On the Thistledown server, players had banded together to protect the shard taking turns in shifts to defend it from attackers throughout the day. It was these "Shard Vigils" (nicknamed by Turbine) and the clever use of game mechanics such as levelling the shard up by sacrifising themselves, which kept the shard intact for so long. In fact, the TD team were so good and the crystal so powerful that eventually the developers had to intervene to destroy it. Further reading: