5,263 hours later, I see the end on the horizon
Dec 12, 2023 6:31:11 GMT
X47man, Neretus, and 3 more like this
Post by Zanril on Dec 12, 2023 6:31:11 GMT
My Simplex anniversary is coming up on the 11th of January 2024, 7 years since I joined this server. It been quite an experience but I'd like to put my time here to an end then. No more major projects or responsibilities. I'm grateful to be quitting on my own terms, and not the servers. I would have played up until the server was shutdown if I didn't stop myself. I wish my real life could be like that - live as long as you want, quit when you are ready to go. So what is making me quit? Its a mixture of the following:
==================================================================================================================================================
♦ The Soft Reset
-Inventories carried over
Carrying over our inventories to Simplex 2 meant anyone prepared enough would have a boosted start over someone joining fresh and have rare, and unobtainable items like dragon eggs, staff created items, and veilbows; Bows enchanted with Mending and Infinity when those were still possible to craft for the last time during 1.11 (an update released 8 years ago!) should have stayed on the first world. Players carried those over as a status symbol, proof that they played on the first world, and for profit, but who really uses them? Why would you? I have my own regrets - bringing over my journals, district guides, short story books, and more that I would have wanted to keep on Simplex 1 because its relevant to that world. Who would even care about my experiences from a world no longer relevant, a rule book for a shopping district that I don't even own any more and has evolved since then, short stories that most players have already read. I was glad to have those books initially because downloading a copy of the first world was an uncertainty for me at the time but I regret it now because I have to come to Simplex 2 if I want to access them again.
-Diamonds
Since I didn't have to start new, I and many others have so many diamonds. I didn't even burn through all my diamonds earned when I owned the Shopping District 4 years ago plus more. Isn't that crazy? I can't imagine what its like for many others since I'm no where near the richest player.
-Airplane system
Many players that got their plots from the shopping district's airplane system still have it years later, and retaining that ownership doesn't require them to be too active on the server, just update a book with a date and pay some diamonds in a certain case. Since those would have gotten carried over from Simplex 1 they would be abundant. I despised players like this, the worst case from my time would have been Diwanshu's shop from the first world. Their shop stayed in its place stolen from, unstocked, and closed, for over a year due to the insurance being so forgiving. Darth_Vader put it best "Shop plots should be for active players not the rich ones" so I evolved the insurance system to have limits on sign updates and the problem shrunk put still persists to this day.
♦ Effects on Simplex 1
Having stayed around long enough to see the effects of the community's vote to soft reset, and all that it meant, had undesirable long term effects. Most long time players already at god rank never needed to vote again leading to what I'll talk about in the next section, players irreversible damage to Simplex 1 through griefing their own builds and raiding their stashes for items for a world that wouldn't matter anymore except for me, and anyone else that would have preferred things stay where it was before the announcement of a the soft reset was out and people acted accordingly.
I'm of the opinion that Simplex would have been better off long term if it did a full reset, and having the first world download done along side it would been appropriate enough. I've silently mourned the loss of it for a long time but now the memory of the reset has faded. No one cares about the first world anymore, its story is over.
I would have liked to see some of the players builds, especially in the shopping district left untouched due to a reset but some were ravaged instead for their valuable materials because the world was coming to an end, and it wouldn't matter what kind of damage they would sustain since Simplex 1 wouldn't matter to its owners anymore. I care, since I visit it still.
Given how our are ranks were preserved, many god ranked players, the most dedicated core playerbase of this server didn't have a need to vote for the server and the far too late implementation of more voting ranks that would have helped 2 years ago lead to the next problem.
♦ Player population
Its quite a surprise seeing a new player join because we get so little of them, and its been like this for so long now. I didn't mind the low player counts at first. It started bothering me when some of my creations that would be best experienced with more than a handful of players didn't work out or never came to be.
