MCGamer's current scenario which I'm not too fond of - The Story

[CAmadeusA]

Hey once again. So, as I've done with a lot of the previous threads on this topic, Im going to add my own input (and maybe tease a few things, who knows). Forgive me if this isn't as well written, I'm feeling rather under the weather at the moment.

- Plz no hate, no lock & no lies -​

If this thread turns to flame, it will be locked, if it abides by our rules, it will remain unlocked.

I will start my story in early 2015.

Probably one of the highlights and peaks of MCGamer's popularity was the so called "Valentines Event", led by Shelby, or back then better known as LadyOfLove. It was the biggest, most successful and most beautiful event ever seen on MCGamer. The organization was excellent and many players enjoyed their day participating in all the attractions on the map and simply being a part of this community.

However, since then, there was no other event nearly as popular or successful as this one had been. After Shelby resigned, the administration tried to create at similar event, the so called “MCGamer Summer Event”, but tbh, it wasn't nearly as successful as the Valentines Event - a flop imo. Starting on the second day of the event, there was only an average of 5 to 10 players online, mainly including staff, trying to complete one of the challenges. The whole concept was based on challenges, which most of the people only completed to get a medal on the forums. Of course Shelby didn't create the 'Valentines Event' alone, but it needs a special talent to host such a big thing.

That is why Shelby's resignation was the first step of MCGamer starting to go downhill, imo.

Okay, so firstly to address, I will totally agree with those points. The Valentines event was fantastic, and the summer event was not as popular. I will admit that *I* made some mistakes in the management of it. As well, we do recognize that shelby managed that event fantastically and we thanked her for it in surplus. Her choice to resign did cause us to lose that talent, but that is entirely her choice. The issues revolving that time have now been resolved to a major extent.

Now, I will say that we do have a few more good events in the works for further out, that will be ran, managed, and performed much better. Events like this take skill to develop to get there. Doesn't mean we won't try to improve.

Another event, which caused MCGamer to lose a big amount of their players was the "death" of Huahwi. He was very famous within the MCGamer community and brought a lot of new players to the servers.

While yes, Huahwi being absent is unfortunate, that is not something we can control, and as the person who oversees the VIP applications for the time being, we do have a surplus of new faces still coming in within the realm of VIPS. Further, Im not sure if anyone saw, but this time, huahwi made the mistake of leaving his youtube channel's last activity monitor on for a while, and he still checks his channel weekly. Just no longer posting videos. Now, I can make a solid guess that he isn't posting for personal reasons, which I'm sure he will say in his own time.

One of the reasons a lot of those big Youtubers stopped playing on MCGamer, is because the Survival Games game type became boring and redundant over time. Yes, they tried to add a couple other gamemodes, but none of them actually broke through and most of them were removed eventually, such as ColorZone or Rocket Rumble. Even the older ones, SG Classic and Quarter Quell were removed as they simply became boring over time. After the removal of these game types, they stopped creating new ones besides UHC Worlds and SG Solo, which either never got off the ground or are very similar to the original SG game type, so that in the end there is no variety again. So they sticked to SurvivalGames.
“With time comes change”, but MCGamer neglected this quote. Many other similar servers understood this however, and look at their player counts now; i.e. Hypixel, Mineplex, Badlion… MCGamer is running slow and almost out of breath, risking a low place in the race of expanding and being one of the more popular Minecraft servers out there. It used to be part of this group, but look where MCGamer is now. Even a server that shared almost the exact same playerbase as MCGamer or came off the ground based on our players, *cough* Bad *cought* lion, counts more players than MCGamer does nowadays.

Again, refer to my previous point with the VIPS. However, to follow that, what I will say is that we do have a few extra special things coming *soon* that y'all have been asking for, and that will address a few of the needs the community has. Believe me, the administration has big plans to turn this negativity trend around, and clean up shop. Further, I will say that between now and winter(ish), we hope to have a lot of concerns cleared up.

Well, let's continue with my story.

The next massive blow to the Network was the resignation of Col_StaR, probably one of the, if not the best admin Mcgamer has even seen. However it was not completely lost as we got two new trial Admins who turned out to be worthy successors of Col_StaR.

S/O to Col_StaR for being nothing short of awesome.

Now as Vanessa and Nephilim "failed their trial" (hope I worded it correctly this time -.-), the fire with which Col_StaR and his two successors kept MCGamer alive, has died out within the Administration team.

Yeah, they did fail their trial, I dont see why everyone is seeing deeper conspiracies than there is.

Yes the current admins are doing their job, mainly behind the scenes, but this is not what keeps a server alive. I am not calling out any of the remaining members of the administration, as Razz, CAm and Alpaka might all be great at their specific jobs, however most of them aren’t as close to the community as they should be by far.

Currently, you are correct, we do work mostly on leading the direction of the network in the back end, and that will always be our job. However, yes, being down to the few of us currently, we are all making strides to rejoin the lime-light.

The owner himself is apparently too busy with more important work and doesn't show the activity or maybe even interest on MCGamer anymore that he should. If not much effort comes from the top regarding this situation, then the bottom will crumble along.

