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The state of Super Fun Time [01/2016]

Started by Towelie, Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM

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Towelie

Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM Last Edit: Jan 05, 2016, 05:17 AM by Towelie
I felt like this post was needed, so without further delay, here's how things are, split on chapters

#1 Servers
    1.1 Survival
    Survival is doing relatively well (could be better but could also be way worse). Playerbase seems to be up and down according on time, but overall it's not doing very bad. We are currently waiting for MC 1.9 in order to be able to add new plugins / mechanics to the game. I feel like a plugin cleanup will be needed as well, because I kept adding plugins to maintain players happy and now we have a lot which makes it hard to add new ones. On my "to kill" list, I have so far: Towny, Advanced Achievements, CustomNoteBlock (custom music) and maybe SFTender (seing as the end is not as used as I thoguht it would be, but I will keep it for now to see how the End will be in 1.9)
    Future plans for Survival include a new 10% price increase to buy/sell prices and replacing some of the old and tired (dm, mobarena) with some fun new minigames (I've yet to find them)

    1.2 Pixelmon
    Pix has seen a drop in playerbase recently. We suspect this is due to a Technic ranking bug. Our modpack, despite having more runs/downloads, is still in a poorer positions than modpacks with inferior numbers. Judging by our runs/downloads/likes, we should be in the top 2 pages. The drop is players is also due to us not being able to update (posts have been made in the past explaining why it's impossible for us to update to the MC 1.8 branch until sponge (spigot replacement) is in good working order.
    Dpa has recently started putting a lot of work in Pix (not that he hasn't until now), in things such as a custom made Adventure Map with Terraformed land (this means the map started as a flat map and its entire scenery is hand-crafted by dpa using a plugin), and many small bugfixes/improvements to the Pixelmon server itself. We are also currently running an ad campaign which costs $200 / week on average, and are hoping to get some new players from it.
   
    1.3 B-Team
    B-Team (our server) seems to be keeping a solid 3rd position as the most popular server on SFT. Good job Copen for maintaining it, and keep doing a good job.

    1.4 Factions & Pocket
    Sadly saywhat2365 has been inactive from SFT and pretty much forgot about Factions & Pocket other than emergency maintenance. He has promised me that he is going to return after the holidays (so theoretically now), but I am a bit skeptical because it's not the first time he promises that  >:(  @saywhat2365  A little bit of public shaming never did anyone wrong.
    In addition to that we are currently unable to update / fix plugins on Pocketmine because the pocketmine site (which hosts plugins) is down since a few days.


    1.5 New Projects
    We currently have several new projects in making, although at the moment, they are at the stage of implementation:
        1. A Quest-based (wild west themed) server being made by DuanetheDino and iLaxrv10 (for SFT)
        2. A Quest-based server being made by Izzdaer
        3. A pvp based server being made by Copen
        4. The prison server which is about 75% done but @saywhat2365  is too lazy to finish it -_-

#2 Funds (Revenue)
    For September/Octomber/November 2015, things looked pretty bad. We could barely (if at all) cover our bills and we lost quite a lot of the money we had as our reserve funds (about 20% of the total). However, now we seem to be able to at least pay our bills, so things are somewhat better. In order for things to be perfect, we'd like to see a 30% increase in revenue in order to say things are going great.

#3 Players
    That's a bit of a problem. With youtubers and other famous and already rich people are starting servers as ways of getting even richer, we are left with fewer players. It's not an immediate problem, but in order for us to survive, we need all the help we can get - inviting your friends and posting on social media and most importantly, voting.

#4 Votes
    This is by far the worst thing and the biggest problem. We simply aren't getting enough votes in order to keep us on the first 2-3 pages, and this is hurting our playerbase. If we doubled the amount of votes, I can guarantee SFT would be much more popular. We've tried increasing the vote rewards to a point where they were too op, we tried asking the players nicely to vote, we tried shaming the players (that did not work well and was a regretful decision :P), we've tried everything. So pleeeease, vote and remind everyone to vote daily on all the voting sites. If you have suggestions on how to get players to vote more, or which vote rewads to change to achieve that, we'll gladly hear them.


#5 Staff Teams
    There are great efforts being made to improve the staff teams across all of our servers. As for Survival, with Cr1 as our HoS, a lot of problems have been resolved, we've cut down on corruption and lack of proffesionalism, and we've improved our overall staff member. Of course, there will always be bad apples and we are depending on you to report them with proof in order to help us constantly improve.


