A truly good server should not need more than one GM.

[Scars]

Ok stop there,

GM account can mean a lot of thing.
I am saying you can't do everything your self.
If you say you can get players to help, sure that works.
I just would like to give them little authority, "GM Account"
(It has many level, different level have different commands, I am sure you know that).
So new players would at least know which person to ask when they need help.

P.S Yes some decent players can be more helpful then hired GMs.

[Edward]

I doubt 1 person knows all, and if that 1 person knew all... he'd need to not have a life in order to run a successful server, because when you think about it...

I know how to do everything mentioned so far. I'm choosing not to do it right now because I do have other obligations, and I'd rather wait until I do have the time instead of doing a rushed and half-assed job right now. I'll be launching my server once I scale back my work hours and start school again, probably around December.

Forum Moderating
Forum Support
Updates
Bug Fixes
Website
Patches
In-game Events
In-game Support
In-game Moderating
Answering e-mails
Giving Donations to Donators

That'll take up breakfast, lunch, and dinner along with the person's sleep. It's quite illogical... and if a server didn't have all those, it wouldn't be good at all.

Forum moderating isn't all that difficult while the population is still relatively low. There are always more players on the server than there are posts on the forum. Once it gets much higher, then yes, there probably will need to be someone in charge of moderating posts, but that's not what this topic is about.

Forum support that isn't part of daily moderation is pretty much non-existent. Set it up right the first time, add new features on your own time if necessary, and hope you don't get hacked.

Updates, bug fixes, and patches are all pretty much the same thing. The way I see it, if someone isn't willing to take the time to learn how to script game features correctly, patch them to the server, and instruct the players how to update on their end, then they shouldn't try to be a server admin. Getting ideas or even occasional programming tips from another person isn't unreasonable, but there's no need to reward said person with a position of power. Finally, none of these things are tasks that need to be done on a daily basis. Constant work is good, but if you have other things to do, it's not a big deal.

Anything regarding in-game events, support, and moderation, I've already covered before. Not much work should be needed, and the work that does need to be done can be done on your own time, as long as you give players the correct expectations before they register.

Answering e-mails is the only thing that I can see being a pain to maintain on a daily basis, but the problem is that chances are people will only want an answer from the head GM, or the answer requires something server-side that only the head GM can actually do. It's an unfortunate sacrifice, but if you can't set aside 20-30 min once every day or two for "urgent" support, then you probably should consider applying to be a GM on someone else's server instead of trying to run your own.

Donations can be handled by simply checking either daily or every two days, then adding the appropriate items to a player's inventory. Alternately, you could set up a token system so you give players tokens that can be traded to an NPC for their donation items. Isn't that what most people do now already anyway?

All things considered, this whole list should take maybe 30 min out of an average day, plus any extra time you want to spend on developing new features and custom items/quests/events/etc. That's a notable commitment, but if you can't manage it, why are you hosting a server?

From what I've read in your response, I can already tell you are not ready to open your own server. Your persona won't survive because you're headstrong and players will leave if you're not open minded. When you said... "instruct the players how to update on their end", why don't you make your own patcher?

And you asked why I'm hosting a server? I, alone, made one of the most successful high rate servers in the past. I know what it's like working alone, and I'm an all around guy. SurgeRO, was my successful server with 600+ people... now only 100, because I made mistakes.

Right now, I know what to do, what not to do... and my new server, idealRO will become one of the best. I'd suggest you'd wait and see, cause with a team... I believe my efforts in making a great server will be amplified with the help of my 2 partners.

[Skotlex]

People sure like extrapolating the OPs statement.
He said:
"Small servers don't need an army of GMs, this is ridiculous and often just leads to the collapsing of the server."

The replies are reading:
"You are delirious if you think a single human can handle all the job that a server requires." And then toss examples of forums/emails/server support and whatnot as if you were an offshored staff support member in a 24/7 position.

