The EULA, rules on monetization, and its effect on the Shire

Vetous

https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/ 
https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation-the-follow-up-qa/ 
I was discussing this with Morris a little bit ago, and it's going to affect all of us. Basically, Mojang has implemented new rules about server monetization.  Now technically you don't have to pay to use the Shire, it's a free server. But, the donation system is affected. To quote:

"You are allowed to accept donations from players. You can thank them publicly or in-game, but can’t give preferential treatment for donating. You are not allowed to restrict gameplay features in an attempt to make money." 

This has some serious ramifications for the donator classes like Duke, Viceroy, and Archduke. Gameplay features involves everything on the server: mods, vanilla features, and other things like /fly and /gmc. This basically means that we either get rid of the donator advantages like /gmc, or we make it available to all players from the outset. We also can’t divide our player base into paying and non-paying classes, so there isn’t really a work around there.

I’m obviously not in charge of deciding how we go about these changes, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of the Lords and the rest of the Shire. You guys can interpret it any way you want, but the EULA affects all servers regardless of stature or age or type of server. I would recommend everyone going and reading the links at the top there, as it’ll be good to be knowledgeable about it all. Apparently we’ve got until August 1^st to comply so I think we need to get on a discussion about this ASAP. Thanks for reading-

-Jake, aka Vet

CoffeeAndChill

Neb updated our donations discussion to reflect the recent mojang statement.

Minecraft's EULA states:
"you must not:

• give copies of our Game to anyone else;
• make commercial use of anything we‘ve made;
• try to make money from anything we‘ve made; or
• let other people get access to anything we‘ve made in a way that is unfair or unreasonable."

• The Shire does not distribute copies of Minecraft.
• The Shire does not make commercial use of any MOJANG assets
• The Shire does not make money from anything MOJANG has made - we occasionally take in money (in the form of donations) but we don't make a profit; that goes straight into paying for the server. We don't spend it on coffee/new shoes/funny-looking iphone cases (we promise!).
• Our current ranking system does not appear 'Unfair and unreasonable'

1. We give promotions based on building ability.
2. All players start and finish in the same place, regardless of if they donate or not; hence, all perks are eventually accessible by all players.
3. Our donation discussion clearly states that your contribution is "not a service fee" - "you're not "purchasing" Duke" and it said that long before MOJANG's blog post.
   
   

We recently updated our donations discussion to emphasise the fact that The Shire is not affiliated with MOJANG in any way/shape/form.

Here's our current ranking system, for reference:
[img]http://shirecraft.us/files/2014/06/shireranks.png[/img]
 

Vetous

Awesome. I was not aware of the small changes you guys made. Morris and I were concerned that this would affect the Shire, but as always, you guys have got it. Thanks for the clarification. 

nebbers

The Shire is, has been, and will always be free.  You can donate if you want and we thank you with a lil rank.. but - *plot twist* - anyone can earn the exact same perks you get by donating - no purchase necessary.  Artisan, for example, is a non-donor rank, and it has Creative mode.