Would you make your server gold?
 

If, by some miracle, a server actually got finished and was ready to be released to the public... Stefan came to you and offered to put your server on the gold list -- would you?

Now, I'm not exactly sure what that entails, but I know for sure Zone was a player-server until Stefan put it on gold. I don't know what the circumstances are, but I'm sure you can guess for yourself what would happen.

Pros -- Your server most likely gets a lot more popularity for being 'gold'. Perhaps you get a percentage of cash for the people that upgrade to play your server? Gets a lot more support from CJ... perhaps any scripters you need, most likely any graphics artist, level designers. Simply, gold servers tend to get the best help. Hell, GK has a whole MUD system just for GK. If you REALLY need it, Stefan will most likely try to get it.

Cons -- Stefan gets the final say on what happens. It's no longer YOUR server, to be exact. Perhaps you're still manager, but you're no longer owner. People have to pay to play, which may stunt population drastically.

These are my personal pros and cons, but I just thought I'd throw them out there in case people are wondering.

So, would you?

Nope.

Gold servers now seem to be taken over by administration and then abandoned months later.

No.

Getting gold would be pretty much handing over your remaining rights. For this reason, i probably wouldn't go beyond hosted.

Classic is free though. I would have liked that :p

Yes; I think it would still gain enough popularity. Even if I'm handing over control of the server (or in this case, Jave is handing it over), we will always know we created an excellent server that managed to make it gold.

However, our server won't make it gold as it's too close to Zone (I'm not saying it's at all a clone, however, there is too much in common).

No.

If CJ really wanted to make my server gold, then I wouldn't have much of a choice...

Which is basically what happened with Zone.

I was always curious about this too.
I thought Zone was a Classic server in its early stages.

Stefan decided to take control and made it gold? Weird.
Isn't that basically taking 100 USD out of the owner's pockets?

I thought Zone was abandoned. Stefan found it, fixed it up then released it :o

I'd like to get Stefan's own comment on this; is anything like this even possible? What's the cons and pros? Etc.

I'd like too.

And no for gold
I think GK and Zone represents what is the best for each theme, Medieval RPG and Modern.

But still, it becomes boring once you are at a good lvl and got a kingdom+ a house.
Classics are still more fun.

Getting gold obliges you to change your characters no ?
Like you need GK/Zones bodies and heads ? Because others are classic tho.

And no, getting gold probaby gets you lot of players for a week, and then people go back to classic because gold is expensive (well not with that new subscription system anymore, but if you got classic unlimited, its still better :p ) Or else, if players stay on it, it has to be SUPER COOL EXCITING LIKE OMG !

But still...I'd rather become classic :/

I honestly couldn't see a reason to do it. I'm sure the better option is always going to be classic. Unless you made some sort of agreement where you got a % of subscriptions!

I remember Konidias wanting to make one of his worlds Gold (or maybe 2001 too). While it's nice to support Graal and try and get it more money, I'm sure it was more because he felt the average classic player should pay more to play it. Which is fair enough, but it's a big risk if no one wants to upgrade as your playercount will be low which could result in a boring time for those who do play it, resulting in an early death!

Gold servers weren't always desolate :P
Servers like 2k1, and even GK(when it was 2k2) were popular for a long time, and held large playercounts for a while.