The Change

[Drake]

Drake I removed your message, because it was mostly flame. To address your concern, though, know that MCGamer Feature Discussions is a very new section to our forums. It was newly implemented not even 2 months ago. This does involve clans; you are correct. It is also a suggestion, and from the looks of it, a popular one at that. That is why I moved this thread to this section, because it was highly agreed upon. Here, it can get more attention. Before, it was burried in the US Clan section on page 6. Now, it is on page one of a newly rising forum section.

In the future, if you have a problem with how a Moderator has handled an action, please do not go all gung ho on the forums. It is better for your case if you simply bring it up with the Sr. Staff so that they can handle the matter properly. If you would like to discuss the moving of your thread any further, I suggest you bring it up with me in a DM, so that this thread may stay on the topic that you began.

With that being said, let's get back on topic.

okay ily, what do u think?? should this change happen?

 

[Ava]

Let me start off this response by saying that yes, I have read through the original post, and all 12 pages of this thread. I don't respond to a lot of these sorts of threads due to their toxic pretense, which makes it difficult to craft a serious response; since this thread was a bit more polite, I'm happy to make a response. I can't respond to every detail of every question simply because some questions aren't my responsibility/decision to deal with (i.e. maps), but I'll respond to what I can.

1. I don't deal with maps, so I can't give a proper response here; I'll leave that to someone else (AlpakaWhacker). However, I will say (not bringing up any particular examples) that maps are usually removed because they're underplayed. On the flip side of this coin, people also complained when we didn't remove underplayed maps...
   
   
2. In this day and age, forged evidence is more common than ever before, and the only way we can verify if evidence is legitimate or forged is the timestamp on the sidebar. In the past week alone, I've prevented several people from getting falsely banned due to forged evidence, and the only way I was able to do that was using the information on the sidebar and comparing it to our logs. That's why we don't accept cropped screenshots/videos as evidence, and why the sidebar is most likely never going to go away (also, it's been around since at least late 2013). You can, however, "minimize" the sidebar down to a size that should be rather unobtrusive, while still providing us with all the information we need to verify evidence, by using the /sidebar minimize command.
   
   
3. Once again, I can't give a proper response here, as items in maps are an issue with the mapping team (AlpakaWhacker).
   
   
4. I can definitely see your point here, and I'd agree myself that the current hub is a bit lacking in activities (any 2013ers remember the trampoline in the hub? ). I'm sure this is something the mapping team can look into. In addition, we're reworking the dynamic switching logic a bit for the hubs so that the system makes less hubs with more players in each. The player cap per hub will still be 64 for performance reasons, but instead of having 15 hubs, with the first few having 64, 48, 25, etc. players then the rest having 1-5 players, we're more aiming to make all hubs have 48-64 players during peak times.
   
   
5. The old lobby was nice, but everything has to change at some point or another. Once again, this is more of a map issue, which I can't really respond to.
   
   
6. It's not as simple as just picking up the extra servers and moving them to Canada. No Minecraft community worth its salt uses "shared hosting" - the typical hosting you'd get if you search for "Minecraft hosting" and buy a server for $2 a month. Rather, larger Minecraft communities such as us use dedicated server hosting/colocation, which allows us to fit many different Minecraft servers on a single "node", similar to the way a host would - in this way, we're basically our own host. Each node of ours hosts at least 25 servers (EU nodes host more because they're more powerful).
   
   So, could we technically take some of the US nodes and go on an epic MCGamer road trip from Phoenix, Arizona to somewhere in eastern Canada? Well... yes and no. In theory, yes, but in practice, it's a lot more complicated than that. To start, we'd have to find a datacenter that doesn't suck and accepts colocation, which in itself isn't too difficult. Next, we'd have to deal with buying more hardware for the Canadian rack, which would be pretty expensive - keep in mind that some of the hardware you'd find in a datacenter (i.e. multiple switches, power distribution units, blade server housings, etc) can add up to 5 figures after the dollar sign. We'd then still have to deal with added monthly cost for the colocation.
   
