things were going in the wrong direction. Situations such as the auction rules update were chaotic and that kind of drama came off as hostile toward community members. We must include players in the rule-making process like we did when we resolved the chaos. It is important to note that every rule cannot have player input. However, economic related rules really should be suggested to the community first.

"Honesty, if we want to avoid requiring more resources we need to give more authority and initiative to players."

To enhance the community density some people have advocated condensing the SMPs but I believe this will be very difficult to implement fairly. So one possible solution that I would support is drastically lowering the price for the SS service to move your res. If players can move their reses to more active SMPs we can strengthen the communities there while protecting the property of other SMPs till we have gained enough players back on EMC. SMP7 and SMP3 are great examples. The insane price tag to move all of a person's reses forces them on a dying SMP and makes life boring and difficult for them. We should also allow players to have more control over events such as allowing PVP for player events. For example, if they make a coliseum and want to have a PVP event the staff could turn on PVP for the duration of the event.

Focusing on In-game activity I would point out there is a lack of drama mostly from the lack of people and when any drama happens it actually makes things a bit more interesting. Idk about others but I sometimes like to get my daily dose of tea in the morning . Now I apologize in advance that I mentioned forum-specific problems, I guess I should have been more specific. Concerns and suggestions about in-game issues such as lack of staff online, the difficulty to get SS services at times, advertising rules, and the EMC shop were made on the forums. The lackluster responses made some players feel unheard and so they quit and caused a cascading effect on some of the smps. There is a such thing as anchor players that help hold a community together. It's an experiement in sociology I guess lol. I just felt it was be inappropriate to discuss this issue without addressing that in-game attendance is affected by what happens on the forums.


If you wish me to address new issues that would help improve in-game player activity would be having staff supporting events by doing advertising will increase activity of player in-game. I also, think that making it possible to travel back and forth from outposts easier will greatly increase attendance and activity across the server. It will also increase economic activity and I really think that this one aspect of Empires should be implemented as soon as possible and would not take too many resources to do so.

I would suggest a price tag of 10,000r - 25,000r for each individual res, depending on the complexity. The goal of reducing the cost is to increase and allow people to move and condense. If an individual has many residences the cost could easily balloon and I would like to see new players able to afford this service as well.

The current price is 100,000r from res to another res and from smp to smp. If you move the res to another account the price increases to 150,000r. This is hardly affordable except for the rich.

So I would suggest to reduce it greatly down to 10,000r for a smaller res, and 25,000r for a larger res. 10,000r would be the price for newer players while fully developed reses would be around 25,000r. The switch between accounts should be reduced down to an 15,000r. I believe in making this service accessible to a majority of people and I believe it will be a great service for people, allowing them to condense and create vibrant dense communities without violating the rights of other SMPs.


Now I argue that this should most likely be decided by a vote by the community because I will not pretend that I speak for every person on EMC and I believe we need to promote participation and social contract theory of administration.

A few ideas for promoting long-term growth

I will be briefly summarizing, we can improve long-term growth by listening and reacting to the community suggestions. I think this election is a great start. I also believe improvements to town as well as to the frontier should be encouraged such as the teleporting from outposts to town. Suggestions such as lowering the price to move reses as well as more freedoms in event creation require minimal resources. Frequent polls and transparency from the admin will go a long way towards building trust and making people feel as if they have power and influence on the issues.

Also, a music bot or music channel in the discord would also be really nice lol.

I also really liked the first voting competition we did. Where if we collectively as a community reached a milestone the whole community was rewarded with (for example at the time) a promo.

Also, redoing the tutorial. It is my belief that the text is difficult to read and that the tutorial should include examples of what you can do on EMC, give people something to work towards and leave (other than the basic rules) most of the information for the player to discover! I also think the fact that you can run through the tutorial without reading anything is a problem.

Finally, as much as we currently reward voting we should reward people for time active as well. I leave it to the staff to surprise the community on this issue but finding time to come online and being active is arguably more important than getting new players and voting because new people don't stay if there is noone online. Now considering the limited resources I understand the major priority should be getting to 1.13 and 1.14. If necessary I would hire more developers.

To be honest, this Presidential race in itself has already encouraged a lot of people to return. I believe continuing down this democratic and transparent route is the way to go and I applaud this event immensely.


Promos that are actually useful to the miner and player not just the collector.

Expansion of player control of events. Staff advertising Player events as well as showing up to player events goes a long way to increasing the attendance of a players events.


Creating a new staff position that will run the limited EMC shop and would ensure that the prices are not too high and not too low.


Rewards for players for activity. Just like how we have for voting we should reward people for staying on EMC as well. It will directly encourage people to come back and stay online.

These are just some preliminary ideas and I will leave it here for now until my opponent has a chance to respond.

woah, that's a lot to read! il try to keep mine to a manageable length

Ok so, i will answer the questions in order so, starting with 1!

the heart of EMC? well i think that must be friends,
i know ive made so many Amazing friends on EMC who have been there for me when i needed them most and we have had a lot of fun together! and will continue too in the future
On EMC all it takes is 1 friend and soon you end up with lots!

