I'm not sure. A long time ago, Minecraft players were pretty evenly spread between many small servers. Nowadays, the majority of the online population spends its time on large networks like Hypixel.
Personally, things that motivate me to stay on a particular Minecraft server are friends and community. I think I will focus heavily on the economic aspect of the server, perhaps even code something to make the server shop price items at a floating value based on demand and an artificially determined supply (i.e. admin can trigger a "shortage" or "surplus" of a certain item, driving the price up or down).
I checked it out. It's an interesting concept... perhaps it could be something we run regularly on the server. Like a jackpot-type thing, where the first person to find the random chest is rewarded with the pot to date, and only players who contributed a set amount to the pot can play.
I realize this. And of course, the problem would be accentuated by the fact that payouts to players would be very small to begin with. Could an alternative be to payout using an altcoin? Or, possibly, set the minimum threshold for payouts high enough that the fee would become less of a problem. That way, only players with sufficient balance would be able to withdraw their earnings. It might be possible this threshold is set unreasonably high for a single player to achieve, thus requiring a team effort or guild structure.
Towny structure: residents belong to towns, towns belong to nations. At each level, it's possible to set a daily tax. Perhaps this could be a way a single player might hit the threshold for withdrawals: by being a town or nation owner.
2. Moderating the community who have financial motivation rather than having fun (for example, compare this forum with other forum which discuss video game/movie).
I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean it might be a problem if players join out of financial motivation rather than having fun?
As mentioned in my original post:
More importantly, one major challenge is finding an income source to fund the money that the server will be giving away. I considered in-game marketing the players, but that goes against the Mojang EULA.
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In-game advertising is technically against the EULA.