I'm just gonna go through every change in the update and say what I really think of each bit and as a whole
The big thing first, the game removal.
This really feels dishonest to say little to no players, many of these are well played but ignored. Saying Blockwars or Minerware had little to no players is really a lie as you can easily start games that are often full and aren't impossible to start late at night. They haven't released the data for the popularity of games at any point so I'm going to go through each game I can think of. My thoughts on the lobby removal comes later.
Minerware - This was one of the most unique games on the server and can't be found on other servers and very well played, it's removal will be a big hit for most players on the server and the best game to take a break from all the pvp in other games.
Saying that it still remains on the bedrock edition is not good enough either, the windows 10 version is laggy, doesn't have forge mods or optifine and just really isn't what players want. It's got to come back as it's definitely one of the spiritually most important games on the server.
Freebuild - Even though it's been plagued with bugs, it's another great getaway from pvp and has fun building with your friends. Even though it's going to be missed, it's probably for the better as it isn't unique and is a pain to maintain.
Survival games - It's unfortunate to see it go but it just wasn't played, many are really attached to the game and is only really available in 1.9 pvp form on cube. I'd really think this should be re-added in a much simpler form with teaming allowed and allowing players more freedom with what they do on the game ( and without that god awful lobby )
Beta games - the three beta games were all great, not so popular but unique. Archer assault was my favourite of the games, I really found the pvp really fun and most important different, a bow game is always needed and I loved it. Bingo was a great game that unfortunately died out, it could work well as a seasonal game in the future.
Speed Eggwars - Another game I really love, I feel like it really wasn't as popular as it should be because of half health rushing that really was a killjoy to it. However, it wasn't popular enough to stay so I agree with it's departure.
Battlezone - It's a clone of the original game and was mostly a mistake to add in the first place. Even at the time, when the server was more active, the game wasn't going to sustain 100 people at once, and there's no way it's going to work as a permanent game now, possibly seasonal appearances may work for it.
Blockwars - Like minerware, it was a massive mistake to remove this game, it still has a strong community and some numbers saying that it wasn't popular are not what I've seen from playing it. I really don't know what to say for this one other than it's my favourite game on the network and I've played it for 1000s of hours, alike many others. Add it back permanently.
Arcade - It's most of the variety on the entire server, with fun, classic games that most people play at least sometimes and it's not important that these games are super popular, but they are great to have. Add it back.
Overall, I feel that Minerware, Blockwars and Arcade need to come back because they are well loved and still have a dedicated community. There was no reason to remove them in the first place and it's frankly just stupid. The other games, I have mixed feelings on.
Disappointed is an understatement to say the least. Frankly, this statement just sounds incredibly uncaring and apathetic. It just sounds so corporate and is just another way Cube's management build a wall between themselves and the community.
Grouping every game up into one here is saying they were all as incredibly dead as Battlezone, which just really isn't the case, It's been said that it isn't the reason for all the removals so don't make it sound like it is. Unless you have a warped perception of it, some of these games were far from dead.
To me this just shows the corporate nature of things, "Your favourite game is gone forever because it did or didn't have PvP in it". Parkour has probably been kept while more popular games has been removed for this reason alone. It's just horrible.
The idea as a whole is fine, but judging by your history with these weekly releases, It's not going to go well. But my issue with it, is that staff have been playing it off as rectifying the situation completely is really pathetic. Being able to play your favourite game once every 3 months is not the same as being able to play it every day, it's not a good excuse.
This is the most annoying bit for me. Yes you need new players to join the server to be sustainable but this is not how you do it. If you are just doing this for the new players, while saying fy to the old players, it's not going to work for you, especially since theres only a fair few of them. The bit about putting yourself in their shoes is really degrading to both parties. Firstly, you are treating new players like idiots, like they are incapable using the lobby system that is on basically every other server, and saying they can't work out how to not go on a map that has no players on it. Then finally treating java players the same as on bedrock edition.
The average age of a java player is about 3 years older or more. If they can't work out how to use a compass they wouldn't work out how to download Minecraft in the first place, you have to actively find servers and not just click on yours because its the first one on the list so it takes more than a second of thought. Players are capable of moving more than 20 blocks forward. We aren't 2 year olds.
This is no excuse, you should have more than 7 developers. You had a junior developer program but just stopped it, and a server of this size should be able to get more than 7, it's not impossible to hire new ones you know. You can get kids to do it for less the minimum wage or free if they like the server. Some are happy to do it for just the experience, it's not that hard guys.
The problem has never been that you have to update 41 different modes because you never have, some just go untouched completely. People complain more about the bad decisions of an update rather than much else. On the same line as developers, you don't accept maps. People literally make maps for you and you don't use them. If you are unsure of how well they will do, you can roll them out and make improvements from feedback. It's not hard to not just make Skywars maps either.
