[Non-Renewal] Ragnarok in 2013, and what we can do to grow the community

[Playtester]

I'll help out on servers that are already running and proved to have a working staff and I'll decide for this myself, so no use trying to recruit me.

That being said I personally prefer close-to-official servers and the server you linked is pretty much the opposite of that.

You are of course free to forward my suggestions / ideas to the server owner, if you think that helps. :-)

[Blaubeere]

Alright, I see. Just wanted to help out a little bit.

[Bomboleriot]

Have almost the same needs as Playtester stated. I'd like to come back to RO, but it seems like the only servers with 500+ non-bots logged on are euRO and TalonRO. One has 3rd classes, the other one has massive custom.
It's so sad to see that private servers have so much difficulty reaching 100+ active players... while it was extremely common 4 years ago.

[Strudel]

It's difficult because players aren't trusting anymore, and if they are they trust in the wrong servers.
I'm not trying to advocate for any server although I will say that I'm putting the best into making my server successful, we've been rewarded with 30~60 players so I'm happy, obviously I'd be happier with more but simply need more player advertising. Players need to set their priorities straight, they can join a +1000 server or join a server with actual potential and not continuously search for servers that are 'just open', 'opening soon' or 'opening today'.
I know it's hard finding actual potential but sometimes you really do have to look passed the names - in my case at least - and sometimes you shouldn't, even if the name is wonderful some crap server could be behind it. E.g. that 5 leafed server that's just been reported for dying/dead/being down.
They also need need to figure out what rates they can adjust to, server owners need to set the rates low/mid to keep the 'fun' in other words keep them playing. Setting card drop rate to 1% or higher is ridiculous.. by the first most every second player, considering the server actually gets a lot will have the cards they need and the mvp cards they want, taken mvp cards are enabled. It won't be much of a challenge anymore and playing won't be as fun anymore, questing headgears won't be fun either since you get to collect the items needed in a jiffy.
RO is all about the balancing of WoE/PVP/PVM, if you don't do that it'll fail, unless you can provide a perfect WoE/PVP atmosphere, which as NeuRO showed, was possible, but only for a short lived period until people got bored. CavaleRO also tried showing how they could compete in the arena and failed, several times at that.
If you want to know if a server will be stable and not successful but stable and up for a longer period of time than the usual run of the mill server then check out of they have more than 1 server.
How long have they been up?
Do they have enough players to sustain themselves?
How is the community?
Is the GM team engaged?
Are there any signs of closure?
Chances are if the server has just opened it's third server and the first two have +100 each at least, and that without venders. That the third one won't close within the near future as it'll firstly likely get users faster than the normal ones, and secondly it'll be supported by the other two.
But that's just me ranting.

[Astraeos]

Private servers have to not only compete with one another but also with official servers. Official servers have certain advantages, and at the end of the day it's THEIR game people want to play. Private servers just offer a certain form of convenience that official servers do not. I think a lot of people forget that and try to add a lot of monotonous content and it drives a wedge between players' desires, and ultimately player's no long have fun on that server and look for another one. I help come up with content for DivinityRO and I always question how the concept I'm coming up with can be improved for not only the current players (both old and new) on the server, but also to others that want to try out our server.

But I think the first thing anyone does when looking for a new server are the rates, before deciding to investigate it deeper and check out the content of the server. My personal preference is for a server with higher-end "mid" rate EXP (50~100x) but a lower drop rate on items or have a highly competitive atmosphere for those same items (like BG, with a lot of badges in exchange for decent gear). A lot of servers do this, but they have to provide something beyond that point to keep their player base.

[Strudel]

I agree with your second paragraph however your first is while potentially true for about 1/10th of the ro community, and dwindling, the rest just don't want to pay, want easier leveling, and an entirely different community that the official servers can offer. There's no BG v2 from eAmod or quests for those other headgears which people love to collect. There's just a wide gap. It's no longer a competition between Official and Private, that's what it used to be back in 2007, nowadays it's between servers themselves, who has the better staff, better advertisement, more users. And it's therefore quite sad to see servers like, avrisRO drag other servers down, because they couldn't handle the pressure, when others can, but those aren't being given the chance.

[Judgement]

What custom content keeps you from joining certain servers and why?  A lot of people seem to dislike certain customs, even though it doesn't affect them much.  There's also those that want some customs but not others.  Then people wonder why there's so many servers.  RO community sure is f*** amazing eh.

Players need to set their priorities straight, they can join a +1000 server or join a server with actual potential...

