This is basically a follow-up to a post I did here back when we were debating over whether there should be creative and basically the overall well being of the server in terms of the number of people online and new members.

There I posted a graph of the number of new members that have joined the server per month since the beginning (at least in terms of number of people to register an account on the forum) arguing for the case that Opticraft is losing people and Creative could help. It's been about 8 months since I posted that, and about 7 months since we have had the Creative server.

So how are things coming along?

*Note: I couldn't fit the first 3 months of Opticraft onto the graph like I could with the last graph.
Red 1: Opticraft SMP is launched. 1/2012
Orange: Member world for SMP is released. 6/2012
Cyan 1: Melons/Pumpkins/Cacti removed from the market. 6/2012
Black 1: Mojang first removes Classic from the main page of Minecraft.net. Re-adds it, but harder to navigate to. 8/2012
Blue: Official YouTube channel launched. 9/2012
*One I should've mentioned was the New Guest World being released on 12/2012, which explains the spike.
Pink: PVP maps released. 7/2013
Black 2: Mojang kills Classic. Permanently removes Classic from the main page at Minecraft.net. 7/2013
Cyan 2: Gold/Iron ingots removed from the market. 9/2013
Red 2: Opticraft Creative is launched. 9/2014
*The dots also do not account for Minecraft updates that may have boosted popularity.

It looks like after the Creative server was released, it was somewhat a slow start. But then a huge spike of people happened in December and January. I have no idea what from or how, but it looks like the number sharply fell back down in February and March. Whatever it was though, it seems we couldn't hold the momentum up for long though. It seems when you exclude the 2 outlier months that we still have retained relatively low new member numbers each month, which is a bit disheartening.

What do you guys think of all this?

I think there should be a donation perk that allows people to use their additional homes without having to vote first every 24 hours or so.

The player would have to donate about $30-$40 to do this (depending on what's agreed if this suggestion is accepted), making it the highest donation option. But when somebody does donate for it, they will be able to warp to their additional /homes without having to vote.

Even though this would mean that people won't be voting I think this will benefit the server due to these reasons:

1.) Let's face it, most people don't fill out the captcha on the voting sites, and /homes are probably the main reasons people vote, so this will give people an incentive to donate without having to go on the site to "vote".
2.) This will be another way people can donate to the server to keep it running. And since a lot of people don't actually vote, them donating for the ability to not have to "vote" to use their /homes will actually help the server possibly more than if they actually voted (As I'm sure there's more people who would want the ability to go to their /homes without having to vote every so often, and, as said before, most don't actually vote anyway).

Just wondering, but is the live map gonna be updated for 1.7 blocks?

In my opinion, I think the current live map application we use, Minecraft Overviewer, should be replaced with Minecraft Dynamic Map.

Here are the links to the Minecraft Dynamic Map:
http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/dynmap/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/211913-minecraft-dynamic-map/

There are many things that make Minecraft Dynamic Map superior to Minecraft Overviewer:

• Updated in real time. As in, you would no longer have to wait every few hours to see your builds updated on the map. You can apparently even have the map open on the browser and have Minecraft open, and see the changes happen as you build.
• Players can be seen on the map. An icon of the user's face is seen where the player is currently located on the world. This is also pretty close to real time.
• Users can switch between the isometric view (the view Minecraft Overviewer always uses) and a top-down view (much like how you look at maps in-game). There's even the option the owner can implement that allows users to view caves and tunnels in an "xray" type of view, but I'm sure that won't be implemented.
• Weather and Minecraft time is shown on the top.
• The option to allow users to see WorldGuard (protection zones) borders along with who owns them, the flags, etc; however, Optical would need to download the "corresponding Dynmap-* plugins" for that, which I know Optical doesn't like using other people's plug-ins.
• Appareantly users can chat with players in-game, but I've never seen a server that utilized that.
  
• "Overall highly configurable and customizable" as one of the links above mentions, so I'm assuming there's lots of options Optical would have to set up the maps.

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I'm sorry for posting something that relates to another server, but I really want to provide an example. Here's a live map I googled:
http://www.buxville.net/map/?worldname=world&mapname=flat&zoom=0&x=1215.9999999999998&y=64&z=-2808

On the left side, you can toggle what icons you want see on the map (spawn, warps, players, etc.), and on the right you can change what world to look at and the map view (top-down, isometric, "cave" (which is the xray-esque view I mentioned before, which Im assuming is optional since Ive seen some servers have the option while others don't). Even the players online can be seen on the right.

Admittedly, there is one flaw I've noticed that Minecraft Overviewer has a one-up on, and that being that when you zoom in too close, the image starts to get a bit blurry. However, whether or not that outweighs all the good things I mentioned above is up to you.

I know we would need Optical in order for this to happen, but I think it would be worth trying to contact Optical about replacing the current live map, Minecraft Overviewer, with the far superior Minecraft Dynamic Map.

City name: Mewtwo's Palace

City location (Live map link, coordinates, not biome, include world name): New Guest: http://smp.opticraft.net/map/#/-751/64/4101/-2/0/0

Contributors: _gavin, awesomealicia, iGenerator, Saeberus, tankermide

Mayor (Only one - this is the zone owner): UnknownHedgehog

Approximate dimensions: 211x83 for the length and width of the palace itself (but there could possibly be a fence going further out)

Number of active residents: 1 (possibly more later)

Number of completed, decorated and furnished buildings: 1

What state is the project in, and what are your plans for its future, if any: The project is pretty much done in terms of the exterior. I still have to do the inside, do details to make it look better, and other things that might come up later to do. I am also thinking about holding Spleef tournaments there, or just play casual Spleef with friends. I was also planning on building a fence going around the border of the protection zone.

