How can I create my own RP server.
#1

So yeah, the title says it all almost I guess.

I've been planning this alot lately, almost three months now. Basically, I want to create my own RP server. I got a script, yeah. But more far, I don't even know. Honestly, I have a light knowledge of PAWN, etc. I have my script and all. What else do I need?

I really hope this doesn't get deleted.
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#2

Since you have a very little knowledge of PAWN you really should not start your server yet and its probably just a ripoff you are having so i would suggest you to practice PAWN scripts as much as you can until you are qualified enough to make your own GM. Why I am saying this is pretty obvious you cant rely on anyone else apart from yourself for scripting (there have been shitload of scams and other stuffs and believe me its not something you'd want to encounter with), No one likes a ripped GM even if you add unique features, You shouldnt expect a large playerbase. So i highly suggest you to reject the idea of starting a server just yet. But then again its your wish if you want to follow this advice or not
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#3

You need the server package as well, which you can download here:
http://www.sa-mp.com/download.php
And then either forward your port, or just use a VPS or host instead.

But why open a new RP server?
There's already many excellent RP servers out there which you can play on, and chances are only very few people (if any) wants to play on your server if it's just a script you downloaded from somewhere.
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#4

In my experience you can not simply 'choose' that you want to have your own roleplaying server because that doesnt get you far. What makes you want to have a roleplaying server and what will be different from other servers? If you're not able to give a proper answer to that question you're starting the server either because you dont want to put any effort in getting started on other servers (earning money, leveling, applying for factions, etc), you lack roleplaying experience and got denied on other servers, or you are simply power hungry.

I have spent a lot of time playing on other roleplaying servers - donated hundreds of euros to some I liked - and put weeks to months of efforts in factions I made. I even started up entire separatist republics that had nearly complete control over certain territories and provided new levels of hardcore roleplaying. However, in the end I always ended up being dissapointed in those servers. Either because the administration team making horrible decisions or not respecting people putting massive amount of effort in the server, the development team not making use of its fantasy in creating new updates or rejecting a massive amount of suggestions that have lots of potential, or simply because I felt the server was unprofessional, not user-friendly, or did not meet my roleplaying standards. I've went on hundreds of roleplaying servers but none matched my requirements. Every server that dissapointed me gave me more strength to work on my own roleplaying server, and so I've started working on my own roleplaying server since several months ago. My ideal roleplaying server is one that has family roleplaying, a written and detailed history of San Andreas with lots of secrets and mystery, the possibility of disasters and warfare, a proper administration team, and simply a maximum level of realism. And that's exactly what I think is going to be unique about my server.

In the end the above story doesnt matter at all in actually creating the server. All you need is scripting experience - but its very unlikely your server would become succesful if its an exact copy of all other roleplaying servers, has no regular updates, has a power hungry administration team, etc.

If you have the proper reasons and really want it I'd tell you to never give up on it. Learn to script by finding someone willing to help you, or simply by using the wiki. An efficient way of learning to script is teaming up with a group of other scripters and work on servers together. If you run into a problem the chance's high another scripter can help you with it. Thats how I learned scripting along with exploring the forum and the wiki.
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#5

Lets you create you own scripts for an roleplay.
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#6

It's a shame you never scripted a line of code, yet you want to have your own server. Perhaps you're only attracted by the financial gain.
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#7

You can make rp server so easy way.
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#8

Quote:
Originally Posted by iNorton
So even if I left I am lurking around the forums, before I left in my sa-mp life I owned a lot of servers and there were roleplay's because I was fan of it either way I want to share my experience with other "noobies" trying to make a good server and here I will tell you how its good to manage your server to make it looks nice and cozy.

Start off - Name, website and hosting
First step is to make a proper name for your server, I will tell you one thing straight of... Get some imagination because without one your just going to make fun of your self, don't make servers called "Real Life Roleplay" or "Super Duper Awesome Roleplay Server!" because... no one is going to join that and thats given. People like me, old timers won't even bother going there, I myself avoid servers like that like a plague.

