Hey hey hey party people.

Been sat on this for a few years now, but ever since the Birdfrock 'incident' a few days ago its become clear to me that apparently one person bringing forward their grievances with the server to the staff can actually have an effect, and while I may not agree with Birdfrock, his reasonings and the staff's response to it , I am very pleased to see the server at least trying to move in a better direction.

While I've decided to not go on a long winded rant about every little thing I deem to be out of place regarding the server, as it is not mine, and my way of doing things is not necessarily the best, I've thought about this particular point enough to think that someone should really say something.

If you're on the forums reading this, I imagine that I would not be wrong to assume that you play the server enough to notice the one of the largest, if not the largest issue with CraftyMynes. The playercount.

As I am writing this, there are currently 2 players on CraftyMynes, not including myself. While CraftyMynes is a rather unique experience in that we have a much deeper community than most, meaning that I can't foresee Crafty going entirely dead anytime soon, a near entire lack of player influx will only continue to starve the server of it's lifeblood.

So, what to do about it?

There is a multitude of things which can be done in order to get the playercount up, but as I said at the start of this ramble, I will be focusing on the one I deem most damning, and it can be quite neatly summed up one sentence.
.
.
.
CraftyMynes is NOT a vanilla server experience.
.
.
.
While in the past I have been of the opinion that adding plugins would solve all the servers issues, I am no longer of that opinion. While yes, it would likely solve the lag issues and allow for a higher playercount, I think adding plugins would simply drive away the community that Crafty already has, and throw the server into an even worse state.

The system we currently have with the command blocks (while I can't pretend I properly understand it) I find to be incredibly charming, and 100% makes the server stand out from the crowd in a sea of plugin-riddled survival servers. And besides, after all these years, it would be a shame to start now and cast aside Crafty's unique command-block legacy.

So instead, I will present you with a hypothetical scenario;
.
.
.
You've decided to go out for the day. It's been a few hours and you've been enjoying yourself, and you notice you're starting to get a bit hungry. You think for a moment, and decide that you're going to treat yourself to your favourite, a nice steak. You wander about for a little bit, looking at different restaurants until just out the corner of your eye you spot a place you haven't seen before. "Crafty's Steaks".

"Perfect" you think to yourself as you go in and take a seat, looking through the menu, settling on the 12oz flat iron. Your waiter comes up and takes your order, and while the place isn't packed, you're loving the ambiance and décor. After a little bit, you see your waiter approaching your table with a plate, and you sit up, looking forward to your food as it is set down in front of you.

But... this isn't what you ordered. Your potato wedges look fantastic, the side salad looks fresh and crisp, but instead of your steak, there's a large slab of cauliflower instead. Just catching the waiter before he heads off, you let him know about the mistake, you ordered the steak, not this!

You prepare for the apology, and to wait a little longer for your actual dish to be prepared, but it doesn't come. Instead, you see a smug grin cross the waiter's face as he pushes his glasses up his nose. "Umm, actually..." He lets out, "I think you'll find that while the word Steak typically means beef, it can also mean just a thick-cut piece of any animal or even vegetable."

You of course are disappointed. You guess he's technically not wrong, but this isn't what you wanted. "But shouldn't you make it clearer? At other places steak just means beef steak, like you'd expect?"

At this, the waiter changes. You can see his teeth grinding, his eyes nearly bulging out his head as he begins frothing at the mouth. You cry out as the waiter punches you in the nose before ripping you from your seat and throwing you out the front door, slamming it behind you, screaming something about not mentioning other restaurants.
.
.
.
While far from a perfect analogy, I believe it gets my point across. Yes, technically CraftyMynes is a vanilla server, but just because you haven't edited the .jar file does not mean it belongs in the vanilla server list. Commands like .home, .trade and .tp are not vanilla.

I believe that if CraftyMynes was to be advertised on the Semi-Vanilla server-list, it would have a HUGE impact on player retention. Rather than new players joining, looking around at a hub world before pressing tab and seeing all the ranks, both of which famously do not exist in vanilla, and immediately leaving forever because as far as they're concerned you lied to them in order to trick them into playing, instead they would join, see exactly what they wanted to see and begin their adventure in a new server, before later learning that it is 100% command block, and actually get a chance to appreciate how cool that is.
.
.
.
.
.
Anyway, if you've read this far you obviously care for the server, so should you see any gaps in my reasoning kindly tell me why below, and with any luck your solution will be better than mine. Despite it's issues, I am very fond of this server, and this post is my attempt to try and give it a new lease at life, and should someone else have a better idea I would very much like to hear it.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

-BingusIncorporated

@CraftyMyner I tried to do something good for the community, it was probably short sighted, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I didn't foresee what was going to come next. It felt like I just said a racial slur on twitter, pretty much everything I did was contested. People, including me, were made fun of in the forums. I don't believe in myself anymore. I do not understand the community or the game well enough to make correct decisions. I tried to take advice from staff and other players but I am still lost.

