Running and Growing a Server

[Talrain]

Greetings,

I just recently opened a server. It's on 3.3.5a and is loaded with custom content at level 80. It's instant 80 and I had a one week closed Beta that gave us a starting core of 6 or 7 players. I'm a week into live launch and my player base has dwindled. I have 1 or 2 players who log in per day and the rest have stopped playing. I'm getting new players, but they don't stick around after seeing how many are on. They usually throw on some gear and jump around the mall and log out. I have some advertising going and am getting 6-8 new accounts created per day, but again, no one sticks around when they see who is on. They don't even check out the custom content.

Thus I am asking for tips and perhaps even a guide on what I need to do to get that small pool of players every server needs to start with. It's a well developed server with lots of unique features, but what does that matter if no one checks it out? I don't know if I should be panicking or patient. Any advice is appreciated especially if it comes from experience.

Thanks

[stoneharry]

I'm having the same problem.

My server has been open properly after a 'beta' since 2 weeks before Christmas. I've got to the stage where I have 1-6 online constantly, with 10+ at peak times. The problem is, that this is often the same active players with very few active players. During January we were getting 5+ online constantly with 15+ player peaks, meaning we've even shrunk a tiny bit. We are not growing any more.

I exploited my minecraft server which is much more popular, to send votes for the WoW server. This let me get to 30th on the xtremetop100 during January and then, as I post this now, we are 12th on WoWStatus. From both websites I have received very few players, perhaps 100 characters maximum (despite having over 2000 hits). When people login and see nobody else online, they often quit immediately or within a few minutes, deadlocking the server in a vicious loop.

I have advertised on as many sites as I could find. Just trying to get the name out there is difficult though, because people who play private servers often do not bother checking advertisements/top sections on websites. I find the best way to get popular is through word of mouth, or discussions on other forums. That is the only way to target the majority of potential players, and I have been failing to do this too.

You could also try purchasing the $150+ advertisements on websites for banners and such, but I am sceptical as to how much this would bring in and whether it is worth it.

edit: I just ran the query:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM accounts WHERE lastlogin = '0000-00-00 00:00:00';

And I have 3724 accounts in my database that have never logged in.

Using similar queries:

1194 accounts that have logged in.
1004 characters.
350 of those characters are level 1.
550 of those characters are less than level 6 (including level 1).
326 of those characters are level 19 (the level cap).

I will endure, in the hope that as the weeks go past, some miracle will happen that will bring much more players in. Running the server is costing me nothing but time, since it only uses less than 1% CPU and 300MB RAM (maximum), and minecraft uses 25% CPU and 20GB RAM (which is what we fund it with, donations from it). My server was in development for almost 2 years before release, and thus it has some pretty unique content that amazes most players. Getting people actually in game is the hard part.

[Talrain]

If you of all of people are having issues with this with all of your knowledge, contacts, and a Minecraft server supporting you, then I am definitely concerned. I have to wonder how some of the more popular servers got that initial push especially when the top servers for the most part have content that is sub par. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there are many successful admins who care to share this information.

[marek]

i had same problem but i just added server links everywere and ofc if you have ordenary server like were you can get all gear from vendors or one kill level 80 or 255
these server are too common ..you need to show something rare to people that they stick to your server

[stoneharry]

If you of all of people are having issues with this with all of your knowledge, contacts, and a Minecraft server supporting you, then I am definitely concerned. I have to wonder how some of the more popular servers got that initial push especially when the top servers for the most part have content that is sub par. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there are many successful admins who care to share this information.

I was told, not sure if there is any truth behind the matter, that MolternWoW became big through purchasing banners and advertisements on loads of forums.

i had same problem but i just added server links everywere and ofc if you have ordenary server like were you can get all gear from vendors or one kill level 80 or 255
these server are too common ..you need to show something rare to people that they stick to your server

I myself have, trying not to boast, have the most advanced and highest quality servers currently within the emulation market. Getting players in game is the hardest part.

[Ramono]

Getting players is indeed the hardest part, I took over a server with about 100 players at peaktime and slowly dying.
It grew to about ~250-300 at peaktime, due to a ****LOAD of fixes, but mostly due to cooperation/immigration with one of the emu biggest servers currently.

The Emu World is harsh, you need to know what your doing. have some luck, and have alot of friends on alot of places.

[stoneharry]

Indeed, I am considering merging with another server to have both realms on the same realmlist and sharing resources, to stimulate growth and exploit the potential votes.

A merge seems to be a feasible option to penetrate the market.

edit: Though that seems infeasible now. I use a heavily edited version of ArcEmu (it is very stable and bug-free before you moan, thank-you-very-much) which would be hard to merge with a mangos/trinity logonserver due to they use this system: http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE-overview.html

[stoneharry]

Bumping this thread to continue the discussion, my server just got reviewed by this service: MrGamemasterReviews's Channel - YouTube

I instantly got a huge new population, it was surprising how quickly I grew. Server was down for several errors due to a unforeseen issue, put it back up, 15 people online in 30 minutes.