In the last few years there hasn't been any servers that have lasted as long as Arcadia Mir.
What makes a server last so long and how can Devs/Gm's now learn from the past few servers that haven't been standing the test of time?
It's always a put off for me when server after server get released and just burn through content and items in a couple of months, just to end up stale and everyone just moves on to the next one.
GM burn out is probably the biggest one;
*You need to deal with cheaters (and people crying cheat as people false flag this a lot, and I am yet to see a server have a robust anti-cheat system)
*You need to deal with any exploiters, and the repercussions of exploits.
*You need to deal with the constant justification of any small change you've made (I remember having to justify removing 0-1 DC off of an item)
* The constant battle of you favour X player/guild when you change stuff, then when you change different stuff you are favouring another guild.
Ontop of this, the expectations to have open communications 24/7 with your player-base, updates to the server every day, and your players trying to 'contribute' to the server to then recall payments, and having to fight that as well just takes its toll when you generally are working with 1-3 team who are doing this in their 'free' time (as most are working full time ontop of this, have families and other commitments)
It's also a case of there is a lot less commitment to the servers, if you aren't top dog on a server released this month, players just drop out and wait for the next server to contest again (it almost feels servers are closer to PoE league releases at this point)
I also think nostalgia is over-rated for Mir, people say they want the same old, but when they get that, they don't like it, just need new innovation on the servers (I dont even mean coding) I mean different areas, different mobs, hell even just different item names gives a little refreshing feel to the game
Obviously just my opinions on the matter