This is a 20-year-old game
There are some diehards around that continue to play, but that base of diehards will, inevitably, dwindle slowly. So we have fewer and fewer players
There's two obvious best ways to keep the community going:
1) Bring back old players, or make old players who drop in want to stick around
-Possible advertising, tournaments, etc.
-Do not greet players who come back (
http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,1122.0.html) with a bunch of flames between Equinox and Ryu and Winchester, do not shit on them for posts they made 5 years ago.
-Don't ban names you don't recognize or people with fewer games or bad records from your games. Give them a chance to show what they can do
ie - don't be a shithead
2) Bring in new players, see if they can learn the game
-Create clans like dw for new players, don't shit on people for being in newb clans
-Help them learn the game, figure out latency
-If you won't let them play, at least let them watch. s9? -> ban is a good way to make sure none of the new players that find the server ever stick around or learn the game
ie - don't be a shithead (recurring theme)
3) Programming things that could help accomplish the above
-Lat fixes, autohost/host bot
-Any other suggestions?