That's kind of what I suspected--there's not much reason to be on an FSX multiplayer server by yourself unless you expect people to join you soon, since singleplayer gives you all the same (and more, since you don't have ATC or AI Traffic in MP). With the Orbiter community being spread all across the globe, people log on in their timezone, see that no one else is on, then log off and either play FSX on their own or do something else entirely.
The counter to this would be planned sessions, but it's very hard to find a time that works for everyone, and there's not really any need to have a server running 24/7 if it'll only get used for a few hours a week.
Maybe people interested in flying in FSX with other Orbinauts should start a channel on the Orbiter IRC server? That way, people who are interested can just sit in the channel while doing other things, and if the opportunity arises for multiplayer, someone can start a server and share the IP out to everyone. Do people want to try that for a couple weeks and see if that works to satisfy their multiplayer flying desires? If that sort of thing causes interest to increase to the point where a dedicated server would again be useful (or if people are having problems hosting their own), I could always bring back the dedicated server.
I think if you compare the FSX server (which hasn't had much activity at all in the last couple years) to the Minecraft server (which has been consistently active to some degree) the problem becomes clear: Minecraft allows for asymmetrical multiplayer, where one person can get on and do some stuff, and someone else can get on several hours later and work collaboratively even if the two are never on at the same time. That kind of persistence is, I think, key to a successful server for a community as small and spread out as ours.
Maybe if there was some kind of multiplayer FSPassengers, or some persistent state, people would be more interested, but that's not the case.
So, I guess, more than four and a half years (holy cow!) of nearly constant uptime after I started the FSX server, it may be time to bring it down. If a moderator wants to un-sticky this thread, that would probably be good.
As for what else to do with the server resources...I've got a couple possibilities, but I think I'd like to lean toward something that offers asymmetric multiplayer gameplay, so that people have a reason to use the server instead of singleplayer when they're on their own...
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