Why should we grant this city protection? A lot of time and money was invested into the project. I also don't have enough money to protect the entire thing with ps stones, so there's nothing protecting it. There might also be valuable blocks there someday that people might try to steal too.

Ingame name: UnknownHedgehog

Join date: March 5, 2012

List your creations, and the worlds they are on:
*Larger Builds*
 - Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany (Recruit39)
 - Flatiron Building in New York, NY (Recruit40)
 - Classic Spleef Arena (Builder18)
 - Stahl House in Los Angeles, CA (Builder18)
 - El Capricho in Barrio de Sobrellano, Spain (Builder19)
 - Spleef the Flag Arena (Builder21)
 - Ultimate Chimera from Mother 3 (Builder24)

*Smaller Builds*
 - Mr. Saturn from EarthBound (Builder21)
 - Fierce Deity Sword from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Builder23)

Links to screenshots of the creation:
 - Brandenburg Gate: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Brandenburg%20Gate/
 - Flatiron Building: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Flatiron%20Building/
 - Classic Spleef Arena: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Classic%20Spleef%20Arena/
 - Stahl House: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Stahl%20House/
 - El Capricho: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/El%20Capricho/
 - Spleef the Flag Arena: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Spleef%20the%20Flag%20Arena/
 - Ultimate Chimera: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Ultimate%20Chimera/

 - Mr. Saturn: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Mr%20Saturn/
 - Fierce Deity Sword: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Fierce%20Deity%20Sword/

Extra (Anything else you want to mention):

For builds that are based off of real life buildings, I include real pictures of the buildings as references.

Allow me explain a few things about some builds:

Brandenburg Gate: This was my first build since becoming Recruit. It was a decently detailed build, and it was one of two builds that were in my Builder app. However, I added a large amount of detail to it since then. For example: The side buildings are no longer just simple boxes, and the pillars now have arches between them. While the build looks somewhat different to the real Brandenburg Gate due to those changes, I believe it was a good decision to add extra details to it.

Flatiron Building: This was my second build since becoming Recruit, and it was the second of two builds in my Builder app. There are 18 floors total, and all of them are furnished. It was; however, becoming extremely difficult to mix things up for every floor. I will admit that. The building is also different from standard buildings due to its triangular shape, which I included in the build. I changed this build slightly by making the hypotenuse side of the top of the building straight, as opposed to its sloppy look from before.

Classic Spleef Arena & Spleef the Flag Arena: I know Spleef arenas are done quite a bit; however, these arenas were submitted to the Spleef Arena Contest held by Your_Mine and will be used when a new world is made for Spleef in general. Also, if you don't know what Spleef the Flag is, here's a link to the Spleef Arena Contest, which explains everything about it. http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,9629.0.html

El Capricho: The build used to have a plain red wall in the back. I cannot find the photo of the model of El Capricho that showed the plain red wall, nor can I find any other good pictures of that wall, but it is there. However, I noticed that in one picture, one can see a little bit of a tent where the wall is. But rather than building a simple tent, I built a greenhouse of sorts, and built small gardens and two trees under it. While there is no such thing there, I added it to make the build have better quality; as opposed to an exposed plain red wall. Also, about the interior, the majority of it is original by me. There are photos, but I only used the wall design and the ceiling design. Other than those things, the interior is all mine. Also, the dragon mural was done without GIMP and is not part of the real El Capricho.

Mr. Saturn and Fierce Deity: These are the smaller of my builds that I have done. I put them in this app though since they both have, imho, good curves to them. I know that's not up to me to decide though.

I have also done pixel art, which I made with GIMP. I did not use MrMonkey91's palette (I didn't know that Monkey had a palette up for download until after I made my own, but I have not used Monkey's palette ever). I made my own palette on GIMP from terrain.png, and I indexed the photo to Minecraft Classic material colors. Because of this, I'm putting the pixel art in the Extras part of this app. The pixel art I've done include:
- Skull Kid from Majora's Mask (Current Builder)
- Death from the Darksiders games (Current Builder)
- Gray Fox from Metal Gear Solid (Current Art)

Here is the link to the pixel art: http://s864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/Unknown255/Minecraft%20Crafter%20Application/Pixel%20Art/

Also, I don't have any real life, nor 3D, models of any of the builds based on real things, and the only thing I used was pictures for reference.

Thank you for your time.

Edit: Added the Ultimate Chimera.

I started this Arena in the previous Builder world (Builder17), but I had an admin copy and paste it to the current one (which is why if you /about most blocks, it will likely say Nick rather than me). This took awhile to make but I think it was worth it at the end.

Anyway, there are four arches that go up on each corner, and the Spleef field itself is suspended by chains connected to the arches. The Spleef field is also 50x50 blocks.

I also had some help from others. Starry cuboid the Spleef field so that it would be the darker color it is now (as opposed to being white, which i had it built originality), and Kodak cuboid the water and cobblestone for the "pool" of water underneath the field. Thanks for helping you two.