Thing that sucks though Pandora is RRO has been around since early 2005 and never has got past 200 players, so it actually has more bad players then good, which sucks horribly. In fact about 70% of the server is filipinos; now im not one to trash a race but im sure most if not all server owners have dealt with their annoyance.
Filipinos are the 2nd worst. 1st place is the BR's... Filipinos are not only rude, annoying, disrespectful, and dumb... but they never follow the rules, steal credit card #'s from call centers to donate, always complain about the smallest things, feel the need to ask a question several times even though you answered them, and spam you in-game/forums/msn. Plus they scare American players off a server cause they're just so obnoxious with their presence.
I dunno, I might return as the main GM if the current replacement I hired can fix the issues with the current users. Hopefully that will be the case. Because I love running that server x.x I don't wanna stop running it forever. There is no way I'll let almost 5 years of work go to waste.
Has anyone else heard about a situation like this? Or am I the first? XD
I am the owner of Surge, and I've given my server to another person before because of the same exact situation you are currently in. I can tell you that from my experience that you are making a major mistake. Cause soon after when you come back, you'll notice imperfections and things you wish you did in the past to make it better, and then realize that you'd want to wipe.
My current tip to you is to make your service towards the people you wish to please. If you got a server filled with pinoys... and you wish to gain more of other players, give extra care to those other players... and I don't mean; be biased, give freebies, etc. I mean... just help them out by teaching them the ropes more and forming a player-staff relationship which is friendly.
Also... here's another tip; ideas are great, however, not all of them fly with the server. Let's take your random WoE system for example and analyze this idea...
1) No other server has this, GREAT~!
2) It's your own script, and you know how it works and it's to your likings... awesome~!
3) No one is use to this system, and everyone plays the WoE and WoE 2.0 normal system with a consistent schedule so their guilds can plan, defend, and build up treasury points for their castle... HMM?
4) Probably the general population will now complain about how the announcement announces different castles and they're never able to keep a castle!
5) Dis-like towards the GM or Staff forms because of this forced change.
So... what you SHOULD do is become friends with actual players of the server... 1 or 2 is FINE. Make sure they're reasonable and competent individuals and are ACTIVE... Then you share ideas with them and since they are PLAYERS, you can see if they like it or not. It's better then... "Hmm... pins for a bank account will make the account safe~! Let's add it.", then 2 weeks later you get people crying and complaining about how pins take up time and they forget their pins. Then you think... "Yeah, maybe add a pin recovery.", then people cry about complain again about how the system's so confusing.
Just KISS, keep it simple s. And you've been doing this for 4? 5? years... so it hasn't worked out, so what have you done about it? Endure???
Observe, change, and adapt.