   The other option would be to rent dedicated servers out of the region, as we did previously. Although this is more expensive over time, it's cheaper upfront.
   
   However, both of these options carry the same connotation: added monthly costs. Keep in mind that MCGamer is just like any other large Minecraft network in the way that we have to operate as a business first, and a game just behind that. Nothing any network does to their gameplay will matter if they're in the red financially. Canada was being operated at a net loss month-over-month, even with the additional money from premium memberships the region brought in. It simply didn't make financial sense from a business standpoint for us to continue our operations out of that region.
   
   
7. The community is honestly pretty split on this. We ran an in-game and forum poll some time ago, and if I remember correctly, the in-game poll was something like 30% supporting mobs and 70% opposing, while the forum poll was practically opposite (70% supporting, 30% opposing; as I said, apologies if these numbers are wrong, I don't remember the exact results off the top of my head). That said, I wouldn't be against running an in-game poll again; if a sizable majority of in-game players vote on an in-game poll in support of adding mobs, we might consider adding them.

I'll go over a few other concerns I saw outside of the OP, as well.

Anti-cheat: I won't go too in-detail here, because it's been said over and over on other threads, but it's impossible to make a perfect anti-cheat for Minecraft that catches every hacker and has no false positives, as much as some communities would like you to believe it can be done. I'm not claiming that we have the best anticheat; we don't, and that's no secret. What I am saying, however, is that it's being worked on. Finding the fine line between banning innocent players and banning hackers is difficult, and we're working on staying on the right side of that line.

/stats command output: I'm sure we can modify it a bit. Not too much to say here.

Relog glitch: Recently patched (in game build #251) - no longer relevant. Not much to say here either.

Old forum style: Probably not happening, sorry. It'd take an unjustifiable amount of effort to make some portions of our site (i.e. the leaderboards) work with the old style, and it increases the amount of maintenance time we spend on the forums (which means less time being spent working on things that matter in-game). We do want to look into getting a "dark" version of our current forum theme for sometime in the future, however (I'd appreciate this myself, as I much prefer dark themes over light themes).

TL;DR: No. I'm not TL;DRing this post. Just read it.

 

[Drake]

Let me start off this response by saying that yes, I have read through the original post, and all 12 pages of this thread. I don't respond to a lot of these sorts of threads due to their toxic pretense, which makes it difficult to craft a serious response; since this thread was a bit more polite, I'm happy to make a response. I can't respond to every detail of every question simply because some questions aren't my responsibility/decision to deal with (i.e. maps), but I'll respond to what I can.

1. I don't deal with maps, so I can't give a proper response here; I'll leave that to someone else (AlpakaWhacker). However, I will say (not bringing up any particular examples) that maps are usually removed because they're underplayed. On the flip side of this coin, people also complained when we didn't remove underplayed maps...
   
   
2. In this day and age, forged evidence is more common than ever before, and the only way we can verify if evidence is legitimate or forged is the timestamp on the sidebar. In the past week alone, I've prevented several people from getting falsely banned due to forged evidence, and the only way I was able to do that was using the information on the sidebar and comparing it to our logs. That's why we don't accept cropped screenshots/videos as evidence, and why the sidebar is most likely never going to go away (also, it's been around since at least late 2013). You can, however, "minimize" the sidebar down to a size that should be rather unobtrusive, while still providing us with all the information we need to verify evidence, by using the /sidebar minimize command.
   
   
3. Once again, I can't give a proper response here, as items in maps are an issue with the mapping team (AlpakaWhacker).
   
   
4. I can definitely see your point here, and I'd agree myself that the current hub is a bit lacking in activities (any 2013ers remember the trampoline in the hub? ). I'm sure this is something the mapping team can look into. In addition, we're reworking the dynamic switching logic a bit for the hubs so that the system makes less hubs with more players in each. The player cap per hub will still be 64 for performance reasons, but instead of having 15 hubs, with the first few having 64, 48, 25, etc. players then the rest having 1-5 players, we're more aiming to make all hubs have 48-64 players during peak times.
   
