Okay, so quick preface here.
Plz Tenebrous12321 don't hurt me in this post am scared.
Obviously both of the servers aren't perfect. They have their ups and downs and even though they are both Minecraft servers their problems are kind of both in their own categories. When I say this, I mean that MCGamer and Badlion are geared differently for different reasons because of different histories. So in the case of most of the categories, you will see me comparing Badlion and MCGamer to the extent that it can be compared given the circumstances, along with some additional bias because bias is in every debate and is unavoidable.
Another thing, I'm pretty unqualified for a lot of the sections (mainly Anti-Cheat and Staff and Rules and TS) because I don't delve I'm not an expert on Anti-Cheat, I'm not a staff member and I don't read the rules all the time, and I don't get on TS often. But I will still comment on these the best I can.
Badlion's Anti-Cheat vs. MCGamer's Anti-Cheat: Completely ignoring how the staff works and how bans are issued using the Anti-Cheat, and focusing on the software itself, which is what is comparable in this category, Badlion Anti-Cheat wins this one. It doesn't get false bans often and usually closes the gap with new clients. Now the way this comparison was put I think that this category was talking about Badlion Banning vs. MCSG Banning (Generally speaking), MCGamer has their quiet hierarchy of reports and a simple Anti-Cheat while Badlion goes all out with Judgement Day and shaming famous people. Badlion's style isn't exactly the kindest, but think about all the popularity and hype that gets them, and this is the first thing that separates Badlion and MCGamer into different categories. Badlion is lenient on it's toxicity and doesn't exactly care as much about shaming and, well, people's feelings. They like to use every aspect of the server to their advantage. Also, with the tryhards comes many many people whining about closet cheaters, auto-clickers and ghost clients, it's more competitive there so the software has to come to par with banning hackers so that the gameplay is the most balanced. MCGamer doesn't have the same amount of tryhards/players ratio, so Anti-Cheat is, well, not taken as seriously (Compared to Badlion, it's still a major topic, just scaled down with the server). As for how the bans are issued, it's complicated, for one MCGamer does take a little while to respond to reports, and usually it's tough to find people on the servers. While Badlion intentionally waits until Judgement Day when bans are instant (Tene will probs quote me on that) instead of being more careful/waiting for the shaming. It's tough to compare how Badlion bans vs. how MCGamer bans because Badlion community expectations are higher and since so many game modes are PvP oriented compared to MCGamer and MCGamer has a smaller amount of people who actually care about the complicated cheaters.
Badlion's Staff vs. MCGamer's Staff
What can I say, I'm not a staff member myself, and I've rarely seen MCGamer staff in action outwardly, much much less Badlion's. I do know that moderators always get together and have a meeting about what they need to work on, but I've heard that the higher ups are more secret. Same with Badlion, I know their staff is split with different servers, which is another thing that separates Badlion and MCGamer from being comparable, Badlion needs separate staff because staff in Arena PVP may not know as well an X-Rayer to a hacker. Badlion once again needs a different kind of system for the moderators because of the gameplay difference. As for the staff themselves, more of the MCGamer staff are warm and welcoming, and sometimes helpful, while Badlion staff are pretty down to the point to say the least. But the maturity level of the server is also different, MCGamer staff have to be inviting because the server is geared to younger incoming players just trying to have fun, and not knowing what hackers are, while Badlion is, as you have seen so far, all about PVP. It's actually pretty tied in this section.
Badlion's Rules vs. MCGamer's Rules (What do you like about their rules?)
MCGamer's rules often cause controversy and are said to be useless and to constricting while Badlion's really open rules cause the toxicity. I think in this category comparing how well the rules work for the type of server it applies is appropriate. So Badlion wins in this section. When I was roaming around on the forums I rarely saw any discussion on rule flaws, so this is what I'm going on. Saying that the MCGamer rules are contradicted by people that the rules aren't geared to is alright, but we're talking server wide here, and so it doesn't work server wide, no matter how nice they try to get everyone to be, the gears always have to be shifted, especially in something as encompassing as the rules, and that's where MCGamer fails. They can't accompany every player's act including players playing on both servers, where the rules are different and lenient/strict on each action. Badlion does have this also because their community is already mostly immaturely mature (meaning they talk trash and dirty stuff, the immature part, and understand it, the mature part), and so curving their act wouldn't mean much, because chat interacts with the same maturity level (an immature mature one), and so people's feelings wouldn't be hurt as much because they can shrug it off and continue, there's less diversity on Badlion in that right. But Badlion also doesn't under compensate, they make rules that accompany the server in categories other than diversity, namely PVP and e.t.c., and while Badlion gets the right level of curving rules, MCGamer overcompensates and under compensates in almost all of their rules.