Good to know that you aren't heartless enough to just completely delete everything randomly but as stated before, your record on 2 week rotations is not great and I doubt this will be much better. Don't try and make being only able to play your favourite games once every 3 months sound like a good thing because it's not.
You didn't need to change the lobbies in the first place. They were fine.
This is hardly an improvement, it's incredibly basic and it reduces the value of getting in the top spots because all you need to do is get 27th place to get on the front page, so there's no reason to go for higher spots. It's not like theres a command to see your position in the leaderboard so you would have to go through a lot of pages of them. And once again, its another fy to long time players who worked hard to get where everyone can see them with the cute little statues just to be hidden away in a menu.
Yaaaay so fun!!
Yes, the first thing you see when you go on the server is the shop, you put the boards 20 blocks away in case the little children can't find where to play! It's just so pathetic how you treat your player base by just sticking "we want your money" right in their face.
This picture shows how much you rushed this update.
1. You can't actually read the game signs, it's the same logo you put everywhere and it has just been reused in a place you can't even read what it says
2. Tower defence doesn't even have an art thing
3. You have used the super basic NPCs with random skins
4. You have stuffed it right in the middle of the lobby without any thought of the placement
5. There is a parkour with fricking 1 block jumps
6. You have put weird island things on top of it that are badly designed and really ugly
7. How is an enchanting table anything to do with tower defence
8. The only real change you made to the lobby is replace the portal with purple wool, how low effort can you get.
9. The store guy is like 2 blocks from the spawn point, like wth
About the lobbies, theres only one reason why they have done it, not because it takes time to build them, it's because they cost money to run, that's fine. But what isn't fine is that you pretend it isn't. Theres no other good reason to remove the lobbies. This was probably the worst decision of them all, and I'll explain why.
Another issue is that some people don't have the computers to handle 50 players on screen at once ( like me) and if you crash immediately on joining the server, you wont be coming back.
Enough criticisms for now.
The big thing first, the game removal.
This really feels dishonest to say little to no players, many of these are well played but ignored. Saying Blockwars or Minerware had little to no players is really a lie as you can easily start games that are often full and aren't impossible to start late at night. They haven't released the data for the popularity of games at any point so I'm going to go through each game I can think of. My thoughts on the lobby removal comes later.
Minerware - This was one of the most unique games on the server and can't be found on other servers and very well played, it's removal will be a big hit for most players on the server and the best game to take a break from all the pvp in other games.
Saying that it still remains on the bedrock edition is not good enough either, the windows 10 version is laggy, doesn't have forge mods or optifine and just really isn't what players want. It's got to come back as it's definitely one of the spiritually most important games on the server.
Freebuild - Even though it's been plagued with bugs, it's another great getaway from pvp and has fun building with your friends. Even though it's going to be missed, it's probably for the better as it isn't unique and is a pain to maintain.
Survival games - It's unfortunate to see it go but it just wasn't played, many are really attached to the game and is only really available in 1.9 pvp form on cube. I'd really think this should be re-added in a much simpler form with teaming allowed and allowing players more freedom with what they do on the game ( and without that god awful lobby )
Beta games - the three beta games were all great, not so popular but unique. Archer assault was my favourite of the games, I really found the pvp really fun and most important different, a bow game is always needed and I loved it. Bingo was a great game that unfortunately died out, it could work well as a seasonal game in the future.
Speed Eggwars - Another game I really love, I feel like it really wasn't as popular as it should be because of half health rushing that really was a killjoy to it. However, it wasn't popular enough to stay so I agree with it's departure.
Battlezone - It's a clone of the original game and was mostly a mistake to add in the first place. Even at the time, when the server was more active, the game wasn't going to sustain 100 people at once, and there's no way it's going to work as a permanent game now, possibly seasonal appearances may work for it.
Blockwars - Like minerware, it was a massive mistake to remove this game, it still has a strong community and some numbers saying that it wasn't popular are not what I've seen from playing it. I really don't know what to say for this one other than it's my favourite game on the network and I've played it for 1000s of hours, alike many others. Add it back permanently.
Arcade - It's most of the variety on the entire server, with fun, classic games that most people play at least sometimes and it's not important that these games are super popular, but they are great to have. Add it back.
Overall, I feel that Minerware, Blockwars and Arcade need to come back because they are well loved and still have a dedicated community. There was no reason to remove them in the first place and it's frankly just stupid. The other games, I have mixed feelings on.
Disappointed is an understatement to say the least. Frankly, this statement just sounds incredibly uncaring and apathetic. It just sounds so corporate and is just another way Cube's management build a wall between themselves and the community.