#6 Numbers and graphs
    I know you like these, so here are some numbers and graphs:

Number of NEW players joining Survival daily:
1/12/15: 17
2/12/15: 26
3/12/15: 103
4/12/15: 195
5/12/15: 85
6/12/15: 98
7/12/15: 30
8/12/15: 87
9/12/15: 22
10/12/15: 34
11/12/15: 130
12/12/15: 96
13/12/15: 237
14/12/15: 22
15/12/15: 130
16/12/15: 22
17/12/15: 86
18/12/15: 30
19/12/15: 80
20/12/15: 210
21/12/15: 29
22/12/15: 44
23/12/15: 188
24/12/15: 57
25/12/15: 153
26/12/15: 265
27/12/15: 67
28/12/15: 67
29/12/15: 23
30/12/15: 35
31/12/15: 49

Number of NEW players joining pix daily:
01/12/2015: 32
02/12/2015: 35
03/12/2015: 44
04/12/2015: 63
05/12/2015: 86
06/12/2015: 85
07/12/2015: 44
08/12/2015: 40
09/12/2015: 37
10/12/2015: 52
11/12/2015: 47
12/12/2015: 83
13/12/2015: 71
14/12/2015: 48
15/12/2015: 37
16/12/2015: 30
17/12/2015: 31
18/12/2015: 41
19/12/2015: 81
20/12/2015: 75
21/12/2015: 59
22/12/2015: 57
23/12/2015: 61
24/12/2015: 54
25/12/2015: 54
26/12/2015: 46
27/12/2015: 56
28/12/2015: 77
29/12/2015: 70
30/12/2015: 74
31/12/2015: 65

Forum Summary:


Enjoy reading!


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CleverWhale

To increase the number of votes, we could try making it more clear that by voting you can get vote tokens which can be used to get perms such fly and compass? You could also increase the chances of getting vote tokens or the amount, but this might make the vote rewards a bit too op.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

PandaPugz

Quote from: cleverboy73 on Jan 04, 2016, 07:12 PMTo increase the number of votes, we could try making it more clear that by voting you can get vote tokens which can be used to get perms such fly and compass? You could also increase the chances of getting vote tokens or the amount, but this might make the vote rewards a bit too op.
We already did that at some point but I don't know what happened to it xd

Leemur35

In addition to the above statement. I would add more rewards and better rewards to try and keep higher level players interested in voting. In order to do this I would Add another tier to voting rewards. After that I would add if you continue to vote everyday you remain at the highest tier as long as you continue to vote.

In order to get people donating more: I believe you need to expand the selection of items to donate for. Right now the only real thing you can get are cosmetic items and ranks. Therefore I believe we should add more item bundles or Enchant Level (maybe some SFTmmo exp). Finally I believe we should add a difference upgrade for Donation ranks. For instance if you have donator (12USD) and want to get Contributor (34USD) you can pay 22 USD and get the new rank.

These are just ideas that I'm throwing out to help out a bit. Thanks.
~Leemur35

stormshooter

Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM1.5 New Projects
    We currently have several new projects in making, although at the moment, they are at the stage of implementation:
        1. A Quest-based (wild west themed) server being made by DuanetheDino and iLaxrv10 (for SFT)
        2. A Quest-based server being made by Izzdaer
        3. A pvp based server being made by Copen
        4. The prison server which is about 75% done but @saywhat2365  is too lazy to finish it -_-
Can we have a lil more info on these. ^^

Lansdiinio

On the subject of plugins, please PM me with any you would like to see on SFT! We (staff team) will review them and they might be added ;)

nicholiplays

Voting: you could add better stuff to the votings. everytime the vote party starts, it's not very exciting. i always see people throw their vote party stuff away, and so do i. i usually never vote because i don't get anything good out of it, but i do vote for events.

EventHosts: i've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily, even though there could be 3-5 eventhosts hosting, theres only one. i'm just asking if there could be new eventhosts involved and some removed.
me after hitting a fat bong:

Towelie

Quote from: NicholasPlays on Jan 04, 2016, 07:45 PM: i've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily, even though there could be 3-5 eventhosts hosting, theres only one.
@Scotmid  - How are we on EventHosts ? What can we do to improve the team?


