Could you limit access for non supporters to a certain amount of hours per week? Along with the queue, I think it would prevent free players from taking much advantage of utopia.
If possible, you could partition one of the servers, most likely utopia, into a "perk" server (/server bonus?). It could have 0 slots, but the support joining full server perk would let them in. When you connect to it, it gives you all the things supporters get now like rupee bonuses, and then kicks you back to the server you came from. Is there any of the EULA that would prevent that?
I feel this is important to emphasize. In the wake of this EULA crap, I went nosing around other servers to see how they're dealing with it. By and large, there is no public discussion on the topic. Either they're ignoring it outright, or if any changes are being made it's all being decided internally, out of the public eye. The fact that we get a say in the matter is highly significant.
Along the same lines of a 0 cap, your then pushing into realms of opinion of "is that REALLY letting free players play the same as paid?" and would come off as trying to loophole rather than comply. Mojang would likely say thats not allowed. While one could question if the limit free per month would be allowed in the sense of multiple free trials, it would then classify the server as "paid" and would have to be separated from the other servers. The main intent here is to not break utopia away from the rest of the community in terms of Vault and town access. So with this new plan, we keep utopia nearly the same, just opening it up to everyone. But to try to do it otherwise, would make it grey in eula compliance.
And here is another snippet from Mojangs post that explicitly defines the Login Queue idea as explicitly allowed: "Can I give paying users priority access to my server? Yes, but you cannot restrict gameplay elements to specific users." This statement directly states the idea we have for Utopia is allowed, no doubt about it.
So what is your plan if, say you set the cap at ten, and there are 15 supporters who want too get on, will there be a minimum amount of time every supporter would be entitled to on the server, and when a player hits this point they can be booted? Or will it just be a battle to keep connecting? Or will you have to wait if all the spots are free?
There would be a soft cap vs a hard cap. If soft cap is met, the enter the queue and can get on as soon as someone leaves the server (free or supporter, so a little better than todays full server system too) Then, as long as hard cap is not met (which supporters bypass too), they will be let on after waiting a certain minimum amount of time.
So I should disband my outpost in utopia, and shuffle all of its resources back to a different server..? I placed that outpost there to try keeping it mostly safe from griefers (..although some of the worst griefers have haunted the utopian wilds unfortunately.. ).. Because if everyone will have access to utopia, I made my outpost unintentionally easy to find to alleviate the traveler's burdens. And I may not even be able to protect it when empires get released as the EULA compliance will come way sooner than empires as they are supposed to be after the tombs..
We are planning some restrictions to Utopia that only allow older players on, ie must be a member of EMC for 2 + months to access the Wastelands and 4+ to access the Frontier. We also can offer "Protection" of structures that are really close to spawn by throwing a Residence on it, but it would then be public property, if a player is willing to donate it for the server.
I have ignored some of the posts so forgive me if I have brought up an answered concern. First off, what will happen with residence tags? I believe that is not a gameplay-affected feature, right? How many will you supporter thing limit supports to? Second, will there be a text that says "You are # in line to join the server"?? I am VERY iffy about this reduction. I hope that it will go to 45 or something. Also, if you cannot join the desired server such as SMP13 and you are directed to SMP98, can you have an in-game queue to go into the desired server?
When the server has different login processes for different parts of the server this is gating the free members. What you say is true. You can throttle free players compared to paid players. But thorttling a specific part of the server is a gameplay advantage. Lets use this as an example that is mechanically the same thing that you are proposing but grossly overdoes giving advantages to paying players. Lets split the server into two main areas. Towns, and Wilds. The Wilds gets reset every so often and provides mining opportunities. Towns is where everyone builds their permanent structures. But we want people that pay money to have 'better access' to the server. So let's make it so only 5 free players can go into The Wilds. Everyone else gets queued in. While 60 paid players can go into the Wilds. 50 free people and 100 paid plaeyrs can access towns. No matter how much you change this formula while maintaining the basic structure, its against the EULA because Paid players have more access to ''some'' parts of the server. However, if you made it so only 5 players can get into the server regardless of what they are doing or accessing, Then you are compliant with the EULA. As long as there is zero gameplay exchange between 'Utopia' and 'Free Server', then you can throttle Utopia however you like.
Incorrect. The EULA states that you cannot sell in-game stuff. You CAN sell whitelist access, or reserved slots. Think of this in 2 parts: the queue system, which (for the sake of example) we'll say applies to everyone. You wait in the queue and when you get to the front you're in. No EULA violation here. Then there's the supporters "skipping the queue". In reality, they're just using their reserved slot to join the server. Again, no EULA violation here. And then there's Utopia being slightly different to other servers. Yup, that's true. But can free players access it just as much as supporters once they're online? Yup. Therefore it's 100% allowed by the EULA.
You seem to be assuming that throttling access to specific parts of the server is a loophole and somehow exempt from creating gameplay advantages. It won't work in the long run but its probably one you'll get away with for a while and only a cease and desist letter if Mojang manages to empty the bucket of violations.
No, It is not a loophole, it is allowed. Sorry but this is not something I'm going to budge on. This is the problem with Mojangs method, its based too much on opinion. Though at least in this case we are confident Mojangs opinion aligns with ours. I'm sorry you see it otherwise, but I hope you continue to play here. I assure you nothing will happen to us. Mojang would really have to hate their game to come after us for this, and would require them stirring the hornets nest yet again to change the rules they have listed on the site, as the rules explicitly state: "Paying users can have priority access". Accessing Utopia is "Access".
Also the blurb about "A server is one you disconnect and reconnect from" is verbage to shut down the ideas people had about mixing users with bungee to "loop hole" the EULA. It Is NOT a blanket statement that applies very strictly to all forms of usage of bungee. For example, as long as you enforce the same rules when a user uses /server to be the same as if they had disconnected and joined utopia.emc.gs directly - then you are in compliance with the EULA. It's not against the EULA to offer a convenience factor of bungee. Ultimately the point your trying to make is that we would have to disable utopia from bungee and force connection to utopia.emc.gs to access it so it can be considered a 'different server'. That is not true, and would not change anything on the Empire other than inconvenience users. The wording is to stop using 2 bungees, 1 paid, 1 free, to "loophole", and that is it. Mojang is not attacking convenience.
I'll try to boil it down The violation you are trying to get away with is making two servers. One with more advantageous gameplay. Then tunneling between the two servers so that they share items. I can't come up with a more exaggeratedly obvious situation than Server One is Free and Vanilla Survival. Server Two is Pay To Get In and is Creative. But you can dump items into Ender Chests that work cross server. Its not something Mojang would support. Even if its 10% more drops instead of Creative Access.
Here are some suggestions for some perks for supporters, I don't know if these are practical from a coding standpoint but I'm just throwing them out for consideration: A new kind of group chat and pm that crosses servers so you can talk to friends connected to different servers. The ability to disguise horses as different animals or monsters. The ability to disguise any animal as a different animal or monster. The ability to change the color of horses and other animals, even to non standard colors, like purple or blue, etc. The ability to change the sounds that mobs make on your res. The ability to set a sound or even set verbal greetings from a preset list that activates when certain conditions happen, such as a doorbell when people enter or leave residence. Someone else suggested a similar idea: The ability to make your armor invisible so that you skin is visible while you still get protection effects.
