After spending an hour and a half or so to get 6 iron ore in Ulca, then having a mob spawn on top of me in a 2x1 tunnel, killing me, then getting spawned onto the roof of Ulca instead of my properly placed bed without enough time to starve to death before the server restarted (erasing my drops), I nearly quit the server.

I don't care what the 'theories' are behind the metrics but CivCraft has lost nearly all its fun. I'm boycotting ore mining until something changes. If/when I get to the point when mining become required to continue my in game goals and an economy hasn't developed to facilitate the purchase of ores at reasonable costs I'll stop playing.

Sorry, but yeah but no, not participating in this part of the experiment. Everything else is pretty super great, but I don't agree with this whole mining is flat out impossible on your own thing, even if that's the intention. This isn't a single unfortunate occurrence either. It's the last in a string of more than a dozen failed trips both accompanied and unaccompanied, so I don't need a bruised knee kissed and to be told to be more careful sometimes things go wrong. Just voicing my current position on the matter. Hope the admins have a solid game plan on this because it seems like a pretty high risk gamble.