Chad has been rapidly turning this around. He has entirely reorganized his real world schedule with his IRL job to fill an admins role within the administration on top of all of the things he's doing in the back ground. I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.

Turkish Moderators are resigning, the last player base (i.e. Turkish players on the EU region), that keeps MCGamer alive, is about to disappear as well. Just imagine our Network without the amount of Turkish players. MCGamer reaches its peak time during EU’s peak time, which is close to, or used to be close to, 3000 players average. If they suddenly were to disappear or move on, I bet there would only be 1000 players on average left, not even speaking before or after the peak times...

Of course, hypothetically speaking if all of the turkish players went caput, we would be hurting. They are the majority of EU's Peak. However, I believe Forairan posted a while back, either on here or social media about the numbers of people around the world from which countries play here and the count. Feel free to find it should you so desire. I will say, we see a wider demographic than most would guess.

For all the people who say “MCGamer has had those low player numbers for a while now” and for the people who keep saying “MCGamer is dying and going downhill” for quite some time now; yes this is true, but it is different this time. As I explained above, each single point up there ended up in MCGamer losing players, however there were always people in the administration team at that time, who were close to the community and actively worked out plans to keep the servers up. Now that has ended as well.

Okay, ill just come out and say it. Y'all want us to admit it? Ill be the first to admit it. We *have* been seeing lower numbers over the last few weeks/month(ish). Now, that does not equate to us "dying". Let me go through some things.

After 3 years of statistics, and analytics, this is a very normal trend for this time of year. Ive been here for 3 years, Ive seen the roller coaster of minecraft network player counts over that span of time. The same goes for all of the major minecraft networks. Want to know why?
A majority of player bases is in their youth. Oft regular attendees of school.
As school comes around, less people play video games, to focus on school. Thats a completely normal fact.

Now, to address us "dying"; in order to be dying, we would need to be seeing a significant loss in player count in the amount of people leaving > the amount of people joining. However, I have seen the analytics, and we are in fact rising in player count. Slowly, but we are rising still. We're seeing more regular players, and returning players.
It only gives off the idea that we're dying because people tend to make more a show when they leave than when a regular player joins. Thus, people notice more people leaving than joining. Giving the impression of metaphorical death.

Now, what are we recovering from? Yes, Ill be the first to admit, 1.8 hurt us. A lot. But guess what? We learned from that mistake, and going forward, being much smarter about things. Now, we're one of the very few, if not only networks that runs a custom duel protocol that isn't just a backwards support. What we're running is future-proofed minecraft currently, which is infinitely more stable and secure than backwards support.

What does this mean? Well, take for example in SG. Both 1.7 and 1.8 is supported. In what way? Well, one direct example, in a SG map, if you were to use a 1.8 only block, it would render and be just fine for 1.8+ users. For 1.7 users, it shows as the most similar block. i.e., spruce doors would show as just a regular door. etc. We've had this in place for a while now, and we're only more working to improve our system for further future proofing. Another example of this feature in the works, is why 1.8 PVP users get very very similar PVP to 1.7 users. It was crafted (pun intended) to be the best experience possible.

Now, without our transition to 1.8, we would have never had a lot of these awesome features, and it only made way for better things that haven't been released yet. Yes, 1.8 hurt us, but it also did us a lot of good.

All the background work might be important - yes, and we are all very thankful for that -, but if there is no one close to the community the servers will die eventually. ChadTheDJ has no clue about “his” community, nor do the admins these days. I doubt that they know the names of their Moderators just to set an example.

Ill just point out, who's close to "the community" is relative, since it consists of dozens if not hundreds of "sub communities" i.e., clans, Skype users, teamppeak users, staff, build teams, heck. I've met people who FaceTime team. The administration does work closely with different areas, but its near if not entirely impossible to be "close" with everyone at all times. Doesn't stop us from trying though.

Also, Ill speak for myself on this one as I dont know the interpersonal dynamics of Razzledgirl or AlpakaWhacker, but I do know, and am on a first name basis with 65-70% of the staff team. Which is tough with the size of a staff team we have. Of course its impossible to talk to them *all* on a regular basis, I try what I can. Further, I'm proud to say I'm expanding my social circle and am getting more out there talking with the community. Just, on my own terms.

I don't want to offend anyone with this thread, nor do I think I can actually help with this thread, which basically includes all the issues that are causing MCGamer’s downfall, as it is already too late in my opinion. I am not trying to cause any flame either, I just had to and wanted to share how I feel on the current situation and recent events.

Feel free to discuss / post your own opinions down below. To the mods and above, before you think it’s another rant thread against the staff only, just read the thread and try to understand my point here and probably the point of a big part of the community. If it’s locked within the next couple hours for this reason, it definitely shows that you guys aren’t willing to listen and/or open your eyes to what’s actually been going on.

I think I've covered just about everything I can, let me know if theres anything I missed. Id be glad to touch on it.
Sincerely, - CAm.

