TL;DR, Trickster thinks whatever he wants, the 63 other people on his server wants too. <--- common admin mentality. Thats what votes are for . Admins have a varied range of reasons to have servers. Some want to have a community for themselves, other admins to create a community for others, others to support a larger community, such as empires itself. Often times there are some slight motivations from each category, but one stands out. Simply put, you get your dictator BOFHs, community benefactor operators, or very involved community members. Shandy and Drummer are examples of the latter, running their servers (although I think two servers is a bit much until we get steamworks) for a pre-existing community that they feel a part of. Napalm is an example of a benefactor operator, participating somewhat in, as well as sponsering a community of different games hosted on the same box for people to participate in together. The good part is that he participates well and understands most of the game, something that can't be said about many benefactor operators, who can sometimes be easily trolled into administrating innocent players.
people continue to host community servers because of the ego boost that their created community provides for them.
Because these server runners selflessly sacrifice their time, money, sweat, and blood to see us players happy; because that is what makes them happy. Right?
Running a popular server makes sense but I don't get people who run empty servers. Srsly, like half or a quarter of all servers are always empty, that I dont get.
For me personally I run servers so players have a place they can play in and have fun at the same time. This refers to any server I run UT2004, CSS and now Empires. For me, I don't like to run my servers as a police state and I try to take in account the gray areas when a rule is broken. The servers I run are for the players, I welcome their suggestions, their opinions, their critiques. I find it gratifying
