Alternative for creative

[LIEKABOWSE]

Okay so I know our favorite reason to deny suggestions now is we don't have a dev but I think I found a way to do creative on the existing server with the addition of new building ranks and worldguard magic.  People would apply for these building ranks where they would have a new creative inventory with the world at their disposal.  However with that new found power the question arises of how to make sure people don't grab a few stacks of beacons and becomes a millionaire.

To that I crafted the idea of these building ranks not being able to sell items to the market thus sacrificing their ability to play in survival to build with an unlimited amount of blocks.  I know there is a flag for not allowing you to drop items from your inventory and there is also chest-access that can be disabled for every world.

Each world would have to be zoned to have these two flags but I'm pretty sure that makes unlimited amount of free money impossible for the player to do themselves and makes creative easy to do now without much of any work.  There could also be a new world if people don't want to build on existing things they are working on.  Specifications for the building ranks would be trusted then an applications similar to those of classic where proof of building skill would be shown.

Just to beat a dead rotting horse

Seriously why can't this be attempted?

We are not going to permanently remove the ability to play survival on our survival server, end of story.

Were you replying to Loaf or? We said nothing about removing survival

[Nick3306]

Okay so I know our favorite reason to deny suggestions now is we don't have a dev but I think I found a way to do creative on the existing server with the addition of new building ranks and worldguard magic.  People would apply for these building ranks where they would have a new creative inventory with the world at their disposal.  However with that new found power the question arises of how to make sure people don't grab a few stacks of beacons and becomes a millionaire.

To that I crafted the idea of these building ranks not being able to sell items to the market thus sacrificing their ability to play in survival to build with an unlimited amount of blocks.  I know there is a flag for not allowing you to drop items from your inventory and there is also chest-access that can be disabled for every world.

Each world would have to be zoned to have these two flags but I'm pretty sure that makes unlimited amount of free money impossible for the player to do themselves and makes creative easy to do now without much of any work.  There could also be a new world if people don't want to build on existing things they are working on.  Specifications for the building ranks would be trusted then an applications similar to those of classic where proof of building skill would be shown.

Just to beat a dead rotting horse

Seriously why can't this be attempted?

We are not going to permanently remove the ability to play survival on our survival server, end of story.

Were you replying to Loaf or? We said nothing about removing survival

im replying to igen, that's why I quoted him.

[Holy_Moses]

Just gonna throw this in here. Shows server activity in relation to what iGen posted.

(click to show/hide)

SMP: Sept 2011 - Now
Classic: Nov 2010 - June 2013 (Some reports on posts of 10ish guests playing then..)
As you can see the biggest change in member growth occured somewhere during the holiday season of 2012. No major change happened til the school season/end of summer 2013.

I remember Holiday Season 2012 because thats right before I purchased Minecraft, there was hardly anyone on classic. So the classic bar is kinda iffy on its length.

[TheWholeLoaf]

No one is arguing server stats, so I don't know you guys keep posting those.

[Holy_Moses]

No one is arguing server stats, so I don't know you guys keep posting those.

Its to prove the whole survival vs. building community shindig

[Nick3306]

No one is arguing server stats, so I don't know you guys keep posting those.

Its to prove the whole survival vs. building community shindig

But it doesnt prove anything about that......

Plus, as i have said, if we could have a creative world we would.

[UnknownHedgehog]

Here's a bar graph displaying how many new members signed up each month since Opticraft started based on the stats:



The dots represent different events that I think may have contributed gain/loss of players throughout the years. Explanation of the colored dots:
Black 1: Opticraft Classic is launched. 11/2010
Red: Opticraft SMP is launched. 1/2012
Orange: Member world for SMP is released. 6/2012
Cyan 1: Melons/Pumpkins/Cacti removed from the market. 6/2012
Black 2: Mojang first removes Classic from the main page of Minecraft.net. Re-adds it, but harder to navigate to. 8/2012
Blue: Official YouTube channel launched. 9/2012
*One I should've mentioned was the New Guest World being released on 12/2012, which explains the spike.
Pink: PVP maps released. 7/2013
Black 3: Mojang kills Classic. Permanently removes Classic from the main page at Minecraft.net. 7/2013
Cyan 2: Gold/Iron ingots removed from the market. 9/2013
*The dots also do not account for Minecraft updates that may have boosted popularity.

To me, with the exception of the spike of players when the new guest world was made, it appears the decline started May 2012, but got worse when Classic was dying due to Mojang. The decline may or may not have been helped from melons being removed from the market, I'm not sure.

