How Opticraft Has Been Doing Over the Years (In New Members)

[TarynMai]

When we started to remove things people left, and then more things were removed, then more people left.. but I hardly see anyone new anymore, which sucks but meh, but i do see more people on smp than creative which makes me happy

I dunno about smp, but on creative, in march alone, we've gotten about 500 new players. Just... not many stayed...

Yeah, not many people stay long enough to get recruit, some thing is going wrong somewhere..

Part of the problem is most likely because our standards are too high for most people's liking.

or maybe we lack something to keep them hooked?

Probably both.

[gavin1928374655]

When we started to remove things people left, and then more things were removed, then more people left.. but I hardly see anyone new anymore, which sucks but meh, but i do see more people on smp than creative which makes me happy

I dunno about smp, but on creative, in march alone, we've gotten about 500 new players. Just... not many stayed...

Yeah, not many people stay long enough to get recruit, some thing is going wrong somewhere..

Part of the problem is most likely because our standards are too high for most people's liking.

or maybe we lack something to keep them hooked?

Probably both.

There are a few* creative servers with higher standards than ours that remain active.  I feel like one thing that doesn't help us keep ranks is the dry spells throughout the day.  There are a few time zones that just feel dead.  Playing on a server without other people is just not that fun, and it sometimes discourages people.  That was one of the reasons I stopped logging onto creative to spend more time on SMP.

Honestly I just don't think that many people are interested in non plot based creative servers that have loose rank up requirements.  One thing that a lot of the larger creative servers do is use plotworlds (I don't like this and I think we should keep our originality as opposed to pandering to the masses) and they have strict promotion requirements (i.e. must include atleast 1 house, 1 organic structure, custom terrain, must be highly detailed, etc.).  The only servers that are really exploding in popularity are huge pvp/minigame servers, fueled by a myriad of youtube videos and even real life promotion.

I can't think of anything that would really expand our community that much outside of having old members return.  For instance adding pvp to SMP didn't bring in a flood of new users, it just brought back some old members for a few weeks/months.  Without truely making something "game changing" (if that is even possible now) I don't see us bringing in new users with the same frequency classic did.  It is no wonder that the hiding of classic led to such a steep dropoff in new users**.  Having "Opticraft Classic" listed up on minecraft.net led to huge free promotion.  The only thing even close to that is the voting websites which, arguably, still don't come close.


*Not that many creative servers remain highly populated anymore.  Atleast from what I've found.

**Team 9000, our old rival, actually completely vanished after classic was removed.  Even their SMP server was shut down around a year later.  They were as popular as we were and could not maintain an active user base. 

[TooMuch4U]

When we started to remove things people left, and then more things were removed, then more people left.. but I hardly see anyone new anymore, which sucks but meh, but i do see more people on smp than creative which makes me happy

I dunno about smp, but on creative, in march alone, we've gotten about 500 new players. Just... not many stayed...

Yeah, not many people stay long enough to get recruit, some thing is going wrong somewhere..

Part of the problem is most likely because our standards are too high for most people's liking.

or maybe we lack something to keep them hooked?

Probably both.

There are a few* creative servers with higher standards than ours that remain active.  I feel like one thing that doesn't help us keep ranks is the dry spells throughout the day.  There are a few time zones that just feel dead.  Playing on a server without other people is just not that fun, and it sometimes discourages people.  That was one of the reasons I stopped logging onto creative to spend more time on SMP.

Honestly I just don't think that many people are interested in non plot based creative servers that have loose rank up requirements.  One thing that a lot of the larger creative servers do is use plotworlds (I don't like this and I think we should keep our originality as opposed to pandering to the masses) and they have strict promotion requirements (i.e. must include atleast 1 house, 1 organic structure, custom terrain, must be highly detailed, etc.).  The only servers that are really exploding in popularity are huge pvp/minigame servers, fueled by a myriad of youtube videos and even real life promotion.

I can't think of anything that would really expand our community that much outside of having old members return.  For instance adding pvp to SMP didn't bring in a flood of new users, it just brought back some old members for a few weeks/months.  Without truely making something "game changing" (if that is even possible now) I don't see us bringing in new users with the same frequency classic did.  It is no wonder that the hiding of classic led to such a steep dropoff in new users**.  Having "Opticraft Classic" listed up on minecraft.net led to huge free promotion.  The only thing even close to that is the voting websites which, arguably, still don't come close.


*Not that many creative servers remain highly populated anymore.  Atleast from what I've found.

**Team 9000, our old rival, actually completely vanished after classic was removed.  Even their SMP server was shut down around a year later.  They were as popular as we were and could not maintain an active user base. 

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

[TheWholeLoaf]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

[TooMuch4U]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

[daniblue182]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

[gavin1928374655]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I don't think a pvp/minigame server would be worth using to help our server.  We would be pandering to the lowest common denominator.  A lot of smaller communities that try to begin pvp/minigame dedicated servers end up just fracturing their player base more.

[clawstrider]

Maybe it's time to just face the reality that Minecraft as a game is dying, and whatever additions we bring in, they'll just slow down, not prevent, the inevitable.

**Team 9000, our old rival, actually completely vanished after classic was removed.  Even their SMP server was shut down around a year later.  They were as popular as we were and could not maintain an active user base. 

Team9000 is and has always been a gaming network first, and a Minecraft server second. And it's still fairly active, possibly more so than Opticraft.

[VoreReznor]

I think if we killed worlds it would help more than adding worlds... forcing people to work together thus building community.  But that is based on just a gut feeling.

[Nick3306]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I personally have no interest in mini game servers.

[TheWholeLoaf]

I know a pretty good communty that has 4 very different specialized servers. By specialized I mean each has a theme like The Walking Dead or a western cowboy theme.

[daniblue182]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I personally have no interest in mini game servers.

But that's just your opinion on them, most people do like them and they bring a lot of people..

[Nick3306]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I personally have no interest in mini game servers.

But that's just your opinion on them, most people do like them and they bring a lot of people..

I am aware that it is my opinion.....

[gavin1928374655]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I personally have no interest in mini game servers.

But that's just your opinion on them, most people do like them and they bring a lot of people..

Speaking from first hand experience with similarly sized communities as ours, making more servers does not equal more people.  Small community driven servers like ours are a not as popular as they once were, but we still have a nice player base and enough donation income to keep running for a long while (as long as creative donations can be used towards SMP). 

If anything was to be added I think a full vanilla server with fast updates and a community based model would help us out.  The people we "want" (sorry, I know how elitist that sounds) to bring in are not young children who will play for a little while and then get banned.  Bringing in fun to be around people who are mature is what is going to help our server. 

[TooMuch4U]

Maybe a PVP/Minigames server would help the server as itwould apeal to a wider range of people

Those aren't exactly easy to make and maintain.

True

But it should be something worth looking into..

I personally have no interest in mini game servers.

But that's just your opinion on them, most people do like them and they bring a lot of people..

Speaking from first hand experience with similarly sized communities as ours, making more servers does not equal more people.  Small community driven servers like ours are a not as popular as they once were, but we still have a nice player base and enough donation income to keep running for a long while (as long as creative donations can be used towards SMP). 

If anything was to be added I think a full vanilla server with fast updates and a community based model would help us out.  The people we "want" (sorry, I know how elitist that sounds) to bring in are not young children who will play for a little while and then get banned.  Bringing in fun to be around people who are mature is what is going to help our server. 

If there was to be a PVP server it might attract players then said players might join the SMP/Creative servers.