I want to take a moment to thank each and every player we have had over the past 9 years. All your support both by donations, voting and playing have kept us going. I would also like to thank the staff who put in the time to make sure everyone has a good time.

To celebrate, we are having a 25% off sale on all items in the store until the end of halloween!

Check out the store: Click Here!

Thanks for your kind and constructive words.

From my point of view it looked like there was a mass exodus due to many core players getting griefed. I thought what I was doing would not be a big deal to anyone but would significantly help with player retention and maybe get a few back. I did not foresee all the effects it would have both for players and for the optics of the situation.

As for changing the forum, its deeply integrated with all the other systems like ranks, authentication/verification, player/staff panel. There's probably A few solid weeks involved in learning the new thing, re-learning the old thing and porting it all over.

I would like to do a poll regarding semi-vanilla but I don't know the best way to get an accurate sample size and avoid cheating.

I was thinking ingame with a forum post directing players to get on and vote.

Thoughts?

Pretty much since day one I have been toying with the idea of making the server semi-vanilla.

I have actually converted CraftyMynes into a semi-vanilla server multiple times in testing. I worked on converting over all our stuff into plugins. Everytime I thought I was getting close, there would be another minecraft release, my plugins, command blocks, and the panel would break. I would fix the server to get it running with the new version and then I would put off the move to semi-vanilla because we were getting the influx of new players from the new minecraft version.

I don't know what it's like now (maybe worth a test) but there were many times we were pushed into the semi-vanilla category when someone reported us. Everytime that happened it was like the new player tap got turned off.

CraftyMynes started off as a place to test out some command block ideas I had with friends because I wasn't allowed to be admin on another server. At the time I was 15, part time job, part time school, I played minecraft every day for hours into the night.

(Wah wah, sad me incoming, skip if you don't want to hear me complain)

I am now 26, the server itself is almost 10 years old (from going live on MCSL). I have 2 full time jobs, starting a business, 2 mortgages, car, etc. I have not really been able to do anything besides stay above water. I have not played minecraft or any other game in about 7 years, I just don't have the time. I don't have or watch TV, I only just bought new clothes for the first time years a few months ago. I have no IRL friends, and my long time girlfriend dumped me. I was not feeling great about real life so I tried to step back into minecraft and find my happy place.

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.

Personally I don't know whether or not semi-vanilla is going to help with player retention. On one hand it might make it better for the players who are here right now and help keep them around but on the other hand, past experience shows that there will be less new players to replace those who leave.

Over the years i have spent countless hours working within the limitations mojang provided. It started with redstone, command blocks, then functions. 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.

I don't know where to go from here, I don't have the time at the moment to take on anything that's going to go south on me. The systems behind the scenes are so complex that even when I the creator go to change one thing I break 5 others. It would be hard to pass on the reins in any meaningful way.

I guess the few questions I have are:

1. Is the lag really that bad, do we even have enough players right now to cause lag?
2. Is there something we are missing that would make a much bigger difference than semi-vanilla in terms of player retention?
3. 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?

Thoughts?

@snoopdogseb So my name used to be snoopdogseb and I was at checkpoint 5 when that was my name but when I changed my name to chooooooky it reset and now I'm at checkpoint 1 and I hope u can fix that : )

I have copied over your previous checkpoint score.

@Xwindowuser I voted but my voted aren't crediting my account, maybe the capitol X again?

Yes, that would be the reason, I have credited you the votes. I am working on getting my system for fixing wrong cases back up and running.

Originally 0,0 was protected with vanilla spawn protection to prevent players from messing with the command block room. When we reset, the spawn was set randomly causing the spawn protection to end up about 200 blocks away. We then had some players figure out a way to mess with the command block room so we had to move the spawn protection back. We/I will clean up the area within 30 blocks when we/I have time.

@TimmyBoyT Oh, so the home location preserves the region file it falls inside plus 1 more region file in each direction?
Is that a block of 9 region files around each home?
Wait that’s not right… can’t figure out where the 1023 came from.
Oh, maybe an additional region file gets added to the short sides. 4 regions for each home?

Hopefully this makes a bit of sense. The 1023 comes from if you are on the edge of a chunk you get 512 from that chunk which loads the next chunk over, so 2 chunks minus the one block over that you are.

[_______REGION_______][H_____________][_______REGION_______]
[_________511________][1__________511][_________511________]
[_________512_________]1[___________1022___________________]

@Schlocked what is the area around a .home that won't be reset exactly? would be helpful to help prevent parts of builds being deleted in case of extended cm vacations

Any region files that intersect within 512 blocks of homes/bed spawn will not be reset.

If your home is 1 block from the edge of a region file then that means it will be 513 blocks in that direction and and 1023 blocks in the other direction.

@birdfrock how does this help prevent griefing?

There are exploits that are able to follow paths made by players using the chunks they loaded when travelling to their base. Resetting old chunks break the paths and make them harder to follow.

If you load a region file it changes the last modified time to the current time. This can be used to see when the last time someone was in it. All files are added to a list to be reset which checked against the list of homes, bed spawns, and last logged out positions to make sure there is no conflict with a player who has left for an extended period of time.