I haven't been around for a week or 2 bc of school work and in that time I haven't touched bedrock at all. Just before I had a quick look and I'm surprised to see a lot of servers including Vastlands have pretty much completely died off, even the partnered servers aren't doing too well. and BrokenLens has more players than InPVP, I think Mojang should reconsider their decisions regarding partnering and the game itself cuz it seems like a lot of players have run away since the 'Better together update'... drop your thoughts! edit: quick vid just whipped up. the situation needed it.
In my estimation players on independent servers have dropped by a factor of about 15... The most likely explanation is the requirement to have an XBL account - many of my players don't even have an email address, and even if they do they have to lie about their age when creating the account to join servers. I can't see them backtracking on XBL, so unless there are massive protests by disgruntled players such as yourself, it's going to be very hard indeed for server owners to stay afloat.
I agree. Mostly also because of mojangs licence but we have to remember also, that Mojang never wanted mcpe to be free. And the people that used a free version, in the past years. Are salty that they can’t play anymore. But they have to remember they were never allowed to play for free just my thoughts
Are you sure about that? I haven't tried myself, but if xbl checks it's a legal client then that'll be a factor too.
Part of the problem is the "featured servers" list. Even if you come up with a killer feature, most people aren't going to be looking for servers to join, if they have 3 "good enough" servers at the top of their server list at all times. Some people still will, but certainly in fewer numbers than before. Staying afloat is going to require a solid command of social media, amazing developers, and good marketing skills, to compete with the Microsoft-approved servers.
It is a very sad situation. The free server I helped maintain for over two years shut down because of the XBL requirement. Every other major change to MCPE/BE over the last 2 years was surmountable; but having every single user convert to XBL login...and then managing moving all their assets from their old login to new was an unsurmountable obstacle for the owners. Even the owner of the server was unable to create his own XBL account because it insisted he must have a cell phone number during the account creation process and he did not have one -- this seems to be a Microsoft requirement in his native country but not all countries. Basically millions of young people around the world who used to play online on servers -- but for various reasons are not able to successfully create an XBL account -- are just gone now. It seems like a very sad situation for the community. It was a predictable result of Microsofts historic "embrace, extend, extinguish" business model once the purchase of Mojang occurred. My prediction: Once they release the fabled official bedrock server -- as alluded to at last years Minecon -- they will begin to make it far more difficult for the PMMP project and other non-MS-servers to function with the official clients. I wouldn't be surprised if the "featured servers" partners are already discussing this with MS under NDA now. And then we will lose a few million more of the community and the journey to closed/proprietary will continue...
Let's return to the days when you had to install mods to play on the servers. Back then the condition of servers must be worse than this. Why care so much about featured servers? Their popularity is their own business, just as you won't feel unhappy because players are playing other games rather than Minecraft. Why so concerned about the number of players? Your server is there always; having no players is emptiness; having a full server is emptiness too.
@SOFe What you said makes no sense, but putting that aside, the primary issue here is that Microsoft, through either ignorance or intent (honestly, it could be either), is making it nearly impossible for 99% of servers to continue. Servers which many of us have put years of work into. As @MK500 said above, I fully expected Microsoft to do something like this, because they're a poorly run company, and tend to go through a "break things" phase, followed by a "fix all your dumb mistakes" phase (Windows ME - Windows XP, Windows Vista - Windows 7, Windows 8 - Windows 10, just to name a few examples), but it's still frustrating, because of all the hard work that's just been wasted. There's a sort of "shoot down everyone's arguments" culture here, and it's somewhat annoying. This issue is clearly a concern for all server admins @SOFe. You'd have to be a special kind of person to not be able to at least see that much. Or perhaps you don't run a server, in which case, you may want to try to put yourself in our shoes. It may help you understand us.
This has nothing to do with "shoot down everyone's arguments". What I'm saying is, let's face the fact. Microsoft is not interested in promoting a community where everyone hosts their own server and there is no centralized control; we know that from day one. And there is nothing we can do about this unless you manage to get half of Minecraft's users to sign a petition against them, which is not possible. To be honest, only this small community of server owners and hackers here is concerned -- Microsoft targets on the "average player", who only wants to play the game in ways it's designed to be like, not to seek a higher level of achievement by "outsmarting" the game. Don't tell me things like behavior packs, partnered servers, etc. aren't intended to displace users from things that the company can have absolutely no control over, such as third-party mods and wild servers. When this is a fact that we can't change, the only thing we can do is to adjust our expectations. What I see here is just a full thread analyzing why players are away, and every single reason eventually points to the attitude of the developers. It is totally not constructive creating a thread to complain; it just concentrates the aversion without improving the condition. Why not be more open-minded, adapt to the new situation and find the way out there?
This will not increase the total number of players. This only displaces players from certain servers to certain other servers.
I know. What he was saying does not lead to an overall increase, not bringing back players that can't play due to client changes in new updates.