Positive Review: Mikeland AUS Server

[mikesheen]

For Australians this is a great server - low pings as it actually is in Australia (others may advertise being in Australia when they are not), and runs on great hardware.

The staff are on top of exploiters and other players who seek to undermine the spirit of the game, and as such it is a great server for both the beginner and experienced StarMade player alike.

Behind the protection of DDoS mitigation providers, and with technically adept, mature staff this server enjoys a high level of uptime and the capacity for a large number of players.

They offer the unique ability to remove unsavoury players who seek to exploit game issues to keep the server enjoyable for all.

As one of (if not THE) the longest running StarMade servers, Mikeland has proven itself to be there for the players in the long term - and not a fly-by-night server.

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

I...Just...Ok?

 

[arcarsenal01]

I've played on this server since October 2013, great server, great people, players and staff alike. Admins are strict on violations of the server rules and bug exploiters. In my experience with the server... play fair you'll have no issues and a fantastic time.

if you come along message me happy to help with starter items etc.

 

[nidan]

I've been playing on this server (and a few others) for quote a while now. I can't comment on the technical nature, as I know nothing about that other than it's always been up, and always has low pings for me.

I can however, say that this is the only server where my ships and stations have remained intact over the years despite server updates - which is more than I can say for other servers which seem to reset frequently.

The staff are firm but fair. If you follow the rules (which are pretty simple) you won't have a problem. I've seen players act up and am grateful to see admins step in and set them straight.

I don't want to play on servers where my stuff might disappear in a month, or some random joins and finds some way to wreck my work - this does not seem to happen on Mikeland... ive seen admins in chat talking to players asking them how they did this or that, and then telling them how is was against the rules. ive also seen admins offering advice on how to build ships, factories and stations.

I donated a few $$$ to this server in exchange for credits even tho i didn't need them - i just want them to stay around as there are not many other servers about with their level of dedication.

nidan

 

[Kiipa]

Even as someone who lives on the opposite side of the globe I have stayed with Mikeland for years. In my experience there are few communities that have both good and generous admins. The good admins shut down their service when they're not making profit, and the generous admins don't know how to protect themselves and keep their service running. Mikeland has a great set of admins (it seems that not everybody enjoys fair, strict and mature admins, but I do), and one hell of a generous owner.

Even though I get between 700-1000 ms ping I find myself returning there. A bit of lag is nothing worth comparing to to the player community that Mikeland has built up over the years. I have not found any other community with a reasonable, respectful and proud owner like Mikeland has. Other communities tend to get a very hierarchical tone in it, where the admins start to abuse players. On Mikeland I have always felt that the admins are fair and respectful. Sadly some player seem to expect unceasing amnesty instead of justice.

Another absolutely wonderful thing with Mikeland is that, just as nidan pointed out, creations stay. Not only does the server stay up (for years), but maps are not reset unless they need to be. From what I've seen over the years, admins will do their best to preserve maps for as long as possible.

 

[Ray_K]

I have had nothing but positive experiences on the Starmade server. I'm not a hardcore player, but I occasionally like to pop on the server once in a while. A lot of the time I'll find the game has completely changed or I've simply forgotten how best to play! Every time I log in though there is ALWAYS someone online who is willing to help me out (with a few items, tips, which buttons to click because I may have skipped the tutorial a long time ago (oops), or just being a generally fun group to talk to).

I'm not located in Australia, but even being across the world from the servers I STILL receive no lag despite having a huge amount of players on the server. Not only is this a good server for Australians, but the server is pretty great for people who AREN'T in Australia too.

They have a very active moderation team and from what I've seen always discuss topics as a group in a public forum. I've yet to see a ban that I disagree with and am very appreciative of the effort the moderators go to.

Oh - and my ship is ALWAYS there, it's pretty fantastic. I know it's been mentioned already, but there's nothing quite like logging into a server and using the same ship you've built months ago. Nobody likes seeing what they've created being wiped - and this server certainly doesn't either.

