Manacube Blog Ep 3: Donator Ranks and Patron/Patron+

[Cookie Kat]

Hello everyone, welcome back to another Manacube Blog! Today I will be talking about my thoughts as a donator. I have also asked some patrons to give me their opinions. I will also cover if I believe Manacube is a p2w (pay to win) server.

Spoiler: Disclaimer

The following are my own and other people's opinions, feel free to disagree but try to remain respectful

First off, what does pay to win mean? It's pretty self explanatory, it means that you use in real life money to win a game. While many have said they believe the server is pay to win, I don't believe that it is. Sure, the crate keys and donator ranks can be helpful especially with /fly and the donator kits. However, a lot of the perks that come with the donator ranks can be bought using in game currency. With the addition of cubits, you don't have to spend a single cent on Manacube. Non donators can earn temp fly time by voting or buying it from other players, which allowed them to fly temporarily without having a donator rank. I believe that a lot of the commands are pretty much cosmetic, or not completely necessary though I do enjoy having /fly, /nick, /fix, and many more commands.

In my conversations with different members of the community, I don't recall anyone mentioning the [item] perk. On the skyblock realms, I believe one of the ranks gives you access to [item]. So really, all you'd have to do is grind it out a bit and then rank up until you unlock the perk.

As for leaderboards, and payouts while having a donator rank does make it easier as we have the free monthly keys and access to more commands, it doesn't mean a non-donator cannot win. If that was the case, then the server would be pay to win. However, a good example of a player who got quite far on Manacube is SSM_God. He proved to the Olympus community that you don't need to be a donator to get lots of rebirths. What I've seen a lot of players say, is if you put hard work and a lot of effort into the game, you can be successful without spending money on the server.

Now onto what other people think! One patron provided a very detailed response before I drafted the final set of questions, so I will start with her response first.

Fluffy_hime
With a server like ManaCube, P2W people are inevitable. There is always gonna be someone who would rather spend their cash to get to the top rather than work for it. There isn't really any way to stop people like those because we can't exactly tell them what to do with their money.

Now, is someone who is a P2W player bad? Not necessarily. As someone who has spent a lot of money on this server and often chats with others like me, the people who do this are not always bad people. Speaking from my situation, I have a rather demanding job that prevents me from having a lot of free time. On the occasions that I do have some time to play, I feel like it is not enough to make progress. So I would rather use my hard earned money to help myself get a boost since I do not have the time to "git gud" as most people would phrase it. Not everyone shares my situation, but I just wanted to demonstrate that, contrary to the seemingly popular belief, not everyone spends money on here for clout.

Is P2W harmful to the server? Absolutely not. The money we pay goes to helping the server develop and grow, so I personally can't see it as being harmful. But I can see how it COULD be harmful to other players. Watching someone pay their way to the top while you're working your butt off constantly to get there can be frustrating and infuriating. It can hurt your motivation to keep trying, because anyone could easily just drop a few grand and suddenly you're behind. But if you ask me, it's all about perspective. Are you still having fun building your base in survival? Are you still enjoying making your island better and visiting other ones on skyblock? If you're having fun with what you're doing, who cares if someone else is buying themselves a way ahead? You're still enjoying what you're doing. And if you aren't having fun doing anything, perhaps you need to re-evaluate what you are doing. Playing on ManaCube shouldn't have to be stressful and it definitely doesn't need to be a competition on who is a better person.

Part of the beauty of a game like Minecraft is the numerous ways you can play and enjoy yourself. There isn't one single way to do that. You decide yourself what makes the game fun, and the same thing applies to ManaCube. Are you happy to see your friends when you log on and just mess around? Keep doing that. Are you happy when you spend $1000+ USD to get loads of special items and cool perks? Keep at it, my friend. Don't let someone else's choices influence your own. Your happiness is your own.

Big thank you to Fluffy for that very in depth response!! I will also be posting what she said to the questions below.
Do you believe manacube is p2w, and why?

Fluffy_hime
I've seen plenty of instances where skilled players who aren't hardcore P2W can top leaderboards with ease. However, I cannot deny that spending money here and there really does give one an upper hand in most cases. So I suppose ManaCube is P2W in most instances, but not all.

abbie
imo, it’s really not as pay to win as some people make it out to be. (there was a time when factions was p2w though, obviously) there are lots of ways to get cubits. you just have to put effort into getting them.

