- Tue Oct 22, 2013 8:41 pm
#177328
I've been thinking, and I've come to believe that Minecraft is the most fun with A LOT of people, or just a few people.
Minerealm sits in the middle.... kind of the uncanny alley of Minecraft. It appears that we can't expand, yet Intelli continues to push the advertising. We are a large community with a small map which creates a lot of issues.
If Minerealm wants to be big, it should go REALLY big. When advertising is strong we average 100 people and thats a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, they then see our map, and its a turn off. The largest, most successful, servers have several worlds, massive worlds, and are just so huge in general that you can start a city with a bunch of people or run off into the wilderness and almost never see a single soul.
10,000 by 10,000 is not big ESPECIALLY when we're advertising and running 50+ people at a time.
A similar thing is true on a very small server, where there are simply so few people you don't actually notice them.
Coming back to the issue at the heart of Minerealm is that we have more potential than our map allows... The fact that everywhere you go is wrecked in some way by the presence of other players is upsetting for a lot of players, yet these are the same players that don't want to leave their own work.
It's almost a paradox. However, unlike a paradox there are solutions. Minerealm could expand on its obvious popularity, this means that things will become very 'unminrealmlike'. As in, Intelli will need to look for other monetisation solutions. In this scenario, we lose a bit of the original feel, but have the potential to become big.
Going to think aloud here again and throw out some ideas for a larger server
Nexus world - Spawn city with portal's to 4 'major' worlds. Each of these could be 10k by 10k. If we were averaging 100 players, 25 players per world is much more manageable. A nexus world is a common feature on large scale servers. This world could be 1k by 1k, thats 400 realms still which isn't half bad. Maybe these realms could cost 50k each. Again, just thinking out loud; but if a server expansion is on the cards a nexus world is important. One of these worlds could be essentially be the new 'wilderness'.
Less vanilla No reason to be less 'legit' but portals to other worlds aren't that much of a concern. Minerealm advertises itself as 'fully legit', but I certainly don't classify this as an advantage or selling point any longer, at least not for large-scale servers.
Multiple difficulties - Minerealm is reallllllyyyy easy at the moment. The lag often makes it even easier, and then there's the fact that there are so few mobs anyway. What on earth is the point? In my own words, "Minerealm is creative with food". Definitely not what survival should be, and half the reason a lot of veteran players move on to smaller, more difficult, more reliable servers. A solution to this is to make 4 major worlds at the very least, each on one of the basic difficulties provided by Minecraft. Realm prices and credit-gain could be modified by the difficulty.
And if an expansion isn't on the cards
What people have been suggesting here - an adaptive map wipe is a very clever idea. However, there really is no point in removing peoples wealth.
Stop advertising? - If we don't have the resources expand to several ten thousand by ten thousand worlds there is no point overpopulating the one we have.
Widlerness wipes - These need to be monthly or bi-monthly, there also needs to be a nether. Literally nothing else will solve the current issues as well as this. Imagine exploring a huge new world every month. Not a lot can be done about the lag, and the 'double damage' is a very hackish solution to difficulty. Limited resources is making the rich richer, making Minerealm less and less appealing to newer players. Once upon a time a LOT of new players stuck around, now its lucky to be one in 20 or even 50.
My opinion: Everyone knows I don't play a lot of Minerealm any more, but I do still owe it my loyalty with my third year anniversary coming up, I wouldn't like a wipe at all, let alone losing so much work. Abyssus and Sub Aurora are both impressive projects, and I don't want to lose either of them. This is the choice I think Minerealm needs to make, and while I encourage it to expand and diversify I understand that that isn't always viable.
TL;DR core issue is overpopulating an old and small map. If Intelli wants to advertise he should expand the server, if he's going to keep it on the same map then a dynamic wipe should be considered, however realms and credits should not. If the server isn't expanded and instead wiped, we will be right back here within months. We have to strike a balance between saying goodbye to all the veterans/wealthy players and welcoming new players. It's very easy to just wipe, advertise and reap the rewards.