Why I really left Blocktopia, and why others will too.

[Naterger]

I'm gonna be incredibly blunt here... blaming cliques for the decline of blocktopia is childish. There are cliques at school and in the work place, and i am damn near positive you don't go running around to the principal or boss to try to get them dissolved. If someone doesn't want you in their clique then who cares? go make your own. You said it yourself, your old friends left and all that's left are the intimidating cliques and new players. Reach out to the new players, form a new group, change the flow of things. Pointing fingers at the admins and crying for help isn't going to stop or help anything. If you want to see change, start making it yourself. There are 7 billion + people in this world, you aren't going to get along with all of them. To more fully address the cliques.. it's really simple, you just break the clique down. Don't try to jump in balls deep, start with the toe, get to know one of them while they aren't full emerged in their group. Slowly as time goes on you'll get to know them more and more and next thing you know you may find yourself sitting in the middle of the clique.

"If you want to see change, start making it yourself." this goes for the new content as well. This is a community, not a monarchy or oligarchy, you get back what you put in. Go learn to do some coding and make us some new servers. If things aren't being lead, BE the leader.

To take this whole discussion to a different direction: i dont believe cliques or the lack of new content is the decline of blocktopia. I think its threads and complaints such as this one. Ones that distract the community from progress, ones that get us all caught up in arguments that arise issues. This is exactly what keeps the administration from addressing content problems, they are all to busy settling petty disputes.

As a member who has been here for years, who's seen so many amazing people come and go, i've learned that its all about how you approach it.

 

[superstein]

The very nature of this thread turns it into a discussion about Blocktopia's future and current issues (specifically: surrounding cliques) so thank you to everyone who has kept it general and civil without anything pointed at anyone in particular - a nice change from past iterations of similar threads. I'll try to keep it relatively short though there's a lot I can say regarding both topics. To preface this I have not spoken with any other admin about this yet, though of course we've talked a lot and continue to discuss these issues among others.

Regarding cliques, there's not a whole lot the admins can do. It's not our job to force how people act, and cliques form because people like hanging out with their friends - I wouldn't go so far as to call most groups cliques on TeamSpeak, most people in this community are friendly and open from my experience at least. If people want to be more inviting to new players, then they can chat in the lobby or game rooms more, or invite a new face in if they don't seem to have anywhere to go. And perhaps I'll pose a question to you all: Is there anything the administration can do about cliques without disrupting anyone's experience?

On the topic of content, I think the blame can fall on the head staff here, and this thread had been posted regarding some of our plans on how we will solve this issue. It takes time and effort to produce content and we've been trying to create some original events/servers, like TTT and Pixelmon, versus repeating old events, but it's harder venturing into new territories and coming up with the ideas in the first place. Perhaps it may be better to create more events and focus less on the quality/production of them, but from my experience at least more events takes away from the novelty of them and eventually the amount of players on them goes down. We'll keep on trying things out and getting a feel for what works and what doesn't, though I wouldn't go so far to say "content has come to a complete halt." Nor are personal opinions a fair way to dismiss servers when each still attracts players for reasons you may not see in the same way they do.

There are plenty of reasons as to why player counts are going down, and few are in our control. For one, we have no free server list to put our name on. There exists no fair website where servers are ranked equally, instead they use a voting system where those who offer vote2win rewards will always outclass those that don't. On top of that we haven't been advertising much - though we hope to run some ads at some point. It is also fair to conclude that large server hubs without much of a community at all that can pump out very high quality servers with developers that are making big bucks can attract more players just due the nature of what they are capable of with their budget vs. us, and those server hubs took away from the small Minecraft server communities that used to be common. We've got some ideas in mind to raise them however - stay tuned.

Perhaps Malcovent Baker93 may have more opinions on the subject, though that's my 2 cents!

