[Discussion/Survey] What do you look for in servers? What makes you stay?

[Redleaf]

I've mostly be inactive the past 5+ years RL tibia and OT wise, but I come back around for a project or two (Ruthless Chaos, random custom servers that pop up) every year if time permits, but gone are the days I really play any RL Tibia Map or re-works. I can answer the questions since I used to focus solely on RL maps or completely custom servers (Celestia Realm, World of Lastwar, etc).

• What do people look for in real maps? Is it the story, the map they have bot scripts for or the pvp?

Honestly, I think it's the familiarity and ability to maximize their time online whether low rate or high rate. Everyone has their own strategies on the best way to level up from starting a server, so being able to rise up quickly is what some are after so they can get to the real fun (pvp, wars, 'endgame' quests, etc). It was part of what kept me playing because I was familiar and able to quickly raise up characters for fun or for war.

• Are there still manual players or just bots only?

I would have to say there are still plenty of manual players around, but there are still certainly a massive amount of botters. There's no getting around that anymore.

• Do wars take a big part in server life or are just something optional?

I think it really depends on the type of server (full custom rpg, rl map w/ edits, etc), but wars are inevitable as there is always a group after "power" or being the best, so they normally antagonize anyone that gets close to them or gets in the way. Or, they are just warmongers and that's what they play for.

That's the beauty of Open Tibia, there's servers for EVERYONE.

• How important is it to have microtransactions? I once ran a server without them and people flooded me with requests of it.

I mean, if you're running an RPG server the idea of microtransactions would be adding items for cosmetic use (mounts, outfits, house decorations, etc) only as it would kill the RPG aspect if you're able to buy mass quantities of runes, potions, equipment (re-sale value), etc from a webshop and rise to the top where others lag behind due to restraints of the server's rates.

For servers that are faster paced, I can see maybe adding equipment (obtainable in-game from questing as well / nothing overpowered) or premium (week/month/passes to sell in-game), but nothing crazy. I guess it really depends on whether you're able to self-fund the cost of hosting the servers or if you just want enough to pay the monthly hosting fees. That would kind of determine what to do about microtransactions.

• is an english server worth making when most of players are either BR or PL? Would a server in eg. portuguese be better?

Isn't there a way to add a language selection in the client (OTClient/Heavy editing)? Like, on first login you're able to select from a certain set of languages programmed into the client (I think there were a few servers that did this in the past).
If it's not easily done, I would say an English server with staff/players that would be able to assist those with issues progressing in-game due to a language barrier. This would require a lot of effort finding reliable staff/dedicated players, so not really always feasible.

• 8.6 or other version? If 8.6, are there any stable and relatively fresh repos based on 1.x?

Honestly, I used to focus on custom (any client) and 7.7 or lower simply because of my personal preferences. These days, if I do play an OT it's usually 10+ or it's a heavily custom server that's more of a hybrid (old/new features).

• low rates or x999?

Much prefer lower to mid-rate servers (under 10-15x exp at the lower levels, 2-5x at higher levels).

Regards,
Cody

 

[zbizu]

Isn't there a way to add a language selection in the client (OTClient/Heavy editing)?

technically yes (same way as android apps are translated), but in reality it would require replacing all the strings in datapacks to make a truly multilingual server

 

[andu]

to make me stay on full custom ots:
1. well detailed wiki about all stuff
2. well detailed map, im too bored to again explore 'black big squares' on minimap
3. big multilevel exp places, i dont like to walk 10 minutes for skeletons where im exping till 15 lvl then walk 10 minuted to city and another 10 minutes to a spawn with ghouls becouse mapper was too lazy to connect skelys-ghouls-and other stuff with smooth difficulty. Or im exping on trolls and im going level down and i meet 3 tarantulas or even gs what eats me in second or simply blocks exploration cuz i cannot kill it at this level.
On my ots you can enter sewers in city and hunt there until you are mid-high level beouse all stuff in connected, and dosed very smoothly.

