Suggestions: Cross-Server Chat & Rotating Minigames

I know that big ambitious suggestions aren't exactly helpful for the server these days, but I've got two suggestions that I think will improve the server, keep the existing player base engaged and most importantly, be relatively easy to implement (hopefully).

Cross-Server Chat
At the moment, the vast majority of any chat takes place in the lobby. This means if you want to go do something in creative or skyblock, you've probably got to sit in an empty server by yourself, which isn't exactly an exciting experience. My suggestion is that the server chats should be joined up, so someone in creative will see chat messages from the lobby and vice versa. Ideally this should also be disabled with a command similar to the old /all command from the open world servers. There's a few plugins that seem to support this functionality, so hopefully it's a reasonably straightforward thing to do.

Rotating Minigames
This suggestion is also reasonably simple. Essentially this server has a pretty long list of once-beloved games that simply aren't popular enough to justify the continue hosting of. My suggestion is to replace prison (which seems to be relatively dead nowadays) with a server that rotates around some of these classic games on a fixed schedule (e.g. once a week). While this sounds relatively complicated, I think it should be possible with a small bash script and a handful of hopefully small tweaks to a couple of plugins. Then, essentially once a week, one of those classic games will return, which gives a bit more variety to what is otherwise a pretty static server these days and hopefully might also prompt some semi-active players to get online and play that weeks game before it disappears for a couple of months.

Some suggestions for minigames to include in the rotation (not all of these are serious suggestions):

• Build It
• Survival Games
• Minefighter
• Sumo
• CraftRoulette
• AgarPVP
• SkyWars
• Battle Royale
• UHC
• PrisonMMO

An advancement on this suggestion would be to allow people to vote in-game and force-switch the server, although this obviously would be a much bigger undertaking (and while I did make a plugin along those lines several years ago to do that for a personal project, it was a bit jank).

 

I agree with the rotating minigames idea, though I don't think all of those games in the list should be there. While I agree with the sentiment that bringing back x gamemode won't change the traffic to the server with any significance, I think having a rotation is more likely to have that effect. If I know that BuildIt is going to be back but only for y number of days you can be sure I'll be on to play it. Same goes for Agar, SG, and Minefighter (if there is enough interest).

 

I'm a bit unsure about combinations for two reasons:

1. It dilutes the games already there. It'll be harder to get a match of sumo going if people want to play build it instead. Whereas a single game means that's really the only option. I don't think this is a huge deal though, as it's pretty easy for people to coordinate a bit and play a round of each for example
2. The main reason is that I think it'll probably mean it's a decent chunk more work to implement. The suggestion partly hinges on the rotation being reasonably simple to implement (e.g. it should theoretically be a matter of getting the old minigame servers, putting them in a folder, writing a script to cycle through them every week and some updates to the compass plugin), whereas merging build it, sumo and craftroulette would probably be a more substantial undertaking as they were all designed to be on different servers originally (well sumo was for its second iteration). I imagine craftroulette in particular would require some substantial changes (as even in the lobby IIRC you were disguised)

 

I think cross-server chat would also need cross-server tab but I'm honestly not super fond of this idea.

I'm sure you already know my opinion on the rotating server idea, as it is something I had pushed for and have wanted for years. The problem I foresee with it now is that our player base is small enough that filling a survival games match might happen once or twice, but not after that, so for the rest of that week, that game mode would basically be unplayable. The same is true for Minefighter, UHC, Sky wars, Battle Royale, and possible even Agar. I think the best way to test the waters is with something that doesn't prey on nostalgia, but what do you think?

 

Yeah I think that is definitely a legitimate concern (particularly with some of the shall we say less nostalgic games). However I think this is essentially the same problem that is faced by Herobrine's Chamber right now, where it's very difficult (at least in my timezone) to get people on a match most of the time, but it's still there, because when you do fill a match it's a relatively fun game. I guess in my view it's preferable to have an option to play these games, rather than the current situation where it's impossible (and has been for several years for most of these games).

I'd also say that a lot of these games are still fun in 1v1 formats (much like HC), although it's obviously better with more people.

In terms of the nostalgic element, I think it's very difficult to separate. The reality is the best removed games are the ones that people are the most nostalgic about, so picking games people don't have nostalgia for, just means picking some of the less successful removed games, which I'm not sure will be quite a much of a draw. For example, I'm very keen to play build it, SG, MineFighter and AgarPVP again, but not so bothered about SkyWars or Battle Royale, and I imagine that isn't an uncommon opinion. I think a realistic test would be something like Build It, survival games, MineFighter and maybe AgarPVP, as they're all reasonably different gamemodes, with differing levels of nostalgia, but were all fundamentally popular games at one stage (and have good mechanics in general). Even if the average player count is close to zero, I think it'll still be worth it if you get a couple of games running every day or so.

I originally picked a week because that means each game would coincide with a weekend (and therefore a higher likelihood of filling a match). Also that would let people have a go if they're only able to get on in the weekends.

In terms of making it a seasonal event, I'm not sure I agree with that. I think it makes it less justifiable in terms of the work needed. I also just want some more games to play in general when I get on the server with friends, rather than having to cycle between OITC and HC as we do currently.

Perhaps for those types of holidays the cycle frequency could get increased (e.g. once a day over Christmas?)

 

What I say and what I mean don't always tend to line up, so I apologize for that. I was more so pondering if it is more beneficial to prey on the nostalgia of our former players vs maybe trying out a new or unique game mode. What do you think would be more effective for the server?

 

I would say that nostalgia would be far more effective I think. Like with a new gamemode, you have some pretty big barriers (thinking of ideas, map building time, plugin development time) and even then, most new gamemodes fall flat relatively quickly most of the time (like it's been a while since a totally new game mode has done well on here). It seems to me that this type of work is unlikely to happen with the current state of the server. Like I personally wouldn't even know where to begin if you asked me to come up with fresh game mode ideas.

It's also a question of what player base you're trying to attract. A new game mode would in theory attract more new players rather than bringing back former players, but I think in practice it's very difficult to overcome Hypixel's inextricable pull when it comes to minigames. Whereas while I don't think bringing back the old games will result in a durable increase to the player count, I do think that it would help to retain the players we still have, with a decent chance of occasionally bringing back former players to play once in a while.