The events the staff put on for us are awesome and I know most people really appreciate the things we receive at these events. However, I think the issue (the reason for the thread) is the community itself. While huge events are awesome, they don't really bring the community together because everyone is trying as fast as they can to get as much as they can. It's hard to meet new people at these huge events. I think it's really up to the community itself to come up with smaller events so that we can meet new people from other smps and new people in our own.
In regards to the so-called isolated Wild, I abosolutely do not want to ever see the words Republic and New together again x.X Gawd, that was so much drama for a summer. But I can see your point. Really, outposts have become private not really open. Wrem, Volt, and LLO are only a few outposts that really accept new/old players. I would like it if the Frontier was regenerated. Seriously, players from 2012 still have outposts in the Wild and they aren't even on the server anymore. Or, if so many people don't want that to happen, make a new Wild world to include all of the new biomes and other structures. A Water Temple isn't going to appear in any of the generated oceans in the Frontier. Yes, there is a problem. But, sentimentality is not going to help fix that problem. Minecraft is a game, EMC is a server. Specifically, a server with WorldEdit.
Okay, so here's my take on this. You're right in a way, but at the same time you're wrong. You're right in that yes, the community hasn't meshed as well as it used to. A lot of the older members have isolated themselves (sometimes with small groups of others), and many newbies are left to fend for themselves. I agree, that's not good. However, it's hard to gain a feel of where thing's are when you're not active. A running joke (well, I'm pretty sure it's a joke) is that SMP8 is, to put it bluntly, weirder than a flying giraffe wearing giant doughnuts around its neck. An entire thread has been made about it, and several players have mentioned it. While I do agree that the "Aikar ruins the economy" thing has sadly died down a bit, and I do think that we need to work on getting many of the members who were active in the past to embrace the entire community, you need to understand that the more you personally interact with the community, the more you'll feel at home in it. Now, that said, I do think there is a noticeable skew in the staff team in particular. Note that I have no personal beef with out moderators; they do a great job, and I love 'em half to death. That said, one of the big things I'd like to see happening is more mod to community interaction. Back in the old days, the mods were very much a part of the community. They talked, and laughed, and were always there for conversation or help. Now I think they are looked at as a more isolated factor. They are no longer just players in green who are as much a community as the rest of us, they are isolated figures of power and authority. Of course they need to be respected, but the main role of the moderators now is to ban and occasionally participate in some silly, verbal joke. All very well and good, but I want to see not mods, but players. I want people to be willing to chat with both the mods and each other about ingame questions and problems without thinking that every issue needs to be answered by a Community Manager. I want players to look beyond the green names and see people to trust and talk to, just other members of our community, and in turn I want to see mods reaching out to our community in order initiate that. Why do I stress the importance of mods being part of the community rather than a separate governing entity? Simply put, the mods get noticed. Those green names attract attention, and a mod's actions will no doubt resonate with and set an example for other players. If the mods are acting as paragons of a community-oriented player, I think the whole server will start to tilt in that personal, relaxed direction of friendship and action as a whole. The moderators are the start; we are the finish. Again, I mean no disrespect to our staff members. They're doing great as is, and I think that they are a part of our community. However, I would like to see moderator responsibility as a community figure and universal friend to be taken to the next level. That's the end of my own little "rant," though I usually think of a rant as furiously reviling an action, entity, or feature. I don't want this to be a rant; I want it to be an idea of a better, more tightly knit Empire. 99% sure that that name is wrong, but I've lost track of it too by now, so we'll go with it. Hyphenation makes it one word, in this case. SSSSU isn't nearly as catchy as "Quadruple-S" or SSSS.
