My Opinion on the Growth of MCP

[pointlessbob]

MCP has had a sudden recrudescence recently, but it won't last long.  I'm here to talk about my personal view and opinion to ultimately suggest advice to the owners on how to continue the growth of MCP.
Certain things must be taking into consideration if MCP will continue to grow.  The sudden bursts of activity MCP is currently experiencing is only temporary and if it is intended to stay, things must be done.  Firstly, more events must happen on MCP at a more consistent rate.  Once players get attached to a server, the overall concept will only intrigue them for a small while.  It is up to the server owner to keep that player interested by constantly running events that can participate in.  Things like the plot contests that have been going on has without a doubt had a positive effect on the server.  There are a small handful of builders on MCP that have been idle for quite some time, and these contests have allowed them to have fun and build their own things to show off to the whole server, under the owner's support.  However, building contests will not keep MCP moving forward, for it only appeals to a certain group.  Consider adding more things that can appeal to different groups of people on the server.

Suggested Event Options:

PvP Contests
Faction Contests
most guard kills in a month by a faction
best looking base
best functioning base
Prison Events
scavenger hunts
Christmas point games
top event winner of the month
Recruitment Policy
invite the most players that achieve the rank of E Block

These are a handful of ideas that come to mind when I think of different events that can be hosted by the server on MCP in the future.  Keep in mind you can get as creative as you wish with these.

To continue my thoughts, most of these events are retention based.  They are meant to appeal to veteran players, although still appealing to newer people.  The events listed are intended to keep players active and having fun when they get attached to the server, not to actually hook new players.  Hooking new players onto the server is difficult, I'm 100% sure you know what I'm talking about what I say that there seems to be no good way to hook every new player that comes onto MCP.  Well, that's because there isn't.  Most players that come onto the server come to see how it is; what the community is like, big or small, quality of the server, straightforward or advanced, Pvp oriented, friendly, etc.  It is extremely difficult to market towards that group of people considering that your server might not even be the server they want to be on.  The group you want to target are the people that considered the server and actually play it.

There is something I've learned over the years of my experiences.  A lot of the time, players go on servers for other human communication and relationships.  Want to know the reason why MCP has had such a good community?  Or why at some times the server average has peaked so high?  It's because when the owner or admin is on and communicates with new players, they often get instantly attached.  One of my first experiences with you was when you were having fun with me, changing my name to usefulbob =).  As a young kid, I felt I got attached to the server because of a simple experience such as that.  I don't think I even talked to you after that, but the fact that you communicated to me through admin command was special.  The idea of having a Mod that runs around greeting new players was an EXCELLENT idea but was EXCUTED poorly.  Lizzy (no offence) was a godawful option and a new mod should be reconsidered.  Natefoster should consider taking this job as a warden until a new mod is chosen.  The Mod should be active and attached to the server, someone that won't leave anytime soon.  When they start to make connections they are automatically the man on the server everyone knows.  This is one option, for the owner them self can commit to this task, for it is very effective.

Consider this one paragraph above if you were too lazy to ready anything else.

In terms of expanding the server, the only thing I suggest to do is increase ways to encourage the invitation of friends and voting.  Doing so will greatly expand the server is quite obvious ways I will not go into.

For more reference on expansion & retention: (SKIP)

[ Retention

Retention ? The server's ability to retain players so that they return in the future.

To begin, it will be stated that server retention can be accessed through a multitude of methods.  Some include:  unique game play mechanics, connections with players, connections with staff, a player goal that is interesting and fun to work towards, etc.  Each of the listed examples will be explained in detail. Unique game play mechanics offer retention from the perspective that it impresses the player and gives them something new to explore.  This obviously gets them intrigued in the server long enough for my next examples to kick in.  Connections with staff and other players are important for successful server retention to exist.  Player are confirmed to stay longer if they establish early friendships with other players.  In early stages of a server, an active owner is an active server; the owner should be online to greet new people, establish connections, and give them reason to come on.  Lastly, all successful servers should have some sort of major end goal.  Examples include becoming Free on a prison server, winning the Hunger Games, owning the best faction, surviving the elements, etc.  It can be appealing to players if they are given an intriguing end-goal that they can easily get into and work towards completing; hopefully meeting new players on the way.

