So we all know that OSB really may just be on it's last leg. Not many players are logging on, some of the staff are relatively inactive, and it's just not looking too good. While it could stay this way, there are some things that could prevent this. The server could have more activities and incentives for the players to play. Whether that be weekly building competitions, large activities, or even small activities that don't take much effort from the staff. Here is a list of my ideas, and some details explaining them: Weekly building competitions - These could be themed toward certain things (maybe an upcoming holiday, or just allow players to vote on a theme each week.) Rewards don't have to be too extreme, maybe a $5 Buycraft certificate, a special prefix, etc. The reward could be changed weekly, some being large rewards, and some just being small rewards. Better crate rewards - I discussed this idea with Panteon, and it really does seem like a good idea. Allow players to get donation ranks, commands, etc from the crates. These could be exclusive to Rare and Golden crates, or even allow players to have a small chance of receiving a reward like this from the normal vote crate. The idea of this is, if a player receives a donation rank, they're much more likely to stay on the server. They are also more likely to donate to get a higher rank, spawners, etc. This may seem like it would reduce server profit, but in reality that probably would not be a realistic result. New plugins that expand what we can do - Think McMMO, this has been requested by multiple players, but it is always turned down because staff don't like it? That's a ridiculous reason. McMMO expands on what players can do, and this may make current players become more active, and make bored players stick around longer. This can also provide other reasons to donate, such as: McMMO multipliers, buying credits, etc. Server PVP Events and Arenas - People like PVP, and if they could get rewards for PVPing, that would incentivize more people to play. The current server PVP arena is a bit ugly, and honestly no one really uses it. This could be fixed by hosting PVP events, where players could get rewards for being the last player standing and such. These could be hosted weekly. Open builder applications - There are players that are much better builders than some of the staff. When players ask if they can apply for builder, they're usually told "All of the staff know how to build, we don't really need builders." This is just not true. It seems as if there are a select few staff members (some who have left as well), that can actually build well. This is an issue, because it doesn't allow the server to host events as often. If a player is good at building, they should be able to apply for a builder rank. It doesn't help that the only server builder has not been on for 27 days apparently. Allow staff to use some WorldGuard permissions - See, this may not seem like it makes much sense, but it really does help keep players around. Let's say a player wants to build a PVP arena, they can build it, and then ask a staff member "Hey, can you set a region for the PVP arena with PVP allowed?" This will give players more things to do, and I know a lot of players on the original .co did this, and it really did keep some of them around. Learn from other servers' success - There's no shame in copying small ideas from other servers, who may be succeeding more. If players say "X is a good idea, we should have it on here," a response of "We don't want to copy other servers" or "We'll look into it" is almost always a definite "No" from the staff. Give players more of a say - Allow players to vote on ideas, such as adding commands or even whole plugins that may add to the player experience. Listening to what the players want will be appreciated, and players will stick around and play more because of it. Reward staff for being good/active - This has already been done in certain situations, like coolthom's promotion. Coolthom is extremely active and a well-rounded staff member, so he was recently promoted to Mod. This needs to be kept up, and players should be promoted if they deserve it. Potentially open staff applications - While there are staff, some are inactive and the server does not always have at least one staff member on. This could be solved by getting multiple staff members within each time zone, and while too many staff is a bad thing, not enough staff is just as bad. Make staff all follow one ruleset - All staff need to have the same punishments for breaking rules, chat violations, etc. This also includes getting rid of the "Chat Violations are at the discretion of all Staff Ranks" rule. This rule causes problems, because some staff allow players to say certain words, phrases, etc, while some don't. This just causes annoyances in chat, and unnecessary arguments between players and staff. Incentivize players to use the MA, Spleef, etc. - This really just cuts down on getting bored of the server. If players have enjoyable activities to do, and receive relatively good rewards for doing them, this can only benefit the server. Everyone recommend your ideas below, and let's hope that any good ideas are taken into consideration. Also make sure to comment on any faults within my ideas, because I'm sure some may not be as good as I thought. Also, I originally made this to discuss having more server activities, but I had other ideas. Ooops with the title.
