.....or you could donate. Just as in game, the server runs on money and after a big change (e.g rising, main world expansion etc) Andrew needs to test the waters with a smaller player base first. Donators are simply the most "worthy" group. If everyone was allowed to just jump on at first, there might be crashing problems. Andrew even said in game that the majority of memory was being used just on the 150 players, imagine if there were 300.

 

Andrew did give a heads-up for the "lockout." I believe in the form of a News Announcement, and on Twitter beforehand. All previous big additions like this were also donator-only for the first 12-24 hours, to see how things would run and to prevent any possible serious abuse of exploits, bugs, etc.

Economy doesn't go down much, though, with these donator-only periods... In this specific case, adding Rising, there will be a lot more money moving around than usual. People are finding new biomes and basically fighting over protecting them, buying them, selling teleports, selling the materials from the new biomes, etc... As well, not allowing everyone on encourages more users to protect and buy new towns now (money going out of the economy) so that they don't have to deal with twice - or three times - as many users getting in their way.

However, I do believe it should have been set so that you simply couldn't enter the Rising portal... but, unfortunately, people would just use teleport to get to Rising, even if they were not donators. :/ There was really no simple way to keep Rising donators-only while having Legacy open for everyone.

I do know how it feels to be unable to connect, though... There were many times in the past where it was donator-only and I hadn't donated yet. However, I've learned to just.. go do other things than Minecraft during these periods, even though I have donated now. It's absolute chaos and mayhem during donator-only periods, even outside of the new "content." :/

 

stevennikolakis​

 

I am just fine with donator only events, but I think locking out all non-donors from all of the worlds for a full twenty-four hours is taking it a bit to far.

 

If you dont like it, donate.

 

my circumstances don't allow me to donate, otherwise I probably would

 

Then vote everyday and win a voting prize. Farm up in game money. I have bough over 350 USD with in game money. I know a certain someone who has 500 USD+ just from winning voting prizes.

 

Andrew, just curious, awhile ago, agent hare suggested a donator only period for rising, and you quickly shot it down. Why'd you change your mind?

 

I just thought of something. Couldn't you have kept the rising portal off, but made the warp in the /travel work? That way non-donors could access the server, but just not rising. Thanks for responding, we appreciate it.

 

What I suggested was different. I suggested that donators only could buy towns for about a week. I now realize that a day for donators only is plenty of time. I also can't wait for everyone to see rising and to see all the new mayors and presidents!

 

I'm gonna donate :)

 

I haven't spent a cent of my own money of donations. However, i've bought ~$1300 in donations from other users. Although I financially can donate, I choose not to and can still reap the benefits of being a donator which is something I enjoy about ECC.