 

[Cameron]

Hey once again. So, as I've done with a lot of the previous threads on this topic, Im going to add my own input (and maybe tease a few things, who knows). Forgive me if this isn't as well written, I'm feeling rather under the weather at the moment.



If this thread turns to flame, it will be locked, if it abides by our rules, it will remain unlocked.



Okay, so firstly to address, I will totally agree with those points. The Valentines event was fantastic, and the summer event was not as popular. I will admit that *I* made some mistakes in the management of it. As well, we do recognize that shelby managed that event fantastically and we thanked her for it in surplus. Her choice to resign did cause us to lose that talent, but that is entirely her choice. The issues revolving that time have now been resolved to a major extent.

Now, I will say that we do have a few more good events in the works for further out, that will be ran, managed, and performed much better. Events like this take skill to develop to get there. Doesn't mean we won't try to improve.



While yes, Huahwi being absent is unfortunate, that is not something we can control, and as the person who oversees the VIP applications for the time being, we do have a surplus of new faces still coming in within the realm of VIPS. Further, Im not sure if anyone saw, but this time, huahwi made the mistake of leaving his youtube channel's last activity monitor on for a while, and he still checks his channel weekly. Just no longer posting videos. Now, I can make a solid guess that he isn't posting for personal reasons, which I'm sure he will say in his own time.

Again, refer to my previous point with the VIPS. However, to follow that, what I will say is that we do have a few extra special things coming *soon* that y'all have been asking for, and that will address a few of the needs the community has. Believe me, the administration has big plans to turn this negativity trend around, and clean up shop. Further, I will say that between now and winter(ish), we hope to have a lot of concerns cleared up.


S/O to Col_StaR for being nothing short of awesome.


Yeah, they did fail their trial, I dont see why everyone is seeing deeper conspiracies than there is.


Currently, you are correct, we do work mostly on leading the direction of the network in the back end, and that will always be our job. However, yes, being down to the few of us currently, we are all making strides to rejoin the lime-light.



Chad has been rapidly turning this around. He has entirely reorganized his real world schedule with his IRL job to fill an admins role within the administration on top of all of the things he's doing in the back ground. I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.


Of course, hypothetically speaking if all of the turkish players went caput, we would be hurting. They are the majority of EU's Peak. However, I believe Forairan posted a while back, either on here or social media about the numbers of people around the world from which countries play here and the count. Feel free to find it should you so desire. I will say, we see a wider demographic than most would guess.



Okay, ill just come out and say it. Y'all want us to admit it? Ill be the first to admit it. We *have* been seeing lower numbers over the last few weeks/month(ish). Now, that does not equate to us "dying". Let me go through some things.

After 3 years of statistics, and analytics, this is a very normal trend for this time of year. Ive been here for 3 years, Ive seen the roller coaster of minecraft network player counts over that span of time. The same goes for all of the major minecraft networks. Want to know why?
A majority of player bases is in their youth. Oft regular attendees of school.
As school comes around, less people play video games, to focus on school. Thats a completely normal fact.

Now, to address us "dying"; in order to be dying, we would need to be seeing a significant loss in player count in the amount of people leaving > the amount of people joining. However, I have seen the analytics, and we are in fact rising in player count. Slowly, but we are rising still. We're seeing more regular players, and returning players.
It only gives off the idea that we're dying because people tend to make more a show when they leave than when a regular player joins. Thus, people notice more people leaving than joining. Giving the impression of metaphorical death.

Now, what are we recovering from? Yes, Ill be the first to admit, 1.8 hurt us. A lot. But guess what? We learned from that mistake, and going forward, being much smarter about things. Now, we're one of the very few, if not only networks that runs a custom duel protocol that isn't just a backwards support. What we're running is future-proofed minecraft currently, which is infinitely more stable and secure than backwards support.

What does this mean? Well, take for example in SG. Both 1.7 and 1.8 is supported. In what way? Well, one direct example, in a SG map, if you were to use a 1.8 only block, it would render and be just fine for 1.8+ users. For 1.7 users, it shows as the most similar block. i.e., spruce doors would show as just a regular door. etc. We've had this in place for a while now, and we're only more working to improve our system for further future proofing. Another example of this feature in the works, is why 1.8 PVP users get very very similar PVP to 1.7 users. It was crafted (pun intended) to be the best experience possible.

Now, without our transition to 1.8, we would have never had a lot of these awesome features, and it only made way for better things that haven't been released yet. Yes, 1.8 hurt us, but it also did us a lot of good.


Ill just point out, who's close to "the community" is relative, since it consists of dozens if not hundreds of "sub communities" i.e., clans, Skype users, teamppeak users, staff, build teams, heck. I've met people who FaceTime team. The administration does work closely with different areas, but its near if not entirely impossible to be "close" with everyone at all times. Doesn't stop us from trying though.

Also, Ill speak for myself on this one as I dont know the interpersonal dynamics of Razzledgirl or AlpakaWhacker, but I do know, and am on a first name basis with 65-70% of the staff team. Which is tough with the size of a staff team we have. Of course its impossible to talk to them *all* on a regular basis, I try what I can. Further, I'm proud to say I'm expanding my social circle and am getting more out there talking with the community. Just, on my own terms.



