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Sunday 15 February 2015

Server Closed

Our Tekkit Classic server has now closed.

Thanks once more to everyone who contributed over the last 2 years, we had some real fun times!

Don't forget this isn't the end, the DiggyVerse modpack and server will continue on into 2016!

Saturday 14 February 2015

Server Closing Tomorrow

Just a reminder that the server will closing tomorrow at 9am (UK) tomorrow morning.

The shutdown will be automatic and a lot of maintenance will be running between now and then to tidy things up before the final backup, as this is likely to cause some lag I have reduced the maximum number of players from 30 to 16.

Someone brought to my attention this morning that I had accidentally put the 16th instead of 15th in a couple of places, the 16th being the renewal date for the hosting I had mixed my dates up a little so I apologise if this confused anyone!

Copies of the map/world

A few people have asked if it would be possible for me to make the main world available for download, this issue was raised last year when we reset the map and I can confirm that I will not be doing this. 

The main reason for this decision is that a number of players requested it, not wanting their builds to be made available for other players to copy and take credit for etc. I hope the players that requested a copy of the world can understand this and respect the reasons that some players were against the idea.

Thursday 12 February 2015

Submitting Screenshots

With just a few days to go until the server closes time is running out to submit screenshots of your builds etc to be added to the album, if you've built something impressive on the server then make sure you get those screenshots in asap!

If you've joined DiggyVerse then you can even ask for $250 per image to paid to your DiggyVerse balance rather than your Tekkit Classic balance, don't miss out and help us remember all the awesome stuff we did on this server over the past 2 years!

Monday 9 February 2015

Transferring To DiggyVerse

Just a reminder that you can transfer your rank and up to $25,000 from Tekkit Classic to DiggyVerse!

You have until 9am (UK) on 15th February to open a support ticket requesting the transfer, after that date you may still be able transfer your rank at our discretion but money can no longer be transferred.

Even if you haven't played on the Tekkit Classic server for a long time and your data has been reset you can still get an early promotion to Resident rank and a welcome back bonus of $5,000 if a member of staff or other trusted player remembers you!

Sunday 8 February 2015

Server Closure

The DiggyMinecraft Tekkit Classic server will be closing on Sunday 15th February.


With this in mind I have removed the ability to vote for the server and donation based ranks are no longer available with immediate effect.

The server had a great run and it's been amazing 2 years. I'd like to thank everyone who made the server so much fun to run, those who helped out in staff roles, those who donated towards hosting costs and those who were an active part of our relatively small but friendly community during the life of the server.

When I started the server in early 2013 it was mainly for my kids as we couldn't find a friendly and reliable Tekkit server to play on together, within weeks the server had grown to a strong community of around 700 players and was so busy that some evenings we had a queue of people waiting to connect! Over the next year the community changed as people moved on to new things and new players joined, at our peak we had over 1000 players actively playing at least 2-3 days a week. We had some really fun times, with our building challenges, the creation of Marble End and then GameWorld and other unique features we made something really different from other servers. 

But times change, Tekkit was renamed Tekkit Classic and the Technic team launched a number of new modpacks based on more up to date versions of Minecraft, player numbers began to fall as our regular players spent more time on other packs. By mid-2014 player numbers had dropped to their lowest levels in over a year, just 400 regular players and continued to drop to below 200 by December last year. Over the last month player numbers have dropped below 100 and for the first time we have not raised enough funds via donations to pay the the next bill, falling well short. 

So, here we are, the end of this era of DiggyMinecraft, but it's not the end of the story. Our custom modpack DiggyVerse in still in it's early days but already funded for the rest of the year, with so many modpacks to choose from it's going to be difficult if not impossible to grow to the size that DiggyMinecraft did but we will soon start advertising and hope to attract a decent number of new players. We'd also love to see some of our older players come and join us in this new adventure and contribute to reshaping our community.

So is this the end of the DiggyMinecraft website? No. Although DiggyVerse.co.uk will now become the more active of the two sites the plan is to reshape this site into something new. Now I've gained some experience in making Minecraft mods I'm looking at putting some together for public release and DiggyMinecraft will become my platform for that. The image gallery will also remain here for prosperity along with a list of players who donated etc.

So thanks again to everyone, it's been fun and I hope to see you soon on DiggyVerse, even if it's only to catch up and have a few quick games in GameWorld from time to time!

DiggyWig

Monday 2 February 2015

Scheduled Downtime

The server will be down for maintenance tomorrow as follows:

The schedule is as follows:
  1. Full backup/clone - Done.
  2. Clear out old log files - Done.
Scheduled Downtime:
Date: 02/02/15
Started:  09:00 am (UK)
Finished:  10:00 am (UK)

The maintenance is complete and you can now connect!

Sunday 1 February 2015

Scheduled Maintenance

The server will be down for maintenance tomorrow as follows:

The schedule is as follows:
  1. Full backup/clone.
  2. Clear out old log files.
Scheduled Downtime:
Date: 02/02/15
Est Start:  09:00 am (UK)
Est Finish:  10:00 am (UK)

Friday 23 January 2015

Player Market Rent

I have decided to keep the Player Market rent free until the end of the current hosting period, 16th February! 

Shops and stalls in the market are a great way to make some extra money in game so why not give one a try, use modreq to request one and it will usually be set up for you within 24 hours.

Enjoy!