to make me stay on rl or custom server:
1. potions, moving back to town for resupply is annoying, im using a creatureevent on my ots what heals you for 10% hp and mana each second when you are out of combat.
2. low cap everywhere, just change basic cap from 400 to 1000 and add script what will add extra 10 per level plus vocation base cap per level, so 150 mage will have 5k cap instead of 2k
3. skilling, its better to remove skills and set all players skills to 100
4. premium shops what are destroying gameplay, all premium shop stuff should comstic only or be atleast ingame tradeable and marketable
5. teleports to hunts, you can make a script where you need to kill 500 grims to get free tp to drefia for example.
6. you can use ladders, holes, pickholes etc with right click if you have pick/shovel/rope in backpack, you no longer needs to use seperate stuff for seperate things

smooth balance is the thing what doesnt exist in 99.99% of servers. you have 150 level, highlevel stuff but your legs are still brass legs. Each time when someone progress in something, even such low thing as upgrading brass legs it makes players a little happy. Dose that happiness over and over.

you can copy few already used in the past things, such nostalgia stuff may keep few players, add them to your ex rl map and everyone can reach it via npcs on boats

or simply make a full scripted rl tibia 12.2, brs are playing on such servers over and over, check otservlist

 

[Under Influence]

I think some OTserver are either to close to tibia, other games or have complicated system. I want the OTservers to focus on more on using old tibia core as a base, but making the game different than original tibia.

Skills
For example: fishing skill - you have only one fish type, nothing more! Runescape and some OTS you have more fishes, new fishing rods in a progressing system. Everything is made with a progression in mind! That is what is very wrong with the OTServer in my opinion, so why not add mining skill but instead of having so many ores, you just use the pick in every cave wall (for example in dwarven cave) trying to get just one ore which for example might be used for weapons to have some temporary , instead of exevo con creating arrows form the air, you should get some trees first but you dont need to have X skill to get good quality logs from the best tree, no all the trees give the same logs, the skill works just like fishing.

Characters should have low hp/skills in comparison to the monsters, AoE should be very expensive and useless against very strong monsters. For example I used to kill Giant Spiders in 7.1 with my Paladin which was lower level than 30, knowing that if it caught me I would be killed and dying was very brutal as we all know, in the meanwhile avoiding other players would throw stuff behind me and heal the giant spiders so that i would get killed and get my items.

Axe, sword, club, 3 skills which does the same thing, why not adding a passive effect to them, like club increasing next shielding % block, axe making the monster bleed and club amplifying the damage for other people killing the creature? 3 simple measures that would knights have their own path without breaking the game.

Game should not point players towards min max and having players competing to be the best in terms of exp, and then have dominado control over everything making the server dead.

PVP
Why not fun PVP spells, for example real stealth, chameleon disguising players (broke by damage), spell to make other player screen has less vision, spell to go back to a old point on the past where the player was, pvp should be fun and full of ways to escape and change the outcome, not just mindless rune shooting until supplies run out

RPG
If you have slow regeneration overall, you can go to places like Inns where you can pay to sleep in a bed to the npc and get it faster or stay near fire camps (your regeneration would depend on the area you stay), getting equipment not only based on stats but to help you in different environments, why not some sandals to walk faster in desert, why not some fur armor to protect you against cold (for example at night in Folda you could have slower attacks without it...)

 

[andu]

Skills:
Melee fighting
Distance fighting
Spell casting (magic level)
Shielding
enough.

Server with exp x1 at all levels would be interesting but when you make noob character it will have exp something x10 until you reach the level of top character on the server. Ofc if you are in mid range of top lvl then your exp may be something like x6

this system should be added to the global tibia, also tfs 1.3 should force server owners to use it by beign enabled by default in cfg, becouse if you configure it fairly it will be awesome and may help the whole cominuty keep the game alive.

maybe some of you don't know but years ago you was able to convert 1 day of premium on rl tibia for 1 day of 2x exp voucher. There are people who converted 10 years. How this can be fair? OP pay to win by Cipsoft which not many players knows. After few years rest of 2x exp from conversion Cip converted those days back to premium. But this was way too late. This is how in short time we had a boom of 500-1000 lvl players and it killed the game heavily, mostly on pvp. Just learn on this mistake and dont let hardcore players running with 500+ levels while noobs needs 30 days of playing to reach 300~, and they are often raped by higher levels who are playing in big teams together. Such things kills servers. Dominando always was killing ots. And low level protection is a total garbage if after 30minutes of playing your lvl is higher then limit of lowlvl protection.

 

[zbizu]

@Under Influence

Game should not point players towards min max and having players competing to be the best in terms of exp, and then have dominado control over everything making the server dead.

