Is this section still necessary?

[Eviltechie]

Or playing on it.

[dyl1138]

I feel the community wants a server, without the responsibility of paying for one.

Or playing on it.

Actually, yes to both. People want to occasionally come on and see a thriving community WITHOUT paying for the server OR actually maintaining a semi-constant presence. This attitude would allow a large server with a large community to survive, not J2. However, it was a good idea at the time, and for the first couple years, it kinda worked out due to a lower number of active Minecraft servers, dumb luck in advertising, and mature (if somewhat ineffective) moderation. The last year or so of the Minecraft servers saw an decrease in permanence of the maps/ plugins/ Minecraft itself. I'm surprised they were kept alive for so long. You all sunk quite a nice chunk of money into it, never mind countless hours moderating, coding, and planning.

Sucks to suck.

[Eviltechie]

[Tony Wong]

The last year or so of the Minecraft servers saw an decrease in permanence of the maps...

I think this was part of the crux of the matter, in terms of player base.
Not saying that this was what killed minecraft, but just like waves that keep washing away a beach shore, the constant map resets eroded the regular player base, leaving them to move on to more permanent servers or even single player mode, just to keep their creations intact or have others enjoy it long enough to get back some satisfaction from their build.

I didn't care so much, as I built my stuff with the knowledge that it wasn't permanent (I took screenshots), but other players didn't see it that way. The hours, days or weeks they spent on their Super Star Destroyer/mile long rollercoaster/Role-Playing sparkle castle felt like a colossal waste of effort, and even a betrayal of their time investment on J2 MC, when it was all blown away by a server reset.

FUN/ENJOYMENT of builds - time spent on build + server reset= -FUN/ENJOYMENT. The deficit could only last for so long...

And it wasn't just the creative server. The survival/pvp/adventure server also lost a sense of longevity. MCMMO and iConomy were great ideas, but it all disappeared upon reset. What if WoW reset on a monthly basis? Hard to keep motivated to continue to play if that was the case. The downward spiral of server reboots to keep things "fresh" and loss of initiative whittled the player base down to nil. Like what happened to Sega and their console owners in the 1995-2000s.

I'm not saying it was a good or bad thing, or that it wasn't the players bases' fault in the first place, or that the admins could have changed the eventual change in attitude/player tastes/game stagnation. I'm just saying that's what seemed to have happened.

But why keep picking at an old wound? RIP J2 MC servers. It was fun while it lasted.

[vxi]

I don't know about anyone else, but my play patterns aren't consistent throughout the many games I have.
I'll go for a month or two playing one game, and then another, and then another.
Sometimes, Minecraft is the game I like to play. When there's a great server like J2 I'm pretty much guaranteed to play it for a good amount and period of time.
When a server comes out, lots of people are on it, not just because they plan on staying (which they clearly don't after a certain period), but because they miss it and want to get that feeling again. Clearly the feeling isn't as strong as if we were to go back in time to some of the older maps, but it's still there, and it's noticeable.
It gets boring after a while for a plethora of reasons. You build what you wanted to (I finished my flat island in PvE and my gambling machine, and my tower), you get all of the resources you need to last forever (makes it feel like creative mode), you keep playing with the same people (which eventually turns to single player if you don't live together). I could probably think of more.

I know it's a little beyond the point of suggesting things to keep Minecraft on J2 alive, but here's my one last idea;
I'm not sure how the paying for the server works. Not sure if you use a service monthly or if you just do it yourself, but let's say you get to choose when it's up and for how long.
I propose that the Minecraft player base votes on a time of the week, (2 days a week maybe?) for which the server will be online for everyone, after those two days it goes offline until the next window.
If this is possible, it would not only force everyone to get on during the same window of time, but it would cut the costs a fair bit.
Obviously it could be less or more than 2 days, but that's just my idea.

Anyway, like I said I know it's pretty much too late for that kind of idea, but it seems like that's where this is going so that's where I went.
In any case, if anyone was playing on J2 exclusively for the server quality, many servers can give you the same general feel. If you were playing for the old community like I mostly was, then you'll miss it just as I will, but I'm not going to try to keep anything alive any longer than it can live for itself.

[Grndslmhttr3]

No, I just created my own Minecraft server where I don't have to baby sit 7 year-olds all day.

is such a Minecraft server even possible?

