The Great Decline of October 2020

**The Great Decline of October 2020**, otherwise known as **The Great Decline** or "**The Dead Period**", was an episode in CrocMC's history during Season 4 in which it saw a mass dormancy in the playerbase as a result of several factors leading up to the event. Many players thought that this would be the death of CrocMC, but popularity increased once again with the rise of Season 5.

## Details

### Cause

Back-to-school, end of the August War, Croc Earth, administrative troubles, major griefs

### Result

Massive playerbase withdrawal, Administration shuffle, Disbanding of several groups

## Prelude

The *August War* had exhausted the resources of four of the major factions in CrocMC during Season 4. A truce was agreed to by Nick and Zentaly, and fighting stopped sometime in late August. One of **Kmerhine's** bases was totally destroyed during the war, done so by **Kmerhine** itself in order to prevent **Neo-Nordic** from reaping the benefits of the resources from the base. Controversy over the act ensued, with no legal repercussions coming as a result. The griefed base would prove to be an economic burden on both the warring factions.

*Spawn parties* had become a regular phenomenon on the server leading up to the *August War*, where admins would grant players with temporary creative mode in order to make spawn, which is otherwise protected in Adventure mode, look appealing to new players. These spawn parties would come to a sudden halt with the onset of the war, as admins were dedicated to ensuring war rules were being followed. With spawn left neglected, hackers joined the server occasionally to grief spawn builds and put massive holes in the ground, which were periodically patched by admins.

A series of griefs would ensue. **Haven** was one of the earlier victims of the crisis, as its community bank and several buildings were burned by Plague. Other small bases would follow suit, causing many to quit the server.

With the *August Truce* being signed, player fervor quickly diminished. No new projects or wars caused players to be bored with Croc's status quo.

This is also the time of year which many players went back to school for the Fall semester, so less time was available to be dedicated to playing the server.

Many server admins left in the early days of the decline, which prompted Nick to seek new administration.

## Progress of the Decline

Player activity had dropped by an estimated 90% from just before the *August War* by mid-September. The server experienced very little contribution and effort from its remaining base of players, as no new groups or bases were formed during this period. Perhaps the only thriving base during the Great Decline was **Tato**, which had been untouched by the effects of the war, yet still the base's progress had slowed.

**Falcrest**, as a result of Corsair's departure from the server, fell into chaos. Other members of the group joined less regularly, and **Haven** experienced several more griefs as a result of the inactivity. The group disbanded sometime in September or October. **Neo-Nordic** and **Anatolian** would follow suit, seeing as no war meant very little to groups whose sole purpose was to wage war. **Kmerhine** was one of the final groups to go; MythBlood would depart from the server sometime just after the *August War*'s conclusion, leaving Zentaly as the sole commander of the ancient group.

Nick attempted to revamp server hype in October by creating Croc Earth, a sister server to CrocMC which was created from an earth map. The new server had initial success, but popularity soon crashed as **Termina** conquered the globe. With Croc Earth's founding, the playerbase of the regular Croc server diminished even further, with no more than 1-2 players being online at any given time, if any at all.

A couple of weeks passed after the conclusion of Croc Earth when Season 5 was announced, which provided an excellent reason for players to return to CrocMC.

## Aftermath

Several people never returned after the *Great Decline*, including notable members MythBlood, Horror, and MatthewJPL. Wars have been avoided since then because of fear of consequences to the server's player base. After a long period of administration shuffling, Noah was promoted to Head Admin, and he continues to hold that position today.