How to Build an Active ECC Town!

HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL PLOT TOWN
I've heard it a hundred times from players: "I really love the idea of building a town, but mine just never got off the ground. I wish I knew what to do."

Well, I do. Building towns is what I like to do, and I (and a few hundred other players back in 2015) built one of the most successful "cities" on ECC, Lancaster. It was not just a beautiful toy -- I made more money from Lancaster than most players make from anything. I don't say that to brag, but to point out that the ideas in this tutorial WORK.

So, here are a few simple principles for success at building a thriving ECC town, from an expert.
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1. SUGGESTION # 1: Before you ever buy the land or start building, sit down and think: what kind of a town is this going to be? Get your thoughts together, because you'll use them to create your "town thread" before you open for business.

2. SUGGESTION # 2: Have a town thread in the towns & nations forum. How are players going to know your town is there, except when you're on? From the thread. Update it with new players, town news, anything you want -- just keep it updated.
EXAMPLE: http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/lancaster-official-town-thread.109798/

3. SUGGESTION # 3: Have your town rules thought out before you start, and have them on the thread as well. Some players have copied the rules from the Lancaster thread. That's not a bad idea, because Lancaster's rules work very well. Feel free. One specific suggestion: stealing from unlocked chests is not against server rules -- have a rule against it in your town. Evict every player who breaks that rule.

4. SUGGESTION # 4: Build your town, or a significant chunk of it, BEFORE you start selling plots. You will not be able to compete with older, bigger towns if you start selling plots in a town with no features. You will get frustrated, you will think it is hopeless, and you will quit. Features you should have BEFORE you open: a warp zone in the CENTER of town, public donation chests, a town hall with shared workbenches/anvils/furnaces, the town thread, and a TOWN FARM. You should probably also personally own certain vital features: water, e-reps and tp are the most important.

5. SUGGESTION # 5: You should build a town farm before you sell a single plot. In Lancaster's case, the original town farm was 32x64, and five stories, with seven different crops. Eventually, we built a separate 100x100x4 town, with a tree farm on the roof. A new player's most urgent need in order to succeed is to have a way to make money. Don't just sell them a plot and tell them to go mine -- the town farm should be theirs to use at all times FOR FREE. Do NOT charge players to use your town farm. Alaso, the bigger the town farm is going to be, the further over to one corner you should build it. Bigger farms generate lag, especially for players with weaker computers and/or connections.

6. SUGGESTION # 6: Know what kind of players you want. Not every player makes a good town member, and some players actively ruin the experience for others, whether through grief or just bad behavior. Don't take everyone who walks through your door.

7. SUGGESTION # 7: Never add a player to your town for free. Never sell a plot or a home for any less than $1000 ECD. Why, you ask? That sounds greedy? It's not to make money -- it's because the players who want it for free are exactly the players you don't want. Whether the player comes up with the money is their first test. A player who whines until you give it to them for free will grief you the minute your back is turned. A player who wants to live in your town will figure out how to vote if they're new and you tell them, or will go make the money and come back.

8. SUGGESTION # 8: Never add a player until they have read your rules and have agreed to them in a screenshot that you keep for as long as they live in your town.

9. SUGGESTION # 9: No matter what you build or how well you do, players will go inactive all the time. It's just the nature of the game. Give them at least 14 days of inactivity before you consider removing them, but also remember this when you're spending all this time building the town -- you will be selling some of these plots over and over again as time goes on. The town is a long-term investment.

OK, THE REST OF THE SUGGESTIONS HAVE PICTURES!

THE WARP ZONE (back when this picture was taken we still had spawn/town portals. Now we have warps): Remember how I mentioned you should have the warp zone before you start? It's important enough to say it twice. Without it, your players -- especially the newer ones -- will not be able to get to the town without help. Tp'ing players to town will get older, faster than anything else you do. Also, put the warp zone in the CENTER of the town. Every player wants a plot or pre-built as close to the warp as possible. Putting a warp in one corner of a town will result in a big chunk of your land going unused.