I think maybe you all should actually play in game more often and get on mumble/skype and you won't feel that way so much. Perhaps you need to look for those things again because you are set on the nostalgia of past relationships but emc community is as active as ever. New videos, new builds, new outposts go up DAILY, new people, new relationships. I have only been here for five months but there is always something to do in game or on the forums and the only time on mumble by myself is at like 4am emc time to 7am emc time. Then generally the GMT(european) folks start getting on more frequently. I can't imagine that emc (or any game based out of the US) has ever been very active before noon ish emc time but after that, it doesn't stop. I have played almost all hours on emc except the 2pm-6pm ish era and there is always people on in the wild, always people in the town, always people chatty(again except for that super late/early time of 4am-7amISH) Wanting old things back and not accepting the new things doesn't mean that the new things don't exist. I promise, they exist. I am constantly seeing new awesome builds, machines and communities spring up in emc. This to me seems very much to be a micro management issue. Much of the staff posts and public banter seems to be about how strict being a mod is... Also how busy they are. I don't ever plan on being a mod on EMC, I dread that thought. I could see myself being a mod on many other servers though and being both productive and interactive. I don't think the exclusion can be owed to the individuals each on their own but whatever structure they have decided to go with. Which is SEEMINGLY pretty authoritarian. As if there is supposed to be an answer for every question. That unfortunately isn't the way the world works, damn you quantum physics and your inevitable destruction of the relativity model and illusion of structure that came with it!
I've only been here 7 months, so I have no nostalgia. If there's always something for you to do, awesome. What happens to you doesn't apply to everyone in case you haven't noticed. I found a ton of diamonds the other day. Did everyone else find a ton of diamonds? Highly unlikely. Just because you're having a good experience doesn't mean other people can't suggest improvements. Obviously a lot of people feel the same way and posting what you've posted is like someone going on a thread where someone needs help and you're like "Oh, well I don't need help with such and such." Not productive at all to the purpose of the thread.
I feel that its harder to make friends on emc now because they either stop playing or just arent fun to talk to. The community was better than now over the summer imo. I have only been here for a year(have a first account) but the good friends I have made mostly moved on because of the community or lack of it.
This post wasn't asking for help. It was complaining about a perception and blanketing it to the entire community of emc. My post wasn't meant to help complaining but to adjust the perception, perhaps for the better. The thread doesn't really seem to have any conclusive "purpose" unless I missed something. Saying that somehow my post appears to make it seem like I think everyone has the same experience as me... not sure how that works, definitely nothing in there that seems to allude to such things or intended to do so. I said very plainly, look and you will find. The activity level on this thread alone seems to make it a bit counter intuitive to the argument made in the "rant" as it is self labeled.
To be fair, you have only been on this server for only this year. People like Mrlegitislegit and I have been on Empire Minecraft for more than 2 years. He was not saying that the smp communities no longer "exist" or not to his "standards", he was simply saying how the community has became isolated, or for a better word, lacking, over the past couple of years. New outposts are definitely NOT going up daily, and many stuff has been slowing down. Not as many players host community events or projects anymore. But I wouldn't say that this is the staff members' fault, because they put in a giant effort for us; I would say that it is us, the players, fault. It is all of our jobs to help with this community.
heh, tell that to dramanya. Poor thing has been working tirelessly on those lol. It is true that I have only been here since 2015 but I wasn't born in 2015. I have also spent way more time than I would care to admit to most of my IRL friends on these forums. The most interesting things on here to me is when I dig through the threads into the "history" of EMC. I wasn't there so I can't say that and not all of it was documented but quite a bit is. The server changes, the staff changes, the people that whined and left because they thought they had conquered EMC and it got boring for them. That's a sentiment that is re-occurring on the forums and has stimulated some very interesting replies. Some of those threads are really fun to read. Especially when the community really shows its colors in them towards what might be considered "influential" people or self proclaimed ones. Emc is a community, it always was and until it is gone always will be. It is not the duty of the community to entertain the individual though. The community will go on without the individual no matter how much the individual protests. Emc is awesome. I'm sure it was awesome before now and have seen many posts that would evidence that. However, comparing EMC now to emc 2 years ago is kind of silly. There are different people, different mechanics and minecraft in and of itself is WAY different. Saying there is no community though(or that it is inactive in any sense), that to me is just completely contrary to what I see every day.
How does one "look" for a community to be more welcoming and social? I have gone to other smp's, and even on my home smp, people barely talk. And as for the activity level in this thread, it actually proves the point he was making in his original post.
