[EULA] Mojang Supporter Changes Discussion

The short answer to just about any question is that we will do everything we can to maintain the features that our members have come to expect from EMC servers.

We will also be exploring all types of options to reward and thank our supporters because they make it possible for many members who are not able to support in the form of monetary donations. The community as a whole is stronger due to their generosity. The limits to in-game rewards are new and different, but that does not mean that EMC values anyone any less.

Adversity can make us stronger if we choose to work through it. We will be watching the changes made by other servers in coming months and making sure to keep pace with all that there is to offer.

oh no!! the eula has already taken over named swords!!!

There. Free access to everyone for utopia.
As soon as one supporter is connected to Utopia, they have 'priority' and boots the free player back to town.
As "paying users have priority", paid members do not boot each other.
This does not affect 'town' however, as there is NO gameplay in town.

Can I give paying users priority access to my server?
Yes, but you cannot restrict gameplay elements to specific users.

Building and getting residences in town would count as gameplay to Mojang.

OK, my four cents worth of thoughts:

Mojang released the ‘server’ software for “free”. Why? I think in the beginning, it was so that many people would run servers, make mods, plugins, etc...
This ‘ease’ led to many different kinds of servers! Some for fun and some for money.
These servers, in turn, made Mojang more and more popular over time.

Remember, every minecraft player must purchase a copy of Minecraft from Mojang.
So, Mojang in turn really benefits from all the server ‘owners’ work. The more and more people see minecraft, the fun players have, the more new players will want to purchase minecraft as well! (owners work such as the server operating costs, hardware and software, keeping players happy, advertising, competent staff, etc…)
After all… who would play Minecraft for single player only? Most players are on multiplayer servers (hence why they are so popular).
Multiplayer ‘local’ is fun with a few friends, however becomes very ‘stale’ over time. People lose interest, stop playing.

People got interested in Minecraft because 1) the game is super fun, and 2) they get to play online with their friends, and other like minded fun people. In order to keep the multi-player servers fresh, new content needs to come out, and to differentiate servers from one another, custom work needs to be put in to “stick out of the crowd”.

In addition, many people go out and purchase ‘alt’ accounts. Why would people purchase multiple accounts, unless they were playing multiplayer servers?
On large multiplayer servers, people come and they go. Some stay around for awhile. Most search for the ‘fun factor’ and stay at their favorite servers.

If the change was coming around simply due to ‘kids using their parents credit cards without permission’, then fine. Following that rational, how would this prevent this behavior for them purchasing “decorative” items, colored names, etc?

As far as I know, there are no ‘in game’ purchases for Minecraft (except with in-game currency). You have to go to a 3rd party website to purchase something, and these purchases are not through Mojang. The program ‘minecraft’ as far as I am aware, has nowhere to ‘enter your credit card info’…(If you did this, you are doing something wrong)
If ‘parents’ issue a chargeback, it goes to the company that charged for the purchase, NOT the creators of the software.
So the whole ‘Mojang getting a bad name’ due to this type of behavior I really do not see how that holds water. It appears that this has been happening for a long time (and not for just minecraft, for many ‘games’), and minecraft has only gotten more popular, not less popular.
We need to place fault on the people responsible for mis-using and abusing credit cards.

I do see this as a move to try and limit servers. It is well within their “rights” to do this. Afterall, it is their software and IP. However whether a good or a bad move on their part, will remain to be seen. I just think it is a terrible idea to limit things in this way, as what they are really doing is placing limits on how owners can run their servers.

As for the ‘pay to win’ servers, I fail to see the point in trying to restrict any of it. If an owner runs and operates a great server, there is a reason people are drawn to that type of server. Let the like minded people who want to “pay to win”, play together. If there are servers that are not ‘pay to win’, and they are more popular, so be it. Bottom line, is that the variety of servers currently out there allow people to play how they wish.
I don't know about you, but I prefer more choices compared to less choices.

I don’t know the real motives behind the new EULA, however if Mojang truly cared about people wishing to have fun playing Minecraft, then why restrict server owners abilities to create servers for people to play on?

Why does Mojang care if server owners are charging for in-game items? Or charging for features? Or ‘hard’ money for ‘soft’ currency? How does ANY of this affect Mojang?

Nobody is forcing ANYBODY to play on these types of servers! Nobody is forcing ANYBODY to pay for being a supporter or for any items! If people do not like that type of server, simply do not join, or do not support, so the owner does not make a dime!

So, what is the ‘real’ intent of Mojang for this move?
I read their line about how they believe that the ‘minecraft’ servers should all have the same exact gameplay between free and supporters.
While this does sound ‘spiffy’ I have a bit more faith in the ‘free market’ and think that since nothing is ‘broken’, why ‘fix’ it.

Now, with that all being said.
I will still continue to support EMC because it never was about 'perks'. The biggest 'perk' for me was getting extra residences (never did much with the others though I have them). With the ability people have to make rupees and purchase supporter vouchers from other players, being a supporter could be had by anybody here.

I am truly disappointed in Mojang. Afterall, if it was not for EMC, I would have NEVER purchased minecraft, and would have stayed on the xbox version... (ya, you are allowed to make fun of me for the xbox version)...

