How to go from a failed network to a successful network?

[minxi]

I'm just going to be totally honest.

I feel like I'm about to just give up and let go of years and years of work and experience I've gained go down the drain. I'm emotional, and depressed and all I wanted to do, was to just create a good Minecraft community. But year after year, month after month, day after day, there is almost never any success.

I been running a failed Minecraft network for 7 years.

I'm not sure where to start, and I really don't want to create a long ass post that almost no one will read, but I'll try my best to explain the situation and the advice I seek.

I started a Minecraft community back in the summer of 2012, it was funded from other friends that I've met from another server because of that specific server was shutting down.

I built a small community around it, and at it's peak, I believe in 2013-2014 it had an average pf about 20-30 players and from today, it has made over $25k in sales, according to buycraft.

I thought I did everything right, from always having custom spawns, interesting plugins, and even going as far as protecting our money via a third-party persons account so I'd never touch it. It was solely spent on the community.

Fast forward today, May 9th, 2019 and while I don't regret the community I made, I feel like I've regret everything else.

Countless staff has left over the years. From various reasons, to disagreements, lack of being around because of work, or the staff just being tired of MC.

I don't think we've ever hit over 30 players online. Maybe a few years ago we had an active 30-40 players but that was it. Past 2 years, average is 15-20.

I have 401 members on Discord, after being pruned but only 5 are active in the chats, and that's a maybe. I did a Everyone poll so I can decide on a feature and out of 401 online, it only got 27 votes.

I lost my tech admin because of unrelated drama. I have one admin who does great, that runs discord movie nights on rabb.it, but one other admin who I assigned a project too who hasn't sent me a damn message all week.

And I have a co-owner who's hardly responsive. I have a master builder by my side but he's being less responsive too.

Every day I see "the server is dead" now.

We just rebranded about 3 months ago and there was a lot of hype over it. With new maps, new ideas, and a fresh start for everyone, we got pretty active because at 15-20 players and made over $300 over it, and thanks to that we got a logo for the rebrand and bought new plugins.

But that hype quickly died down.

I've ruined and wasted part of my damn life for this project I worked on and I have nothing to show for it. No friends on it. Nothing to be proud of.

Because of tax season, we're now running out of funds. Our server is cheap, thankfully ($55 on a good SSD dedicated server deal on OVH) but because of the lack of donations, I'm doubtful we'll be able to afford that now. Besides the rebrand hype, we've had hardly made anything since October.

It's a Friday night, and for a 7 year old community, no one is on. I think it's now currently the most dead its been for the last 3 months since the rebrand.

We have an amazing website, logo, dedicated players that aren't really active but they're still there. I've worked my ass off.

I personally feel like I'm skilled in all fields required for a server owner, from running the server itself, plugins, running the backend/databases, the system on linux, and alright at making custom plugins.

But yet, I'm here posting this because I have a failed server.

How the hell do I take this server and give it life? How do I make it grow and re-create a community?

Thanks for anyone who takes their time and give advice.

 

[Niteburn]

.

 

[Inherit]

Paypal invite rewards (just make sure people don't bot). Youtubers, monthly resets.

 

[UnknownUsername]

Paypal invite rewards (just make sure people don't bot). Youtubers, monthly resets.

I disagree with PayPal Invites & Monthly Resets
You don't want your network to gain players solely on PayPal rewards, and you don't want Monthly Resets because people usually want to grind for long periods of times.

I do however agree with YouTubers and extreme advertising, another thing I'd also recommend is investing in a few custom plugins that're exclusive to your network. If you can't afford custom plugins to be made just do what I did, I just got creative with the plugins I already had and made an entirely different system that looks custom.

 

[Inherit]

I disagree with PayPal Invites & Monthly Resets
You don't want your network to gain players solely on PayPal rewards, and you don't want Monthly Resets because people usually want to grind for long periods of times.

I do however agree with YouTubers and extreme advertising, another thing I'd also recommend is investing in a few custom plugins that're exclusive to your network. If you can't afford custom plugins to be made just do what I did, I just got creative with the plugins I already had and made an entirely different system that looks custom.

I see your point with paypal rewards, but most people play other servers as they have the chance to make money. And monthly resets are needed so that the if the competition does get too far ahead, all progress will be wiped and players can start on a fresh, new playing field.

 

[minxi]

I disagree with PayPal Invites & Monthly Resets
You don't want your network to gain players solely on PayPal rewards, and you don't want Monthly Resets because people usually want to grind for long periods of times.

I do however agree with YouTubers and extreme advertising, another thing I'd also recommend is investing in a few custom plugins that're exclusive to your network. If you can't afford custom plugins to be made just do what I did, I just got creative with the plugins I already had and made an entirely different system that looks custom.

We usually do a yearly reset. And I 100% agree on your stance of resets. It' creates temporary hype, which is great to do before the summer hits, I've found, but after after that temporary hype, it slowly starts to kill the server if the hype doesn't retain players.

That's what I've found. I can't imagine doing monthly resets, that would kill everything.

 

[Feedback]

Message me Lizardz#0001

 

[Maddy]

What’s the server type

 

[Floydd]

give the players what they want, give them exatly what they want, they will like your server then, and stay there, and incite people, friends, etc. It's simple really, and do the popular servers, like skyblock, prisons, factions, hcf, etc. and make sure to keep in contact with your players, dont go ghost for 5 fucking months. Keep it updated, keep everything new and evolving but still have all the og stuff that the old players used to like and will like once they see the changes, dont let the suggestions that they put in there go unheard. give them what they want and they will grow it for you. and have advertisement too, dont be scared to spend a lil money along the way.

 

[minxi]

What’s the server type

It was a network of creative, vanilla, towny, and skyblock. However, after some helpful suggestions in private messages. I am officially slimming down the server and only going with Towny and do a more finished and polished version of skyblock after Towny is more optimized.

Trust me, you're not alone. This exact same thing happened to me and countless other people I know. My advice is to stop as soon as you can because there's nothing you can do in this day and age to get your server popular unless you happen to have a lot of money and a couple huge youtubers. All that's going to happen is you're going to keep wasting more and more and more money. Stop going down the rabbit hole as soon as you can.

God, I wish I could listen to this advice, but something in me just can't pull that trigger and close it down. I been doing this for almost 8 years! Imagine stopping now will feel so wrong.

I wish, but I just can't.

 

[Maddy]

It was a network of creative, vanilla, towny, and skyblock. However, after some helpful suggestions in private messages. I am officially slimming down the server and only going with Towny and do a more finished and polished version of skyblock after Towny is more optimized.



God, I wish I could listen to this advice, but something in me just can't pull that trigger and close it down. I been doing this for almost 8 years! Imagine stopping now will feel so wrong.

I wish, but I just can't.

might play pm me ip

 

[Adam N]

For towny make a map that resets often and one that doses not. Skyblock may be a good idea.

 

[John Ristau]

add factions and hcf they are new and really big communities i also think getting partners and youtubers on. Towny is a dead gamemode anyways skyblock has to be unique to play aswell.