Grouping every game up into one here is saying they were all as incredibly dead as Battlezone, which just really isn't the case, It's been said that it isn't the reason for all the removals so don't make it sound like it is. Unless you have a warped perception of it, some of these games were far from dead.
To me this just shows the corporate nature of things, "Your favourite game is gone forever because it did or didn't have PvP in it". Parkour has probably been kept while more popular games has been removed for this reason alone. It's just horrible.
The idea as a whole is fine, but judging by your history with these weekly releases, It's not going to go well. But my issue with it, is that staff have been playing it off as rectifying the situation completely is really pathetic. Being able to play your favourite game once every 3 months is not the same as being able to play it every day, it's not a good excuse.
This is the most annoying bit for me. Yes you need new players to join the server to be sustainable but this is not how you do it. If you are just doing this for the new players, while saying fy to the old players, it's not going to work for you, especially since theres only a fair few of them. The bit about putting yourself in their shoes is really degrading to both parties. Firstly, you are treating new players like idiots, like they are incapable using the lobby system that is on basically every other server, and saying they can't work out how to not go on a map that has no players on it. Then finally treating java players the same as on bedrock edition.
The average age of a java player is about 3 years older or more. If they can't work out how to use a compass they wouldn't work out how to download Minecraft in the first place, you have to actively find servers and not just click on yours because its the first one on the list so it takes more than a second of thought. Players are capable of moving more than 20 blocks forward. We aren't 2 year olds.
This is no excuse, you should have more than 7 developers. You had a junior developer program but just stopped it, and a server of this size should be able to get more than 7, it's not impossible to hire new ones you know. You can get kids to do it for less the minimum wage or free if they like the server. Some are happy to do it for just the experience, it's not that hard guys.
The problem has never been that you have to update 41 different modes because you never have, some just go untouched completely. People complain more about the bad decisions of an update rather than much else. On the same line as developers, you don't accept maps. People literally make maps for you and you don't use them. If you are unsure of how well they will do, you can roll them out and make improvements from feedback. It's not hard to not just make Skywars maps either.
Good to know that you aren't heartless enough to just completely delete everything randomly but as stated before, your record on 2 week rotations is not great and I doubt this will be much better. Don't try and make being only able to play your favourite games once every 3 months sound like a good thing because it's not.
You didn't need to change the lobbies in the first place. They were fine.
This is hardly an improvement, it's incredibly basic and it reduces the value of getting in the top spots because all you need to do is get 27th place to get on the front page, so there's no reason to go for higher spots. It's not like theres a command to see your position in the leaderboard so you would have to go through a lot of pages of them. And once again, its another fy to long time players who worked hard to get where everyone can see them with the cute little statues just to be hidden away in a menu.
Yaaaay so fun!!
Yes, the first thing you see when you go on the server is the shop, you put the boards 20 blocks away in case the little children can't find where to play! It's just so pathetic how you treat your player base by just sticking "we want your money" right in their face.
This picture shows how much you rushed this update.
1. You can't actually read the game signs, it's the same logo you put everywhere and it has just been reused in a place you can't even read what it says
2. Tower defence doesn't even have an art thing
3. You have used the super basic NPCs with random skins
4. You have stuffed it right in the middle of the lobby without any thought of the placement
5. There is a parkour with fricking 1 block jumps
6. You have put weird island things on top of it that are badly designed and really ugly
7. How is an enchanting table anything to do with tower defence
8. The only real change you made to the lobby is replace the portal with purple wool, how low effort can you get.
9. The store guy is like 2 blocks from the spawn point, like wth
Can't, my game got deleted.
About the lobbies, theres only one reason why they have done it, not because it takes time to build them, it's because they cost money to run, that's fine. But what isn't fine is that you pretend it isn't. Theres no other good reason to remove the lobbies. This was probably the worst decision of them all, and I'll explain why.
When playing on cubecraft, you aren't just there for the games, you are there for the community. The lobbies act as a place of interacting with the community and tend to feel quite homely, a good place to chat and hang about with vanity stuff (except from that awful sg lobby) and removing them just to have the pretty ugly main lobby brings lot's of negatives.
With this, it's not a positive, it just makes it harder to find people to pally with because guess what, not everyone likes the same games. Unbelievable. You can already see the dead chats in lobbies because people don't have the game to talk about, and instead of seeing the same people in the lobby that you see every day, you are just there with a bunch of random people. You can't talk about the game that just ended because you will be put in different lobbies and with 50 other people there.Another issue is that some people don't have the computers to handle 50 players on screen at once ( like me) and if you crash immediately on joining the server, you wont be coming back.
Enough criticisms for now.