So after you get a good name your next step would be getting a website for it, NEVER and ever go for free ones like .tk unless you just want to make it look like another shit server if you don't have enough funds to EVEN get .com, .org or .net domain CLOSE this topic because this is not for you...

So if you decide which domain you want .com or any other now its time to get a name for domain, since its for your roleplay server I would advise using shortcuts of it to make the website, its the easiest way for people to remember your website, but after your done with that, it does not mean your finished, no no no now you gotta get a hosting for the website, for that if your low on budget I would simply advise hosting it on free hosting plan.

Server hosting, now this is the most hard decision for people because there is a lot of hosting companies that host sa-mp, most people want to go for the most cheaper places but that is actually bad because it will simply means shitty server and customer support.
You want to go for the ones that are popular and spoken well by people and here are the ones I advise checking out...



Gamemodes
Here is where the foundation of the server is, gamemode... Choosing one is hard indeed but you shouldn't actually choose but make one... This is another stop for people that want to just use GF edits as their main script NEVER do that because your just copying everyone else! and why should you join that server? its just the same as others, indeed what you need is your own script or at least SOMETHING unique that was not before, even if you do not know how to script sa-mp forums has a lot of tutorials to help you learning and so there is a lot of people that will help you out if you have problems!

Now if your so persistent using GF edit or any other gamemode from sa-mp forum download NEVER and EVER delete people's credits from it, not only your breaking the copyrights but as well you lie to every player in your server and when people find out this is not your script... Your going to have a bad day.

Team & Refunds
I will start off with team...



Team is another foundation of the server, without a good team your server is going to die in matter of time... THIS is why you are careful when and who to choose to be a part of the team for you now people make the biggest mistake when it comes to the team and here is the list of those mistakes:
  • Forum applications
  • Donations to become a team member
These three mistakes are lethal to damage your server I will explain in one each of them:

Forum applications - You never do that, you cannot really trust random players who just joined applying for a moderator or administrator position, you don't know that person well nor anything about him, its like letting a complete stranger come in to your house...

These kind of people are power hungry like every other that ask for position in the team, giving power to those people will simply give you problems, power abuse and no skills as one what so ever and so this applies to Donations to become a team member and it gives a bad image about you as well because it shows how money hungry you are just to get money and let the server die out because no one will want to play on unfair servers.

WHAT you do to get a great team is you handpick them, you handpick the most active, trustworthy and skilled people that would make a great team member and this is how a great team is formed, IF they look like they can do the job right TAKE them, put them into the position ask if they want to accept it! It will give those players that message if your good enough you can be in the team as well! It drives people to do so because EVERY one wants to have some sort of power!

Refunds -

- A lot of people seem to forget what refund really means.

This is what kills roleplays, not sure who made it but who ever came up with this idea just wanted to watch roleplay burn.
Refunds is a simply term where you give stats to people from other servers for example Player 1 joined and asks for refund and shows you picture of his stats from another server with 10 billion dollars and level 100 now you see EVERY roleplay server is like new life, they have no right to gain what they had in another server in each server you start from nothing because each one of them have different story and time even if that player leaves and says this server is shit that is good because he would of leave in two days or so and mean while abuse his given stats where poor newbies who just joined have nothing driving a bike and his driving a infernus or something else THAT just gives that "sad" feeling to the newbie, makes him leave because for some reason he has epic car and level 100 but he just joined and he has nothing.

Refund should be avoided like a plague, it kills and will kill your server, never do it or implement it, indeed its easiest way to get players but its as well easiest way to kill your server fast.