   
5. The old lobby was nice, but everything has to change at some point or another. Once again, this is more of a map issue, which I can't really respond to.
   
   
6. It's not as simple as just picking up the extra servers and moving them to Canada. No Minecraft community worth its salt uses "shared hosting" - the typical hosting you'd get if you search for "Minecraft hosting" and buy a server for $2 a month. Rather, larger Minecraft communities such as us use dedicated server hosting/colocation, which allows us to fit many different Minecraft servers on a single "node", similar to the way a host would - in this way, we're basically our own host. Each node of ours hosts at least 25 servers (EU nodes host more because they're more powerful).
   
   So, could we technically take some of the US nodes and go on an epic MCGamer road trip from Phoenix, Arizona to somewhere in eastern Canada? Well... yes and no. In theory, yes, but in practice, it's a lot more complicated than that. To start, we'd have to find a datacenter that doesn't suck and accepts colocation, which in itself isn't too difficult. Next, we'd have to deal with buying more hardware for the Canadian rack, which would be pretty expensive - keep in mind that some of the hardware you'd find in a datacenter (i.e. multiple switches, power distribution units, blade server housings, etc) can add up to 5 figures after the dollar sign. We'd then still have to deal with added monthly cost for the colocation.
   
   The other option would be to rent dedicated servers out of the region, as we did previously. Although this is more expensive over time, it's cheaper upfront.
   
   However, both of these options carry the same connotation: added monthly costs. Keep in mind that MCGamer is just like any other large Minecraft network in the way that we have to operate as a business first, and a game just behind that. Nothing any network does to their gameplay will matter if they're in the red financially. Canada was being operated at a net loss month-over-month, even with the additional money from premium memberships the region brought in. It simply didn't make financial sense from a business standpoint for us to continue our operations out of that region.
   
   
7. The community is honestly pretty split on this. We ran an in-game and forum poll some time ago, and if I remember correctly, the in-game poll was something like 30% supporting mobs and 70% opposing, while the forum poll was practically opposite (70% supporting, 30% opposing; as I said, apologies if these numbers are wrong, I don't remember the exact results off the top of my head). That said, I wouldn't be against running an in-game poll again; if a sizable majority of in-game players vote on an in-game poll in support of adding mobs, we might consider adding them.

I'll go over a few other concerns I saw outside of the OP, as well.

Anti-cheat: I won't go too in-detail here, because it's been said over and over on other threads, but it's impossible to make a perfect anti-cheat for Minecraft that catches every hacker and has no false positives, as much as some communities would like you to believe it can be done. I'm not claiming that we have the best anticheat; we don't, and that's no secret. What I am saying, however, is that it's being worked on. Finding the fine line between banning innocent players and banning hackers is difficult, and we're working on staying on the right side of that line.

/stats command output: I'm sure we can modify it a bit. Not too much to say here.

Relog glitch: Recently patched (in game build #251) - no longer relevant. Not much to say here either.

Old forum style: Probably not happening, sorry. It'd take an unjustifiable amount of effort to make some portions of our site (i.e. the leaderboards) work with the old style, and it increases the amount of maintenance time we spend on the forums (which means less time being spent working on things that matter in-game). We do want to look into getting a "dark" version of our current forum theme for sometime in the future, however (I'd appreciate this myself, as I much prefer dark themes over light themes).

TL;DR: No. I'm not TL;DRing this post. Just read it.

Thank You for your response Ava
I'm sorry for any toxic pretense.

