[Guide] How to Run a Safe and Fun Server!

[Coach]

In this thread, you will learn how to run your server so that your server will be well populated, popular, and stay that way! With these helpful tips and when permission is granted from the owners, links, you'll be running your server like a pro in no time!

First off, thanks to WoWLegend for his guide on how to keep your private server safe from harm and hackers. Please read WoWLegend's post along with this in order to keep your server safe!

The Risks of hosting a public server, and how you can protect yourself [Guide]

Okay, to start off, you want to make sure your server is ready to accept new members! You'd be best to AVOID Hamachi, but if you need to use Hamachi, I'd recommend opening multiple Servers in it, as you can only have 16 people per Hamachi server. Also, you'll want to get a Server Website up, including Forums and Character creation.Having people E-Mail you / PM you / Message you on Hamachi for an account is a rather poor way to do it, for people are impatient, and you can lose a lot of members this way, and you won't always be around to create the accounts, and a lot can be missed this way. Forums are great for keeping members of your server updated on going-ons, etc. and can help make your server a little better to play on, for having Forums allows interactivity even for those who aren't on WoW at the time. Forums also provide the ability to post links for entertainment / helpful downloads, and etc. (WARNING! : There are people who will post inappropriate content on the forums sometimes, such as porn, advertisements, and heavy cussing, so please be cautious about your forums)

Also, when advertising, be sure to make it VERY CLEAR what your Realmlist is, nobody likes to have to look around for the Realmlist! With your advertising, and conversations, try to type to your best, use good English, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Good typing is more pleasing to the eye than 'lyke come join my server it is teh epix lolz' and can, believe it or not, convince picky players like me that your server may be worth trying out.

Well, that basically covers Out-Of-Game content. Now we head into your magnificent server, and start leveling! Many and most players enjoy high XP rates, but there are players that like a Blizzard-Like server to play on, so think about which group you want to appeal to, and make it clear in all advertisements about what your Experience and Drop rates are. (Hint: It usually helps to have the Gold Drop rate higher than XP rates, because if you level to fast, you wont have money to afford anything you need!)

Transportation! Private servers are fun, but often comes a time where you realize you need to get somewhere, but that involves a long walk, and wouldn't you know it? Your gear is to weak to stand up to those level 5 spiders on the journey, and there's a giant hulking mountain in your way. No fun. So if you're a server that has a strict 'GM's Will Not Port You' policy, you better supply a way to get around, or you will lose a lot of players. Portals are a great instant transportation, and make life easier for everybody. Most servers come with portals to each main city in the main cities, but those are to very limited places, which doesn't help for those far-off, isolated places. So if you're GMs won't port players, you need to get to work yourself. (Written by Errage of MMOwned.com / MM Owned.com for censor - This tag is to prevent people copy/pasting this guide and taking credit) Make a few portals of your own, it will keep everybody happy. If you have the time, a very good idea is to make at least one portal to a safe spot in every zone, and have one main place to put all the portals, and have a portal to that place in every main city. For example, create a portal to an empty area or island (Wall it off if you want to) and have all the portals you created there, Alliance Main-City portals on one side, Horde Main-City portals on the other side, then all the portals you made yourself in between. It does take awhile to do, but it makes your server that much better.

Custom Areas! (Almost) every server has Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, and Outlands. But what about all those empty places you find in Azeroth? They leave a lot of space for you to build your own little area! You can make buildings out of Amadi Crates, Camp Tables, and Darkmoon Faire Fences easily! Add a few NPCs, and you've got a snazzy little spot you can bring players to, or have it as a GM hideout!

Custom Vendors! So, your server has a great XP rate, everybody is at the max level, and has plenty of gold. But where's the vendors? Without custom vendors, you WILL lose a lot of players. Gear vendors, Weapon vendors, Mount vendors, etc. are great to use, and will attract people. Set a place to put your vendors to, you can have them in one Main City per faction, or a different place. I play on Iced Earth WoW, and they had the idea to create 'Malls' where each faction had a set place outside of the main cities where they could buy almost anything they needed (Dancing Troll Village in Darkshore for the Horde, and the Dwarven Farm on Dun Morogh Mountain, on the Wetlands border for Alliance) with portals to them, and that keeps people happy. Be sure to have guards at the vendors though, there's always players that have a good laugh at killing the opposing faction's vendors, or even their own faction.

Very important is your server's GMs! Are your GMs going around killing players, ignoring help requests, and being a nuisance in general? Monitor your GMs every now and then in your console, and I'd recommend turning on the log which records what GM Commands they use, to make sure they are keeping players happy. Your sever WILL lose players if the GMs ignore help requests (Unless it's for a port, and your server doesn't offer GM Ports) and kills the players.

RULES! Every server needs rules, without them, you can and will lose players. Set down some rules, and make sure they are followed! Sure, if you join a server and a GM makes you Max level with the best items, it's great. But after awhile you realize 'Hey... I have everything I could get... What do I do now?' and get bored. It's also no fun when players are breaking rules, hacking, and etc. because there ARE players who like to follow rules, and will get annoyed by rule breakers or lack of rules, seeing as it supplies other players with an advantage.

Custom Items! I strongly encourage you to create your own custom items! Starting gear, low level gear, high level gear, and Max Level gear! The gear for lower levels allows the player to level up faster, and enjoy your server even more, and will attract more players! Level 1 mounts are rather popular to. Custom items in general attract players to your server to see how it feels to have gear with that extra little 'oomph', and a sword on their back that does more damage than their pathetic weapons they had on their old server.

[Performer]

Good Job!

[Kenickiejd]

Thanks for the tips. They were really helpful and assured me I would do fine after making my server.

[Haxx]

Thanks!!! helped alot, now i know how to create a productive server

[athens359]

I think this will be really helpful with my server : )

[Intel]

yeh its true priv servers can be dangerous if hacker sfind out ur ip and stuff

[Intel]

its weird but its vvery useful

[Doffenlord]

hi, i need somone to help me with my server to fix some bugs maby and help me otherwise and make it online without hamachi

[turkeystick]

I don't understand

[nightelf1]

this works

[majornoob]

Clear and to the point much appreciated.

[klirklangklong]

Great, Good, Exelent, Fine, Awesome, Fantastic, Amazing Guide!
+rep for you!

[theriss]

great guide easy to follow +1 rep

[fongoole123]

ive dont this its fun

[Tork3000]

i wanna make a private server and i cant get it to work. are you nice and wanna help me . please add [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] <3