Just a pre-lude to your questions, don't be too upset, and don't worry. In regards to all the recent kerfuffle I know that for me, and I am going to assume others, it was all a case of timing. I know you were only doing what you believed to be best for the community. But from the point of view of the player I saw basically no changes for literally years, despite raised concerns, and then suddenly one person starts to complain about an issue which next to no people have actually had, and within hours the owner, almost always silent, makes huge changes to the server. For me at least it very much came across as a slap in the face to anyone else who's ever suggested any changes to the server. I think J_a_r_d said something similar in the (now deleted) chat under BirdFrocks post.

Now I've had a bit to calm down I think the changes that were made were actually pretty sensible, just implemented in a rather rushed way. And even then, as I said at the start, It's really nice to see actually changes for the better, even if the first few steps were a little wobbly.

@CraftyMyner If we switch to semi vanilla, all the work I did could be replaced with a few plugins that take seconds to install. That emotionally hurts. It's like entering into a car show where everyone has a sports car and I have a go-kart that was built in the backyard with my dad when I was a kid. It feels out of place. I know I can keep what we have but it's going to feel a bit jank when compared to the offerings available with plugins.

Personally, (judging from other replies my opinion is far from unanimous) I would like to keep the command blocks, as I put originally,

@BingusInc The system we currently have with the command blocks (while I can't pretend I properly understand it) I find to be incredibly charming, and 100% makes the server stand out from the crowd in a sea of plugin-riddled survival servers. And besides, after all these years, it would be a shame to start now and cast aside Crafty's unique command-block legacy.

I very much like the analogy you used with the Sports cars and the Go-Kart, I think it almost perfectly sums up the server, and if it's any consolation, I find that the heart of the server really shines through, and I thinks that's why CraftyMynes has the deep, long lasting community that it has. I find at least that keeping it command block helps to retain that nostalgia I have for Minecraft throughout the years.
.
.
.
Now then, this is going to be a little difficult now, as I won't lie, I simply hadn't considered

@CraftyMyner The systems behind the scenes are so complex that even when I the creator go to change one thing I break 5 others.

That. As such I'm not really sure what to suggest, because as you say, not everything actually can be implemented properly without issue, and lacking your unique knowledge on the server's inner workings I simply do not know what is a simple request and what is not.

Instead, I suggest that you begin with something that can be changed a lot easier (at least as far as I am aware) the Forums.

People have been very good about sharing thoughts in these comments so far, so I hope that sentiment remains. If a voting mechanic/section could be introduced to the forums any ideas that you see which you think may have some merit behind them could be put to the face of public decision, which and much less likely to go down poorly, and it also lets you see which decisions are controversial ahead of time, saving a situation like last time.

@CraftyMyner I guess the few questions I have are:

Is the lag really that bad, do we even have enough players right now to cause lag?
Is there something we are missing that would make a much bigger difference than semi-vanilla in terms of player retention?
If we go semi-vanilla, it's hard to go back. Do we try to switch categories for a week or month and then make a decision if we see more players?

1) Honestly? Not really. At peak times I can see some strain, but you're right, we rarely have enough players for it to be an issue, however if we can get an player influx again it will become one.

2) Not as far as I am aware. Not to say that there isn't one, I am simply not able to spot it myself, hopefully other answers will prove more fruitful.

3) I think that's an excellent idea, it would be very useful to test if it actually makes a difference.
.
.
.
.
.
To finalise, much like yourself, when I first started playing I was a mid-teen, and now as an adult with a career and other responsibilities, it's harder and harder to truly unwind and find time for the things which bring me so much enjoyment. It's because of that I've been going on these tirades, because I truly believe that CraftyMynes is something special, and I think it's worth my time to attempt to stop it from fading into obscurity.
.
.
.
Forever your's Crafty <3

BingusIncorporated