Our Stance on the EULA and the Future of SMC

Introduction
Over the past two months, myself, @irritatingness and @Deathbyrussian have been working tirelessly to bring you a Serious-Branded Minecraft Server that the whole community could play on to PvP, Build, Explore, and do just about anything and everything that there is to in Minecraft and more.. We strove to create a server that was just more than "Vanilla" but we didn't want to incorporate things such as ModPacks. (Because they're such a hassle to install) Ultimately, this created issues that affected core game play mechanics, then we ran into concerns with our Store and the EULA, so in this post we want to clear the air and detail the course Serious Minecraft will take.

EULA - Our Initial Approach
I'll be the first to say it: Our current Donation System is not in compliance with Mojang's End User License Agreement, or so we think. Let me explain why we're not entirely sure:

This post is the exact End User License Agreement that all server owners who wish to run a sanctioned server must agree to in order for the Minecraft Client to connect to their server. In the EULA, it states that server owners cannot "try to make money from anything we've made" and that consists of:

-the client or the server software
-updates
-patches
-downloadable content
-add-ons

Many people like to think that This post on Commercial Usage is the EULA, but its not; its a post related to the EULA, but not anything that we had to specifically agree to in order to publicize and monetize a server. So, with that in mind, we went ahead and incorporated incentives that include kits, McMMo boosts, Silk Spawners, etc that would be in violation of the post on Commercial Usage, but may or may not be in violation of the EULA due to how vague it is. Similarly, other, much larger networks such as PrimeMC and Extremecraft offer similar donation incentives to ours, which they have been doing for months. How they get around Mojang is beyond us, but regardless, we shouldn't base our business model off how other server's run theirs.

EULA - From Here on Out
After much thought between the Developers of Minecraft, myself and Highwon, we have made the choice to go Full - EULA Compliant as far as Premium Ranks and Premium Chests are concerned. In doing this, we will ensure that our server does not get blacklisted by Mojang if they so choose to oust servers not in compliance with their post on Commercial Use. In order to do this, we will have to completely overhaul both the Premium Chests as well as the Premium Ranks, and this is how they are going to change:

Premium Ranks:

Premium Chests:


*We will incorporate the Rank Changes in the upcoming week, and we will slowly phase out the items in the Premium Chest with EULA Items over the next few weeks.*

Changes to Gameplay
Due to some of the custom features and plugins we have added to Serious Minecraft, some core game-play aspects have been negated or removed. We would formally like to apologize for this, as it was not an intended feature, but a bi-product of plugins such as Terrain Control and World Border, but we have tried our best to mitigate these losses (adding villager eggs to the shop, Community End Portal) In addition, we will also make some changes to core gameplay features that many of you have been requesting in the near future:

- Incorporation of PlayerHeads as Drops
- Removal of Elytra/Dragon Head/Dragon Egg from Serverstore and make them a chance drop from the Ender Dragon
- Enable PvP in Claimed Lands
- /rtp cooldown of 10m
- Voting Fixes and Changes
- Re-Enable explosions in unclaimed areas
- Global XP Coupons
-Claim Land now goes all the way down to bedrock and all the way up to skycap. (All your land is still claimed now, but you will have to unclaimed and reclaim your land for this change to take effect.
- Reworking the Jobs Plugin

Server Reset
Many players have also requested a full server reset pending changes being made to the Premium Ranks being changed. After much discussion, we have decided that we will NOT be performing a server reset at this time, and here's why:

- A Full server reset is not something that ALL of our players agree upon. Many players have already put in quite a bit of time in their builds, and we would not want to reset their progress.
- As time progresses, we expect the items from the Kits and Premium Crate to be phased out as more people begin to play on the server.
-We do not wish to split up the player base by having one fresh wiped world and oneworld with current builds.

Additions of Legacy Premium Rank Perks as Purchasable in the In- Game Server Store
We personally thought that some of the Legacy Rank benefits were pretty cool, and we still want to make those available to you, but for soft currency in game only. So, over the next week, we will be adding Purchasable perks to the server store, which will include (may add more)

- Ability to mine Spawners with a Silk Touch Pickaxe
- Ability to purchase more /sethomes
- Ability to clear your inventory with /ci
- More to come!