It's a fun place to be!

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Rallied the troops to prove to us that the negative review never existed I see.

EDIT: I'm not intending to be rude but it just saddens me that someone made your server look bad and you had to then go and promote yourself then ask your playerbase to write "reviews"

 

[SuperWookie]

The reason this post was made: http://starmadedock.net/threads/negative-review-mikelands-aus-server-my-experience.7359/#post-111543

Also, the OPs call to arms: https://www.sheen.id.au/vbulletin/showthread.php?13352-We-need-your-help!

Most of these positive statements will be from Minecraft players, or from the inside "Mikelands" group, who have been enlisted by the server owner to help defend their reputation. I will agree with the OP that his server's hardware is good, however the terrible administration makes the server not worth playing on.

 

[Lecic]

Positive Review- Mikeland AUS server

I love how abusive the admin is! Very good at banning people for having stealth ships, even when said ship follows the rules of being mostly hull covered and having good use of exposed systems.

10/100 would not recommend to a friend

 

[mic000]

Hi, I am a player from Mikeland Minecraft, have played starmade briefly. I have no problem supporting mike, he has provided very stable and consistant servers for years now. Personally I have been playing within Mikeland community for over 4 yrs. Have never once been told off for anything as I tend not to break the rules. If only other players would do the same then they wouldnt get banned.....
Simply put if you hack, cheat or exploit bugs you will be caught eventually and be banned.

In reply to SuperWookie. You have already been told many times on livechat and on forums to just get over it and move on....
Why you need to do stuff like this is beyond me. Clearly Mikeland starmade is the best but you cant play there so tough luck...
If we really wanted to we could be posting stuff about how you got a mate to try look at attacking servers then threaten to sue mike when he didnt even acuse you but questioned association to these ppl.

 

[Lecic]

In reply to SuperWookie. You have already been told many times on livechat and on forums to just get over it and move on....
Why you need to do stuff like this is beyond me. Clearly Mikeland starmade is the best but you cant play there so tough luck...
If we really wanted to we could be posting stuff about how you got a mate to try look at attacking servers then threaten to sue mike when he didnt even acuse you but questioned association to these ppl.

He posted a negative review. Not everyone is gonna go "wow mike your the best your unfailable i luv ur server everyone who says otherwise is a lier." Get over it.

 

[mic000]

In terms of servers in Australia/Asia I believe Mikeland starmade is the best (as long as you dont cheat etc), but then its probably one of the most consistent worldwide in terms of uptime and keeping content.
Things you make years ago will still be there.
Even on Minecraft they normally give 3 months+ to remove buildings before removing a maps, there are currently 8x creative maps, 1x survival and 1x pve all on one server.
Everyone has faults, Im sure mike does too but in all honesty he pays for the community and it wouldnt be there without him. For that I must respect him as I want to be apart of his community.

 

[CyberTao]

I honestly don't get the point of this. As far as I can tell it's a gross overreaction to a negative review that actually Adds to it. The main thing I took away from it is that there is a very tightly knit "In"-group (if that phrase is even used anymore) and outsiders are shunned. A Swarm of people that did not exist before this thread (Which I find very weird, and suspect multi-accounting personally) that appear after someone from the group asked them to make the review does not invalidate the Negative review.

I honestly don't see why it even matters. This is a forum, old threads sink over time and if it is really a '1 time thing' with a angry noob, it would disappear and people would forget about it. It only really matters if it is a reoccurring instance.

At the end of the day though, a well written negative outweighs any number of circle-jerky positives. The negative review brought up a few important points that may need to be addressed, and because he was not the only one on the forums that experienced it, I'd recommend looking into it regardless of personal feelings.

But yeah, if you just want easily sway-able newcomers and people with little other choice, then fine. Established players are harder to grab though, and none of the Aussies I know play on this server (though they are but a handful).