I think I've covered just about everything I can, let me know if theres anything I missed. Id be glad to touch on it.
Sincerely, - CAm.

That was just pure beauty Couldn't of said it better myself.

 

[Ava]

-snip-

TL;DR: Just read it.

 

[Razzledgirl]

TL;DR: Just read it.

Seconded.

All the background work might be important - yes, and we are all very thankful for that -, but if there is no one close to the community the servers will die eventually. ChadTheDJ has no clue about “his” community, nor do the admins these days. I doubt that they know the names of their Moderators just to set an example. ​

As someone who works first hand with the staff team, I can assure you, I try my absolute best. I am a forgetful person, but I still remember the people I speak to. (Which is most of them.)

 

[Racervina]

I've got quite a few opinions on this thread so I'll list 'em here

100% agree, Huawhi brought huge numbers of new players to our community daily.
so did Bajan


Couldn't have put it better myself. It was a huge loss to the team after both resigned but I think our current administrators are going to put in the time to get the know the community at a more even level now that they Vanessa and Neph are gone. ;_;

The community won't die out. New admins could be promoted. Who's not to say there won't be a new community manager? Endless possibilities. Anyways, this was a well put together thread and it does shed some light on certain aspects of the community.

Thank you, Narwhal, for your honest answer! It is great to see a staff member, who also admits some things and doesn't deny everything, just because they are a Mod. Keep it up, you are doing your job well!

Hey once again. So, as I've done with a lot of the previous threads on this topic, Im going to add my own input (and maybe tease a few things, who knows). Forgive me if this isn't as well written, I'm feeling rather under the weather at the moment.



If this thread turns to flame, it will be locked, if it abides by our rules, it will remain unlocked.



Okay, so firstly to address, I will totally agree with those points. The Valentines event was fantastic, and the summer event was not as popular. I will admit that *I* made some mistakes in the management of it. As well, we do recognize that shelby managed that event fantastically and we thanked her for it in surplus. Her choice to resign did cause us to lose that talent, but that is entirely her choice. The issues revolving that time have now been resolved to a major extent.

Now, I will say that we do have a few more good events in the works for further out, that will be ran, managed, and performed much better. Events like this take skill to develop to get there. Doesn't mean we won't try to improve.



While yes, Huahwi being absent is unfortunate, that is not something we can control, and as the person who oversees the VIP applications for the time being, we do have a surplus of new faces still coming in within the realm of VIPS. Further, Im not sure if anyone saw, but this time, huahwi made the mistake of leaving his youtube channel's last activity monitor on for a while, and he still checks his channel weekly. Just no longer posting videos. Now, I can make a solid guess that he isn't posting for personal reasons, which I'm sure he will say in his own time.

Again, refer to my previous point with the VIPS. However, to follow that, what I will say is that we do have a few extra special things coming *soon* that y'all have been asking for, and that will address a few of the needs the community has. Believe me, the administration has big plans to turn this negativity trend around, and clean up shop. Further, I will say that between now and winter(ish), we hope to have a lot of concerns cleared up.


S/O to Col_StaR for being nothing short of awesome.


Yeah, they did fail their trial, I dont see why everyone is seeing deeper conspiracies than there is.


Currently, you are correct, we do work mostly on leading the direction of the network in the back end, and that will always be our job. However, yes, being down to the few of us currently, we are all making strides to rejoin the lime-light.



Chad has been rapidly turning this around. He has entirely reorganized his real world schedule with his IRL job to fill an admins role within the administration on top of all of the things he's doing in the back ground. I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.


Of course, hypothetically speaking if all of the turkish players went caput, we would be hurting. They are the majority of EU's Peak. However, I believe Forairan posted a while back, either on here or social media about the numbers of people around the world from which countries play here and the count. Feel free to find it should you so desire. I will say, we see a wider demographic than most would guess.



Okay, ill just come out and say it. Y'all want us to admit it? Ill be the first to admit it. We *have* been seeing lower numbers over the last few weeks/month(ish). Now, that does not equate to us "dying". Let me go through some things.

After 3 years of statistics, and analytics, this is a very normal trend for this time of year. Ive been here for 3 years, Ive seen the roller coaster of minecraft network player counts over that span of time. The same goes for all of the major minecraft networks. Want to know why?
A majority of player bases is in their youth. Oft regular attendees of school.
As school comes around, less people play video games, to focus on school. Thats a completely normal fact.

Now, to address us "dying"; in order to be dying, we would need to be seeing a significant loss in player count in the amount of people leaving > the amount of people joining. However, I have seen the analytics, and we are in fact rising in player count. Slowly, but we are rising still. We're seeing more regular players, and returning players.
It only gives off the idea that we're dying because people tend to make more a show when they leave than when a regular player joins. Thus, people notice more people leaving than joining. Giving the impression of metaphorical death.

