I have been a member on this site for a long time, since the beginning in fact. I have read more posts than I can remember asking about what to do to make a "fun server" that people will play on. Well, I am not the most experienced server admin, by far, however I have near 6 years experience with it. So, I am going to share with you all what I do to make a server work and to get players on it.
First off, where should you get your server, or should you run it from home? Well, honestly running a server from home probably won't cut it. plain and simple. I won't tell you where to rent a server from, you can ask me where I rent from, ask other people where they rent from, or find a server you like and find out where it is hosted.
Now, what should you call your server? People don't think about this as much as they should. Naming your server "[clantag] recruiting" or some other name that has what you think is a "1337" clan tag in it is not the best way to go about it. Whatever you clan name is, make the name of the server matches it, for example my clan is named Priesthood and our server is named Vatican City. See how that works? Most successful gaming communities are themed to some extent. Come up with something that goes with your clan name but isn't your clan name, and make sure it hasn't been done 5 million times before. The server name itself, whether you realize it or not, has a lot to do with getting the player's attention.
What admin tool should you use, if any? Well, obviously I am going to say amxmodx is the way to go. Adminmod is lame, and using nothing means you either A have no admins or B every admin has rcon access which will just cause you problems.
So let's say you go with amxmodx. What plugins/mods/etc... should you use? This should be kept to a minimum. Despite what a lot of people may think the majority of players want to play the game they bought. Of course you may want to run superhero mod/warcraft3/etc.. That is ok, but you should not add much more after that. You can look through these forums and find all kinds of cool plugins to use, unfortunately the more you use, the more you are going to work the server. Above all alse, the players don't want to lag. Use the default plugins to your desire, and maybe add a couple more that you absolutely find necessary. Read- maybe 5 or 6 more. If you can't decide betweeen a few, try one at a time. It's not a bad idea to add a new plugin every once in a while to spice things up, but take off the last one you were using that changed gameplay. This will keep things fresh, and not beat the dead horse too much with the old one everyone is sick of anyway.
Who do I give admin to and how many do I need? First of all, unless you want to come home to find 20 irc pms or emails or whatever you use to communicate with your community do not give admin out to someone you don't know and trust, WELL. Admin should not be used as an incentive for a player to come to your server. Admin is just that, admin. While you are still trying to get the server populated you only need 1 admin around at a time. In fact, there is never a need for more than 1 admin on at any given time. Admin should be used to get rid of idiot hackers and total assfucks that are making people leave your server. While trying to build a following of people to play your server, don't kick/ban/anything anyone unless they are making people leave. Sure, they might annoy you, but that is 1 more person playing there, and they might turn out to be your most loyal regular in the long run AND realize they are being douchebags and stop the crap. With the exception of hackers, stupid maps, and lag nothing will run people out of your server faster than a dick admin.
What maps should you run? This is another topic people may disagree with me on, but you will find that some of the busiest servers are dust2 24/7. Now, I think those servers are retarded myself, but that might be a good way to jump start your server traffic. Again, it may annoy you for a while, but you are trying to get players on the server. If that isn't your "cup of tea" then add a couple of other DEFAULT maps that the majority of players like to play, you know, the noob maps. Use dust, dust2, aztec, and maybe, and this is the ONLY custom map I will say, scoutzknivez(make sure you set up your map.cfg to lower the gravity.) Gay nub maps suck, but they are your friend when trying to find new players, and that is what you're trying to do. It is extremely difficult at best to get players on a server with a bunch of custom maps and maps nobody likes. This is where the "noobs" are also your friend. Most people already have a server they like to play and rarely go to other servers. You are looking for the noobs who just bought the game because they are the players who will be too lazy to go find another server. I have players who played their first game of cs 1.3 in my server still playing on my CZ server and have never played anywhere else. Sure, maybe they sucked back in 2000 but how many of you didn't?
So, we went through where to get a server, what admin tool to use, what maps to play, admin ideas. What else is there? Well there is a LOT, but we will stick to the basics. So, what's next? Ahh, where can your new "regs" go to chat with each other out of the game? YOU NEED, at the very least, an irc channel for them to come in and be able to get to know the other guys who have been wrecking their faces. You also NEED a forum. Of course this means you should probably have a website too. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, you can find templates for websites for just about any game you play. Set up a forum, and blam, you have a place for people to chat outside the game too.