But one thing I do notice is that the first time since that decline started that the number of new members went up significantly (again besides the spike from the new guest world release) was when PVP maps were added. People joined, at least for a little bit, when we stepped out of the SMP box and tried something new. I know it has been said that things like this suggestion, and many others, may not be "what the server is about". But perhaps, if we want the server to flourish once again, we need to reconsider "what the server should be about", because I don't think us being reluctant to try new things (rather than strongly SMP focused) is doing us any justice.

[TheWholeLoaf]

Pvp is not a good example. It may have brought a few new players but i hardly used now, despite how much everyone wanted it.

[Nothing_]

Pvp is not a good example. It may have brought a few new players but i hardly used now, despite how much everyone wanted it.

People don't just want pvp, they want hunger games and interesting forms of pvp. The same way they don't want smp they want smp with tekkit and other mods and such. The game has been out for long enough that most people are tired of vanilla smp and pvp. Creative is the one thing that won't lose the same interest over time because people will always want to build bigger and better things. That is unless a new better sandbox game comes out.

[TheWholeLoaf]

We can't say that tho. When pvp was being discussed, everyone wanted pvp maps, nothing fancy like hungergames. And now, everyone wants creative, and whether or not that takes hold is still to be determined but if we put all this work into creative and people are still bored with it, then thats just a waste of time.

[Nick3306]

That evidence is all circumstantial, you also have to realize that the months where it was the highest were also the months that minecraft smp was really popular. The server itself isnt the only determining factor.

[Nothing_]

We can't say that tho. When pvp was being discussed, everyone wanted pvp maps, nothing fancy like hungergames. And now, everyone wants creative, and whether or not that takes hold is still to be determined but if we put all this work into creative and people are still bored with it, then thats just a waste of time.

I would argue against this because classic seems to be what made this server popular, and there are many creative servers thriving still. Fads in this game such as hunger games and tekkit will come and go, but the major draw to Minecraft will always be that you can build whatever you like, to which ever scale you like and short of a better sandbox game, I don't believe anything will ever change that.

This is also just my personal opinion and could be very wrong.

[Holy_Moses]

Well member count shouldnt really matter the first couple months after SMPs release because at the time there were still hundreds of player on classic. Anyways. SMP is boring now and creative is the only remedy. We're stuggling to reach 20 players a day and sure Minecraft is an old game and gets repetitive as fuck. Get rid of pvp since its a ghost town and get creative.

#CreativeTeam2014

[UnknownHedgehog]

Pvp is not a good example. It may have brought a few new players but i hardly used now, despite how much everyone wanted it.

You are right, but for the wrong reason.

Everyone did want pvp, and yes it is abandoned now. However, you have to look at the time gap between when people wanted pvp, and when pvp finally came out.
The first suggestion for pvp, that I could find based off the suggestion threads, was Septemer, 2011. However, it wasn't until between May and July of 2012 that pvp became a pretty popular suggestion (topics were even being locked due to how many people were requesting it with this link: http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,11764.0.html).

Now look when pvp was released: July, 2013. That's a whole year or so later. We had more people on before than we did when pvp was released (and even less now). Not only that, but there was even talk that Optical and cschurz (our developer for the new members) were in the works of a pvp arena at that time. But that plan didn't come to fruition and the idea was abandoned. As time went on, I personally think anyway, a lot of people became disillusioned with the server and left. It wasn't until July 2013 when pvp became a big topic again, and it was released to appease the few who stayed and wanted it.

We can't say that tho. When pvp was being discussed, everyone wanted pvp maps, nothing fancy like hungergames.

I think people were wanting anything at that point.

Simply put: we took too long. People lost interest and probably got tired of waiting and hoping. And I'm not blaming anybody for this. Opti and cschurz were the only developers, but real life became a factor and that always comes first. Nick couldn't do much without them either. But now we can learn from our mistakes and move on as the admins now have console access. We can make good changes and add fun modes to the server that will attract people; especially if donations are running low to where Optical is now paying out of his pocket to run the server (from what I've heard).

[Nick3306]

Well member count shouldnt really matter the first couple months after SMPs release because at the time there were still hundreds of player on classic. Anyways. SMP is boring now and creative is the only remedy. We're stuggling to reach 20 players a day and sure Minecraft is an old game and gets repetitive as fuck. Get rid of pvp since its a ghost town and get creative.

#CreativeTeam2014

I'll wave my magical creative wand and make it happen!

specially if donations are running low to where Optical is now paying out of his pocket to run the server (from what I've heard).

You heard wrong.