Posted on 09 August 2014 - 10:18 AM

This post will be divided into two sections. First section is the change logs, second section will be the current status of badlion and reasoning for changes in the first section.

Change logs
- Ratings have been reset on soup and potion and season 6 has begun. We've switched back to ELO, and I don't want to hear any complaining about how the rating system works ever again. You guys have chosen this system, now deal with it and it's problems while we attempt to fix them ourselves. We plan on adding a forgiveness clause (for a random loss in a massive win streak, for example), but haven't finalized it yet.
- Today, we broke a new milestone of over 1000 people logged onto the network at the same time. To celebrate (this has been in the admin section for almost 2 months for plan) we are offering a 10 day sale for all donation packages (20% OFF).
- Unlimited access to all unranked ladders has been removed on potion, along with the adding people to unranked queues if you are out of matches. Now, two ladders (one potion and one non-potion) will be randomly selected each week to have their unranked queue available.
- We removed the code that pertains to your remaining days of donator. Buycraft now handles this all by itself. This is the first step towards adding donator transfers back to the network.
- We had an issue where the bungee ran out of memory earlier today when it had 1200 people online, resulting in lag and the eventual crash. We have added a lot more memory to bungee so this won't happen again.
- More fixes to exploits that little kids have been using to crash the bungee proxy.
- Fixed an issue with the potion server lagging out and kicking everyone a few times a day.
- Warfare will be released next weekend. It will have TDM and possibly a CTF gamemode at launch. There are 7 classes that will be released at launch (with full stat-tracking on the website) - Assault, Medic, Sniper, Support, Engineer, Mage, and Assassin. More information will be released about this throughout the week.
- Added Kohi ranked 1v1 and 2v2 ladders. You are required to make your own kit.
- Fixed "pot lag"

Status of Badlion
We really don't have much to hide about how badlion works at any level (except at the security/anti cheat level), and now it's time for the general public to understand some things. Here's some numbers for people in the past 10 days (after we changed for EULA, and added some things).
- Donations have decreased by 90% in the last week when compared to the weekly average of the month of July. The amount of donations have never been this low since last September (we launched donations around the end of July 2013).
- DDoS's have increased by almost 750%. We've been hit by more DDoS's in the last 10 days then we have in the last 3 months combined. A few of these DDoS's weren't instantly mitigated and resulted in the server being down for about 3 seconds. We've been working with our hosting company and we believe we've fixed this issue.
- Voting is down by over 50%, which means less new players are coming in from the voting websites.
- 50 less players on average at anytime online compared to the previous month average (even though our unique players per week has increased). Yes, you read that right - our average player count DECREASED when we added MORE things to do for non-donators to keep them on. If it wasn't for our friends over at Archon and OCN, badlion would slowly continue to lose players.

