New Server Woes

[GRUMPY]

Just a snippet of a quote from another thread for topic reference.

Originally Posted by Dongkey

same old people complaining night and day

I've always had this attitude that "you get what you pay for". Hence, some
players can be very "trying" to one's patience, especially if they are
donating to help with the costs of the server, then their expectations are
going to increase dramatically, because in their eyes (and wallet), they
are not just donating to help keep the server up, they "think" they may be
donating for the quality of the content as well.
Comparable scenario though: One logs on to Daybreaks EQ servers and "donates"
what ? 15 bucks a month to play on them ? and you do get to "complain".
So YES, even on these servers, if it's a gaming server that needs donations
to provide that entertainment, those expecations are going to be there.
Commonly, there is only one difference between a server that needs donations
and one that doesn't. Servers that are being hosted in a data centre will cost
money, which provide better connections and performance for players. Also,
some who don't have a sufficient server of their own, will seek a data host.

But obviously, if there isn't enough "voluntary" donations to keep the server
up, there could be various reasons for it. The lack of donations/players is
not always about crappy content. (as proven recently and in the past).
Adding new content to keep interest up and attracting more players does not
necessarily mean it has attracted more donators either.

Content development ? players need to realize, "some" of these servers do not
have bigtime professional dev teams like some of the online MMO's do. It
could really be a situation where John Doe, pizza delivery guy, come up
with a plan one day and he's still reading and learning when he puts up a
server for public play. His learning capabilities and skills will be the
"tell all", as to how well he does. But none of these EQEmu servers are
implied to be a "business". It's a gaming hobby for the server owners, just
as much as the players. (at least for me anyways) haha

Observation of mine though: One evening, on the weekend, I was looking at the
server list during it's peak hours and happen to briefly notice, out of
100+ active servers on the list, there was only 15 of them with a population
of over 20,(at the time), with the bigger portions of them inhabiting the
legends list and upper half of green list and 2 or 3 on top of the whitelist.
That example is not something that would set precedence for consistancy of the
player base. But when one is considering hosting a server in a data centre,
I wouldn't automatically assume that those players and donations would be
there for you, no matter how good you did with the development of your server
before you launched it.

It's definately a great feeling when you can work on a gaming hobby like this
and share the passion with others, but I'm not one who would tear my wallet
apart on it, let alone think I needed to prove myself (or cater) to anyone.
Game hobby servers (and players) will come and go. Unforgiving and selfish
players may kick you when your down, but in the end, there is no such thing
as failing. It's not about money, greed, or going bankrupt. It's about having
fun and enjoying it while it lasts.
Stress does not equal fun. We all have a button to shut that off. :P