I realise this will seem a bit heartless to many of you especially staff but i kind of want this thread to be a bit controversial and spark some sort of a debate but anyways because i want to see what people think .

I have noticed that a lot of guests have been online lately and i dont know if sawine has been advertising the server on different websites and whatnot or maybe people have seen us on the top server site's (wich would be most likely).

At times the server can hold a ratio of 3 guests to 1 member sometimes more and i have only seen this in the past week around.

About 2 weeks ago if i came on after school (5:00pm) there would be a maximum of 30 online. If i went on at 6pm then the numbers would rise to about 45 abouts. Now there could be around 45 even higher at 4:00pm weekdays.

I was also finding it very difficult to connect to the server around last week up to now from these increases in guests numbers and i usually disconnect every 5 minutes abouts but obviously that might just be my internet limitations but it has only been happening since the increase in traffic.

I do like a lot of guests and i am friends with a good few and i am always as helpful and kind to them as possible but there are a few who spam and cause grief but i assure you these dont affect my view on the rest of them. I also realise that these guests are the foundation of the server and i was once a guest and such..

Heres a picture anyways i got today by doing /who and i was fairly shocked.



The reason i made this thread was for you guys to tell me what u think of these ideas to reduce traffic:

- Make a server for guests similar to guest world so they wouldn't interfere with server increased numbers.. obviously just until they are accepted. There could be message boards and guides all over the place to help them get to learn the rules.

- Increase the quality of application forms to be promoted to member.

(yesterday i saw a member start to spam clearly intentionally and he was banned. i have not seen a ban appeal yet)

- Maybe even allow only 20- 25 guests online on the main server at once. This is because no matter how much message boards and stuff you put up an answered question from a person is always better <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f642.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":)">:)</object>

God bless any of you who read all of this but i just felt i needed to get my opinion out there.

Not all of you will agree with me and that is FULLY understandable as i too have a lot of my friends who are guests.

peace <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f642.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":)">:)</object>

I'm on your wavelength...I posted a thread saying that we should have an /ignore guests to ignore all guests. Especially today, with 68 people on, all i see with /list or /who is a sea of guest names, and about 4 member names...

We have had a massive influx of guests recently and some don't seem to be intelligent enough to understand how to register...or to google the server...

...this is probably a good idea. There are signs at the main spawn, and the guest world spawn, which all clearly indicate what to do in order to join, and where to go while still a guest, so most of the guest chatter is either spam, or guests pleading with admins to check apps., and while all that noise *might* get this or that guest into the server as a "member" an hour or two earlier than he/she would have otherwise, it's not really essential and is fairly disruptive, at times.

If a person really wants to play on this server, they will eventually figure out how to apply, and that application will be reviewed, and emails sent, etc, regardless of my or any other members' attempts at relaying to them via /global chat the well-known server mantra: "Guests! Go to: http://www.minetown.net/join <-- to apply!"

And I think Coffeey is on to something with this idea of a cap for guest connections. I have seen one other server which does this, and while it's frustrating as a guest to get the "You have to wait" message at login, still: That experience only provides further motivation to apply for membership, and by limiting guest connections we might all save ourselves some headache, and Sawine can save some of his bandwidth for porn-- i mean, "educational films." <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f61b.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":p">:p</object>

:3 I'm drowning in a sea of guests in the picture.

I really have no problem with the guests talking on chat its just the amount of them.

The solution i'm really trying to promote here is the cap on the amount of guests that can be on at once. I really think that could work.

And darthzimmeris the vast majority of the guests never even think to look at the spawn message board for advice or how to apply and such. I think if they really wanted to join they would take the time to take a glance at the board because thats all it really takes?

id really like a member of staff to give me there opinion on my idea. (sayomie or sawine)

I believe we need to add it as someone else said, a guest chat where only guests can chat.... I mean this is logical ( i forgot who said this) but then the members have a choice if they want to talk to the guests to help them. As getting them to join, we need to spam them (i know everyone hates the word!) with ways to join so basically we need a MOTD to come up on guests that would be like this "Go to minetown.net/join to join right away, or fill out an app. at minetown.net/promo" Of course it can be better than that, its just a simple idea. I think this would improve it a lot.

i really dont think the guests on chat is as big a problem than there being nearly twice as much of them on than members most times. THATS what needs to be sorted out in my opinion daniel but good point all the same

I think there are a few things that are not being understood.

1. 60-70 people are not causing the server to crash. There are some bugs to be worked out and this is in the works. The hardware is more than capable of handling enormous amounts of traffic. Just wait till you start seeing hundreds of people.

2. In order for the server to grow we need guest. We were all guest at one time, guest become members. Members donate and help keep the server alive.

The staff is working very hard to add new exciting things to make this a more enjoyable place. Although sometimes (unfortunately) these special events and/ or plugins might have issues. Then the staff starts working on figuring out what went wrong and how to fix the issue. Even I don't fully understand the amount of work these guys are putting into the server.

I also understand some guest are annoying as hell. This is how we get to know some of them before making them a member. If they get to out of control, obviously we ban them. Getting a guest to read is sign is like trying to get my dog to cook me a steak....it aint gonna happen! lol

I am glad you guys are posting your thoughts. I think there are some good ideas here. Thank you for the input.

i have to agree with coffeey on this one before this massive influx of guests started i had no problem, no lag and it ran as smooth as a rainbow, now my redstone creations work about 30% of the time. i think we should have a seperate server for them to play on.

also whenever i visit another server to see peoples buildign designs, i am usually a guest and i always read the signs, but these new guests we have do not read signs, they are there for a reason, maybe we could set up a spawn for people where on their first login they get spawned in a room filled with signs that says "go to www.minetown.net/apply" (i think its apply?) and below that it will say "if you ask 'How do i become member' you will get ignored" and whatnot

and im not saying these guests are bad, some of them are nice, but its just the pure amount of them that i believe is causing lag, whenever i press tab with 75 people on, more than half have 1 bar connection, and nearly every single one of the 1 bar connections are guests, i dont know if thats coincedence or not though.

anyways just my 2 cents