 

[Vatumok]

I'm gonna be incredibly blunt here... blaming cliques for the decline of blocktopia is childish. There are cliques at school and in the work place, and i am damn near positive you don't go running around to the principal or boss to try to get them dissolved. If someone doesn't want you in their clique then who cares? go make your own. You said it yourself, your old friends left and all that's left are the intimidating cliques and new players. Reach out to the new players, form a new group, change the flow of things. Pointing fingers at the admins and crying for help isn't going to stop or help anything. If you want to see change, start making it yourself. There are 7 billion + people in this world, you aren't going to get along with all of them. To more fully address the cliques.. it's really simple, you just break the clique down. Don't try to jump in balls deep, start with the toe, get to know one of them while they aren't full emerged in their group. Slowly as time goes on you'll get to know them more and more and next thing you know you may find yourself sitting in the middle of the clique.

"If you want to see change, start making it yourself." this goes for the new content as well. This is a community, not a monarchy or oligarchy, you get back what you put in. Go learn to do some coding and make us some new servers. If things aren't being lead, BE the leader.

To take this whole discussion to a different direction: i dont believe cliques or the lack of new content is the decline of blocktopia. I think its threads and complaints such as this one. Ones that distract the community from progress, ones that get us all caught up in arguments that arise issues. This is exactly what keeps the administration from addressing content problems, they are all to busy settling petty disputes.

As a member who has been here for years, who's seen so many amazing people come and go, i've learned that its all about how you approach it.

True, it's dumb to just blame cliques/groups for all the problems in the community. For the rest you are dead wrong. In a community it's impossible to just say that we're doing it my way now because in my opinion things aren't being led well. You need to discuss your ideas with both the administration and the players for a working community. Then you blame threads like this and complaits for the lack of progress, which is the biggest bullshit I've heard today. Yes, a lot of posts sound very whiny in this thread but at least it shows what the community thinks, and it leads to new ideas that can help fix the existing problems. The administration is surely not busy the whole day with settling petty disputes, hell, I was a director so I pretty much know how things go.
Basically, it's not JUST cliques and lack of content that is the problem but just claiming that threads like these are, is just stupid.

 

[superhalo6]

Secondly, content has grinded to a utter and complete halt. Sure, Infection is fun for a day, then maybe you can go build something cool in BB all by yourself to be judged and critiqued by "the community" for a rank that is essentially meaningless

If you feel the ranks are meaningless that is your own problem, you are specifically striving for the ranks, strive for the enjoyment of the server. Not ranks.

Followed by playing the same game of RoF with the same AFK players for what feels like an eternity.

Sometimes you have to be the change you want to be in the world, try and cause discussion, hypothetical scenarios, talk to other players when the chat is dead.

Most people will stick with the same group of people and very rarely, if ever, branch out. These anti-community and anti-social behaviors isolates and dehumanizes new players. Nobody wants to play on a server that treats them like an outcast

If they are being treated like an outcast they are probably incorrectly evaluating the scenario, it may be hard to make friends at start, but stick around, be talkative in main chat, I am sure there is a single person who will like you.

Probably sound like an asshole.

 

[Naterger]

True, it's dumb to just blame cliques/groups for all the problems in the community. For the rest you are dead wrong. In a community it's impossible to just say that we're doing it my way now because in my opinion things aren't being led well. You need to discuss your ideas with both the administration and the players for a working community. Then you blame threads like this and complaits for the lack of progress, which is the biggest bullshit I've heard today. Yes, a lot of posts sound very whiny in this thread but at least it shows what the community thinks, and it leads to new ideas that can help fix the existing problems. The administration is surely not busy the whole day with settling petty disputes, hell, I was a director so I pretty much know how things go.
Basically, it's not JUST cliques and lack of content that is the problem but just claiming that threads like these are, is just stupid.

Not to start more unneeded drama, but you must have misunderstood the part about leadership, i wasn't in anyway discrediting the leadership we have at the moment. I'm simply saying the lack of new content and over bearing presence of cliques doesn't fall on our leaders to be fixed. It isn't anyone's job to make us new servers or make the place friendlier & more accepting overall. In the workplace, regardless of your level of authority you need to strive to better the company. Why not translate that to the community. When i said take the lead i mean't it as taking the initiative to make changes. Not taking ownership of the community and start spitting orders.

"In a community it's impossible to just say that we're doing it my way now because in my opinion things aren't being led well"
So very correct yet somewhat incorrect. Sure you can't just declare this as your territory, and make changes as you please. You can how ever strive to make a difference, go against the flow rather than with it.