Server retention is incredibly important to a successful server.  It can be rather easy to get new players to join a server, however if the owner can not give them a reason to return, it is in vain.  Retention is the reason the players return to a server, without it, the server would have to rely on short visits from new players that may only stay on for one hour, get bored, and leave forever.  Using methods, like the examples stated before, an owner can create reasons to pull players into the server, making them want to return and continue their adventure.


Expansion

Expansion ? The server's way to attract new players to join the game.

Closely knitted to retention, expansion is another key factor to running a successful server.  To begin, it will be made clear that server expansion is another way of saying server promotion or advertisement.  Ways to get the server's name into players that seek to play on a server.  A prime example of server expansion is a voting network.  It is very simple for owners to place their name and description of their server in a voting network, then for players to find that name and join.  Other methods may include: Youtuber endorsement, paid server ad agreements, site ads, in-game recruitment.
These methods will be explained in detail.  To start, voting is a universal must for servers; it is an excellent way to get new players to find your server.  When someone wants to play on a prison server, for example, they may look up 'Minecraft Prison Server'.  If the server an owner put in falls within those tags, it will appear before the player, along with other servers?popular to least popular.  Youtuber endorsement includes a server owner paying or convincing a popular Youtuber to play or review their server so that their viewers may feel inclined to check it out themselves.  Paid server ads includes paying a rival, or even friendly server to put advertisements for another server inside of their server.  This will incline their players to join the promoted server.  Site ads are simply just buying advertisement spots in a website that could relate to Minecraft, then putting an appealing advertisement for the server in the spot.  Lastly, in-game recruitment doesn't only involve going into others server and advertising, but an owner convincing their own players to bring a friend or family member is a lot more acceptable instead.  This obviously encourages centralized growth from your own players, which can lead to retention (since the player now has a buddy to play with).

Server expansion is a very necessary thing to have in a successful Minecraft server.  It is the very idea of bringing new potential players onto the server?if you remove all ways of expansion the server will surely die within months.  Using methods like the ones stated before, a server owner can quickly and effectively add expansion methods to promote their server to the public, bringing waves of new players for them to keep. ]


Another suggestion tying in with encouraging players to vote:

http://cdgs.net/index.php/topic,2600.0.html


Thank you for considering this suggestion, and as always, good luck with CDGS! Cheers!

[pointlessbob]

*NOTE* The suggestion ends right before the retention topic.

[MaxofTheMiniGames]

+1 Waiting for the response

[LaughNgamez]

I agree MCP has picked up lately, partially because advertisement and partially because of the time of year. I'm interested to see how American Thanksgiving goes.

I also agreed adding things like contests are great for the server, however it's also important to remember MCP is great because we put lots of thought into things we add. I feel we may even be letting that slip lately. Perhaps we need to refine/cut some features before we add more.

So here's my opinions on some of the events you mentioned:

Plot Contest: Great, we'll probably do one every month from now on.
PvP Contests: These would have to be done by a warden or owner because of factions (I'll cover that later below)
Guard Kills: The guards would hate me for this, before something like this would be added a guard rework would be needed
Best Looking base: Overlaps with plot contest and judging would be too hard
Best functioning base: Hard to judge
Prison Events: Elaborate? I would like more big events which involve everyone but they're hard to create and can also confuse new players. I like events which occur at Christmas like the Candy Cane Event. Give us ideas!
Scavenger hunts: One word. Xray (Although easter egg hunts would be dope). It's not likely but if we find a cheat proof way we'd like to do things like thios
Christmas point games: elaborate? Christmas points will be very similar to other years/holidays
Top event winner of each month: Great idea, will look into.
Recruitment policy: Very delicate thing, can give the server a bad rep (players adverting on other players), alts can be used it the rewards are decent, hard to incentive in a balanced manner. The idea of requiring invited players to achieve a rank is a good idea.

Some of these events would have to be done by wardens in a custom manner or require much effort to create custom things.
I wish wardens were more hands on like they used to be, because frankly wardens who dick around without destroying everything are the best kind as it makes players feel welcome like they're a part of something. I remember when I first joined MCP there was a fleet of wardens always doing something and I miss that to this day. The problem is the direction I've taken MCP is an omniscient roll which I tend to oversee everything which in turn makes wardens tend to not feel like they can be creative

So between wardens not being creative as before and me being busy there's only so much that can be done (look at the changelog).
I've always encouraged wardens to do their own thing but they can't help with the large technical tasks and never have. Almost everything on the changelog is possible, just I literally can only do so much.