So how does the +1k server not have potential while the other server does?

but the even bigger reason in our population decline is because even my 5 year old son could create a private server,this meant there were now abundance in servers and many GM's not taking it seriously.

AnimaRO still had around 1k players (from 2k+) during the AnthemRO era, and around 300-500 in the AnimusRO era.  I don't believe this was due to server abundance, but to GM incompetence/inactivity.

[Strudel]

There aren't many anymore with +1'000 but just because they have +1'000 users doesn't mean they're good, players join those servers because they say "hey there's +1'000, must be ok' or '+1'000? At least some competition even if not that good'
There really is an abundance of servers out there. Especially nowadays with a new server opening every third day because every little kid thinks they can do it and want to spend some money. I mean just go into rA or eA and see how many requests they got for help, and while there may not be as many as there were in the past, many are now being served via pm's or irc. Or even this forum's pm system. Many people nowadays don't even know anymore how to correctly make a .grf or diff a client. Something that a year ago would've seemed unthinkable.

[DeePee]

Every server out there started at 0 players. Just saying

[Playtester]

Well with the population it's a bit more complicated though. If you start your server and many people decide to start on it, you will almost instantly have 100-200 players and with this your server has the chance to grow a lot if managed well. However if your server starts and maybe you get 10 friends to play on it, even if you manage it perfectly and have implemented really interesting things, it will be VERY hard to get others to join, because everyone sees the population <50 and then doesn't even bother trying it in the first place.

@Judgement

What custom content keeps you from joining certain servers and why?  A lot of people seem to dislike certain customs, even though it doesn't affect them much.  There's also those that want some customs but not others.  Then people wonder why there's so many servers.  RO community sure is f*** amazing eh.

This is basically my favorite question, I could talk about it for HOURS what customs I dislike, here are some examples:

1) Custom Spawns
Many servers change their spawns, but they don't change their spawns so that all the maps are more balanced, they just make already popular leveling maps even easier to level in (more seals on seal map, more anubis on anubis map, etc.). So in the end popular leveling maps get even more popular and maps never visited will be even less visited or people just will be like "Lol why do you want to level there?". But I personally like versatility. I like to be able to go to a different map every day and be able to find a party for it without people laughing at you.
Even if server owners try to balance the maps, they just don't understand why Gravity make the spawns like they are. Every single spawn has a certain importance, so changing it often hurts the server rather than improving it. For example I saw several server owners removing hunter flies and basically every map literary making it impossible to hunt them, but on official I can hunt them for steel or maybe hunter fly card, whyyyy do they have to ruin that?
In general anything custom feels wrong. I want to play the RO that Gravity intended. I want exactly those monsters on the maps that are on the maps on kRO!
What I however like are weekly map events where one really unpopular map is taken and improved, but after that one week it returns to normal, this is perfectly fine and actually even good.

2) Custom Equipments
This is also heavily bothersome. Custom equips change the whole class balance, they change the max stats you can get. It changes both PVP and PVE in a way that you suddenly play it how it's not supposed to be played. For each dungeon there are certain equipment combinations you need to get on officials to be able to survive. Now with all those custom equips that completely changes. And often the servers are pretty secretish about them, not having good databases to browse and so on.  It makes it literary impossible to even keep an overview on what equipment to aim for. In the end there should NEVER be custom equipments.
One big "plague" are the renewal equips now. They often pop up on pre-renewal server with their renewal stats. For example the Bradium accessoires and the Dragon Manteau had been removed on officials pre-renewal because they were too overpowered. On private servers they are just there...
Custom or renewal equip on pre-renewal server = No-go!

3) Custom Quests / Enemies
Now another thing that's bothersome. First of all, I think RO has an amazing story. It is well hidden, but it's really good. I don't want some server owners to just modify or add their own story to it. What's even worse is that I've seen them putting some kind of minibosses on unpopular maps that are significantly stronger than the other monsters on the map. So when I'm 1st class and just want to explore low level areas out of nostalgia, I run into such a boss and he one hit kills me. Whyyyy? On officials I could have leveled on them, now I have to face a boss that one-hit kills me. =/

4) Overpowered Donation Items
An item that gives AllStats+20 and crazy stuff like that as donation item? Even if you can get it also from voting for the server... no I don't want it. Actually it belongs to 2) but I want to emphasize it again because all the high populated servers have such items in their item shop.
C'mon if you REALLY insist on making your server P2W then at least put the OFFICIAL cash shop headgears there. I could live with that because those headgears are also used on officials and some are even intended to balance certain classes a bit more.
Either that or just don't put anything stat-altering there. Non-statted headgears and the possibility to merge them with stats from another headgear you own, that's perfect. Also exp / drop rate raising manuals, no problem, add them. They don't change the gameplay, just the speed.

