Minnor issues and suggestions for a better pickaxis

[adensem 15]

Before I go into this I want to say I love this server, even in beta this is more amazing than the past 20 servers I've played on! They all claimed to have this or that and either didn't or had a neutered version of it. This server is similar to one I played on years ago, gone now, and my best memories of the game were there, and now here. What I am going to say won't just be complaints but ways I think to improve those areas as well. I ask that you don't take anything I say as a complaint but a point to bring to the attention of those who may, or may not, want to do something about them.

 

1. Poor Economy- Now anyone whose taken basic courses on the mathmatics behind economic growth will tell you that economies, wether real or fictional, is a balancing act. If the cost of services is to high people will look elsewhere for set service(jump to another server), to low and you flood the market(server becomes boring because its too easy to get everything!). This can also be said for Minecraft and the flooded market of servers(so many servers to compete with!). In Pickaxis case the economy is set to inhibit the trade of tradesmen. For example

 

Player A- loves to farm, but hates to mine(I know ironic since it is MINEcraft but stay with me here.)

Player B- loves to mine but is running low on food and hates going through the farming deal.

 

Now one could argue that they could trade directly, but than you run the risk of one of the two players ripping off the other and causing a rift in the player bases, poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer situation. This is remedied via admin shop which would set a standard for prices both buying and selling. A thrifty player will not use the admin shop but look for players selling under the buy price of the admin shop and vice versa for the buying process.

 

I also noticed that the admin shop didn't have a "buy" option just "sell" again this inhibits those who may want to pay the extra for

convenience. The admin shop was also very limited in what they bought from the player, including the black market, If I want to sell off excess cobble stone or sand or anything other than crops and mob drops I really can't. If I want to buy obsidian to make a castle made out of it, again I really can't. Of course the arguement of "Just go out and mine it for yourself." Has come up time and time again, however lets look at the bigger picture. Saying that means that I am just playing vanilla Minecraft, which isn't bad if that's what you like, however that is not what I think is awesome about pickaxis. Plus vannila MC anyone can make, but it takes real dedication and skill to make a thriving admin shop, player base, and server in general! Also are you really going to limit the player in a game that boasts that you can do anything?

 

Now lets flip that argument to "This is survival not creation!" Which is a counter point I'm sure would come up. I'm not talking about giving everything away for free(creation mode) I'm only suggesting that the admin shop focus on facilitating an environment where the farmer can more easily build his home by buying, at a fair price, from the miner or if no miner is online have the admin shop provide the service en lieu

 

In the end money doesn't have any value since the admin shop doesn't have anything to buy really, I know some things can be bought via admin/BM but for the most part nothing of great value to a player. Towns cost is so high that I don't see many wanting to grind for so long to make a town that, honestly, nobody will live in due to low server population. Which segways into my next point...

 

That is my suggestion for the admin shop

 

P.S. please make the black market easier to get too. I found it but it's a pain to run in before the door closes

 

2. Low population- I was on for a week checking in off and on and saw, at most, eight people online! I assume this is a new server, considering I'm new to it I don't know how old the server is, seeing how low the population seems to be in every part of the server and not just the survival part. I honestly feel only time will fix the low population time and effort to advertise the server on the various server sites as well as votes etc... I will be live streaming on it to try and counteract the low population issue myself, but I'm not very popular on twitch yet. Possibly offering boss mobs(just larger stronger versions of normal mobs would do) or stuff such as treasure hunt(type /hunt and a message that says how far you are from a treasure, once at 0 spaces you dig directly down to get to the treasure.) and advertising these things. Also updating to the most current version of the game, if you haven't already, might help or hurt. Honestly I've seen players swear by earlier versions and vice versa on that aspect. I could see the admin shop causing people to see it and leave, those that prefer a more vanila experience wouldn't mind it or might find it as an afront to their elitist eyes, I don't know.

 

3. Bribing for votes- This is a minor point, and every server does it, but I asked "what's the best way to make money on the survival server?" The response I got was somewhat distasteful. "The best way to make money is to vote for the server." So vote or grind the day away... This ties into point two about low population. I know this wasn't meant to, but it wouldn't be hard for a player to see this as a form of bribery or black mail. Vote for us or else you don't get to enjoy the game! Vote for us and we'll pay you! A player, once they realize it's the only way to make decent money will see this think this and then leave, possibly. Or they may embrace it and vote like mad. I know I enjoy the server enough to vote for it. I only see a few changes that, in my eye, need to be made for this to be near perfect. Every server rewards the voters, but the point is almost every server has an alternative to making money aside from voting. That is the aspect that may put off players.

