Hello Everyone! I'm sure most of you have seen my first thread about the revival of services. Most of the replies on it were positive so thank you! This is my second post, however, about the revival of the ECC Community. There will be a few more of these server revisions to come and if we can manage to come together as a community, I believe it can drastically help to ensure the server's future well-being. There is no doubt that the ECC community is a strong and close-knit community. The problem however is the inclusion of newer players. I have been "testing" the server with a small group. I have gotten 4 of my friends to join and play the game as they would a regular starting player. All of them within a week said that they were done playing. When I asked why, one reason that everyone had in common was that they felt lonely or unnecessary to the community. This was a shock to me as builders are the most important part of the community! They are the future of the server after all! In another test I've been doing for the last week, I have been messaging builders I don't recognize everyday. When I message them, I have asked if they have any questions, would like any tips, if they have a plot in a town yet (if they don't already, I sell them a plot in mine), and eventually how they are liking the server. After I ask those questions, they almost ALWAYS just keep chatting. They want to keep talking. They want a friend in game. About a dozen have joined the town in the last week and all but 1 have stayed active. My proposition is that everyone check who's on frequently and if you see a builder on that you don't recognize. Just chat with them! It wont hurt you to talk to them for a bit and who knows, maybe they will become your friend! This is my second proposition for the server's revival. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to add it! Thank you!
I love this idea and will definitely try to make an active effort in including builders in my daily playtime I know that AdmiralD and Platinum_Foxy have builder programs, but sometimes it's difficult to let new players know about these programs if the administrators of those programs are offline. It would be great if not only other players would be more welcoming to builders, but let them know about those programs and any additional programs builders would have. Removing the stigma of being a builder would also be a good thing. I encourage those who are derogatory towards builders to be mindful of the future players of the server and how they could be beneficial to you in the future.
Or maybe they just don't want to spend 4 hours to grind pumpkins with an iron axe just so they can buy a new axe to grind with. You may have noticed new players leaving because they weren't finding enough people to play with, but that's a direct result because of the fact the population is in a drought from lack of essential activities an economy server needs to survive this long without having to constantly reset town maps/balances. When the player base was 100s and 100s of active players at a time they didn't quit because they were lonely, they quit because they were bored. Years and years of a economy server and not enough money sinks caused the entire server to have hoards of ECD which then made money making get nerfed into oblivion. If you want people to play a game that is about making money then make sure they're actually able to do it reasonably.
Yea, my test groups had other complaints as well. But this is just one complaint they all had in common. There are many reasons for the servers fall. This is just a way to create a more active player base.
As a former ECC player (I came back to the forums because nostalgia), one of the biggest reasons I left is how little rewarding the grind is. I do not know about now, but when the golden age of ECC (Around 2013) liquid removal and anvil use was locked under donation. Enchanting was still under RNG and almost untranslatable. Thankfully a good diamond pickaxe costed then around 1.5k. Although a grind, it was not hard enough for a new player to obtain. This is why I didn't mind the fact that liquid removal and anvil use were restricted because mining was extremely profitable. In fact, donors even still mined because it was still profitable. Even if the minerals were cheap and flooding the market, EXP was in high demand due to the RNG involved in enchanting. 825 EXP (30 full levels back then) was being demanded by ECC about 2k. Thus, the easiest way back then was to earn money was to first mine and get resident, then get nether access (It was PVP back then, and probably still is) so you can get the more profitable Nether Quartz ore (at 2-5 exp, found in veins of 4-10, and more common than redstone ore). It wasn't easy, but I can clearly see my progress as I grew wealthier and could afford better items to help grind with. Because of how good the Nether was to players, the Admin team then (which were strict, but respected then because they kept a 200 population server orderly) decided to just stop EXP from dropping from Nether Quartz. Although it was disappointing, Redstone was still a good alternative. This killed the nether region for me because it was high risk and high reward. Then I died with my good gear, took a long break, and lost the rest of my money because of the system that removes inactive users. This is not what made me permantly leave, but it made me take a long break from ECC. Then a few updates came around and changed enchanting to make it less RNG. I wasn't there, but when I came back I discovered how ECC decided to "balance" enchanting. They decided to make the good enchantments around the 10k range in money or EXP because I cannot remember. This became a major problem because EXP was now nearly worthless. Even though good pickaxes were still the same price (probably because there were still a ton in the market), the time it took to even get my money back I felt like it was not worth the time. People that I have started with have left because the server was not fun anymore. It was a ridiculous grind where huge amounts of donations are needed in order to have an easier grind. I really wanted to add fun to that, but most new players do not want to drop 80 USD just to enchant, place down water, and deal with lava and fire. Even if you did pay someone, the plot of land you start with will be too small to make anything profitable, and