Friday 16 January 2015

Multiserver Ranks & Donations

The option to buy 'Multiserver' Donator & VIP ranks is now available! This means that for just a little extra you can get the rank on both the Tekkit Classic and DiggyVerse modpack server.

Just one more VIP rank donation would be enough to guarantee the server remains open until at least May, so if you've been holding off then now is the time to donate!

A big thank you to those who have donated towards the cost of one or both servers already this year!

Thursday 8 January 2015

Server Future & Donations

The the survey results I posted yesterday can basically be summed up by the following few points:

  1. About half of the players have tried the DiggyVerse modpack/server, and virtually all of those now spend more time on that server than the Tekkit Classic one.
  2. Virtually all the players that have tried the DiggyVerse modpack/server think we should stop hosting Tekkit Classic and concentrate on DiggyVerse.
  3. About 20% of players who haven't tried the DiggyVerse modpack/server think we should stop hosting Tekkit Classic and either run a vanilla server or automatic game server.
The 'other feedback' question also had some interesting responses;
  • Some people clearly have strong feelings about the Tekkit Classic server and most said they would consider donating towards running costs in the future.
  • A few of people suggested that maybe the Tekkit Classic map and/or mods could be ported over to the DiggyVerse server. Unfortunately this is not possible, 1.6.4 compatible versions of many of the mods simply do not exist or if they do they are very different, which would cause a lot of random block replacement across the map. Even if we removed all the affected blocks from the map the format has changed significantly since 1.2.5 and the map would likely corrupt to some extent, in fact the current map is now around a year old, which is very old for a public Tekkit Classic map and even if the server stays open the map will corrupt/fail eventually.
  • A few people suggested that we make a modpack based around machines. Most existing modpacks are based around machines, the aim of DiggyVerse was to do something different and to minimise lag. We felt that the best way to accomplish both these goals was to stay away from advanced machine type mods, which also has the added bonus of minimising the chances of dupes, severe glitches and map corruption issues. We are looking at adding more mods and features to the pack in time, and even upgrading the MC version at some point but the addition of advanced machines is not planned.

So what does the future hold for the Tekkit Classic server?

As I've said before I will continue to host the Tekkit Classic server for as long as player donations cover hosting costs. However, the hosting is due for renewal on 16th February and as things stand at the moment the donation fund is empty as no players have donated since around November. We've also seen a gradual drop in player numbers over 2014, with numbers currently at around 60% of what they were this time last year.

Hosting costs for 2015 are just over £200, which could be covered by just 8 VIP donations over the year. I have switched the payments to quarterly (3 months) for now so basically just 2 VIP donations before 16th February will keep the server open until 16th May, 4 VIP donations would keep it open until 16th June etc etc. 

Both Donator & VIP rank donations are now 'lifetime', with 'multi-server' ranks available from 16th January. If players do donate but the server closes at some point during 2015 due to not enough funds being raised those players will be compensated on the DiggyVerse server.

So basically the servers future in your hands and rests entirely on your donations.

If the server does continue beyond 16th Feburary those players who donated to keep it going will also be given a say in who should be promoted to Helper & Moderator ranks in place of the staff that no longer play Tekkit Classic.

As an added bonus any players who donate before the 'multi-server' ranks launch will be upgraded to 'multi-server' free of charge on 16th January, saving up to £10!

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Survey Results!

Thanks once more to all those who completed the survey, which was completed by less players than the previous one but we still got just over 80 responses!


For those who are interested here's a summary of the feedback:

How long have you played on the DiggyMinecraft Tekkit Classic server?

63% had played for longer than 1 year, 13% for 1 month to 1 year and 24% for less than a month.

What age range are you in?

This was once again fairly spread, with virtually equal numbers of players in the age ranges covering 11 to 24 (90% in total), just 2% below age 10, and a total of 8% aged 25 or above.

Have you donated towards server costs in the past or would you consider donating?

13% of players had donated at some point in the past, however all but one had decided not to donate again this year. Of those that haven't donated in the past 75% said they would consider donating in the future.

Did you know that donation based ranks (Donator/VIP) are now 'Lifetime'?

This was split straight down the middle, 50% said yes, 50% said no.

Have you played on the DiggyVerse modpack/server?

53% of players had played on the DiggyVerse modpack/server, 47% had not.

Which of our servers do you play on the most?

This was a very split result, 49% of players said they played on the DiggyVerse server the most, 51% on the Tekkit Classic server.

Given that Tekkit Classic is pretty old now and becoming less popular should we continue to host it beyond 2014?

This was clearer than last time, with 62% of players thinking we should close the Tekkit Classic server this year, and only 38% wanting us to continue hosting it.

If the Tekkit Classic server was to close what should we do instead?

Most players, 57%, think we should just focus on the modpack. 18% think we should run an automatic game server, 6% think we should bring back the old events server, 6% think we should run a more up to date official modpack and 13% think we should run a vanilla server.

Use this box to enter any other feedback you have! (optional)

Thanks for all the positive feedback and messages, they really are appreciated.

I'll talk about the other feedback more in another post which will follow soon, I'll also cover how these results and other factors are likely to affect the future of the server.

Friday 2 January 2015

Survey Closed!

The survey is now closed!

It was originally due to close last night but I left it open a little longer due to  a last minute surge in responses, I will post some details about the responses once I've had time to go over them properly.

Thursday 1 January 2015