"Then you blame threads like this and complaints for the lack of progress, which is the biggest bullshit I've heard today."
I beg to differ, 10+ of the directors+ have read this thread. I'm sure if given their full attention it would have probably taken ~5-10 minutes, in total thats ~50-100 minutes of time wasted on issues that aren't really issues at all. Also i for one can't think of much progress to be made, i simply wanted to point out that i believe this thread is more or less a waste of time.
Anyways i've dropped my points here. Im done

 

[Jayfeather]

I honestly don't know what to say. This thread has turned into a massive crapfest.

I'm pretty annoyed mostly by your insinuation that engaging argument and discussion about a topic the overall community is passionate over is somehow inherently a "crapfest". If everything was rays of sunshine like you seem to think it is then this thread would not exist. Wake up a little

 

[ConstructionBoy]

First of all great post and it's good you didn't name any names.

I was part of a clique in June and I realized what a butt I was being so I pretty much haven't been on Blocktopia teamspeak since.

 

[std1997]

On topic of recent argument between Vatu and Natsu:

To take this whole discussion to a different direction: i dont believe cliques or the lack of new content is the decline of blocktopia. I think its threads and complaints such as this one. Ones that distract the community from progress, ones that get us all caught up in arguments that arise issues. This is exactly what keeps the administration from addressing content problems, they are all to busy settling petty disputes.

Like Vatu has said, threads like these are not a bad thing. They're really needed almost to allow the community to all simultaneously blow off steam and to hopefully (if it doesn't turn into a 1v1 thread ar get some answers to their frustrations from the admins. So I don't think threads like this one are the decline of Blocktopia but instead people trying to force other people to stop talking about their opinions on how to improve blocktopia or allowing their passion to be heard/shown is.

Then onto the recent top of the obvious LoL clique:

I don't think the league people themselves are all that bad. I've been able to hang out with them at events and very occasionally jump into their channel and chat. Did they tell me I was weird and didn't want to talk to me? No. They just went about their regular business and if I had something to say or something to joke about than they listened as anyone else would so instead of being disrespected and laughed at like I have been in other cliques. I was actually treated well by this supposedly "asshole, arrogant, overly-sarcastic" group. Now that's not to say there isn't assholes within the group but the only person out of that whole room whom I saw/heard that was an asshole to me was Jammy and he's just one person within a group of people. Isn't it a bit uncalled for to judge an entire group of what? 10+ people? for the actions of one asshole? I think so.


My opinion on the topic:

Cliques themselves are not the issue with Blocktopia. As I've just stated about the "Leaugue clique" some cliques are actually quite friendly and welcoming but as I also said when I was talking about the league rooms. There is some pretty mean ones within Blocktopia but that's what you have to expect when you have a community of this size. Now are these asshole cliques the reason Blocktopia is dying? I don't think so. The clique people seem to complain about most is really only a group of 5+ friends who regularly hang out in a TS room. I feel the only reason people notice cliques nowadays is because there's so few people on that the cliques are blaringly obvious due to this.

But then the question becomes if cliques are not the issue and it's a low playercount than how to fix this? And I feel that issue can be pointed at the fact we're not really "out there". There's not a lot of advertisements about Blocktopia going around as there is about the "TheHive" or other mega-servers. Why is that? I don't know but I'm hoping the admins are trying to figure out a way to make our names out there. Another thing is to have new games. New games allow people within the community to go out and socialize with other people. TTT was I think succesful to some extent in doing that purpose and I feel more servers like that should be hosted but instead of an attempt at a permanent one. A temporary one instead would be better.

Once again, these are my opinions and I've really made this in 5 minutes so I'm sorry if it makes no sense but it's just how I feel on these situations.

 

[Hunter]

Finally, one of these threads managed to actually provoke more discussion than arguments regarding how this community has "gone to shit because of cliques".

While cliques have probably been an issue since the community's start, they haven't been a "major problem".

Until the shutdown of TNT, that is.

Notty put it quite nicely in his post here:

AoD -> Survive with or kill your friends/clique!
RoF -> Build a house and AFK with your friends/clique!
BB -> Build with your friends/clique! I mean who is going to build with some random person? Not me.
SMP -> Make a clan with your friends/clique!
TNT -> Kill everyone! Except this server isn't here

TNT basically forced players to interact with and acknowledge new users through various means, whether by exploding their avatars or showing them how to vaporize the enemy.