2
How have i shown Dedication to EMC? Well i have over 100 days in game time on EMC Since 2015, aswell as having gone to Almost every different EMC event since then!

3
Yes i have taken Several short breaks from EMC aswell as 1 longer one back in 2016 i think it was, as for what brought me back? well i missed talking to my friends on EMC and Also Collecting promos

4
Well, EMC's Online player count is at a low right now and i think the best thing we can do to keep players right now with our current resources is to be as open with players with info as possible, and the best way to do this is bringing back the monthly news letter

5
As much as i love a good competition i think we need to reward players more for more casual events like Miner Mania and harvest day, these events are great for hanging out and making friends but don't reward players much for attending
6
i will come back to later
7
Why should people vote for me instead of windylava? well Windylava doesn't seem to have much of a In game presence outside of SMP2 and almost 0 presence at events, Where as i am frequently on other SMP's as well as spending the most time Where other players are to hang out and talk.
I also feel i am more able to Communicate well with EMC's Younger members as well as older, being in the middle Age range that i am and being able to understand what the younger players need to be able to play and have fun

Why should people vote for me? I believe that my record stands for itself. My alt is SSRCcorp which I play on mostly because I put the community and our mission above my own name. Most of my time is spent helping individuals and being where I am needed. I work hard and put others first before my own fun because I love EMC and I love my community. Many people know me from SMP1 to utopia. I have attended many events throughout my 7 years on EMC, in addition to creating events. I have dedicated myself to a cause and have done everything in my power to help the people of EMC. As many already know I am discord almost daily and am always open to a conversation. I believe in EMC, I believe in you. I believe we can build a brighter future and I have the skills, records, and ideas to do it. That is why you should vote for me. I also wish to thank my opponent Jewel_king. He is a great candidate and I think he will make a great member of the community in the future. I think it is very regrettable that I have not been able to leave an impression on my fellow opponent. I will continue to fight for EMC and put the community first. It hurts to think that my opponent would make such broad generalizations about me while barely knowing me. I try my hardest to so much but I am only human and I cannot be everywhere so I focus my time on helping people instead of hanging out. I wish my opponent best of luck, he's a great guy. I have worked hard to earn your vote and I will continue working hard for it.

Thank you to all my supporters, friends, community, and staff for giving me this Opportunity. It's been an amazing journey over 7 years.

I Apologize if it came off that way but i don't have an issue with you, i just answered the question asked of me with the info i had available, which was that i don't often see you at Events or outside SMP2

I in fact had great difficulty with that question due to the fact that it pains me to put others down or call myself better than them,

and i do have great respect for SSRC and what it stands for

So here we go lol. Guess I have a million and one questions to answers so I guess I'll start here

When I began this thread I was asked about the conditions of things. I'm briefly summarizing the last 4 - 5 years so I apologize if there was an confusion about the current staff. The current staff are amazing especially the S.S. but I was explaining how we got in the situation we are today.

I am so sorry about this. See my Grandfather has been very ill lately, being 87 and bed ridden I have had take more and more responsibilities. Between this, school, work, internships, and trying my best to help the community it fell on the back-burner and I was never contacted about this since that post. If you are serious about it I would gladly provide you with a list, however I would like to note I was never asked; I was told to provide a list. As an average player making a suggestion I was a little taken back especially since I am merely a volunteer helping the community. As a person who is not a staff member I try my best but the task of single handily choosing which items are most important is a very difficult and long decision. I appreciate the opportunity to contribute but I simply wanted the old mall back. I appreciate you bringing this up tho because It shows how I am, as one individual, trying to make things better on EMC.

I would suggest that they advertise events less. For example, maybe as an example 30 minutes, and 15 minutes before an event. I don't see why Staff should be held to a different standard than other players.

Based on details of Empires that was provided to the community. Teleportation was nothing that was discussed as possible. I am not a developer merely a community advocate and member who has seen many people excited for this. If this is not developmentally possible than that is news to the whole community.

Senior Staff can make teleport just like how the teleports at spawn are set up. It would be a SS service and they would make a 1/1 block tp back to town. For example look at the teleport sign for stream base on SMP1. You put it there yourself so you know this possible. This will be for know outposts.

I respectfully disagree that allowing people to move and be with their friend... Their friends to be a extreme position. It will help increase player density and create a stronger community. The "extreme cost" is an arbitrary number that is made up. Using creative is not a justification for it. You're not duplicating, you're moving. If you want to people to stay on this server this is my suggestion and I stand firm on it.

I would also turn the question around and ask are you not forcing people to quit because they are stuck on a dying smp? breaking down a building is a privilege afforded to people with a lot of time. You want people to stay stop making so that players have to spend days of their life just moving a res which you could easily do in a second.

I mean no disrespect by this post I am only defending my position. <3 I think we have made great strides but we have to start helping the playerbase. I hope you can see where I am coming from. I think this is a much better solution than deleting an SMP. <3