Server Owners vs. Players

[chrsschb]

Too many servers? No.

Too many servers doing exactly the same thing with one minor difference? Yes.

I tend to disagree with Drajor on the playerbase. I think it is too small to support the amount of servers we have (actual populated servers) and definitely too small to support the array of servers that try to make it and end up dying due to lack of players.

The issue, and I've mentioned this plenty of times, is server owners are always encouraged to build their vision, stick to their guns, and if the players like it they'll come play. The problem with this is most player's visions revolve around the nostalgia of old EQ, wanting to feel that challenge, social experience, etc but hosts are forced to design their servers around bots, mercs, or solo play in order to even be playable. This ultimately leads to the exact opposite of what the players want.

There's a lot of favoritism between the admins/devs, server hosts, and players, which breeds a bad environment for new ideas. A lot of admins and hosts are not contributing back to the community despite receiving help from others. There's also a lot of brown-nosing for servers that in reality shouldn't exist but because certain people have a vested interest they continue to support those servers despite their toxic nature, terrible leadership, and even consistent unreliability.

I haven't hosted a live server since 2011, and my last private server was shutdown in 2007, so maybe I'm just an old geezer who should move on. Pantheon looks good so far

[DanCanDo]

Originally Posted by chrsschb

but hosts are forced to design their servers around bots, mercs, or solo play in order to even be playable.

Yes, I've read through a lot of posts from server owners and players. I see the
servers starting out with their own plan, but then after discovering the lack of
immediate interest by the players, the admin makes changes, or gives up.

I was reading that older thread from Kingly Krab which asked players to give
opinions on what they are looking for. A few talked about the "old" style of play
and the rest all asked about various custom features desired in a server.
The only problem with the whole thread, is only a very small amount of players
responded to it.

Drajor mentioned custom servers and I tend to think the drifting players that
are not dedicated to any particular server are the ones most looking for some
kind of exciting custom server.
I would imagine it's a lot of time, work and effort, not so much just building a
significant server, but keeping players happy, if thats what a server admin
is willing to do and if there isn't enough time, the players probably get bored
and move on. But I assume (even through this conversation), server owners
can't have their cake and eat it too, compromising their own "visions" to keep
the players happy. It really does end up in a "catch 22" situation for any new
servers starting up.