Ok, its out of my system...

Lol xbox version can't believe you had that lolol *makes fun*.

Sorry, I had to. BTW, I had the PC version of Minecraft, and was on EMC, but still bought the xbox version the day it came out.

Anyway, I completely agree with everything you said, and it was very well said.

Ha, awesome . I played the crud out of it with my son for quite awhile before going to the PC version. We would dupe glitch loads of stuff and build awesome stuff.
Didn't like creative, nor when they added 'hunger' (never got used to that on the xbox), but for some reason dupe glitching was loads of fun if that makes any sense. Built loads of large pyramids, sky buildings, etc... but got tired of the limitations we had going out to new areas and exploring. Plus, the mouse and keyboard is 100x better than the controllers. It is painful to go back to the controller when he wants me to play with his friends online (yay four players!)

**oh and don't mention all the skin packs that 'appeared' in my account... he said he had 'nothing' to do with it... lol.

How is this handled in the wilderness ?

You stated your position beautifully and logically! That is just how I feel about the situation. I think you should post this on reddit. I feel that Mojang is turning on the people who have helped make it more popular and taking away people's ability to choose for themselves. We don't need Mojang to protect us. I believe this will hurt them in the long run and make many players sad as many servers they love either change so much they are unrecognizable or die from lack of funds.

As it currently stands, Mojang is part of the EU, being based in Sweden. They have no power to sue anyone over this. Any attempts would be thrown out in court and they'd be made a mockery of. As it has been ruled EULAs have zero standing on a virtual product. So we really do not have to worry about this all too much.
(All praise the almighty EU!)

However; Mojang can, and most likely will instead of suing (after there lawyers work out they can't) just cut off the servers from accessing the authentication servers.

Now it seems Aikar and others have this pretty well covered, but if for any reason Mojang do decide to be ass'y about something that we as a community just can't remove (IE Town plots..*Shivers*) then there are still workarounds.
1. Unoffical authentication protocols. These would be difficult to setup, but are definitley doable and would require client size mods.
2.Dynamic IP ranges on the servers. As far as I'm aware authentication to Mojang servers is done through IPs, not domains. Therefore using dynamic IP addresses would make it near impossible for them to deny access and you would not have to give users a new IP addreess due to the wonder of Domain names. They might workaround this however by scraping there DNS servers and blocking by DNS instead of IP.
3. EMC client! - You'd have to download your own client of course, but it's a possibility

There are many ways around this. You can do nearly anything as Mojang has no EULA to get you to stick to.

(P.S, I'd recommend moving to the EU for this to be 100% correct, I don't know how EU laws apply to Mojang outside the EU)

Just my 2 cents on the whole situation.
I have thought it over.

Something that sprang to my mind is that these "new" rules would incur unfair competition with cracked servers. AFAIK these do not use the auth servers, as it would not allow cracked clients to get online (could be wrong on this, input appreciated).

That would mean that Mojang is now actively supporting cracked servers, which is actually the thing they don't want at all. So their scheme actually contradicts itself.

Just have a server for diamond members with their perks, a server for gold members with their perks, a server for iron members with their perks. Each server requires a monthly payment of their respective prices. And allow free members to visit as "guests" but get nothing out of it. Solution sorted

The problem is that Mojang aren't going to let free members mix with supporters unless they get the perks too. So they can't visit as guests.

....and the iron supporters could not leave their server to go to the gold or diamond and visa versa. Everyone would be segregated to one server and not allowed to play with players of other ranks to keep things "fair". No more Vaulting, server hopping, or sharing exp between servers. So you couldn't play with your friends who are at a different supporter level from you. What if you have put in hours and hours building a residence that is not on server designated at your supporter level?

If you just let everyone use tnt, I see no reason to keep utopia separated from free players. Anyways, Mojang would see it as diamond supporters having an advantage to collecting materials, so the vault would have to be separated from utopia also. There are no other "perks" I see that would really give diamond supporters an actual gameplay advantage. There is no competition on EMC (other than pvp arenas which can be removed if ABSOLUTELY necessary...). You could consider the economy competition, but anyone can make money with the same ease as anyone else. You may have to remove the diamond supporter sign in bonus, though. I think it would be okay if you made diamond supporters get double the voting bonus. The residences, well, mojang may see that as an advantage, but we can argue that (after dragon tombs) anyone can get a protected plot in the wilderness, or you could also make it so that you can buy another town residence with tokens, (with a maximum limit for each supporter tier of course).

The thing is boozle628 by the time they make all the changes you suggest, it might be difficult to convince enough players to support by paying monthly credit card charges so that EMC can pay its bills.

EMC deserves to be compensated for expenses. How do you suggest they get players to pay money every month?

Maybe EMC will have to be like PBS and NPR, constantly having fund raiser drives in order to survive.

They could add another residence for diamond supporters. They may be able to add some other perks that mojang allows to supporters, things that were already planned, like disguising in town and pets.

please spam mojang's fb and email servers with this message. they need to read it.

Only if i had facebook or any other new fangled fancy pants way of communicating.
If you like what I wrote, feel free to use whatever you wish of it.