Java Issues with Java

[Verbramdt]

Hello!

I know, I will very most likely be memed for this post, but let's just take a risk, and do it!

Honestly, I didn't expect to make this post, or even make a new account of the forums (yep it's me, hello). However, today when I was bored, I decided to be a little cringy, and watch some of my livestreams back, and came across a stream I did on CubeCraft.

The playercount is what shocked me, right now, while writing the playercount is 484, on a Saturday afternoon...
The playercount during this stream was... 4075 at peak time, for as long as I've been watching, and it might have been even higher, and maybe slightly lower than that. For those that are wondering, this stream was at December 2020, almost 4 years ago, and if you look back to that, so if we look back to the playercounts, CubeCraft has lost 901(!) players yearly since this. please correct me if the playercount is usually higher, and I will change the post. However this is still shocking, if the playercount is usally may be around 800-1000.

Alot of gamemodes, and versions have been removed, with versions it started with 1.8, and many gamemodes followed with the 1.19 update announcement.

The playercount was when 1.8 was still available, and let me be so nice, I have a list for the amount of gamemodes, CubeCraft has now, compared to back then.

Spoiler: Gamemodes

* Team Skywars 1.8+ (removed)
* Solo SkyWars 1.8+
* Team EggWars 1.8+
* Solo EggWars 1.8+ (removed)
* Parkour 1.9+
* Blockwars 1.9+ (removed)
* Minerware 1.9+ (removed)
* FFA 1.9+ (removed)
* Tower Defence 1.9+ (removed)
* Assassinations 1.9+ (removed)
* Team Lucky Islands 1.8+ (removed)
* Solo Lucky Islands 1.8+
* Skyblock 1.9+
* Among Slimes 1.9+ (removed)
* Featured Games 1.9+ (removed)

And to consider... it used to be even more....

A very big list, as you can see, under which alot of gamemodes that have been removed, and then we're not even looking at the maps yet...
The reason these gamemodes were removed (atleast what was told to the community and volunteer team), is since they had a low playercount, which of course, I can understand. However 1 very big thing was missed. These gamemodes, and the 1.8-1.18 servers, had still players, and some even had entire communities, alot of these players have left CubeCraft, and will probally not come back, unless the CubeCraft Team decides that they will need to revert updates. And to add to this; honestly, when I saw the announcement in staff channels when I was a helper, I was concerned about the future of the Java server.

Of course, Java had issues, and it was in the need of alot of moderation on some gamemodes, and some gamemodes had a low playercount. But if you keep removing gamemodes, and thereby communities, you lose alot of players aswell. Just imagine, you are a new player that connects to CubeCraft Java, and you expect it to be large server, as you know it from YouTubers, Streamers, or you hear it from other players. And the first thing you see, it looks nearly exactly like Bedrock, but with ALOT less players. What would you do? Personally, I'd get myself back to Hypixel.

What I want to say with this post, I feel like CubeCraft has alot of potential, there is a reason the server has hit 20k+ player peaks, but just ruined it by removing versions, and alot of gamemodes. And I hope that they will learn from their past mistakes (which I highly doubt)

 

[xHappyMood]

I can understand

clearly not?

These gamemodes, and the 1.8-1.18 servers, had still players, and some even had entire communities, alot of these players have left CubeCraft, and will probally not come back

because what else did you expect them to do? pay a hundred people to play solo eggwars 24/7 in order to save the community of people who ONLY play solo eggwars, which consisted of probably a whole 3 people and a parrot?

unless the CubeCraft Team decides that they will need to revert updates

even if at any point in time this was even close to a good idea, you’re about 2 years late to the party. i genuinely don’t understand how you think those 3 people and the parrot i mentioned before will magically reappear alongside solo eggwars…

I was concerned about the future of the Java server

clearly the future of java wasn’t, and still isn’t looking very bright, doesn’t take a genius to spot that. i don’t see what you expected cube to do differently though, at that point it was already far too late to be able to make it meaningfully better, if there ever even was the chance

But if you keep removing gamemodes, and thereby communities, you lose alot of players aswell

and if you keep a network aimed at 20k people with only 10-20% of that player count then you lose a lot of money AND a lot of players

