This idea would be based on a few assumptions because I dont fully understand what tools Crafty is able to utilize:

- Setting the "buyout day limit" whether its 20, 30, 40 diamond blocks etc, im sure theres a statistical average of how many diamonds casual / regular / hardcore players on the server have That Crafty can see. Based on that, set the limit so that it would rule most inactive / casual players out as they probably wouldnt have this "set amount" to begin with, and even were they over that limit a little bit, it wouldnt have much of an effect on the economy going forward. Just to clarify this would just be a one time thing for the purposes of the economic reset, there wouldnt be an imposed "diamond limit" after the buyout you can amass however many you want, but theyd only be available through mining / exploration / trade with other players.

-It may require a conversion "period" where people are paid out over time instead of all at once.

-Every player has sethome data. Players hiding or lying about the actual amount of diamonds they really have wouldnt be possible. Inventories can be cleared and any chests near their sethome can be found and sorted through by admins. How do you think admins already go about getting rid of illegally obtained diamonds of xrayers? It would be the exact same process. Players only options would be to hide their diamonds in a chest far and away somewhere, but even then, I know that crafty has the means to literally trace the steps of every single player on the server. Even in the incredibly unlikely event someone managed to succeed in hiding their wealth somehow, the richest players on the server would be willing to comply and these "stubborn few" wouldnt have that much wealth to disturb the new economy anyway. In the event that they did however, during this "conversion period" the amount of diamonds people have could be closely monitered somehow im sure. It would be a little like imposing martial law for a little while... but a radical and intrusive conversion is really the only feasible option.

- I dont know how easy exactly it would be to payout each player, but im sure once you rule out everyone under the then set "diamond block limit", and the actual number of active players, it wouldnt be a horribly high number of players.

Also this would in no way whatsoever effect the value of emeralds , this seems to be something that people arent understanding. Emeralds are stupid easy to get in vanilla minecraft. See below.

these are the villager trades available to all players in a vanilla setting. As you can see 8 pumpkins for 1 emerald exists, this isnt unique to the trader at spawn. its also possible to get AN EVEN BETTER RATE for crops than whats available at the trading post. I have a villager in my base that gives me an emerald for 15 carrots. Emeralds are "next to worthless" by design. Thats literally the nature of emeralds in Vanilla.

The players who have excessive amounts of diamonds right now traded ridiculous amounts of emeralds acquired by farming the old fashioned vanilla way. If we reset the map right now, someone could go find a village on the new map, startup a pumpkin farm and have a double chest of emerald blocks in a week.

Its actually Harder here on Craftymynes. In a normal vanilla setting, villagers are stupid easy to breed with mob griefing on. Access to emeralds through farming trades are even more readily available.

The people who would get the most emeralds from the payout, would literally already have that many emeralds in a strictly vanilla setting to begin with. They would actually most likely have more.

I see the same issue here with your suggestion KinkyBobo. People can lie easily, or forget about a hidden chest of diamonds, or MIA players would return without the conversions done. This idea is an ideal for a perfect world and we are not a perfect world. People are greedy, unaware, and forgetful and someone would slip through this method, messing up the economy again. And if somehow the admins are in fact able to track down every last player that has ever earned that much, how difficult would that be? How much time would that take? The admins have busy lives and probably can't dedicate as much time as this method would take up. And it would indeed require an enforced martial law. But why would anyone, including the admins, want to instill that kind of forced behavior on a game. A GAME. It doesn't seem right. If complete admin control over every single player, who just want to play a game, was enforced in the way you imply, a lot of people are going to leave.

I also agree with removing specifically the emerald to diamond trade, or even the entire jeweler villager, but only that one. I see no harm in the other villagers giving out somewhat rip-off trades and weapons, or the farmer, as I have 2 farmers at my base, both with better trades than at spawn, and the wool one is extremely helpful for art and building after it was nerfed. And to bring up the point, anyone can do the wrong thing and abuse the villagers, no matter the trade. That's always going to be a risk with having villagers readily available to everyone. The best that can be done about that is make the trades as fair as absolutely possible, taking into account the people that abuse them and how to prevent that. Getting rid of the villagers would take away just another thing that makes CraftyMynes unique and successful and would ultimately hurt the server with a decrease in popularity.

@Kinkybobo Emeralds are "next to worthless" by design

I certainly agree with this point, and I think this supports the idea that an artificial emeralds to diamonds trade is broken (we've completely beat this idea into the ground at this point). One of the minecraft limitations that honestly fucked the vanilla economy is that it's possible for players to easily exchange as few as 10 5 (judging by your image) "worthless" emeralds for broken enchantments such as mending and fortune 3. This is why I support leaving mobgriefing off in the future to make it as hard as possible (although still relatively easy) to exploit these OP vanilla trades

My suggestion may or may not be a logistical nightmare. It all depends on the tools and data that Crafty has access to. From what I understand it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch... Im just presenting what I see as the most logical option from the limited amount of understanding I have of the server.

You really have to compare this to the only other proposed alternative: A complete map reset. Which is a guaranteed PR Nightmare. Pick your poison here. While many are okay with starting over, there are many who have invested a lot of work into builds that would be annoyed and justifiably frustrated. It would also set an unnerving trend... whats to stop another economical misstep from upending the economy in the future. We have no idea what new enchant or block or mob drop could cause a shift. another major update could be right around the corner.

They'd also have to rebuild spawn on the new map, and the command blocks etc... they might be able to copy paste to a degree, but theyd be loading it into a 1.11 map so the seed could present completely new geography theyd have to work around. A map reset presents its own set of hurdles staff has to overcome as well.

@Kinkybobo How do you think admins already go about getting rid of illegally obtained diamonds of xrayers? It would be the exact same process.

