TL;DR: Articulate Donor seeks articulate answers to questions about the server in general before deciding to continue investing.

Not sure how to start this, but here goes-

I started playing here on Skyblock not too long ago. After a few false starts, I got into the groove of things, and decided that throwing a few bucks down for a few extras would be worth it - I bought a $25 donorship.

There was a serious lack of information on donorship on the shop.skyblock.net site, so I asked a few questions on the forums. I received a few answers, and was pointed to a few more places I could get answers, but a few glaring things were not made clear, or outright false about the server in general:

There is no "Arena" where I could use the newly-acquired "God" mode.
The Nether is disabled. Still can't find a "why".
Certain Mobs are disabled. See above on finding a "why"

Spawner treatment (has to be moved by a Mod/the short list of what CAN be spawned) is nowhere to be found.

On the subject, Getting a Mod to move a spawner took several days of trying to get the attention of one. I PM'd several when I saw them on using the /who command - and was ignored. Admittedly, some of them were in the AFK status - but if I see them active in chat taking to friends, I would think that they're paying some sort of attention. The ones who weren't AFK I never received a message from, either. The first time this happened, I had to re-do the build around my spawner to accommodate the location, because I heard back NOTHING from my messages. The second time (with a different spawner) I managed to catch a mod who obviously had something better to do than move it, because I had to answer a bunch of questions before they would take 10 seconds to move it 2 blocks down into the ground.

Not that this is a new thing - when I had an issue with animals disappearing, I was eventually promised that animals would be spawned to replace them - that never happened. And that was even on the forum. Link: Not sure if griefed or glitched - animals gone. | Skyblock Forums

One of the reasons I like Skyblock.net is that it offers more than just an island - you can get additional resources by donating, voting, even just being online during a VoteParty. I enjoyed being a part of this, even doing my part in voting twice a day. I enjoy having additional materials to build with, and work with, and create with. My first small batch of redstone was from the Voter Crate, and that little bit made creation of stuff FAR more effective. Iron opened up a LOT of possibilities. I purchased the $25 donor level out of respect for the server, and the game, and to be able to give myself the little extra "push" in creation abilities.

With the advance to 1.8, suddenly, I find myself back at basic levels of creation. I'm a $25 donor. Diamonds are out of my reach for a LONG time, and the purchase of an enchanting table is right out - I relied on the ones at Skybase.

They're unusable.

So are the trading rooms, where we are encouraged to trade because mods can track placements of items into and out of chests. So are the enderchests.

And now hoppers are unusable, as well.

I'd love to create Obsidian, as the /warp faq says we should be able to do.

Good luck trying to get any answers as to when these things are back - the mods and admins that are online don't answer questions asked by people they don't know, or if by chance they DO, it's little more than monosyllabic grunts in the shape of a yes, or a no.

What I DO see working are the plugins that are directly related to the server economy - the Voter Crate, the villagers at /warp trade, etc.

With the amount of time that I have put into my island, I was considering bumping my level up to a Donor50. Lately, all I've been doing is logging on, voting for a few grass, checking to see if hoppers work (they aren't) and popping over to Skybase to see if the enchant tables or chests are working (they aren't) and logging off again. I'm not doing anything on my island - most of what I do takes the hoppers that I have either paid for with my Donor Kit, or painstakingly traded for after hard work.

Way back, I started my own Minecraft server for my family and friends after I started playing Minecraft. I'm aware of patches and updates and exploits and plugins and the crap that an admin has to deal with - hells, I'm a real-life Active Directory server admin for a small company. But If I were to take functionality away from paying customers without documenting anything or even sharing any of that information I'd be strung up by my toenails.

So, here is what I'm asking:
Is this absolute lack of interest to players normal - what I should expect in the long run on skyblock.net (which I'm inclined to believe),
Or do I keep logging in and hoping that something has changed? 'Cause it sure doesn't help to ask anyone. And for that, I'm kinda sorry.

Thank you for your time. Here's to hoping for positive answers that are more than just "dunno, working on it" phrases.

