Non-Technical thoughts

[TiggerBlueMom]

I am probably the opposite of Benni, as I don't understand redstone and have no real desire to. But that is the best part of the server in my opinion, the community. If I want a redstone something, there are others to help me build it. I, in turn, love making signs and picture for those who have no desire to make them.

I am very happy with how the server is set up now. I think having vanilla in addition to main, as well as the creative and test worlds, give people good options. If main feels to easy or too short, there is vanilla.

I think one year is probably a good length for a season, but I think it would make sense to have the season update in the summer, after the game updates, rather than the beginning of the year. For example, with the nether update the whole nether would have been the new nether instead of having to go out to new places for the new stuff. Also, updating in the summer would not interfere with secret Santas! And doing secret Santas mid-season also makes sense to me, as it is something that gets people interested in playing again.

I think community activities are one of the main things that keep people active on the server. Classes, Corona Village, the Easter egg hunt, etc. are the times when I have seen the most people on the server! The scavenger hunt even for MMO to come over to Main . So things that encourage people to host events and or make doing that easier?? Saturdays (afternoon/evening depending on where you live) seem to be the best time for these events, so maybe make this more official or at least widely known. Maybe designate one Saturday a month as community activity time. If it was a regularly scheduled thing, might make it more likely that people would come. Events would not need to always be complicated things, we could all go help someone out with a big project for a few hours. Even just knowing that there is a time each month when everyone is encouraged to log on might be enough to make it a party!

 

[Steveiest]

It's interesting that you bring up (even just in passing) the Creative world, as that is something we've been chatting about recently. We were thinking we might remove it, and replace it with something else, but it was just a passing thought and nothing had really been decided (least of all what to replace it with...!).

Events is also something we've been chatting about, but out of my area of expertise, so perhaps the others might chip in with their thoughts there.

 

[CBenni]

My only worry with having multiple worlds is that it fragments the community a bit - I've noticed that lately, vanilla has been the new main - The players playing on vanilla have various reasons for it - main being too easy, or being reset, or having too many plugins etc.
Maybe we can figure a common middle ground to make everyone able to enjoy playing on one main server?
There has been quite a few cases lately where I was the only person playing on main for an entire day, which turns that into effectively a single player world, which kinda defeats the purpose. I hear that part of that is generally lower player base during the summer months, so maybe there's nothing to be done, but I just wanted to give my thoughts regardless - again, I'm a new player, so my experience with this server is limited ^.^
I absolutely agree that we should try and see how we can get more people to play together. A point has been made on the map size, but making it smaller also makes it harder to find a great location to build at - it was hard enough to find a perfect spot as-is, starting halfway through this season.
Then again... I ended up terraforming the entire area around my base anyways, so that argument only holds in part. Maybe it would actually be better to not have a world border at all, and thus not encouraging people to fill it in its entirety?

 

[Steveiest]

My 2c here:

We'll always have two irreconcilable views on resets, some folk like them, some don't. That's ultimately the main reason why Vanilla exists, to be a permanent world. I would far rather go back to just Main & Mining, personally, but the annual resets don't work for some people (and equally for a lot of folk Minecraft doesn't really work without resets).

Hangout is always busy (too busy, to be honest) following a reset and the weeks that come after that. Easily 20-25 people on at night UK time. That wanes as time goes on and ultimately we end up with 1-2 most of the time and peaks of 5-10 at the weekend at best. It just seems to be one of those things that happens. Then a reset comes along again and everyone's back.

We used to have no border, but what happened was people would fly for miles in random directions, and the server had to try and process the live map (multiple views) for areas that were never stepped into again. It was such a waste of resources we ended up putting the border in.

 

[Amaris3004]

Can you remember the lag that happened when people when ADVENTURING! On that infinite world. With the application process we have on hangout our server is quieter than some (I've seen clips of other adult servers and the chat speed gives me anxiety) I couldn't cope. Some servers have to separate their world types (vanilla/vanilla like) because of the high traffic, and the way we set it up this time was so people could still talk and feel included, even if they are on vanilla/creative. Everyone needs a change of scenery and long term that's what vanilla is. we as adults build mostly apart and only events bring us together, Anyone is open to make events just as @TiggerBlueMom did the pride event most recently. People playing on vanilla aren't all building together they are building the same as most are on main. I do enjoy it when it's busy but even then chat gets a bit much for me and Zarah,

 

[TiggerBlueMom]

I like having both vanilla and main, reset are fun, but vanilla allows for longer term projects. I really plan to play on both and have not playing at all on main recently only because of my memorial project.
I guess I see them as different aspects of the big HangOut community.

I can relate to it being lonely being the only one on one of them though.. Until recently, vanilla was quite the ghost town!

 

[Krunn]

No need to feel lonely on any of the worlds, thats what cross server chat is for

 

[MT_Headed]

I generally like having both main and vanilla worlds available and I've always intended to use both. The chat ties those two worlds together well enough, in my opinion, for normal circumstances. I haven't been around too long, but it seems that it is uncommon for people to be working together on projects even when they are the same world, except for community events.

Aside from chat, those community events that I've had a chance to participate in are the most fun and have produced the most engagement. One problem with having main and vanilla is that, whichever world the community event is hosted on, people from the other world have trouble because they may not be geared for that world or have few or no resources. If the creative world were to be scrapped, perhaps it could be replaced with a community event world that is more flexible and can be changed to accommodate different events.

Off the top of my head, that server could host:
-build-off events (either strictly building, or pairing technical players with aesthetic players to create builds that are both useful and beautiful)
-pvp events (team or individual, perhaps with a resource gathering element)
-contests to see who can accomplish a given task the fastest (e.g., accomplish one or more achievements)
-Rube-Goldberg contest (for those who haven't heard of this, the idea is to build the most complicated machine possible to achieve a simple task, such a pushing a button)

Admins in the world could use creative to supply resources for whatever the event needs so that everyone starts from the same spot. You could even incorporate modded elements in appropriate circumstances, such as new monsters or different weapons or game mechanics, which people may like to explore as something new. Then the world could be reset for the next event.

Just throwing an idea out there to consider.