Just imagine, you are a new player that connects to CubeCraft Java, and you expect it to be large server, as you know it from YouTubers, Streamers, or you hear it from other players

you’d have been in for a surprise either way then…

And the first thing you see, it looks nearly exactly like Bedrock, but with ALOT less players. What would you do? Personally, I'd get myself back to Hypixel

and imagine the first thing you do is join a game and then……. nothing because the game takes an hour to start. what would you do? personally i’d probably go play on another server….

i am fairly convinced the disappointment of a server looking like bedrock is far less than that of sitting in a pregame lobby waiting for a game to start for an hour

What I want to say with this post, I feel like CubeCraft has alot of potential, there is a reason the server has hit 20k+ player peaks, but just ruined it by removing versions, and alot of gamemodes. And I hope that they will learn from their past mistakes (which I highly doubt)

what? is your entire point “learn from your mistakes (BUT YOU WONT HAHAHHA LOOOOOLLLL)”?

don’t get me wrong, im not saying i don’t feel nostalgic about times when cubecraft had more players, as im sure do most people, nor that cubecraft has never made any terrible decisions. any decisions that could’ve had a meaningful impact on the playercount, however, were most likely already made ages before they were forced to remove a big part of the network.

clearly java cubecraft once had very big potential, and it lived up to it for some time. you have to face it though, that’s not going to come back anytime in the foreseeable future, if ever, especially not by just reverting the network to the state it was in years ago.

i would’ve expected an ex-mod to have slightly more awareness about why certain decisions were made, because this is just frankly a very silly thread.

 

[Verbramdt]

because what else did you expect them to do? pay a hundred people to play solo eggwars 24/7 in order to save the community of people who ONLY play solo eggwars, which consisted of probably a whole 3 people and a parrot?

I don't have exact numbers, but I can guarantee you it was not just 3 players.

even if at any point in time this was even close to a good idea, you’re about 2 years late to the party. i genuinely don’t understand how you think those 3 people and the parrot i mentioned before will magically reappear alongside solo eggwars…

You're correct, they might be too late to even fix the server, but why not atleast try to do it?

clearly the future of java wasn’t, and still isn’t looking very bright, doesn’t take a genius to spot that. i don’t see what you expected cube to do differently though, at that point it was already far too late to be able to make it meaningfully better, if there ever even was the chance

1 very simple thing.... listening to the community.

and if you keep a network aimed at 20k people with only 10-20% of that player count then you lose a lot of money AND a lot of players

That's correct, but do really think the only reason these players left is since they've grown older? I don't think so..

you’d have been in for a surprise either way then…

This is probally the dumbest thing in your reply. You're in for a surprise indeed. But not in a positive way.

and imagine the first thing you do is join a game and then……. nothing because the game takes an hour to start. what would you do? personally i’d probably go play on another server….

i am fairly convinced the disappointment of a server looking like bedrock is far less than that of sitting in a pregame lobby waiting for a game to start for an hour

Definitely not all games needed an hour to start.

what? is your entire point “learn from your mistakes (BUT YOU WONT HAHAHHA LOOOOOLLLL)”?

Correct, as being an ex team member, I know they won't.

don’t get me wrong, im not saying i don’t feel nostalgic about times when cubecraft had more players, as im sure do most people, nor that cubecraft has never made any terrible decisions. any decisions that could’ve had a meaningful impact on the playercount, however, were most likely already made ages before they were forced to remove a big part of the network.

So basically, what you say, don't give it a shot to try and invest in the server to see where it goes, and at the same time, you do accept that this was done, and had a massive negative impact on the server? I really don't see your point here.

i would’ve expected an ex-mod to have slightly more awareness about why certain decisions were made, because this is just frankly a very silly thread.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I just don't think there is any chance in saving the java server, without reversing the big mistakes that were made in September 2022.

 

[Nightmare]

What definitly had a big impact on the playercount, was a certain pandemic that was affecting the population around the time you mentioned, leading to a ton more people being inside and more people playing videogames/minecraft. With this pandemic now having a tremendously lower impact, player numbers naturally declined again. On top of that, it is a general behavior for games to decline in playerbase naturally over time. I still stand by our decision to downscale the network, as it has to remain a top priority for gameservers to start and people not getting bored of waiting and leaving the server, creating a downwards spiral in the process.