Meanwhile, the regulars of other servers pretty much kept to themselves; occasionally "pressing T to talk," which mostly entailed cursing out hackers and griefers, sometimes both at once.

With TNT out of the picture, already-existent cliques became more noticeable.

As for the supposed lack of time spent by Directors actually working with their servers, well...
...anyone else remember SparklyMuffinz /ontime?

 

[Notme]

Hmm so I was right, that Blocktopia is clearly too low on TNT. This server is nice, because it just forces to everyone blow everyone.

Edit: Was viewing old recaps. It appear Blocktopia had rapture in February 2012 and April 2013.
Both of times stuff happened to our servers on large scale. I wonder if it didn't harmed community in long term.

 

[Kordra]

I'm gonna be incredibly blunt here... blaming cliques for the decline of blocktopia is childish. There are cliques at school and in the work place, and i am damn near positive you don't go running around to the principal or boss to try to get them dissolved. If someone doesn't want you in their clique then who cares? go make your own. You said it yourself, your old friends left and all that's left are the intimidating cliques and new players. Reach out to the new players, form a new group, change the flow of things. Pointing fingers at the admins and crying for help isn't going to stop or help anything. If you want to see change, start making it yourself. There are 7 billion + people in this world, you aren't going to get along with all of them. To more fully address the cliques.. it's really simple, you just break the clique down. Don't try to jump in balls deep, start with the toe, get to know one of them while they aren't full emerged in their group. Slowly as time goes on you'll get to know them more and more and next thing you know you may find yourself sitting in the middle of the clique.

"If you want to see change, start making it yourself." this goes for the new content as well. This is a community, not a monarchy or oligarchy, you get back what you put in. Go learn to do some coding and make us some new servers. If things aren't being lead, BE the leader.

To take this whole discussion to a different direction: i dont believe cliques or the lack of new content is the decline of blocktopia. I think its threads and complaints such as this one. Ones that distract the community from progress, ones that get us all caught up in arguments that arise issues. This is exactly what keeps the administration from addressing content problems, they are all to busy settling petty disputes.

As a member who has been here for years, who's seen so many amazing people come and go, i've learned that its all about how you approach it.

Since we're being blunt, allow me to retort. You said that cliques are common and thus there isn't realistically anything you can do about them, while that may be true to some extent, it doesn't change the truth: nobody wants to play on a server that doesn't feel accepting. I'm not spouting these things because I feel that we should completely abolish cliques or however you may of interpreted it, the fact of the matter remains.

Also, the "do-it-yourself" attitude doesn't apply to 99% of people, especially in social situations; not everyone is super extroverted or easy to talk to. Besides, nobody is going to bring their friends on a server they don't know anything about, especially if they have no ties to said server (friends, rank etc). If we want new people, we need to start reaching out to new players and being more inviting. And all due respect Nate, but calling somebody childish when they try to address and fix an obvious problem in a community they care about, isn't very productive or called for in my opinion.

 

[Love]

I'm going to be tackling two things in this thread. One being the "cliques" and one being the servers.

First and foremost, I will admit that, yes, I like to talk with people I get close to on TeamSpeak. The people I've talked to have been in the same little group for over a year. We started off with maybe 4, and lately we've grown to more than 8 at a time. And why is this? We reached out to people with similar interests. We've made friends from the oh-so-scary League group. To say that all cliques are generally uninviting is wrong. We've let people in and we've kicked people out. It's all a general matter of how friendly you are to us and what kind of interests you have. If you're going to be a general ass, we're not going to accept you. If you don't go on Team Speak, then I don't see how your opinion on "cliques" is valid considering you don't have any experience; you just have what you've heard and pick what to believe from there.

As for the servers. It's saddening to think that someone that used to go on the servers often thinks so lowly of them now. My own question is, what happened to make you think this way? Army of Darkness is a great place to make friends (and then kill those friends), SMP is a great place to socialize and chill after a long day. I'll throw a bone out to RoF as well, as I went there once upon a time to relax. If you want to AFK somewhere with slight monetary gain in-game, well, RoF is right there. BuildBox is a great place to show off your builds. Albeit not my favourite server, I like having something to work on from time to time. I like having projects. TnT was a good place to learn tactical stuff. Won't ever help you in the real world, but it's still fun to do. I'm probably leaving off a couple servers we have/had, but you get the point.