Badlion's Gamemodes vs. MCGamer's Gamemodes
Can you compare these? Badlion, as explained before, is geared towards PvP, so naturally it's game modes, the huge UHCs, the Arena PvP, the faster paced SG, have to accommodate for the fact that their players are fast paced, and prefer PvP strategies over survival strategies. Like the last rules verse, and now here, because these two categories aren't as complicated unlike the staff and Anti-Cheats, I am going to see how well each server does at tailoring their game modes to how the players play and accept them. I just talked about Badlion's fast paced PvP strategy oriented game modes. But what of MCGamer? Well, talking of MCGamer's game modes in general, they are fun, casual and in general slower games. Think of Deadly Descent, Survival Bingo, and Zedchase, sure they may be rarely played, but they are casual, fun, and your working for yourself, not against other players. Sure they're a race, but there's less that you can do to work against your player than working for yourself. Badlion, all about working against others, that's what PvP stands for. MCGamer then also has their more competitive side, while still catering to a strategy, and relatively slower paced game mode Solo SG and SG. It's a greatly balanced combination and it caters very well. Now I haven't focused on bugs, which many people in this thread have already pointed out, many of MCGamer's more casual games have bugs and SG does too, but how their games are scaled and how, frankly, the bugs don't matter in this case because even added up, many players don't care because of just how MCGamer's player base is, makes MCGamer win in this right. Badlion yes does cater well for their player base, but it always circles back to PvP, and even on Badlion some players want to chill for a while with their friends, and it can be infuriating when you're trying to chill on UHC and you get 'tryharded'.
Badlion's Community vs. MCGamer's Community
An easy answer to this would be MCGamer's community, but why? Badlion has a toxic community, but their players talk to toxic players too. Like in previous sections, their situation and player base is difference, so why does it matter that much? MCGamer's community is more inviting because they have to be, the circumstances here ensure that it is necessary. Now it's inter-category server vs. server that comes into play here. As you saw, MCGamer has casual and competitive play to cater to younger and older and in between people in different moods. Now that is key, MCGamer's community responds to each other in different moods better than Badlion's. If someone from MCGamer, say, were joining the Badlion community, it matters to them that they are crossing servers about the community than game modes. Ultimately that's what a server is, playing with other people no matter if it's building relationships or competing, that's where Badlion falls through. It's casual players may be close to non-existent, but in this category majorities and minorities don't matter, it's not of gameplay, it's of people's interactions, something intertwining complicated and something that MCGamer achieves better than Badlion.
Badlion's Developers vs. MCGamer's Developers
This section is going to be awkward, because I know very little of how each dev group works. Now outwardly, MCGamer and Badlion devs say what they've done, and true to the player base scaling of both servers, they explain why they've done things to cater to both groups, but characteristically, MCGamer devs (talking of what they do not who they are) are more careful when they make changelogs. Badlion goes straight in and doesn't stop. That's the main difference of both groups of devs and why MCGamer is slower but solves common problems in addition to adding the feature while Badlion takes a new update and shoots it out and instead of treading carefully before, and watches for updates after. MCGamer devs focus on getting everything done before the fact, and Badlion devs go after. In this case, Badlion wins, because yes they have the players have to experience the problems of the new update, but they fix it faster, and they also can identify the problem better because they have testers, the player base. MCGamer doesn't use it's player base as well to it's advantage, only starting to with beta servers, but not following up the bug reports as fast and in depth. Why this depth matters in bug fixing terms is that who you're telling the bug has been fixed is pretty well knowing of bugs in the first place. It doesn't hurt to tell them that, and once again MCGamer doesn't achieve that catering.
Badlion's Updates vs. MCGamer's Updates (basically the amount of updates, how they work, if they're consistent, etc.)
Badlion updates go super in depth with their story of how their problems were found, dealt with, and solved, while MCGamer doesn't usually go into big depth, especially on the former two parts, when they update. And commonly this is what every player sees, while yes most people don't like to read long posts, there can be misunderstanding of what the updates actually do, like bug fixes and stuff aren't updates, but much of the MCGamer community isn't getting the memo, which is required because bug fixes, unlike the game modes themselves matter to get fun/competitiveness to the players. Badlion achieves this by a landslide. By also doing the updates faster, then people actually check the forums more to see what's going on, it subconsciously works better for the servers. They once again cater better than MCGamer.
