reply to Tuqueque: I kind of like this idea. The 3 tag system. Default is the middle. Enhanced is long and full length. Reduced is minimal. Makes perfect sense to me, lets the new/all players see the feature and then lets the players alter the script to what they wish to see. Good Idea. I could not get it to post very well and wanted you to know i liked that idea lol.
Hey all. This survey is now closed. I have compiled the responses. Below is my summary of the responses. I did read all of the other/open response sections. Individual thoughts are unlikely to be shown in this summary, but I certainly noted many things. There were 88 total survey responses (negligibly few were duplicates and none seemed to be spam). 86.4% responded that they had experienced the Empires update. 64.7% responded that Empire Tags in the Tablist has been a positive change. 27.1% responded with a neutral response. 55.9% responded that Empire Tags in Chat has been a positive change. 29.8% responded with a neutral response. The next set of survey questions did take an optional open response. Again, I read these open responses but tried to distill the results into a percentage result. An undecided answer was discarded from these percentage results. 55% of yes/no responses indicated that the Chat Tags should be defaulted on for new players. There were many respondents that indicated the importance of conveying to new players that this is something that can be changed! 74% of respondents indicated AGAINST the symbol option to replace the chat tag. The question itself was more nuanced, but I think it is clear that as a replacement, this ain't it. Responses about the max players for an empire specifically in terms of a frontier outpost: I took all of the responses and put them roughly into 'bins'. Here are the results... less than 20 - 11% about 20 - 15% about 30 - 15% about 50 - 18% about 100 - 25% about 200s - 7% 300 or up - 10% Generally speaking this distribution conveys how varied the responses were. I would point out that the MEDIAN response was about 50. It is likely, that this is close to the max that would probably get set. There would be a couple of tiers before the max is reached. And if demand presents, we could add another tier beyond 50 in the future. The final survey question said the following, "Other than 'the community', what aspect of EMC first attracted you to join or stick around?" I attempted to take the open response section here and create categories which matched people's responses. By creating these general categories, it does remove some of the original meaning people put into their responses, but this helps see where the collective stands on the topic. Below I will list out my custom categories based on people's input in order starting by most popular. Ending with least frequent. The economy. Several respondents explained the value of it being a player driven economy and that it enabled survival building. The ability to have individual success. The world setup of Town vs Wild. The friendly non-toxic environment of the server and its players. The Town experience. The antigrief system and experience to build freely without worrying about other players griefing. No PVP. The social aspect of playing on a multiplayer server. The custom items and promos. Events The overall custom setup of the server which creates a unique experience. Having a professional staff team. That the worlds do not reset, a player can leave and come back to their stuff still being around. That EMC has a history, not just a game to play. The Wild. The Custom Mobs. That EMC is free and Not Pay2Win. I think there is a lot to unpack with the order of this list. Equally important though, is (for example) that although only "3" people thought Custom Mobs were their reason to be attracted and stick around for - that is still THEIR NUMBER 1. Doesn't mean it was everyone's number 1. So everything on this list has value and just because something is near the bottom, doesn't make it necessarily less part of our identity. If anything, this shows to me that our identity does cover a wide spectrum. A wide but focused spectrum in terms of the greater Minecraft community. Takeaways. I think it is very affirming to my personal views that the EMC experience is hurting from a suffering economy due to many factors, many out of our direct control. But addressing that experience should be considered a high priority. The town vs. wild dynamic is everything, when it comes to defining EMC's identity. That you can go out and survive in the Wild. You can turn your player difficulty down to 1 and just gather. That you can hide away in town away from monsters. That you can visit other peoples builds in a town without fall damage. Etc. This all encompasses that combined experience. The importance of having a "friendly" community as part of our identity. I was just talking to some people last night that although EMC could benefit from taking some risks, changing a core ideal like this would drive away our existing loyal player-base. How "friendly" is implemented will be debatable forever, but it is important. Opportunities to engage with other players is invaluable. Whether that is simply being able to /visit them, chat with them, hold events together. All are part of the multiplayer experience that people want from SMP Minecraft. Otherwise everyone would just be playing Single Player. Various custom aspects, be it items or mobs helps distinguish us as a Minecraft server. In recent history, our innovations haven't necessarily been as revolutionary as in early MC days, but this survey shows that reinvesting in those could be worth it. What do you think? What did my summary miss? Respond away!