This is only effective since admins can break their chests, and then since they player is banned neither they nor anyone else could ever access their ender chests again. We'd need to wipe the ender chest contents of all players, and even then I believe they could easily stash large amounts of wealth in secret chests even 1000s from blocks for their base if/when a reset is announced

my entire post has revolves around two separate arguments:
(1) an economic reset is necessary for the server to remain relevant in coming months/years
(2) the only way to adequately reset the economy is a full server reset

I personally believe that #2 is rock solid. It's what pretty much only @Kinkybobo has challenged, and unless I see a more convincing argument I don't see my opinion changing any time soon. I'd like to see more people talk about whether my assessment of the economy is correct or not, I seem to have the support of a few veteran players but I'd certainly like to hear more

+1 for server reset.
Always down to start over.

Just reiterating, I'm fine with a reset, even excited at the prospect of starting over. But a reset actuates every other issue that Crafty has a problem with, such as players losing items from craftycrates that they paid real money for like spawn eggs. In the associated threads for those issues, the trend has been against removing those things and a map reset not only does that but more... I feel like Crafty is looking for alternate solutions, im just throwing ideas out there

@Kinkybobo Just reiterating, I'm fine with a reset, even excited at the prospect of starting over. But a reset actuates every other issue that Crafty has a problem with, such as players losing items from craftycrates that they paid real money for like spawn eggs. In the associated threads for those issues, the trend has been against removing those things and a map reset not only does that but more... I feel like Crafty is looking for alternate solutions, im just throwing ideas out there

Maybe, in mind of a reset, everyone who has gotten craftycrates and subsequently lost their spawn eggs/valuables from the reset could be compensated with the suggested admin heads after the reset happens. Meaning that following the reset, all past/present vip+ are given one admin head up front when they are available online. Then admin heads would remain available through craftycrates only. That way, vip+ and server bill players that lose items they paid real money for can be compensated for giving up their craftycrate contents. They would then also get that months contents, including admin head if that suggestion is implimented, in addition to their compensated head. They're entirely cosmetic, so there'd be no real advantage while everyone is starting from scratch still.

55k players? Jesus, that's a lot of players.

I think a reset is a bad idea. While i wouldn't mind and i know a good lot of you guys dont either, we are only a small percentage of the players on the server. A lot of people would leave if we did reset, especially those who dont frequent the forums often. A reset should only be considered as a last ditch option, in my fin fueled opinion.
We cant remove already given out eggs, as it would make the players who paid for them feel annoyed and dissatisfied. The same is with diamonds and any other way of removing wealth from players by us.
The issue is the economy right? There is no point in considering such a drastic event such as a reset unless everything else has been considered. Some of you want one, and i get that, but a lot of players wouldn't. So other options
If the issue is the wealth of players and spawn eggs, there is another way. Create diamond sinks. Removing the diamond/emerald trade and create special villagers that sell items that are special. Examples could include some of the admin or staff heads, normal items with special lore and other assorted stuff. Nothing overpowered but something players with lots of diamonds would be willing to pay them all for.

There is only one good way to really find out wether a reset is wanted or not, we need to make a poll. And since we shouldn't forgot the default players who don't visit the forums we should make a shedule message ingame like the one for votes, leading everybody who clicks it to this forum thread and/or the poll. This way we can get a relatively good feedback from the entire community, not only the core players who discuss here. We should just make sure that those who vote have the possibility to see the pro and contra arguments that were discussed in here.

Yeah. something like a reminder to vote but a reminder to answer the poll. IMO, a week, especially in the weekends could capture a good sample.
For me. Im pro-reset. But if there will be a reset pls make the server more vanilla survival.

a reset negates everything that has been done so far some people have invested a large amount of time to make the server what it is and a reset would make that all a waste

A poll would actually possibly get us somewhere,
in the decision part anyway cause right now this is debate central but this thread has given out some great points to take into consideration, however we really can't magically tell the future of what would happen IF we did reset and how most would react to it.

Even if we reset, the flow of players would continue as it always has, new members would replace those who left.

@_Confederacy_ Even if we reset, the flow of players would continue as it always has, new members would replace those who left.

Not necessarily true. At some level we have to consider the difference between short term and long term players. Of course we want as many people to be drawn to the server as possible, but I'd argue that encouraging longer term players hold a bit more weight as they contribute more to the infrastructure of CraftyMynes through community building, promotion (through voting), and donations to keep the server running.
I'd like to propose that some of my ideas would both provide sustained interest for some veteran players in the long run as well as encourage a higher percentage of players who join the server and stick around for a longer period of time (at least a month or more). However, that's not something even a poll could show you

@cepheid Not necessarily true. At some level we have to consider the difference between short term and long term players. Of course we want as many people to be drawn to the server as possible, but I'd argue that encouraging longer term players hold a bit more weight as they contribute more to the infrastructure of CraftyMynes through community and promotion (through voting).
I'd like to propose that some of my ideas would both provide sustained interest for some veteran players in the long run as well as encourage a higher percentage of players who join the server and stick around for a longer period of time (at least a month or more). However, that's not something even a poll could show you

All you could do is reset and see the consequences.

I'm a 10000000000% against the reset for one reason:

We already had two resets. One when the server was hacked to jack shit and another when we went to 1.9 and basically made a new server which is considered as a restart. All that happened within a year if not less. Third map reset over a fucked up economy will make people leave the server.

I don't want to start all over again because of that issue. That jeweler fucked the economy up so yeah. There you have it.

I do see what you're saying but I don't see the current state of the server transitioning into the super long term (say 2 years from now for example) without unnecessarily drastically losing player interest. Of course this is a judgement call for crafty and the admins, but if there would have to be a reset in that period of time, I'm advocating for it to be done as soon as possible