Blacraft Forum

Public Forums => Blacraft General => Topic started by: Bla on 2014 04 06, 03:15:41

Title: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 06, 03:15:41
It's more fun to play when there are more people playing, but adding people we don't know also carries a risk of griefing, cheating and stealing and while we do take regular backups and keep complete logs of pretty much all interactions, having to deal with such issues often would be a strain.

Do you people think it would be a good idea to advertise for the server, for example on the Minecraft forums?

If so, what do you think would be worth highlighting about the server to people who might consider joining?

Advertising about the many communist elements means we might attract communist people who share views with some of us and could be great contributors, but could also attract anti-communists who might try to ruin the server due to their opposition to communism.

At the same time the server is intended to allow people to play capitalist or just isolated if they prefer.

I'm open to giving it a try but I think the biggest problem would be that a thread we made would get buried quickly if we don't have some good points to put up. It's not a very active server so unless we all post updates about what we work on every once in a while in the thread on the MC forum, the thread will just die. If we coordinate and use it kind of like the Blacraft thread on US Forum, I think we could attract quite a few new members.

If it turns out that opening the server up a lot puts a strain on our resources, we could close recruitment.

New members would obviously require guiding from experienced members to find areas to build in and such, but we could also build an information center that introduces the server to people, and make it the default spawn.

I think it could be a good idea to try, now that I also have vacation until around April 21 so I have time to introduce the server and keep track of stuff atm, but as said it'd probably require a coordinated effort by us to keep a thread on the MC forum alive.

Putting up some videos on YouTube showing tours and what we've built could also help, but what I've put up hasn't generated any interest yet, so it'd probably need to be put on the MC forums to actually attract people.
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: b-ong on 2014 04 06, 04:11:49
and they have to stay, not just join and leave in like 1/2 a second
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 06, 14:49:20
In the end that's their choice, we can only help them to start up a region or see/get info on whatever they want on the server.
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Komrage on 2014 04 06, 16:23:02
build the information center first before advertising.

also perhaps prearrange a small region around spawn that's open so everyone doesn't have to wait until there is an admin online before being able to do anything.
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 06, 20:48:32
I'll try to build the info center soon, near the town center in Spawntown.

I don't really agree with the idea of having a small region around spawn though, that area could quickly get very messy and not fit with the surrounding areas. Also I don't think people find such areas very interesting if they're joining the server, they know it's just a place everyone can mess up after all. But since we have to whitelist them in the first place, we might be able to meet them in-game when we do that, otherwise, the info center should tell people the rules on where they can build so that they can find unclaimed land themselves.

It would be very helpful to new players to have all the regions show up on Dynmap, so if you can make a script that lets us move them on there with the Inkscape method, that'd be nice.
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: b-ong on 2014 04 06, 21:09:19
also, this is different from most PvE servers too, there's like regions and stuff like that
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 06, 21:36:54
Spawntown Item Library (the old center of work, just east of Spawntown Public Storage) has stood empty for a long time. I was thinking of, instead of building the info center near the town center, to turn this into the info center. What do you think?

(http://i.imgdiode.com/0sKvJz.png)

The info center would need some walls with signs and some chests with books for people to read, and probably some maps. This should be possible. Ideally it should also look good, since it's the first thing people will see when they spawn, and it probably doesn't look that exciting in its current state.
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Komrage on 2014 04 06, 22:26:21
of course. after you convert that you can build an info center registry along
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 08, 02:13:51
Good progress.

Here we're working on the contents to put in the center:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Crg4bKWh73mmrccXXQE52SSih-HVDUANccXrB4_QI4Q/edit#heading=h.ec6xrea75tl3
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: AeriOwl on 2014 04 08, 21:08:27
r/mcservers
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 09, 01:51:42
That sounds like another good idea, I could make a Reddit account for it.

Anyway, the intro center is now in a state where I'd say all we need to get finished is the intro book before it can be used. However, the ground level floor is empty and the floor just below also is, it'd be nice if we could put something into them, so ideas are very welcome. We can always decorate them with random pots and maybe even a random grassy area with small flowers surrounded by some building material in the floor below. Carpets are another thing I might add to some areas of the floors, the top floors could probably use a few of those too.
It also has a rail station now along line 1 and 2. I hope to add the rail lines to Dynmap as well, maybe tomorrow.

Another thing that'd be nice before we start recruiting is to get the borders on Dynmap. If you don't have time to make a script for that I could also just sketch something very rough that outlines all our regions on Dynmap, with a blue border maybe, and then put a sign saying players can freely settle outside that border.

Here are screenshots from the intro center's unused floors:

(http://i.imgdiode.com/kNMm7g.png)

(http://i.imgdiode.com/N4X80F.png)
Title: Re: Recruiting More Members
Post by: Bla on 2014 04 13, 00:03:59
Intro book completed and the two remaining floors decorated just a bit. The server should now be ready for new players to join.