 

[AlpakaWhacker]

#1 I believe that MCSG needs to bring back some of the following maps, they are very missed by a lot of people : MoonLight Lake, Wyvern's Wake, Vida Cova, Freeze Island, Icarus(not the new version), Moonbase (not the new version..), Rugged land, Survival games SG5.., and many other maps. These maps were the core of fun on MCSG and they have been removed. If they were removed for a valid reason then that is understandable.

One reason why some of those maps were removed was simply for the reason that they were just not very popular and were always getting the lowest numbers of players. An example of this would be Survival Games 5.

Some of those maps now are quite old and haven't aged well or needed improvements, hence why new versions of the maps were made (in the case of Icarus and Moonbase for example) which since being released has increased the popularity of those maps.

Some of the maps, I can't actually speak from knowledge as they were during the year that I wasn't around here however in the case of Wyverns Wake, I do know that one reason why it was removed was because of numerous OP items hidden around the map and a number of things that made the map a little unfair to say the least, plus the map makers didn't want the map to be re-added in its current state for those reasons also from what I'm aware.

#3 Enchanted items and the diamond swords on Wyvern's Wake, the Enchanted armor and the bow on Vida Cova, the Golden apple and the potion of health on Valleyside University, the hobo sticks on Rugged Lands, and etc. These items should be returned to maps (maybe hidden at another place). I know these items can give someone an unfair advantage but this is the Survival Games. There should be items like those on maps, they can be called "treasures" or something. I don't know but that brings fun to the game. Cornucopia can also give an unfair advantage as well at refill or even at the beginning of the game? It's technically the same. You need to know how to beat someone with enchanted armor and a diamond sword. That's why it's called the Survival Games, to survive against foes with items and skills maybe better than you.

Certain items are allowed if permitted beforehand however in those situations, those are items that should never have been on those maps in the first place. They were way too OP in some cases and most definitely gave an unfair advantage to those that managed to get to them. Most of the time, these items didn't require much risk in order to get them hence why they were deemed OP and thus removed.

#4 The 2013 and the 2014 hubs were better in my opinion. Other players and staff may differ but that's what i believe.

2013 HUB: https://gyazo.com/7f1f594a41ab046aeafaabd597ab41e2
2014 HUB: https://gyazo.com/a13159bde7f379c47b790597da038910​

Just look at those, The old hubs just seems much more fun and energetic. People actually interacted. You can see Forarian running around like a noob. Ava . There were other things like the Picture Booth, the Ship.. the beach.. and places that seemed fun to adventure to throughout the Hub. I remember when everyone would use the pressure plate to fly towards the golden creeper in the 2013 hub. and try to get on it.. memories :c

#5 Same goes with the MCSG lobbies.. the old ones seemed way better. The 2013 lobbies were even better. When it was winter there would be Christmas Tree towards the back of the lobby and we would all stand around the Christmas Tree. That was FUN. MEMORIES. Too bad i couldn't find a screenshot for that.

​

People will always have differing opinions when it comes to Hubs and Lobbies (and just Maps in general for that matter) but when it comes to the Main Hub, the V2 Hub from late 2014 was just way too large and needed to be replaced for that reason (although it was a shame, as with all maps, to see it go). The hub prior to that one also suffered a little from that issue however no where near to the same extent.

Ultimately, the reason why we change the Main Hub and Lobbies is to freshen things up, improve in the areas we feel need improved and ultimately attempt to improve a players experience. Hopefully the new Halloween Lobbies and Hub help with that.​

 

[Drake]

One reason why some of those maps were removed was simply for the reason that they were just not very popular and were always getting the lowest numbers of players. An example of this would be Survival Games 5.

Some of those maps now are quite old and haven't aged well or needed improvements, hence why new versions of the maps were made (in the case of Icarus and Moonbase for example) which since being released has increased the popularity of those maps.

Some of the maps, I can't actually speak from knowledge as they were during the year that I wasn't around here however in the case of Wyverns Wake, I do know that one reason why it was removed was because of numerous OP items hidden around the map and a number of things that made the map a little unfair to say the least, plus the map makers didn't want the map to be re-added in its current state for those reasons also from what I'm aware.




