I think the reason blockland feels like its slower than it used to be is that a lot of our older content creators like Darkstar and Jorgur and so on have outgrown it, and there are no more "flagship users" like there used to be. Now all people do is whine and bitch and moan about people and half the time the people they are bitching and moaning about are the ones trying to actually create servers.
A lot of our big content creators are trying to go to big, like with the DayZ style games and the wasteland ones that are all really large scale. Those projects are cool but they consume a huge amount of work and in the end they don't really provide with much replay value. Maybe if Blockland had voice chat and worked better for fps scenarios it would work but that's not the way it is so we must do what we can with what we have.
But then you say "but what about Tezuni's jail escape, its a shooter and has huge player retention rates!" Well when you die you are never a few minutes away from being back in the middle of the game, whereas larger scale gametypes like DayZ and Wasteland end up making you feel like you spent all this time working at something just so you can die because of Blockland's stuffty shooter mechanics. Combat games in Blockland need to be fast paced, short time-limit style games. CityRPs suck because its so rare to find one that is done right. Games with vehicles are a pain in the ass, I'm surprised Speedkart stayed popular as long as it did. Most players either want to be constantly engaged, or just chill out and hang at like a freebuild or something. Blockland isn't dying, its just that the majority of our server administrators haven't quite struck that chord that gets people playing.
