Mr. Nice now has his Rant

I will admit that I have applied for the job several times and now I shiver at the idea. What is the problem (for me at least) is that I will reply "no I am not a mod and cannot help, sorry" then get spammed until I help -.-

I ignore, report, do all I can to make sure people who have no attempt to learn get warnings (Ask any mod, most of the /reports must be me.) I don't mind helping out, but the thing that bugs me is when I tell them a few times the same thing they still don't get it! Like come on! :/

Very true what you have said, but really the only servers that had countless new players were the popular servers (Smp1 and i assume 9)

Before i left, smp5 was just the same people, which is why i stuck on that server.

Are you sure you're not me? >.> I used to feel the same.

While I agree that new members can be a pain, it was a much needed boost to the amount of players on the forums. It was quite startling how fast the members were dropping, it started all the way back in July of 2012 and only seems to have picked up recently. I'm not going to lie, my in-game presence completely vanished around April 2013 or so, and it seems that all the other active members were starting to dwindle as well. So while it is annoying to have people who don't understand the server on, without them this server would be barren.

I miss all the old players. It's sad, but true. Many many people are leaving. Heck, the last time I even really did something besides run around in circles at my res all day was like, a month ago.

Olaf I agree with you 100%.
I've officially got bored of emc at this point in time and the new stream of players made it worse. I decided just recently that I'm taking a bit of a break so i can feel more refreshed when i start to play again. Like what Aikar said emc was dying before and that rush was truly needed to make emc more popular again. The only thing bad about getting a bunch of new players joining at once is that there are many noobs :/.
Soon as in like a few weeks ago, the only time i can go online was right after school but there is nobody i know on my home server just all noobs. I think the new players are driving the old players away in a way. I think they might even be driving me away.

It is even worse on other servers. SMP7 is one of the better ones when it comes to having noobs.

I know smp7 is the best in my opinion. Im glad i live there. When i visit smp1 or smp9 i just can't stand the amount of noobs that try to ask me questions that they should probably already know and spamming the town chat with unnecessary words

ya its happening a lot in smp4

Ok so I have to agree wit you Olaf, that yes we want players, but want them educated.
I think that the longer they play, the better they get, because no one is perfect. But, to keep them playing, maybe a weekly day for disguise or something would be cool to have

I've been here for a while, so I'd like to think I have some sort of perspective on this. And I agree, a lot of times newer players can be annoying, bothersome, and everything mentioned previously. It can drive me crazy and smp7 hasn't really felt the worst of it. And yet, every single one of us were at some point just as ignorant and confused. I think what we're feeling currently is a massive influx of players very quickly which can make the normal new player behavior more overwhelming than normal. I'm excited though. Seeing all the smp's half full or even full brings back great memories, and out of the mass of new players there will be a few dozen who stick around, figure out how EMC works, and start contributing to the community. I feel that it's our job, as the veterans who were once noobs, to help out as much as we can to try and help the new players become a part of the community. Ignoring the new players and trying to hold onto the old will only make our community go stagnant. I think Aikar is doing a great job balancing both the new user experience and features for the long time players. And there's always /ignore, /chat off, /wild if you really can't stand new players.

New non-site registration features and an easier tutorial allows more new player flow which is wonderful. The matter is there has to be a sweet spot where the chat isn't full of new players asking questions and breaking rules. Now the majority of chat is asking questions and spam. I donate a lot of money to new players and I will go and help players get back to the wild but it is unbearable in large volume.

I like new members occasionally, more new faces, but why so many? Why not finish what we've started (Dragon Tombs) then get to all the advertising and expanding?

For once I agree with pie ;3
It is a lot of members that have been joining recently, but it is getting too much. Maybe a quick summary upon joining?

You just summed up the whole thread.

The fact of the matter is Minecraft, not EMC, has lost its magic for a lot of us old players. Aikar is doing his best to breathe new life into Minecraft and EMC but it isn't enough to bring the magic back.... I actually have been hunting down Beta 1.7.3 Servers. I HATE this new direction Minecraft has been moving in and have for a long time...
However, my biggest interest is no longer the game itself. I am more concerned with and impressed by the entire phenomenon that is the Minecraft community and sub-communities that have evolved.
I constantly speak about Mojang in my Business Management classes. I really have more interest in the underlying aspects of EMC as well but having nothing more than personal interest for the sake of knowledge is not a significant reason for Aikar, Jeremy or any of the Staff to fill me in on the underpinnings of the entire Business... I have yet to ask, so I could very well be incorrect.

The most amazing thing to me is the success of Minecraft, Mojang, and the multitude of businesses that have developed because of this framework... YouTube Successes, hosting companies, server communities, Minecon, and even the failures, legal battles, and the future this holds for everyone who has any involvement on every level.

Now, the leader in me takes over:
New players need guidance. Everyone has a different motivation for coming to EMC. Everyone who enters here has a different level of experience with Minecraft. This server community is unique and also very large. The last thing any of you should do is make new members feel unappreciated for their presence here. Aikar's advertising campaign has paid off with positive results. The investment has yielded the intended return and so now those who play here must contribute. If you want new members to respect your long-term presence, show them why they should be a part of the community instead of driving them away. You aren't going to have much of a community if everyone is driven away from here because the "veterans" treat the "noobs" like unwanted burdens....

So very true. When we all bought the game a few years ago, it was so much different. It was its own unique game style and that is what made the game so special. Now, Mojang has realized that the old market has been saturated, and so they are changing Minecraft into a generic adventure game in an attempt to try to enter a new market. I find that I dislike the development team very much, they barely do anything useful anymore besides going on an adventure path. Even in that area they are a bunch of lazy bums, the modding community is much better at making twists in the game than they are. If they were to just make Minecraft into a self sustaining platform for modders and server communities (the server or mod file would do the installation work for the player), they could let the rest of the world do the marketing for them, and they could move on to making a sub-par adventure game as a standalone.

*shakes Minecraft cane*