What started as a short comment on the discord server ended up being a long explanation of my personal design theories surrounding Civcraft. I figured I'd post it all here for discussion/posterity.

I'm interested in knowing whether the designers are going to take any really large steps away from previous civ servers. I'm personally pretty sure that civ servers stagnated as a genre because PvP was dominant, and it pushed casual players out. I've seen a lot of people debate about which PvP-related mechanics broke what, but I think the whole thing needs to be cut off at the knees and redesigned so that PvP takes seconds instead of minutes/hours, and so that numbers are as important as gear/skill (so that an overwhelming mob of casuals can actually kill small groups of better skilled players).

Civcraft was at it's best when it functioned like other good MMOs do: It made space for multiple player types to enjoy the game. PvP pushes other players out if it's too important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxpW2ltDNow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drDuaQXm_U

You don't always have to pander to all 4 archetypes, but the general concept of different types of players still applies.

All it took was a few waves of hardcore PvP players, and the eventual accumulation of plenty of high-end gear, for the game to start sliding towards that direction. And it never stopped moving that way.

I would say that Civcrafts player types could be broken down in 4 categories: PvPers/griefers, Resource Grinders/autofarmers, builders/creatives, and socializers/politicians. Most people fit into more than one (if not all 4) categories to a certain extent. All of them add meaning to the other types, but if some become dominant over the others, than players will get bored and leave.