After all I can tell you that this is very unhealthy and I'm not surprised you didn't get much interest. People usually want to play the server they dream of, but if you want them to focus on their arguments and needs, they are not able to do so. Most people don't know what they really want until you show them your server. Don't expect them to have interest in polls, this does not end well anytime. I believe you should take strong leadership of this development and perhaps gather a small focus group to work with if you want players to influence the creation of your server, like few oldschool players that are experienced enough to speak for the majority. Polls will not work, trust me, I've been there. I also have a lot of experience in software development in general and it's never too good to have too many people making decisions / suggestions.
Thanks for your input!
I believe I understand and largely agree with the main point you're making here.
I think of course that not everyone can lead; not all ideas can go through; even the majority of votes can't determine the outcome completely, because the majority isn't always right or understands the complexities well enough.
But I still would like to and also believe that it's practical to maximize this type of open-ended collaboration as much as possible, which would greatly exceed the current values of any other OT I've seen so far in this regard, as long as there's a market for this open-ended collaborative way of doing things/process (and my question is: is there in this community?).
My hope was also that in the process the people who are the most "confused" or uncertain about what they want or what is possible/practical will perhaps learn on the way, and maybe even appreciate the opportunity to become better at understanding their own needs and what is technically/practically possible over time through this process.
In short: It's not that I have any plans to delegate the decision-making over to the players. That could be interesting too as a science experiment, but I'm quite sure it would turn into anarchy.
The developers (myself in this case) has to make the final decision.
But I was curious and hopeful about the possibility that perhaps the OT community, or at least a large portion of it, would be interested in something like I described above - a server that truly encourages feedback and open-ended collaboration - after all this is an open-source community.
And if there was such an interest I could put my heart into the work and grow more myself as a person, otherwise it's just a matter of earning money, and I have some serious doubts about being able to make enough money off this to make a living where I live (one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in), at least without selling out, and selling out is a sad event that just makes the world crazier imo. until there's hell on earth and we no longer hunt Demons, but rather they hunt us and we're all level 1 forever.
I wouldn't mind about playing with that terms like "giving life" to the old Zanera itself, but i would suggest to really advertise it so maybe and only maybe we could find the real old owners around they would really love to maybe even have their character duplicated but on an old engine, if they still playing their character nowdays i mean.
Exactly, yeah!
This is part of the reason why I have considered moving the server to US/BR though, because the owners would probably mostly be BR.
(It was first suggested to me by a player on this server - you know who you are, thanks for the suggestion
)
Thank you (for sticking with the server).
I'll look into Zanera/Realots development again soon after I've regained my health.
Maybe "neptuno" already tried it and well, its human behaviour to think that even if many people(including yourself) already failed doing a thing to think and suggest its impossible to success on it...or maybe its just that he had some plans on doing the same + or - and they dont wan't competence.
Good points, yeah.
I just don't want him to potentially scare off players with his strong anti-cip-files opinions on this that I don't share, so I'd like him to preach his message somewhere else
But I don't have anything against him and I wish him well or something (don't know him).
I can say, that if you are about to ask players about how the server should be i'll be giving my opinion not regarding my taste but honestly what i think its the best and fair.
Take also in mind not even a 5% of players that play oldschool visit otland nowadays...they probably don't even know about the existence of your work actually
Perhaps, yeah. Either way I appreciate the encouragement my man!