 

I know that all three points  Really seem to drive the first one in, but I honestly feel that the admin shop is the biggest point that needs to be addressed. Again I'm not saying make everything free, or even very easy to get, but balance it out and I think the pieces will fall into place for the rest. I know my very first stop in any server is the admin shop, if it is bad or doesn't exist I leave, if it's good I give the rest of the server a chance. I, and again I can't stress this enough this is my opinion, I feel that the admin shop is mediocre right now with the possibility of being amazing. I'd love to see how this server grows and changes over time. I enjoy talking with everyone and hope that my input was somewhat insightful. See everyone in game

[Miku Forum Mod 132]

Yep, didn't read lol, I'm sure they are good suggestions. Husker read this plis.

[adensem 15]

Really sorry how long winded it is. Sumerized version without the reasoning behind it.

 

1. Admin shop needs to buy/sell and give decent pricing between key items.

 

2. Low population needs to be addressed

 

3. gaining money on the server needs to be done with something other than voting. Might scare gamers off otherwise.

[Sullear Mod 44]

Well...I do know that Husker and I had a conversation about adding a plugin that would let you earn money with in game time played.  I have see this plug in in action on the server I was admin on before here and it works well and is very customizable.  And we discussed a few other ideas that will improve economy.  Just takes time to implement.

 

Low population.   There are a variety of reasons for that.  One thing to consider is people work, have school, or a number of responsibilities.  While that does not help improve players online, you have to at least respect people who can put real life before virtual.  Word of mouth and maybe more aggressive advertising would help.  A lot ties in to getting people on the server....and just as much to keeping them on.   With numerous play styles available here there are a lot on....just spread out.  If I understood correctly there is a new play style in the works too so that can help to.

 

I will agree though that the Admin shop needs work.  But without a steady player base any economy is going to struggle.   Just sticking with it and helping it grow will help.

 

Just my thoughts.

[Bill Admin 93]

There are other ways to earn money. Typically admin shops are not set to be at market value since they pose a risk of making everyone super rich too fast. You can make money by also do challenges, you can see these with /c. To complete one you just do /c c challenge. As for player count I know nick and husker have plans to get more and we do have a decent amount of players just a good chunk usually play on skyblock and hardcore. I am not sure if you have read it yet but husker posted a big summary of whats most likely going to happen in the coming future. That would probably be a good place address some of these concerns

[HOOOSK Owner 608]

adensem,

 

Thank you for your suggestions!  We need more suggestions like your's (and Sullear's) to optimize our servers.  Let me address your recommendations:

 

1) Admin shop & town prices:  We set up this admin shop when we first started the server.  The original intention was to keep every single player from making a town so we didn't end up with abandoned cities everywhere.  The current price for a town is $7500.  After having this economy for a bit, we're starting to see that it is quite difficult for the majority of Minecraft players to achieve such a lofty $ balance.  I will talk with Nick this weekend to determine if we should lower the cost of a town.  Sullear suggested $5000.  What are your thoughts?

For the admin shop and black market: I would love to set up [buy] signs and some more [sell] signs.  Do you have suggestions for what items should be added?  I would be more than happy to diversify and expand the shop.

 

2) Low population:  We are fully trying to get more players on.  Because I have to be in an office for 10 hours a day, I can't help getting more people on at all times.  We are actively advertising (mostly free, a little paid) for the servers, but it's starting to become harder and harder to get players.  Sites that cost ~$5000/month to advertise and once brought in thousands of players to a server, now only bring in a small handful even though the price is still the same.  We have a plan to invest in some more expensive advertising this summer.  We hope that brings in more players.  I want and need to start challenging the staff to help find more creative ways to get more players.  If you have suggestions on how to grow the player base, please share them.  I'm always looking for something to help here.  I think we have a great network, we just need to get the players to support it.

 

3) Money & Voting:  Voting isn't the only way to get money on the server.  In fact, voting is probably the poorest way to get money.  As Sullear said above, we are looking into a plugin that pays you for the time you play on the server.  We'll look more into this over the weekend when we're at home (and not at work).  Bill also pointed out that in Survival, doing challenges (/c) will immensely boost your balance.  

 

Let me know your thoughts on these replies.  We're always looking for ways to improve the servers.  Your suggestions are very appreciated.

 

Also, welcome to the community!  Glad to have you!

[NickG365 Owner 248]

From the start, we intended for Survival to be a more challenging server, especially in terms of economy, encouraging players to set up their own shops and trade amongst each other. Everyone on Survival has the ability to start their own chest shops from the moment they join. I do agree that there's room for expansion for the shops at spawn, as those haven't been updated in a while now. The reason you can only sell to them was primarily meant to get new players into the economy, adding currency to it when the server first started.

