Recently a lot of them been popping (7.4); and all died within 2-3 weeks. (or are currently dying)
1) My question in lieu of helping you, what can you do that will keep at least 20-40 people playing your OT beyond a month time?
(keep in mind that for real tibia map thats not enough players, unless its between friends)
I doubt people like being jerked around, investing their time (and sometimes money) to play popular 7.4 OTS, while after couple of weeks, the server is dead with 2-5 people online.
2) Many OTS suffer from bad curve of experience gain ability, and player comm/organization || Wealth generation, and economics || and lastly PvP.
Exp Gain & Comm/Organization:
In short while low in rate certain players can quickly get much higher levels creating too big of a distance between other players; This discourages most of new players; they look at high-score board and see 100+ levels after few days - that does not make sense.
Maybe there should be level limits per week/month.
ex.
First week limit levels to 30 max
2nd week limit levels to 55 max
3rd week limit levels to 75 max
4th week limit levels to 100 max
5th week limit levels to infinite
and so on, this ensures that people feel have equal chances to catch up. (The rates multiplier should be optimized to week or so)
This also helps and ensures people can organize in groups, find groups, talk to each other. Last OT servers failed at that terribly.
Maybe you should ensure 2-4 friends, each lead their own guilds and invite players to them, organize quest runs early on.
Keeping things civil, between groups but also triggering/organizing occasional wars.
Thus keeping rules of engagement - so that people don't rage quit since they died.
Wealth Gain & Economy:
Understanding how economy works in real life is a key here...
We can compare 2 similar ot servers Imperianic and Valoria.
Both OT servers failed here. We can state that Imperianic had much better loot rate, and easier wealth gain but it was easier to make 2-4 rune makers afk economy failed. In both cases bad things is that players do not pick up gold etc. In short its tiring...
Because players are not wealthy enough, they do not have enough gold to buy runes. They will create 2nd-3rd character to make the runes for themselves only. Players trying to make a buck by selling their runes will not get good price, or won't be able to sell them at all.
A server should have auto-loot gold, or implement system for auto-loot overall (where in client the player can select what will be auto-looted.
Valoria gold collection... players would not pick up gold at all or if they do, only as much his cap allows it. Coin change action script should be implemented to help with wealth gain.
Too much wealth is also a problem. A balance must be struck.
Players should not be considering selling stuff to npc's right away or buying runes from shop.
Allow players to buy from shop, but make runes that are made 2x the original count.
PVP
How to protect players from excessive killing, but also allow players to kill other players.
- The latest death page is bad. PK's are found quickly, and killed. The page is nice, and should be only updated once an hour or so.
- Exp/Skill Loss should likely be lesser if player is killed by another player. (If players have enough wealth they shouldn't mind loosing eq/backpacks etc). Maybe with all blesses should be the default loss rate (and then blesses on top of that).
- AOLs players not wearing anything else... In most cases players do not wear any other amulets except AOL's. AOL should not exist or only be available through some long ass taking quest. Would need to give advantage / effects to amulets to make sense players wanting them.
3) Vocations, advantages, and mana/hp regen.
in 7.4 most players play paladins. Why? The damage, and survivability. Do not decrease it but make it worth to play other classes too.
Why should player want other magical vocations? Because team needs healing, support, damage etc. and runes.
But they also need to have quality of life, mana regen should be enough for player to keep using exori vis during exp or use 7.6 wands/rods so that they can have some certain sustained damage dealing. Make it so its pleasurable to play.
Why should player want to play as a knight? Make sure their defense ratings up; maybe even twice. Making it the classic tank. Make it so its pleasurable to play.
4) Map size, and content outside of 7.4 (8+ content)
The tibia real map is large, for players to enjoy it there needs to be 200-400 active players
(it works with less as long a small group of friends plays together with each other for no other purpose)
It feels very disingenuous having content from 8+ in 7.4; it breaks the game. As its easy to get decent melee, rewards from arena quests etc.
If you think you won't get 150+ players after a month why should you have real tibia map?
well thats all i can think off.