Also, if what you're saying in this is true:

nobody wants to play on a server that doesn't feel accepted.

And I promise you, nobody is going to bring their friends on a server they don't know anything about, especially if they have no ties to said server (friends, rank etc).

then no one would ever go on any new server, ever. So what you're saying isn't true. There's people that will go on a server just for the fuck of it and find out that it's really good. In fact, that's how I came to this community, and many others. For instance, I was looking for a server to troll on, found [Blocktopia] Zombie Survival, and absolutely loved it. I was looking for a build server and found BUILDY. The staff there were absolutely amazing and I wound up being head-staff there for some time. I had no ties to any of these servers at all, except for a MineCraft account and some time to kill. I know I'm just going off personal experience, but still. It isn't at all impossible for someone to have fun on a server they know nothing about. If that was the case, we wouldn't have a community that's been around for 5 years. Tell me that isn't impressive.

Love, out.

 

[RyanDodd]

There are several groups/cliques in Blocktopia. Is that a major problem? No.

Over time, I've gotten to know certain people while playing AoD and other servers and I generally just go into their room on TeamSpeak. It's not because I hate everyone else or anything, it's simply because I am more comfortable talking with those people. I'm sure that most of the other groups feel the same way about who they are socializing with. I do agree that there could be issues if there were any cliques that actively sought out new players to terrorize them, but there aren't. In fact, most cliques are on TeamSpeak anyway and 95% of the time a new player is not going to join TS before any other server. They are going to play on the servers, find their favorite server, make some friends, and then there is a greater chance of them joining TS, albeit with their new group of friends.

Continuing with the servers, I may be missing something but I don't really see many cliques within the servers. On RoF there are probably more, but on BB, AoD, A&T, and Infection I don't see that many. The ones that are there are probably not going to be cold and aggressive to new people anyway. I just don't think that there are many people/groups like that in Blocktopia.

On the topic of new content, I don't think you understand how hard it is to add new features to a server. It requires time, dedication, and a whole lot of effort. If you mean event server, then sure. We could probably use a few more of those, but if you're saying that we need to be constantly adding new content to our servers, you're missing the point of the server. The point is to create an enjoyable server where people can have a good time, not one that is boring where we have to constantly release new features to keep people interested, although yes, most Directors probably have long-term plans for their servers to continue getting attention from the player base.

Take from it what you will, but that's just my opinion on the two topics.

 

[Kordra]

Also, if what you're saying in this is true:

then no one would ever go on any new server, ever. So what you're saying isn't true. There's people that will go on a server just for the fuck of it and find out that it's really good. In fact, that's how I came to this community, and many others. For instance, I was looking for a server to troll on, found [Blocktopia] Zombie Survival, and absolutely loved it. I was looking for a build server and found BUILDY. The staff there were absolutely amazing and I wound up being head-staff there for some time. I had no ties to any of these servers at all, except for a MineCraft account and some time to kill. I know I'm just going off personal experience, but still. It isn't at all impossible for someone to have fun on a server they know nothing about. If that was the case, we wouldn't have a community that's been around for 5 years. Tell me that isn't impressive.

Love, out.

Obviously people are going to join a new server out of sheer boredom, we can all vouch for that. It's a fact of whether they stay, and at the present I don't believe we have a inviting community, or the gamemodes to sustain someone for more than two days or so. I'm not trying to attack the server or anything, but I'm saying that's just how it is. Of course, if everyone would acknowledge that we do indeed have a problem, we could all agree to be more inviting and instantly solve this problem that many people could vouch for, but that would be too easy.

 

[Hunter]

Assuming the server hasn't been deleted entirely, we could reboot cTNT today using the resources left over from the TTT shutdown. Alternatively, open up PTNT3 for alpha/beta testing? iirc, cTNT wasn't considered to be full release until at least 2012. I sincerely doubt inactivity would be a problem. What's the worst that could happen?

