Recently, there was an issue with the servers being somewhat laggy due to a lot of things, entity lag being one of them. Another happened to be players online. I would like to request two things. One is a little bit more impractical than the other but they both seem realistic enough to me to post a thread about them. I would love to see a slight revert referring to the player caps. Instead of keeping them at 40 could we have it at 50? During the afternoon EST, there are a lot of people on. I have been disallowed from joining heavily populated servers like smp1, smp2, and smp9 regularly at all points in time. I have also experienced trouble joining less populated servers during super busy periods. It only happens occasionally, but when it does happen it is enough to be a grand annoyance. Sometimes it takes me nearly 15 minutes to get something from my inventory, put it in my vault, and get back to the other server, as I have to spam logging in to actually be the first person to take the freshly opened slot. The second suggestion is that since supporters don't take up a space when there are too many players on, they shouldn't anyways. Say smp5 is full on a mob arena night and 12 of the 40 players are supporters. If those 12 supporters got off for ten seconds, then 12 more free players could join. I don't see much of a point behind this and think it would be productive and beneficial towards the free players to make this change. The second suggestion was the more radical one.
This bit seems pretty sound. If the server can handle 40 people and a few supporters, then it can handle 40 people and a few supporters. I'm not sure why the order of joining would affect server load; then again I know literally nothing about operating a server.
Supporters do count toward player caps but as they are supporters they are allowed to bypass the cap for login purposes. An example would be this. Let's say we have 40 non-supporters on smp1 and 2 supporters join. The server player count goes to 42 of 40. If 3 players disconnect it will go to 39/40 allowing 1 more player to connect. Supporters should always be able to get on. After all they are supporting the servers! As for events and having supporters disconnecting to allow more non-supporters on. That is not needed. We raise the player caps on servers when we run events (be it mob arena, fire floor, friday night mining, etc). Although I can't give any details (because I just don't have them) I can say that server caps as well as many other factors are always under review. The goal is a stable game play experience for the maximum number of players possible. Currently that means the player caps are set to 40.
*flash back sequence* Way Way back when, in the early days of Minecraft, in a time called BetaMode... Empire Minecraft had existed as an open access server for several months, and daily would be capped out at 60 players on all, SMP1,2 and Utopia. So the decision was made to expand, and thus we gained and gained till we reached SMP9, and even then player count would be capped out at 60/60, even outside peaktimes. I joined the Empire when we only had SMP1,2, and Utopia, and could not even log into game to claim my forum access code (we used a different system then to now for accessing the forums). Needless to say I made the decision before even joining the server and seeing what was here to become an Iron Supporter, as its true function serves as a guaranteed login slot at all hours. Now boozle628 you've been here a while and have no-doubt seen the occasional iron supporter about and wondered the point in them buying said rank, and its true, we've had a laxed period for a while now, but we're back in popularity, and the power needed to run the game has grown a lot, the hardwear that used to be able to handle this size of system does not meet our current needs so we've upgraded hugely, but we're more than three years old now, and people have hoared and explored and there is STUFF EVERYWHERE! So something needed to be cut to ensure that the game is playable for the majority of people, and that is the cap of players online at anyone time. TLR, Getting back to the original point, Supporter rank will guarantee you a slot in peak times if logging in is your issue, IronSupporter exists for this issue and upgrade further and you'll gain some nice perks to use now you're able to get online. ~B4dman5imon
I know about the supporter perk. I am very aware of that and have considered getting iron for a lot of time now. I personally don't have a credit card or a PayPal account (I am under 18) so there is no way other than American express gift cards or parents for me to purchase on the Internet. My parents are of no aid as they believe in spending no money in a game once you have actually bought it, and my job pays minimum wage which is not enough to pay for things like band t-shirts and EMC at the same time, and I have no way of getting an online gift card sort of thing, so I am stuck until two years from now when I can drive. I only wish to raise the player cap by five or ten, as it would completely fix the problem. The problem only exists when there are 39 players on and everyone is constantly fighting over that last spot. If we had a cap of 50 then there wouldn't be an issue.[/quote]
[/quote] Not sure why being under 18 affects getting a paypal or debit card(I know you said credit...)(Also, I don't know where you live) I've had both since I was 14/15 respectively. And I want to argue about minimum wage not being enough to spend an extra $5 a month, but if you cared a whole bunch about it, you'd probably be able to find a work-around.. But lastly(and greatest): They cost about 140-160k rupees for an iron voucher.... with inflation of so many items recently, thats a couple of days of work...even if you don't play a whole bunch, you could still probably spend a week, each month, getting rupees to be set for the next month(this goes for everybody...everyone has the chance to make a bunch of rupees, just gotta put in some work!) anyhow... (refer to signature)
the problem is when we had a 60 cap, the servers were lagging with 50 on. the 40 cap is set to keep it under 50, as sometimes it can still hit 50-60 on with a lot of supporters. when that happens, we just have to deal with it. If its 50/40, and TPS is 16/20 and 5 free logs off, we dont want to allow 5 more back on, we want it to get back down to 40 and stabilize the TPS. We were expecting load to taper down after holidays, but.... it appears its not. It has some but were still doing great on activity. It appears to only be an issue in the evenings and some peak servers, so its not really as big of a thing atm to require urgent attention, nor could I at this time anyways, too much going on outside of EMC.
I would know. I don't know about a credit card, but that would never happen. I have tried to register for PayPal but says in the terms of agreement that you must be 18 to have one. (Yeah I actually read them lol)
I know people who have had PayPals since they were 14, and I'm considering getting one. I am also 14 I, like you, can't afford to pay for a supportership. I'd like to, but my mum no longer lets me pay for things like this (her friends have told her many a great horror story about their children and games like FIFA...), and I'm saving up for a new computer that I'm hoping to have for the end of the year - and even an iron supportership would add weeks onto saving up for that. I'm also not allowed to work for another year and 5 months (I'm under 16...), so I have no alternative source of income outside of pocket money to buy...well... anything.
While you can be 14/15+ to have a debit card, you have to be 18 to have a PayPal account. Some people cannot afford to spend $5 a month on a game, if they don't want to then it's fine.
FIFA is a horror story. I will have a better job in the next few months, I am just looking for an opening somewhere. Where I live you only need to be 14 for a job. Maybe I can try my parents for a paypal and then use that $20 worth of bitcoins I have
I made my first PayPal account when I was 14. One thing that I have learned about Terms of service/agreement is that as long as you are not doing something incredibly stupid (IE ordering alcohol online), there is no reason to worry about them. Terms of service/agreement are there to protect them, not you. So as long as you do nothing that puts them in a bad position, then you won't be in one yourself.
Actually, PayPal don't set the age to 18 because you can order alcohol, it's because you can earn money using PayPal; because of this PayPal must ensure you're old enough to pay tax. I have seen many people on Spigot get their accounts locked because they need to verify that their tax details but can't because they're under 18.
I believe that as long as you don't sell anything, they don't prompt for details. Also, in the US, you pay income tax if you make an income (except in special circumstances), so I don't think it is entirely related to taxes.
I just checked to make sure I wasn't incorrect... my paypal was opened early 2011... I'm 19...(with math knowing my exact birthdate, I was barely 15) through said account, I've spent hundreds of dollars, including some on EMC... ______________________________________________________________________________ no more off topic from me, I promise haha
They've prompted me for details without selling anything before, although Paypal UK does seem to actually verify identity, which I don't think Paypal US does.
I signed up to paypal probably when I was about 14, there was a massive loophole where if you signed up via the mobile app then you didn't have to provide your age, so I took advantage of that.