The Simplex 7th anniversary festival was my rallying cry for all veteran, and new players alike to give Simplex a try. I sent out direct messages to anyone I privately messaged on Discord that played Simplex in the past but don't anymore to invite them to the event, I made a promotional video of the festival, and shared it where I wanted. I counted 28 players that were there by the time I started my opening speech. It was the most players I had seen online, and in one place on Simplex since since the firework show of the 5th year anniversary festival 2 years prior and in the end I didn't didn't achieve my goal of retaining anyone.
Simplex 2 surpassed the amount of players that joined its predecessor but retention remains poor. There is no one around to see how great of a server Simplex is and my reaction has been to brood about it.
Simplex feels like it peaked during 2017, its golden age, riding the Minecraft renaissance that started with 1.12, with a silver age in 2018, decline in 2019, a jump back to normalcy in 2020, and has fell off since then.
I believe worst of all is that the dismal player numbers are not seen as a problem.
♦ Stale events
There is very little to look forward to for me. I even skipped trick-or-treat this year for the first time in six years. I've seen recreated Halloween Town, and am familiar with the layout of Spooky Town so well that, acting like a kid, going to house to house isn't fun for me anymore, and the potential items gained isn't an incentive for me either, it hasn't been since 2019.
The most common event, build competitions, has largely been ignorable for me since I personally don't find them fun so its a shame that they have been Simplex's backbone event type.
The free-for-all style of Easter egg hunts got repetitive enough for me to make a completely different gamemode for it, sounds exciting right? I made a build competition for it to create some initial play spaces and follow up to play and have fun in them but no on showed up. I refuse to believe my idea was so uninteresting that 3 players were interested in building in the competition, but only 1 finished their build. If I scheduled meet ups to play regularly perhaps I'd get some traction, but for such a small server it doesn't seem worth the effort.
As you see, I don't find many of the official events interesting or fell out of love with them, so why not do your own you may ask. Low player counts for one, and I don't feel like some who has an entire wiki page dedicated to them should be setting such strict guidelines on something as simple as player events. Why must it be done their way? This is a casual ass server, you think anyone participating is going to care about the process of setting it up is going to be? Players join events for the experience and fun of it, not how its setup.
♦ The dissatisfaction of Meehan
I expected change but got none of it after Meehan stepped down. I was hoping SnuRRe0 was going to be more flexible - guess not. They didn't turn out to be the person that I thought would think for themselves and see the good in ideas that wouldn't need run through others first.
♦ Powerlessness
Talking about Simplex's problems in voice chat on Discord with the regulars that visit it and not having the power to do anything fucking hurts man. It makes me feel hollow and insignificant.
♦ Impending loneliness
I would make the items I've accumulated available to friends for their personal projects in a will at my base but everyone listed has sadly moved on, and I will follow. I dislike that players items are left in limbo when they leave the server with no intention to return, or are banned, even more so now than ever with my will that I have at the center of my stockpile to prevent this, never going to be read by those friends. I don't want to stay around and try to make new ones, and hope they stick around long enough so I can deem them worth of my belongings, I've spend enough time here.
♦ Rebooted development of a creative project
I've been away from my card game for awhile now and now that I finally got back into it, I got many hats to fill and its taking lots to time getting what I want done, and that means time I'd normally put into games in general gets put into game development instead and its been a blast.
==================================================================================================================================================
I planned to leave Simplex the day after I hosted the 7th anniversary festival last year. My final activity to conclude my time on Simplex then was going to be the boss battle with the winner getting my golden skull, and that would have been it was I chose to continue on cause the Marketplace still needed me. It would have been the last thing I did with everyone on Simplex; who was left at least. But now, its just this forum post. Something less exciting than what I wanted.
My gaming background does not include MMO's for no reason. Like MMO's, I use Multiplayer Minecraft to socialize and play the game, otherwise I'd go play singleplayer. None of those needs are being fulfilled here anymore.
