For me, really nice buildings will make a town look awesome! It will attract more people and get better recognition on the server. :)

 

I am more of a builder myself and therefore I sell pre-builts. The market isn't as good as it used to be but the town is visually pleasing if you build something yourself. I'm not a fan of plots and most people who buy them are new to theserver and build dirt houses and cobblestone walls :p I'd suggest sticking with pre-builts if you want your town looking nice. Also, feel free to pm me to check out my town if you like :)

 

Ask outerlocal He knows what a town needs to survive

 

My idea would be an iconic town, a sky island or Atlantis city would be cool. Even build your plots on giant terraces

 

I'm working towards opening up my first town (should be open in a couple weeks). One thing I've noticed that will really bring in people is originality. I am currently working on a project that nobody on ECC has ever built. A project so large and tedious, one would wonder how on earth it was even possible to make such a creation. And thats not all. I'm also planning on building a 400x400 super city with more "firsts". Keep that in mind when you do this and you'll go far kid.

 

Making a town visually attractive is definitely important if you want it to be popular. The easiest way to do that is to get a clear idea of what you want for a theme, and then create prebuilts. If you don't want to do it all pre-built (which can take a lot of time), then you could sell plots, but just have strict rules that any structures must fit your theme, which is what I did with some of my first town. If doing this then it's best to make a few buildings yourself to begin with, to give other players an idea of what you're aiming for.

Being an active mayor is also something that's very important, as well as ensuring that the residents of your town are active as well. Setting a limit of how long people can be offline before they are removed is usually a good idea (Just ensure that you don't make this time period too short. I go by one month). This helps to stop your town becoming a complete ghost town filled with players who are inactive for months.

Saying this, even when you do make sure your town is full of active players your town can still be empty a lot of the time. Sadly this is something which is difficult to avoid, as players are often off farming/mining ect. elsewhere.
If you are really dedicated then setting up events every so often is a great way of getting more people actively engaging with each other in your town, but also just creating something that is visually attractive or impressive can increase 'tourism' to your town (for example my town of Caprica often gets people visiting just to see The Titanic). One more thing to consider is who you will be selling to. A lot of people distrust builders and so dont sell to them, however I find that often builders are friendly and engage more with each other when they are in a town, whilst often Higher ranked players will buy something and then never visit the town again (this isn't always true, but it's something to consider).

As for shops, having a few shops in your town is great. It allows people buy a few things a bit easier when they are in your town, without having to go to spawn or the marketplace. However, shops in towns generally aren't that popular (with a few exceptions such as wallstreet plots) due to the amount of traffic you get going through there. Just don't overestimate the amount of shops you'll need (for example a whole mall is generally a bit over the top) and don't expect to make too much money from selling your own stuff.

Generally I am against farms in towns. This is because to create a farm which is very effective, a lot of space typically needs to be taken up. This is space which could be used to create something much more attractive (as farms are hardily the most visually attractive creations). Imo, farms are for farming (and there are plenty of big farms on the server which can be rented) and towns are for building.

 

Ahh yes, floating islands would be very nice! I think that those with nice a architectural accompaniment would be great!