Re: Skyblock server (and my solution to the problem it tries to fix)

Please Note: The TotalFreedom Forum has now been put into a read-only mode. Total Freedom has now closed down and will not be returning in any way, shape or form. It has been a pleasure to lead this community and I wish you all the best for your futures.

    While information about the Skyblock server is a bit limited, it seems that the Skyblock server's intention is to fix the player retention issue we have. I'd like to discuss this in a peaceful manner and offer a solution that could be potentially better than the one currently being implemented. I discussed said solution privately with some folks, so I'm a bit curious to see what the community's thoughts are.

    Problems with Skyblock

    • More players at the cost of what makes us unique. For a little more than decade, we have been built on the idea of giving our players as much freedom as possible, letting them do things you would never get away with on other servers. This is what continues to attract so many players on the server in the first place, really. Adding an overdone gamemode to a server

    • There is nothing unique about a Skyblock server. It does not bring anything new to the table. The idea has been done to death, and this is why things like "OP Skyblock" exist. What made us popular back in the idea was a unique idea. One which hadn't been done before. The ability to use plugins like WorldEdit with barely any restrictions. The ability to go back and forth between Creative and Survival modes seamlessly and instantly. Adding Skyblock as a gamemode would bring nothing new to the table. In addition, many Skyblock servers are literally dedicated solely to that gamemode for a reason.

    My Proposal

    I'd like to propose a solution. Not many people have come up with the idea of a server that offers you varying different levels of freedom. If we expanded upon our existing Freedom server concepts to do this, we could possibly take the server in a direction nobody has tried before, bring something new to the table in the process, and continue to be faithful to the server's roots.

    In my personal opinion, TotalFreedom should return to its roots with the idea of freedom. I mean this quite literally, too. I envision us having three different levels of freedom: Civilized but more restrictive, a good compromise between the two, and pure anarchy.

    • The first level would be a more modern variant of TF with things like the shop, an actually decent permissions system, and plots.
    • The second level would be more akin to what the server was like back in 2014 - 2016, where we didn't have a large amount of plugins but the community is still somewhat civilized.
    • The third level would be pure free-op with barely any restrictions, much like how the server was like in the beginning. Map wipes would be extremely often. The hierarchy of power becomes nonexistent at this point.

    An implementation like this would be much more faithful to the foundation we have built upon for years and would bring something new to the table.

    What are your thoughts? Keep it civil, please.

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    I'll start off this by saying the sky block server or the idea of it, currently is nothing more than that, an idea. It's a short discussion that I had with Red around one of a number of low maintenance game modes that could be used to ultimately bring more players on to the network as a whole.

    To also address this comment that has come up a few times:

    Quote

    ↩  Ivan TLDR Don’t turn TF into a fucking network

    If you don't like the way the server is running, or will continue to be run, please feel free not to play on it, or interact with this community. The decision to move to a network is something that makes sense, and fixes a number of issues that TF has historically had with retaining players, especially when the server crashes.

    Now, to address some points generally on the OP.

    Quote

    ↩  videogamesm12 Problems with Skyblock

    This entire section I agree with, Skyblock and a lot of the game modes I've discussed are not perfect, but they are low maintenance, and they ultimately allow us to give the current community other things to do when they get bored of the Freedom game mode. It's all valid points and part of the thinking we're doing around if a game mode should / should not be added into the network.

    Quote

    ↩  videogamesm12 The first level would be a more modern variant of TF with things like the shop, an actually decent permissions system, and plots.

    Given this is being discussed on a separate thread, I will acknowledge the point here, but it's not one I think is worth getting into here.

    Quote

    ↩  videogamesm12 The second level would be more akin to what the server was like back in 2014 - 2016, where we didn't have a large amount of plugins but the community is still somewhat civilized.

    Is quite literally Freedom-02 and people hate it. The majority of the community want these plugins and loads more, which is why we have so many Jira tickets to add support for additional plugins on the Freedom game modes.

    Quote

    ↩  videogamesm12 The third level would be pure free-op with barely any restrictions, much like how the server was like in the beginning. Map wipes would be extremely often. The hierarchy of power becomes nonexistent at this point.

    I'm looking to add exactly this but as a separate game mode to the current Freedom game mode, as I expect they will ultimately attract different players. The current Freedom server and game modes are much more creative build focused than anarchy and I don't want to lose that long term playability in replacement now for short term trolls / similar.

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    IMO the main issue with a Skyblock server is that we have no guarantee it will even help with playcounts. Skyblock is so wide spread that it's gotten to a point where it's a competition to make a good Skyblock server and TF is non-profit with no donations at all so it's gonna struggle heavily to compete with the Skyblock servers that are already doing well and have bigger budgets with more features and resources.

    Like Video said, there isn't much unique you can do with Skyblock and we already have a somewhat unique idea with our main server. I actually love the idea of the 3 levels Video proposed. It could solve so many debates we have between TF becoming too modern or going away from Free-OP. Like Ryan said the second mode is more like freedom-02 so I'm thinking we also add in some more permissions (like in the past people could spawn in entities, drop items, use &k and &0, stuff like that). Things would still be moderated obviously and i'm assuming most staff would occupy this mode since the main is almost entirely self-moderated (with the rare griefer or troll onlt needing one admin) and the anarchy would be... well basically 2b2t but on steroids (personally suggest adding automatic unbans in case we give them true OP permissions).

    According to quantum mechanics, unless something is observed, there is an equal chance of it both being and not being there. Hence it is said to be in superposition, until observed. However we are somehow fully certain, despite never having directly observed, that you indeed have no bitches. Your bitchlessness has broken the rules quantum mechanics had established. Indeed an impressive feat.