The State of MCC

Something I've been thinking about for a while. Quick introduction: I've been here since the inception of MCC back in 2014. Played a lot in the beginning, haven't played actively since ~5 years but been on and off to see the server change throughout the years. Was staff on Alex's old server LC for years before MCC. Basically, been around for a bit.

I write this thread because I think it's worth discussing how MCC is right now (September 2023). I don't play on every server and know every little detail, so I can only speak to my experience and hope others can say what they feel. This is not meant to blame anyone and should not be seen as an attack. I have a few big points, then smaller random points. Let's get to it:

MCC is in dire condition right now. It's dead. A corpse that takes a breath of life every reset, then goes right back to sleep. It is currently the middle of the day, and there's 243 players online (48 survival, 67 prison, 128 skyblock, actually more than I thought lol). Lifesteal doesn't exist. During the night time, there's probably less than 50 total active players. Chat goes completely silent at these hours. These numbers only go back up whenever there's a reset, but nobody really cares anymore.

I play prison the most so this is my experience. Every season is the same, there is no exciting changes that incentivize people to play the game. Everyone mines for one week, some stay for another week, and people cash out and gamble their money away because that is literally the most rewarding part of the server. Normal, regular people who are trying prison out just don't stay long term. The most rewarding part of prison is people coinflipping massive amounts of money, losing a portion, and potentially winning (or losing) everything. Think about that. PvP seems some what active, but that's it. Same cycle, every reset. Initial boom, everybody gets rich, cash out, stop caring. My suggestions: figure out a way to bring value to the money. Some sort of larger economy where people can chip in, let's say, a big arena battle or something. Just anything that is not just money for the sake of itself. Ask people what'd make it better.

Minigames. Why on Earth would you take away the central fun, repetitive, rewarding core of a server? I don't care about costs. You can't afford to host ANY minigames? No skywars, no hunger games, nothing, not even one? The amount of people that joined and played a few games of skywars, then hopped on a smaller subserver kept MCC active. Every subserver is now about investing, long term building. People don't want that all the time. And now you're running CTF, one game every 7 hrs... how many people take a specific time out of their day and plan for a single CTF game that'll last 5 min? Mind you, half of these games per day (which is 2) happen at night, so there's <5 people playing. Last one I played had 4 people. I don't know who makes the decisions, but it seems ridiculous. Bring back skywars, hunger games, TNT run, hide n seek, parkour, bring back SOMETHING. SOMETHING. An individual thing. One thing.

This appears to be a reoccurring problem with MCC: you guys take away the things people actually play and like only to focus on things people don't play and don't like. Where'd creative go? Where'd factions go? You might say cuz nobody was playing it. Why was nobody playing it? It's the same recycled season every time. Why was the little spleef arena in lobby taken away? You know what people would do when the prison server reset at night? They'd all meet up in lobby 1 and play a game of spleef together. When there's nobody playing, you know what happens in chat? There's people chatting with each other about their lives and outside matters. That's community. Sure, there's a lot to be said about the general Minecraft multiplayer server player base going downhill. Even other big servers have significantly less players. But the lack of care from server owners and unwillingness to make new changes has killed the joy of MCC. Nobody cares anymore. Ask anyone playing the server: do you really care about any changes or is it just sticking around to stick around?

The solution: I don't know. Perhaps the server will last for another year and close, maybe shorter or longer. There seems to be a small community that still really sticks with MCC. I don't know what can be changed to make everything better and get new players coming. I guess that's what makes this whole situation worse: that there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. I've talked about prison and minigames, but I'd like to see what others think about how to make the server alive again. It's just a shame to see things now. Again, I'm not attacking Alex or anyone. But there needs to be something different or else nothing will change. Would appreciate any comments or thoughts.

 

Respectfully, it is not the job of the players to come up with ways to keep the server fresh. Of course, people will complain no matter what. That's what comes with the job. Make or don't make changes, consumers will always complain. And nobody is expecting just 2 people to run the server by themselves and implement changes. If that is indeed the approach Alex and vislo are still taking, then it appears we are done. There's nobody else that can implement any changes? Is anybody else in charge? Or is it "just" 2 people? Why not delegate teams / people to specifically prison, kitpvp, etc? If the people at the top think it's only up to them, after all these years, then there is no saving this sinking ship.

You bring up a good point about the constant resets for subservers. I can't imagine having to reset factions and kit pvp as often as you said. Why not just keep a traditional factions and kitpvp server up? One server each, that's it. Resets after a certain amount of time. I don't think people want a reset so often, although I don't fully understand these servers and could very well be wrong.

Lastly, my main issue was with the minigames being removed. Can you please justify why removing ALL the minigames, every single one, was thought to be a good decision? If I could suggest a specific change to this off the top of my head: Add hunger games and skywars. Start with one lobby. ONE LOBBY. Same with CTF (get rid of this 7 hrs between games nonsense). Add a rotating gamemode: walls, tnt run, spleef, hide & seek, parkour, bedwars. Have it change every 3 days. One lobby. See how people react. And for the love of god, add a spleef arena in the main lobby. Those are my suggestions.

I'd like to finish with a serious point worth discussing. Alex and vislo have been in the server business for a long time, and I don't know how much they want to keep going. It's clear that there is a disconnect between the state of the server and their attention. Why not sell the server? Call it a night, walk away, and give it to someone else. I don't know how much money Alex still brings in (I'd estimate ~$150-200 USD based on recent purchases), but if you are only hanging onto MCC because it makes you a little bit of money everyday, then I wish you the best for however long this server has left.