The Featured Game Cycle and whether it was a good or a bad feature
Since a lot of people have recently started making suggestions about the Featured Game cycle again, in whatever form that may be, I thought it would be a great idea to look back to when the cycle was implemented, all the way back in 2018 with The Big Change (yes guys, I am indeed experiencing PTSS ever since this and The Future of Java happened). In this thread I will look at what the cycle (I will refer only to 'the cycle' or 'cycle' in the future since I am too lazy to type it every time) exactly was, what it's pros and cons were and eventually I will draw my own totally biased conclusion on the concept as a whole. Note: I sadly do not have any game-specific data to support my conclusions. Everything is based off of my own playing experience together with conversations I had with people in the community. I also would like to state that this isn't anything like a suggestion, but more of feedback on the thing. This also includes my opinion on why I think a cycle in any form should or should not return, but that's as much from a bird's eye view as my biases could allow me.
The Cycle and why it was implemented
As said, since The Big Change, there has been a form of a cycle on the network. The first edition of the cycle would contain games that were removed with the mentioned update, bringing them back for a temporary time for people to enjoy, before it would be cycled away for quite some time. The games in the cycle were 'the best of the worst', the most played games of the games that did not make the cut for the update to be kept as a permanent game. They would be kept on the network again for the limited time of two weeks. On both the Discord and Forums, only the first two of these games were announced, being MinerWare first and BlockWars second. MinerWare was so popular during their period on the network that not even a month after it was put as featured game it was made permanent once again: (click on the name to go to the thread)It was announced before that a game could become permanent again if it was played by a lot of people, but having that happen to the very first game they featured, that was something no one was expecting, but everyone was hoping. BlockWars didn't follow up however, staying in the cycle. What happened after BlockWars' featured time, I cannot tell. It hasn't been announced anywhere and I cannot remember myself anymore. Tough luck.
So there is a big gap of information I don't know, but within the threads I could find, there has been some information to guide me back where my memory left off. Line Dash has been a featured game in the meantime, I don't know when or how long. The same is true for Slime Survival, which can be seen in this thread's changelogs. In this thread Battle Zone was announced to return as a featured game. However, this game was only on the network for a grand total of 6 days instead of previous 2 weeks. Eventually, how it happened I am unsure of, but we got to the situation that held on until the The Future of Java update. A couple of information threads:
- Voting for featured games - by @Younisco
- A new cycle structure - reply by @Marieke2001
- BlockWars gets it's own cycle - by @IlluzionzDev
- Among Slimes moved to Featured Game Cycle - by @Younisco
I might've missed a couple, but you get the gist of it. The Future of Java brought an end to the oh so immortal cycle, and after being on the network for 4 years, with many people not even remembering how the server looked before that, with game-specific lobbies and that kind of nostalgic stuff (make sure to check out The Legacy Project's latest updates if you're interested in this nostalgia). With two cycles, a total of 14 games rotating and a lot of players being able to enjoy their favourite arcade games, it was over and done. Games were removed permanently, the codes got outdated due to the 1.19 update and everything seemed to be lost. That sounds like the start of a story, and frankly, here we are, at that new start!
Advantages and disadvantages of the cycle
Obviously, removing all your games to make them return only twice a month for two days at most is a drastic measure. It was done with the idea to make the games start at least. Right before the update, I can remember that the Arcade lobbies were quite dead, having to wait for half an hour for a simple game of Layer Spleef. The idea of the cycle was as simple as to remove a lot of that waiting time. After all, games were meant to be played, not to be waited for. However, that sentence was a bit ambiguous: not being able to play a game for a couple of days is also waiting in the end. The cycle consisted of the following 11 games, excluding BlockWars (as it got its own cycle after a couple years):- Among Slimes (click on the link behind each game for more information on the game, right here)
- Archer Assault (here)
- Layer Spleef (here)
- Line Dash (here - revamp of Snow Down)
- Paintball (here)
- Quake Craft (here - revamp of OG Quake Craft, which doesn't have it's announcement thread)
- Slime Survival (here - revamp of Snowman Survival)
- Survival Games Solo (OG Game, doesn't have an announcement thread)
- Survival Games Teams (OG Game, doesn't have an announcement thread)
- Wing Rush (here)
*OG Games are games released during the period 2013 - 2014, which also includes SkyWars, original Creative, Factions, etc. Most of these games are not on the network anymore or revamped to a newer version which is more dynamic.
People that used to play Arcade before, in whichever format, were known with the game, but also had their personal favourites. As a Mixed Arcade main before 2018, I personally had Quake Craft and Slime Survival as my favourites, but others like Layer Spleef and Paintball were community favourites. Among Slimes was loved by the community as well, even though the game wasn't originally in Arcade.