Badlion's SG vs. MCGamer's SG
This is a single game mode of each server. I mentioned before that Badlion SG is faster paced and is technical, while MCGamer SG is more slow and strategic based if not casual. Like in the game mode sections, MCGamer prevails in balancing the gameplay keeping it fresher than what Badlion holds. And it's not just that, MCGamer does a better job at keeping Survival Games about Surviving and not just PvP, SG and the way the game process works can't be all about PvP, go to Arena PvP FFA for that. The SG formula is for players to think about their decisions before the game and not in the moment, and while Badlion attempts to do this with their simpler tiering, the downtime in between is a no-no for the fast paced players on Badlion. MCGamer manages to get the gameplay that is balanced for strategic thinkers and players who like PvP by balancing tiering, and downtime in between. In general though, the players here who play SG like it because they are the kind of players that SG caters to. It's a filter that takes out players eventually if they get bored and move to Badlion and keeps players who like it, which you could say is a bad thing, but those players probably don't go to Badlion SG, and this is SG vs. SG.
Badlion's Maps vs. MCGamer's Maps
Overall, Badlion maps are for PvP, MCGamer maps look aesthetically and strategically good. Those categories are tough to compare because in a 1v1 map, which is what most maps on the server are, it caters well for the PvP aspect, while MCGamer's maps also cater well for the game modes themselves. It's how well they do in both the aesthetics and PvP, and once again MCGamer prevails, Badlion maps in all their history just haven't gotten through with the aesthetic part that even good PvPers crave for. It takes out monotony that good PvPers need because they are probably tailoring their gameplay on one ladder which would probably be boring even though they do it. And Badlion fails to achieve that.
Badlion's Plugins vs. MCGamer's Plugins
Plugins in general aren't aesthetically judged, they are gameplay judged and feature and functionality wise judged. In that case, well, MCGamer does a good job at keeping the obvious problems out, but feature wise, it is creative, but sometimes not what the community wants, and also sometimes unfunctional, like the friends plugin. Now Badlion has these too, but they can fix it fast, and the plugins are always player oriented. Sure like I said earlier maybe it doesn't matter for MCGamer because of their player base, but to keep that player base, you need fresh things, and plugins need to be updating to keep up with the changing environments. MCGamer fails to cater to friend interaction in game, while Badlion does a good job at catering to PvP.
Badlion's Lag vs. MCGamer's Lag
This section is going to be awkward as well, because unlike all other categories here, lag is a pretty spread out thing. For one, MCGamer makes sure that lag doesn't interfere with how people interact with others via the game, while Badlion, just fails to do that, Lag matters on both servers because lag interrupts gameplay and interactions as well. MCGamer wins in this case.
Badlion's Teamspeak vs. MCGamer's Teamspeak (don't answer if you don't regularly go on these two's teamspeak) Well, I don't go often on Teamspeak, but the first time I got on the MCGamer ts, I was welcomed, true to server nature, ts was for building relationships. What was it in for Badlion? Well, organizing group tournaments and such, which doesn't matter as much to Badlion as the building relationships part is for MCGamer. How ts servers both servers I guess is what I'm comparing here, I'm not taking in the categories part, because I don't think that it matters for the circumstances of either server.
Badlion's Forums vs. MCGamer's Forums (same thing above applies here)
Unlike ts, I always come on the MCGamer forums, and though I don't go on anymore on Badlion forums, I have a good idea of what it's about. MCGamer's forums are building relationships and chat based as well as discussion based on MCGamer. Off Topic is down so far because it's not talking of the server and it's not as community based as the Community Corner or even the Status Update sections. Now how forums serve Badlion is just to discuss the server gameplay, while that is done sometimes, many times forum threads I see just become random, and when they try to be community based, it always ends up in flame wars that do hurt because that's the few things you see on the forums. The fact of the matter is, Badlion community on the forums doesn't work out. The forum platform requires people to understand each other, and Badlion's community, well, you know, they don't got time for that. Good forums can only be efficient if the problems are understood. Besides the updates stating the story of the problems, the community side and some discussion side things fail. And that's why forums on MCGamer work better for MCGamer.
I wrote this consecutively for the mindset of delving deep into how each server works and why it does. I did this because, well, I saw that this thread was the perfect place to do that, so thanks @J for possibly inadvertently giving me a place to just write it all out.
Because I wrote consecutively there are inconsistencies with my arguments/comparisons, but I think that ensures the most true form of thought that I have, encapsulated totally because the post was so large (it took 2 and a half hours). This also, I think, ensures less bias when looking it over. (9-5 MCGamer btw)
Any arguments, or the pointing out of inconsistencies are always welcome.
