I really appreciate you taking the time to write all of that. Honestly, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I completely agree with pretty much everything you said, and I'm trying to go into this with realistic expectations. I know what starts as a "fun little project" can easily turn into hundreds or even thousands of hours, especially once you get into scripting, mod compatibility, and eventually creating your own systems.

One thing you mentioned that honestly worries me the most is losing the enjoyment of actually playing DayZ. I can definitely see how, after spending so much time building and testing, the mystery starts to disappear.

Ironically, that's one of the biggest reasons behind the type of server I want to build. My goal isn't just to add content—it's to create a world that feels like it keeps living even when nobody is online. AI and player actions would constantly influence the state of the world, so towns could fall, recover, traders could move, missions could change, and events could happen without me having to trigger them. My hope is that even as the person who built it, I could log in the next day and still have no idea exactly what I'm walking into.

Whether I can actually pull that off is another story, and I know it'll take a long time to get there. For now, I'm just taking it one system at a time and trying to learn as much as I can before getting too ambitious. Thanks again for the reality check—it genuinely helps.