Talkirc
ryzom will run on a sever that cost as little as 100 US dollars a month, so as long as there are 10 people paying, the server will survive. this false idea that the server costs 1000's of dollars a month is just insane.
From the commercial point of view, there need to be some savings, from the monthly fees, to replace (broken) hardware if needed.
Those savings are about to at least double the monthly cost.
There need to be a suited room for the server to stand in.
On the other hand there are fees and taxes that cut down the revenues, maybe even half them.
So if you are right about maintenance cost and I haven't forgotten something important, it's more like at least 40-50 subs to keep Ryzom basically alive.
(Without considering there to be any wages at all, whats is highly unrealistic ^^)
(btw I would not consider to outsource the server hosting, for several reasons, I understand WG's point)
@Gazzi seriously?
one for the main shard (and backup)
one for yubo
one for mega and ryzom.com
but there are two more machines on the photo? just curious :)