 

Okay I'm going to do my best to answer all of your questions.
1. A few months ago, we had the mob arena plugin where donors could use the god kit, and recieve full diamond armor and a few golden apples to fight mobs with a group of people. This plugin has since been removed since the server has updated to 1.8. It really should be removed from the list of perks for donating.
2. Okay there's a couple reasons as to why the nether is disabled. The main being when many entities travel through a nether portal it causes an extreme amount of lag that used to crash the server before they were disabled. The second reason is that in vanilla minecraft 1 block in the nether is = to 8 blocks in the overworld. So each player would have approximately 6 blocks each direction for their island, since they are spaced about 50 blocks apart. Bottom line, nether isn't coming back anytime soon. You can download the map for single player if you really want nether.
3. Okay certain mobs, such as zombies, iron golems, zombie pigmen, blazes, and trading with villagers and such. These mobs are disabled due to their precious drops that can be farmed when a player owns many spawners. (Zombies were disabled for their rare iron drop.)
4. Spawners have to be moved by mods, since they are a spanwer, and technically you aren't able to move them in Vanilla. It's up to the mod if they want to be nice and pick it up for you. We used to have the silk spawners plugin, but a duplication exists within the plugin. If I remember correctly, you should get a list of what your spawner can be by doing /spawner while you're icon is on the spawner block.
5. Mods that aren't responding I can't do much to help. If they aren't replying after a few messages I just start moderately spamming them until they respond.
6. On the topic of spawning animals, if you ever need any spawned, simply do /who and look for anyone with the [Skygod] tag. They have access to /spawnmob and can spawn you some more animals.
7. Diamonds are not as hard as they seem to get. they just require a bit of effort and time. I was a non-donor for about 6 months, and I managed to get about 200 diamonds worth of stuff in that time. You just need to find the things that people with diamonds want.
8. Warp skybase is out of commission right now, as there's some issue in 1.8 World Guard that doesn't let players use enchant tables, chests, enderchests, etc.
9. And now Hoppers. Ever since the hoppers were added into minecraft, there has been a duplication glitch that exists with items moving over a chunk border when the chunk is loaded and unloaded. I found out the bug almost 9 months ago, and it actually did work on .net, but no one took my report seriously here and nothing happened. Just a few weeks ago, our admin found out about this dupe glitch and had our Dev. make a plugin that disables hoppers moving items until the bug is fixed, which it may be in 1.9 but that will be awhile.
10. Obsidian generators were patched in 1.8. They aren't possible anymore sorry.
11. If you do end up getting donor50, the kit is better, you get /fly which really helps with building, you should get an enchant table, and you get /fix.
12. I understand your pain. The best way is to just contact a mod on the forums as it can be difficult to talk to one in game. And you can always ask me if you have any future questions. I've been here for about 16 months, and can answer almost anything. You don't really get ignored here.
13. As for changes on the server, they don't come often. The server is worked on as much as it used to, and the owner does not log in or work on the server much at all anymore. The server pretty much runs itself, and you can build on your island, talk to people, or maye play some games that players have at their islands. I don't really know what else to say. I don't play on the server just in the fact that it bores me. I just don't find it fun anymore.

I also just spent 45 minutes writing this, so your welcome, and seriously mods come on. One of you should have gotten to this before me or at least in game.

 

You're amazing. Im pretty sure if Krissy was still here she would have gotten it.

 

Yea...Krissy ;-;

Anyway, as far as mods go, not much can be done. They are people too so they choose what they do or do not do both in-game and on fourms. Basically, there is somewhat of a clique on the server between high donors and well-loved lower ones. Very rarely there are some Greenies there too.

To be quite frank, if you don't know them, they have a harder time responding to you. It's not because they don't like you, but they like socializing as well so it is very understandable that they'll pay attention to the chat between their friends more than random players. (I'm not saying you're random) It's something that I think they should definitely work on but I am one of no authority so I can't enforce it. Would love to see it more, though, I do agree on that.

Sadly, your popularity level will be your friend or enemy on the server. I was once a greenie who knew no one but the friend I started with. (We are good friends irl) It took a lot to become known and liked. Honestly, though, it is somewhat worth it. Being away from the chats and auctions does hurt said level a lot too. I've been through all of this so I can relate more than you think.

In conclusion, the server is great - but not perfect. We're all human and there will be actions done that doesn't please others. Patience is a virtue, use it a lot.

 

I would of gladly moved your spawner in less than a minute if you asked me if I was online at the time. I'm not sure why you were ignored and whatever mods were ignoring you I'm a little disappointed in. If I was busy I would of messaged you saying I would do it after finishing whatever I was doing.

 

Can we just clone you and use like 50 of you as the staff team? Would be a major improvement . No offense to other staff, I know you're all great

 

Lol thanks :Hilarious: