cerebralcow Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 At the beginning of the year I started a community with a dedicated server and a discord server. I've always used the discord server as the main communication service. After a couple months I made a steam group but told everyone we wouldn't use it for communication much. I've posted info on there and thats about it. people have joined it so I make announcements on there occasionally on the weekend when the 3 main members (including me) get on the server to play. Besides us 3 there are only about half a dozen people who get on the server repeatedly. I have tried a few different things to make the server more appealing to the average player. Like getting rid of the extra equip slot mod after a few months. But the number of people playing on the server doesn't seem to grow very much. Our main world is up on Saturdays from 10AM till 10PM EST and Sundays from 2PM till 7PM EST. This is when were most active and were usually in voice chat. Our weekday world is public and running survival mode. Our play style (in the weekend world) is based on creating one main base with lots of resources for everyone to share and long games that last hundreds of days. We also likes planning boss fights and events. We like testing out strategies and helping other players learn. We don't restart the world often. We only play with a few mods, none that are too game changing. Both worlds have the same mods enabled. To people who have been leading a growing DST community for a while: what have you done that works the best for getting people to join the server consistently? and what are some things not to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyiltiz Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Check out https://www.twitch.tv/clwnbaby, then check out Strictly Unprofessional servers (the Steam groups, the Discord channel). Afaik, this is the most successful and the largest DST community out there. Learn from it, then apply to your case. p.s.: Some crucial tips from SU Public server: a) try to let there be some admins/mods in the server most of the time, so you have griefing under control; b) try to minimize any mod that makes the game easy or breaks balance (inventory, slots mods etc., even more those that adds in new prefabs, a.k.a. items, mobs); c) If you can, stream in Twitch so people know about your server; d) set up a set of rules that you will enforce without exceptions (Strictly Tilted steam groups has those, like ban rules for griefing etc.); e) most important and obvious, play your game and enjoy sticking around with friends! Hope it helps~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justjasper Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 I really enjoyed playing at the weekend, and I plan to be a regular! As for the weekday world, I think something needs to be done to increase the length of the world - I've popped in to play on it a few times, only to come back later the same day and someone has died and let the world reset. Password protected? Or Endless mode, no voting, but a space on the Steam comm to request a reset if the world does end up no longer viable. Some admins who can pop in more regularly to deal with issues. Making the week world more newbie/casual-friendly would be good too. Endless mode + campfire respawn mod, maybe starting items (dropping in at winter with no flint in sight gets old fast), more stringent anti-griefing measures than the weekend world needs. You could even set the weekday world up as a challenge that changes every week (or maybe just one Event Week every month) - endless winter, fast disease, Webbers Only (etc), Caves Only. Lots of scope for fun events that don't have to be balanced or as "serious" as the weekend world. Beyond that, spreading the word! I think the Steam group has to be active and maintained - Discord is definitely the way to go, but a lot of casual players in the week aren't gong to bother (or might just need to work up to it, it can be quite intimidating!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cerebralcow Posted April 28, 2017 Author Share Posted April 28, 2017 Thanks for the advice Jasper, I'm glad you enjoy playing on the server, I enjoyed playing with you too. The main problem we have with doing much with the weekday world is that the server is being hosted on a friend's server, not a rental service or something like that. So only a few select staff members have access to restart the server or change any settings. Also we don't have many members who seem to want to get on during the week. The weekday server used to be set to endless with a password for a few months but after a while no one got on for a whole week so we decided to make it public and survival so it wouldn't get stuck in winter and need restarting every so often. I'd like to do some of the things you suggested but we just aren't a big enough group yet. I've started streaming on the weekends so hopefully that will get people interested in the server. I'm going to try to put the videos on youtube too so people can see how we play on the weekends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fimmatek Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 Hi @cerebralcow, may I join your group? I'd like to work together in a group and on weekends I could play more or less regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cerebralcow Posted May 3, 2017 Author Share Posted May 3, 2017 Ya sure we're open for anyone to join! Here's the invite link https://discord.gg/Ghu6X7z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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