What do you think makes a private server "successful"?

Hmm. I think a server is successful when it has been around for at least 1 year and has a sizable population with an actual economy. This means I would say usually around 100 players online on average with a lot of stores and stuff.

The reason I put the 1 year thing is that most servers typically get alot of players joining in the start, and then a lot of them leave the server.

Also, it usually takes time to grow the player base on a server (few servers start immediately with 100+ players) and I think 1 year is a good amount of time to see if the server will be successful or not.

 

That's an interesting question. To help answer that I pose another question: what makes a guild successful?

Do you notice how guilds with very few people tend to struggle to maintain those people? Or how a guild who's leader has been absent just wither away? I think the same principles apply.

 

I can only speak specifically to Legends but I think a private server is successful if it has actual value to the player. Obvious right? But servers like Royals (please don't start a flame war) are too easy. High EXP rates, high meso rates, high drop rates mean there is absolutely no challenge at all. Old school Maple was abhorrently hard, and even OG private servers like Odin MS were easy. I got to level 65 on Odin MS a year before I did on GMS because I could just farm mesos and sell clean WGs for 10x their value. The highest I ever got on GMS before BigBang when I just leeched forever was 67. I had no fun on that leech character because I didn't earn it, I just used my friends Bishop and paid money for 2x cards. I soon quit the character.

I liked OG GMS because when you saw someone high level you knew they had put work in, first getting to level 20, then 30, then 40. If it's too easy nothing is worth anything anymore. It may seem fun at first but after 5 minuets where's the value?

Legends has 2x EXP, 1x meso and drop, and 3x quest EXP. That's perfect imho, mostly because quest EXP was always garbage and I never had any incentive to spend hours travelling for 1,000 EXP quests but also the functionality of content is close to vanilla. There are no added weird NPCs like in Legends, there are no weird hacks of content beyond the Market to FM button which is nice. Small changes with actual value and an EXP etc system close to the original means the experience is authentic and not as blatantly hard but NOT stupidly easy either.

That's what gives value. Meaningless free stuff, paying to win, and easy earnings are not valuable, they are empty and value-less rewards for minimal effort.

 

To be frank, I don't think that you can really pin it down to just one thing that makes any private server successful, however I feel that community is the make or break factor of a server's longevity.

I've been playing private servers since OdinMS as a player and as staffing.

This was actually done because v55 was the original source code/patch early private servers used. The biggest complaint people had was how difficult Pre-BB was in addition to CS having a Pay2Win factor. So the normal going rates for OdinMS was x16 EXP, x8 Meso Drop, x8 Item Drop [early stigma of leeching = bad] and sort of set the standard before the pirate update. The pirate update also brought EXP changes to GMS after outcry on the official forums of Global/Neckson after OdinMS, MVO, and LeafreMS were all gaining traction with "large" communities. v62 was easier so servers balanced to be like 3x,3x,3x for players to actually obtain level cap.

Much of any success is due in part to an active and mingling community. I feel like servers need to accomplish many things in order for an active community to thrive and return every day. Legends gives an incentive for people for PQ together and build friendships with other players who will continue to play together into 3rd and 4th job advancements. Legends also only has 6 channels so it's not like the player base is so spread out across 20 or so channels like in GMS and other servers. It's the first time in 6+ years I've seen a crowd in nearly every FM channel and people just sitting and talking who aren't trying to sell something. When I'm minding my own business, it definitely feels like the server is alive and bustling. It makes me want to keep coming back to make new friends.

I don't personally think there is a list of what a server can really do to make it successful because that list changes depending on who's playing or who the target demographic is. I remember a long time ago that people wanted faster rates instead of something similar to Pre-BB GMS. So rates became x1000 everything and stores were 1 meso stores and you could roll-over jobs and keep skills from previous ones. As long as that server is trying to meet the demands of the community, I think it makes it successful.