I think people who are against the OP are simply misunderstanding what he meant :<

I do agree that if you want to be a good server owner, you should know pretty much all of the stuff mentioned up there. And since the server is small, you should be able to handle these things. You should have a small base of players from which you take suggestions, not a swarm of noobs that need constant hand-holding :/

[Firefly]

@Edward- I will admit that I respect your experience here. If you don't mind, I'm curious about your planned server... What rates are you planning to have? Will it be lightly or heavily customized? And most importantly, what part of the work will you be delegating to your partners?

[Edward]

@Edward- I will admit that I respect your experience here. If you don't mind, I'm curious about your planned server... What rates are you planning to have? Will it be lightly or heavily customized? And most importantly, what part of the work will you be delegating to your partners?

Since I'm an all-around person, I've been working on everything. I have only 2 partners, one who I rely on creating the website, and the 2nd to script things in-game. I do both of those and moderate, hold events, and a lot more.

The rates/information/everything for my server is stated on http://www.idealro.com

[~~T~~]

Yada Yada Yada OP Yada

Yeah even Skotlex can't run a server alone  by himself.

Oh wait.

[Pandora]

I can see your points, but I disagree.

I say it really depends on what you wanna do with your server. If you plan to implement lots of custom stuff you will need help or it will take a while. Also, people have lives, jobs/school and such, they may not dedicate all their time to the server.

I got more than 1 gm on my server and I don't feel I could do it alone at all. We break the 50-70 players you mentioned mind you (150+), but even at the start we were a team of 6. I can't keep up with all the ideas we have, we're always working on something new and we got a ton of custom unique quests/systems. If you're working on a uncustomized small server you might pull it off, but what if you need vacation? You're going away for 2 weeks and the server is not taken care of -_-

It's nice to have GMs who can take care of recurrent tasks, it may seem easy to run a server but it's harder than it looks. You always have players who manage to mess up their install and need assistance, or have no sound, crashes for whatever reason... or there's a problem in game with others players, KSers, spammers, people who insult others or misbehave, there's bot cheks to do unless you want a server full of bots, players like varied events to entertain them, etc. etc. etc.

Also, as much as I love eAthena it's far from perfect, there are glitches to fix, broken npc scripts sometimes and wrong information. Also players will want you to keep your servers up to date, guess what? more glitches when you svn update XD

Does the admin need to be a well rounded person who know what they are doing? yes, definately.
Can they do everything themselves? It depends.
Is it bad to delegate? I definately don't think so, in fact I find it necessary ^_^

If you're afraid of corruption you can have moderators (level 20 gm) who can't create nor drop item, nor spawn monster. They can handle player questions, bot checks, player relations (KS, verbal abuse and such) at least, then the 1 admin can handle the rest.

[Anti-Static Foam Cleaner]

We break the 50-70 players you mentioned mind you (150+), but even at the start we were a team of 6. I can't keep up with all the ideas we have, we're always working on something new and we got a ton of custom unique quests/systems.

Maybe you wouldn't have so many ideas if you had less people to think about them.

[Edward]

We break the 50-70 players you mentioned mind you (150+), but even at the start we were a team of 6. I can't keep up with all the ideas we have, we're always working on something new and we got a ton of custom unique quests/systems.

Maybe you wouldn't have so many ideas if you had less people to think about them.

LOL, true that.

[Pandora]

But then the server wouldn't be so unique.

Then again, most of the ideas come from me, I'm a good 'project-starter', but there's not enough hours in a day to do all I want.

[Guest]

i think i can sum up my entire opinion of this with a single quote

"Alone a twig is simply a twig, but together many twigs can create a master piece of art. Each supported perfectly by the other, each kept in line, each kept in balance, each kept perfectly in place."

[Thorin]

We break the 50-70 players you mentioned mind you (150+), but even at the start we were a team of 6. I can't keep up with all the ideas we have, we're always working on something new and we got a ton of custom unique quests/systems.

