Problem

[Towelie]

This is a post I've been avoiding to post as I was hoping I wouldn't have to.
However, for the past 3 months we are running at a loss. Thankfully, we have a reserve of funds which was thought of for this exact reason, so this doesn't mean SFT is shutting down or anything like that.
However, the future is a bit uncertain because of the premium shop purchases (or donations) slowing down in the past few months.
This, coupled with some big expenses (For example I spent $1000 on paying the web server for a year + renewing all the servers for 1 month) means we are currently running on money from our reserve.
By all means this is not an ideal situation and it's even worrying for me, seing as there doesn't seem to be a clear improvement.
Yes, we could just do another discount period, but that would only further devalue our premium shop offering.

Please help us by:
- Purchasing items from our premium shop https://www.superfuntime.org/shops
- Voting (which in turn brings new players, and some of them may purchase items)
- Inviting friends (same benefits as voting)
- Suggest new premium shop items which you personally would buy (in this topic)

Survival:


Pix (has actually recovered for a bit so this month it looks like there isn't gonna be a problem):




NOTE: SFT is not shutting down. This post is not about that. We're just trying to prevent that on the long term. There is no immediate risk of SFT shutting down due to lack of funds.

[xQuicScopex]

tax season is here for the us so in the next couple weeks people will be getting a lot of money to throw away so that possibly could help

[calfrokrill]

Tow, sadly I don't have access to a credit card. But ever since I came back from my leave, about 3-4 months ago, I've been voting like crazy. I'm not gonna stop anytime soon either. I've invited 5 friends to the server as well, and they're hooked.

Even if I stop playing SFT, I won't stop voting. Ever.

Also, I've been getting people to vote more on survival, which I'm really excited about.

[ochoaj]

I also cannot donate funds due to economic issues.

I do try and vote at least 3-5 times a week, so I will continue doing so and other things to help the server. 

[Towelie]

Tow, sadly I don't have access to a credit card. But ever since I came back from my leave, about 3-4 months ago, I've been voting like crazy. I'm not gonna stop anytime soon either. I've invited 5 friends to the server as well, and they're hooked.

Even if I stop playing SFT, I won't stop voting. Ever.

Also, I've been getting people to vote more on survival, which I'm really excited about.

That's awesome! Voting and inviting players helps us  A LOT! Even if you can't donate, chances are one of the players you bring by inviting or voting will, which helps SFT

[BattleAxium]

Suggestions for Survival:

Voting: Expand on Vote Party and make it give players something of value. Getting a random potion or cookie isn't really rewarding. Maybe give Colesy's Vote tiers for each drop.

Hunger: I'm not sure if this is Mojang or the server but I would rather not be starving constantly. It seems any food I eat doesn't saturate my hunger for a long enough time.

Donator Perk: Make ImgMaps more customizable and allow people to upload their own image. So, long as it's not too inappropriate this should be fine.

Other: Look for other game servers that can be monetized? I know for a fact, Altis Life can be, and it would help pay for some of these costs.

[IamHerrow]

I would be buying more but being jobless for a month and bills takes a toll. As soon as I can tow I will

[Towelie]

I would be buying more but being jobless for a month and bills takes a toll. As soon as I can tow I will

I feel you :S Been there for 6 months. Hang in there bud, you'll get a job!

[IPwnCreeps]

For pixelmon, it'd be nice if the /vote command was the same as Survival. From what I saw you either had to go to the forums for a list or click an individual GUI button for each link, just obnoxious to do.

Looking at getting a job soon, might be able to toss a donation or two your way.

[Zesty]

For pixelmon, it'd be nice if the /vote command was the same as Survival. From what I saw you either had to go to the forums for a list or click an individual GUI button for each link, just obnoxious to do.

Yes, please.

[NutellaToastx]

I'll try to vote as much as i can Tow.
I've bought alot of Survival stuff, there's not much more i can buy, haha.
I'll try my best, thanks for putting this out there.