 

[mic000]

Your welcome to come look me up on mikeland i have nothing to do with admin, i just like building stuff.
I have nothing to hide https://www.sheen.id.au/vbulletin/member.php?349-mic000,
You may see it as a "very tightly knit "In"-group" but over the 4 yrs playing there its hard not to get to know ppl.
In minecraft we are very welcoming to new comers i can only assume its the same in starmade, come and say hello sometime if you get the chance.
Had some time free hence the replies so quickly, going out soon thou.

 

[K10wN]

It's a simple fact that the ban list for our server contains only 5 accounts after 2 years. These few seem to have screamed the loudest and have tried their best to discredit the server staff, especially myself.

If you come onto our server and want to exploit the bugs in the game, or fly around in a big lump of exposed systems, you will be hassled by the admins. Don't correct your actions and you will be removed for the good of the server. Play fair and within the rules and you will never have an issue like the majority of the players have found.

SuperWookie was removed from the server due to his own actions. He seemed to think it was ok to destroy ships that were docked to protected homebase stations by exploiting a game bug (more than one other player complained). The server logs showed the ships he destroyed were docked. I could repeat the docking bug on demand once I found how he was doing it. This bug has been explained to AndyP on slack, and will not be explained in open forum for obvious reasons. This docking bug appears to be corrected with the new rail docking system.

Cloak ships had always been banned on MikeLand until very recently. The rule on them was relaxed so they may be used for unarmed spy ships only. The ones removed in game did not meet the minimum requirement setout in the rules. An offer is there to have an admin come check out your cloak ship to ensure it meets the rules BEFORE you use it. The mechanic behind cloaking in the game is flawed to say the least. When this mechanic is reworked, the rules on cloaking will be reconsidered.

 

[tigergard]

I am also a member of the Mikeland community and have been so for 4 years. It's incredible the impact that a couple of disgruntled trouble makers has on the perception of others.
Mikeland is an incredible community that has continued to grow and thrive for almost 5 years. It has managed this because the staff are incredibly dedicated and know what they're doing. For the duration of the life of our StarMade server, we have built a player base of thousands. Of these people less than half a dozen have been banned on our server. Those people write negative reviews because they feel hard done by - this doesn't mean they are hard done by.
What people have seen in this thread is a big show of support for Mike, his server and everything he and his staff do.
Why go to the trouble to make this thread? Because it's worth telling people that this server is so much more than what banned players make it out to be.
Why are randoms coming on here making posts? Because we know the truth. We see people provide their version of events and paint a tainted picture. If Mikeland was as bad as these couple of players say, it would not have lasted this long, it would not have the ratings and support it does, and you would not see people stepping up to support Mike. We do it because we believe in our server and our community.
I ask the question why people feel the need to hate and make rash judgements without having first hand experience on our server or within our community.
Mikeland is Australia's best server, by far. You will not find another server with the performance, stability, staff dedication and community spirit that Mikeland has.
Unfortunately, the negative reviews of two people have had an impact and this is because they made one review - it was removed... they made another - it was removed... but what people remember is 'I've read about this server before'. Multiple negative reviews by the same people on the same issues is not a fair reflection of a server's quality. If you really want to know what Mikeland is like, come say hi! and yes, we're all individual people.

 

[CyberTao]

Unfortunately, the negative reviews of two people have had an impact and this is because they made one review - it was removed... they made another - it was removed... but what people remember is 'I've read about this server before'. Multiple negative reviews by the same people on the same issues is not a fair reflection of a server's quality. If you really want to know what Mikeland is like, come say hi! and yes, we're all individual people.

I've seen 1 person make a bad review, had it removed for reasons that most of the chat community disagree, and the he made a more child-friendly version to pacify someone. Mods here do not have inherent support or backing, and there are people who question why they do things sometimes (We've had several large debates over it). So telling us that a review was removed before does not make us doubt the review at all, it just makes us question what mod was on duty.

