A week's notice to let us know it was going to happen would have been nice, transparency and communication are key to letting server members know what's up. As for the "2 years that no-one actually played on it", as I *clearly and perfectly* recall classic was turned into a museum, and we were assured it would never be taken down for the sake of nostalgia. Quite disappointing, I quite liked showing off some old builds.

I'm certain going forward, the drain of resources to keep Minetown's past afloat previously are now better off invested into the current world. Or so I hope.

Let us see.

Classic was wonderful, I'll always see it as my golden years on Minetown. Thank you for the plans to make it a downloadable map.

I can understand why some people wanted more of a heads up, but it was taking up too much space and hardly anyone was on it. At least we can still visit old builds on our own once it's available - some servers don't even give you that much.

Time to move on and up!

To be fair, when Classic first became a museum, players were trying to play on it. Myself and a few other players were still trying to build while Classic was falling apart and Aggy was the new "slice of life". Pe's would be put in and no one would answer them, or it would take months and no matter who you tried to get to help you Pe's would be closed. I tried to put in for a landclaim expansion, should have been easy right? I even had someone else double check my pillars to make sure they were okay. My PE was closed saying that my Pillars weren't visible nor placed correctly. It was closed this way I believe at least twice. I had four people that I can remember take a look at it. I had two months of trying to get a simple land claim expansion "approved" before I just gave up.

On top of that, players who played on Classic were pretty much told "No one is monitoring Classic anymore, "Its a museum" move over to Aggy." I quit the server for months after the fact because I didn't want to have to start over from scratch. My husband (who brought me to the server) quit pretty much indefinitely. I've been able to drag him to Aggy once or twice, but its just not the same for him.

I can't speak for lately, since I am not as active as I used to be, but while I was staff we'd have five or so different players that would come on from time to time to play on Classic. I'd pop over and check on em, make sure everything was gravy once in awhile.

A heads up isn't just leaving the server up and taking it down, but a

"Hey guys, (technical mumbo jumbo about moving companies, servers being down, etc) and while Classic is and will always be where minetown started we've decided that its time to let it go so we can use the space it is taking up to make your Minetown experience bigger and better than it currently is. (Maybe a teaser about some of the super secret squirrel projects that staff have hidden up their sleeves, something fun and bright to pull in the player's eye and maybe get a few forum lurkers interested in coming back actively.) We'll be offering a downloadable map of the server that you'll be able to use in the privacy of your own little world. If you have any questions please feel free to contact (whatever poor sap gets put in charge of customer service). We understand that to a lot of the older members this is a sad day and we apologize for that but if Minetown is to continue to gain members and thrive in a competitive manner changes have to be made."

((You could also start leaving little "easter eggs" of Classic around the Agharta map, maybe scattered through the catacombs of spawn, something to show the old players you still care about what made Minetown what it is today. Without Classic, there would be no Minetown. Thats just my personal thought on what I would do, not trying to be negative or anything like that. I liked exploring the classic spawn area, I liked exploring the old Aggy spawn as well...the new one not so much, there seems to be less awesomeness to explore and find within spawn.))

Then maybe a little bit offering to explain to people who don't understand how to upload their own world so that they can enjoy what they have build on Classic. Even a link to a tutorial that seems easy enough to follow mentioning if they still have questions to contact (the poor sap who ends up stuck on customer service). Keep in mind not everyone is a minecraft genius and some people don't do well just trying to watch tutorials they've googled on youtube. It took me a whole week just to finally get the staff client to play nicely with my computer because I was too stubborn to ask how to do it and the explanation on the staff forums didn't seem to mesh with what I was seeing on my client. Showing that you care about the members and are willing to go out of your way (going up and above just merely keeping a server running) interacting with them, taking the time to assist them with things you think are trivial makes them feel like they're special, like you value their time/donations/whatever you want to call it. This is important to keeping any customer driven business afloat.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to add this. I am in no means, shape or form attempting to be rude, disrespectful or otherwise malicious. I am merely attempting to explain my viewpoint on this subject matter. It is not a direct attack on anyone, anything, or any thought Minetown, Minecraft or otherwise related. I would greatly appreciate that anyone who is offended by this post (If there is anyone) please contact me via inbox, ingame or skype (if you have it) and I will have no problem explaining my intentions to clarify whatever miscommunication is being interpreted in my post. However, I will request that you take the time to actually talk to me, via whichever voice chat you are more comfortable with (I have pretty much everyone known to me)

Bottom line; Classic was a museum. Museums aren't permanent, nor are what they show in them. As Jared said, there shouldn't really have needed to be a heads up, considering that there's very rarely been activity for 2 years. The download is coming, and we'll see what we can do about a tutorial.

/Locked.