5) Resetter
I don't mind a resetter, but a resetter that can be used multiple times and is fairly cheap is pretty game breaking. A resetter should be there so players can fix mistakes in their build, it should not be there to keep switching between completely different builds every WoE. I want each character to be unique. You should be able to be proud on your build. Plus learning builds of your enemies is part of the skill in WoE. Why ruin that? It's a challenge.

6) Free Healer / Warper / etc.
Making everything free WILL cause inflation on your server. Trust me. Add healer and warpers for convenience, but don't make them free.

7) Job Changer
I really would prefer if people did the job quests. I can understand that they are boring eventually, but completely replacing them with a job changer is sad. Every time I see a player who never played official servers and who has never seen the job quests ever, it makes me sad.

8.) Autoloot
Three problems I see with autoloot:
a) It gives an unfair advantage to ranged classes (those are already good enough for PVE).
b) Greed becomes useless. You can bet that having a blacksmith with greed in your party on officials is quite an advantage. Autoloot completely removes this. Less partying with blacksmiths.
c) Looting monsters becomes pointless. Actually I really like looting monsters, they are fun and if you kill them you might get something unexpected (Fabre card from Poring). This is also ruined by autoloot.

I think this is enough for now.

Also I know that there are some customs that are really helpful and don't ruin the official experience. Autotrade is one good example. Also a way to get unstuck without needing the help of a GM. Also that all the bugs with the item sharing system on officials are fixed on eA is nice. And if the position lag is reduced, that also quite nice. I have nothing against such "customs" as long as the official gameplay experience stays the same.

[Bomboleriot]

Playtester, marry me 
10CHARS btw

[Strudel]

Well with the population it's a bit more complicated though. If you start your server and many people decide to start on it, you will almost instantly have 100-200 players and with this your server has the change to grow a lot if managed well. However if you server starts and maybe you get 10 friends to play on it, even if you manage it perfectly and have implemented really interesting things, it will be VERY hard to get others to join, because everyone sees the population <50 and then doesn't even bother trying it in the first place.

Exactly, and that's a big issue. The servers with actual potential sometimes just get ignored because they don't get above the +50 mark or even if they do they still get little recognition and have a hard time recruiting new players. While those with already more than 75 or 100 have it quite easier, however it doesn't show that their server is any better. And that's quite sad.

[Playtester]

In the end it comes down to that being a good server owner doesn't only depend on your programming skills and that you make the right decisions, but you also need to be able to "fascinate" a large amount of people. Some admins are good at this. You gotta be like a politician. Convince them of your plan.

[DeePee]

While it's hard these days to get a good playerbase, a lot of it is in the hands of the administrators as well, really. If you have a truly good and well-made server and put some effort in showcasing and advertising it, then players will come eventually.

However, I have barely really seen any servers like that. 99% of those small servers have ugly websites, usually standard Flux themes or some default templates. They put an advertisement on RMS, sign up for some topsites and leave it at that. You're not going to tell me that such servers actually have the potential to grow bigger if they do not spend any effort in trying to get it out in the world. If an administrator truly has the skills to make a potentially great server, he/she will also be able to get the word out there.

On top of that, none of them have any patience for what they're trying to achieve either. If you close your server after a couple of months because your player base won't go above 50-100, then you're doing something wrong. While TalonRO may have quite a lot of players nowadays, this certainly wasn't always the case. Back in 2008, we were down to a non-vendor population of twelve at some points of the day. But we've pulled through. We kept improving things and slowly the players started coming. Even on a server like ours that is quite customized due to its past (having split off from AnimaRO) and is far from perfect, players start joining because they want a stable, professionally-ran server that they know they can come back to whenever they want to. I can safely say that we spend 80% of our time on the server on things not even related to ingame features. It's the stuff that you do outside of the game which isn't directly visible that makes a huge difference. You can throw dozens of rA scripts, eAMod stuff and self-made stuff on your server, but if what you do outside of that is not handled well, things aren't going to work out.

And from my point of view, the lack of patience of admins is the biggest problem. People nowadays want results right away. Well sorry buddy, that's not going to happen. If you want an awesome server, you have to spend a lot more time in it.

[Bomboleriot]

Just discovered repeatable exp quests. This thing should be banned. Less motivation to play with a team.