Either way, it'd be nice to have an event in memorial, especially considering today marks the shutdown's 1-year anniversary.

 

[Love]

Obviously people are going to join a new server out of sheer boredom, we can all vouch for that. It's a fact of whether they stay, and at the present I don't believe we have a inviting community, or the gamemodes to sustain someone for more than two days or so. I'm not trying to attack the server or anything, but I'm saying that's just how it is. Of course, if everyone would acknowledge that we do indeed have a problem, we could all agree to be more inviting and instantly solve this problem that many people could vouch for, but that would be too easy.

Bolded areas are ones I'll be discussing.

I'm sorry but I just don't see where we are "uninviting". Everyone is always free to join a server, join Team Speak, and talk to people. From what I've seen, and I should know a thing or two because I'm a Controller, our staff on ALL servers do a pristine job at welcoming people. It's all in the players' hands whether they want to heed the welcome and stay or move on. We've had plenty of new faces on Army of Darkness that have stayed. Sure the gamemodes can get "stale" I hate to say, but if you want some "fresh air" there's days you can take off, go to a new server, so on and so forth.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where someone has said, "We don't have any problems". Every community has their fair share of issues. We're going through our own issues as individual servers and as a community as a whole. Pretty much everyone has acknowledged the fact that yes, there are issues with the servers. Yes, we are trying to fix them. Yes, we hear your concerns. HOWEVER. As stated before, forcing the fact down our throats will NOT get you anywhere. If anything it discourages people from wanting to fix these issues. If you were a developer and you had 10 people yelling at you that a bug exists, and there's next to nothing you can do about it until a certain software updates, wouldn't you want to just shy away from those people? It seems that whatever the explanation is, for whatever issue exists, nothing will ever be good enough until the issue gets fixed. Or at least that's what I'm getting from you.

 

[Kordra]

Bolded areas are ones I'll be discussing.

I'm sorry but I just don't see where we are "uninviting". Everyone is always free to join a server, join Team Speak, and talk to people. From what I've seen, and I should know a thing or two because I'm a Controller, our staff on ALL servers do a pristine job at welcoming people. It's all in the players' hands whether they want to heed the welcome and stay or move on. We've had plenty of new faces on Army of Darkness that have stayed. Sure the gamemodes can get "stale" I hate to say, but if you want some "fresh air" there's days you can take off, go to a new server, so on and so forth.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where someone has said, "We don't have any problems". Every community has their fair share of issues. We're going through our own issues as individual servers and as a community as a whole. Pretty much everyone has acknowledged the fact that yes, there are issues with the servers. Yes, we are trying to fix them. Yes, we hear your concerns. HOWEVER. As stated before, forcing the fact down our throats will NOT get you anywhere. If anything it discourages people from wanting to fix these issues. If you were a developer and you had 10 people yelling at you that a bug exists, and there's next to nothing you can do about it until a certain software updates, wouldn't you want to just shy away from those people? It seems that whatever the explanation is, for whatever issue exists, nothing will ever be good enough until the issue gets fixed. Or at least that's what I'm getting from you.

I'm sorry I came off so rashly to you, but in all honesty, we wouldn't be here debating this is I hadn't of made this thread to begin with. You're free to your opinions of course, but yes, I feel like if people could acknowledge a problem, that would be the first step in fixing it, but many people seem to be dismissing it as if it isn't an issue, which is quite frankly bullshit. But either way, I want to help the server, and I'm telling you the problems that I see. I went ahead and edited the original post, so I won't be commenting anymore, but there you'll find some of my ideas and maybe get a better idea of my thought process surrounding this whole thing. Thanks for showing an interest in this topic.

 

[Jayfeather]

An argument is a disagreement between two points that in the best case leads to a resolution whether in the form of a one-sided conclusion or a compromise.

What do you all fear by this that we can not allow progress or a differing in ideas. Why is it that when this thread has arguments it is a "crapfest", or you "don't want to incite any arguments". This mentality is pointless because if we can't bring our different viewpoints to the forefront then we can't make change. What you're doing is covering up and issue so that we can maintain a huge issue under the surface. "Look everything's fine we're not arguing we all just secretly disagree is all." If we want to make progress we have to have the type of dialogue this thread offers, otherwise as a community we're not all communicating our interests and our methods to reach a shared sentiment.