This might change/not be as big of an issue in the future as Geonat will be coming back soon, and more importantly Zeedin is learning to develop plugins. I don't expect Zeedin being able to write plugins to instantly finish the changelog in fact I don't expect it to do much on the changelog at all despite it being very handy. I do however expect it to allow us to open up and have the custom things we create be even more creative and help us out.

Zeedin still does all the building, networking, and much more. With developing on top of that there's only so much he can do which is why for a while the idea of bringing in help has steadily creeped into my head.
The fact is help will never come through MCP players, they're players who at best become wardens who are limited by their technical understanding. Wardens are wardens because they are trustworthy so if they were capable I'd likely let them work on bigger tasks but the bottom line is they're not.

Because of this help would have to come through someone who knows what they're doing. The problem with this has always been that someone who knows what they're doing involves meeting a new person and bringing them in. For starters finding someone competent is hard enough, someone I like and trust enough coming out of the blue is not likely. I've had multiple offers for fully competent people to help but I've turned them down for trust reasons and our own ideas not lining up.

So I've always been against bringing in someone who fits the unlikely roll if they show up, but now I'll at least consider it heavily.



I like discussing player retention as it's very important to the server. In my opinion MCP has a very firm grip but it is hard for it to sink its claws in. We lose many new players but the ones who stick around tend to stick around for a very long time. Hence the "One does not simply quit MCP motto".

I agree MCP has a hard time getting new players to stay, and in my mind that's partially because it's not like V2 before when there was tons of wardens, tons of staff, and tons of players to make it feel like a big sense of community. I think if MCP gets close to this it will take off yet it never has.

To make this feel like the case we need to work on community things:
- Making things straight forward
- Friendly Staff
- Simple entertaining gameplay to entice people

I've always worked towards these things but it's very hard with a complex beast like MCP.

I completely agree and find it a very strong statement that you remember me messing with your name when you first joined, and I remember it too now you mention it

As for the current staff I have to somewhat agree. Lizzy is a bad mod. I'll be demote them as of this post and opening up a new slot in the near future. When I removed mods it was because they didn't do the job of helping new players. Each time I brought them back that was the main focus. I specifically told Lizzy that was their first duty as a simple robot can manage chat and I no longer wanted mods to be like that. Lizzy has fallen short of their duty, partially from activity base and partially not doing their duties well enough when being online.

If I do bring new mods I'll make it very clear their job is to help new players.

As far as wardens go their first job is to help players and solve simple bugs so me/zeedin don't have to deal with them. On top of that it's to be fun, friendly, and since they became warden that does not mean they can suddenly new players. That has always been the case but welcoming new players is not their main job but they should always do it. We also only have 2 wardens, Geo who has been gone for months and Nate who is a great warden and I find he is a good balance of helpful & friendly (just maybe not so outgoing when it comes to doing tasks/new things).

I'm happy with wardens right now but I wish they'd be a little more "Free" and independent.



I feel as if I always make it clear our goal is to have good player retention and we're not lacking in the department we just maybe need a different approach/a few changes. We know what it takes to have good retention but achieving it with a good balance of everything else is hard.

When it comes to expansion believe me, we try. I'm doing everything I can involving paying server lists, making the server appealing from an outside view, and I have tried to acquire youtubers (very hard to do). I need to give getting youtubers another goal and make my own videos again. It's a fair challenge to get youtubers, sponsored ads, and do everything else maintaing a server requires while being in budget. Once again it comes down to us doing things well even if the server never "makes it" we managed to create something good.

We'll take another look at all these things and once again fuck you for making me write an essay bob.

In seriousness thanks for your great suggestions and hopefully this post made us a bit more transparent as far as our thoughts go.

Keep giving us suggestions

[MaxofTheMiniGames]

Welp, I waited and I was gifted with this beauty^^ thank you!

[pointlessbob]

Oh, yes, without a doubt I know you're really working on expanding MCP.  However, if all of MCP's players can vote on the server every day, expansion would not be a big problem.  I'll try to brainstorm some ideas to encourage voting without breaking any balance.

also get nate to take more of a mod role
he's friendly and fun to talk to
idk how active he is but if he's active that's great
not to mention he's still young so he'll be staying around for a while