I'd love to have a much, much smaller map next month, just to see what happens. With the current map, the majority of players seem to live underground 10k out, digging so many diamonds that some players have thousands of them. The only action is at spawn, and someone can live for an entire month without seeing a single person. That isn't very fun, if you ask me.

I think that something around 2.5k x 2.5k (or maybe even smaller) would be the perfect size. Big enough to guarantee a somewhat safe base, small enough to ensure that diamonds will become a rarity by the end of the month. It'll actually take effort to ensure that your base won't be found, and territory could become another factor to fight over. The player-made factions could have far more of an influence, by claiming certain areas and defending them. Diamonds could be used as a more effective currency, because a 2k x 2k map will have substantially less than a 10k x 10k one. Imagine accidentally tunneling into a neighbor's base and becoming friends or enemies, or finding out that there's a cluster of player made houses just beyond your own. Imagine diamond armor being for only the wealthiest players, and iron being the standard tier. I think it has lots of potential, personally.

I was inspired by this /v/ post I read eons ago, and have always wanted to try something like this. HCsmp seems like the perfect server for it, and I'd love to hear everyone's input!