I think the problem with Blockland is that it is literally a time curve to get into the "full potential" of the game. Why the hell would I buy a game that looks cool, join a server, and then wait for a long time while I put all of the server's content into cache (downloading the datablocks)? That is a bad impression. The fundamental flaw with the game is that the base game is cool and all, but most of the servers have content that is hard to get into, and doing that takes time because of the way the game handles add-ons - as literal add-ons that you must download.
If I misinterpreted how Blockland handles things, please do tell.
Well, based on how Blockland handles almost everything, Garry's Mod is an example to follow.
Garry's Mod has the same load time issue, on "Non-Vanilla Servers"
But UNLIKE Garry's Mod Blockland has the advantage of not needing to download EVERY ADD-ON.
Some Add-Ons don't need to be downloaded.
Server-Side Add-ons require NO downloads whatsoever, in most cases.
However it seems as time has moved on, we have moved away from this.
Add-ons that require no client-side downloads what so ever would be fantastically Vanilla Friendly.
We need more Vanilla Friendly addons.
Like Mini-game add-ons, eventing, and I guess saves.
ALSO marketing your servers as "Vanilla Friendly" would be very attractive.
example adding "| Vanilla Friendly" or " [Vanilla]" Tags to your server title would likely bring in new players.
alternatively to seperate ourselves from gmod we could use terms like "Basic" in place of vanilla.