#there are gonna be dsmp fans in my notes who disagree with some of my overview/assessment here

[theminecraftbee]

Hi, so… what, esxactly, is the dream smp, and is it something you would recommend getting into? Because coming from the empires/last life/3rd life/hermitcraft side of mcyt, dream smp looks really… idk Wack?but also, basically all the mcyt blogs I’m following are DSMP fans to some degree, and I don’t really know what it’s all about… sooo, would you recommend it? Is that something one should get into?

....trying to figure out how to answer this. hm.

okay, so the dream smp is a roleplay server that dream and his friends play on, although dream himself doesn't stream it. arguably for the beginning, the best povs are probably like, wilbur and tommy? bbh is also very good, foolish currently streams dsmp a lot and is a VERY impressive builder we should all be foolish, and technoblade has the advantage of aCTUALLY HAVING EASILY-ACCESSIBLE VODS (we'll get to this).

unlike a server like hermitcraft, it's very roleplay-focused, to the point that they write out some form of script. (famous line leaked from this script: "schlatt has a heart attack and fucking dies".) most of the people on the server - bar foolish and to some extent philza - aren't really builders, and tend more towards the hypixel pvp, speedrunning, and just fucking around sides of minecraft. this, to be clear, doesn't mean that the server doesn't have some impressive stuff! but people coming over from hermitcraft (where even their own members admit things have escalated to a slightly absurd degree on the building front) or empires (which may be a little less absurd than hermitcraft but is also largely populated by builders) sometimes get like... weird about the builds? because parts of the server are ugly, but many of those ugly things have like, story relevance, and attachments to them. so they're like... important.

the story of the dsmp has always, to me, felt very character-focused, for the record. you'll get a decently different story depending on which pov you watch. that being said, if we put things in large buckets:

""season 1"" was first focused mostly on friends fucking around, and then largely coalesces around the conflicts formed by the nation of "l'manburg", first when it declares independence and then after its election elects a dictator and the original founders leave to form a resistance.

""season 2"" is more disjointed, and arguably focuses on two storylines: new l'manburg versus technoblade (and dream in the background), and the end of the "disc war", which started in season 1 and is a conflict between dream and tommy+tubbo. this is also when the supernatural egg arc started.

""season 3"" is more disjointed again. several of the plotlines are focused around dream's imprisonment in pandora's vault, sam's slow decline because of this, as well as quackity's arc and las nevadas. in addition, this is when the supernatural egg arc concludes. (or, largely concludes. there's supposedly a final stream that bad hasn't done yet but i have lost hope.)

now, dream has escaped prison, and there are new members again. however, in season 3, the ""main storyline"" of the dsmp started to stall out very badly as the creators moved onto other things, and while certain streamers, such as foolishgamers and michaelmcchill, still play on the dsmp a lot, the plot has been increasingly fitful and rare. to be clear, they're doing very cool stuff, and i do not want to play down the fact they're doing cool things! my foolish main friends would kill me. that being said, be warned if you get into dsmp right now, trying to follow the dsmp in its current state is often an exercise in frustration.

ALSO unlike hermitcraft, last life, empires, etc, it is entirely streamed, not really youtube content.

this part is why... i'm not sure i can recommend getting into it at this point.

don't get me wrong - dsmp is what got me back into mcyt! i got recommended some dream videos, which caused me to get recommended technoblade videos, which caused me to happen to watch the red festival stream (an event in season 1 in which the dictator of l'manburg held a festival, which turned out to also be an execution for a spy, and that wilbur had been planning on blowing up but didn't succeed, and that techno killed a lot of people but also notably the spy he was supposed to be on the same side as in order to maintain his cover). and that stream was rad! the big storyline moments of the dsmp are... remember big moon payoff? yeah they feel like that. they're great!

the problem is that it's been running for a year, there's no recap (i have heard there's someone trying but i've heard tell it has big particular character bias), i don't know how to ask someone to watch literally days of vods for something, and trying to follow the storyline when it's on at full-blast is almost as frustrating as trying to follow it right now while it's fitful, because unlike hermitcraft, it's live. and catching the plot live can be hard because it's not... consistent. and is often spread across several streamers, often simultaneously. and there are vods that are no longer easily accessible. wilbur made videos out of most of season 1? tommy's own videos of important stuff like the exile arc are very tommy's youtube-ified and remove important harrowing details from the vods (which thankfully ARE actually archived but still). also, fandom context has built up to such a degree that half the arguments and character debates people get into are removed from reality as far as i'm concerned.

i got into dsmp probably at one of the last times when getting into it was easy enough. now i genuinely don't know how to tell you where to start, and am not sure i can recommend starting? i love the dsmp but it's currently a disorganized mess with a massive backlog if you want to be "caught up" and a fandom that, while i love you guys, can be vicious as hell.

ultimately, though, if the roleplay thing DOES sound like your thing? i can still confidently recommend watching wilbur's videos from season 1, they're consistently very funny and the season 1 plot is decently covered in them. technoblade saves all of his vods in a playlist as well and because he like, never streams, it's not HORRIFIC to try to catch up on his pov... noting that later technoblade is somewhat notorious for just having no fucking clue what's going on. uhhh. tommy i know has a vods channel that uploads consistently. if you want current dsmp i can recommend watching foolish's streams.

i hope this helps? or doesn't help. this is a RAMBLE of a primer.