Now, what are we recovering from? Yes, Ill be the first to admit, 1.8 hurt us. A lot. But guess what? We learned from that mistake, and going forward, being much smarter about things. Now, we're one of the very few, if not only networks that runs a custom duel protocol that isn't just a backwards support. What we're running is future-proofed minecraft currently, which is infinitely more stable and secure than backwards support.

What does this mean? Well, take for example in SG. Both 1.7 and 1.8 is supported. In what way? Well, one direct example, in a SG map, if you were to use a 1.8 only block, it would render and be just fine for 1.8+ users. For 1.7 users, it shows as the most similar block. i.e., spruce doors would show as just a regular door. etc. We've had this in place for a while now, and we're only more working to improve our system for further future proofing. Another example of this feature in the works, is why 1.8 PVP users get very very similar PVP to 1.7 users. It was crafted (pun intended) to be the best experience possible.

Now, without our transition to 1.8, we would have never had a lot of these awesome features, and it only made way for better things that haven't been released yet. Yes, 1.8 hurt us, but it also did us a lot of good.


Ill just point out, who's close to "the community" is relative, since it consists of dozens if not hundreds of "sub communities" i.e., clans, Skype users, teamppeak users, staff, build teams, heck. I've met people who FaceTime team. The administration does work closely with different areas, but its near if not entirely impossible to be "close" with everyone at all times. Doesn't stop us from trying though.

Also, Ill speak for myself on this one as I dont know the interpersonal dynamics of Razzledgirl or AlpakaWhacker, but I do know, and am on a first name basis with 65-70% of the staff team. Which is tough with the size of a staff team we have. Of course its impossible to talk to them *all* on a regular basis, I try what I can. Further, I'm proud to say I'm expanding my social circle and am getting more out there talking with the community. Just, on my own terms.



I think I've covered just about everything I can, let me know if theres anything I missed. Id be glad to touch on it.
Sincerely, - CAm.

Also a big thank you to you, CAmadeusA! The fact that you took the time to read this thread and even reply to it in depth, shows improval! I can definately see, that you are willing to interatc with the community! From the point of view of a community member, this effort looks good on the whole administration team. Maybe the high amount of those threads and status updates could actually make a change.
I do have to agree on some things you said and also appreciate, that you admitted to a few things.
So thank you again for your reply, as already said in the main post, this thread is meant to be a discussion!
However I still stick at my opinion.

I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.

At least on the forums and on TeamSpeak he was only on to announce, that the two trial admins "failed their trial". Before that he hasn't been seen (at least not visible for the community), nor after that. I do understand that IRL things might take a lot of his time so does background work probably, but logging on for 10 minutes per day, on the own Server forums and showing a tiny bit of activity should actually be possible. It just doesn't look good on a server when the Owner 'hasn't been seen for weeks'.

Unfortunately I do not have more time for now, to write more, but I will try to do so when I can.

 

[Vinyl]

- Plz no hate, no lock & no lies -​

Hey folks!

So I would like to share my personal opinion with you guys on this server going downhill.


I will start my story in early 2015.

Probably one of the highlights and peaks of MCGamer's popularity was the so called "Valentines Event", led by Shelby, or back then better known as LadyOfLove. It was the biggest, most successful and most beautiful event ever seen on MCGamer. The organization was excellent and many players enjoyed their day participating in all the attractions on the map and simply being a part of this community.

However, since then, there was no other event nearly as popular or successful as this one had been. After Shelby resigned, the administration tried to create at similar event, the so called “MCGamer Summer Event”, but tbh, it wasn't nearly as successful as the Valentines Event - a flop imo. Starting on the second day of the event, there was only an average of 5 to 10 players online, mainly including staff, trying to complete one of the challenges. The whole concept was based on challenges, which most of the people only completed to get a medal on the forums. Of course Shelby didn't create the 'Valentines Event' alone, but it needs a special talent to host such a big thing.

That is why Shelby's resignation was the first step of MCGamer starting to go downhill, imo.


Another event, which caused MCGamer to lose a big amount of their players was the "death" of Huahwi. He was very famous within the MCGamer community and brought a lot of new players to the servers.

One of the reasons a lot of those big Youtubers stopped playing on MCGamer, is because the Survival Games game type became boring and redundant over time. Yes, they tried to add a couple other gamemodes, but none of them actually broke through and most of them were removed eventually, such as ColorZone or Rocket Rumble. Even the older ones, SG Classic and Quarter Quell were removed as they simply became boring over time. After the removal of these game types, they stopped creating new ones besides UHC Worlds and SG Solo, which either never got off the ground or are very similar to the original SG game type, so that in the end there is no variety again. So they sticked to SurvivalGames.
“With time comes change”, but MCGamer neglected this quote. Many other similar servers understood this however, and look at their player counts now; i.e. Hypixel, Mineplex, Badlion… MCGamer is running slow and almost out of breath, risking a low place in the race of expanding and being one of the more popular Minecraft servers out there. It used to be part of this group, but look where MCGamer is now. Even a server that shared almost the exact same playerbase as MCGamer or came off the ground based on our players, *cough* Bad *cought* lion, counts more players than MCGamer does nowadays.


