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Minecraft Servers
-Not just another Game, but another world-
-Server ownership is the real deal for any aspiring MineCraft player. The ability to run a world for others to enjoy provides motivation and inspiration to expand all the gameplay possibilities MineCraft has to offer! This has been a running feel for a person like me, whoo��s been around the block a few times when it comes to servers. Io��ve run various RolePlay servers, Faction servers, Vanilla servers, all to find the feel that fits me right. Every type of server has a crowd it appeals to, even the small servers with inexperienced owners garner some attention. Though, this diversity can be put into perspective if you shift your gaze to any server list. All types of servers vying for your attention. Sure, you can try to filter out the ones that may not interest you, but even then youo��re left with literally hundreds to thousands of options. What are the best servers out there? How did they get to the top?
-Questions that areno��t easy to answer, and thereo��s no blanket solution for the entire query. Though, what is something that can inspire people more than friendly competition? No matter what aspect of MineCraft youo��re playing, whether it be a server overall or even in the game itself... A driving force, and arguably the key idea of multiplayer, is rivalry and competition. Putting things into perspective is difficult for the average MineCraft player, the end result is usually all that matters to any given person looking to outshine the rest. Some people spend all day on MineCraft, some spend the fringe of their spare time on it, others watch videos, study up on redstone, to create intricate designs that are more functional than for display purposes. Inventions, architecture, the game is filled with the possibilities of competition, and this concept is what can be used to produce quality higher than most anywhere!
-Now apply this to the server world. Sure the game itself is a blast with friends and groups competing, but for a server to truly shine you can be sure that the same concept can apply. Most servers have a story behind it, at least if theyo��re old. Even highly official/professionally managed servers have different people with different viewpoints and various incentives to innovate or collapse a burgeoning server. You could essentially say that this builds up the actual character of the server, the tone of the staff, and the available features. For instance, if someone widely abused a glitch in a given plugin, then that plugin may not be used altogether, even if ito��s been proven that the bug in question has been removed. These sorts of events will always happen on any server, be it a small incident, or an outlook-shaking incident. Rivalry would help in this situation, however. Now leto��s say these sorts of events occur on a much smaller scale; say a couple of servers that see no more than 10 to 15 players a day. One of these events dramatically shakes up one of the two that are rivals. Since thereo��s the motivation of keeping your image up to your rival, it may seem like a slow week while you do the needed repairs, fix features, inform your player base. Imagine this same type of event occurring in a stand-alone server. More often than not, the fixing of the server would be motivated by the community. Smaller communities have less of a demand and the community is easily repaired by a few days of advertising after a fix, so larger scale owners would have more trouble fixing a server, large chunks of the players would leave as well as a massive amount of spam in response to the down time.
-This brings up an idea, image. How a server presents itself to the public in order to garner attention. If there are two servers competing with each other to get more players, theyo��re going to want to clean up their image to seem more appealing. If the competition is really heated, theyo��ll be advertising in the same places, and close to each other. So all-in-all, thereo��s going to be a need to display your ads more effectively, and present what your servers have to offer more effectively. Again, this is made more difficult by having the same audience. Say two or three faction servers are competing against each other, and two use flashy colors, but static images. The third one pays a small amount of money to a graphics designer for a high quality animated GIF to advertise. This does not mean that the server itself is better than the other two, but this will garner the third faction more hits, views, and a slightly larger player base that motivates and may want positive changes done to the third server. In this example, the two other servers are left to rival each other while the third one takes off. This is often not the case, as dual-rivalries are very common.
Personal Experiences
-Now that weo��ve covered the basics, Io��ll share some of my personal experiences. Some of us have communities we join and love. When they end, some people just cano��t let go. Io��m one of these people, and ito��s happened to me twice so far. The first round I had joined a server whose community was split into the favorites of the owner, and the regular players. The favorites would be dismissed if they found glitches and had the ability to keep any massive wealth they found from exploits before fixes. The regular players would be banned if they so much as said the wrong things to the administrators or the favorites. I spoke out, and was banned for it. Friends of mine Io��d made from that community came with me to make another server. Some thought it was a fling, a fake copy of the other server, the concept was well established by the former community, and we wanted to take it a step further. This erupted into a 2-month long competition where we both went down different paths. They had applied Spout and marveled at all the new features, the restrictive requirement to download the Spout client to play, on top of the white-list without proper advertising brought them down. Inactivity from my server and the failure to pay by my co-owner had been my communityo��s demise.