 

[Verbramdt]

What definitly had a big impact on the playercount, was a certain pandemic that was affecting the population around the time you mentioned, leading to a ton more people being inside and more people playing videogames/minecraft.

Of course the pandemic led to people starting to (get back to) gaming, which I highly understand. I don't want that to be mistaken.

With this pandemic now having a tremendously lower impact, player numbers naturally declined again.

I semi-(dis)agree on this. Of course, the popularity of gaming has been reduced after the covid-19 pandemic has ended. But still, some servers still get quite some players, you can see the servers I have in my server list as an example, of course, for Hypixel in this case, had peaks of 100k+, but still mainly 80-90k, but with only a loss of 20k players, is this still a great example, in my opinion

I still stand by our decision to downscale the network, as it has to remain a top priority for gameservers to start and people not getting bored of waiting and leaving the server, creating a downwards spiral in the process.

And I feel like this is the main issue, people still think it was a good thing, even though a significant amount of players have left the server. Like I said, these games had communities, and ECO servers had events on these gamemodes. The drop of many gamemodes also got rid of a Helper who was a part of the ECO server community, since they didn't see a bright future for CubeCraft. And by the looks of it, he was right.

 

[Xavi | Goofy]

From my understanding you want to have gamemodes return as well as 1.8 as to appeal to the lost communities. However are you able to say with certainty this would be the case? I would like to make the same argument as Luca, let’s say you were 14 back in the day. Currently you’d be 18. You might pop in for your week of Minecraft, but chances are they won’t be consistent players starting college. If that even (were not that great at marketing ) Are you able to say with certainty they’d return for good?

You’d be spending a good amount of money, while also dividing the current playerbase in, not even new content, on the network. What if it flops? You’re out a few thousand most likely as well as those potentially new formed communities that moved from different gamemodes. For those current communities they’d receive less updates or even a new game could have been made during this time. Which would appeal to new players.

 

[Matriox]

There are definitely valid points and arguments against what Cubecraft did with their Java server, I made a comment on it in one of my previous threads:

Spoiler

What’s my opinion on Java? Well quite simply I think it could have been handled better. Cubecraft went straight in for the “kill”, which killed the server. They removed most game modes in a bid to prevent decline, which ultimately led to mass decline. Something had to be done about Java, games weren’t starting, I do not disagree with that one bit.

In my opinion a much better first option would be to limit all games to 1 game mode(remove solo Eggwars, solo lucky islands, and team Skywars). This would have meant that no community was destroyed, all still had something. Cubecraft is built on communities, they don’t see this. Just like we don’t see their community behind the scenes, they don’t see ours. Really, they didn’t realise how massive the team Lucky Islands or Tower Defence communities were.

The Team Lucky Islands community brought in a higher player count than Eggwars for the most part, the removal of this game quite literally left me dumbfounded. Tower Defence, sure, I can partly understand. It didn’t bring in as much players as the big hitters like Eggwars or Lucky Islands. What was different about Tower Defence though is that the community was mostly made up of people who only played Tower Defence. This meant that when this game was removed, that community died completely. There was also a large community of people who loved to play the non-PVP games that Cubecraft had to offer; tower defence, Minerware, among slimes. Again, gone.

For the most part, these communities are gone, forever. They are not coming back. All have moved on to bigger and better servers. Harsh consequences for an overly dramatic decision.

All evaluations of this situation are very simple in hindsight, I completely understand that this luxury wasn’t available to Cubecraft at the time of the cull. Regardless, we can still reflect on the consequences that overly cautious actions bring to a server.

^ This post is mainly highlighting the fact that Cubecraft removed communities with their game cull, and I think the consequences of this weren't fully thought through.