Just an adjacent conversation tied directly to this is this type of questioning https://empireminecraft.com/threads/what-is-your-minecraft-playstyle.86771/ PS: I have time today and long overdue - but these post by chickeneer have inspired me to finalize the survey I had made in April, so be on the lookout for it as well later today PSS: thanks for sharing results!
Responding to a few comments made in this thread before the results were posted. I definitely think that some intentional design is needed to best communicate these things to new players. We are actively working on the tutorial situation. But the tutorial also needs to be bare-bone enough that it isn't a deterrent. Players need to know what these [TAGS] are about, but how to configure/access it is definitely a post tutorial step. I thought this was an interesting point. Yes, every survey has some type of bias. BUT I would argue none of the questions were about marketing. Questions about the Empire Tags is asking what the default experience should be - regardless of whether a person is a new player. Similarly, me asking why people joined or stuck around EMC - was a question fishing for definitive answers about what EMC's identity is in the Minecraft world. How to market our identity is another matter entirely. There is not really a point/counterpoint to argue here. I just think that a survey biasing toward the established player is perfectly acceptable for the data sought in this case. It isn't a realistic goal, to seek out a survey of minecraft players which failed to join and stick around... because they aren't around to survey without going to other platforms. This used to be possible using the # system of setting custom shop names. I need to test this, as I may have broken this functionality on accident... not really sure.
For sure adjacent. I would point out that my survey question was specifically geared towards the initial reason for a person's joining/staying. This is a very distinct question from what a person's current playstyle is. Both are potentially valuable, but each have different implications.
Definitely! I wasn’t noting it implying it is wrong, simply because of the nature of the survey, as you said, it is expected. And well, EMC should cater most of its efforts to the playerbase that actually stood around. Just recognizing the bias is important and to realize that there are two demographics in the population of “people who would enjoy playing in EMC” Established players and Prospective players. Noting this because EMC’s population is decreasing by these two groups for different reasons. Established players are outgrowing the Game and/or the server (not going into detail here but the controllable variable here is the server, and to make sure the system behind it, is likely to not be outgrowed by a majority of people. Ie. Fidget spinners hype was a temporary spike, vs designing a system which people use for the next 5-10 years) Prospective players are not coming in as fast because of general Minecraft popularity decaying, or being cannibalized by Bedrock edition and retention rate (which is our only controllable factor here - the tutorial is big part of retention, but also default systems and first impressions definitely have an effect on retention rates) Even though we’ve been tought to not judge a book by its cover, it’s very true that first impressions are the most important item right now in entertainment, especially in the past couple of years were society has adapted their brains to fast paced forms of content (TikTok/shorts). This goes back to the default experience. We are in a situation where it is harder than ever to convince someone to spend their leisure time in whatever distraction/entertainment one is offering -> The first impression of a system, especially one that you will interact with 95% of the time you are in EMC (the chat) needs to really convince you to play (or at least not deter them away from the server) Some principles to consider: Jakob’s law: Familiarity in system standards - there’s no need to reinvent the wheel - (people don’t like different things) Ie. What is the industry standard regarding guild systems for server chat Peak-end rule: People care more about the start and end of an experience rather than what is in the middle. Error messages being helpful, to great and easy tutorial, to the welcome messages, the start/end of an experience is the most important and good concept to keep for many areas Aesthetics Usability Effect - pretty things are perceived as better most of the time, even if there are less useful PS - and yes my use of “marketing” was loose at best in that statement
Always interesting to see other's takes on what EMC should go. I have been playing mod packs for the better part of the past two months, (I still lurk around here of course, but that's where I've been) and been vastly enjoying my time in all that more than the repetitiveness that is vanilla MC. I have many many ideas of things that maybe would push some life into the economy, culture, you name it. Hence I push for the importance and establishment of the Think Tank team, link here to apply. As I have said before, I can always dump all these suggestions in a mega thread, essay or what have you. But still good to identify the core issues and what the majority desire in the upcoming updates.