Financial History and Decisions (there WILL be colorful language down here because I'm HEATED about this)
While we are fine for a month or two, you guys as players should understand what situation Badlion is in. Most of the staff and known regulars that are close to staff already know about the situation. We have nothing to hide and never have had anything to hide.
- We added unranked for all queues because we felt we were at a comfortable donation situation where enough people would continue to donate so Badlion never had to worry about being shut down. For every reason we added these completely backfired towards us - overall high player count went down, donations went WAY down, voting halved. Removing all unranked ladders is a pure financial decision (more on this lower down). We gave you guys something nice and you slapped us in the face, hard. If you bitch about it and you aren't a donator, you will be banned so fast and without mercy because you're the reason it's no longer there, and I will personally laugh at your denied appeal.
- All money made by Badlion is directly invested back into Badlion. We don't buy stupid shit for ourselves, we don't buy off players on servers to do things such as betrayal or ddosing, we don't use Badlion's money to bully other servers that are smaller then us, we don't even pay ourselves for the time we spend on the server or on the forums, our knowledge, or our time we spend developing. We actually calculated how much money Badlion would actually own us if we were a computer engineer and an software engineer intern (MasterGberry is graduated with a CompE degree and I'm a junior in a CompSci degree who has done internships that pay almost as much as a full degree for big companies) if we were working for a corporation and we have invested WAY over $100,000 worth of time, and we haven't taken a dime. Simply said the owners, MasterGberry and myself, don't take money from Badlion.
- Nothing infuriates us more then when we see shitty servers making 10,000's of dollars every month with fewer players, awful plugins, laggy servers, and then they spend it on either on expensive advertising for the goal of getting more personal money or themselves to buy stupid personal shit and not on the players and server where it's supposed to fucking go (you know EXACTLY what servers I'm talking about).
- Badlion has to run off the money it makes itself. We both have bills and such that we have to take care of ourselves in real life, and we don't have money to throw at Badlion like we used to be able. With the drastic decrease in donations, Badlion will not survive if they do not increase back up to near where they were before the EULA change.
- We will never sell Badlion. If Badlion itself cannot afford it's server and protection bills (DDoS and legal) from donations, it will be shut down and we will keep the domain name and the LLC to ourselves so no one can ever imitate us and then be awful server owners.
- Because of the unsure future of badlion and the fact that MasterGberry has started his full time job and I will be returning to school full time in 2 weeks, development will slow down just like it has on major networks (Hypixel comes to mind) for new features. Development after warfare is released will basically be small bug fixes and really small features unless donations pick back up to where Badlion isn't struggling to pay its own bills. While we could continue to make new gamemodes and features, if there isn't money there for the server bills to support them it doesn't matter. We are going to fix up everything that is broken/not optimized after warfare is released. By the way, Infection has been done (a Potion server event) for a while and we are just waiting for the map to be finished.
- Networks that have our unique player counts make way, way more money then us because we don't believe in pay to win and we don't like to have to force people to donate. We believe that if you want to get on the server, you will get on it. While donators have access to bypass player count limits, we've never had a donator have to use that because we constantly optimize our servers so they never "max" out. Our player limits is where the actual server will break, not artificially limited to force people to donate to get on. If our potion server would ever max out (right now we estimate that is around 900 connected players on it, as we've had 787 on it without lag before), we already have a backup copy that we can easily turn on so more people can get on.
- With all that said, we still plan on finding ways to grow and support Badlion, as MasterGberry, I, and several staff have put countless hours into badlion with the goal of making it one of greatest networks in the history of Minecraft, and we don't plan on stopping this anytime soon. You'd be surprised how many known networks are currently in the SAME exact situation we are in, but they are too afraid or scared to tell the players for one reason or another. MasterGberry and I, at the end of the day, are gamers just like everyone who plays Badlion, so we felt like you guys should know, whether it hurts Badlion or not in the long run. Like I've said earlier, MasterGberry and I donate our development knowledge and time for free, so money has never been needed to buy developers like other networks as this network is made and owned by developers.

Some people and networks to thank for helping Badlion get as big as it has
- Overcast Network (OCN) developers and head staff, namely MonsieurApple. Apple has advised us on so many things ranging from DDoS protection schemes to how to fix simple problems such as the quickswitch glitch we had in ladders such as MCSG. The head staff have allowed us to advertise tournaments and such on their forums, which most other networks wouldn't allow us to do. This increased our player population by a lot.
- Kohi development team. The Kohi devs and Badlion devs often work together to fix exploits and such that affect our servers. By working together we have both made our servers a lot more secure and allow both of us to grow in size.
- dfield, Archon network/youtubers, and friends of said groups. Regardless of what a lot of people think, we don't pay them anything for all the videos and livestreams they have done on Badlion. They have been the biggest reason we have grown so much this summer, and continue to grow.

That's the current status of Badlion, and I hope we rebound. We've been in this situation (January 2014 - back when we were forcefully kicked out of our old datacenter due to DDoS) before and we rebounded amazingly and have grown so much since then, adding our UHC/Soup/Faction servers. Any questions or suggestions you have you may post in this thread and I'll try my best to answer them.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 10:31 AM

This really saddens me to see Badlion strugling to pay the bills. Badlion's the best KitPvP (IMO) server available for competitive gameplay. There's nothing else that compares to Badlion, or even comes to close the loyalty of a lot of the community. Simply put, Badlion is the Evlis of the Minecraft PvP world.

I've been playing Badlion for a long time now, and I'm not anywhere near ready to see it go down.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 11:01 AM

Not a question or a suggestion, but I'm putting it here anyway.

