Welcome to my First server Review. I have been playing minecraft since the nether update in the beta was released. I first started playing multiplayer in 1.3 beta, and became a server administrator in 1.4 beta. I have seen many servers over time.

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/4269/20120528124749.png

I progressed further until I got to the rules. They were straitforward and basic with most servers except one.
"No mob grinders"
What? They banned the use of using our wits? nonsense. Regardless I pressed on. Again everything being very
clean and easy to read.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/2809/20120528124848.png

As I worked my way farther, I noticed that endercraftbuild has fallen into the 1 fatal flaw that most servers of this size fall into. Donor perks are WAY over rewarding. Simply donating $5 will completely remove the survival aspect of the server, and give you access to item spawning. This is absolutely dreadful, $5 is not hard to come up with, and to everyone else who does not donate, it ruins any sort of fair playing ground they had with other players. It gets worse. Look at these perks, You can basically buy your way to adminship.
In addition to that, you don't even have to donate to win the game, just vote up the server and you get 10 diamonds. Well. Great. There goes the quest for diamonds. Although on the topic of diamonds They have a neat system setup where a diamond block protects an 8x8 area around it. The only downside is it is hard to link them correctly.

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/51/20120528133533.png

Full world edit control? Are these people crazy? No wonder they had a post on the website saying spawn was heavily griefed. They claim that nothing was lost and that they had backups, but players still had to go through that. That is the loss.

http://i49.tinypic.com/2nh45n5.png

All that behind me, I pressed forward to see where I could start building. As I was exiting spawn, A player was autonomously banned for having a high VL level, (No Cheat) I noticed It was similar to what happens when a player touches mobs in a mob grinder, But I guess that's illegal so...oh well. Once the enclosed spawn opened up, I came into view of a beautifully setup central area, Where I could pick where to go. It had nice big signs saying "PVP" or "MALL" with respective portals. I found the one that said "wild" and headed into there. Little did I know that this luxurious atmosphere was going to change drastically.
Walking into the "water portal" I was whisked away to this barren land that appeared to have been nuked to hell.
There was broken houses as far as the eye could see.
Here is a snapshots...

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/766/20120528125716.png

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/7475/20120528130442.png

This is so discouraging as a new player to see all these builds in pieces. The only things that remained were blocks out of reach, or in fragmented protection fields. At this point I almost wanted to stop the session, But I decided not to judge a book by its cover, and went forward. I walked, And I walked, And I walked. It seemed that the explosion of destroyed homes called the "wild" went on forever. I decided I needed some food so I warped to the mall. The mall again like spawn was amazing and clean. The only problem is, to someone who is starving its pretty important to limit moving. Once I found food it was $10 more than I had, So I tried to find a place to sell dirt with no success. Somewhat frustrated, I left. Only to find that I would again have to use /spawn, and walk back to the wild. So, skipping the detail that would rather bore everyone, I got to the point where I was when I warped to the mall. Now hard pressed for food. I kept walking until I got into a snowy biome when suddenly I met a group of players. I tried to make contact with them but they all just stared at me. So I walked away and moved a bit out, continuing to gather seeds.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/7825/20120528131119.png

Just a bit beyond the horizon I decided to make my little hidey hole. I planted the few seeds I gathered, and grabbed some stone aswell. Once I crafted a set of stone tools, I was met by a skeleton. This is good as I needed that wheat to grow. So I stabbed the rickety thing and got awarded $1.24 for killing it. Rather low, since mob grinders are banned. But again. How on earth to enforce that rule, It seems that they adjusted rewards to assume players would build them anyway. Time went on and a dug my hole deeper, So I decided to log off the server, and take a look at the website.

Click -> http://endercraftbuild.net/

I like the website. A lot. In fact I wish My server had the same setup. It is very easy to navigate, and also donations seem to be rigged directly to the server itself, through the website. The main problem though is that EVERYWHERE you see links to donate or vote. I don't know about you guys, But servers that bribe their members to vote are not some thing I appreciate.

With the main beef done, Let me summarize briefly, before I go onto the scorecard.
Endercraftbuild Is a survival server, but it would be more accurate to call it a "Free to play" "Pay to win" server. Its ok to ask your players to donate and such, servers are expensive, Mine with a 50 slot limit costs $70 a month. I can't imagine how much this thing costs to run. You guys need to understand that you only need as much server as demand requires. If you constantly pester your players through automated messages to donate and vote, then why even bother? Its almost like in order to keep the server going, you need to keep "votes" up. You should refocus your goals to providing an equal playing field for everyone, while still offering donor perks that don't ruin the game.

Pros:
Spawn is amazing. Probably the best I have seen on a server. Period.
The server is running great, only a few minor hiccups in connection were noticed.
The gameplay mechanics are great, in theory.
the mall is looking good!
Cons:
Staff needs to cleanup. Bigtime, near the "wild" spawn
You guys need more staff, at time you had 2 staff online for 30 players.
Your donor system basically gives "I win mode" to anyone who donates. Full worldedit to high end donors is a terrible idea.
Your community tends to start a shitstorm every now and then in the pvp world. Perhaps have the chat separate.
Stop pestering your players to vote, bribing them is just downright ridiculous. If your server is good, players will vote for it. Let them decide.

ScoreCard

Spawn - Is it neat? does spawn offer the info needed to get me started? Is it messy? Spawn is the first impression when joining a server. It needs to be clean and well thought out.

Spawn on Endercraftbuild Is flawless. Is is VERY easy to navigate, and gets the main points across. That is the spawn for the server, however. The Wild spawn is a disgusting mess, and is very discouraging.

74/100

Server - Can the server handle the connections? Does it ever lag?

Only minor hiccups detected, was probably on my end.

95/100

Staff - Can staff set an example, and not be biased towards certain players? Are the staff mature enough to be in a position of power?

Too few staff online, though they did sort out an issue with a player using a client hack. I would say it was not the best way to handle it, but they did. There was no evidence of preferential treatment either.

88/100

Community - Is everyone positive? Or cussing each other out. Does the server have a website or forum?

Often times there would be people cussing eachother out, though it was probably in the PVP realm. Try separating the chats. The server seems to hyped up by all the bribes it offers its players to vote it up. The website is clean, and organized.

79/100

Replayability - Is it easy to keep coming back, and keep playing?

Well, If I were actually looking for a server to stick with, this would not be the one. What If I don't want to vote up the server? That puts me int he lower class automatically. Anyone can spawn items for themselves if they donate $5, and if you want to completely destroy it with world edit, donate 50 or 75 dollars. Knowing these things, why would I come back?

32/100


Please note, views expressed in this blog are from a single individual. Please see this server for yourself.