Simplex is a home. You might get tired of it, and want to go explore elsewhere, but it’s always there, waiting for you to return, and it always feels like it will, just as I am going to leave it. Its time I moved on, like the few left I to talked to in the voice calls about old and current times have.
It was fun.
==================================================================================================================================================
♦ The Soft Reset
-Inventories carried over
Carrying over our inventories to Simplex 2 meant anyone prepared enough would have a boosted start over someone joining fresh and have rare, and unobtainable items like dragon eggs, staff created items, and veilbows; Bows enchanted with Mending and Infinity when those were still possible to craft for the last time during 1.11 (an update released 8 years ago!) should have stayed on the first world. Players carried those over as a status symbol, proof that they played on the first world, and for profit, but who really uses them? Why would you? I have my own regrets - bringing over my journals, district guides, short story books, and more that I would have wanted to keep on Simplex 1 because its relevant to that world. Who would even care about my experiences from a world no longer relevant, a rule book for a shopping district that I don't even own any more and has evolved since then, short stories that most players have already read. I was glad to have those books initially because downloading a copy of the first world was an uncertainty for me at the time but I regret it now because I have to come to Simplex 2 if I want to access them again.
-Diamonds
Since I didn't have to start new, I and many others have so many diamonds. I didn't even burn through all my diamonds earned when I owned the Shopping District 4 years ago plus more. Isn't that crazy? I can't imagine what its like for many others since I'm no where near the richest player.
-Airplane system
Many players that got their plots from the shopping district's airplane system still have it years later, and retaining that ownership doesn't require them to be too active on the server, just update a book with a date and pay some diamonds in a certain case. Since those would have gotten carried over from Simplex 1 they would be abundant. I despised players like this, the worst case from my time would have been Diwanshu's shop from the first world. Their shop stayed in its place stolen from, unstocked, and closed, for over a year due to the insurance being so forgiving. Darth_Vader put it best "Shop plots should be for active players not the rich ones" so I evolved the insurance system to have limits on sign updates and the problem shrunk put still persists to this day.
♦ Effects on Simplex 1
Having stayed around long enough to see the effects of the community's vote to soft reset, and all that it meant, had undesirable long term effects. Most long time players already at god rank never needed to vote again leading to what I'll talk about in the next section, players irreversible damage to Simplex 1 through griefing their own builds and raiding their stashes for items for a world that wouldn't matter anymore except for me, and anyone else that would have preferred things stay where it was before the announcement of a the soft reset was out and people acted accordingly.
I'm of the opinion that Simplex would have been better off long term if it did a full reset, and having the first world download done along side it would been appropriate enough. I've silently mourned the loss of it for a long time but now the memory of the reset has faded. No one cares about the first world anymore, its story is over.
I would have liked to see some of the players builds, especially in the shopping district left untouched due to a reset but some were ravaged instead for their valuable materials because the world was coming to an end, and it wouldn't matter what kind of damage they would sustain since Simplex 1 wouldn't matter to its owners anymore. I care, since I visit it still.
Given how our are ranks were preserved, many god ranked players, the most dedicated core playerbase of this server didn't have a need to vote for the server and the far too late implementation of more voting ranks that would have helped 2 years ago lead to the next problem.
♦ Player population
Its quite a surprise seeing a new player join because we get so little of them, and its been like this for so long now. I didn't mind the low player counts at first. It started bothering me when some of my creations that would be best experienced with more than a handful of players didn't work out or never came to be.
The Simplex 7th anniversary festival was my rallying cry for all veteran, and new players alike to give Simplex a try. I sent out direct messages to anyone I privately messaged on Discord that played Simplex in the past but don't anymore to invite them to the event, I made a promotional video of the festival, and shared it where I wanted. I counted 28 players that were there by the time I started my opening speech. It was the most players I had seen online, and in one place on Simplex since since the firework show of the 5th year anniversary festival 2 years prior and in the end I didn't didn't achieve my goal of retaining anyone.