Having been here for so long, and having tried to help the server for well over a year, I felt like it was time to share what I've experienced here, and this thread reminded me of a lot of those moments, so that's why I'm posting it here.

I started playing Badlion almost 2 years ago now. When I first joined, there was barely even something you'd call a spawn, and certainly no matchmaking systems or special kits, or different gamemodes. To fight someone, you'd have to make a kit and talk with them in chat, tell them which arena to warp to, and then say "pot and go!". The tags on players weren't "donator" or "famous", they were the names of the HCF faction the player was in (aside from some custom tags, like "bow fag"). The average daily player cap was like 8, and most everyone that played here knew each other from either HCF or oc.tc. These were the days before MasterGberry. The days when the server was not a kit pvp practice server, but a server that had only recently gone public from being a private badlion faction members only HCF practice server. The map changed, and a new "dev" came and added some stuff. Guru_Fraser was his name, and he had the tag "racist coder". The old mod team of people like Daeshik, Eum3, Dragonbeamz, UnPhair, etc…. were who banned the hackers. There was no "trial mod" or any set system on getting mod. As far as I know, I was the last person to be promoted from the "old" team, and I've been mod longer than everyone except for ginie1, pikaoku, archy, and qazzy1122. To give people an idea of the mod process back then, all I did to get mod was send Archy a skype message saying something like "hey I'd like to help out moderating on the server, any chance you could mod me?". About a minute after that I got kicked from the server for "relog" and when I got in mumble a sleepy Archy explained commands to me and that was it. Having been here for so long it's been especially fantastic seeing the server grow, because I feel like it's my home, and I'd like to list what, for me, are some of the best moments on Badlion so far:

1. The arrival of the coding from the great MasterGberry. This is the most important event in Badlion Network history in my opinion.
2. When the first "new mods" came. These included _iFalcon_ (now Kinfree), viprite, and later Asianapple, FnK, Winreck (yeah, he used to be a mod :/), livided, and more.
3. When the matchmaking system was first introduced.
4. When we added archer ladder (that was the first "new" ladder added to the original 3: HCF, Vanilla, and Legacy)
5. When we launched the website (we used to use a subreddit for this!)
6. When we launched the soup server successfully
7. Factions2.0!
8. When earlier today, or yesterday, depending on your timezone, we reached over 1,000 players.

Archy and MasterGberry are two of the hardest working server owners I think I'll ever meet. They take time out of their busy lives to, for FREE, make an environment that 1,000s of people can enjoy together. I'll finish up with two words directed towards Archy and MasterGberry:

THANK YOU.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 11:42 AM

#PrayForMasterGberry'sNeck
@BurntCactus will now present Badlion's national anthem.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 01:24 PM

If the donations is such a big problem, make the server 1000 slots, and let donaters log on when it's full. This will increas the donations ALOT just to let people donate for that.

Maybe make it a seperate donation for like 5 dollars? Just a suggestion, don't be mad at me.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 01:43 PM

We don't get mad when people give us suggestions. We actually like it a lot.

But like Archy said, we will never make it so you need to donate to log in. We want everyone to be able to play and enjoy the server.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 01:51 PM

you and archy have made a good point there, although if the server really does get to a point where it is about to collapse you may as well keep it going with teddie's idea than have no server for anyone to play at all.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 03:26 PM

The commitment and dedication of the BadLion team as a whole is truly astounding, and never have I seen management so open, organised, fair and well morally placed - Their hearts are in the complete right place in terms of providing a non-profit platform for us all to enjoy. I am certain Badlion will not fall - it is the perfect storm of a server.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 04:14 PM

I wasn't aware you didn't profit off of the server. So thanks for all the time & effort you put into this all.

I agree with nerfing unranked as more people play that than ranked nowadays.

As for donations some servers are ignoring the EULA untill contacted by mojang, as your server isnt really pay to win I think you'd probably be one of the least in trouble and as you have already implemented a way to purchase ranks in game (factions) I don't see how it is unfair to purchase those ranks anyway. Also for the UHC's you could perhaps rent the server to a host for special occasions & whitelist only the players the host says? Just a couple suggestions if you struggle to run badlion.

You could always contact mojang directly if that would help in any way.

