Only a few people online on a Minecraft server? Solutions!

Over the past six months, CIS Minecraft has changed a lot, which is a serious challenge for all admins. Both new projects and mature servers are experiencing various difficulties: with the number of people online, with donations, and with technical problems. In this article, we will tell you about a lot of new factors that affect the number of users online and donations! Of course, we cannot describe every little thing. But many problems will remain with us for a long time and they must be covered.

Decrease in donations on a server

It is an urgent problem for every game project since a decrease in funds leads to closing the server due to a lack of funding. Many people are well aware of the problems that the CIS countries have faced in recent months in the field of receiving payments. A wide range of problems can be identified:

- Inability to pay with a Russian card in the Russian payment system.

- Absence of foreign payment methods (migration from the Russian Federation mainly consists of wealthy families with children, who are leaving big cities, for example, Moscow).

- The presence of supposedly “foreign payment methods” in rubles. No foreign cards will pay in Russian rubles. Russian rubles are accepted by cards of the Russian Federation and some CIS countries (however, the chances of a successful payment are 50/50).

- Lack of normal acceptance of funds from Ukrainian users, who made up a significant part of the users of all RU servers.

- Lack of additional payment methods: QIWI, YooMoney, Cryptocurrencies, etc.

- The payment system you use is located in the RU zone. RU domains may not be available in certain countries and for some foreign providers. Such payment systems are exclusively for RF users.

- The server and the server store are located on different domains. The user may not understand where to go.

It must be perfectly understood that the inability to pay for any donation is the server’s problem, not the player’s. Many of them will never write to support and try to find out something, including active and regular donators!

What recommendations do we give to fix the problems associated with donation payments?

- Connect at least 2 payment systems for accepting bank cards for Russian users. There is objective evidence of problems when paying with Russian cards in Russian payment systems, while everything may be fine in another system.

- Connect a payment system for payment in $ for foreign users and Ukraine (it would be perfect to connect 2 payment systems), in other popular currencies if possible.

- Connect the maximum number of additional payment methods.

- Organize additional means of communication with users, in addition to the traditional email and VK (which are not available in some countries and there may be additional restrictions from foreign providers). Popular solutions: Discord, website chat, telegram bot.

- It is better to place the site and the server on the same domain: for example, the mc.test.ru server and the store on www.test.ru. In this case, the player will not get lost.

Online decline or slow growth

This happens if you run ads in different sources, but the number of people online is not growing at the required pace. Perhaps various technical difficulties prevent access to your server or reduce the attractiveness of the server as a whole. Here are examples with arguments:

- The main domain of the server in the RU zone. The entire zone is blocked in Ukraine and by some foreign providers. Users will not be able to access the site and the servers themselves.

- Inability to issue an SSL certificate for the RU domain. Many SSL providers have blocked the entire zone. You can get a certificate for this zone only in: AlphaSSL by GlobalSign (paid, but there is support for Windows 7 users) and Let’s Encrypt (free, but there is no support for users below Windows 8).

- The Minecraft game project is located on servers with a Russian IP address. Many foreign providers cut traffic and create an artificial drawdown for Russia. At the same time, the connection of users from Russia normally goes to foreign data centers.

To solve these problems, you need to take the following steps:

- Move your server to an international zone that does not depend on any country.

- Move your server to a popular data center abroad, which improves the comfortable connection of users living in the CIS and other countries.

- Have a normal SSL certificate so that users with old PCs can access the site. Sectigo or Cloudflare will work, having a Let’s Encrypt certificate doesn’t guarantee you can log in from older devices.

Other features affecting the number of users online and player loyalty:

- The presence of a complex captcha when entering the server. Server protection is a good thing, but a self-written or not popular captcha can scare or confuse players. The main problem is with young players who have just entered the game.

- The presence of exclusively copied modes from other projects , which does not contribute to the loyalty of players. They may enter the game and in and immediately leave if they see the same thing. The number of servers does not drop, so old players may look for something new and come back if they find nothing. The number of players is not constant and depends on many factors, including the popularity of the game at a certain time: there is a major Minecraft update, YouTube bloggers record videos, and users come back to the game; at the same time, a boring update does not bring any new players but scares off the existing ones.

- The pandemic is coming to an end, and almost all countries have removed all restrictions. The time when people were sitting at home and heavily boosting online gaming is already gone. Besides, families with children are traveling or are busy relocating to other countries. The share of new players is not growing at a fast pace, so old players become even more valuable for servers. Increasing their loyalty is the basis of current Minecraft game projects.

Conclusion

The described problems are a harsh reality: payment gateways are regularly disconnected, payment systems go down, and many payment methods disappear. Apart from payment, this is also true for the world connection to the servers of the Russian Federation. Each item in our article, to one degree or another, affects your income or the number of people online. As you know, only the fittest survive. Some servers are already improving their sites to eliminate risk factors associated with payment systems or connecting players, as well as increase player loyalty. This means that some projects will live on, while others will not!

P.S. So as not to be unfounded, the TLauncher administrator has randomly selected several working Minecraft servers and roughly checked their sites. So, each of them has some critical flaws. We ask other servers to listen to our advice and not make mistakes. Especially if you buy advertising since there are chances to lose money due to problems with your website or server.

Any identifiers by which the server can be identified will be obscured to prevent rumors and black PR.

The payment system does not work with card payments, and that’s the only payment method on the server, so you need to duplicate it. The payment system is not required to notify you about its problems, and you take advertising on this day...

It is another interesting server that has a few shortcomings. RU server zone; free SSL certificate; the presence of only one payment system in the RU zone; no payment methods for foreign users; you can contact the administration only using VK;

The third server in our sample: the server is located in the normal zone, but its IP is still in Moscow. At the same time, the store is in the RU zone and has only one payment system for cards (moreover, they do not accept cards at the time of writing).

In the same way, each server has almost similar problems. In some cases, the player cannot use RF cards, in other cases – they cannot pay from abroad. Or there are problems with accessing the server. Everything that is described in the article affects the number of people online and you are free to check this out!