Hello all! Looking for some help with my first server ​​​.

[AeonZero]

Hello everyone want to start out by saying that im excited to see that the Ragnarok Community is still very much alive and how amazing it is too see all that rAthena has done. I have been thinking of all the fond memories I had of RO for many months now and finally decided to look and see if the community was still alive and was very pleased to see that it is.
I played RO for a while both on the official server and some private servers up until 2009 and then took my leave from the game. Since then the game has made changes and added a lot more things and im honestly a bit overwhelmed trying to understand some of the changes but at the same time VERY excited for some of changes, like the new 3rd and 4th classes!
I had the idea in my head that I wanted to make a private server of my own if possible for my closest friends and I to play and so i decided to dig on what i can find on how to accomplish this. I have found a few videos on youtube and even a cool guide somewhere here in the forums on an Open-source server. I have some IT knowledge and following step by step shouldn't be too challenging were I to follow one of these guides but before i pull the trigger on any one guide i thought it best to ask this wonderful community for some tips and some of the burning questions on my mind so that I may be pointed in a proper direction first before jumping. 

Ultimately what i want to accomplish is setting up a private server for some of my closest friends so that we can enjoy the game we all loved many years back but also explore everything new with the game since we all stopped playing. I'd also like to explore making some changes and customizing the server if possible.
About 10 of us stopped playing RO around the same time so we all didn't get to experience the changes that came with the game back in 2010 and beyond. I noticed that the game was completely redone with a "Renewal" system and it seems to be something up for debate on if it made the game better or not. I have also seen something about a pre-renewal system which im going to assume is the system that was before all the changes. 

So I figured in order to accomplish my goal id ask some of these questions:

• Is the renewal system as bad as some make it out to be? If so, is it possible to run an rAthena private server with the pre-renewal system but in the later episodes or most current episode for rAthena?
• Being that I'm only really wanting to run a server for 10 or less people, what would be the best route to take in setting one up? Is there any one guide that someone would recommend above the rest?
• I do not own a standalone server and will more than likely need a VPS, but also unsure what reliable sites are out there for this as well. I reside in the U.S.  and curious if there are some reliable VPS sites someone can recommend.
• After successfully setting up the private sever, how would I go about getting the client to others to join?

 Before making a mountain of a post with all the questions I'd really like to ask, I think these four are a perfect place to start lol. I look forward to any feed back i may receive and just wanted to say that im happy to be here and look forward to future conversations! 

[Chaos92]

1. Its possible to run pre-re mode. There is config to change the mode in src/config/renewal.h. But for most latest episode only exist in renewal.

2. Theres a lot of tutorial for this even in this forum, maybe you can check it out.

3. Maybe OVH ? Anything could run as long as the OS is supported to run rathena.

4. Setup the client  using Chris Translation maybe if in english. https://github.com/llchrisll/ROenglishRE and share to others.