Anyway hope badlion stays up till I die / lose my hand in a battle with a tiger.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 04:51 PM

My honest input (With Badlion being my favorite server, I need to get this off my chest):
- You need to get rid of Factions. It is nothing but a hindrance, especially because Badlion no longer earns the money from it's donations because of the EULA. Perhaps getting rid of Factions will derive those players to go to the kit servers and maybe you guys will be able to downgrade your box to something less expensive. The reason that I believe Factions is a hindrance at this point is because after a player gets raided, the chances of them staying on the server decrease by a LOT. Badlion is a little more hardcore than most faction servers. Most noobs don't know how to play the beautifully coded Badlion version of Factions. At the end of the day, it's up to you guys. Perhaps take the server down for now and prepare to relaunch it for Map 3 at a later date?
- If there is a possibility to replace the FFA world with the entire Soup server (like moving the Soup kits to Potion, you do /soup instead of /ffa), I think that'd be incredible. You can even add the soup ranked ladders and make the global kits server. (This would be fucking AWESOME)
- To decrease the chances of getting lag from the Academy world, maybe you should just make them a seperate server, and then bring the maps to Badlion when need be.

As I said, at the end of the day this is all up to Archy and Gberry, but no matter what server I play, and no matter my punishment status, I will always stand by my belief that Archy and Gberry are the best server owners that Minecraft has ever had.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 05:02 PM

I have been a player on this network for nearly a year now, I remember first joining on my old account in the Chinese spawn, then it changed to the wood spawn, my favorite spawn, back when there wasn't even 100 players on and there was only 3 ladders, Vanilla, HCF, and Legacy. It is great to see the server grow to what it is today, MasterGBerry and Archybot will always be the best server owners in my eyes, because they are server owners that actually do something for the server and don't sit back like owners of many servers and buy 200,000 dollar cars and do nothing. Badlion is the only server I take seriously, and if Badlion ever shut down I would probably quit MC. Thanks for all the work you have done @Archybot and @MasterGberry

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 05:30 PM

Similar to Better, I first joined at the Chinese Spawn, took a break during wood spawn, and came back for the current one. While I don't like this game much due to the mechanics it has, I enjoy every moment I spend on Badlion, because with every loss I know Badlion designed it so that'd I lose less for horrendous reasons (This has yet to kick in for me, but its still the first day), and overall make it a much better experience. I hate this game, but I love Badlion, through and through. :)

And one more thing:The fact that you guys actually come out into the open for us means you're better than almost every other server I know. You guys don't keep many secrets or raise false hype, you keep promises, you keep things kicking, you don't mess around. If people can't understand that, they don't deserve to have this game.

@SmellyPenguin Come here, you darned bundle of pengu (Offers hug for all of the hard work he's done)

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 06:20 PM

I don't really know how I can help other than by voting, but I want to thank all the administrators and developers.



Also, I do think that merging soup and potion would be excellent. The 3 soup ladders could just be added along side the current ladders, and they would just have special maps.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 07:21 PM

What about the people who have donated on there? Badlion has the potential to be an amazing faction server they just need to sort a few bits out. The hit detection is probably better than any other faction server & players enjoy factions alot! Personally I think they should put the faction donations back up as people would definitely donate. I doubt Mojang would even care, I think its more for the servers that abuse donations, like $500 for a rank etc.

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 07:37 PM

You could offer some more perks for in the lobby, I'm sure we could think of some cosmetic items people would enjoy purchasing, maybe something fun like pets when you're in the lobby, light trails, etc. We just have to be creative and think of it!

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 07:56 PM

I already made a suggestion for this https://www.badlion.net/forum/thread/11505

Posted on 09 August 2014 - 08:12 PM

Fantastic!

Posted on 10 August 2014 - 10:22 AM

Although I am unable to donate to keep Badlion up, I do plan on doing it when I have the chance to. It definitely saddens me to see that such a great network like Badlion is struggling with the many difficulties that comes with maintaining a relatively large network like yours.

Posted on 10 August 2014 - 11:32 PM

By shitty servers you were probably referring to one server like mineage, it is every way you described a shitty server ;)

Posted on 11 August 2014 - 12:01 AM

Let's not use any examples here.