Anonymous
Hmm
Well I wouldn't necessarily call it p2w, there's been many non-donors who've won payouts and compete high on the leaderboards, and with voting getting free fly and free cubits, that just adds to it. Despite it being a risk, you could easily rack up hundreds of cubits from gambling, similar how I was a while back, turning 50 into 650.. But there's so many other things, if a person was willing to put the work in they could easily save up and get a rank but in all fairness a rank isn't what would get you to that winning spot since you'd still have to put tons of work in. As for keys, they're a nice jump boost at the start but once you're into the season, such as now, keys are pretty much useless. I wouldn't call it p2w based off that

Jason
not really, paying makes just things faster
I think what people don't understand in "p2w" is the fact that that tmers just says that you have to pay to progress in the game when it's obiviously false in Manacube when I saw players without donor ranks getting high above some with ranks

Birty
Manacube is 100% P2W since you can top near enough every leaderboard by buying a load of keys off the store or by buying cubits and selling them for in game currency to get whatever item you want.

Do you believe that donators/patrons get enough recognition?

Fluffy_hime
I think the amount of recognition we get is acceptable, but I do wish it were a bit more. However, with a server as large as ManaCube, I understand why that isn't easy to do. At the very least, I wish we would be informed of why certain changes to donator perks happen, rather than they just change and we aren't told why that happened.

abbie
yeah i think so, although most of the attention given to patrons or donators is players confused as to why they would spend so much money

Anonymous
I mean, we get our own title as patron to display in-game, forums, and on discord, patron+ getting a custom color on discord, that really helps it stand out tbh. On the store we have our own "Patron" tab to display all of the patrons, that itself gives, in my opinion at least, good recognition and shows the server cares about those who pay that much, which is why patron was created in the first place
Similar could be said about regular donors, minus a few things of course. There's definitely a lot more recognition towards patrons for obvious reasons

Jason
depends what recognition is and also why they would kinda need it tho

Birty
Donators get enough recognition where Patrons I feel are left a bit short.

Is it worth spending loads of money on the server for the "perks?"

Fluffy_hime
Whether or not the perks are worth the money is up to the player. For example, if you think it's worth $25 USD to fly forever on survival, heck yeah go for it. Money has different values to different people. A $4 key has a different value to it to someone who still depends on their parents for cash, as opposed to someone who earns $7.25 an hour from their job. I personally think all perks are a bonus, regardless of cost. And remember that cubits exist on the server too, so everyone has the same equal opportunity to get these perks.

abbie
really depends on what you want to do. imo, you can be successful and have fun on ManaCube without the extra ranks.
kinda just up to you.

Anonymous (Pt.1)
I mean tbh whether it's worth it or not is based off of personal standards. For me, I'd say buying elite was completely worth it, despite others saying it isn't. I get the global kits, a free promotional key every crate/month, the free monthly keys from vip to mvp+, and the 10 day elite key, /shout.. The list could go on but it was definitely worth it. It's worth it if you are going to be staying around, playing the server a lot into the future, as you'll be "saving money" as all these free keys add up over time.

Jason
if you're like me and you love having perks, comsetics and unlockable content on a game, then yes it totally is

Birty
Depends on who the person is that’s spending the money some spend it because they have nothin else to buy and some spend it when they feel pressured to buy stuff since others did.

What do you feel is the biggest benefit you've gotten out of being donator/patron?

Fluffy_hime
I think the biggest benefit donators get are the perks on the servers we play. Each rank gets better perks as you upgrade it. Patrons get mostly cosmetic bonuses in-game, but I think the biggest benefit they get is the Patron exclusive discord channel. It's much smaller than the rest of the discord and as a result we feel a little closer to one another. Dacon has been known to show a few sneak peeks of what's to come in the next crates, and we patrons love it when that happens.

i honestly just really like the cosmetics. it’s not really that related to my rank, but i really like the cosmetic crate on factions. (/break is also very helpful for factions players)

Anonymous (Pt.2)
As for greatest benefit, I could say those keys, shout, the custom discord color role, the patron tag in-game. They may seem like little things but it's nice to have. Supporting the server we all play on and enjoy playing on.

Jason
dunno, i'm a new one and I didn't expect to get it that early so I guess I just got Patron because the title is nice

Birty
Biggest benefit from being a donor imo is having a colourful name to be noticed in chat since I feel non donors get ignored a lot since they are small and colourless names

Big thank you to all the amazing people who gave their responses!! Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below, along with your rank, IGN, and what gamemode you play on.
That's it for now, and I'll see you in the next blog!

 

[Dutchy1372]

Great post! Loved it

Can’t wait for the next topic! Keep it up!!
<3

 

[ashalee]

Back again with another blog well done! Keep it up, Stormy! <3

 

[Vannny]

I love how much work you've put into this, really well done and I can't wait for the next blog