Participation in EMC events, and players leaving EMC

I know that most of you guys have known me to have what I call 'black out' periods. Where I've literally vanished....Most were due to circumstances I had absolutely no control over. With that being said since I started being active again, I have noticed a HUGE difference on EMC.....

1 Nobody really participates in EMC events anymore. For example the last Fire Floor I went too there were maybe 10? When used to there were over 30!

2 Players leaving EMC..... I have lost 3 major friends! Friends that I held dear to my heart......Some felt as if EMC didn't care about them anymore.....I think that's a hole in my heart....I definitely care about each single player on EMC.....I will drop anything I am doing to come help you out if you need me!

MY question is to the community. How can we fix these main two issues I have been noticing? I adore this server, its the first and only server I have ever played on! I adore each player, staff member, that I meet! You guys are awesome people and very unique! I consider you my EMC family. I really hope that we can pull together and figure this out.
Anyways just my evening thoughts!

<3 you guys!

Skitz

A factor to keep in mind is that a majority of EMC's players are from the United States, and a large amount still operate on a school schedule from September to June or August to May, or some near variation of that. Since most of our players are younger, parents have LOTS of control over how much their children play during the school year. Some aren't allowed to play at all, others are only allowed on weekends, and high school/college students may opt to play less or make it to less scheduled events due to unpredictability in their school schedule.

In fact, I've noticed more activity on my end as a moderator in the past 5 days due to Thanksgiving break than I have in the past month. While I am not saying that is not the only answer or the only reasoning you may be noticing this, it's a big one.

You're absolutely correct, I just noticed a huge difference and thought how odd.....There of course are many factors as to why times may not be as crowded as others, I noticed a lot more activity too, with Thanksgiving break in place.....My kiddo xLilSkitz was at her Dad's so wasn't as active as she normally is.....Just was thinking was all.....Thank you for your insight though, as a parent we do have a lot of control over playtime lol....I have to limit my daughter or it's all she'd do. HAHa

I think everyone has lost some (EMC) friends over the years, myself included. That's just part of life, and not something limited to EMC unfortunately. A very important factor here, in my opinion, is that Minecraft by itself is basically a "play your way" kind of game.

What I mean by that: some players need other stimuli to keep themselves entertained whereas others just make their own game and things to do. This is one of the main reasons why my gameplay, especially around outposts and projects, has sometimes been horribly slow in comparison.

Example: I've had the pleasure to own an established outpost for almost one year now, and I seriously love that place. Almost one year out and basically most I did was set up some trees, make a rough draft of a (still to be build) river mansion and last week my friend Aya & me finally started working for real on a nether tunnel back to spawn.

Just for context: another outpost I'm a part off more or less started with building a nether rails (took 'm days to dig that out) and they got tons of farms and buildings there. Really nice place. But... also often lonely and deserted.

So I'm horribly slow in comparison, but I'm also still enjoying myself and still actively playing. And I think that is key here because I've seen this same thing happen with others. Some players take it slow and easy and are still around, whereas others are more, I dunno... focused on doing stuff and getting quick results. But after they finished whatever they were doing they're left with a problem: what is the next challenge going to be?

I can't comment on EMC events because I hardly visit those, though I should try and get myself more into the mining events. Those seem like fun I got Foxy's Night Miners on my schedule though. Anyway, last time I noticed FNM (or whatever they call it now) on SMP2 the server almost exploded This happened... one or so week ago so.

So... I think you may just have gotten on at a bad time.

To extend on what Slvr said, we also have to keep in mind the student in-school schedule. For example, for me, these following 2 weeks were are going to have bimestrial exams and semestral exams. This means less play time for many students with similar schedules. I also believe it is important to keep in mind that many players which joined EMC 3+ years ago are beginning/ending high-school, applying to college, or already in College. So basically, the average demographic of "usual" players have grown older, which means completely different interest, goals, and schedules.

The last 6 months have almost completely been inactive on my part because of the lack of time in this transition. IRL Priorities have shifted on the average player, and, because MC is dying (kind of, I know that is debateable) the income of new young players have diminished throughout the years.

My timeline + priorities
Little kids: lots of playtime in computer with friends
-->few stay in this transition
Teens/Young Adults: Study, social life, then play
College students: Social life, study...long list... then play
Adults: work to get paid to mantain family, party and rest, and if there is any spare time, work on hobbies (like MC)

To bolster something Shel said: I hosted Turkey Hunt Saturday and almost lost whatever shreds of sanity I had left. It was fun, but VERY active and the turkeys were not making it easier for me. If you would like to help stir more community interest, events are definitely a good way to do it. How about setting up a time with a forum thread for you and some people to play on /games for a bit, or go mining, or something else you can think of?

Id love to host an event, I thought about doing a Tree Chopping event on my public forest res! But doing the games would be fun also! I will definitely set aside time to do that!

I personally believe that player counts are down because survival multiplayer (SMP) isn't as popular as it used to be. Minecraft (from what I've seen) is more minigame based, as well as (surprisingly) skyblock and prison are making a comeback as custom gamemodes.