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roastnewt / FatherSouth AMA


roastnewt
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Hello!

 

I am roastnewt / FatherSouth.  I am primarily a Survival player, but I did play Creative for a little bit back in 2010, when there was no other option.

 

I played on the roastnewt account for a long time, and used my FatherSouth account in order to not be recognized on other servers.  Eventually I gave up trying to keep my identities separate, and now play primarily on my FatherSouth account.

 

I have an abundance of free time, so AMA!

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What do you think makes a successful server? 

 

Today, there are really two types of Minecraft server.  There are the large server networks, which are run for-profit, and there are the "hobby" servers, which are run for fun.  The metrics of success for each is very different.  A successful large server network needs to provide an enjoyable experience, offer a unique experience, serve a large number of players, and, of course, needs be financially successful.

 

For a "hobby" server like nerd, the only metric of success that matters is that the server be fun to play on.  This can be accomplished with unique gameplay features, or, like nerd, by having a community of people that are fun to play Minecraft with.

 

Is it true you held a family reunion in Mumble last night and everybody was banned?

 

Yes, someone kept joining mumble with names like "FatherWest," "StepMotherEast," etc.

 

How many hotdogs can you fit in your mouth at once?

 

With or without the buns?

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Do you think Pay-To-Win servers are a good thing for the minecraft community or a bad thing?

 

Pay-To-Win is a loaded term.  The term implies an imbalance, that playing on such a server is unfair to the people who are playing for free.

 

I do think servers that offer $1000 ranks, pay-for-staff, etc, are shit servers, but people vote with their disconnect button, and those servers inevitably fail.

 

If you look at the most successful servers, they strike a pretty good balance.  They employ full-time staff of developers, making custom gamemodes and server software.  They're using Minecraft more as an "engine," for their own games that they've developed.  And, like any other game developer, they can only do that at such a scale because they can be reimbursed for their time.

 

On these servers, it looks like you're paying for little bonuses, but what you're really paying for is thousands of man-hours developing games.  People can pay for small advantages, for the ability not to take fall damage, or get access to a different MMO class, or the ability to veto maps on minigames.  These perks don't harm the free players, or make the game unfair for them.  In fact, it's in their best interest to make the game fun for noobs, so they'll stick around.

 

In order to kill the minority of servers that fall in the first category, Mojang is trying to force all servers to give away their products for free.

 

So, if by Pay-to-Win, you mean all servers that offer in-game purchases, then yes, they've been a huge net-positive for Minecraft.  They've turned Minecraft from a procedural-generation-tech-demo into a full blown game engine.  They're like Day-Z if Mojang made ARMA II.

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If you were made Head Admin on nerd, right now, what would be your first action in regards to helping the servers? 

 

 
The first thing I'd do would be to talk to the current head admins, and get up to speed.  As normal players, we have basically no idea what the head admins get up to on a day-to-day basis, so I'd try to get more informed before trying to change anything.
 
Then I'd have to talk to the other heads, and find out what they think about the future of the server, since it seems they make decisions by consensus.
 
But that's how the management of nerd is set up.  It's set up to maintain the status-quo, and provide players with a consistent experience.
 
However, if I were made solo-head-admin-dictator-for-life-doesn't-need-anyone's-approval, I'd make more drastic changes.
 
First, I would try to make the servers more nimble.  I would experiment a lot more.  Maybe I would try letting PvE players flow their own water for a week, then gauge the community's reaction.  Stuff like that.
 
I'd set aside a percentage of donations (20-30%) to be used for advertising the servers.
 
I'd leave PvE pretty much how it is.  PvE has a successful formula of "community-oriented survival-mode building."  I might rename it "Vanilla," or "Survival Mode," to better describe what kind of server it is.
 
I'd get rid of Survival.  Survival is my favorite server, and the server I play on the most, but it's too close in gameplay to PvE, and PvE is more successful.
 
I would make a PvP server.  To be clear, this is NOT Survival.  This would be a server whose concentration is exclusively PvP.  This could either be a completely Chaos map, a hardcore-deathbans map, or a factions map.
 
I would divide Creative into two worlds. I would add a plot world where WorldEdit is allowed (limited in total number of block changes, to eliminate lag issues).  The second world would be an open world, as it is now, with no worldedit, and no flying.  In this way, the first world would be a place you can test designs and patterns, and build impressive structures quickly, and the second world would be the "community" world, where you can build together, and the lack of flying would promote the building of infrastructure.
 