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Green_Giant

Quote from: NicholasPlays on Jan 04, 2016, 07:45 PMi've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily
Could be to do with timezones. Each EventHost has specific times they can come on, and preferred times in which they would like to host. I've been a little inactive recently, but i'm picking up again.

iLaxrv10

Thanks for the post Towelie! :)
Glad to see @DuanetheDino and I made it one there :D
Hope you all like the server when it comes out <3
Ex-Pixelmon Manager
Ex-Survival, Lost Islands, Pocket Edition Elder
Ex-WildWest, B-Team, Factions, Prison Owner

DuanetheDino

Quote from: TeraStorm on Jan 04, 2016, 07:23 PM
Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM1.5 New Projects
    We currently have several new projects in making, although at the moment, they are at the stage of implementation:
        1. A Quest-based (wild west themed) server being made by DuanetheDino and iLaxrv10 (for SFT)
        2. A Quest-based server being made by Izzdaer
        3. A pvp based server being made by Copen
        4. The prison server which is about 75% done but @saywhat2365  is too lazy to finish it -_-
Can we have a lil more info on these. ^^
iLax and I are currently working on building still and getting more plugins for ours, but that's all I'm going to say about that ;) You'll just have to wait and see what happens! :heart:

Lansdiinio

Quote from: TeraStorm on Jan 04, 2016, 07:23 PM
Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM1.5 New Projects
    We currently have several new projects in making, although at the moment, they are at the stage of implementation:
        1. A Quest-based (wild west themed) server being made by DuanetheDino and iLaxrv10 (for SFT)
        2. A Quest-based server being made by Izzdaer
        3. A pvp based server being made by Copen
        4. The prison server which is about 75% done but @saywhat2365  is too lazy to finish it -_-
Can we have a lil more info on these. ^^

Mmm all will be revealed when the time comes. For now just sit tight and wait ;)

Frostdrop

Wow that's amazing towelie great to see ILAX and Duane up there and glad to hear there making a server so cool can't wait to here more :)

KittyKatsAmazing

I think that a way to increase the amount of votes, we should maybe have different prizes when we vote, like a voting crate backpack, it pops into your inventory with you vote for ALL the servers and it would give you some goodies, just a idea.
"I don't think people understand how stressful it is to explain whats going on in your head when you don't even understand it yourself"

stormshooter

Quote from: Lansdiinio on Jan 04, 2016, 08:22 PM
Quote from: TeraStorm on Jan 04, 2016, 07:23 PM
Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM1.5 New Projects
    We currently have several new projects in making, although at the moment, they are at the stage of implementation:
        1. A Quest-based (wild west themed) server being made by DuanetheDino and iLaxrv10 (for SFT)
        2. A Quest-based server being made by Izzdaer
        3. A pvp based server being made by Copen
        4. The prison server which is about 75% done but @saywhat2365  is too lazy to finish it -_-
Can we have a lil more info on these. ^^

Mmm all will be revealed when the time comes. For now just sit tight and wait ;)
Grrrrr.....

copen6199

New joins for lost islands
7/9/15: 52
8/9/15: 318
9/9/15: 233
10/9/15: 126
11/9/15: 537
12/9/15: 21
13/9/15: 4
14/9/15: 136
15/9/15: 29
16/9/15: 131
17/9/15: 223
18/9/15: 60
19/9/15: 223
20/9/15: 24
21/9/15: 60
22/9/15: 97
23/9/15: 19
24/9/15: 5
25/9/15: 2
26/9/15: 1
27/9/15: 19
28/9/15: 0
29/9/15: 0
30/9/15: 13
1/10/15: 8
2/10/15: 35
3/10/15: 6
4/10/15: 18
5/10/15: 16
6/10/15: 4
7/10/15: 24
8/10/15: 12
9/10/15: 3
10/10/15: 9
11/10/15: 41
12/10/15: 4
13/10/15: 19
14/10/15: 14
15/10/15: 27
16/10/15: 11
17/10/15: 38
18/10/15: 59
19/10/15: 68
20/10/15: 78
21/10/15: 87
22/10/15: 8
23/10/15: 5
24/10/15: 7
25/10/15: 24
26/10/15: 33
27/10/15: 44
28/10/15: 56
29/10/15: 73
30/10/15: 85
31/10/15: 111
1/11/15: 128
2/11/15: 138
3/11/15: 153
4/11/15: 168
5/11/15: 0
6/11/15: 4
7/11/15: 5
8/11/15: 29
9/11/15: 40
10/11/15: 44
11/11/15: 7
12/11/15: 16
13/11/15: 0
14/11/15: 1
15/11/15: 14
16/11/15: 26
17/11/15: 32
18/11/15: 33
19/11/15: 7
20/11/15: 11
21/11/15: 25
22/11/15: 41
23/11/15: 50
24/11/15: 61
25/11/15: 74
26/11/15: 77
27/11/15: 8
28/11/15: 0
29/11/15: 3
30/11/15: 0
1/12/15: 0
2/12/15: 0
3/12/15: 2
4/12/15: 10
5/12/15: 15
6/12/15: 14
7/12/15: 7
8/12/15: 12
9/12/15: 21
10/12/15: 2
11/12/15: 3
12/12/15: 12
13/12/15: 22
14/12/15: 31
15/12/15: 33
16/12/15: 0
17/12/15: 1
18/12/15: 4
19/12/15: 0
20/12/15: 1
21/12/15: 1
22/12/15: 14
23/12/15: 22
24/12/15: 39
25/12/15: 44
26/12/15: 51
27/12/15: 65
28/12/15: 73
29/12/15: 77
30/12/15: 3
31/12/15: 12
1/1/16: 2
2/1/16: 3
3/1/16: 4
4/1/16: 13