 

As for voting, I'm not sure why anyone would mention that as a way to get money, as there aren't any voting rewards that give any items or currency on Survival. Personally, I feel that completing challenges would probably be one of the best ways to get money.

 

With all that said, we've been considering making changes to the Survival economy for quite some time now, but we don't want to diminish the challenge involved in creating a town (meant to be a group effort, hence the high cost compared to how much money individual players can quickly obtain). I'd also want to avoid any changes that might lead to a few players rising to the top of the economy, because I feel that such a situation may be just as bad, if not worse, than the current one.

 

Do you have any ideas for improving player shops? I feel that giving them more exposure could help quite a bit, as right now, there isn't much of an option to find them aside from exploring.

[adensem 15]

To: HuskerGirl

 

1. admin shop prices- Personally I like the idea of towns costing 7.5k. My primary concern was the players themselves, I work in a warehouse, they process a lot of minecraft stuff, shirts toys card board boxes painted to look like a creeper head. Wish I was making that one up... One of the shirts had the same character, your default character, but said miner, fisher, farmer etc... What I'm getting at is divide the players roles up and make an item from each school of playstyle the same cost at the admin shop for the player to make money. That way if I want to be a farmer and melons cost... 50 per stack, just an example, make something of equal value and effort for a miner or fisherman the same price. Thus opening up the options for the players to play whatever role they want and still feel like they are advancing within the servers economy. I'm not saying make everything the same price though! That would be very bad for obvious reasons. Simply put, pick a cash crop for each play style. Honestly I would make mining a bit more since it's not a renewable resource like farming or fishing. I wouldn't just settle for one item being a "cash crop" because than you get massive towers of farming and auto farms and they're ugly and annoying to move through if you're exploring.

 

2. Town cost- screw lowering it put upkeep on it! You want your town to stay a town, better keep paying it's upkeep. This gives the player an eternal goal to shoot for. If the upkeep isn't met admin might come and "reposes" it(remove it from the landscape making way for new towns or even rolling back the area to pre town) Of course this can't be to high otherwise many wouldn't find it worth the effort and time, which is the current issue between town cost and admin shop prices.

 

3. additions to admin shop- Also make everything, and I mean everything for sell by admins. Every kind of block, spawners, various brewing ingredients you name it. If it's in the game sell it! One thing that I saw a server do, only one to do it thus far too, was sell enchantments. If you went to this shop sign with an enchantable item in hand and clicked on the sign it would put the enchantment on the item. Not saying it would make or break the server but something to consider Also those enchantments were crazy expensive but you knew what you were getting thus the benefit. Others preferred to buy bottles of exp and chance it since that was a cheaper route.

 

Those, like myself, who want to build a town, but can't really farm for obsidian or cobble or <insert block name here> buying them from the admin shop would really cut out the grind of strip minning. Especially if you want/plan to use obsidian for anything. Also none of this has to be cheap! In fact the more veriety you add to the shop the more likely people will start coming up with differen goals. Some might want that really expensive enchantment to help them survive, others might want to buy spawners and start their own PvE arena(one of my personal wants) Some may want to build that town and start bringing the community together(again a want of mine and something I'm working on.)

 

 

4. Make a big deal about it- youtube vids, twitch streams anything visual will catch peoples attention. Maybe do a video series or just one video really, about what your server offers, and not just the various game modes but specifics. Such as "we offer MCMMO, admin shops that sell everything, make it sound like a used car salesmen as a joke might go well too. Tell them how interactive the admins are and friendly the enviroment is. I can't tell you how much I raged because a server "said" they had this or that and when I got on they didn't have and never planned to get it. Be it MCMMO or survival server. Not that I think any of you would, but make sure you're honest with your ads.

 

5. Explain yourself!- One of the biggest issues is explaining the various attributes of the server. When I go into a new server I have to ask a mod and up what is and isn't in the server. I hate doing this with a passion because this could have been avoided with a small bit of text saying what a server has. For example Hardcore survival is vannila MC so when I highlight it in the compass list why not put that in the text box that it's vannila or in normal survival that it has MCMMO, admin shops, etc... just a quick list can go a long way to showing you want to keep you're new players in the know and your admins working on more important things than "Yes we have that adensem... No we don't have that..." Which I could see getting tiresome answering the same questions over and over for new players.