I add a rotating experimental fourth server, running all the time.  This server would run minigames and other non-persistant gametypes, like Skywars, Hunger Games, Kit PvP, The Walls, etc.  I would take votes, and anything wildly popular could be added as a permanent game type.  The fact that the servers are now on a Bungeecord setup makes this feasible.
 
On the "permanent" servers, I would KEEP the philosophy that all players are the same, and there are no "donation" ranks.  On the rotating server, however, I would allow players to purchase unlocks that benefit the entire server, like new maps, temporary XP boosts for everyone, expanding the worldborder, etc, depending on what gametype it is.  Thus the fourth server would serve as a permanent donation event.  100% of the donations would go towards advertising the server, server costs, and development of custom plugins.
 
Finally, I would divide the staff into each server.  When someone is made a mod, they would be a mod on their "home" server only.  If someone plays on multiple servers, then they are free to earn staff on each server separately.  The responsibilities, rules, and culture of each server are too different for "foreign" staff to moderate effectively, and it just causes conflict.
 
To be clear, I'm not recommending that the current Head Admins do this stuff, this is just what I'd do in my feverish dream of being server-dictator.
Edited by roastnewt
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The first thing I'd do would be to talk to the current head admins, and get up to speed.  As normal players, we have basically no idea what the head admins get up to on a day-to-day basis, so I'd try to get more informed before trying to change anything.
 
Then I'd have to talk to the other heads, and find out what they think about the future of the server, since it seems they make decisions by consensus.
 
But that's how the management of nerd is set up.  It's set up to maintain the status-quo, and provide players with a consistent experience.
 
However, if I were made solo-head-admin-dictator-for-life-doesn't-need-anyone's-approval, I'd make more drastic changes.
 
First, I would try to make the servers more nimble.  I would experiment a lot more.  Maybe I would try letting PvE players flow their own water for a week, then gauge the community's reaction.  Stuff like that.
 
I'd set aside a percentage of donations (20-30%) to be used for advertising the servers.
 
I'd leave PvE pretty much how it is.  PvE has a successful formula of "community-oriented survival-mode building."  I might rename it "Vanilla," or "Survival Mode," to better describe what kind of server it is.
 
I'd get rid of Survival.  Survival is my favorite server, and the server I play on the most, but it's too close in gameplay to PvE, and PvE is more successful.
 
I would make a PvP server.  To be clear, this is NOT Survival.  This would be a server whose concentration is exclusively PvP.  This could either be a completely Chaos map, a hardcore-deathbans map, or a factions map.
 
I would divide Creative into two worlds. I would add a plot world where WorldEdit is allowed (limited in total number of block changes, to eliminate lag issues).  The second world would be an open world, as it is now, with no worldedit, and no flying.  In this way, the first world would be a place you can test designs and patterns, and build impressive structures quickly, and the second world would be the "community" world, where you can build together, and the lack of flying would promote the building of infrastructure.
 
I add a rotating experimental fourth server, running all the time.  This server would run minigames and other non-persistant gametypes, like Skywars, Hunger Games, Kit PvP, The Walls, etc.  I would take votes, and anything wildly popular could be added as a permanent game type.  The fact that the servers are now on a Bungeecord setup makes this feasible.
 
On the "permanent" servers, I would KEEP the philosophy that all players are the same, and there are no "donation" ranks.  On the rotating server, however, I would allow players to purchase unlocks that benefit the entire server, like new maps, temporary XP boosts for everyone, expanding the worldborder, etc, depending on what gametype it is.  Thus the fourth server would serve as a permanent donation event.  100% of the donations would go towards advertising the server, server costs, and development of custom plugins.
 
Finally, I would divide the staff into each server.  When someone is made a mod, they would be a mod on their "home" server only.  If someone plays on multiple servers, then they are free to earn staff on each server separately.  The responsibilities, rules, and culture of each server are too different for "foreign" staff to moderate effectively, and it just causes conflict.
 
To be clear, I'm not recommending that the current Head Admins do this stuff, this is just what I'd do in my feverish dream of being server-dictator.

 

 

Denevien, thrawn21, WickedCoolSteve, cyotie911, draykhar pls :)

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