Have the public features and tools in one central location, preferably a town hall. If a new player hires an EcoLegend to name a nametag, the Legend is going to get there and ask "where's your anvil?" The new player doesn't HAVE an anvil... maybe he didn't even know he needed one for a nametag -- but he'll know all the stuff he needs is in the town hall. Have every shared resource out there where the new players can find it.


Donation chests are key. Have a bunch of them, and put into them anything you don't need. Also, PUT THE STUFF YOU GET FROM LWC'S into them. One ordinary diamond pick can be game-altering to a new player. You will never make much money from LWC's, so don't try. Make the fact that you dump the stuff into the free pile one of the benefits of living in your town.


Lay out your streets before you lay out the plots. Have an overall plan for where the streets will go, and think ahead ... what if you buy a second town touching the first? How will the players get there? A well-ordered street plan makes a beautiful town.


Spend the time and money to landscape and beautify the public spaces. Also, HAVE public spaces. Parks, boulevards, wider streets. Giving up some of the land you could sell as plots will make all the plots worth more.


Build something just for the new players who don't know how to build, or don't want to. Some people are just SG studs or lotto wizards. They have to live somewhere, too.


If you do build little apartments for Builders, remember: they need a door they can lock, a few chests, a workbench and furnaces. New players can't afford whatever feature gives them /smelt. Make sure the new players have furnaces.


Have lots of 10x10 plots when you start out. Multiple 10x10s can always be combined into a bigger plot, and most of your best players will be people who buy a 10x10, then like the town well enough to trade up for something bigger, and before you know it, they're Presidents and you have suburbs.


Build the biggest house in town for yourself. Why would anyone invest time and resources into building a nice house in a town where the mayor didn't? Set the example from the start. This, needless to say, was not my very first house in Lancaster -- but I had one.


If one of the genius-at-building players shows up and just wants to build something or live in your town, GIVE THEM THEIR LAND FOR FREE. Players like that are worth their weight in gold for a town owner -- and they're generally some of the nicest players on the server, too. Be the kind of town that player wants to live in, and they will build wonderful things on your land. If you realize that you have a player or players like this, realize that you have just gained something in-game that money can't buy, and a good friend, too.


Make sure that at least some of your pre-builts are affordable and small. There are a lot more $3000 customers out there than $25,000 customers. Save the big houses for later -- build the town first. No one wants a big mansion in an empty town.


Have all the plots in town laid out and clearly marked BEFORE you start selling. Also, keep records somehow to avoid hassles later, and keep the records INSIDE the game world. You will lose paper records kept at home. My solution -- I have unlimited lwc's, and the front left corner of every plot has a sign locked by me with the player's name on it. Before I had unlimited lwc's, I had locked rooms upstairs in the town hall, with sign after sign on the walls. Don't lose track of the records -- in a good town, the town respects the fact that the players own their land.


Build useless things just because they are beautiful. Players will flock to live around them. On the other hand, don't ever tolerate grief.


Any time you want to see whether these suggestions work, just go check out Lancaster. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it was the most active city on ECC, and it only went inactive because it became so exhausting to run. Literally hundreds of players have lived in Lancaster towns, and thousands of players have walked through that town square.

It only took six months to build it from nothing to the most active town on the server. You can do that, too.

Thanks for reading this far! Good towns add so much to ECC, that I would rather give away all the secrets to building one and have more competition, than keep it to myself. I hope this has been useful for you.

I'm going to come back and edit this post and keep it updated for as long as it's useful to people -- so if you have suggestions, thoughts or questions, post a reply on the thread and I'll address it if I can.

(updated 5/5/2016)

 

Well, I'm not claiming mine is the only way to build a successful town. Just giving a few tips.

 

Must remember to edit out the parts about cookpots....

 

Yes, /warp lancaster.