People like myself avoid servers like that, everytime I see "Refunding" in the server name I close whatever and wherever I found it. If you do plan on starting a server that "Refunds" ... Please learn the proper definition of "Refund"

Factions and its leaders
Faction is the part where the roleplay starts, Its stereotypical in ever server that you as the owner your going to be a police officer, chief of it but it kinda lets down people that want to be one, as a owner you should make a free space for people however you should not give out factions like hot bread this is like team members, you handpick them but from applications, IF their roleplay matches the faction and they are very dedicated to it they should get that position! however people that say "If you will give me that faction I will bring a lot of players" well in reality he won't, he might tho but one person and later on in future their roleplay in the faction will be utterly shit and all you will get is report on them.

Faction leaders should be also active on forums to make threads on its category specially for the public services ones, its application and other topics should be unique and not copied because it gives bad image to the server because that person stole the informations from another one this is why you should let every faction leader know they have to make their own ones and if it comes true that they stole it they got a warning and if they get around 3 warnings they are kicked from the position.

Unofficial factions are the part of roleplay where players want to form their own faction, your script should at least have support for that because people want their OWN faction! now to give it a big roleplayish touch they should not get ANY support from administration in creation of the faction and that is money each faction should earn its money for a HQ and cars! because in real life, they don't get that from God do they? nope they earn hard to get stuff, guns and so on! You should as well make a warning system for each unofficial faction, if they got reported for non roleplay and its valid they should get a warning, max 3 or more warnings and they faction gets disbanded because it simply shows that their faction is utterly crap and so is their roleplay and you have less to worry about.

Team Positions & Co-Owner
Just because your team members (( administrators )) are working in the server to bring peace that does not mean they shouldn't get positions!

What I mean is that a trustworthy and good admin should get some sort of position in forums for example one admin takes care of Player Reports and Bug Reports, another one takes care of Suggestions and Admin Reports and the next one Faction's, so that gives plenty work to each admin you have and then it means you do not have to do everything but as well gives that reality vibe to admins to show them how hard it is to be a administrator because being one IS not a shiny badge and power! If you think so you should never be one...

Co-Onwer - Now this person is the second in charge however this person if you did not start with someone already should be also handpicked but from the Admin Team, one of the greatest admin's in your team, dedicated, helpful, mature and skilful because that kind of people are the best co-owners!
Now don't get stingy, let the co-owner do some server business as well, let him help you out give him some sort of position as well! Let him administrate some team members and so!

Donations
After all you don't sleep on money or perhaps?
Either way if your players love your server and want it to live on for long time they will want to spend some bucks to help out but you gotta give something in back right? well indeed however your gift should never have money, cars and houses because that KILLS the server's economy and makes people jealous.

Your thank gift should simply have stuff like that:
  • Phone number change
  • Name Change
  • Donator color on forums
  • Donator chat
  • Possibility to turn off/on his/her PM
  • Allow them to participate for one day in beta testing in new script?
And loads more there is, as I wrote before USE your imagination!
Pricing of the donations and the thank gift should never go high, dont make 10 dollars for name change because NO one will donate that!
And one big warning... Never use that money for real life purposes just to please you, if players find out you will be playing by your self or with bots.

VOIP's
Every good server need a VOIP server, either its ventrilo or teamspeak, why?
To make people talk to each other, let them know each other, have fun don't know sing or something because it gives that "morale" to everyone!
And good roleplay experience for Law Enforcement Factions!

Ventrilo or Teamspeak?
I personally prefer Teamspeak 3 because of it looks and other system stuff however its up to you below here I will give few lists of hosting websites for a decent price and past experience where you can buy a good host.



Website Hosting
If you want a great experience and great support for your website and make sure it does not die in random time its always good to purchase a website hosting plan, they do not cost a lot and if they do that means they are good as for VOIP's I will give you links of good hosters and the ones I had past experience with!



However if you want a good trustworthy free hosting check below:



Hosted Tab
Once back in time there was no Hosted Tab now its a place where people show off their server's.
Buying a hosted tab is a great opportunity to get more players into the server because it shows you "care" and want to spend loads of money for the server which makes you dedicated I would recommend buying hosted tab however be advised that THEY do cost a lot! here is a list of hosted tab providers!



