You can use anything to get back and see what u really want to create
i like scfmt, but nowdays u must follow the extras that people like as customs etc, like if you use muemu/igcn files u have more chances to work with the server files better and find answers since they are used alot.
What season of server files you want to try? we can give you our recommendations on which files you should experiment with according to your server goals, recruiting members etc is a tricky thing, i cant explain it in a post, and maybe everyone can collaborate on that, i say its more likely adverismenet on xtopsites and facebook post ads and forums ofcourse but forums mostly dont have real players so u get to find GM's from forums more than players (like here now days)
u can recruit:
http://forum.ragezone.com/f206/