I know you and NA1 had a great run (and it definitely was pretty dead longer than 2 years ago) but the 63e's siege server was constantly at 180+ players for the first year that I was in the 63e which was 2014-2015. It was continuously populated for a long ass time after that also. I was also using this as an example to show Moraine that what he's been saying is not true.
But as for you saying it would die off after a sale, EVERY server would drop off in population. Also, after our events it was required for us to populate the siege server and there was players that didn't want to be there and they'd sit in spec until we were allowed to leave which was around 15 minutes. A lot of players would stay. We didn't start doing that until the game was starting to really show signs of dying too, so maybe like later in the summer of 2016 or early 2017. Fuck yeah we got a lot of recruits doing it too.
63e moved to another dying/dead game in Holdfast after that anyways.
For the sake of not wanting to deal with any further debate about dead servers, yeah maybe the 63e siege server wasn't the largest or most successful server for years. It definitely was one of the most successful servers in the entire game though.
NA1 died off in 2017. The final nail in the coffin i would say was Jan of 18. It still got the rare play time since then. Even had a mini reboot for a few days a month or 2 ago.(some old vets got on, like Deo)
i do wish i was more aggressive with improving NA1 after i became senior admin. took me about 2 months to make mini games along with other admins.(partizani events ftw) Took me about 10 months before i started map making for it. Took me a few years(maybe 2. it was so long ago) before i started to learn scripting. people enjoyed my maps for the most part. People for the most part like my scripts. they included reviving, god mode, admin privileges, writing when someone TW or TW/killed a friendly horse, and friendly fire being off at rounds start and end.(plus other minor bug fixes) The latter probably removed most of our admining. Alt tab tks were practically extinct. Accidental TWs in spawn were gone. many of those scripts were eventually found on other servers. Getty's events being the main one. Of course later they were added into the patches. All of these are going to be in BCoF if i haven't already coded them in. I am not sure if NA1s life span would of been longer or shorter with the above stuff done sooner. Trouble makers would of been removed sooner, people teamkilled would of been revived.(horses healed) There were probably a lot of people who were constantly teamkilling/teamwounding that got away with it. There were some who didn't like the increase of admin knowledge into what was going on.(Like the writing of someone teamwounding)
Eh, i was going to make a response to the other stuff, but it's not important. I do agree you got a lot of recruits from it. I remember the new recruit lines you all had that were large. The 29th use to have some similar sized lines. I felt bad mowing them down on horseback or melee. Was a nice way to get a high kill count.
It is a shame about holdfast. I was hoping they would do well. Maybe they can turn it around before its too late.