Gr8 Leap Forward

As of recently, we've been bleeding members. While a few months ago, this would have been fine, now we are down to a very low number of regular posters. Therefore, we need more people. Not like 100 more, but like 5-15 more regulars.

Gr8 Leap Forward

To facilitate more members, we may need to do more advertising. While previously we have remained a small scale group, we need to grow, at least slightly, or the whole community will begin an unstoppable decline. To advertise, we could make more linked images for signatures for the MC forums, maybe Proto could open a server for his Flans pack and mention us, and we could also visit other sites and use our linked advert inages there. While we don't want too much attention yet, we have to sustain the community. With many members leaving or posting less, we lose intrest in the mod in development, and we also lose developers. Compare the moderators page here to the dev and mod pages on the new forums. There is a massive gap in the numbers there. While some enjoy the small, closeness of the forums as they are now, we can't ignore the fact that our community has been shrinking since the forum change and before then. We need new people with new ideas and new interactions. Tiel has pointed out that this forum no longer has any new ideas, and he called the support of the mod, "blind hope or subdued pessimism". This is, unfortunately, mostly true. So I implore you to mention the forums on other sites, and try and bring in new people.

"Do you want to support a super-epic mod that'll never be made? Join the FC forum today, all of you!
(NOTE: We don't want a lot of people tho. Just like 5-15 or something.)"

That's more meant to be the estimated number we'll get. It isn't active advertising where you ask people to come, it's passive advertising where people come who are interested.

Is it ever that easy ? See there is a dead loop - no content no members, no members no content. You can try to develop as a social gaming community as I also suggested but you are of that bunch that doesn't give much damn about things. You will need to dedicate your time towards one of those goals, and I mean really invest in it.

How many things we could use to our advantage ? My map for example can serve some good promo to our lore AND if frost will have something by then a showcase of the mod or if proto accumulates enough stuff for the pack but again the only one who bothered to really help me out was Targareyan. Without content you won't be able to get the initial interest nor a reason to stay after you joined.

Or the social gaming community bit - you already have much more members than most gaming communities start with and it is not  big leap towards gaining more people. See the advantage of this method is that there is ACTUALLY a reason to stay beyond the mod development. Your refusal to discuss anything but the mod almost lead you to the abyss and I am glad at least you made a gaming subforum that kept some in it. What can you offer other people to be unique ? Organized gaming events, get 12 people online in the same time and you can make one hell of a tournament that will be a lot of fun, like your SoSE evenings just better. Again all you need to do is to actually try and co-operate and give of your time. I cannot force you to do it as a chore but do know that just like a real relationship it's a two way road and you cannot be free of obligations to actually be there and hope it won't fall apart.

I really believe that the only thing you lack is attitude: the guts to finish what you start and the dedication of your time for the cause at least once in a while. BTW there is no reason to limit yourself with going one way or another from what I suggested - you can totally do both and both will give you even bigger community with even more reason to stay but do keep in mind you will have to be more dedicated to the cause too. If you want me to organize a gaming evening just tell me I will try to do it but I do want you to try and co-operate and free of your time and for the love of god attend at least something I try to do.

I made a poster on imgur for us.
https://imgur.com/gallery/6WAhfou/new

Not the best but at least I tried.

EDIT: Just so you know there is a slight chance that I'm getting banned from imgur for this.
EDIT EDIT: Okay guys I'm getting too many negative votes in too short time I'm taking this down.

Daynel it doesn't work this way, you are not begging for ppl, they are not coins nobody will drop em to your hat. I had signatures long time ago that again nobody used, Ill put them here.

And BTW before we can get any new members we must get the new forum online.

Mackeroth's signature on the MCF was what got me here originally. We need more stuff like that. We also need to update the OP on the MCF. That's always going to be our best bet for stuff. I've been meaning to make a lot of really photogenic stuff for a long time, so once I actually do that some of it should be banner-worthy. I don't know how active any of you are on the MCF, but if we made a couple of banners and put them in our sigs that should do something, at least.

