Start a private server: attract players, have fun, make a profit

Some of you may already own one or more private servers; Some of you may be starting out with your first private server, thinking, “wow, how do I compete with servers that already have 500+ players or more?” In general, you don’t. Here are a couple of practical tips and information to think about.

Lots of mmorpg players
The reason most servers have such a large player base is because they have been around for a couple of years, or their owners have already spent (a lot of) money advertising the server using different methods.

When starting a private server, your main goal should be to entertain your player base, make them feel like they are a part of your community, not a money maker. Many people want to create a private server because they think it will make them money, well; CAN make you money.

Starting a private server is a lot like starting an internet business, I’ll take it upon myself to quote a line from an e-book I’ve read, the line says “Know, Care, Profit”, and these are exactly the steps you need to take to get started. a successful private server.

You will need to KNOW what tools are required to start the private server; tools can be money, hardware, knowledge, connections.

You really need to CARE about your server; this means everything that comes with it: players (community), scripts (custom content settings), server (maintaining a lag-free environment). Of course, this is not all, but these are probably the problems that you will be most busy with.

After gaining all the knowledge it takes to set up the server, as well as showing that you really care about the players and the community by playing games or hosting awesome events, you can BENEFIT by asking for donations in exchange for items. or services.

Knowledge
Knowing also means you know what kind of private server you want to run, this goes hand in hand with taking care of the content and theme your server is started for; If you don’t care about World of Warcraft, DO NOT start a private World of Warcraft server. You might want to be tempted to do this because WoW is so popular, but this also means that there are plenty of other private servers out there trying to make money off of it as well.

Another part of knowing is to dive into the documentation that comes with private servers, setting it up is relatively easy, you can set up a Ragnarok Online private server in 15 minutes and have players coming to it. The main thing your server will need to compete even remotely with others is “content”; yes each game has its own content but why would players come to a server that has 0-10 players instead of one that has 1000+ and has some custom weapons? Exactly; they will not

This means that you will have to think of unique content that players would like to see, you can have someone create the content for you for a price, or do it yourself. Depending on your financial situation this may vary. If you choose to let others create content/scripts, it’s always good to at least know something about it so you can provide valuable feedback.

You can ask on various forums what players really want to see on a private server and work with that, once you’re done you can advertise your server along with announcing that you have this ‘elite’ content they wanted.

Not only is the content important, you will also need to be aware of and keep track of the updates that the emulator provides, so that you can stay up to date on your server and have the latest bug fixes and content.

“Enthusiasm is the first and most critical ingredient in building a successful private server.”

taking care of
As I said before, you will need to worry about all aspects of your private server if you want to benefit from it. This is exactly why you should choose a game that you feel comfortable with; maybe you’ve played the game yourself. You should be excited about it and you should have fun running the full private server.

Look for enthusiasm, not money. Money is always good, but it shouldn’t be your main focus. If you enjoy managing your server, players will enjoy walking and jumping on it, and will genuinely feel like they are part of your community. This results in these players inviting their friends to play with them on your server (word of mouth) and will eventually result in increased traffic on your server.

I will discuss marketing your private server in a future article, we will discuss how you can get initial players to get started and keep them.

“Enthusiasm breeds success and success will bring profit.”

As I said before, you will need to worry about all aspects of your private server if you want to benefit from it. This is exactly why you should choose a game that you feel comfortable with; maybe you’ve played the game yourself. You should be excited about it and you should have fun running the full private server.

Patience is also a concept of taking care of your private server. Of course, you’ll want to have 50 players running on the server for the first week, but unless you’ve gained credibility through another source (friend/marketing/famous), this is unlikely to happen.

Setting up a server is easy, maintaining a server is hard work. When you start, no one knows your server exists, so you obviously won’t have any players. You will have to create awareness of it to attract players.

You need patience:

• As you win your first players
• As you win enough players to benefit enough to cover monthly hosting costs
• For word of mouth to spread among players to come play on YOUR server
• To see how well your publicity and awareness techniques have worked.
• For your reputation to happen to you

“Simply put, you need patience to achieve what you want to achieve.”

profiting
After your server has a large traffic base, you can start asking for donations. You may have already done this when you started your server and received a few bucks in the process. The more players you have, the more profit you will get from donations.

On private servers, donations mostly go hand in hand in exchange for items; the player pays an amount of cash in exchange for an item or credits, which can be used to purchase in-game items. This is probably the most popular method of taking advantage of a private server.

When you receive large amounts of profit, do not start neglecting your server, remember that your income depends on the players, and when they leave; so does your cash flow.

Reinvest your earnings on the server:

• Create an additional ‘kingdom’ or ‘world’
• Redesign the website to make it easier to access
• Provide a 3-way system for players to join (3 steps “register, download, play”).
• Advertise your server on top sites like mmotop100.net
• Use Google AdWords to redirect players to your website

There are countless methods you can use to invest your winnings to win even more players.

“Remember: Players = Profit = Players”

That’s all I have to offer at the moment, I’ll write an article on how you can improve your server awareness, market it and attract new players.

Tell me about your experiences with the private server, what methods do you use to advertise and raise awareness about it, how long did it take for your server to have a large number of players?