Certain items are allowed if permitted beforehand however in those situations, those are items that should never have been on those maps in the first place. They were way too OP in some cases and most definitely gave an unfair advantage to those that managed to get to them. Most of the time, these items didn't require much risk in order to get them hence why they were deemed OP and thus removed.

People will always have differing opinions when it comes to Hubs and Lobbies (and just Maps in general for that matter) but when it comes to the Main Hub, the V2 Hub from late 2014 was just way too large and needed to be replaced for that reason (although it was a shame, as with all maps, to see it go). The hub prior to that one also suffered a little from that issue however no where near to the same extent.

Ultimately, the reason why we change the Main Hub and Lobbies is to freshen things up, improve in the areas we feel need improved and ultimately attempt to improve a players experience. Hopefully the new Halloween Lobbies and Hub help with that.​

okay well, thank you for your reply AlpakaWhacker . It was greatly appreciated but it would cool to see at least some change.

 

[shadowblaze12]

i agree with mostly everything besides

maps that you listed
mobs being added back
and the op items being added back

 

[OG]

One reason why some of those maps were removed was simply for the reason that they were just not very popular and were always getting the lowest numbers of players. An example of this would be Survival Games 5.

Some of those maps now are quite old and haven't aged well or needed improvements, hence why new versions of the maps were made (in the case of Icarus and Moonbase for example) which since being released has increased the popularity of those maps.

Some of the maps, I can't actually speak from knowledge as they were during the year that I wasn't around here however in the case of Wyverns Wake, I do know that one reason why it was removed was because of numerous OP items hidden around the map and a number of things that made the map a little unfair to say the least, plus the map makers didn't want the map to be re-added in its current state for those reasons also from what I'm aware.




Certain items are allowed if permitted beforehand however in those situations, those are items that should never have been on those maps in the first place. They were way too OP in some cases and most definitely gave an unfair advantage to those that managed to get to them. Most of the time, these items didn't require much risk in order to get them hence why they were deemed OP and thus removed.

People will always have differing opinions when it comes to Hubs and Lobbies (and just Maps in general for that matter) but when it comes to the Main Hub, the V2 Hub from late 2014 was just way too large and needed to be replaced for that reason (although it was a shame, as with all maps, to see it go). The hub prior to that one also suffered a little from that issue however no where near to the same extent.

Ultimately, the reason why we change the Main Hub and Lobbies is to freshen things up, improve in the areas we feel need improved and ultimately attempt to improve a players experience. Hopefully the new Halloween Lobbies and Hub help with that.​

Honestly, the hub from late 2014 should be 100% added back, I loved it to death. It was the most aesthetically pleasing and interactive hub that has ever been on the server and I truly think that it should make a return onto the servers.

 

[Tenebrous]

Anti-cheat: I won't go too in-detail here, because it's been said over and over on other threads, but it's impossible to make a perfect anti-cheat for Minecraft that catches every hacker and has no false positives, as much as some communities would like you to believe it can be done. I'm not claiming that we have the best anticheat; we don't, and that's no secret. What I am saying, however, is that it's being worked on. Finding the fine line between banning innocent players and banning hackers is difficult, and we're working on staying on the right side of that line.

I don't want to act like a smartass here but that simply isn't true. There are certain client signatures that are testable and cannot be emulated under any condition, even lag, by a legit player. Sometimes there are several checks that work as a loop function - so the bypass in the hacked client would then be caught by another check and then the bypass for that check would be caught by another check and so on and so forth until either the hacker runs out of bypasses or the anticheat runs out of patches. It turns out that the anticheat will always win if the player's client is better than a normal player. If the player's client is worse, of course there will be bypasses but what's the point of catching something that won't even be that op. If you don't believe me here are some videos.

Anti-Knockback // Velocity

Kill Aura // Triggerbot