Additional - Forums and its CMS
Forums is like a presentation in a car showroom, you want your one to look the best and make people interested! the way the forum looks shows how much effort you put into the server and every server needs a forum however there are a lot of forum CMS to choose from, now you might ask what does CMS stand for? it stands for
its like OS e.g. Windows, Linux and so on but for a website.

Now the most popular CMS are SMF, PHPBB2, PHPBB3, MyBB, IPB and vBullentin however IPB and vBullentin are not free CMS like SMF, PHPBB2 & 3 and MyBB, IPB costs $175 and vBullentin costs $195 and if you would think of buying one of them I would advise IPB not only because it costs less but as well in my opinion its better then vB.

Now how do the free one works? If you want a touch of IPB and vB you should check out MyBB however there aint a lot of themes for that CMS and might be confusing for first time users. SMF is the most popular and possible best free CMS there could be in my opinion, it has a great friendly system, loads of unique themes and loads more.

PHPBB2 and 3 are the second most used CMS in sa-mp however I did not use them for long time as they do not looks very nice even with a theme and I always preferred SMF however PHPBB2 is easy to use and very very friendly but PHPBB3 can be tricky to use for first time users specially when making categories and user groups in my opinion I would recommend using SMF or MyBB however to get good themes for both them you might need to pay some money for theme to the professionals which I will add links below.

New addition to CMS there is Xenforo. I personally didn't have a chance to use it by myself however I was part of community that uses Xenforo. It is a paid CMS like vB and IPB however if I would of personally choose from those three it surely would of be Xenforo. Reason? Rather simple, it is sleek and easy to use and has grown into popularity very fast. It has tons of themes for you to buy that look very professional. Xenforo tends to be very user friendly too so you shouldn't have much of problem with using it.

Links for the CMS:


Good websites to get themes:


Advertisement's
Advertisement's is where you let everyone know about your server, now having a successful advert will need your dedication to it, now to make a good advert you need to make sure its neat, has proper information and NEVER lie in it because if people will go the the server they inspect and find out that you lied all you will see "Player disconnected" to make a good advert you have to write "Why" should the viewers join your server "Where" where its located what its story "When" if its still in development "Who" is the owner who is part of the team and lastly some screenshots or videos to show the players how it looks and always act professional or at least try, here is a layout of how a good advert should look:

Just few tips when doing the advert:


Hope it helped.
Remember.
To create something that will attracts players liking you have to create something you like yourself because if you will run something you dislike you will never go far. You are suppose to have fun too. But never go too far with it. Good luck.
Credits: iNorton
Original thread: http://forum.sa-mp.com/showthread.ph...53#post2095453

I know, that only the link would be enough, but the text looks kinda fancy, so.
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#9

As other people said. Some basics skills you will need to start a sucessful server are:

- Good scripting knowledge (if you are going to development the gamemode).
- Other few trusted members that can help you (Not an easy task... don't choose any random guy. Doing all the job by yourself it's almost impossible and stressing, depending of your 'real life' situation, speed, etc).

Once you meet those requirements thinks in the next points:
- Not because your server it's UNIQUE and it's GOOD developed (scripting) it means you will automaticlly obtain new players.

- Advertising abilities are also needed.
- Managing skills.
- Money (by your own) it's just something you MUST have.
- A 0.001% of luck.
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#10

Since you don't have ANY experience with Pawn, I suggest firstly you hire a scripter. After you get the scripter, search for a reliable host, then after you buy the host, you can upload the script that your scripter updated, and bam! There's your RP server.
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#11

You're not really going to get far opening up a RP server even if you have a list of everything needed especially a English RP server nowadays. If you're looking to create a successful RP server don't even bother that's my personal input. You can have all the friends in the world coming to join, you could start it up and be extremely strict you could do exactly what I did to gain PR-RP successful and popular back in 2009 and you still wouldn't get to our level.

