TheAp4ch3 wrote:
Who's dedicated enough to be in the staff team?
Is the game(mode) still popular?
Would the server realistically have a good amount of players?
Is there someone that has the dedication to own the server for a long time?
Lastly, I just want to mention that there's not much more to do with minecraft. Just the usual game modes that thousands of servers already have. Why choose our server? No, this will be a massive dissapointment, even if the staff team would be nicely chosen.
(Just going to quote the questions in order to not post a reply that is too long)
Who's dedicated enough to be in the staff team?
You mention that I have just chosen people who I am friends with, and people who would not show enough dedication. For a start, you can't really know the dedication that each of the people currently chosen (yes, everyone that is in the proposed starting Lead Team has played a role in helping up to this point) until you know what they have actually done. If I were to be choosing people just based on who I am friends with, then yes, the server would be a complete flop and a failure. We have, however, chosen people who we think will get along well (incredibly important, based on the results of the past servers), and people who have shown dedication to the project and the community as a whole, and people who know what they are doing. For example, we have people like Johnler, an experienced TTT Head Admin, and a person who is dedicated to everything (he isn't known as "The Dedicated Staff Member" for nothing), people like Mix3rz, Anon and Luan who have shown a strong passion and done an insane amount to help out thus far and all have experience in Lead Team positions (Mix3rz on SSRP, Anon on Surf, and Luan on SSRP and Surf, with experience in owning a ZARP server too - Luan and Mix3rz have also been immensely helpful in keeping everything running smoothly and on track).
In short, every person that we have proposed has already proven to us that they are dedicated enough and fit the position well.
Is the game still popular?
Obviously, over time Minecraft has lost a lot of the people who once played it, but, as you said people would use as a counter argument, it does still have a LOT of players. If we think about it statistically in terms of how many people search, we could compare a game such as CS:GO with it. CS:GO gets a pretty solid 10 - 30 searches per day currently (this is going by google searches), with few fluctuations. Minecraft still manages to get around 100 or so daily searches, with a lot of fluctuation from time to time, going down or up by around 30 - 50, but that is still a lot of people, even if there are a lot of fluctuations. The top Minecraft servers do still get tens of thousands of players at one time, and that is because of a few areas, which I have looked into a bit:
- Variety of versions - We have a system to people can play on any version they prefer from 1.8+
- Variety of good gamemodes - We have a few gamemodes we want to start of with, but also a LOT more that we want to release in the future, and I have done some research into the most popular Minecraft gamemodes over time.
- Uniqueness - We currently have few things that would make the server massively unique and stand out from the others bar the community itself, but I am currently working on something which will ensure that the server is immensely unique. I do not want to make any solid promises yet, as it is not yet finished and I don't want to disappoint, but I will say this much: It is a completely custom coded gamemode which we believe a lot of players will find fun, and one which very few servers have actually got, and those which do have not implemented or made it in a very good way.
Would the server realistically have a good amount of players?
If we're thinking realistically, it would probably only get around 20 - 30 players to start with, but with the right time and effort dedicated to the server by the staff and the people working on it, I think that we could massively increase that number, and with the custom gamemode that I mentioned above, I think we could hook in a lot of players from inside and outside of ZARP. Yes, the old server had very few players and lost its hype pretty quickly, but if we can give people what they want from the server and deliver our promises, I am sure that we can keep building on that hype to keep players in, but obviously we can't know until we try (yes, they tried before, but that was different people with different ways of doing things).
Is there someone that has the dedication to own the server for a long time?
Yes, there is. I can't argue with your own opinions on myself and hazzenator, but what I can say is that hazzenator is definitely trusted to some extent, as a TTT Head Admin, and both of us have already put in a lot of time and effort into creating what we have thus far, and personally, it would be an immense shame if I did have to move away from it, and a stupid idea to just move away from it without a very good reason, as I would never abandon something that I worked hard to achieve so easily. I cannot speak for hazzenator in this regard, but I can say that he is dedicated to the server as well and has devoted a lot of time to it.
Just the usual game modes that thousands of servers already have. Why choose our server?
See above about the new, custom coded gamemode that I am working on and hope to add to the server when it is finished. The rate at which I am managing to get things done for this custom gamemode is very good, and I think that we should be able to have it ready to add before long.
Added this reply to the main post as you raised some very good questions / points that a lot of others would also have.