We had both failed... But did we really?
-Our communities had exploded with activity, well over 20 players a day, and eventually their server dropped in activity while ours thrived. Our spawn was a sandbox for admins and owners alike; the world was ruled by bug abuse and glitches that we slowly found out about. This may seem like mayhem, but ito��s part of the learning process. The failures and shortcomings of both of our managements had brought forward mistakes that we could fix, learn from, and build upon. Weo��re both now back in active ownership and again pushing the boundaries of server operation; but weo��re no longer rivals. Io��d been far removed from them.
-A second occurrence had transpired on the 4th server Io��d ever been on. It was a very old, calm server. There was a single town with a great army that had clearly survived the wars of the past. The other towns and had quit, the moderators and administrators mainly sat silently enforcing the rules on this small server. The community was unimaginably large, and personalities were memorable, each person had a different outlook on the servers past, and future. I was a newcomer on their world, and they welcomed me with open arms. As I settled for a nice stay on this cloud amongst the skies, it ended. The owner had declared he no longer wished to support our community, his reasons were his and his alone, he went into very little further detail. Just then, well over five people stepped up to create a server to continue the legacy; a server that not only emulated the past, but looked to the future. Out of the gate, many failed, and some are even attempting to get back up. Over a long trail of trial and error, dramatic events allowed for me to come out victorious, but not unscathed. The community was still very much shattered, but now it was mostly gathered in one place. This may sound like an overly dramatic representation of the events, but this is how it felt. There is a purpose to those who have rivalries, and to some people these communities they have are as close as brothers and sisters, where a rivalry can become personal, and emotions can turn sour.
What to Take Away
-Rivalries should not be like that, you should learn from them, have healthy competitions. Always complement each other on your hard work and dedication to your communities. Owners should be friends with owners, and to those with similar goals and sizes, should see who can come out on top if you had a friendly game of chess.
~Archangel (Ruffalo)
Proud Owner of VaporCraft
-Not just another Game, but another world-
-Server ownership is the real deal for any aspiring MineCraft player. The ability to run a world for others to enjoy provides motivation and inspiration to expand all the gameplay possibilities MineCraft has to offer! This has been a running feel for a person like me, whoo��s been around the block a few times when it comes to servers. Io��ve run various RolePlay servers, Faction servers, Vanilla servers, all to find the feel that fits me right. Every type of server has a crowd it appeals to, even the small servers with inexperienced owners garner some attention. Though, this diversity can be put into perspective if you shift your gaze to any server list. All types of servers vying for your attention. Sure, you can try to filter out the ones that may not interest you, but even then youo��re left with literally hundreds to thousands of options. What are the best servers out there? How did they get to the top?
-Questions that areno��t easy to answer, and thereo��s no blanket solution for the entire query. Though, what is something that can inspire people more than friendly competition? No matter what aspect of MineCraft youo��re playing, whether it be a server overall or even in the game itself... A driving force, and arguably the key idea of multiplayer, is rivalry and competition. Putting things into perspective is difficult for the average MineCraft player, the end result is usually all that matters to any given person looking to outshine the rest. Some people spend all day on MineCraft, some spend the fringe of their spare time on it, others watch videos, study up on redstone, to create intricate designs that are more functional than for display purposes. Inventions, architecture, the game is filled with the possibilities of competition, and this concept is what can be used to produce quality higher than most anywhere!
-Now apply this to the server world. Sure the game itself is a blast with friends and groups competing, but for a server to truly shine you can be sure that the same concept can apply. Most servers have a story behind it, at least if theyo��re old. Even highly official/professionally managed servers have different people with different viewpoints and various incentives to innovate or collapse a burgeoning server. You could essentially say that this builds up the actual character of the server, the tone of the staff, and the available features. For instance, if someone widely abused a glitch in a given plugin, then that plugin may not be used altogether, even if ito��s been proven that the bug in question has been removed. These sorts of events will always happen on any server, be it a small incident, or an outlook-shaking incident. Rivalry would help in this situation, however. Now leto��s say these sorts of events occur on a much smaller scale; say a couple of servers that see no more than 10 to 15 players a day. One of these events dramatically shakes up one of the two that are rivals. Since thereo��s the motivation of keeping your image up to your rival, it may seem like a slow week while you do the needed repairs, fix features, inform your player base. Imagine this same type of event occurring in a stand-alone server. More often than not, the fixing of the server would be motivated by the community. Smaller communities have less of a demand and the community is easily repaired by a few days of advertising after a fix, so larger scale owners would have more trouble fixing a server, large chunks of the players would leave as well as a massive amount of spam in response to the down time.
