A new server would be a safer approach, it's fair to assume that with how big unusual servers are and how large of a community Skial is, that it'd take off no problem but, in the off chance that it fails, at least we're not killing off TRADE | NY as it might be harder to bring back traffic if we load it with high-tier experienced traders and kill off the fighting (which is what would need to be done as that is how unusual servers function). What I'm thinking is we launch the server (a new one) and for the first month, whoever has the most activity gets an unusual. As for the map itself, idk if
@Cream Tea would want to make a new map but preferably a map under Skial's own name. Having worked under MCT till it's bitter demise, I know some important features are as follows:
There should be no fighting or, at least, a large zone where people cannot fight
Shouldn't have too many changes through the first month of launch, that will only annoy the traders
The map name should be written as trade_unusual_<anything>. trade_unusual is a common map search for unusual traders as it gives them what they're looking for
Don't introduce too many plug-ins with the server, the longer the dl, the less likely it is to fill up as high tier traders, mostly, have low patience
Have places on the map with backdrops so people can take a screenshot of their loadouts with a fancy background, almost like a green screen, to use to advertise. If our watermark gets in on the screenshots, that'll be more advertising for us
This kind of trading is a bit more complex and might require strict, experienced traders, whether we hire more people is up to you but we'd likely need it
As for the contest, I can do a top 3 sort of thing, first getting the unusual and then a sum of 15 keys after (10 and 5 for 2nd and 3rd respectively). I can also give those 3 users an SFM made by myself. I trust in Skial's community to excel on its ambitions but this will need a lot of initial hard work. It'll likely be a shaky beginning but if you could add a server wide message similar to what you did for the forums but in this case, for the unusual server. It could probably be accomplished.
An old server died because that's exactly what they did, there should be no reason why we would be doing the same. We'll allow both types of trading and breaking up those feuds that occur between the 2, which I truly think won't happen as it has only happened once in my experience and that was because a young player recently bought an unusual and thought they were the coolest and tried putting newer traders in their place.