Need help with advertising

My two year old survival server is on the brink of death and I need to bring in new players ASAP. The usual advertising channels (PMC) don't bring the intended crowd; mostly 12 year olds asking for staff positions and complaining about how "there's nothing to do" and then leaving.

I have my server on every server listing site that shows up in the first two pages of a Google search and I vote for it every day on all of them (all are Votifier enabled) but only the most popular servers show up anywhere near the top. PMC is my only salvation, but at the same time it isn't.

Help. :I

 

unless you have put something that makes the server stand out from the total rest of other servers, then advertising probably wont do too much, the reason why servers like MC the walls and otherwise are so popular is because they are so unique and entices people to play.

 

If your players are complaining about how there's nothing to do try focus on working on the players first join experience a bit more. I noticed on my servers that things like large spawns that are protected where the player must walk for a few minutes to get somewhere they can build freely is a server killer.

 

The Walls is a minigame server. Are you saying that the only way to be successful is to mangle the game until it can no longer be called Minecraft? I'm not saying the minigames aren't fun. In fact, those action-packed games are probably more up the alley for the mainstream population in contrast to the idea of working for hours gathering resources and building stuff (and then losing everything in lava and starting from scratch). Vanilla gameplay cannot be dead though... If it is then I must shed some tears.

I know that, haha. My current spawn has four clearly marked roads leading to the wilderness, and they're all less than 100 blocks long. I even added a "noob kit" and made it so that new players are protected from PvP AND mobs for the first half hour. Still, they don't stay. :/

 

It is. Popular servers get half they used to. Everyone wants minigames and it's sad. I love TnT for opening blackdamp

 

If you got the money, there are some advertising companies that post your server on facebook. They have pages with a million likes etc. I can't assure you if that method gives you a mature playerbase tho xD

 

or twitter accounts that will advertise to 2M followers for 20€ or less

 

not saying that at all, i prefer playing survival, but sadly a large majority of the population dismiss survival as boring :/ and usually the only way to get people into it is.....minigames as much as i hate to say it........