-This brings up an idea, image. How a server presents itself to the public in order to garner attention. If there are two servers competing with each other to get more players, theyo��re going to want to clean up their image to seem more appealing. If the competition is really heated, theyo��ll be advertising in the same places, and close to each other. So all-in-all, thereo��s going to be a need to display your ads more effectively, and present what your servers have to offer more effectively. Again, this is made more difficult by having the same audience. Say two or three faction servers are competing against each other, and two use flashy colors, but static images. The third one pays a small amount of money to a graphics designer for a high quality animated GIF to advertise. This does not mean that the server itself is better than the other two, but this will garner the third faction more hits, views, and a slightly larger player base that motivates and may want positive changes done to the third server. In this example, the two other servers are left to rival each other while the third one takes off. This is often not the case, as dual-rivalries are very common.
Personal Experiences
-Now that weo��ve covered the basics, Io��ll share some of my personal experiences. Some of us have communities we join and love. When they end, some people just cano��t let go. Io��m one of these people, and ito��s happened to me twice so far. The first round I had joined a server whose community was split into the favorites of the owner, and the regular players. The favorites would be dismissed if they found glitches and had the ability to keep any massive wealth they found from exploits before fixes. The regular players would be banned if they so much as said the wrong things to the administrators or the favorites. I spoke out, and was banned for it. Friends of mine Io��d made from that community came with me to make another server. Some thought it was a fling, a fake copy of the other server, the concept was well established by the former community, and we wanted to take it a step further. This erupted into a 2-month long competition where we both went down different paths. They had applied Spout and marveled at all the new features, the restrictive requirement to download the Spout client to play, on top of the white-list without proper advertising brought them down. Inactivity from my server and the failure to pay by my co-owner had been my communityo��s demise.
We had both failed... But did we really?
-Our communities had exploded with activity, well over 20 players a day, and eventually their server dropped in activity while ours thrived. Our spawn was a sandbox for admins and owners alike; the world was ruled by bug abuse and glitches that we slowly found out about. This may seem like mayhem, but ito��s part of the learning process. The failures and shortcomings of both of our managements had brought forward mistakes that we could fix, learn from, and build upon. Weo��re both now back in active ownership and again pushing the boundaries of server operation; but weo��re no longer rivals. Io��d been far removed from them.
-A second occurrence had transpired on the 4th server Io��d ever been on. It was a very old, calm server. There was a single town with a great army that had clearly survived the wars of the past. The other towns and had quit, the moderators and administrators mainly sat silently enforcing the rules on this small server. The community was unimaginably large, and personalities were memorable, each person had a different outlook on the servers past, and future. I was a newcomer on their world, and they welcomed me with open arms. As I settled for a nice stay on this cloud amongst the skies, it ended. The owner had declared he no longer wished to support our community, his reasons were his and his alone, he went into very little further detail. Just then, well over five people stepped up to create a server to continue the legacy; a server that not only emulated the past, but looked to the future. Out of the gate, many failed, and some are even attempting to get back up. Over a long trail of trial and error, dramatic events allowed for me to come out victorious, but not unscathed. The community was still very much shattered, but now it was mostly gathered in one place. This may sound like an overly dramatic representation of the events, but this is how it felt. There is a purpose to those who have rivalries, and to some people these communities they have are as close as brothers and sisters, where a rivalry can become personal, and emotions can turn sour.
What to Take Away
-Rivalries should not be like that, you should learn from them, have healthy competitions. Always complement each other on your hard work and dedication to your communities. Owners should be friends with owners, and to those with similar goals and sizes, should see who can come out on top if you had a friendly game of chess.
~Archangel (Ruffalo)
Proud Owner of VaporCraft
| Credit | Shadowrain96 (Formatting) |
| Tags |
1 Update Logs
Update #1 : by Ruffalo 07/23/2013 11:17:46 amJul 23rd, 2013
Cleaned it up; Made it prettier.
Re-organized, had a friend re-read
Re-organized, had a friend re-read
tools/tracking
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