Well for advertising... Lets just say the Flan pack was pretty much made for this, I mean if it's got 100,000 views since it started, how hard can it be to advertise FutureCraft for free?

However, to make that effective, we do need something, and that is a demonstration, just talking about it won't do, the size matters not video was a step in the right direction, but we need something a bit more eye catching.

Unfortunately, the only person right now who is capable of making such cool stuff, is Fr0st, so, Fr0stbyte, do you think you can cook up a demonstration that looks good? Doesn't necessarily need to show finished stuff, as long as it is interesting, that's what we need, I have the platform to show it to everyone on, all I need is something to show.

Now, I do have content held back from the flan pack almost specifically for this, however, I'm going to need a few things, the first is some demonstration footage, the second is a good backdrop ship I can use to make people look at the flan pack in the first place, and consequently whatever advertising I put up, at the moment I have average stuff for pictures, and that's got almost 100,000 views, so if I have some awesome stuff, then that should increase the chances of it being viewed.

Now, to address the pessimists among us, this mod dies when Fr0stbyte says so, if he honestly thinks it is going to be made, he has a better idea of this than anyone else here, so I'd go with that.


And also, I did try to get a Flans server sorted out, however, again, I can't host anything.

@ LJS It won't solve the problem, alright they will get to this place what's next ? We got another lurker ? Rarely they stay, especially when there is nothing to stay for. Before we update the OP we still need something to put there, something less theoretical and boring and more bangs for the short attention span of the MCF reader


Also here is my master plan for big advertising campaign. My map I believe has all chances to be a hit if we finish it and hopefully soon as to make sure the idea of actually having an adventure map in space is still unique. Inside it we will use proto's pack and frost's demo for cutscenes added separately that can also be put on proto's and main MCF threads as well as links to all 3 contents. Making all that together will give as attention from many directions and help us gain the users we need. All 3 projects are linked together in a big net so we will be able to reference users between them - if a user finds proto's thread he will automatically find my map and the main FC thread and visa-versa...

That's why I haven't done it yet, I won't put something begging them to come, I'll simply show them what we have (when we have it), and staple on links on how to find out more, if we make it interesting enough, we might get people in, not lurkers, people who are genuinely interested, sure, we'll get a shit ton of lurkers, but we'll also get some good members front that.

But we need stuff first, my stuff alone won't do, it only exists as a quick advertising platform.

We could start a public spaceship building academy? Sorta like the mithrintia server? That could work; it would at least generate some new posts in shipbuilding.

MC server is a classy way that goes well with the social gaming - again events on the server. Having it space themed with build projects and maybe using proto's pack having interesting PvP or PvE options (I can easily design a map for that). Again they all can be done at once, it is just a question of how mcuh you are ready to give to the community - the more things you pick the faster it will go.

Well I still have the map I was working on for the pack, however, the pack we use for it... Isn't exactly easy to find, considering the owner discontinued it, though if he is still active, you could send him the updated version, or ask him if we can use it, we don't want to be accused of stealing.

And for building maps, we should try and get Mackeroth in on it

And either way we need a server

Which site does the Minecraft Forums topic link to? This one, or the new one?

As far as a showcase, fr0st said he's going to be tied up for a few months now on account of some subcontractor screwing up.

The MCF OP points towards futurecraftforums.tk, which in turn redirects to fc-mod.com's empty emptiness.

If I may suggest - there are very few space-themed minecraft servers. Set up space survival with another world for creative..

Well as Iv and I have just discussed, we could,potentially use the flan pack to make something vaguely like planet side 2, with three factions fighting over land, I'd have to do some expanding of stuff, but we could, probably use a currency system too, if done properly it could result in a pretty damn good unique server.

However we might want a vanilla server too, for those too stupid to install a mod.

Too many vanilla servers, we won't get mcuh from them, they will only take up money just like avanger's server ended up.

That's the problem - if the goal is to attract as many new members as possible then clientside mods are a no-go, at least until the API comes out.

And I believe by vanilla Proto meant server-side stuff that doesn't require installation for each individual player.