[dyl1138]

I know it's a little beyond the point of suggesting things to keep Minecraft on J2 alive, but here's my one last idea;
I'm not sure how the paying for the server works. Not sure if you use a service monthly or if you just do it yourself, but let's say you get to choose when it's up and for how long.
I propose that the Minecraft player base votes on a time of the week, (2 days a week maybe?) for which the server will be online for everyone, after those two days it goes offline until the next window.
If this is possible, it would not only force everyone to get on during the same window of time, but it would cut the costs a fair bit.
Obviously it could be less or more than 2 days, but that's just my idea.

Anyway, like I said I know it's pretty much too late for that kind of idea, but it seems like that's where this is going so that's where I went.

I would argue that partitioning some server resources for Minecraft on an event basis may work better, especially during lulls of TF2 server activity that are not associated with school or other events. This would be similar to the PVP arena 1v1 competitions that were organized with forum rewards. I think it was for a fundraising event (I can check the footage that I collected to verify).

Opening a Minecraft server for events, like Natural Selection nights and CS:GO nights, would be successful due to the resident Minecraft veterans, as NS2 nights are successful due to their small but devoted following. I think part of the problem with the idea that we could have killed off the MC servers quicker is that the initial community outrage would've just been too much. Then again, most of those outraged members were going to leave regardless, and they have. Maybe if it had been killed off, then we offered up x days/week for a few months, we could've kept it alive with minimal costs and maybe even more remaining members. That's all in the past now.

In all seriousness and with regards to the resources put into the servers by moderators, I am immensely grateful and think that the moderators did an excellent job with their investment. It's easy to do a post-mortem and find all the issues and what-ifs; it's not easy to pioneer an online game server through YEARS of betas and *shudders* Java's intricacies when it comes to... everything, never mind Mojang's comical handling of the Minecraft community and Minecraft itself, once released. Thank you.

[Platty]

Truthfully, I, as well as some in mumble, have found it easier to just have someone boot up a server that they run for maybe a few hours, vanilla or feed the beast, and we all play on it. When everyone's done, we move on to something else, and they take the server down. Granted, we haven't done this in a while. However, it's more... exciting when everyone knows everyone else, there's no border, though we set one, and we all just dick around.

It might be beneficial to run a server for X-amount of time a day, take it down, and put it back up. Someone might have to run it, but it might be better. That way, we don't have as many people coming in at a time, really not a need for a moderator, other than the owner, and every has fun. A lot of people I've spoken to, seem to have a better time with less people, or people they know/are comfortable with.

I'm not saying that this is a FIX, or a good idea, but we have a couple of people who have put up a server that holds about 10 people, and we all have fun.

[vxi]

If this did happen I think it would be better to keep the same world for a while rather than make a new one every time.
The same world wouldn't have to be kept forever, just don't get rid of it on every restart. Opinions?
It's too bad realms doesn't seem to be friendly to this kind of idea.

[mbaxter]

Those of you complaining about map permanence clearly forgot the early on map resets. I think the shortest was FIVE DAYS between resets.

[MJCS]

I remember the days before we had server-side block logging.

[dantesus]

Truthfully, I, as well as some in mumble, have found it easier to just have someone boot up a server that they run for maybe a few hours, vanilla or feed the beast, and we all play on it. When everyone's done, we move on to something else, and they take the server down. Granted, we haven't done this in a while. However, it's more... exciting when everyone knows everyone else, there's no border, though we set one, and we all just dick around.

It might be beneficial to run a server for X-amount of time a day, take it down, and put it back up. Someone might have to run it, but it might be better. That way, we don't have as many people coming in at a time, really not a need for a moderator, other than the owner, and every has fun. A lot of people I've spoken to, seem to have a better time with less people, or people they know/are comfortable with.

I'm not saying that this is a FIX, or a good idea, but we have a couple of people who have put up a server that holds about 10 people, and we all have fun.

I agree. Considering how easy they've made it install mods on a server now, running servers for me is going to be for 5 - 10 people.
Plus those mod packs don't scale very well.

[MJCS]

No, I just created my own Minecraft server where I don't have to baby sit 7 year-olds all day.

is such a Minecraft server even possible?

Yeah. Its a private server with about 12 people.