[hamphobicbasil]

different anon, as someone who technically is still a dsmp fan (although at this point i consider myself more a fan of some specific streamers who happen to be on the smp, and haven't watched a dsmp storyline stream since january), everything you said makes complete and total sense. i don't fully agree with every point made, but i agree with most of them, and honestly that -- combined with. y'know. actual person dream being revealed to be... Like That -- are probably main reasons behind my growing disinterest in the server itself. i still really like some of the creators, but. the story's degradation combined with some of the creators i don't like getting steadily worse... i really don't care about the server anymore.

but as someone who has kept up with the more current stuff, i can just say that. basically everyone is cheating off of wilbur's storyline homework in some way or another. quackity's current thing with las nevadas is being regarded as him "drawing parallels" between him and wilbur's character arc, and with wilbur being revived it's being seen as him being a character foil -- i do not think these people know what a narrative foil is, because it's not just a carbon copy -- but in all honesty he's just doing pogtopia wilbur v2. the egg arc has been "resolved" technically, but it less got resolved and more just petered out and died pathetically after a genuinely really good stream (red banquet) where they set up interesting things. it's just. done now.

techno seems to be incapable of allowing his character to develop whatsoever. he never lets his character suffer, never lets him hurt, and even outside of the monotone acting his character never loses anything. he's invincible and that doesn't seem set to change. even now, when he got tricked into being trapped in the prison, he made it clear that his character isn't even remotely bothered by this. does he have a plan to escape? maybe, although if he does it's gonna read as a shoddy deus ex machina because he didn't set anything up aside from "press this button and i teleport out." did he know he was being trapped? it's not clear, he might've known or he might've been just incredibly stupid. it's boring. he's less a character and more a brick wall with a rocket launcher.

and i feel bad for tommy The Person, because he's clearly gotten stuck in a bit of a content mentality. he got a big reaction from his character suffering in pogtopia, so he did the exile arc. the exile arc got a big reaction, so he did more similar things. it feels like he's gotten stuck in the mindset of "the fans like angst, so i need to continue to just endlessly torment my character with no purpose or goal." his "death" had even LESS permanence than wilbur's, because he got full on revived two days later just so his character could be traumatized some more.

the server is somehow simultaneously too ironclad in its story (not leaving room for others to jump in with ideas like a rp should, such as eret wanting to return in the pogtopia arc, or the egg plot being just ignored) and way too open ended (no clear rules or laws, lack of communication between people -- the "villain" team on the january doomsday showed up a whole 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time without telling anyone, seemingly because "war isn't fair." those streams are an absolute disaster.) it's a little disappointing because some of the people involved are clearly talented; wilbur is a decent writer, although clearly more suited to a dungeons and dragons DM type of medium, many of the streamers are pretty good actors and not horrible writers / could be better with practice, and some of the newcomers, like ranboo, clearly have experience with roleplay character-driven storytelling and are very good when they're actually given the chance to do things. the whole thing is really disappointing, all in all.

sorry for rambling so much. tl;dr, you're absolutely right, it's disappointing as hell.

sORRY for not replying to this sooner- i read it earlier and completely forgot to respond

added a read more just in case this was a bit too long!

BUT UR ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON ALL OF THIS- and speaking of "drawing parallels" with characters, i feel like its become a MAJOR crutch for the writers lately. its not only in universe with c!tubbo being compared to c!schlatt or c!quackity being compared to c!wilbur, it extends to myths too. i find the whole c!tommy = Theseus thing and whenever techno starts writing to be sorta a "get out of jail free card" yknow? they don't actually have to write their own plots or characters, just mimic that from myths and legends and i dont think it gels well with wilbur's somewhat original plot [i understand it was just minecraft hamilton, but it had some charming stuff in there yknow?]

and god yes you put my problems with c!techno into words beyond his voice acting, i don't want to imply that he's written his character to be invincible [or the olden term, a "gary sue"] but god it certainly comes off that way. i get so confused when i see people say "oh c!techno has been hurt over and over again!! why are things so terrible for him?" when he got "betrayed" once and that's it, its just so stupid and i cant understand the love for his character

and speaking of tommy, i totally agree. i dont mean to speculate on the kid's mental health since that's mega weirdchamp but combined with the constant angst his character is in plus his recent bad run ins with twitter, i hope he's doing okay. and on a side note, i hope his character gets to have the happy ending he deserves because man. Man.

BUT I HAD NO IDEA ABT THE EGG ARC KINDA BEING WRAPPED UP?? thats so disappointing oh my god. i'll read into it more since im curious about how it ended but god the fact that it sounds like it didnt have a bigger ending is just. wow. the annoying green man villain with no real motives and less of a stage presence gets all this hype and a bigger "ending" [yknow, him being sent to jail] than the eldritch creature that was growing throughout the smp?? wack.

i think one of the bigger problems of the dsmp story is just that. wilbur introduced some basic ideas and basic world stuff and instead of expanding on it gradually in a satisfying way, the new writers just went ham and didn't know what made the original so enjoyable, even tho it was, again, minecraft hamilton. i've seen some people claim that the new writers are better at precise intense moments but i heavily disagree with that, but thats probably because a lot of them involve dream yelling for his acting and i cant take that man seriously even in character.

but yeah, youre absolutely right on everything you've said here. they basically went "hey can i copy your homework?" with wilbur and somehow made things worse