Simplex 2 surpassed the amount of players that joined its predecessor but retention remains poor. There is no one around to see how great of a server Simplex is and my reaction has been to brood about it.
Simplex feels like it peaked during 2017, its golden age, riding the Minecraft renaissance that started with 1.12, with a silver age in 2018, decline in 2019, a jump back to normalcy in 2020, and has fell off since then.
I believe worst of all is that the dismal player numbers are not seen as a problem.
♦ Stale events
There is very little to look forward to for me. I even skipped trick-or-treat this year for the first time in six years. I've seen recreated Halloween Town, and am familiar with the layout of Spooky Town so well that, acting like a kid, going to house to house isn't fun for me anymore, and the potential items gained isn't an incentive for me either, it hasn't been since 2019.
The most common event, build competitions, has largely been ignorable for me since I personally don't find them fun so its a shame that they have been Simplex's backbone event type.
The free-for-all style of Easter egg hunts got repetitive enough for me to make a completely different gamemode for it, sounds exciting right? I made a build competition for it to create some initial play spaces and follow up to play and have fun in them but no on showed up. I refuse to believe my idea was so uninteresting that 3 players were interested in building in the competition, but only 1 finished their build. If I scheduled meet ups to play regularly perhaps I'd get some traction, but for such a small server it doesn't seem worth the effort.
As you see, I don't find many of the official events interesting or fell out of love with them, so why not do your own you may ask. Low player counts for one, and I don't feel like some who has an entire wiki page dedicated to them should be setting such strict guidelines on something as simple as player events. Why must it be done their way? This is a casual ass server, you think anyone participating is going to care about the process of setting it up is going to be? Players join events for the experience and fun of it, not how its setup.
♦ The dissatisfaction of Meehan
Despite Meehan not being owner of the server anymore, he still wanted to care for this server. Staff must have baffled Meehan so much that he's no where to be seen in the Simplex Discord. He's no longer proud of this server cause its been bruised by principles and choices that are not his own, which had brought the server as far as it did (can't forget about his wallet too.)
I expected change but got none of it after Meehan stepped down. I was hoping SnuRRe0 was going to be more flexible - guess not. They didn't turn out to be the person that I thought would think for themselves and see the good in ideas that wouldn't need run through others first.
♦ Powerlessness
Talking about Simplex's problems in voice chat on Discord with the regulars that visit it and not having the power to do anything fucking hurts man. It makes me feel hollow and insignificant.
♦ Impending loneliness
I would make the items I've accumulated available to friends for their personal projects in a will at my base but everyone listed has sadly moved on, and I will follow. I dislike that players items are left in limbo when they leave the server with no intention to return, or are banned, even more so now than ever with my will that I have at the center of my stockpile to prevent this, never going to be read by those friends. I don't want to stay around and try to make new ones, and hope they stick around long enough so I can deem them worth of my belongings, I've spend enough time here.
♦ Rebooted development of a creative project
I've been away from my card game for awhile now and now that I finally got back into it, I got many hats to fill and its taking lots to time getting what I want done, and that means time I'd normally put into games in general gets put into game development instead and its been a blast.
==================================================================================================================================================
I planned to leave Simplex the day after I hosted the 7th anniversary festival last year. My final activity to conclude my time on Simplex then was going to be the boss battle with the winner getting my golden skull, and that would have been it was I chose to continue on cause the Marketplace still needed me. It would have been the last thing I did with everyone on Simplex; who was left at least. But now, its just this forum post. Something less exciting than what I wanted.
My gaming background does not include MMO's for no reason. Like MMO's, I use Multiplayer Minecraft to socialize and play the game, otherwise I'd go play singleplayer. None of those needs are being fulfilled here anymore.
Simplex is a home. You might get tired of it, and want to go explore elsewhere, but it’s always there, waiting for you to return, and it always feels like it will, just as I am going to leave it. Its time I moved on, like the few left I to talked to in the voice calls about old and current times have.
It was fun.
