Faction wars.
It's so difficult to find a faction wars server that is any good, and doesn't go to any extremes.
Ideally you want factions (duh), have it survival (duh), have a self faction griefing protection (basically you can't gank the faction you are in (stealing/griefing) though having spies in factions should be an exception). Chest protection (LWC is best, because it removes all locks when another faction claims over them).
You can also have McMMO to attract more attention.
I love faction wars servers, if they can at least do those things, and stray away from doing extremities. They also get large factions = lots of regular players = the better chance for donations = even better server performance = continuing cycle.