More reasons to vote: What can you get from voting? $200 some xp and a key. Sometimes extra $500, $1250 more xp and a rare key, or very rarely /kit spawner. After getting kit spawner there isn't much of a reason to vote (Take this from a person who didn't vote regularly since AUGUST). Add more things that you can get from voting /kit mystic gold keys different types of spawners or anything else that could make voting more worth your time
All of this breaks the economy even more which means that there will be another reset very soon after this one :I
This post is ridiculous for two reasons. Did you even read the thread? First off, these suggestions wouldn't break the eco. Only around two or three suggestions Spencer listed would even affect the economy at all but then again, not massively. Secondly, what's the point in having a decent economy if the server's dead? Like yeah, good for you, the prices aren't all messed up and spawners aren't cheap, but nobody plays anymore. Currently OSB shouldn't be putting its main focus on its economy (I'm not saying the eco should be completely neglected - it's just not the biggest concern at the moment) but more on keeping the server alive. Anyway, that aside, I agree with Spencer on pretty much everything, especially on the stuff concerning the staff. They should have to follow the same ruleset. While it's not possible to have specific rules for every single thing that could happen, there should be some sort of guidelines on when to mute/tempban people (e. g. how many offences does it take to get a mute, how long is the mute, what offences result in what punishment, etc.). We've had staff members kind of lash out on here before which wasn't good. The staff team also shrunk down immensely during the past few months and is in urgent need of new additions and also, please, PLEASE, P L E A S E demote inactive staff members and promote a bunch of new people instead. I'm not saying the current staff are bad, the team's just too small. Edit: This hit me around three seconds after I posted this - the staff team issue probably is that there aren't any decent people applying so I'm sort of taking what I said in the last paragraph back. I still think inactive staff members should be demoted though.
Panteon, I agreaa with what you said, but there should be a way to make the server more fun without giving away stuff, right? Sorry for my useless posts, just trying to help.
Yes, there is a way of doing that, literally all but like three of Spencer's ideas. And like I said before, the economy isn't THAT important on a regular skyblock server. If this was some hardcore factions server it'd be different, but it's not.
i agree with everything in this post. as a person like me who loves this server, i still find it incredibly hard to have fun on here without having to grind to actually do something productive, most of the time i only come on now when there is people who aren't on usually and i just stop in and say hi, there needs to be more things added in order to increase the level of fun over all, and especially fix the staff. like come on, you never demote any inactive staff, and are always super picky on the next staff member, like you invented trial staff for a reason, if someones application is halfway decent and they want to become staff not just for the power but for the sake of helping others, then give them a chance to prove it, if its too much work to monitor them then get more active. you may also think oh 3.0 is going to save the server again, but sure maybe for like a few months as everyone is going to have to restart everything, but in the end its just going to end up dead again, im glad spencer brought up this issue and hope staff do something about it instead of saying "oh we will think about it" and just sending it to the back of things to do later
It's important to keep the economy challenging. That doesn't mean too challenging, but challenging enough to give players a reason build farms and such. Anything that gives players extra reasons to be active, build, and stay around, is a good reason. While yeah, some of my ideas will add extra items, money, etc. to the economy, there are ways to deal with this. Making enchants cost more (because let's be honest, enchants aren't worth anything), and making /fix cost money. If enchants cost more and repairs cost money, that means that each time a player repairs or enchants their items, that much more money leaves the economy. This is a good thing, and it helps keep the economy relatively challenging, rather than how it seems to be now.
One thing that I'm really hoping that you all considered, is the possibility of adding McMMO. This has been a relatively highly requested plugin by quite a few players. It really expands on what players can do, because a lot of people really do enjoy grinding for McMMO points and such. In my opinion, I feel like if this isn't implemented after the reset (and it's easy to implement into the server), then none of the other recommendations will be listened to either.