Cireshie

Jan 04, 2016, 10:07 PM #16 Last Edit: Jan 04, 2016, 10:38 PM by Cireshie
Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PM#4 Votes
    If you have suggestions on how to get players to vote more, or which vote rewads to change to achieve that, we'll gladly hear them.
I'll do some weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly survival vote contests (with prizes) as long as you advertise it ingame as well put it on the front page for me.

Suggestion: Encourage voting tiers. Their first impression of voting is from the first tier which does not seem good at all. If people knew it got better, they might vote more.

Quote from: NicholasPlays on Jan 04, 2016, 07:45 PMEventHosts: i've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily, even though there could be 3-5 eventhosts hosting, theres only one. i'm just asking if there could be new eventhosts involved and some removed.
I was on 60h last week. I saw only one eventhost host with another just logging on barely before uptime reset. Another did not even go online the entirety of last week.

Although it was holidays that week, I experienced some of this while I was EventHost. One host dominates while others slack.

Quote from: Towelie on Jan 04, 2016, 06:01 PMOn my "to kill" list, I have so far: Advanced Achievements
If you do get rid of this, can you tell what the achievements are? I have been stuck on 45/49 achievements basically since they came out and I don't know how to get the rest.


Leemur35

Perhaps we could use some more eventhosts to the eventhost teams. I am always aware that there is a rule in place that says that eventhosts cannot host events with too big of prizes? Or is that just for reasons of money issues. I ask this because in my experience  the bigger the prize pool (about 100k) the people in the event go up quite a lot. This makes for better events because more people are in them. Better Events = More Fun. More Fun = More Votes. More Votes = More People. More People = More donations. More Donations = Happy Towelie.

tree43

Based on all the responses about the Event situation, I would just like to say that my friend and I recreated 4 events. Lavaluck(also used for traitor), Spleef, Quiz, and most recently, I made Simon Says. I try to host when I can but I don't want to use my own EMP. I don't know if there is a solution for me but either way I do agree with the Event situation.

Warps:

/warp wtlavaluck = WeTree LavaLuck (also used for Traitor)
Building by: Me
Redstone by: wemee2

/warp wetreespleef = WeTree Spleef: 3 layers of 8X8
Building by: wemee2
Redstone by: Me

/warp wetreequiz = WeTree Quiz (Recently redone to utilize bridges instead of trapdoors
Building by: 50%:wemee2    50%:Me
Redstone by: Me

/warp treeclardss = TreeClard Simon Says (clard made the sphere and I made the rest)
Sphere by: clard
Redstone and poles by: Me

blalp

Quote from: copen6199 on Jan 04, 2016, 09:14 PMNew joins for lost islands
I think one reason that the lost islands isn't doing as well as it could is the lagg.  Also when new players join, they cannot navigate spawn.  When we all say welcome, they sign off within 1-2 minutes, when I guide them around spawn, they stay a lot longer.  Most players when they first sign on complain about the lag.  I do not know how to fix this, but mordalthunder suggest fastcraft.
Have a fantastic day!

