How come public outposts aren't as popular as they used to be? Ones like the Last Light Outpost or Estonan Federation, among others. I'd like to know.
Most old public outposts are on old world terrain, which I think a lot of people would rather use newer world gen (esp. when 1.18 eventually comes out). Lot's of the older members of such outposts are long gone, and newer members would probably not want to join a ghost town even if there's still some remaining members. Also it's much easier to just set up an outpost with friends. And just the fact that the active player count of EMC is significantly less active nowadays. (April 2015: 18296 active members, October 2021: 1949 active members)
I haven't built in anyone else's outpost because of my gameplay style. 1) I'm a gatherer. I enjoy hoarding resources and when I have an excess amount I offer them for sale or give them away. 2) My daily in game time is limited. I don't want to commit to assisting in a build since I have no idea when I'll be on again and for how long. 3) I lack creativity. My builds are piles of blocks compared to most of the builds I have seen. 4) I have 4 residences of my own and build/use rights on 4 others and a shared Wild outpost. That is more area than I will ever have time to fill up.
There was an outpost on smp6 called Erose City that I was part of back in 2014 or 2015. I've been trying to find it again for years but I haven't had any luck yet.
My experience relates mostly to the LLO and several other outposts I’ve ran/been involved with since 2012. I started an outpost back in 2012 and again in 2015. The former was insanely successful - like the players involved were clamouring for what we had even though there was hundreds of other older and active outposts (with less resources) - and the latter had 0 interest and ended up being a little private base I had with me and one or two friends. We’ve tried to revive the LLO several times in the past. Once with more outpost activity, once by trying to join in on the whole ‘political arena’ phase 72Volt started, and once by trying to split the different regions up into separate sub-outposts so we could advertise them all differently and appeal to different players. None of these approaches worked. We resigned ourselves to the fact that EMC has a much different, infinitely smaller playerbase than when the LLO was started back in 2011. I think the whole community outpost thing has been killed off naturally, in part due to the reintroduction of the wasteland (which seconds what Burki said), and the whole ‘Empires’ thing EMC has been angling for since 2015 will double-tap it.
A successful wild base is reliant on "one" person to really lead it strongly and keep it pushing forward. No one has had the drive to do that in recent history.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Can’t believe it’s that much of a difference but it’s clear to see. It used to be hard to join a server.
I remember those days Unoski. On another note, I'm curious how those statistics are handled. 🤔 Are the numbers tallied right as soon someone logs in? Or is there a duration of which they must be "connected" for it to be counted as an active player? Those numbers would probably be lower if it took into account a certain amount of play time to be considered "active". Regardless of whichever one it is, EMC is quite literally a shell of its former self. I remember when SMP6 used to be rockin' when I joined in January 2015. Many times, I was unable to join my own home SMP because too many people were on that server. Nowadays, the number of people SMP6 saw in January 2015 is spread across all SMPs. All of my friends have left, and there's really no reason for me to play on here anymore since everyone is either foreign to me or I'm just checking in to see "the rate of decline" with the player count. Those who are still here, they have their own reasons to stay. Thank you for sharing this statistic man. I knew the numbers were a fraction of what it was, but I was not expecting it to be nearly 1/10th of what I experienced in January 2015...
Well, you could try making new friends! When I log in nowadays there's usually 40-60 online, which is a decent number. I guess since I'm more of a new player, I don't really feel the "EMC is dying" vibes that the old-timers spout...things are fine if you talk to people.
Great responses from f_Builder_s and SoulPunisher. Others have made relevant additions as well. Is it settled for you, Sunny_Chicken? I hope the responses will not deter you from having fun investing in outposts!
I think outposts now is "what can I go out and make?" Seeing it start from the ground up. Older outposts are great to explore and visit, but I rarely feel like I could live there. Some of it is just awe at what someone else did, this is someone else's, so I can't live here. I agree with Drasleona. I wasn't here for the hayday that it was once. If anything, the updates since 1.12 have continued drawing players back.
It's not that EMC is 'dying'. People were making that prediction back in 2016 (including yours truly), but the rate of decline ended up levelling off a few years ago and growth/degrowth has been stagnant ever since. The issue is more "I remember when every server was 60/60 constantly and you needed to buy supporter to even stand a chance of logging in, and there was an actual reason for nine SMP servers to be here." And then we've watched as Minecraft underwent a huge resurgence in 2019 not result in any bonus for EMC, or seen things like the games server be under development for years (I had it leaked to me two years before it went live, and it was a solid six months old at least when I heard of it) and then just completely flop... and it does make you nostalgic for the good old days when everyone and their nan was on here. But that was all a literal decade ago. I joined this server back February 2012. I was an 11 year old boy when I experienced all that and now I'm a 21 year old... man (legally speaking, of course... still feels odd to be referred to as ). I'm not getting any of that back, it's long gone. But EMC has been around since I was an 11 year old boy and it's still here now, over ten years later, and I'd say that makes it pretty healthy - how many servers out there, besides the big ones like The Hive etc., are still here after ten years?
Do you remember the general area? I'm thinking about making a trip back out there for old time's sake, but I've lost the coords and haven't found anyone who still has them.
I am way too much of a control freak to have public outposts. I want my bases to be how I designed them and knowledge that I can take a month break from the base and come back and it's exactly how I left it. I couldn't do that if it was public. Now it does get extremely lonely out at my outposts and I have to either do all the work myself or hire others to do it for me. So that aspect of public always is nice to have help with stuff. That's just my little crumb of knowledge/opinion on the matter.