 

[Pikmon2]

I was gonna make a """"funny"""" joke post or whatever but this honestly ticks me off. Not the original post, but that this is another thread where the OP has been about a problem we've had, then we argue, then it gets locked, and the issue never got solved. Soon enough we'll run out of band-aids, and we'll have to actually fix the problem. Or of course, we can just keep saying "there is problems!" and then proceeding to do the tiniest things humanly possible to fix them.

bah.

 

[Jivvi]

Okay yeah I'd like to concede here as really what I was seeing is rivalries between myself and other people, which I then took to reflect on their clique. Apologies, league clique

Anyway, I'd have to agree with hunter about TNT being the most involve-everyone-y server.
In my opinion, Solitude better on the front of removing the walls of unfamiliarity, as you'd be completely lost, and you'd find other lost people and often group with them. Many people have said that their best friends came from solitude, iirc

Meanwhile, I think that servers like RoF are the worst offenders, as in a server with most people holding endgame ranks, it's a little isolating for lower ranks who do not have cookies coming out of their ears, or can purchase fancy items.

I don't think BuildBox is as affected by these things, as you'll see people asking for help, or asking for tips. Building with your friends is a more prevalent point, but although less frequent, I do see people welcoming new players and showing them the ropes.
I will say that it's not what I remember it being once, as when I first joined BB I was immediately welcomed by Jubjubers and invited to partake in the making of a map. I was shown the ropes and my own suggestions and designs were taken in, and I felt very welcomed, and enjoyed returning to the server again and again. Lost my train of thought now, so in not sure if this makes sense

 

[Defiant_Blob]

Disclaimer: I don't play much on Blocktopia not because of "the cliques" or content but because I just moved on from Minecraft. It's not that fun for me anymore, but I still try to participate in the community and some of its events not Minecraft related because I still love the community.

Cliques:
That said, it sounds a lot like people are expected people to befriend them with no effort back. You can't always just join a server and expect everyone to immediately try to warm up to you: social interactions don't work like that. For example, you wouldn't just walk into a cafe in real life and complain that no one talks to you while you're just sitting in the corner. Put yourself out there and make the friends that you want to make. Of course, people aren't always in the mood to make new friends because new friends take effort and time, effort and time they're already putting into friends they already have. It's nothing against you, it just is how life works.

You have to give people time: if you're expecting to make best buds with someone within a week, you're going to end up hurt and disappointed. Many of the members have known each other for years, while you've only known player CreepersR_Cool for a day. So stop expecting to have that same bond after such a short time. The time and effort that it takes to become close to someone is what makes them actually worthwhile! Basically, if you want to make friends, be the friend. Put yourself out there and put the time and effort into people that you'd want them to put into you. And if they don't have the means to give it back to you, be patient!
Content:
On the subject of content, people have all these suggestions but don't realize that all the staff are working for free! From Operators to Head Admins, Blocktopia is a non-profit organization. So while of course this doesn't excuse them from slacking off, it's super frustrating that I see these players demanding so much from people that aren't even being paid, especially since Blocktopia doesn't charge a single cent for the servers. And in actuality, we have an immense amount of content. Literally, five different servers??? Most communities only have one server and just have Heroes and LWC installed, nothing more. We have 5 different servers to help target many audiences. I'd say if anything that we have too much content: we don't have enough players to properly populate the different servers. That is a problem, but it can be solved on another thread.

And that's my 2 cents on the issue.

 

[Jubjubers]

 

[Jivvi]

Oh oh : TTT brought back a ton of people who all had fun on the new thing; minecraft isn't for everyone all the time and stuff and new bonds were made in ttt andall that kind of stuff. Poking around in more varied gameservers is a must.

 

[Naterger]

And all due respect Nate, but calling somebody childish when they try to address and fix an obvious problem in a community they care about, isn't very productive or called for in my opinion.

I wasn't trying to call you childish kordra, complaining about cliques is what i was calling childish. Jubs picture sums up my train of thought perfectly though. (sorry for this shitpost, just tryin to make sure i didn't offend anyone)

 

[S_swimmer]

AoD -> Survive with or kill your friends/clique!

