This has been a very interesting read*
*I glossed over many of the less constructive posts, thus not letting them mar my interest
I've been a server admin, head admin, and now Retiree admin (still busting my balls for the server) over at
Ragnarok for many years now, While we've always advertised ourselves increasingly as an RP server rather than PVP/PVE there's no escaping the latter elements and reading the original post and some of the following discourse has made me nod my head emphatically in understanding.
I will reveal that we're on the cusp of a reset ourselves, though not due to database bloat or the usual issues but just because we're launching a kick-ass new lore that everyone will love and everyone who has ever played starmade will come and be a happy family and everything will be good and great and... where was I? Right.. Even in our comparatively strict RP environment these problems spoken of presented themselves - Obviously we had some people for whom the RP was entirely secondary to destroying fools (this is a problem that would be unique to RP servers) so we tried to make rules about not camping out and abusing those who just wanted to live in relative peace, and rules about not dropping capital ships on tiny factions and the like.
In the end, it comes down to the people who inhabit your server, any rules we made to try and make things pleasant for the whole were abused by the few into their favor, in the end it was these people who had this "MUST WIN" attitude who were at issue, not our rules.
We've also run into the problem of conflict, we used to have people constantly accusing us of being dull and boring whilst they sat in their proverbial fortified compounds refusing to come out.
Most recently, the problem was one of imbalance, where we had two "Good" Factions with dozens of members each who were closest of allies, if ever any "evil" or otherwise opposing faction appeared the response was overwhelming and immediate. RP that did take place with them was almost exclusively internal, shutting out everyone not in those factions.
For administrative staff it comes down to professionalism. I personally never held issue with staff playing as normal, provided they could differentiate between normal play and their duties. I always advocate a switching between two modes as a member of the community and a member of the administrative team, I even came down on language and general behavior -in the community but mostly within the staff- so they could set the correct example both as staff and as players. I'd like to think the team succeeded in that. I myself stepped down because my job at
Lightweave threatens to demand all my time at any moment and I was not comfortable holding the title of admin when I might not be able to give it the attention it deserved.
In the end it comes down to the players on your server. If you want a great server with a lovely player base (which
Ragnarok has in my opinion) then you've got to set it up so the kinds of people you would wish to play are attracted to your server. If you are lazy in the setup and you have casual or abusive admins, then the players you retain (if any) will be of a quality that reflects that.
In the words of a great man: Keep on being excellent to eachother.