The point is not as many as possible, you were getting a big, really big steady revenue of lurkers. I need stable people that are actually there for the mod. Forget the stats make a proper fun server.

The Flans mod thing would be a niche market, I would say it is worth a shot, and if we do it right it could go excellently, however it would be a good idea to have a backup in case it does flop, which it may well do.

But then again if someone won't/can'tinstall a mod like Flans mod, are they really useful to us?

The only thing is how do you go about making a space themed survival server in vanilla?

And about the api, version changer program's woud serve as easy installation, however with the new version and launcher, that is no longer possible, otherwise client side mods would be more feasible.

I mean I would like to try the Flans server, however, a backup server would be wise, but I don't know how you would go about making a space survival server

Prototype wrote:

Well as Iv and I have just discussed, we could,potentially use the flan pack to make something vaguely like planet side 2, with three factions fighting over land, I'd have to do some expanding of stuff, but we could, probably use a currency system too, if done properly it could result in a pretty damn good unique server.

However we might want a vanilla server too, for those too stupid to install a mod.

ooh, ooh! pick me, pick me! I'd be happy to do the terrain building, like I did on the futurecraft creative server (does that still exist?)

Prototype wrote:

The Flans mod thing would be a niche market, I would say it is worth a shot, and if we do it right it could go excellently, however it would be a good idea to have a backup in case it does flop, which it may well do.

But then again if someone won't/can'tinstall a mod like Flans mod, are they really useful to us?

The only thing is how do you go about making a space themed survival server in vanilla?

And about the api, version changer program's woud serve as easy installation, however with the new version and launcher, that is no longer possible, otherwise client side mods would be more feasible.

I mean I would like to try the Flans server, however, a backup server would be wise, but I don't know how you would go about making a space survival server

For a while what I had was The End with skylands generation - a nice spacey backdrop and 100% endstone terrain that's not unlike an asteroid belt. The driving concept was you use ships powered by one of the many 'airship' plugins to travel about and mine the asteroids, and then sell them for a currency used to purchase better ships, weapons, etc. As with the late iceworld one, there'd be a custom texture pack (which downloads automatically since 1.3 I believe) and server-side item renaming.

The biggest problem is what happens when you hit the ceiling? What happens when you've mined enough endstone to get a nice cruiser and top tier weapons? I was hoping that by making it an explicitly PVP environment players would find themselves occupied, but inevitably you find yourself facing the 'full enchanted dia' conundrum featured in normal Minecraft. The second would be combat. It would be very un-immersive to have people clambering atop their ships and firing their rifles at passerby.

But by using mods, you're instituting an arbitrary check of sorts - very, very few people are willing to install a mod just to play on a server. Using solely server-side stuff means more people stop in to check out the place, more people making accounts on the forums. And contrary to what Mr. Iv thinks, mandating the installation of a mod doesn't guarantee that there won't be lurkers - from what I've seen of mod servers, the playerbase dwindles until only they remain. By keeping the gates to the community open, lurkers will come, yes, but the sheer amount means that the chance of getting productive, friendly members is increased dramatically.

Failing all of the above, instead of undergoing a large project like PS2 in Minecraft, go for the COD-esque approach with sci-fi themed PVP maps featuring a texturepack and the item renaming plugin. That might attract a crowd.

Ideally we would run more than one server, the vanilla to begin with, and a secondary to experiment with mod stuff, if it fails, we shut it down and stay with the main.

So what we could do, is use the main to attract the attention, then anyone interested will see the mod one, use that, and if it works, they will tell others about it, in theory.

Now it's a matter of money, I'll see what I can sort out

Comrade Tiel wrote:

As far as a showcase, fr0st said he's going to be tied up for a few months now on account of some subcontractor screwing up.

I said I've been tied up for the past year because a subcontractor screwed up. It's almost out the door now. In fact, I need it to be presentable by the end of tomorrow, so that is gong to be interesting.


I thought we had decided that a community built on hype wasn't going to benefit us.

I think the discussion has moved away from that to creating something that could viably sustain a community.