Well, let's continue with my story.

The next massive blow to the Network was the resignation of Col_StaR, probably one of the, if not the best admin Mcgamer has even seen. However it was not completely lost as we got two new trial Admins who turned out to be worthy successors of Col_StaR.

Now as Vanessa and Nephilim "failed their trial" (hope I worded it correctly this time -.-), the fire with which Col_StaR and his two successors kept MCGamer alive, has died out within the Administration team.
Yes the current admins are doing their job, mainly behind the scenes, but this is not what keeps a server alive. I am not calling out any of the remaining members of the administration, as Razz, CAm and Alpaka might all be great at their specific jobs, however most of them aren’t as close to the community as they should be by far.
We, the community are not only a number. We are people, humans and those who keep the Network alive by donating our time and playing on the servers.
We needed those 2 new Admins that were actually close to the community, showed interest in our ideas and suggestions and knew what was going on. This was a reason people felt welcome here on MCGamer and which gave some of the older players who realized the downfall of the network sooner than others, hope again. We were expecting very promising work of the both of them, which we have received, however unfortunately it had to end too soon.

The owner himself is apparently too busy with more important work and doesn't show the activity or maybe even interest on MCGamer anymore that he should. If not much effort comes from the top regarding this situation, then the bottom will crumble along.

Turkish Moderators are resigning, the last player base (i.e. Turkish players on the EU region), that keeps MCGamer alive, is about to disappear as well. Just imagine our Network without the amount of Turkish players. MCGamer reaches its peak time during EU’s peak time, which is close to, or used to be close to, 3000 players average. If they suddenly were to disappear or move on, I bet there would only be 1000 players on average left, not even speaking before or after the peak times...

All that is very unfortunate as some people worked so hard for the servers and I want to thank those people at this point! Their effort shouldn’t have been a waste. But a staff team can only run a server when also the higher staff cares and shows that they care. With an inactive owner and an administration who is only busy with the work they are assigned and don’t turn around and look at the community, the life of this server, a server can't be successful.

For all the people who say “MCGamer has had those low player numbers for a while now” and for the people who keep saying “MCGamer is dying and going downhill” for quite some time now; yes this is true, but it is different this time. As I explained above, each single point up there ended up in MCGamer losing players, however there were always people in the administration team at that time, who were close to the community and actively worked out plans to keep the servers up. Now that has ended as well.
All the background work might be important - yes, and we are all very thankful for that -, but if there is no one close to the community the servers will die eventually. ChadTheDJ has no clue about “his” community, nor do the admins these days. I doubt that they know the names of their Moderators just to set an example.

I don't want to offend anyone with this thread, nor do I think I can actually help with this thread, which basically includes all the issues that are causing MCGamer’s downfall, as it is already too late in my opinion. I am not trying to cause any flame either, I just had to and wanted to share how I feel on the current situation and recent events.

Feel free to discuss / post your own opinions down below. To the mods and above, before you think it’s another rant thread against the staff only, just read the thread and try to understand my point here and probably the point of a big part of the community. If it’s locked within the next couple hours for this reason, it definitely shows that you guys aren’t willing to listen and/or open your eyes to what’s actually been going on.

Most of these claims lack reasonable statistical and analytical proof for the topic at all. Which isn't really stating much at all seeing as the theme to this thread is literally just fiction and gossip spread through the community, and not actual facts.

 

[Racervina]

Most of these claims lack reasonable statistical and analytical proof for the topic at all. Which isn't really stating much at all seeing as the theme to this thread is literally just fiction and gossip spread through the community, and not actual facts.

You sir understood nothing.

 

[Vinyl]

You sir understood nothing.

Coming from the guy that uses the "Valentine's Event" as a point towards the imminent downfall of MCGamer.

 

[Philly67]

Not enough teming..

 

[Ceroria]

Hey once again. So, as I've done with a lot of the previous threads on this topic, Im going to add my own input (and maybe tease a few things, who knows). Forgive me if this isn't as well written, I'm feeling rather under the weather at the moment.



If this thread turns to flame, it will be locked, if it abides by our rules, it will remain unlocked.



Okay, so firstly to address, I will totally agree with those points. The Valentines event was fantastic, and the summer event was not as popular. I will admit that *I* made some mistakes in the management of it. As well, we do recognize that shelby managed that event fantastically and we thanked her for it in surplus. Her choice to resign did cause us to lose that talent, but that is entirely her choice. The issues revolving that time have now been resolved to a major extent.

Now, I will say that we do have a few more good events in the works for further out, that will be ran, managed, and performed much better. Events like this take skill to develop to get there. Doesn't mean we won't try to improve.



While yes, Huahwi being absent is unfortunate, that is not something we can control, and as the person who oversees the VIP applications for the time being, we do have a surplus of new faces still coming in within the realm of VIPS. Further, Im not sure if anyone saw, but this time, huahwi made the mistake of leaving his youtube channel's last activity monitor on for a while, and he still checks his channel weekly. Just no longer posting videos. Now, I can make a solid guess that he isn't posting for personal reasons, which I'm sure he will say in his own time.

