The @ProjectNovaGG backstory for the nobody that asked. Alright long read ahead. 🚀 For those that don't know me, I run a game server for @playrust that's based on Mars. Fully custom map, modded to all hell, the whole shabang. I co-own this server with a partner named WhoisMikeJones, super talented dude. We make a decent duo. May 2020 - The Conception So I have enjoyed making maps/prefabs etc out of the Rust assets and have been doing it by this time for a good 1-2 years. I had the idea of making an underwater map which sparked an idea of me making a natural 'bowl' like map that would house the players then i would increase the water level accordingly. As i began this process and placed a biodome which was provided from a good friend of ours at the time it clicked with me that this was not looking like an ocean bed, but rather the land of a different planet, simply put, Mars. Which began the hustle of work on all sorts of space-inspired monuments and junkpiles, etc. July 2020 - The HYPED Release This was our official launch period and it was extremely hyped by many getting attention by a copious amount of content creators such as @Shadow_frax ,@MikeTheVikee, @BritOnYT and so many more which was amazing to see! We started with a hard population cap of 150 but as the release began and streamers/videos came out the players poured in stacking the server queue to the limit that Rust supported at the time which was 1000 total connections (150 + 850 queued). We were truly ecstatic. Sleepless nights out of excitement, ideas bouncing all over, it was wild. It was truly a chaotic time for many reasons both good/bad. Little did we know we knew nothing about making a successful Rust server at the time... November 2020 - The Fall Off The project peaked excitement and players slowly started to fade away week by week. Blaming everything but ourselves we continued trying to make new maps, prefabs and more internally frustrated as to why it wasn't sticking like we'd hope. This lasted for nearly a year. During this time we'd slow down on development, considering selling our org entirely (shoutout to @RustoriaServers for pushing us otherwise) and overall just losing the spark we once had. Late 2021 - The Climb Towards the end of 2021 was the time we finally realized that what we made simply SUCKED and we needed to re-evaluate. Taking into consider things like the map size, we decided to shrink it down considerably to simplify the player experience. Our mentality was the less we have, the less they have to learn which was a smart move looking back. Additionally we began constructing our monuments to mimic the official Rust monuments for the applicable ones we had at the time which helped with familiarity for players. During this time we slowly started to make changes like this that ultimately helped us form a better start for our Martian server. And slowly but surely players started to join going from 30 to 50 players, then would slowly climb to 75-90 until the next year. 2022 - Starting to Work 2022 was a critical time. We knew @FcpnchStds was pushing more marketing in the game getting more players into it and if we didn't start growing we'd fall far behind. So we continued to absolute hustle. We began increasing the map size as we started to hit our lower population cap numbers from 50/50 to 75/75, then began hitting numbers in the mid 100's that year which was huge! Further considering more improvements as well such as player progression, performance, anticheat, and many more to overall improve and simply the experience as much as humanly possible. This was the year that the organic growth grew the most which meant it got in front of more content creators interest as well which helped take it to the next level getting us in the 200 pop range towards the end of the year! 2023 - It's working This was the first year we really felt we had started approaching more of a dialed in experience. We continued to rebuild monuments, make new ones, add more maps into our rotation of maps since we found that a single map gets boring wipe after wipe and much more. This is why Hapis and other static maps just will ultimately never survive long-term as they need significant changes or a pool of variations to rotate between and this worked very well for us! Hitting insane numbers of 250-350+ pop regularly we really were feeling great and enjoying the fact that our server was a place players regularly spent time out of their day to enjoy which honestly means more than i can explain without sounding 'mushy'. 2024 - Now Alright so our pop was insane and we pushed thousands of micro adjustments and now it's 2024 so what more could we continue to possibly do now? This year in addition of being a continuation of previous years (working on new stuff, micro adjustments, etc) has also really shined a light on the community connection that's needed. Taking more time to form a great team of admins and be active with your players goes a LONG way. You form small relationships, notice regulars more often that tend to stick around considerably longer, and the overall moral just improves honestly. So this year we've taken efforts to focus more on collecting feedback, logging questions that players ask in-game, detecting key phrases that people would use/abuse to evade other chat moderation and much more to learn considerably more about players 'metas' exploits, things they love or hate, and so on. Which sounds monotonous but it goes a long way and you find so many things you likely never noticed or considered. Language aside this year we've pushed more major changes and new things than likely any previous year such as custom vehicles like the flyable UFO, Hoverboards, multiple new large-scale monuments and more and realizing how to structure them in a way that's playable in multiple factors such as pvp, traversability, performance, progression, and much more. Had we push these larger scale new features to the server in previous years our box likely would have exploded or players would have had a shittier time, and so much more. However, seeing how we continue to learn and grow each year helps us see that even where we are NOW will not be where we are in another year or two which means a lot. Ultimately seeing the growth and observing players have chaotic interactions in game with each other and just spending time on something we made, with the help of our other staff, the players, community developers, and so much more, it truly does bring a neat feeling provided such a server where people spend time out of their day enjoying. I couldn't imagine how Facepunch feels having it be at a MUCH larger scale of the entire game. TLDR: We made a super custom and over-hyped Mars server in Rust which quickly died for a long time until we dived in and realized it was shitty and needed to make it more playable. Thousands of micro changes later we finally made it work. To anyone interested in trying something new like hosting a server, starting a business, or nearly anything else, the biggest thing is just to start. Won't know where you'll get if you don't at least start. You will fail, you may run out of money, you may work for free for a while, but if you continue making sure everything you do is better than yesterday then it WILL grow and turn into something cool. Don't hesitate to help others and reach out for help if needed as well as it goes a long way. There's no affiliate link bs or service associated to this post I was just in the mood of sharing our story a bit in case it may motivate others.

@AMAZlNGNATURE Dude thought he was going to heaven with all that light he’s never seen

@Tik_Tokers_ Bro knew exactly how to start this

@ImMeme0 I've felt this tbh. Not from school, but with newer tools like grammarly and built-in spell checks and AI correcting my nonsense so often i feel like im devolving

@thatkidwally Diet and water are the alphas here 💪

@tacularr You know you’re a PVP Chad whenever you have a crosshair enabled while posting a Discord announcement

@goddeketal The lengths people will go before actually including physical exercise in their life or a caloric deficit is mind blowing.

@Am_Blujay Haters will say that’s only a 3 inch knife

@PicturesFoIder That sandwich must have been 🔥

@interesting_aIl This is why someone decided to make flamethrowers

@lootroom I’m so proud of you guys and your continued growth ❤️

@Murrrr_1111 well that seems stable.

@BigRobEnergy If they continue banning cheaters they get repeat customers. If they go after every cheat dev they eliminate repeat buyers of the game Just my thoughts and opinions

RT @wtfRise: UK Creators 👋🪑 The noblechairs DAWN is now available. If you’re open to product exchange deals and create short form content…

@wtfRise That’s 🔥

@Jac5Connor

@bryan_johnson This isn’t the worst deadlift, but this is still extremely poor for maximizing your growth efforts. Reduce the weight and do proper range of motion. That’s nothing short of a half rep.

@DeanTTraining For a dollar a day you can help a victim who was trained on leg press by a "trust me bro" trainer.

@MrAdamB1981 Cheap gyms attract cheap people

@thatkidwally With that interest you’d be paying $68k by the end of it. Assuming this is bait I’d hope

@DeanTTraining These are what I like to do. Is it bad? Control all the way down into the most stretch abdominal position possible (similar to your figure) and then do a crunch back up basically.