The one game removal that I was completely confused about was Team Lucky Islands. When I played the old Java Cubecraft I always thought that this was Cubecrafts most popular game. It certainly had a massive community. Cam has since provided the statistics which show that Solo Lucky Islands was slightly more popular than Team Lucky Islands, and that Solo Lucky Islands started better than Team Lucky Islands at night:

- Solo Lucky Islands

- Team Lucky Islands

Regardless of these statistics I still think that Team Lucky Islands would have been a better option to keep as it means that communities can stay, and develop into the future. This just isn't really the case with solo game modes.

If one game was to be added back I think it should be Team Lucky Islands. It is updated to the latest version of the server (due to it being on Bedrock and Solo Lucky Islands existing obviously), and already had a large following in the Cubecraft Java community. Why not give it a go? Shouldn't take too long to implement seen as it's already updated.

Really, Cubecraft should be trying everything it can to save the Java server as, quite simply, it's going to die without an intervention. This intervention (trying out Team Lucky Islands again), isn't a resource heavy one I'd imagine, due to the aforementioned reasons. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Verbramdt]

From my understanding you want to have gamemodes return as well as 1.8 as to appeal to the lost communities. However are you able to say with certainty this would be the case? I would like to make the same argument as Luca, let’s say you were 14 back in the day. Currently you’d be 18. You might pop in for your week of Minecraft, but chances are they won’t be consistent players starting college. If that even (were not that great at marketing ) Are you able to say with certainty they’d return for good?

You’d be spending a good amount of money, while also dividing the current playerbase in, not even new content, on the network. What if it flops? You’re out a few thousand most likely as well as those potentially new formed communities that moved from different gamemodes. For those current communities they’d receive less updates or even a new game could have been made during this time. Which would appeal to new players.

Of course I can't guarantee that this will make the server like it was in pre-2018-2017. However right now, Java is a timebomb, waiting for the explosion that will lead to closing the network (on Java atleast). I agree, you would be spending alot of money. But if you're fairly honest, would you either invest, hoping that it will end up good, just like what was done with the 1.19 update, or would you keep it like this, or would it be better to shut down the Java server as soon as the servers expire, in order to save money? Because I feel like, currently, Java isn't worth keeping it on the way it currently is.

 

[Kloska]

I'm not going to say that things couldn't have worked out better or that I'm not missing some of the old games, but I understand why the decision to have some games removed had to be made.

Of course, the popularity of gaming has been reduced after the covid-19 pandemic has ended. But still, some servers still get quite some players, you can see the servers I have in my server list as an example, of course, for Hypixel in this case, had peaks of 100k+, but still mainly 80-90k, but with only a loss of 20k players, is this still a great example, in my opinion.

I don't think it's fair to compare today's version of Hypixel to Cubecraft.
Hypixel used to be a minigame server with some MMO or open-world content, such as housing. However, today Hypixel is an MMO server that also happens to have a few minigames. Let me tell you why I think so and go through some statistics.

Hypixel actually had peaks of 150k at the height of the pandemic and even reached well over 200k (216k to be exact) when they had a special skyblock event. Hypixel now peaks at around 60k on weekends and the majority of those players are in skyblock.

As of writing this post, 64% of the players on Hypixel are playing Skyblock which essentially is an MMO. 11% of the players are AFK. A total of 5% are in housing or an SMP world.
This adds up to around 80% of the current player count NOT playing minigames which is what Cubecraft primarily exists of.

What about the Hypixel minigames then?
11% of the total player count, or over half of the minigame player base are playing BedWars, which is a concept that has lived on outside of Minecraft as it's a popular genre of games in Roblox and hence also is something that keeps on living on Minecraft with the new generation of players.

The remaining 9% of the player base is divided throughout 16 different game types that all have more than one game mode. Some game types are entirely dead, having 0 active or queueing players, and many game modes have a very low player count. In fact, Hypixel themselves have had to make a game reduction as they had too many games that had too low of a player count. Hypixel instead introduced a game rotation system similar to what we had back in 2018-2020 after the big change for the small games and game modes.

With that said, Hypixel managed to survive longer with their minigames, but they're also struggling to keep their minigames relevant and are losing players similar to how the minigames lost players on Cube back in late 2017-2018. I personally believe this is because the new generation of gamers (8-13 years old) is growing up with a lot more games to choose from. Humans usually do what others do, and as we all know, Roblox and Fortnite have been trending for the majority of their gaming lives. The ones who have chosen to play Minecraft find it easier to do on Bedrock as it's friendlier to play anywhere and with any device.