We know that the initial launch of the Minecraft Server may or may not have lived up to some user's expectations, but we hope that these upcoming changes are heading the server in the right direction. Please post any questions or inquiries you in the comments below, and we hope you continue to enjoy the Serious Minecraft Server!
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Disruptionz

 

+1 for this suggestion

 

So....Do I need to remove my items from my /ec so that I do not lose them?

 

No, since /ec is just a quicker way to open your enderchest. Any enderchest will still have all your items in them.

 

Dumb.

 

With all due respect, I must strongly disagree with PvP in claimed lands. At least make it OPTIONAL, so those of us disinterested in the petty squabbles of the groups starting to form are not utterly screwed over. If I have to build a massive wall around my domain, though, and lock down my Nether Portal, so be it.

Edit: That said, the rest sounds more or less good, and helps address quite a few issues. Thank you, Disruptionz and dev team for listening to us.

 

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Did it not go to skycap before? I thought that was how it worked.

Also how many homes do we get now by default? And will our extras one get deleted if we have a number lower than the default?

 

2 homes by default, and no - none will be deleted. If you've used 4 homes, and you want to add one, you'll have to delete 3.

 

From what I understand, if you have homes, they won't be removed. However, you may not claim any more until you have at least one less than the default 2 homes. Having more than 2, you cannot set any more homes.

 

Honestly I'd just love it if we had a city area with "plots" we could purchase that offered full protection and we could build on. Then anything in the wilderness wouldn't have PVP protection.

 

Yes but only for creative. Everything in PvP aside from spawn should be fair game.

 

Will donators get any money to help to getting the perks ingame? (only for people who already donated)

 

Well that's the server ruined for me.

Also no fixes to /tpa and /home ?
Great, still no risk during mining or exploring.

 

Indeed. We need word on if claimed landed PVP is optional, or not. If it is not, then we need to know exactly when this change hits so we can prepare accordingly. /tpa and /home need work as well.

 

Definitely a step in the right direction with all of these changes, but I was indeed hoping to see something done about how ridiculous tpa/home is as well. Free infinite teleports kills so many things (Again, even with PvP enabled in claims, someone could just instantly /home the moment they saw someone coming... it reduces like 90% of the risk in-game)

 

I only really care about 1 thing, Do the people that bought premium broken against EULA chests get all their keys back so we can have our keys for the new premium chests without having to spend another 40 dollars (60 AUD)? Or at least half our keys back? Or compensated in anyway with the new CORRECT chests?

If yes will we have to reset our character to remove any bonus' we got from YOUR mistakes?
If no, can I charge back without being banned ? Seeing as we would than have to donate even MORE just to get the CORRECT goodies. And personally I did not know that you guys had broken EULA (because really who reads EULA's).

Personally I think we deserve compensation as the fault is on you guys for breaking EULA.

 

So, I /Rtp, find the resources in that area, /home to my base deposit everything /rtp to a different area and /home to my base.

That fix is pathetic, make it 24hrs minimum.

 

If people can pvp me in my claimed land I dont see the point considering im passive and just like to build in survival. The server was fine how it was and I liked the tp stuff. So what if someone tele during pvp. isnt the goal to have fun, create shit with pvp as a side thing for fun when you and your friends are bored? I want to play seriously but pvp was never minecraft point and i'd rather play ttt if i have to pvp.

Also minecraft is so versatile that youre never gona please most of us. Changing things to please louder players is infuriating. Shit was fine ;-;

 

Listen guys. When it comes down to pvp in claimed land, there are ways to keep yourself safe still. You can have your doors become iron doors with buttons, which requires permissions to open. You can make walls and take safety measures. Just because they can kill you on it, does not mean that they will be able to. It's your land afterall, you can use it to your advantage to get out of bad situations. Be creative and innovative with it. I'm a passive player as well, but I see it as a good thing for those who want to be more agressive since it makes it actually possible to attempt to pvp now, where before it was pretty much impossible to do it.