One of the things that's been in the works lately is an idea we've had for some time. Only lately have we begun to truly notice a pattern of seeing some players log on to Loka merely to do pvp and then leave when they're done. I've watched some of these players and a few of them haven't even left spawn; they just queue for 2v2s, then leave.
It's certainly no surprise to anyone that a very large percentage of Minecraft players enjoy the quick in&out minigames style servers. I too love hopping on Mineplex from time to time to just play some quick, simple minigames that don't require any large investment of time or thought.
It's clear that there's a (probably higher than we think) percentage of people who come to Loka seeing our PvP games. However, if those people are coming to Loka merely for that reason, they're still stuck getting dragged through our Intro course and the (mostly optional) Verdant Village introduction questline. The suspicion is that this is boring those PvP players immediately and they leave before they really get to try anything.
So, we've made the decision that we're going to build and advertise a separate PvP Server/Hub. What this effectively means is that players will see on lokamc.com two options for IPs to connect to, Loka and our PvP server. Because of how the network works (like most big servers), players on both servers will contribute to the same player count and it'll make Loka seem much busier if there're a large number of players on the PvP Server.
As for what the two servers will have in common:
Honestly, this is something we should've done awhile ago; I think we wanted too badly to "make people see Loka" so that they could come to love it. It was naive to think this though; some people just wanna play minigames and aren't interested in survival Minecraft in any way.
The good news is that the Hub is nearly completed. We're mostly just waiting on me to finish all of the migration of functionality. The PvP Hub will now be handling game queueing and there's some cross-server communication functionality to make the new queueing system work.
In the end, I think this is going to be great for Loka. What we anticipate is that Loka may get a lot of new players on the PvP Server only, but it will inflate our online player count and make Loka look much busier, even if 90% of the players are just doing PvP.
Go Forth!
It's certainly no surprise to anyone that a very large percentage of Minecraft players enjoy the quick in&out minigames style servers. I too love hopping on Mineplex from time to time to just play some quick, simple minigames that don't require any large investment of time or thought.
It's clear that there's a (probably higher than we think) percentage of people who come to Loka seeing our PvP games. However, if those people are coming to Loka merely for that reason, they're still stuck getting dragged through our Intro course and the (mostly optional) Verdant Village introduction questline. The suspicion is that this is boring those PvP players immediately and they leave before they really get to try anything.
So, we've made the decision that we're going to build and advertise a separate PvP Server/Hub. What this effectively means is that players will see on lokamc.com two options for IPs to connect to, Loka and our PvP server. Because of how the network works (like most big servers), players on both servers will contribute to the same player count and it'll make Loka seem much busier if there're a large number of players on the PvP Server.
As for what the two servers will have in common:
- There will be no shared Public chat.
- There will be linked town chat, alliance chat, and whispers.
- Both Loka and Loka PvP will have a shared queue. This means you'll be able to queue for VotA on both the PvP server and Loka and get into the same games. In the future, the intent is that you can queue for PvP games no matter where you are on Loka (proving grounds, test servers, other worlds, etc).
- Rules on conduct are going to be much lesser on the PvP Server. We're keenly aware of the type of folks that play PvP only and we're going to effectively let them say and do whatever they want on the PvP Hub (within reason). Because the two servers won't have any shared public communication, we're going to be less strict on the PvP Hub.
- There will be a building and link from the PvP Hub to Loka so that the PvPers can come experience and play on Loka. There will be some sort of firewall informing the players that rules are stricter on Loka. Similarly, the "mini-pvp lobby" that you can get to via /pvp on Loka right now will take you to the real Hub once it's ready.
Honestly, this is something we should've done awhile ago; I think we wanted too badly to "make people see Loka" so that they could come to love it. It was naive to think this though; some people just wanna play minigames and aren't interested in survival Minecraft in any way.
The good news is that the Hub is nearly completed. We're mostly just waiting on me to finish all of the migration of functionality. The PvP Hub will now be handling game queueing and there's some cross-server communication functionality to make the new queueing system work.
In the end, I think this is going to be great for Loka. What we anticipate is that Loka may get a lot of new players on the PvP Server only, but it will inflate our online player count and make Loka look much busier, even if 90% of the players are just doing PvP.
Go Forth!