farm deals cost in the thousands. Even property was not a good idea to make your first town, so it is better to just to make it farm land. Oh wait, you need to donate to place water and need to be constantly near the crops in order for them to grow unless you are nearby an area where people make the chunks active. It took me a few years to realize this, but EcoCityCraft is a terrible economy server. A good economy server has many ways an individual can gain wealth from either farming, mob grinding, pvp, or mining when starting out. With ECC, there's only mining, and it is a very slow start. Forget about farming because that requires water donations or thousands in order to get into a prebuilt one (Might be lower because less players are active on the server). Forget about mob grinding because the EXP needed to make anything worthwhile outweighs the possible deaths that may occur from grinding. PVP even then was for those who loved to swing their God Swords infront of the lowly peasants. When I was on the server then, there was only one active tycoon that did not have any donations associated with his account. And I think he got in early before it became the grind fest ECC became when I came. The server has terrible balance between donors and free accounts, and it turns players away when they realize that in order to do basic stuff they need to donate. And from what I am reading from other fourms while writing this, I feel ECC has administrator problems dealing with their dwindling audience. In fact, while I was playing I feel the mod team were dispassionate about the community, and it showed through the ban appeals. When I did my ban appeal on jokingly linking a shock site, I had to go through 5 iterations and a forum ban for myself to realize that the mods did not want me to post the link (I was a dumb teen). Instead of taking about less than five minutes and explaining on why my appeal was not accepted clearly, they just said "Rejected." The closest thing I got to an explination afterwards is when a mod said "If I see that site again I will forum ban you." No hard feeling for that moderator, but you were the worst in my eyes for not explaining clearly. This dispassion made users like me feel unwelcomed. I have a feeling that this feeling is not my own. This is due to looking at the population stats of various server listing sites. If we look at them, you will see there is a constant downward trend in the server population in the past two years. Looking back on it, I feel that the only mods that were passionate about the community instead of doing it for worship were the newer ones, and even they burned out and left or became the dispassionate moderation that harms the community. Looking through the recent archives, the one who looks like the most passionate moderator is @LanRooks with good appeals like this one here and here. And if Lan did had to reject an appeal, she gave a great explanation to why like here. The reason for this is that Lan takes thoughtful considerations and treats the players like humans while appealing. But only you, LanRooks, have received that award. The rest of the moderation team (maybe a little personal, but I am doing it so you guys are aware of how we really feel about it) has shown in my eyes dispassion for newer players. One example that shows the blant inhuman decisions that the moderators go through with the ban appeals is this thread right here. For those who didn't click, the appealer was a builder who violated a scamming rule and harassed other users. The supermod forward it to an admin who just said "Yeahhhhhh, no." To me, this is not professional behavior because if a professional moderator was to evaluate this, there would be more of a reason attached to this rejection. Also this response should not be this short to handle other appeals. There are about a dozen ban appeals per week, and on average one to two are created each day. These quick dispassionate appeals should not be happening at the rate the appeals are created. While the example previous was an extreme example of the dispassion, the average thread looks generally robotic with the moderators asking for information much like a police officer. For example, take these two threads: this thread talking about a misconception and this one dealing with a breech of contract. While the last one looked fine from my perspective, the former gave some concerns in my mind. By the looks of it, it seems that the person just said "why won't you die?" probably after witnessing someone's extreme survivability against all odds. This gave red flags in my mind because just by looking at that sentence, I can easily think of a context where it would be appropriate, and even my then 12 year old brother could not misunderstood it. But he was banned anyways. Not siding with the people who actively create misunderstandings, but those people are easy to tell apart from others. And even then someone can just complain about it on the forums with proof that they are actively creating misunderstandings. But the victim of this banning was not one of those people by the lack of ban appeal history. With knowing that the person is not ban prone, and the fact that he got banned for something that only has a very slim chance of being misunderstood, shows the dispassion of the moderation team. This is a huge problem in my eyes when a server is dying. So in order for EcoCityCraft to revive itself, I believe that a better, more passionate moderation team, a newer economic system, and freeing up locked game content would greatly revive the server. If you have any questions, I guess I will be around to answer them. Not promising.
TL;DR: ECC has a terrible economic system, the moderation team, other than a select few individuals, are dispassionate, and game mechanics are locked under a paywall. This all has to change.
A little off topic to the original post but, I did already go over in a separate post about the revival of the ECC service industry. I didn't create this new post to talk about that problem or the moderation problem. Although I agree to an extent, this thread is not the place for it and my "ECC Revival" series will go on and hit more problems individually. What I am trying to do is help the server with small steps. Not to flood users with a bunch of problems at once. Thank you for your input though. It is long and kind of iffy but appreciated, lol.
