Just going to put my two cents in here.
First off, the idea of not making the creative world more desirable just because Massivecraft isn't a creative server doesn't hold much weight. Massivecraft isn't a one trick pony. The community here is very diverse, and if we have the opportunity to help a part of it grow then we should.
I recently returned to Massivecraft after many many months of inactivity. As I'm settling into the swing of things, figuring out the lore changes and whatnot, I go to my creative plots to find all of my buildings are still there. While I was personally relieved, this underlines a major issue with the creative system. My buildings should not have been there.
As
@vidivo suggested, the simplest solution to this is to restore plots that have gone inactive. The specifics of how long it takes for a plot to restore are irrelevant as the staff will decide this based on data they collect.
I feel like implementing this policy alone will eradicate many of the other concerns that have been brought up: over claiming, lag, etc.
What I would suggest to the staff is to implement the restore policy for a trial period. Don't change how many plots players can claim yet, simply make it where players who are inactive get their plots restored. I would suggest making players who have been inactive for more than 3 months get their plots restored, but again, the time should be set based on data collected from the server.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: make this system retroactive. So if a player has already been gone for over 3 months at the time this is implemented, their plot is immediately restored. I believe this will dramatically decrease the number of plots that are claimed
immediately. The immediate success of this is going to be dependent on the last time the creative world was restored, which is something
@MonMarty would have to tell us. Once this trial period has gone on for a sufficient amount of time to see the restore policy's effectiveness,
then the staff should increase the claim number based on how effective the restore policy was.
Another point I would like to make about the creative world. If the staff are interested in advertising the creative world more (which they should), they should emphasise WorldEdit. I use the creative world sparingly, mostly to design the outline of buildings, but I didn't even know the creative world had WorldEdit until a few weeks ago. This is a big draw for builders. Making this more known will increase interest in the creative world and building in general.
The staff are also in
dire need of world staff, increasing the appeal of the creative world should help bring in people who are suited to world staff. Just some food for thought.
I encourage other players to think about this and try to formulate some solutions, however, I also think there is only so much we can do as players with limited information.
If the staff wish to crowd-source the community for solutions on this, I suggest giving the community more information on the issue (I'm assuming you have access to this data, but I could be wrong).
- How many total plots are available in total? (As if merged plots had been broken up)
- How many plots are claimed right now?
- How many of those plots are active/how many players spend a substantial amount of time on the creative server?
- How much of the Massivecraft server can be dedicated to the creative world/How crowded can the creative server get before it starts causing problems?
Those are just some suggestions that I think might help people get ideas.
Sorry for the long post!
TL;DR:
- Restore inactive plots for a trial period to determine its effectiveness at decreasing the number of claimed plots, then possibly increase claim limits
- Advertise the creative world more
- If the staff wish to crowd-source a solution, give the players more data so we can understand the issue better