Again, refer to my previous point with the VIPS. However, to follow that, what I will say is that we do have a few extra special things coming *soon* that y'all have been asking for, and that will address a few of the needs the community has. Believe me, the administration has big plans to turn this negativity trend around, and clean up shop. Further, I will say that between now and winter(ish), we hope to have a lot of concerns cleared up.


S/O to Col_StaR for being nothing short of awesome.


Yeah, they did fail their trial, I dont see why everyone is seeing deeper conspiracies than there is.


Currently, you are correct, we do work mostly on leading the direction of the network in the back end, and that will always be our job. However, yes, being down to the few of us currently, we are all making strides to rejoin the lime-light.



Chad has been rapidly turning this around. He has entirely reorganized his real world schedule with his IRL job to fill an admins role within the administration on top of all of the things he's doing in the back ground. I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.


Of course, hypothetically speaking if all of the turkish players went caput, we would be hurting. They are the majority of EU's Peak. However, I believe Forairan posted a while back, either on here or social media about the numbers of people around the world from which countries play here and the count. Feel free to find it should you so desire. I will say, we see a wider demographic than most would guess.



Okay, ill just come out and say it. Y'all want us to admit it? Ill be the first to admit it. We *have* been seeing lower numbers over the last few weeks/month(ish). Now, that does not equate to us "dying". Let me go through some things.

After 3 years of statistics, and analytics, this is a very normal trend for this time of year. Ive been here for 3 years, Ive seen the roller coaster of minecraft network player counts over that span of time. The same goes for all of the major minecraft networks. Want to know why?
A majority of player bases is in their youth. Oft regular attendees of school.
As school comes around, less people play video games, to focus on school. Thats a completely normal fact.

Now, to address us "dying"; in order to be dying, we would need to be seeing a significant loss in player count in the amount of people leaving > the amount of people joining. However, I have seen the analytics, and we are in fact rising in player count. Slowly, but we are rising still. We're seeing more regular players, and returning players.
It only gives off the idea that we're dying because people tend to make more a show when they leave than when a regular player joins. Thus, people notice more people leaving than joining. Giving the impression of metaphorical death.

Now, what are we recovering from? Yes, Ill be the first to admit, 1.8 hurt us. A lot. But guess what? We learned from that mistake, and going forward, being much smarter about things. Now, we're one of the very few, if not only networks that runs a custom duel protocol that isn't just a backwards support. What we're running is future-proofed minecraft currently, which is infinitely more stable and secure than backwards support.

What does this mean? Well, take for example in SG. Both 1.7 and 1.8 is supported. In what way? Well, one direct example, in a SG map, if you were to use a 1.8 only block, it would render and be just fine for 1.8+ users. For 1.7 users, it shows as the most similar block. i.e., spruce doors would show as just a regular door. etc. We've had this in place for a while now, and we're only more working to improve our system for further future proofing. Another example of this feature in the works, is why 1.8 PVP users get very very similar PVP to 1.7 users. It was crafted (pun intended) to be the best experience possible.

Now, without our transition to 1.8, we would have never had a lot of these awesome features, and it only made way for better things that haven't been released yet. Yes, 1.8 hurt us, but it also did us a lot of good.


Ill just point out, who's close to "the community" is relative, since it consists of dozens if not hundreds of "sub communities" i.e., clans, Skype users, teamppeak users, staff, build teams, heck. I've met people who FaceTime team. The administration does work closely with different areas, but its near if not entirely impossible to be "close" with everyone at all times. Doesn't stop us from trying though.

Also, Ill speak for myself on this one as I dont know the interpersonal dynamics of Razzledgirl or AlpakaWhacker, but I do know, and am on a first name basis with 65-70% of the staff team. Which is tough with the size of a staff team we have. Of course its impossible to talk to them *all* on a regular basis, I try what I can. Further, I'm proud to say I'm expanding my social circle and am getting more out there talking with the community. Just, on my own terms.



I think I've covered just about everything I can, let me know if theres anything I missed. Id be glad to touch on it.
Sincerely, - CAm.

Thank you, really. Even as a member of staff myself I was beginning to have my doubts with all of these threads saying the server is dying, ans giving some pretty solid points with convincing analysis. Also considering the fact that there weren't many responses from the administration I, and many others I'm sure, began to worry.

This reinstated mine, and many others', belief in the admins/devs that things will be done and we will be back at ot full force.

 

[reven86]

Hey once again. So, as I've done with a lot of the previous threads on this topic, Im going to add my own input (and maybe tease a few things, who knows). Forgive me if this isn't as well written, I'm feeling rather under the weather at the moment.



If this thread turns to flame, it will be locked, if it abides by our rules, it will remain unlocked.



Okay, so firstly to address, I will totally agree with those points. The Valentines event was fantastic, and the summer event was not as popular. I will admit that *I* made some mistakes in the management of it. As well, we do recognize that shelby managed that event fantastically and we thanked her for it in surplus. Her choice to resign did cause us to lose that talent, but that is entirely her choice. The issues revolving that time have now been resolved to a major extent.