How do you get people to come to your irc channel and forums? ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE. I have a plugin made by Justin called the task scheduler. I use this for many things, but the most important for you guys is to have the server spam your website and irc channel. By spam I mean every 5 minutes or so, not every 5 seconds. Make sure you visit the forums often to answer any questions and to "kiss ass" in every retarded post made. Nobody will post in a forum where nobody else responds. Also, make sure you are always in your irc channel for the same reasons.
BE AVAILABLE! I can't stress this enough. Whether you want to admit it or not, you love knowing that if someone is hacking you can go to an irc channel, forum, make a phone call, or whatever to get rid of the hacker fast, for when admins aren't on. It makes you feel special knowing the admin trusts you enough to come in and at least check the person out or maybe you trust this person enough to just ban the guy. Either way, players like to know that there is always an admin around somewhere to be able to be gotten ahold of somehow to take care of situations. Plus, this limits the loss of players due to some asshole taking the fun out of the game.
Keep the server up to date. Make sure you are using the latest everything. If amxmodx comes out with a new update, get it fast. Metamod updates? Same thing. You log on to steam and find out there is an update for the game you have a server for, make sure that fucker is updated as well. Someone is starting to like your server, tries to join it first, and has a different version of the game. Well, they probably go somewhere else for their fix and if they find another server they like before you get yours updated, they are now a reg on someone else's server, like mine for example
With few exceptions, updates make the server better in some way, unless maybe you're running a BF2 server, in which case don't get me started. You need to keep on top of these things.
That's about all I can think of right now, I just want to add a list of hints and suggestions here that didn't seem to fit anywhere else:
1- Make things easy, your server is named server-x? Make sure your website is too. Same goes for your irc channel, teamspeak server, hell even your fucking license plate.
2- Get to know your server because when there is a problem, you need to be able to fix it fast. If you don't know how to compile a plugin for amxmodx, don't know how to add admins, don't know how to wipe your own ass even, you won't have a good server. Only an admin who knows his/her shit will ever have a popluar server.
3- RECRUIT FROM YOUR OWN SERVER ONLY. Someone asks about joining your clan? Tell them they need to play in your server and get to know you. Skill has ZERO to do with a good clan. No matter how good someone is, they might be an asshole and that is a good way to break up a clan fast. Recruit slowly. Only get a few new members a month. Make it obvious that you WILL recruit people from your server, but only after they have put some time in, earned it so to speak. Don't give try-outs in a private server. This means you have people leaving your server, which is totally not the point when trying to populate a server. If they are a good person, someone who will help out your community, have similair thoughts about the game and playing style, and have something to offer, invite them. Players will all see this, and will probably want it too. This means they will play there more often to try to get their spot in the clan. Any good clan that lasts has many players. Which leads me to my next thought,
4- Do not recruit for league play only. Any good clan has many members who do whatever they do. Sure, get yourself a league team, but make sure you also have plenty of members who are going to "pub it up" as well. League players don't pub much, not the good ones, which means they won't be helping out your server traffic much. Pubbers make great server fillers and "billboards" for your clan.
5- Make sure everyone in the clan is trying to get players on your website, in your irc channel, in your server. Your clan members should be pimping out your shit as much as possible. It is as much to their benefit as it is to yours anyway.
6- Under no circumstance should your whole clan leave at one time. Any new server that has 5 or 6 players suddenly disconnect for whatever reason is going to find itself empty. Period. Make sure your clan members know that they should not leave immediately one after the other.
7- Pick something and stick with it. Don't change the name of the clan or the server or whatever constantly. If you change the clan name, well ok. Make sure the server, website, irc all stay the same though. People aren't fond of change, they were playing there for a reason, change it up, and they will probably be gone.
This is basically all I can think off of the top of my head. If anything else comes to mind I will post it later. Anyway, I hope this is useful to at least 1 person. Like I said, I have been running servers for a long time now and know what to do and what NOT to do when trying to populate a server. Also, my clan has been around for about 6 years now. Starting and populating a server is time consuming, frustrating, and generally a pain in the ass. If it were easy, every server out there would be full which is not the case. There are about as many servers as there are players these days, the only way to get a new one going is to stick out, be nice but not gay, and to work at it. You won't have players in your server immediately, but if you follow my guidelines, you will. Trust me, I have populated many servers over the years and this is basically how we do it. Of course, we have the luxury of being around so long that we have players who follow us, but it didn't start like that.
And remember, you are trying to start a server up here. These guidelines seem to work great in my servers even though they are full most of the time, but I am sure I could change things to my liking and still stay full. You just need to deal with the gayness for a while.
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