Opening a server: the week before launch

The hardest part of running a game server is not configuring it. It is opening to an empty world, because an empty server stays empty - people join servers that have people on them.

Almost everything that fixes this happens before the doors open.

Announce before you open, not after

A listing with a launch date does not appear in the toplist and cannot collect votes until it opens. That is deliberate: nobody gets to reserve a ranking before their server exists. What it does get is a page with a countdown and a wait list, so people who want what you are building can be told the moment it is live.

Every address on that list is somebody who chose to be there. On launch day they all get one email. That is the difference between opening with thirty people and opening with none.

Say what your server is, precisely

The single most common mistake on a new listing is describing a server the way its owner feels about it rather than what it is. "Best community, active staff, no pay to win" describes every server ever listed and helps nobody choose.

What actually helps: the rates, the version or chronicle, the ruleset, the wipe cycle if there is one, the group limit, what the shop sells. Facts a player can compare. If your server is genuinely unusual, the facts will show it better than the adjectives will.

Fill in the connection details

A listing with an address gets a live player count and an uptime history, measured by us rather than claimed by you. A listing without one does not. Once your server has been up a fortnight, that history is the most persuasive thing on your page - and it is the one thing a competitor cannot fake.

The first week

Expect the population to be lumpy. People arrive, look at an empty map, and leave. The servers that survive this are the ones where the owner is visibly present in the first week - in Discord, in game, answering things.

That is not a technical problem and no toplist can solve it for you.