Well...Being a donator to several servers myself, I can say that the general hate against donators is well-deserved. Be it spamming TripleShot in Hypixel paintball or sweeping the board as an IronGolem in SCB, VIP's can be a constant target for hate. Now, using these two games as an example, the hate is considerably less as two or more teams exist in both minigames. However, in a PvE environment, this is not the case. There is literally nothing from stopping a VIP from charging in, Leroy Jenkins style, and stealing all the kills. So, IMO, donator ranks don't really belong on PvE servers.
I really think that PvE servers with donator ranks are not really fair to the donators, because they spend money to get this epic stuff and people are like, "You know what? Lets rely on him!" so the donator does all the work.
PvE means Player versus Environment. The previous posts were in regards to PvP - Player versus Player. As the OP stated, PvE donations should be where you get "perks" for supporting the server financially. On the other hand, PvP donations should be nothing more than that. You give them something and get nothing. If one person donates 15 dollars and gets a heavily enchanted sword or bow or whatever it may be, they have a permanent or semi-permanent item that gives them a major upper hand. The playing field becomes unbalanced and nobody really wins. For example, on most prison servers, there are PvP areas and then safe-zones. I have seen so many of them where you have decked out donors waiting on newbies to walk by so they can murder them and rob them without much of a fight. It's pointless to have an unbalanced playing field while trying to do something that requires individual or sometimes even team progression.
PvE means Player versus Environment. The previous posts were in regards to PvP - Player versus Player. As the OP stated, PvE donations should be where you get "perks" for supporting the server financially. On the other hand, PvP donations should be nothing more than that. You give them something and get nothing. If one person donates 15 dollars and gets a heavily enchanted sword or bow or whatever it may be, they have a permanent or semi-permanent item that gives them a major upper hand. The playing field becomes unbalanced and nobody really wins. For example, on most prison servers, there are PvP areas and then safe-zones. I have seen so many of them where you have decked out donors waiting on newbies to walk by so they can murder them and rob them without much of a fight. It's pointless to have an unbalanced playing field while trying to do something that requires individual or sometimes even team progression.
Couldn't have said that better myself. But I do have some things to add.
Since I am a staff member of a PVE server with donation perks I can safely say that there's no real harm in them there. The donators get fancy tags, special abilities (such as fly, magic carpet, etc.) that aren't really required to play, but do give them a slight edge in terms of gathering materials and building and such. But the normal players who do not donate can still get those materials even without fly, and they can also buy them using the in game currency. So in my opinion it balances out at some point.
It should also be stated that our normal members who do not donate don't complain or whine about our donators, they simply treat them as other members (which is rare from what I've seen) and befriend them. Before I became a staff member that was the case for me as well being a normal member; I just played Minecraft with them. Yeah, sometimes they would fly off after we were done talking or they would change their fancy tags to a different color, but in my opinion that's not what sets donators apart from the normal members.
It's the donator's attitude that does. And that's why most donators in PvP servers are like that, to me.
I think that donator perks are fine, as long as you don't need to donate in order to have a good game playing experience, and with modded servers, when you have to donate to use certain mods/items in mods, it does make survival more difficult for the people who cant use them, the other perk that gets to me is flying.... i mean seriously? people who pay you get a massive advantage over everyone else?...
Couldn't have said that better myself. But I do have some things to add.
Since I am a staff member of a PVE server with donation perks I can safely say that there's no real harm in them there. The donators get fancy tags, special abilities (such as fly, magic carpet, etc.) that aren't really required to play, but do give them a slight edge in terms of gathering materials and building and such. But the normal players who do not donate can still get those materials even without fly, and they can also buy them using the in game currency. So in my opinion it balances out at some point.
It should also be stated that our normal members who do not donate don't complain or whine about our donators, they simply treat them as other members (which is rare from what I've seen) and befriend them. Before I became a staff member that was the case for me as well being a normal member; I just played Minecraft with them. Yeah, sometimes they would fly off after we were done talking or they would change their fancy tags to a different color, but in my opinion that's not what sets donators apart from the normal members.
It's the donator's attitude that does. And that's why most donators in PvP servers are like that, to me.