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You can also check out the mirrors of this article to see the comments and opinions on:
Reddit: http://www.reddit.co..._a_new_venture/
RMS Forums Post Link: http://forum.ratemys...e-a-new-venture
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Hello,
My name is Pranav. For a long time now, I have been planning to start a RO server dedicated to players from the old-school era. Now,this server will cater to a targeted set of players and will have a unique approach to keeping players engaged.
I want to do this because several things bother me about the current existing servers. They don't have life - They don't last long. Eventually, they start to suck. I see a very simple reason behind it. It's usually run by someone who's just found out what emulators like eAthena or Aegis are and want to make a quick buck or want the "power" of controlling others' characters.
My vision is something else. I am looking at this server from a player's perspective, something that almost every owner fails to do. Making money should NOT the ultimate goal of a server, rather I believe player satisfaction should be the goal.
I just finished school a few months ago and now have a full time job as a programmer. So I can assure you, I have enough technical expertise to handle the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. As far as the ingame experience is concerned; I have been playing Ragnarok Online from 2005 and I have not found a game that I can play for the rest of my life and give up RO completely. Although I will not have the time to grind, level and farm items, I definitely will have time to do something else; like managing a server.
Over the past few months I have saved up some funds to kick-start a server, but it has been a long time since I ran one by myself. And the last one I did manage to run, I was still quite young, without experience, didn't know how to keep players engaged and most importantly of all - didn't have the funds to keep upgrading as we progressed..
I've had plenty of experience running a server starting as an Admin right down to a simple Support GM. I've been on almost every position possible, ever since I found out about eAthena and the very existence of private RO servers. Here's a link to my old abandoned server I was talking about:
Eternia-RO: http://ratemyserver....Ragnarok Online
I've thought about this long and hard and I figured it's time to take this idea from a drawing board concept to practical nuts and bolts. I've been observing all the successful and not so successful servers for the past few months to trace trends and observe their shortcomings and things that set them apart. Trust me, this is not to get or steal players from already accomplished servers, no, not at all. If that was the case, I wouldn't be here out in the open, I would've preferred a guerilla tactics instead.. All my research is purely unorthodox and completely unheard of. Although I would love to, but I can't, share my results, which believe you me, are in multiple spreadsheets, charts and documents. This private research however, would perform as a key in this project. It will help us avoid the mistakes the other projects encountered over time and adapt to an agile development path that would help the community grow indefinitely.
One thing that keeps an organization alive is - Innovation. Plain and simple. There's no rocket science involved, it's just about keeping your player's attention grasped long enough to be successful. The server also requires a strong marketer's perspective to give it the attention it needs from the mass.. Funds are never going to be an issue in this project, donations will be welcome to keep the server improving itself (better ad placements, higher CPM, etc.). The next most important thing to me is **TRANSPARENCY**. If there's money involved, there's always going to be some sort of corruption tagging along with it. I will NOT tolerate any of that in the lifespan of this project. Game-Masters with an urge of competing in power-struggles with their Admins, staff or even players for instance can cause irreversible damage to the server - even to it's shutting down! Believe me, I've experienced a lot of that nonsense as most of you out there must have..
Transparency requires honesty - To ensure this, I plan to keep all the logs of all the commands that can be used by any player/staff and keep it on the server's website open to all. There should not be even a shred of doubt of what's going on. Same goes for the donations - all the transactions taking place from paypal will be visible (Anonymity will obviously kept in terms of sensitive data - emails, transaction ids, etc.) These two things being open to all, will cause no kinds of issues amongst players and/or staff members.
Moving onto the staff; The people involved in running and maintaining the server will be PAID members. They will NOT be volunteers, rather responsible-for-their-own-actions kind of EMPLOYEES. This will create structure, hierarchy and a culture among the people taking part.
I didn't plan to write such a long post when I started, but as things kept coming to me, I kept writing them down. The project has no specific start date YET. The sole reason of that is I need to know if this is a good idea. I myself know that this a good idea, but for a second person, that would just be an opinion. Once I get enough replies and/or comments (+ve) I will put the plan into motion.
The first step would be releasing my survey and getting everyone's opinion. The survey will be CRITICAL in terms of getting vital information about the player's interest, opinions and ideas. Please keep this post flame-free, I know I might sound obnoxious or over-ambitious, but I'm not. I'm just a simple old-school RO player who wants to give something substantial and useful back to the community. I appreciate any concerns and suggestions at this point. Thank you for your time.
Warm Regards,
Pranav