Now, I will say that we do have a few more good events in the works for further out, that will be ran, managed, and performed much better. Events like this take skill to develop to get there. Doesn't mean we won't try to improve.



While yes, Huahwi being absent is unfortunate, that is not something we can control, and as the person who oversees the VIP applications for the time being, we do have a surplus of new faces still coming in within the realm of VIPS. Further, Im not sure if anyone saw, but this time, huahwi made the mistake of leaving his youtube channel's last activity monitor on for a while, and he still checks his channel weekly. Just no longer posting videos. Now, I can make a solid guess that he isn't posting for personal reasons, which I'm sure he will say in his own time.

Again, refer to my previous point with the VIPS. However, to follow that, what I will say is that we do have a few extra special things coming *soon* that y'all have been asking for, and that will address a few of the needs the community has. Believe me, the administration has big plans to turn this negativity trend around, and clean up shop. Further, I will say that between now and winter(ish), we hope to have a lot of concerns cleared up.


S/O to Col_StaR for being nothing short of awesome.


Yeah, they did fail their trial, I dont see why everyone is seeing deeper conspiracies than there is.


Currently, you are correct, we do work mostly on leading the direction of the network in the back end, and that will always be our job. However, yes, being down to the few of us currently, we are all making strides to rejoin the lime-light.



Chad has been rapidly turning this around. He has entirely reorganized his real world schedule with his IRL job to fill an admins role within the administration on top of all of the things he's doing in the back ground. I will attest to the fact that he has been around more as of very recently, and is continuing to be around more. As someone who works with him closely on a regular basis, I'm qualified to attest to this.


Of course, hypothetically speaking if all of the turkish players went caput, we would be hurting. They are the majority of EU's Peak. However, I believe Forairan posted a while back, either on here or social media about the numbers of people around the world from which countries play here and the count. Feel free to find it should you so desire. I will say, we see a wider demographic than most would guess.



Okay, ill just come out and say it. Y'all want us to admit it? Ill be the first to admit it. We *have* been seeing lower numbers over the last few weeks/month(ish). Now, that does not equate to us "dying". Let me go through some things.

After 3 years of statistics, and analytics, this is a very normal trend for this time of year. Ive been here for 3 years, Ive seen the roller coaster of minecraft network player counts over that span of time. The same goes for all of the major minecraft networks. Want to know why?
A majority of player bases is in their youth. Oft regular attendees of school.
As school comes around, less people play video games, to focus on school. Thats a completely normal fact.

Now, to address us "dying"; in order to be dying, we would need to be seeing a significant loss in player count in the amount of people leaving > the amount of people joining. However, I have seen the analytics, and we are in fact rising in player count. Slowly, but we are rising still. We're seeing more regular players, and returning players.
It only gives off the idea that we're dying because people tend to make more a show when they leave than when a regular player joins. Thus, people notice more people leaving than joining. Giving the impression of metaphorical death.

Now, what are we recovering from? Yes, Ill be the first to admit, 1.8 hurt us. A lot. But guess what? We learned from that mistake, and going forward, being much smarter about things. Now, we're one of the very few, if not only networks that runs a custom duel protocol that isn't just a backwards support. What we're running is future-proofed minecraft currently, which is infinitely more stable and secure than backwards support.

What does this mean? Well, take for example in SG. Both 1.7 and 1.8 is supported. In what way? Well, one direct example, in a SG map, if you were to use a 1.8 only block, it would render and be just fine for 1.8+ users. For 1.7 users, it shows as the most similar block. i.e., spruce doors would show as just a regular door. etc. We've had this in place for a while now, and we're only more working to improve our system for further future proofing. Another example of this feature in the works, is why 1.8 PVP users get very very similar PVP to 1.7 users. It was crafted (pun intended) to be the best experience possible.

Now, without our transition to 1.8, we would have never had a lot of these awesome features, and it only made way for better things that haven't been released yet. Yes, 1.8 hurt us, but it also did us a lot of good.


Ill just point out, who's close to "the community" is relative, since it consists of dozens if not hundreds of "sub communities" i.e., clans, Skype users, teamppeak users, staff, build teams, heck. I've met people who FaceTime team. The administration does work closely with different areas, but its near if not entirely impossible to be "close" with everyone at all times. Doesn't stop us from trying though.

Also, Ill speak for myself on this one as I dont know the interpersonal dynamics of Razzledgirl or AlpakaWhacker, but I do know, and am on a first name basis with 65-70% of the staff team. Which is tough with the size of a staff team we have. Of course its impossible to talk to them *all* on a regular basis, I try what I can. Further, I'm proud to say I'm expanding my social circle and am getting more out there talking with the community. Just, on my own terms.



I think I've covered just about everything I can, let me know if theres anything I missed. Id be glad to touch on it.
Sincerely, - CAm.

-cam drops his mic-
Pipe bomb

 

[Remy2402]

I still like MCGamer That's all that matters right?