Maybe you wouldn't have so many ideas if you had less people to think about them.

So you are saying that having lots good ideas and actually having the man-power to develope them to make your server better is a bad thing........ I hate to get into this discussing but damn you aren't making sense.

Example, right now on SocialRO we only have 2 devs and me (I don't include myself in devs because i'm only good with NPC scripting) and we really wish we had more to get all our ideas and work completed faster....so i strongly agree wiht Pandora in that delegating work to a large staff is necessary to get work done in reasonable time.

[bulbasteve]

Hell I think Firefly was being generous. It's basically you don't need ANY GMs but if you you want to do events or enforce rules for than use one at the most. Hell if you need to get on a GM account to deal with an issue you have pretty much admitted that you aren't doing a good job as a developer. And isn't that the point from the server creators end? Isn't game-design/developing the whole reason you set one up or are using something as robust as eA and not just setting up a half-assed WoW server? If there is some problem with KSing why would you want to go through screenshots and ban people instead of inventing a creative system to stop it? Why spawn mobs with a command when you can create a mob invasion system?

As well nothing in the post said anything about not having multiple developers. I don't know why people give out GM accounts willy nilly, just because someone is your best friend, coded some event or set up your website doesn't mean they need to be "rewarded" with a GM account. That is really the issue here, not that you can't have someone code in poring races for you because you got other priorities. Very little actually needs to be done in game, and as much as I love everyones vague philosophical points about "one man not being and army" and "rah-rah teamwork", I'm not actually seeing any actual reasons being given that you need more than one GM at the very most (and even that is pushing it!)

Edit: Oh wait Pandora did get into specifics (figures!). Let's go point by point then:

Technical Support: Chatroom, forums whatever, totally no need for GMs.
KS: That would seem pretty simple, don't reward exp if you aren't the first player to hit the monster and aren't in the same party as well as probably have the mob be disowned when the player isn't on screen or something (Skot did something similar with loot on Mou)
Spammers/Insulting: Just have ignore work on all forms of chat. Hell if you want to get fun with the system since your on a larger server you could have it be that certain users are auto-ignored by default when enough people set ignore (though boy does that sound dangerous).
Bot check: Again could be player controlled, and hell some people are so zealous about bot hunting I'm surprised more servers have not just given those frequent screenshoters the ability to do it themselves. That or you know...actual gameplay solutions to discourage botters (but that gets more out of the kRO mould when you start doing that).
Events: As Firefly said, all that stuff can be done by NPCs or hell just run by the players. Certainly the last thing you want to do is have anyone spawning items and money...that just breeds begging.

[Thorin]

Sounds pretty impersonal and boring if all your events run automatically....players never see GMs ingame to ask questions or to just hang out and talk with. I think the extesively planned out and complex events conducted with an ingame GM are way more fun than some event map spawning mobs every 12 hours lol...no offense.

Also, i know this sounds egotistical but.....to work hard all the time on a server and never getting to go ingame and to see if people like/dislike your new updates takes the joy out of working on the server. I take great pride making my players happy or atleast not bored. Thats a good reason why Devs should have GM accounts.

[Anti-Static Foam Cleaner]

Maybe you wouldn't have so many ideas if you had less people to think about them.

So you are saying that having lots good ideas and actually having the man-power to develope them to make your server better is a bad thing.

No.*
I am saying that all people have ideas. If you have one guy on the team, he will have, let's say, 2 ideas. If you have two, it will be 4 ideas or more, because they will talk to each other and give each other ideas. The number of ideas should rise exponentially with each new member. Not only that, as many people talk about ideas, they tend to make additions to them, making them more complicated. If you have 5 people you have a lot of ideas, and if the only solution is to add more people, it's an endless loop because the more people you add the more ideas you get and you'll always be short on manpower.
Probably.
I just came up with it, I don't have any psychological study to back it up.

* - Actually I'm a big opponent of customs, so you could say yes, but that's not even the point of the discussion.