@ Pretty Much Every Server

[Prozac]

Abour nine years ago when making the first version of Sanstrata, what came naturally to my mind was 'let's give the players something to do, small quests for beginners, collecting items, rewards for simple actions (killing npc baddies gave experience points) and then higher level quests and appropriate rewards'

and a strong community formed around that ...

community is but one of three strands that hold a server together, in my opinion, the other two are competition, and QUESTS.

Quests - something for the player to do regardless if any others happen to be around on whatever level they are in, something where action brings a reward, and they discover a story and how they are the main part in that tale

competition - events, sparring, etc but in a balanced fashion so that each player, however far along they are, has a moderatly fair advantage against any other player

community - this happens naturally and is between the players and their ability to interact with each other... sometimes npcs can help here such as trading items, ganis and such

but a world designed around quests and telling a story with a theme of 'collect the orbs of light and defeat this evil emporer to restore peace to the world' as a foundation ... and many people did feel strongly about that server in various ways. it was part of what gave it meaning and was something people cared about