While I agree with some of the comments you made here I'm going to have to disagree with a lot of it. The "locked content" is 100% not needed. I've tested with alt accounts and have gotten all the way to tycoon without using any features. You just need to as you say "grind". Also I feel ecc is taking steps to bring back a bigger player base. I agree ecc has been dwindling in players certainly since 2013/14 but with the addition of skyblock I think we could possibly see a slight jump in players. Another thing that bothers me is your comments on the staff team. I know that all of the staff cares about the server and spends 2+ hours of their day moderating for the community. Some of those instances you linked you don't really know what happened behind the scenes of those complaints/appeals. I agree we could all work on some things but we are all human we are going to make some mistakes. The goal is to get better.
I honestly do not have problems with you mods on an individual basis. In fact, back then I did have a few moderators I was fond of, and I see that the moderators that take up the job also love the community. My beef with this is that the community does not feel it, and the ECC mods could be the most passionate mods out there for the community. And all that passion does not mean anything if the community cannot feel it, and it is starting to show in the monthly server population. I think a little thing that can happen is to make ban appeals a bit more personal and (I don't know about now, but back then the moderators were more of a clique because of the population) have more interaction with the lower members of the community besides moderation purposes. I feel that one of the reasons why I left was because I didn't feel like I belonged to the server even after joining constantly for about two years. I am not saying be kinder to those who have been banned, but just more lively rather than bureaucratic when talking to them.
Thanks for your appreciation, but if you really want to revive ECC, adding features to the server is like building a beautiful house on a bad foundation. Meaning no matter how pretty your house is, the house will topple when someone actually does anything inside. These problems have to be addressed because they are what is killing the server. People come in, they see the faults, and they leave because of those faults. Those people then go into other servers that have none of those faults, invite their friends, and those people stay in that server because they feel wanted there. Even though those features are attractive, I feel that none of it matters when players fail to stay when they join.
I actually do agree with this slightly. I do think one problem that we have is staff-user interaction. I know a lot of the staff do a lot for the community and personally I am starting builder towns and builder farms hoping to help builders want to stay. In the past from when I was not staff I did struggle with some staff members because I felt that they were a "clique" as u said and honestly looked down on members. I am beginning to see less of that problem and I feel the interaction is getting better.
@SunPrince makes a good point. I think the biggest issue for new players now and old alike is the lack of variety. When you have the same three main ways to make money with no truly unique gamemodes it gets stale over time. I know if I were joining ECC today with nothing but a (very basic) starter kit and a being told that the first rank would require 10 hours worth of grinding I would quit immediately.
How would you make your 15k? Farming? Need perms, yes people sell cheap, even some places for a single nstar which contains a farm, but you need to get lucky having those individuals on. If not, you cannot farm. Mining? Probably your best bet, but with Iron/Diamond Tools, a Majorly stripped Mining World, you cant make a whole lot a hour, it is slow going. Jobs? Few and far between but you potentially could get a job. but it would still be 5+ hours if you say placing saplings or dirt with the advertisements i see when im online. Obviously you can sell your stars for 610 each, so around 3k, but you might have spent them on perms above, or a place to stay, yes free plots are about, but again, depending on who is on. You say 10 hours to make 15k like he is a crazy lol. But he probably isnt that far off unless you get semi lucky with who is online at the time.
Figured I'd respond to this as I'm directly involved. I've been a dedicated staff member for 1 year and 8 months now and have always done my best to be professional at all times, whether it be in a private pm with someone, replying to an appeal/something on the forums, and just interacting with the community in general. Of course every now and then there's going to be a slip up or two - after all, staff are human . And while I agree my reply to that appeal was unprofessional, there were other circumstances involved in that appeal (that was actually my brother on an alt - he's a mayor, and some other stuff). In-game I try to make sure that builder's questions are answered and I do my best to interact with the community in global. I'm sure most would agree that I'm generally a nice guy - just follow the rules . I do agree that staff members should try to explain the rules to users who are new to the server and don't understand the rules. In-game we do our best to do this and the builders who end up banned are almost always the ones who just refuse to listen to us. And even in most appeals staff members explain the rules to these users and typically let them off with very little punishment, if any. TL;DR - The "dispassionate" staff members aren't the problem here. The staff team is dedicated to the server and we do our best day in and day out. Economy servers aren't for everyone - there are people who will get bored of economy quickly and these are the builders who end up leaving. Even older users, after a while it does get boring doing the same thing over and over. Hopefully the addition of skyblock (coming soon) will help this
These are baby steps. At least I am actively trying to make a difference rather than just list all of the problems. People list all of the problems all the time but without action, there will never be a resolution.
I agree with this. That's why I talked about it in my first thread. The ECC service industry is dead. Once the services comeback, that will also help the player base.
Service industry has been dead for well over two years now. Lots of people are willing to do everything for free anyway because ECC is full of kind people. Skyblock coming is the only thing that should help the playerbase, but from past results I wouldn't expect any major bump (maybe 10-15 additional online at peak times).
That is what I view is also the biggest problem. There is not enough routes to make money in ECC besides the donor option.
/help money and there is variety of ways to make money I think this is just a waste of time in my opinions do what you want don't try to carve everyone into doing the same things you do lol