teddy14668

The End is gonna be a lot better in 1.9, so maybe a lot more people would be interested in using /ender, the EventHost problem needs to be dealt with, American_Walrus is the only host I've seen online, and its good that Green_Giant is picking up playing SFT again, but more event hosts would be amazing, just to keep the players busy sometimes. KittyKats idea about the vote backpack is good too, it would encourage more people to vote and would make SFT noticeable. I think we're good on new players, I've seen a lot join everyday, so....
Timezones are an issue too, I've seen this a lot, if I log on between 3:00 and 5:00AM, I see players that aren't usually online, some that are Veteran+ that I've never seen before.
Staff members are no big issue, there's ALWAYS one online, although I don't see a lot of JMods, Mod+ and Managers are online a ton!

xJade

Quote from: NicholasPlays on Jan 04, 2016, 07:45 PMEventHosts: i've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily, even though there could be 3-5 eventhosts hosting, theres only one. i'm just asking if there could be new eventhosts involved and some removed.
once i hit 1mil+ on money i'll try to make and host some new events. so the players won't be bored ;D

 :redflower: :redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower:

:heart:You MUST learn to help yourself. Thats how you become stronger. :heart:

ReaperOfDerper

A pvp server..? What type of pvp?(pot pvp, axepvp, archer pvp, grapple pvp, Kitpvp, or just normal pvp)

American_Walrus

You guys sure have a lot to say on the EventHosts xD We appreciate the criticism, positive or negative. Here are some comments that I can  answer/explain.

Quote from: NicholasPlays on Jan 04, 2016, 07:45 PMEventHosts: i've only been seeing one eventhost hosting daily, even though there could be 3-5 eventhosts hosting, theres only one. i'm just asking if there could be new eventhosts involved and some removed.

Nich, I know the EventHost you are referring to is me. As Green said, we are all (purposely) in different timezones so everyone can experience the events. I am in the same timezone as you. I rarely see other hosts online, as we are in incompatible timezones. There are currently only 4 event hosts, and only a few of us are openly active.

Quote from: Cireshie on Jan 04, 2016, 10:07 PMwas on 60h last week. I saw only one eventhost host with another just logging on barely before uptime reset. Another did not even go online the entirety of last week.

Although it was holidays that week, I experienced some of this while I was EventHost. One host dominates while others slack.

Now this, I cannot argue against. We, as a team, could certainly host more. There is no denying this. I, and the rest of the EventHost team, try our best to get the proper amount of events in, and according to the players, there are few EventHosts doing their jobs. I am awaiting Scotmid's response here, but I believe it will be a lot like mine.

Quote from: tree43 on Jan 04, 2016, 11:31 PMBased on all the responses about the Event situation, I would just like to say that my friend and I recreated 4 events. Lavaluck(also used for traitor), Spleef, Quiz, and most recently, I made Simon Says. I try to host when I can but I don't want to use my own EMP. I don't know if there is a solution for me but either way I do agree with the Event situation.
Quote from: frankie_jay17 on Jan 05, 2016, 12:52 AMonce i hit 1mil+ on money i'll try to make and host some new events. so the players won't be bored ;D

Player hosted events are openly accepted. Thank you for helping us entertain SFT, guys.

Quote from: teddy14668 on Jan 05, 2016, 12:38 AMthe EventHost problem needs to be dealt with, American_Walrus is the only host I've seen online, and its good that Green_Giant is picking up playing SFT again, but more event hosts would be amazing, just to keep the players busy sometimes.
According to your profile, you are Canadian. Even though we are a bit behind, I am in your timezone, and I typically host a lot then.

Towelie

Quote from: Cireshie on Jan 04, 2016, 10:07 PMI'll do some weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly survival vote contests (with prizes) as long as you advertise it ingame as well put it on the front page for me.

Suggestion: Encourage voting tiers. Their first impression of voting is from the first tier which does not seem good at all. If people knew it got better, they might vote
Quote from: Cireshie on Jan 04, 2016, 10:07 PMI'll do some weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly survival vote contests (with prizes) as long as you advertise it ingame as well put it on the front page for me.

Suggestion: Encourage voting tiers. Their first impression of voting is from the first tier which does not seem good at all. If people knew it got better, they might vote more.
#1 Deal!  (voting contests)
#2 Will add some informative messages and broadcasts about voting tiers


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Psst, got a Nintendo Switch? Add me -> SW-6574-1607-3796