[NaS]

Nice thread, I guess this will help a lot of people.

I think you forgot (or did not get to) one important thing yet - the staff.

You will definitely need a good team to run a successful server, some people that you and your guests can trust.

I've seen several servers loosing a lot of players because of one or more really bad, childish admins. If they ban people for simply being better (or similar unreasonable things, everyone experienced that at least a few times..), those players will not be likely to come back, even when unbanned later on. It's just killing the fun.

If the admin team is friendly and most importantly fair, the players will see them as a part of the community. I think that is not only important to the players, but also to you, so you have a good time on your server yourself.

You don't want to run a server where you cannot have fun playing yourself because everyone hates you (worst case).