[TheStarNomad✯]

Unfortunatly I can't donate since I have no money, but I do vote everytime I remember to and direct those players looking for money to /vote too.

Also I came up with a new Donator rank that looks like these:





I put both there because I dont know which one is better xd

The kit for the rank could be 1 wool block of each colour of the rainbow or something random like that

More could be added of course but I don't know much about the donator rank perms. Would most likely have /talk though

[Aymaneto]

Honestly if i had access to a credit card/paypal that actually has money in it, i would donate. But unfortunately i don't, so i try to vote as much as i can (these past days been hectic for me) :c
Great post

[supermee3]

What does the green line mean? Also I would like to know what restrictions there are for the premium shop (like what is allowed there and whatnot)

[Miricx]

The problem isn't the facts that we're running low on votes, the problem is and has always been that we're competing against much bigger people, who now host their own servers and have 1,000+ people online 24/7.

Sure, we're a big community, but just face the facts that we can't compete against these people. These servers have 20,000 votes already while we're not at 1,000 yet, and that's just page one. I remember when SFT used to be on number one, but that was like three years ago, when those servers didn't exist. Even if every single member registered on forums right now would vote everyday, we would still not even make it to page two. YouTubers have taken over the Minecraft community. They have much greater amount of money, hardware and advertisement and that's what the people wants.

We can't really ask any more from the community but donate when they can, because most of us have an economy as well, and vote everyday.

I'm not implying that we should give up though, I just think it's maybe time to move on? Maybe stop milking Minecraft with plugins, mods and different types of Minecraft servers and just aim for something bigger. That's what communities eventually does.

[iLaxrv10]

I disagree with @Miricx theory of letting MC go. I think that everyone loves our servers. Theres a decent amount of players on Survival,
Pixelmon and, B-Team each day. Maybe close down the servers that arent doing so well? I can name a few but I dont wanna do it here. Anyways, Ill be donating once I get ahold of my giftcards I recieved for christmas. But yeah, donating AND removing the servers that avg like 10- players during the day can be closed maybe?

[Miricx]

I disagree with @Miricx theory of letting MC go. I think that everyone loves our servers. Theres a decent amount of players on Survival,
Pixelmon and, B-Team each day. Maybe close down the servers that arent doing so well? I can name a few but I dont wanna do it here. Anyways, Ill be donating once I get ahold of my giftcards I recieved for christmas. But yeah, donating AND removing the servers that avg like 10- players during the day can be closed maybe?

I'm not saying that we should just let go of the one game that keeps the community alive. I'm saying that we should develop something MEANWHILE. And if it turns out to be a success, it's a win for both parties.

Minecraft was a success, right? Bogeyman and Towelie used to host SAMP servers before, but I think Towelie said to himself, nope, I'm gonna make something bigger, and he did. And it's not impossible to do that again.
Minecraft is a game that eventually will die out and it's time to focus on something new, before that happens. Because when the day comes that we can't keep the servers up and we don't have something else to contribute with. Guess what? The community will die.

I've secretly played on many communities while I'm still on this one, ever since 2007, and I've watched the same thing happen over and over again with them.

[Towelie]

We can't really ask any more from the community but donate when they can, because most of us have an economy as well, and vote everyday.

And I never did, I was just making the players aware of our problems. I have never forced anyone to donate ever.

[blalp]

Can we please have a countdown on the home page of the website that says how long you have until you can vote again?  The 24 Hour thing is kind of a pain for me and i can only vote a couple of days in a row because of it.  If we could make a time on the button, Everyone would KNOW when they can vote again, not just guess.  You could probably use the data from the reward system.  
Also, on Mircx's post, Minecraft will die out as soon as Lego does, they are both practically timeless because of the possibilities.

[lioneatszebra]

I think what might help on Pixelmon is improving the vote rewards. The vote rewards are great ball materials every time. Some times you're lucky and you might receive a hat or chest.