 

To: Sullear

 

6. I think someone was just yanking my chain with the voting= money thing. I kind of see a fatal flaw with the whole time spent online thing. People will go afk and just do other things. You'll have a population that does nothing. "But Adensem they get kicked if they're afk!" True if they don't move while afk, however I've put a book or something else with weight to it on a button to have my character not get booted from a game before and I'm sure that'd happen, especially if that is the primary way to make money.

 

7. Challenges- Maybe I'm doing something wrong but the challenges don't seem to work for me. I did one and now I can't seem to do anymore. I think I'm just doing something wrong though XD they're fun and a nice distraction, but I don't feel that it's enough. I mean so far in survival you have two goals, finish challenges and make a town. And one seems very dependent on the other making it so there really is only one goal and one way to reach that goal.

 

To: NickG365

 

8. Player shops- I saw a plugin that allowed people to open player shops just by typing /shop <player name> and it opened a inventory of a small chest that was filled with items that player was selling. Also a player could do /find <item name> to locate the cheapest of that item being sold and by whom. This might've been a plugin that was programmed for that specific server, If that is not an option then I say make player shops easier to find... Make a player shop area similar to the admin shop area or, and in my opinion a better option, make a room with TP signs for towns. A town can pay extra money to have a TP sign in spawn! Giving the town more exposure and showing off their town and in turn their town's player shops!

 

I apologize for the long winded reply but I wanted to reply to everyone at once. I hope I answered everyone's inquiries adequately and I hope my insight was helpful to all of you.

Edited May 13, 2015 by adensem

[Bill Admin 93]

To your number 2:

I would like to see a town upkeep because it's a way to keep the town owners active, as if they are not the town will be disbanded automatically by towny. Now the town being rolled back is something I am 10000000000000000000000000000000% against. What about all the members that joined that town and made houses? The town owner left, it gets disbanded and you lose all your stuff? That's like a instant way to discourage me from ever joining someones town, or even want to make a town. At least if something happens and the town owner is gone for a while and say towny abandons the town the owner can come back re-pay to restart it, but has not lost their countless hours of work, as well the town members. Don't punish the rest of the users for 1 persons may it be life issues that keep them away, or if they just quit.

 

To you number 8:

I agree should be an easier way to find shops, maybe a area were people can set-up shops, but you can already spawn to other towny towns using /town spawn {town name}. There is a small $5 or $10 fee if I am correct, so no need to set-up a bunch of sign warps.

 

To your number 6:

I would say I am kinda against the whole earn money while you play because it will most defiantly encourage massive afking to just earn money. It's really easy to google afk machines for Minecraft in google and find ways to just sit afk and earn money. If it were implemented it would have to be a very small amount of money which is horrible in the short run but adds up decently after playing for a few months of activity, that way afking with an afk machine for a long period of time wont negatively impact the economy.

 

To your number 3:
There is actually a Black Market in the spawn, if you find it, it has some better prices on items then some items in the normal market place. If you look in the survival forum area, you'll see there is a hint on how to find it. This is something that is not told to everybody, nor it's exact location in the spawn told as it's meant to be like a Black Market and have better prices as well some items you can't buy in the normal market. Hence "Black Market"

 

To your number 7:

The challenges are pretty simple to use. You can view what you need for each challenge by using

/c {challenge name}

, and see a list of challenges by just using

/c

, and complete on by using

/c c {challenge name}

. Mind all the survival challenges can only be completed once. I would like to see a more basic challenge system though like when you mine 1,000 you complete a challenge, and get a nice little cash reward, or go collect 100 Birch logs, and once you have cut down 100 Birch logs you just automatically complete the challenge and get a nice little reward. Maybe this would be a nice think like a random daily challenge system. Where every real day 24hrs, you get a new challenge of this nature and you can get $10-50 depending on the challenge. That way it encourages people to come on survival each day, but as well allows them to make a little money.

 

To your number 4:

It's a lot of work to run a minecraft server while working 5 days a week for 10 hours a day, and then trying to do all that your self, which is why we like to see people stream the server, and are encourage those that play here and stream to stream, and post videos. Right now there is a lot of things Husker, and Nick are trying to finish before spending any real money on say advertising, or putting tons of effort into making official videos as there is no point to spend those countless hours doing that than finishing what needed to be done and have to re-do all those videos when said things are done. We are still in beta, and plan to be out soon as Huskers post about whats happening with server stated. I would assume once some of the massive headway to finish this other stuff is done that they will push to publicize the server more. As well spending the time now to better perfect things before summer hits is better in my honest opinion, as that's when kids will be out of school and will actually see videos, and so forth. So better to spend the time we have now to fix, perfect, and release new things, and then during busy season push the advertising.