What would stop people from so-called min-maxing? Please don't say fishing, mining or a campfire. People want to exp and people want to fight. Some like doing quests, but quests will run out and get repetitive at some point. This game is entirely about grind.
It was always about grind and guilds power abuse. Even if you completely change vocations, people will find out the best build eventually and abuse it. You need to constantly change the meta like in moba to keep people playing. If you take the grind part away (very high rates for example), area spells (mages) will dominate.

That dominando part from your comment reminds me of time when my cousin was playing some war ots. He dressed himself pink and was insanely good at pvp. After like 30 minutes, 3/4 of the server players were running in pink outfits and dominating it. He had no friends on that server, it was completely random. He wasn't typing anything, just constantly fighting and getting more and more followers lol

@andu
x1 is a big marketing turnoff. Dynamic xp rates sound good for new players, but they make all the grind the top player did irrelevant. How can #1 player be rewarded?

 

[andu]

x1 is a big marketing turnoff. Dynamic xp rates sound good for new players, but they make all the grind the top player did irrelevant. How can #1 player be rewarded?

Trust me, table instead of 1000, 800, 700, 650, 640, 630... will looks like this: 1000, 950, 940, 930, 920 and new players will be able to jump faster into end game. You can also add a season reset where you are moving all database into 2nd server "nonranked".

Based on all info I gathered in the past this system is something what all old games needs. You can take a peek at real tibia, they tried to do something similar, but take a peek at WoW, it's the same. When you make acc today you can be in end game after 1-2 months and such mechanism is there for over 10 years. When I see ots what start date was 3 weeks ago and there are already uncatchable dominando trash guilds then I wouldnt spent more then 1 hours for this server. This is also one of the ways why so many people are scamming with ots. Take are making money in only first week and when income drops by 90% they are closing server or reseting it. That "marketing turnover" will make ots playable for new players at any time, and will allow new players to enjoy balance and team up with friends what are playing there for a much longer. One of the ways to fix the balance was making a char market, but many players prefer to build something from begining instead of using someone's stuff. Based on surveys it's over 3/4 players.
There are many games where you have level cap for example, and reaching it is almost impossible. Diablo 2 ins't best example here becouse you can reach 99, but still players above 95 were treated with respect.

So from financial view this system is valueable. From marketing, if you use good words you can sell anything to everyone. You can name it: Progresive Exp Rates Based on Top Player. Teach ots players how good it is and they will want only this. Becouse 100x 50x 30x 20x 10x 5x ... is a garbage on pvp servers after a week from start. If you add botters to it then you have uncatchable players who will always dominando. You don't know or dont belive but over 99% of dominando players are actually ultra noobs in this game. They winning only becouse of level adventage. And thier knowledge is equal to 3 months of very smart player. But they are playing this for over 10 years. 3 months of experience equals to 10y? Yes. This is the highest cons of Tibia.
Ofc being rewarded with new level is something awesome, but why all ots servers have lastest exp rate set at 1 or 2?

If you are a hardcore player you will be always in top1. but instead of having 1000 level while average level on server is 150 you will have only 400. This also adds fun for hardcore players when they see more noobs around who are 2-3 times lower level. But how do you feel when you dominated a server? I once had 700 level when top2 player have only 500 and rest of noobs were at 100~400, server ofc had many players but I was able to kill with one ue each player who didnt had energy ring with exception for knights and some paladins. I was running with my friend at 500 and we were able to nuke 10-man guilds in seconds.

Tell me, such things doesn't exists in actual ots? i dont think so. There are many groups of teamed players who joins new servers as a group to be able to play dominando for fun. But short fun. 2-3 days, week max.

Based on all surveys near half of players are solo players. If you add thing that tibia is old you will see that old teams of 10 players doesnt exist anymore. Only 2 or 3 are still playing something but not tibia. If someone decide to join he is mostly alone and treats ots like a temp-fun-garbage.

 

[zbizu]

Dominando is a thing even in some rl tibia servers. Bona is one of examples (it doesn't even have pvp lol). Roshamuul, Library and some other spots are denied(or appear to be from my low lv noob perspective). Catchup mechanic in global is pretty slow, but having a stronger one (dynamic stages) could surely help skilled players shine.

Max level cap would make the game stale I think, with no real benefits of that solution. Lack of progress isn't really engaging.

