Discussion: Player Retention Rates

I'm definitely in the camp for a global chat for all could be beneficial. Maybe we can brainstorm another perk for supporters? Like mail anywhere?

Pls

I appear to have forgotten to add my point about old players :/
I do also see a problem with keeping old players due to lack of interest in the game, or due to the change in the minecraft community, as I stated in my post, they want to stick with the community and branch off into this new style.

Your point about people not reading

You will be surprised how many people don't read descriptions, join servers saying I want this, just to be told it isn't on that server, then they leave, sometimes without a fuss, sometimes with.

Lemme focus on this point mainly, the EMC community is nothing like it used to be a few years back because what used to make EMC "EMC" was the older players who did that kind of stuff in the first place, and because quite a few of them have left we don't really have the same interaction. The community now is made up mainly of the newer players who don't do that kind of stuff.

It's not that people stopped doing that all of a sudden, it's that the older players got replaced by newer players

It's a supporter feature because it's meant to be a wilderness/wasteland, outside communication is not something to be expected in these places.

The problem is that you find yourself doing the same thing pretty much everyday, there's updates, yes, but nothing is ever drastically changed. All there is a small bug fixes. The developer team is shambles, MrSocks hasn't done anything for a while and BreezyMan quit. The only person who does coding work for EMC is Aikar, because he gets payed to do it. Hopefully JesusPower will give EMC the spark it needs.

When I first joined I was really excited for DT but you might as well just give up on the idea, you've been "working" on it for so long and the only thing you've actually added is little shiny pieces of flint and coal with a fancy purple name and lore, I could do that in 5 minutes. Yes, we voted for empire's and land claiming before DT but there was a few years between you announcing it and that vote.

EMC is the some thing everyday and I'm pretty sure around a third of people here only stay because of the community.

Lmao totally forgot about chicken,

Thing is EMC is always playing catch up with the updates, when we've finally finished updating to one version, the next one comes out and we probably do lose a substantial amount of players because of that. They might try to log onto the server for the first time and they can't because it's outdated, they'd likely just remove the server from the server list and find a different one. Or people stop playing because they want to use the new featres.

Apart from block protection, it's only been small features

True, the feature itself (enchanted custom named item which can be changed into another enchanted custom named item) is relatively simple. However, I can't help share that I think the comparison is a little bit unfair here.

First, and foremost, what updates did we get in 2015? Here's a list I made. I'm not going to count 'm again, but the amount didn't even fit one poll. Sure, some updates are bigger than others, but it does show that there's a constant drive at work here.

Second, also just as important, Aikar clearly said time and time again that the whole system is interwoven. And I think he proved as much with Anti-Griefing, I mean, it's a bit obvious how it fully hooks into the Friends system (note: included in that 2015 list I might add) as well as the /ps system. When I started playing we didn't have that Friends system yet.

Even better: the Anti-grief system was more or less already in effect around mid 2014. And it tied into the Friends system which didn't exist back then.

All of that is part of the grand scheme.

We only saw dragon fragments around 2015, but only this year did we learn about uncommon blocks. Which had been with us for much longer.

Sorry, but I really think you can' t make comparisons like this without knowing the full extend of the Empire framework.

(edit, also in response of your last message):

Programming a system is one thing, and I agree: it can be very easy. Designing one where you also make sure that all parts "fit" and that the system is still manageable when you expand... That is the real trick. It's why models such as UML, SysML and Agile exist. It's why several very popular open source projects had to be rewritten from the ground up at some point (which includes the Linux kernel and the MySQL project, to name some). And it's also where plenty time and effort goes into without the end users ever realizing.

You need to take that into account as well.

The /ps system cool, but it's nothing you'd really use to entice new players or serve as a use for a veteran to stay

I'm not too sure. Plenty of new(er) players (also new to Minecraft) enjoy playing on lower difficulty settings. Veterans like playing on higher settings (or on 1 when building I suppose ). And that's only /diff. There's also friends, custom mob spawning, group control (amongst which /gtp), chat alerts, system message controls, shop alerts....

There's a lot which we can control and customize using the /ps system.

One of the things I often see mentioned on the Spigot forums is servers where the chat continues flowing with announcements and how that often annoys players. The major difference between those servers and EMC is that we (the players) are pretty much in control.

I get your point, really, but I also think you're overlooking some things as well. Or, more likely: have grown accustomed to them so that you take 'm for granted. Nothing wrong with that, but... yah, there's more to this story I think.

I love the diff system. Usually I have it on 5 6 or 7. Unless I feel like not dying. Then this veteran also uses 1. I use 10 for amusement sometimes. I love how op mobs get.

Closing per request by OP