The cycle brought a lot of positives to the server. People tended to get more involved with their favourites, having separate Discord communities as well as organising parties and planning ahead for the next time their favourites got featured. To some extend, this also recruited a lot of new arcade players, as they had to play a specific game when it was featured after they were done with PvP games like EggWars or Duels. This was mostly because apart from MinerWare, there were absolutely no dynamic multiplayer games that did not include PvP. If you wanted to play something dynamic, you would play whatever was featured, trying new games in the process. Besides that, definitely at the start, it did what was intended: games started a lot faster overall. With less games, there wasn't much to divide the players over, meaning more players would join per game, making them start faster.
As time went by however, it got less and less. People now had to free up their schedule to play their favourite game, which if not possible would mean they wouldn't come online at all. It was easy to get bored, as Mixed Arcade or changing games wasn't possible anymore. Not even to mention that Survival Games at some point didn't get any people to play, as it was just another PvP game. A lot of slow and boring games were also kept in the cycle, though they were not popular at all (e.g. Battle Zone, Archer Assault (unbiased, these were two of my favs. This is sadly the objective truth and I am still of the opinion these should've been removed long before)). Also, having to wait 2 weeks on the games you want to play is not motivating at all, having many players leaving the server. The player count of the cycle began to dwindle down, eventually having too little games to start over the course of 24 hours.
It is hard to make impactful decisions, but CubeCraft had to do something. They decided to scale down, by a lot. Removing ALL the featured games, removing the cycle and much more. Now the Arcade games live in our memory only. Among Slimes is just a distant memory, Paintball something you do IRL, Line Dash is just a tiny Bedrock MinerWare feature and Slime Survival a festive-exclusive game with worse mechanics. I am glad for all the people I have met and got to know better during the period of the cycle, and I hope they still read posts like these sometimes, because they know exactly who they are
Concluding and looking forward
There are a couple questions that still need to be answered. First of all, was the cycle a good or a bad thing? I personally think it was neither of the two. It started off with something great, but eventually, it just turned into a beacon of hope for the games to return and a bad scar of something bad that had happened. You can say that hope and memory to what went wrong are good, but I don't think that's objectively true (even though I still have mouth masks in my room that I don't ever use). Games weren't being updated anymore, because why would you for a game that is available for at most 4 days in a month, and the cycle was just too big. I think the intention was good, the execution was just not what was expected. With all respect to Team CubeCraft, because I don't think any changes would've been perceived as positive, so I understand what they did and why they did that. Secondly, should the cycle return? Even though I hate to say it, because I absolutely love Arcade games, I would give anything to play another game of Barn Brawl and anything that looks like Mario Kart in Minecraft is just awesome (Wing Rush), but I don't think a cycle in any form should return. Not only is it confusing for players (the question "where is Layer Spleef gone?" or anything similar was one of the most asked questions in the lobby right after the featured game changed every single week), but also would it not be beneficial for CubeCraft's playercount. Before you kill me about that bold statement, let me explain: At first, people would start coming back for whatever games they had to feature. Old Arcade players would join the network and do some catching up. New players would maybe like the new style of games, something CubeCraft Java lost back in 2022. However, after a while, the cycle would fall back in its old pattern. People will get bored, leaving only the people that grind for leaderboards to play the game, and they prefer not to play against each other to make games go quicker. As said, I don't have the data to prove any of these statements, but with that thought process it is only logical, even though I would love it myself personally.
Thirdly, even though I might think the cycle should not return, can we expect any of it in the (near) future? If I were to be Cube Admin, I would love to answer that question, but I am simply unsure. There is this 'Secret Project' displayed on the Notionboard, which could be anything, so I don't see why that couldn't be any form of a cycle, an arcade game or whatsoever. The only thing we need to realise is that there are no dynamic non-PvP games on CubeCraft right now. Sure, you can play SkyBlock or Parkour, but that's just not anything like multiplayer minigames. I think CubeCraft would definitely benefit from bringing back anything like that, whether it be MinerWare or Arcade in any form or even something older like Bingo, BlockBand or even Hide and Seek (OG Game), But personally I think the best way to (re-)release a game like that would be to release it fully, not in any form of a cycle.
To conclude, I have discussed what cycles are, why they were added, what they contributed and why I think it is best for them to keep them away from the server. If there has been any misinformation or information missing, let me know. I want to give another credit thread to @Sweetenerera, due to their Gamemode list thread. A lot of information could be verified or found through here. Even though it is slightly outdated, it was very helpful. Thanks for reading through all this, if you have any questions, I would be happy to start the conversation!