I'd just like to say that I don't understand this. If there's anything I've learned from playing AoD, it's that there is nothing that brings old and new players closer together than being on the brink of death. I have never decided not to kill someone because they are new. If I see some new player on the other edge of the map, you can bet that I will go to him or her, introduce who I am, and ask to team up. I don't get picky with who I survive with unless it is a talented player who I don't necessarily have to be best buds with. To be honest, this is why hardcore PvP games are actually better sometimes. When you're looking straight into the eyes of death, you look to anywhere for someone to join up with. We're all in the same boat when we're trying to survive. (Sorry, I'm really passionate about this idea because I'm writing a book with that as a theme )

BB -> Build something by yourself and have your build critiqued by someone you don't know for a rank that means nothing to you.

This, however, is something I won't dispute. It's a huge problem with BuildBox; people will see a new player and tp to them and go "oh hi new player, btw this is a nice build but HERE ARE ALL THESE THINGS I FIND WRONG WITH IT AND I DONT THINK ITLL GET BUILDER YET OH YOU DONT KNOW WHAT BUILDER IS WELL ITS A RANK YOU GET WE WITH IT HAHA HAVE A GOOD DAY." People have a tendency to give players advice without them asking for it (bringing up the other problem about players randomly tping to people without them saying its ok but I won't get into that). And then the other problem: when a player DOES ask for advice, people automatically assume they want a review for Builder. Buildboxians take note please.

RoF -> Build a house and AFK with your friends/clique!

Haha, this is another thing. When I first said "hey, I haven't really gone on LSMP yet" (took me so long to figure out what it was called before RoF lol) and logged on, I was bombarded with all these crazy colors. I thought to myself "wow, this is different form the other servers" and I noticed that people weren't... really talking to me. I got a very bad premonition because this was the exact same trend as what happened when I logged on to those super-advertised servers, a phase I just came off from when I found you guys after the disconnection with Primordia's shutdown. Much to my dismay, my worst thoughts were realized.
"Hey guys! I'm new to this server but I've been on BB and AoD a lot"
Talking amongst selves continue.
"Sooo how do you play?"
Talking amongst selves continue.
"Um guys how do you play the game? I'm kinda new to this server lol"
Still no responses. Chat is flaring with other conversations. I don't want it to end the same way. I get angry.
"Um guys I've been asking for a little while but how do you play?"
NO FRICKING RESPONSE. I wait for a perfect moment when the chat goes to a standstill for 3 seconds and ask one more time before my window of opportunity closes.
"CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO PLAY THE GAME?"
"shit brah, calm down"
"survive"
"there's lava and you have to not die lol"
"calm down jeez"
"survive"
"survive"
"lol friend good one! ^"
(this is an op now) "Sorry, LSMP is a Lava Survival game where lava comes in waves and you have to build a house that won't melt to survive. There are certain blocks that won't melt. Here, I'll show you the tutorial"
"do /rules"
"survive"
"woa shit bran calm down"
"oh hi S_swimmer i recognize you"

Now, let's fast forward to the present, where I've been on Blocktopia for a while now. I haven't particularly made any super close friendships with the regulars on RoF aside from the ones that visit other servers (not to say I haven't made any friendships, you guys are hella cool but I don't go on rof TOO much).
Me: "Hey guys!"
Lots of people: "Hi swimmer!" "Hi swimmer!" "Hi swimmer!" "Yoooo whaddup" "heyy its swimmyyy!"
I mean, I'm not even part of the whole RoF crowd. I'm with BB and AoD. Yet, I am still welcomed. Despite not being part of this "clique," people are still very friendly with me and joke around with me. This is different from when I started out. Is it because I'm in their clique without realizing it, or that I'm just a familiar face? It's possible that the reason they didn't reach out to me for a while in the beginning was that they just didn't know what I was like. I can totally understand that. You normally want to stay away from people you don't understand. Not like it's a good thing. I think that might be part of the reason new players aren't as welcome - people don't know what they're like yet. Not the only reason, though. I'm not going to say anything about that, whether its better or worse or what it means. I'll leave that little tidbit up to you guys.

Just wanted to voice a small opinion I had, sorry if it was said before, there was just so much text I couldn't read it all ;-;