TLDR;
It's difficult to keep players as they grow up. It's difficult for ogs to adjust to new generations of players. We can't force children to do it the old way if there is a new and more convenient way.

 

[Verbramdt]

You do have a point with what you say, also thanks for the numbers. However I've been watching back the thread you mentioned. And if you look closely to that thread, there are 21 negative reactions (as in, the emotes), and if we go to this thread, you see that the amount of negative reactions are 107(!) compared to 52 positive reactions, which has to give some sort of critism about the announced update, when it wasn't even released yet.

 

[Matriox]

You do have a point with what you say, also thanks for the numbers. However I've been watching back the thread you mentioned. And if you look closely to that thread, there are 21 negative reactions (as in, the emotes), and if we go to this thread, you see that the amount of negative reactions are 107(!) compared to 52 positive reactions, which has to give some sort of critism about the announced update, when it wasn't even released yet.

Were angry/sad reactions a thing before the forums revamp?

 

[Kloska]

I need to start this by saying that these are my personal opinions as a community member and not from the perspective of a moderator.

've been watching back the thread you mentioned. And if you look closely to that thread, there are 21 negative reactions (as in, the emotes), and if we go to this thread, you see that the amount of negative reactions are 107(!) compared to 52 positive reactions, which has to give some sort of critism about the announced update, when it wasn't even released yet.

Indeed, I'm not denying that the decisions have been drastic and that I as a player or the general community haven't been unhappy to see games I enjoyed playing being removed. However, the player count back in 2018 stopped declining and actually went up a slight bit in 2019 instead of keeping the decline going. The data from 2018 helped them make the next decision to reduce the game pool even further due to another decline after the pandemic. The 1.19 update in itself is a different topic that I haven't touched on yet, but briefly, I believe it was a smart decision to go through with it to be able to bring new features and items to both Bedrock and Java.

Unfortunately, the community especially the forums is of the older generation. Keeping these players should also be a priority and I agree with that, but it's even more important to bring in new players and new generations, and this is where an internal conflict starts within me. If I were to start out on Java today and get onto the server to play a game of Eggwars, I would not find it enjoyable to be totally obliterated by sweats who have been playing on the server for 5+ years. I would much rather play a game on Bedrock with similarly skilled players and be able to get progressively better at the game, just like I did when I started playing Lucky Islands back in 2017.

If the sweaty player base is mainly, or at least large enough to impact most games you play, it's simply not enjoyable for entirely new players (generalized and from my perspective). To solve this, you need more players to play the game or get rid of the sweats somehow. Neither of these is easy, but the best option would obviously be to get new players. But how do we get the new players to enjoy the game and want to stay? The first thing is definitely to have games that people want to play, and then make sure they're filled up. And then they have to enjoy the game and keep playing. Let's assume we have both of those. But if most people are like me and don't like going against sweats most of the games, how do we keep them?

 

[Eli]

My reply at this point of the conversation is a little bit redundant considering that @Kloska has already said everything that needs to be said, but I have some additional opinions to point out:

First off, I am not a fan of threads that only seek to point out negative things and demand for a "change" that is not explained, exposing problems without providing solutions is not exactly productive, especially if youre posting about a topic that has been mentioned and discussed dozens of times already.
​

• I do agree with you in the sense that there's a perceived lack of prioritization for Java, for which I cannot really blame the Admin Team too much, considering that the current playercount is indeed very low, and lots of efforts and investments have been made throughout many years, seemingly to render minimal result.​

• I do agree with the fact that simply going around removing games is NOT the way to go, but simply "bringing back gamemodes" is not the way to go either, there needs to be more creative ways to reuse old content. Especially because these games have been removed purely due to logistical issues, if you have a small playercount you cannot split the playercount into a lot of games, it's best to have a small set of options and fast-starting games, than a big set of options, and no games starting at all. (Unless you offer solo-style content like Skyblock & Parkour, which I strongly believe should be the future of CubeCraft Java) Small QoL features like THIS one could really help right now.​