Quite honestly, most of the adversity you'd find here is due to the OP's actions and posting regarding the deleted review. First impressions are important, and he made a bad one for quite a few people, forgive me for not being able to take anything he does legitimately. The Opening post sets the tone for the rest of the thread, and when the reaction is a Kek and a headshake, it's not gonna be a well received thread.

No idea what the person's role in the group even is as well, I was under the impression he was in some forum of admin position. When a person in some form of power comes in and praises the people in power, people are going to laugh, you can't even question that.

Spoiler: Side-note

Could I ask the people here to format a little better? This forum does not have indents for paragraphs and things can be very blob-y depending on where you start a new section.

There is also a @[Name] function to mention certain people, and you can highlight parts of a post and easily set up a quote/reply to that specific part. Makes it easier for people to know who you are talking to at times. This part of the forums tends to get skipped over a lot and people may miss you responding.

Just a minor nit-pick, but I've had a headache for hours and it's hard to read things. The forums have some nice features.

 

[tigergard]

So telling us that a review was removed before does not make us doubt the review at all, it just makes us question what mod was on duty.

It was not my intention to 'discredit' the poster of the bad review - they're not wrong in their opinions. Opinions are opinions after all. It was my intention to highlight that the 'bad things' people have heard are repeats of the same incidents from the same people. Not simply referring to Wookie's review.

CyberTao - Apologies for the formatting. In situations like this it would be remiss of me to direct my contribution to any one poster. This is why I opted not to quote specific points or specific people - there was much I felt I needed to respond to and much of it was responding to the 'gist' of people's contributions.
I understand it's probably easy to see a thread like this and read the OP's post through tainted glasses given the precursors to this. It's a shame people can't see that Mike is simply wanting to tell people why his server is worth it, as opposed to defending his service or dealing with disgruntled banned players.

 

[CyberTao]

I understand it's probably easy to see a thread like this and read the OP's post through tainted glasses given the precursors to this. It's a shame people can't see that Mike is simply wanting to tell people why his server is worth it, as opposed to defending his service or dealing with disgruntled banned players.

I'd still call it a overreaction. Things change with time and if you left something alone for long enough it would get buried in the passing. In some form of cruel irony, these post don't even help your server; No where is it listed any information about. No link to the server thread, no info on how it's run, nothing. I can see what was attempted, but you sort of missed the mark a bit as a whole.

Bumping up the main thread every couple of weeks to gather attention with well thought out and written reviews would gather more general approval then this mess of a thread (It really does feel like a mess to me).

Spoiler: Merp

Also, it wouldn't hurt for communities to mingle more. The forums just got over a bit of a tussle with another 'large' community fragment (The forum/chat goers are actually sort of it's own community, believe it or not), and I'd rather not fall down that hole again. It's kinda disheartening to only ever hear from a group when it's under less than ideal circumstances, I know K10 used to come and visit. I'd best describe chat as a Pub, topics and vulgarity vary depending on who is present, so just pop by every so often. General opinion of a community tends to go up if the relations with it's playerbase is good afterall.

 

[tigergard]

I'd still call it a overreaction. Things change with time and if you left something alone for long enough it would get buried in the passing. In some form of cruel irony, these post don't even help your server; No where is it listed any information about. No link to the server thread, no info on how it's run, nothing. I can see what was attempted, but you sort of missed the mark a bit as a whole.

I agree - these things do go away with time. We know this all too well and have dealt with situations like this before with a very busy and sometimes fiery Minecraft community. Another perspective changer - You seem to believe that this thread lacks in power and intent, but what I see is a post deliberately crafted as not to advertise or mindlessly reel off details to get people to join. It was intended as a positive review. A post for people to read and make better informed decisions about whether this server is suited to them or not - not a 'join my server!' post. You see a failed post, I see a post with specific intentions. Mike's not desperate for players - he doesn't need to publicise here to gain players. This is about our server being portrayed fairly in a public forum.

Re: Mingling... Many of us are adults with full time jobs and families. I, myself, am a mum and run my own business. If I had the time to I'd happily come say hi. We're not as snobby as you seem to think, lol.