Things that could possibly be added to the Pixelmon donation shop is TMs. Although, each TM has a different value, so some have to have different prices.

[Miricx]

We can't really ask any more from the community but donate when they can, because most of us have an economy as well, and vote everyday.

And I never did, I was just making the players aware of our problems. I have never forced anyone to donate ever.

I never said you did, hence "We can't ask any more". I mean it's a drawn line, which we can't pass, which means we're stuck to this way we're currently doing it.

Can we please have a countdown on the home page of the website that says how long you have until you can vote again?  The 24 Hour thing is kind of a pain for me and i can only vote a couple of days in a row because of it.  If we could make a time on the button, Everyone would KNOW when they can vote again, not just guess.  You could probably use the data from the reward system. 
Also, on Mircx's post, Minecraft will die out as soon as Lego does, they are both practically timeless because of the possibilities.

By saying "die out" I don't mean it will get fucking annihilated by a meteor like dinosaurs, I mean it will get unpopular and people will stop play it, for example Cube World. That used to be a huge thing before, now, nobody plays it anymore. Just like the MMORPG game Tibia I used to play when I was a kid, nobody barely plays that anymore neither. But the company still updates it and still have a small community.

Also for legos, nobody fucking plays with legos anymore, kids have their iPhones and iPads now, which also has endless possibilities. What does that even mean? Everything has endless possibillities, a fucking rock has endless possibilities, I can take a rock and call it a game if I want to.

[Towelie]

About the "Focus less on Minecraft, more on new games" thing.
We have tried. the truth is there aren't really any other games out there which allow the level of customization Minecraft does.
And for us to get players and donations to pay for our expenses, we have to offer something unique, not the same as 1000000 other servers.
Only other games I can think of are SA:MP (too old imo, would be willing to try if I had someone who was good at pawn - the scripting language it works in) and Garry's Mod - which currently @saywhat2365  is working on a revival of. (how's that going ?)

[Miricx]

About the "Focus less on Minecraft, more on new games" thing.
We have tried. the truth is there aren't really any other games out there which allow the level of customization Minecraft does.
And for us to get players and donations to pay for our expenses, we have to offer something unique, not the same as 1000000 other servers.
Only other games I can think of are SA:MP (too old imo, would be willing to try if I had someone who was good at pawn - the scripting language it works in) and Garry's Mod - which currently @saywhat2365  is working on a revival of. (how's that going ?)

say no more
http://gtavmp.org/


on another note, i did work on a tibia server before, but it didnt get finished cause i got stuck. the newer tibia clients are way too complicated for me, it used to be so much easier back in 2006-2007
edit: you can hire PAWN scripters on samp forums, but they are not free, i believe.

[BattleAxium]

About the "Focus less on Minecraft, more on new games" thing.
We have tried. the truth is there aren't really any other games out there which allow the level of customization Minecraft does.
And for us to get players and donations to pay for our expenses, we have to offer something unique, not the same as 1000000 other servers.
Only other games I can think of are SA:MP (too old imo, would be willing to try if I had someone who was good at pawn - the scripting language it works in) and Garry's Mod - which currently @saywhat2365  is working on a revival of. (how's that going ?)

Altis Life? Allows nearly 100% customization. Doesn't require too much to setup. And, with the right amount of time and effort spent, you can have a unique server that stands out from the rest.

[Lucazade13]

I honestly think super fun time needs to branch out more on its minigames aspect. (Self hosting games)

Most of these popular servers are popular because of Youtubers.
Youtubers are popular because of content.
Content is entertaining.
This content is usually a competitive game. (As people mostly like fails and wins) A.k.A a self hosted game

Therefore make something that is entertaining to watch AND play.
Then players and Youtubers will enjoy playing here more.

Note:I'm not saying get rid of survival or our modpack servers, I'm just suggesting a games approach.