 

 

 

edit--

 

Here is a link for the black market post in survival (surprised it was not stickyed)

https://pickaxis.com/topic/270-black-market/

Huskers post on what to expect in the near and some what distant future

https://pickaxis.com/topic/590-another-random-husker-post/

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bill

[adensem 15]

I just said the roll back as an example I didn't mean I am for it, just some sort of "this town isn't active anymore, kind of thing." I agree roll back would be messed up just because your mayor had to leave or something for a few months or whatever. I like the thought of reactivating it though. Oh actually that's a good idea now that I read it. Have a message pop up "town of ____" status: ABANDONED

 

still fairly new to the server so I didn't even know about the town warp command. XD

 

what you said about number 6 is exactly what I was saying. So agreed XD

 

Already found the black market and been in it, though even if you find it it's so hard to get in the door without a 2nd person's help... Which kind of defeats the purpose of keeping it secret. I actually had to have help getting in the first time I found it.

 

I totally agree about waiting to advertise I was just tossing out ideas for the future was all. I didn't mean this needs to be done right now! Or anything like that. . I posted this to try and help in any way I can and bring things to the attention, if they weren't already brought up, of Husker and admins. Even in beta this server is oceans better than the majority of quick cash in servers I've been seeing. I will be making my own project to try and plug the server on my twitch channel and even make videos and what not of the town I plan to build just to try and help out you guys

 

Honestly an extreme ordeal would be mining the  160000 blocks of dirt, minus a few hundread that will be cobble stone, to fill in the town's land mass.

Edited May 13, 2015 by adensem

[Bill Admin 93]

I just said the roll back as an example I didn't mean I am for it, just some sort of "this town isn't active anymore, kind of thing." I agree roll back would be messed up just because your mayor had to leave or something for a few months or whatever. I like the thought of reactivating it though. Oh actually that's a good idea now that I read it. Have a message pop up "town of ____" status: ABANDONED

 

still fairly new to the server so I didn't even know about the town warp command. XD

 

what you said about number 6 is exactly what I was saying. So agreed XD

 

Already found the black market and been in it, though even if you find it it's so hard to get in the door without a 2nd person's help... Which kind of defeats the purpose of keeping it secret. I actually had to have help getting in the first time I found it.

 

I totally agree about waiting to advertise I was just tossing out ideas for the future was all. I didn't mean this needs to be done right now! Or anything like that. . I posted this to try and help in any way I can and bring things to the attention, if they weren't already brought up, of Husker and admins. Even in beta this server is oceans better than the majority of quick cash in servers I've been seeing. I will be making my own project to try and plug the server on my twitch channel and even make videos and what not of the town I plan to build just to try and help out you guys

 

Honestly an extreme ordeal would be mining the  160000 blocks of dirt, minus a few hundread that will be cobble stone, to fill in the town's land mass.

 

Yes, the number 6 was meant to be in agreement with what you had to say about it. As for the towns, we are using Towny, like MCMMO it's widely used, so here is a link to help see what commands are there http://palmergames.com/towny/towny-commands/ *NOTE* (Not all of towny is used, example its "War" feature)

 

Honestly though would it not be a challenge if you did not have to mine all the stone and dirt ? One more thing as a goal then just buying all the resources, kinda defeats my vision of a survival server.

 

Again back to towny, it actually does not say it's abandoned but will rather just destroy the towns region. So the town is deleted, but not the physical town itself (if that makes sense?) I know right now town upkeep is turned off, but it's something I would like to see turned on, as well as MCMMO's Powers like the Giga Drill, and other right click abilities. Typically when I join a server that has MCMMO I look forward to having those, not just the "leveling" part of it.

 

EDIT --

 

I would also like to add that a Wiki would be nice for the site, and maybe have a set team that can manage it. That way we can have it organized by server, have each feature listed, then under each feature explain what it does, it can do, and how to use it, or how it works.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bill

[adensem 15]

What I'm getting at with the admin shop, and honestly the game in general is that levels of diffaculty have to be recognized. If things are made too easy people will get bored and leave, to hard and the same thing will happen. The entire thing is a balancing act. Personally I say those who want an extremely diffacult survival should use the hardcore survival while the others use the normal survival for a, though still challenging, less vannila and more customized experience. That way everyone has a part of the server to call their own.

 

I actually didn't know what commands were and were not offered so that towny link really helps out! ^.^

 

I'm curious about the abilities myself I thought I just wasn't high enough of a level to use them I really hope those come on they make the game so much less of a grind. I know some people enjoy grinding for things, but to me it's the worst part of a game. I like the feeling of progression and if I have to grind for days to make any since of progression it's doesn't feel worth it. Again a balancing act to be sure.