[papajchris]

Your checklist left out the essential parts of creating a server, which is because im assuming you have never been one. Zodiac had none of those 3 in the beginning. The Jerret you know was not nearly as talented as he is now. While a prepared person would have the items on your list, it takes more than that. It takes dedication. Nearly every private server owner has experienced rebuilding numerous times, especially after those abusing staff erase the server's content. Or the fact that you are hiring people to a private server with nearly no chance. Being a talented Dev will not make your server more likely to succeed (in fact i'd argue it does the opposite). Nearly all of the devs here have started their own server at some point and failed.