 

[andu]

Dominando is a thing even in some rl tibia servers. Bona is one of examples (it doesn't even have pvp lol). Roshamuul, Library and some other spots are denied(or appear to be from my low lv noob perspective). Catchup mechanic in global is pretty slow, but having a stronger one (dynamic stages) could surely help skilled players shine.

Max level cap would make the game stale I think.

bona was in dominando state when angry brothers where playing there. but like i said, 99% of dominando players are ultra noobs. I played there and i killed 6 of them one by one in scarab trap on ankh. they were chasing me becouse one of them wanted to put a botter in place where i was hunting. i didnt give a shit and 6 of them died. to be fair i never died. even if my level was 200 while they had 400-500. we killed many of them on hunts, if there will be a counter it will looks like this: 100 for us and 5 for them. when some of them dowgraded his chars too much they were buying new ones on allegro (polish version of ebay). btw all of agry brothers were banned for botting.
Bona now have bobeek 1,5k level who made server rules which are fair. max 2h on hunt spot, if you enter someones hunt spot you are hunted by boobek's guild etc. its fair but sometimes for exception to few places.

check this topic

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[Nemphis]

#1
The catchup mechanics is easily done by math.
All players that are below the medium level of all characters that has been online the last 48 hours will have xp boost. Thats it. And when you Catch up to the medium, where almost all players are, the xp boost stops. And the higher the medium is, the stronger the xp boost is.
This could be activated like after a few Days of launch, or depending on what kind of server it is.

#2
Also to add to the discussion:
I Believe that all rl maps with story that is not the original one from cipsoft(that almost no1 cares about anyway, or even know about) that no1 gives a crap. Who cares what story you made up for a real map server.

A lot of players doesnt care what story you made for your custom server either. Even if you have this "200 sentences of introduction" to your server with lore, we hardly see anything with this in the game, cause, to be honest, We are not game developers with education, we dont see the full Picture. We dont do the math or anything that is actually needed in order to get a successfull game. We just throw in ideas with other ideas and hope for the best. Even if your lore is awesome and interesting to read, like demon invasions or w/e that most server has, there is no specific raid or anything connecting to npcs, books with the lore. "Yea we had a demon invasion lore so we put in a few more demon hunting spots"

#3
The same goes with shops. Most of you dont care what you sell, only that you sell something to make money and you dont give a crap if it hurts the server ecosystem. And when it goes to the shits, you restart the server and hope to sell the same crap again.

THINK! THINK! What is the best for the server and its ecosystem with the players, drop tables and Everything. Not your wallet. Also the plus side that no1 Thinks about is that, an healthy server gives more Money long term than a shit server does short term.

#4
Many servers are too much tryhard. They put in so many new things thats it is so hard keeping track to Everything. Alot should be secrets that is fun to find yourselves while playing but, i mean, sure, put ideas in your server but. Dont make gamechanging mechanics that is hard to understand. Like #2, server creators dont Think. They just do, and thats a big problem. In your head your idea makes sence, its easy to understand, because its your idea. I know, i did the same and thought it was very logical and easy. And when i had a closed test server with friends, they didnt get it.

Keep the Tibia aspect. What makes Tibia good? Why are people playing Tibia? If you change your server to much until you dont recognise Tibia anymore, might aswell play a real game, made by real developers.

 

[zbizu]

@andu
So you were part of it, you understand me.
Frustrated old Nerana player here. Everything went downhill after the merge.

2h is super casual. I remember being able to sit 6 hours in a spot (rp) before having to refill supplies.

Anyway, I'm not here to judge them, I'm just saying that it exists.

@Nemphis
#1
Dynamic stages are fully possible without need to update on relog. It's pure onKill event. You just call monster:getExperience() and player:addExperience(...).

#2
I think that lore is irrelevant unless you make RPG server. I suspect that rl map players only care if classic quests are in place while evo players prefer simple "kill everything and reach chest" kind of quests.

#3
I don't understand this one. Are you speaking of selling loot or microtransactions?

#4
Good point, but some servers like spiderOT, Archlight and maybe Zezenia have pretty solid playerbase despite moving away from the core mechanics (I consider a servers with around 100 players online alive)

 

[MuminFlex]

How they treat cheaters. A game which has been plagued with them for the last 10 + years

 

[volvo123]

No botters, a nice clean map not alot of "fancy" popups and too high exp. ah like an rpg server