• The featured game system for example, used to be a massive success and I am unsure why it got removed. And nowadays, thanks to having updated to a newer version of Minecraft, the idea of bringing back all those old gamemodes for a featured game system, would require a massive technical undertaking, and I don't know if it'd be worth it for the limited time each game would be featured.​

• But I sincerely ask myself every few days, "they have SO MUCH content to offer, they've made SO MANY games over the years, why don't they use that to their advantage? why can't they recycle some of their content?" and I honestly don't have a clue, I would be hosting nostalgia weeks every 6 months, bringing back super old maps, reviving old games, trying to recuperate all those niche minigame communities temporarily featuring their beloved games, but I instead see nothing being done specifically for Java at all. I'm not saying don't innovate, I'm saying, innovate, but also make your life easier with all the old content you've created, I'm sure a lot of it is still very enjoyable! THIS is one way they could implement it.​

• This leads me to the conclusion that the Admin Team has taken the decision for quite a while now, to only provide Java with content that was already planned for Bedrock, and is easy to port. With things such as maps, game updates for games that exist on both networks, and even new games. If I'm not wrong, the way the current infrastructure for Cube is set up, it's easier than it used to be, to port games between networks.​

• This frustrates me too, because I do think that Java has a lot of unique potential, the Java server market is quite different to what it used to be, people don't seem all that interested in minigame-centered servers like Kloska pointed out with his data on Hypixel, and survival based, SMP/RPG-esque games seem to be what is most popular as of now.​

• What does this mean? If CubeCraft wants to see growth in their Java network, they need to change their approach, and understand that Java and Bedrock have vastly different demographics, Java desperately needs more attention to CubeCraft's long-term content like Skyblock, and perhaps see the return of things like the Magic and Mayhem RPG (RPGs constitute a big amount of popular Java servers nowadays), and perhaps the re introduction of games like Houses, Freebuild, and new things like Factions, etc.​

TL;DR: I understand how you feel, but feedback needs to propose something to be constructive. I think CubeCraft should be more creative and totally abuse and milk the heck out of their old content somehow, but they also need to shift their intentions with Java, and cater to more long-term based content like survival, rpgs, etc. Minecraft is a survival/sandbox game after all, CubeCraft offers no similar experiences to the base game other than SkyBlock, that used to be a novel thing, but players are regressing to prefering long adventures, instead of saturated, fast-paced minigames.​

 

[JokeKaedee]

Amen @Eli , amen. I have been reading over this thread repeatedly, trying to think of how to take the information and give a clear response - which is exactly what you did. So thank you!

As a somewhat OG player on CubeCraft Java, I do see why OP feels the way they do (Hi Bram). I too, have seen the drastic changes in the Java network and have suffered the loss of many great games that used to be very popular. Of course, as a player, it feels like everything (or at least a lot..) has been taken from you, but you have to understand the Admin Team and their side, too.

I won't be going into too much detail player count-wise as we've seen enough data in this thread already. However, you must understand that those peaks were mid-pandemic. Of course, other servers might still have a higher player count, but, then again, CubeCraft is currently focusing on a different variety of games, in my opinion.

• Like Eli mentioned: I feel like Java would have a great chance at becoming more popular again IF there would be more focus on survival-like and story-like game modes. SkyBlock and Pillars of Fortune are the two games with the highest player count. Looking back at Magic and Mayhem, it was a HIT! I think we may have found a new subgenre of games that do well on Java CubeCraft, but it takes a lot of time and resources to create and develop new games and their storylines.

Bringing back old games wouldn't do CubeCraft much good. Of course, I would love for them to be back and playable, but it's simply unrealistic to aim for. Since the 1.9 update happened, all of these games would have to be changed for the games to work properly again or make the games a little more interesting with newer options and blocks. I just don't think it's worth spending all those resources on bringing back old games that will maybe get twenty players compared to the hundreds of players who have now moved onto another server or community.

Anyway, that's my take on the situation as of now. CubeCraft has things to improve on for Java, but ''reversing'' the entire update is not it. Hopefully though, we will get something new to look forward to soon. For now, let's just enjoy what we do have and hope for a brighter future.