This isn't the is the dress blue or gold thread. To expect that kind of activity on a thread that is complaining about being bored doesn't make sense to me. I go to other smps all the time and anyone that has been on the same smp as me for like ten minutes knows that I never shut up in chat. I always get welcomed by people I know and people I don't know. Get told to come look at things and get dragged in all directions. Maybe you are going to other smps expecting something and then seeing what you are expecting, I don't know. If you are playing around this time on smp7... there is almost always plenty of people talking in t chat. honestly recently mods have had to get involved around this time days in a row because there is a bit too much talking(or drama if you will) in t chat. The times and how you present yourself are only two factors to a very complex equation of difference of perception. However perception is usually led by expectation. Edit: in the two hours I have been home there has been likes or posts on this thread in the "recent activity" panel every time I have checked it... which is probably way too often.
But these aren't outposts like they were a few years ago. Most people are now trying to claim their own private bases and things, where as back when I first joined, there were big, community outposts like the LLO opening up all the time. Like legit said, people seem to be just claiming land and keeping to themselves.
I think you're misunderstanding the point I'm trying to make. It isn't about being bored and needing to be entertained, or the level of activity. It's about the community as a whole being closer and having "connections" as he said in the original post. My suggestion of smaller events wasn't for entertainment. It was an idea of how to possible get more people talking and socializing in general so that more connections can be made.
well, Before that wasn't even possible. It's down to "Play Your Way". Support for playing in the wild was non existant in the early EMC days so the majority of people who did it was the larger groups. Now there's a much larger push for MORE people to get into the wild, which does impact Town chat.. Then theres also the farming problem. too many of our players are sitting afk at farms instead of playing with others... the rise of farms on EMC has been growing and growing and contributing to the problem. Everyone knows I hate farms and I'm working to make them no longer the best way to get things to encourage people to stop.
I love EMC, don't get me wrong, but its community has definitely changed. Back in 2013, maybe early 2014, the content on the forums seemed to be of so much of a higher quality. A few months ago, the forums become a ghost town, too, but thankfully that's over. In-game is partially the same thing. I've lived on SMP5 for my entire time on EMC. I left for a few months back in November 2014, and when I came back I said "this isn't right." Most of the time, SMP5's chat is filled with disconnects and reconnects. This screenshot is from around 5:00 EMC time, when the community is most active: What little chat is on SMP5 is normally spammy/stupid arguments. Chat was busy for 15 minutes earlier today; the only reason was an inappropriate topic being brought up. From late January, I knew I wanted out of SMP5. I played on SMP1, too, back in 2013/14. And I loved it. SMP1 was the economy capital of the Empire - all chat was fun and entertaining and I loved to see it. Now... not so much. SMP1 is quiet. I don't like playing there any more. Perhaps it still is the economy capital of the Empire, maybe not. Back to SMP5. I originally had plans to make a mega-mall and start an all-around business on SMP5. Obviously, nothing against him or anyone (I have the utmost respect for him) but shavingfoam completely controls the economy there. And I'm not afraid to challenge any mall... but I fear mine would be drowned out by the popularity of shavingfoam's. Which brings me to my next point. Back with the GSA hosted by hashhog not too long ago, I applied as a Spy and was accepted. My server to scout was SMP7, and figured if I liked it I would move there. So, I did my spying for, what was it, two weeks? And hated everything I saw there. Through the entire time, chat was filled with spam and general rudeness, and I wanted no part of it. It took me an extra few days to select a Good Samaritan for that server, and was barely able to nominate three. SMP7, 1, and 5 are out so far. So then I started keeping tabs on the "SMP8, you worry me" thread, and liked what I saw from that server. I've recently started to do some mining on SMP8 to get a feel for the server (spending a million rupees on res moves to a server isn't a mistake I want to make). Seems pretty good to me. Currently I have an eye on a near-derelict res that I want... So I started mining quartz again on SMP7 (that's the only thing I do there) and found that the SMP7 community had improved a lot. But still wasn't the place I wanted to make my Empire. For a lack of a better word, I'm "stuck" on SMP5 still... and this goes to show how much of the old community is gone. Of course, that's not to say the current community isn't good. Because it is. "Out with the old, in with the new," or so they say. But if only those old-timers stayed... the Empire would be so much better. I remember being able to have an actual conversation on SMP5, not interrupted by someone laughing at the murder of children. Yeah... gotta love SMP5... /sarcasm. Okay, I think my rant's over for the day.
