We know from retrospection that simply updating KitPvP is not a successful strategy for bringing back a constant population of players. Staff have put in the effort to bring new kits and new maps and make changes to KitPvP but these additions have proven to only temporarily boost player counts. While it was beautiful to see the community fight to keep dearest KitPvP alive, it was naive to think that solely rolling an update would suddenly save the game from desolation. Updates like this are only a supplementary measure to maintain a constant player population, rather than raise it from zero.
I think the best thing that can be done right now is to bring back events in KitPvP rather than have a dedicated event server–just like the glory days. With the event server there’s no point in being there unless there is an event. With KitPvP players would be more encouraged to stick around for the secondary purpose of playing KitPvP. It’s true that players would be there mostly for the event and leave afterward, but at the very least KitPvP would have a healthy amount of players during events, although sporadic. There is one man in particular who can accomplish this with ease; I don’t want to say who, but their name begins with BadBoy and ends with Halo, and if he decides he wants to bring players to KitPvP even for a little while to host events every now and then, he will do so. I’ve glanced over his recent streams and we know, and he knows, that he streams fairly often on MunchyMC but doesn’t give attention to KitPvP. And maybe he simply doesn’t want to, and that’s fine, but KitPvP will continue to be empty unless he or someone with similar influence makes a consistent effort to get players interested in KitPvP again.
Even in the best-case scenario where players are actually playing KitPvP again, it’s important to note that it’s just not going to be the same for those who know how it used to be. It’s not something easily explained in words; it’s just a feeling, I guess. Regardless, if KitPvP never sees some kind of resurgence, it had a good run and will be lamented as one of the greatest modes to ever grace the server, just like it is now. Still, KitPvP and the server at large deserve to be successful even today and I truly believe it has the tools to do so.