When my interest in Team Fortress 2 was at its peak, it was a major ambition of mine to run my own community server, particularly one strongly emphasizing unofficial community maps that caught my interest. But by the time I actually had the money to think of actually doing such a thing, it had felt like the general interest in TF2 around me had waned, from both general fatigue around increasingly disappointing updates and the new release of Overwatch at the time. Lately, however, I have seen signs around me of a reviving interest in TF2, enough that I'm willing to dust off my plans for a TF2 community server if there's enough proof that it will actually see use.
While looking into the subject, I discovered Nodecraft - a server hosting service that can run severs for a multitude of games, including TF2, and Minecraft. A server that can run Minecraft will run me about $20 a month, but I could save some money by cancelling my current Minecraft Realms subscription, which this server would replace. The idea, then, is that this server would spend most of its time as a Minecraft server, albeit one that I could quickly shift into being a TF2 server at a time when enough people actually wanting to play TF2 are together, or potentially run other games, such as Terraria. I could also get a cheaper server that wouldn't be able to run Minecraft, but could run TF2 and would, for the most part, do so 24/7.
With this thread, I want to 1) assess if there is currently enough of an RJS community willing to play on such a server to justify the cost of running one, and 2) figure out what type of server would best fit the needs of such a community, if one does exist. Would you play TF2 on a unofficial map-focused RJS server? If so, how regularly? Would you want it to be a permanent TF2 server so you could potentially play TF2 at any time, or would you be okay keeping up with scheduled TF2 events and having the server be running a different game outside of those events? How many of you would play on a RJS Minecraft server?
Here's a list of TF2 maps that have interested me enough to want to play on, to get an idea of what kind of map rotation a RJS TF2 server would be running, at least at its inception:
Axle (5CP push map)
Avante (A/D siege map with 4 points)
Amaranth (A/D siege map with 2 points)
Edifice (A/D siege map, Gravel Pit style)
Upland (A/D siege map, Steel style)
Arctic (KotH map)
Railbridge (KotH map)
Namicott (KotH map)
Wiretap (CtF map)
Arroyo (CtF map)
Boundary (Payload Map)
Eclipse (Payload Map)
Panic (3-stage Payload Race Map)
Frostfell (Payload Race Map)
Waste (Symmetrical "Payload Push" Map with a KotH variant as well)
Congo (Doomsday-style Map)
Powerplant (MvM Map for potential MvM events)
Maelstrom (MvM Map for potential MvM events)