I'm going to keep this short and simple because I am tired Anyways, I think this is the reason that the EMC community is changing. The Minecraft community in itself is changing. Two or three years ago, it was fewer younger children and more older children/adults. As time went on, those older children (myself and most others included I would say) are getting jobs, going to college, etc and don't have time/interest for minecraft anymore. That leaves it to the newer people who are starting to play the game. From what I can tell, the average minecrafter age has dropped by a few years. I would say a few years ago that it was about 16, but now I think it is more like 10 or 11. And that is going to cause isolation because of age difference. Younger kids are also less likely to take the initiative to host cool events, start wild outposts, even just going out to meet some people and have a good time. Games have become much less about who is playing them and more about what you are playing in the first place. The beauty of minecraft has never been the classic "one more block, one more block" thing. Nor is it the building or the mining or the fighting creepers. It is about doing those things with friends. I myself have lost interest in all things minecraft, except the forums (because I love any forums ) Most of my friends I have met online have gone away, and a whole bunch of people that I don't know, many of which are not people I would want to relate to for various reasons, are he ones filling the holes. But I have not lost interest in minecraft specifically, I have lost interest in most games, as I have come to find joy in things other than games. Why do we play games? A lot of the time I played them to get away from real life. Now that my real life has gotton better, I have little need for games. So yeah. My two cents.
As a member of the EMC for over 3 years I have to admit that the communtiy has changed a LOT. Now, don't get me wrong, some of it is for the better while now I feel that there is a solid border between new and older players. Also, the communtiy has changed so much, Most of the people I remember from the old days when I was on SMP1 are now gone or really inactive. Personally, The moderators do a great job, Often I enter conversations with these moderators, while some of it is just small talk, often times we enter a somewhat serious conversation. Yet, I'm often sad to realize that some moderators that I remember from before they were mods changed completely... Also events are just not as "event-ish". Now they are more of just places to make rupees or be really competitive. Friday night miners was once so good. now it is as if we split off into a bunch of solo mining and it becomes an average mining trip. Samsimx, Uber_corq, Xenomorphking and 6 others of us mined for i think 2 hours after everyone else was pretty much gone, and we had some of the funniest and strangest conversations i have ever heard, these were like at smp8 level strange yet hilarious. Events just aren't like that anymore. Of course, many of us witnessed this change s it gradually happened, town chat slowly became less active, not as many large groups in the wild, the amount of afk farms are unreal. Now of days i can go up to 2 hours without seeing anyone in chat other then people in economy chat selling things then moving on to another server. Chat needs to be you know, where you chat, not just an auctionhouse. I miss the old EMC, and I really help one day the community will be as fun as i used to be, but that day may never come. Edit: this is the community I remember
As I was banned before for about the last 3 years, I didn't witness much of the community changing, but I definitely recognize that the community has changed. A lot. I mean a lot. First off, I'd like to point out what PenguinDJ said above: This post perfectly described how I feel sometimes at around 5:00 to 6:00 EMC time. Before, I remember it being bustling with players, and SMP8 was just exploding with weird. Now, we talk at intervals. Most of the conversations go on in PM or group chats rather than in town. People seem less social. We all just disconnect, reconnect, rinse and repeat. It's the same thing. As for the barrier between the nooblets and the older, veterans: I understand that there should be a barrier between them (one, after all, is 1000 days older than the other on the Empire), but I don't see any harm in helping out a noob, whether he's staying for a month or 3 years. I like to think of it like this: at once, Aikar went through the tutorial for the first time. Everyone started at one point. I also noticed that events have been less "close". People tend to just separate from each other and chill around just to be there. The community is changing for sure. Whether it's for the worst or for the better is beyond me right now.
