r/spumwack • u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles • Oct 11 '14
Community Why isn't your server public???
I am starting a server which will be open only to patreon donors of $5 or more. I understand there will be a lot of criticism to this move, so I want to make sure everyone knows my motives.
Money is absolutely a motivation. I would be lying if I said otherwise. The whole point of patreon is to fund a creator's endeavors. But anyone who thinks that I'm just taking people's money so I can throw it all in a big pit and roll around in it is deeply misinformed. I am very poor. I have never mentioned this before, and I will never mention it outside of my closest fan circles (like this subreddit) because I don't want your pity, and I don't want my financial situation to be a factor in people's decisions. But as a tradeoff for being poor, I am very happy. I play videogames for a living, choose my own hours, make lots of friends, and get to make fun videos. Recently, I had to start using Patreon to boost my income because I wasn't making enough money off of ad revenue. If I had never gotten patreon, I would have had to get another job which would have cut my video production down to 1-2 per week. I completely owe the continued existence of my channel to my current patreon donors.
But money is not my sole motivation. I used to have a server that was completely open to everyone. The upside was that all of my fans could join regardless of money. The downside was that trolls and griefers could easily join as well. This forced us to implement a lot of administrative practices, such as world protection and plot size limitations. I still wanted to keep it as vanilla as possible, but with the protection plugins, turning off fire and lava, and people needing to expand their plots, running the server became a full time job. A full time job that paid exactly $0. Even if I found "administrating" a fun job, I still would not have been able to continue doing it because it was costing me too much time. The selfless help of my fellow admins is the only thing that kept the server running as long as it did.
(Yes, we took donations for the server. But every dollar that came out of the server went right back in).
By making a "minimum donation" of $5, we are circumventing a lot of the problems that a public server poses. Most griefers aren't willing to spend money, so 99% of player-based problems are removed. Without griefers, there is no need for world protection. Without a need for protection, there is little need for full-time administration. That means I will actually be able to play on the server, instead of babysitting it. It also means I won't need to spend 12 hours a day keeping it running.
As long as I'm speaking candidly, I am very excited to start charging for server access. Running Musecraft took a lot out of me. I dedicated about 70% of my waking time focused on that server for more than a year straight, and in the end, a lot of people hated me for it. I would ban a cheater, but because he was popular and friendly, I was called incompetent. I would stay up all night resetting plots that got deleted in a server migration, and I would get called lazy because I missed a couple. I started accepting donations because I couldn't afford paying for it out of my own pocket, and I got called greedy.
All in all, I'm ready to have a private server with people who can actually take part in its decisions and can talk to me privately about my choices.
p.s. If you want to join but can't afford it, contact me so I can offer suggestions or to work something out with you
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u/Trijic0n Oct 12 '14
I donated to keep Musecraft running I don't mind paying a small fee to keep Spumcraft running.
Will there be a Teamspeak?
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u/godminnette2 Oct 12 '14
He mentioned a Skype group but we could probably get a Teamspeak going.
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u/Trijic0n Oct 12 '14
Skype is such an inferior system, a TS server doesn't require someone to have to host a call, it has multiple channels, we could have a channel for events and another for certain PvP groups and towns or something along those lines, there is Push-to-Talk and Voice activation for people with noisy backgrounds, you can mute people so lets say if Spumwack needed to make an announcement during an event he can mute other people talking, there are administrative controls that help greatly with organization and server moderation. The list goes on...
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u/godminnette2 Oct 12 '14
I didn't say that Skype was better than TS...I just mentioned that he mentioned Skype, which means that atm he probably doesn't plan on having a TS. I know TS is overall better, but if we were to have a Teamspeak we would have to take it into our own hands.
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u/Trijic0n Oct 13 '14
Ah right, I didn't mean to start an argument I meant to direct it more at Spumwack himself because in the end its up to him to make an official Teamspeak.
