I don’t want to pile on but this problem is with all Steam-based games. TAG didn’t get some of the most popular Zombie and Surf servers overnight. It took months of sitting on them to get them populated. Once they get going the entire franchise gets full almost by itself but you have to get that first server populated and that takes time, effort, and a superb admin staff. I was head admin on our Zombie server for almost a year and when I left it was full nearly 24/7. Two years later it’s still that full, even after IP changes.
The debate here is whether or not the maps are the sole thing keeping the server from taking off. My server admin experience has taught me that maps mean little when compared to playing with actual people. People may join a server to play a good map but unless you give them diversity they are going to get bored and move on. Once you start a 24/7 server you cannot change it to a normal rotation without running about 75% of the players off so I guess the question is do we want to lock ourselves into a 24/7 map or do we want to take a little time and get a rotation based community that won’t bolt when we change a few maps.