I partly agree with you. Majority of the content written on this thread is either straight up bullshit or lies that are made for marketing purposes. Hiring AryJaey won't do anything for your server other than give it a somewhat better structure. But that doesn't require a lot of experience, just a good working brain that can create a staff based hierarchy where everyone has their obligations to fullfil while also feeling part of something. I myself have seen a lot of servers that either have a broken hierarchy in regards to staff ranks, or just a team that isn't a team. One example could be placing Supports over Moderators/Administrators/Developers in the Discord Rankings (Yes, I've seen this), or granting the lower ranks access to certain commands such as ::ban while the higher ones such as Administrators do not have the permissions to use those commands (Yes, I have seen this too).
But what else can be done? The servers that are popular usually make it due to either
- Unique Content
- Advertising
The living proof of Unique Content = Players can be seen throughout the entire history of private servers.
Alora was amonst the first servers that gave the players a HD/SD experience while still offering the OSRS looks in terms of animations, non-player-characters, graphics, etc.
OS-Scape was originally an economy oldschool runescape server with slower experience rates, something similar to what
Zenyte is growing to become. Sadly, OS-Scape had its run, and now has another focus. As there is no other server that is DEOB or 317 and has the small details of OSRS, we can fairly certainly say that
Zenyte is going to be one of the next big booms. The list goes on and on.
Dawntained is popular for the unique PvP content such as daily pvp events (best f2p pker), its tournaments and system that have been set in place.
Dreamscape is popular for the insane amount of customs,
SoulPlay is known for the giveaways/website development/clan content,
Atlas is known for the Deadman Mode Seasonals, etc. Some servers have unique content, but they are lacking in the advertisement department.
Speak of advertisements, there are a few servers that do not have anything that stands out from the rest, but they have extraordinary advertisement. This also applies to the servers with unique content, which is why they are usually much more popular than the servers that simply have good advertising. However, as far as I can tell - Advertisement is not something that you are very good at. Lets be honest here, you're no Raw Envy. If you join a project that's a leech, you
can't gurantee that it will get 200+ players on release and keep raising that number. If you would be able to do it, you'd be charging much more. The projects you were part of did not become a success because of you. They became a success because they were had a great concept and vision behind it.
Onyx is growing because it has flawless OSRS Content while being a 718. Even if you were not part of the team - It would have still been a success.
TL;DR: Unless AryJaey has any kind of proof that hints towards a servers growth after his arrival, I wouldn't buy anything from him. He's a great bullshitter, but nothing more.