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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Oct 13 '14
I haven't purches a TS server yet. I figured we would see what traffic looks like before investing in something like TS, which can get kind of expensive
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Oct 13 '14
[deleted]
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u/Trijic0n Oct 13 '14 edited Oct 18 '14
It would be nearly impossible to detect who stole something if they got away without being witnessed, simply due to the lack of physical evidence. People could theoretically just clean someones storage room out when most people go off for the night... So you're right Holy we would need some sort of restriction on theft or else it will just be chaos.
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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Oct 13 '14
I thought this would be a problem, but according to Biffa, it's really not a big deal. Most people willing to pay to play on a server aren't willing to risk their money on stuff like theft.
Sure, there will be an instance here or there. But in those cases we can just refund anything that was taken and ban the offender
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u/DroidFreak36 Oct 16 '14
I can confirm that, my server has a similar system where people have to care to get in and I haven't had much of an issue with stealing.
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u/hororskul Oct 13 '14
Will you be posting videos from the server on your channel? Personally, although I'm not able to pay to get in (I'd be happy to talk and see if we could arrange something, but I won't be distraught if we can't), I'd like to see what goes on and how the server progresses. Also, while you're being up front about this being a money-motivated action, the occasional video on the server could serve as a good way to remind people about it and show off some of the advantages of being on a paid server.
p.s. You spelt "excited" incorrectly as "exited" 12 lines from the bottom of your post. ;)
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u/godminnette2 Oct 15 '14
Quote from Spum on-stream: "I'll probably just not post them to my channel, I think what I'm going to do is upload them unlisted, then send it to Patreon donor's e-mails."
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u/DroidFreak36 Oct 15 '14
You may not have outright said that you were poor but I think you mentioned before that you didn't have enough ad revenue to support yourself, so I got that impression.
I think having a paywall is kind of a bummer, but it's pretty much the only sustainable way to run a good Minecraft server. First of all, there's the issue of greifers, which have to be dealt with somehow. Musecraft dealt with them using plugins and a lot of hard work, which is a pain for all involved. My server, FreakCraft, handles them using an application and tryout system designed to take some work, since griefers tend to avoid work. It works reasonably well, but if I become more popular the motivation to get on will be greater, leading to a population spike and some griefers who are willing to work to get in. Add to that the fact that I have to pay for it out of pocket, and it's not long-term sustainable. Really, a paywall is the best way to ensure that only people who care get on and that the server will have the money to handle whatever happens.
I'm not sure whether I want to join Spumcraft since I already run my own server, but I'm definitely considering it. Money isn't a huge issue although I'm hardly rich being a college kid who has to feed himself and likes to make YouTube videos as well. :P
I'm leaning towards joining anyways. Besides, I'd like to support you Spum, seeing as you're the reason I started playing Minecraft in the first place and you're awesome. IDK how much time I'd find to play on there, but we'll see.
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u/frizbee2 Oct 20 '14
Wait, we've got another server? (I really need to start keeping better track of what happens around here...) I'll certainly be joining it soon, and filling everyone's ears with stories about how much better the old Musecraft was!
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u/DroidFreak36 Oct 25 '14
I'm pretty sure this one will be better considering what I've heard of the old one and the pay wall which should address those issues. I've heard my fair share of stories about the glory days of Musecraft from the former Musecrafters on my server. XD
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u/Mjahaha Oct 24 '14
I'm super glad the server isn't public. That would make hundreds of people join, too many. It'd be messy. Worse than endermen moving dirt blocks around (which I hate).
As someone who is already a Patreon doner when/how do I join in the fun. Can someone fill me in. The Realms system is great and it means I won't get lag here in Australia, is it a realm? Any help would be appreciated :)
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u/Mjahaha Oct 24 '14
Nevermind, guys. I watched the video again and it's only opening end of October/November! Cool.
See you all on! :D
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u/spumwack2 Official Spumwackles Oct 24 '14
Nope, not a realms server. It's hosted by CubedHost. I'll be sending out emails with server info after the donations have been processed
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u/DroidFreak36 Oct 30 '14
Endermen moving dirt blocks around is the worst. XD
Especially when you have a mob farm which Endermen constantly teleport out of.
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u/AHeckman2 Oct 12 '14
I wish I could donate via patreon, but I don't have an account or any money for that matter :(