Do you want to know why you can't nowadays? Because most people who are committed are already loyal to a community and not to many fluent in English are actually joining SA-MP nowadays. So first you need to find people fluent in the English language than you need to attract them when there is hundreds of other servers doing the exact same thing. So unless your name is well known, unless people are already committed to your community YOU'RE going to have a VERY HARD TIME actually gaining any actual loyal players.

People might not like what I am saying and might even say I don't know what I am talking about but SA-MP isn't growing far as the English population side of it goes, so most people as stated are already settled in at a community and most people who leave are leaving because they either want something given to them or they can't stand to follow the rules and those people first go through hundreds of other possible servers until they actually find yours, so what makes you think they are going to want to stick around when hundreds of others have good scripters, a good reliable host, a mature staff team and more to offer but they can't even become successful either.

Creating a RP server on SA-MP nowadays and expecting it to go anywhere is like winning the lottery, just don't do it you're wasting your time and effort into something that you are better off just creating something more different or join the other hundreds of servers already up and if you are creating a RP server because you want to be the owner than you're just a power hungry person who won't get anywhere with that kinda attitude anyways which is a mindset for a lot of people who create RP servers. Being the owner isn't fun, creating a RP server is like creating a business nowadays and a lot of people just aren't cut out to be doing it.
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#12

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake187
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you still wouldn't get to our level.






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#13

Quote:
Originally Posted by woot
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shut up noob imrp its more cancer j


(sarcasm)
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#14

Quote:
Originally Posted by woot
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He's asking for help about creating a server, if you want to advertise your server, go here instead.
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#15

Quote:
Originally Posted by woot
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Best comment of the year ladies and gent's.
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#16

Quote:
Originally Posted by woot
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You do realize PR-RP is the one of the most popular English strict-rp servers right?
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#17

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake187
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You do realize PR-RP is the one of the most popular English strict-rp servers right?
Listen, mah bamboo is also very interesting ...


Facts are facts, 10 players is the level, my servah is also very popular among the ponys.
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#18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake187
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You do realize PR-RP is the one of the most popular English strict-rp servers right?
...And I'm one of the most successful male athletes in the world
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#19

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake187
View Post
You're not really going to get far opening up a RP server even if you have a list of everything needed especially a English RP server nowadays. If you're looking to create a successful RP server don't even bother that's my personal input. You can have all the friends in the world coming to join, you could start it up and be extremely strict you could do exactly what I did to gain PR-RP successful and popular back in 2009 and you still wouldn't get to our level.

Do you want to know why you can't nowadays? Because most people who are committed are already loyal to a community and not to many fluent in English are actually joining SA-MP nowadays. So first you need to find people fluent in the English language than you need to attract them when there is hundreds of other servers doing the exact same thing. So unless your name is well known, unless people are already committed to your community YOU'RE going to have a VERY HARD TIME actually gaining any actual loyal players.

People might not like what I am saying and might even say I don't know what I am talking about but SA-MP isn't growing far as the English population side of it goes, so most people as stated are already settled in at a community and most people who leave are leaving because they either want something given to them or they can't stand to follow the rules and those people first go through hundreds of other possible servers until they actually find yours, so what makes you think they are going to want to stick around when hundreds of others have good scripters, a good reliable host, a mature staff team and more to offer but they can't even become successful either.

Creating a RP server on SA-MP nowadays and expecting it to go anywhere is like winning the lottery, just don't do it you're wasting your time and effort into something that you are better off just creating something more different or join the other hundreds of servers already up and if you are creating a RP server because you want to be the owner than you're just a power hungry person who won't get anywhere with that kinda attitude anyways which is a mindset for a lot of people who create RP servers. Being the owner isn't fun, creating a RP server is like creating a business nowadays and a lot of people just aren't cut out to be doing it.
You're a bit arrogant, aren't you.
Also, mind using full stops once in a while? Makes posts a little easier to read.
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#20

Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgon
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...And I'm one of the most successful male athletes in the world
That's very interesting, do tell me more.
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