Is the Open Tibia genre dead?

[Kresh170]

I have been watching the player counts on new servers and a lot of them seem to be bots. What is your thought on this?

The player base seems very small nowadays.

 

[Marko999x]

No
Its just hard to get players with normal content
Your server almost need/must be like archlight or u host a 7x server ( 2 week projects )

 

[Silba]

It's dying for sure, I think mostly the commercialized nature of OT to blame, many thousands of people quit OTs when they became overly commercialized and many still do all the time. The only people left are people that enjoy those 2 week war servers that play with their wallets or the legitimate few who play those custom servers and can tolerate the abhorrent p2w.
Also probably the fact that people have and always will be scared of wasting time on OTs that don't stay online 'forever', I think this issue accumulates and gets worse over time and it's boring after 10 years playing new OTs all the time as inevitably the 'forever online' servers do a reset or never come back online even as little as once per year, is still 10+ resets to many of us.

Maybe also the lack of acceptable download and run servers doesn't help either. I know for sure today it's harder to turn an OT online, we have weird ISPs and routers that block our shit and even then most simple server needs you to setup a website and database which is lightyears ahead of what used to be available in terms of complexity compared to what used to be available and then it's not even ready to run at all and will be riddled with unacceptable bugs. Even starting an ot "for fun with friends" is not possible today for 99% of people.

There's also the lack of a non toxic general forum for OT so fresh blood is kind of rare. You come to otland with enthusiasm and leave an hour later with a sore bottom and an STI.

 

[Kresh170]

It's dying for sure, I think mostly the commercialized nature of OT to blame, many thousands of people quit OTs when they became overly commercialized and many still do all the time. The only people left are people that enjoy those 2 week war servers that play with their wallets or the legitimate few who play those custom servers and can tolerate the abhorrent p2w.
Also probably the fact that people have and always will be scared of wasting time on OTs that don't stay online 'forever', I think this issue accumulates and gets worse over time and it's boring after 10 years playing new OTs all the time as inevitably the 'forever online' servers do a reset or never come back online even as little as once per year, is still 10+ resets to many of us.

Maybe also the lack of acceptable download and run servers doesn't help either. I know for sure today it's harder to turn an OT online, we have weird ISPs and routers that block our shit and even then most simple server needs you to setup a website and database which is lightyears ahead of what used to be available in terms of complexity compared to what used to be available and then it's not even ready to run at all and will be riddled with unacceptable bugs. Even starting an ot "for fun with friends" is not possible today for 99% of people.

There's also the lack of a non toxic general forum for OT so fresh blood is kind of rare. You come to otland with enthusiasm and leave an hour later with a sore bottom and an STI.

I agree 100 procent that we are missing a lot of players since its so difficult to start a new server. Even to play with just friends...

Is there anybody working on it being easier for people to get into making open tibia servers? I mean just the tutorials alone are very bad..

 

[Taranta]

I agree 100 procent that we are missing a lot of players since its so difficult to start a new server. Even to play with just friends...

Is there anybody working on it being easier for people to get into making open tibia servers? I mean just the tutorials alone are very bad..

Recently I've came back to Tibia / OT after having a break. It has been close to a decade. There were problems setting up a local development environment due to builds failing of TFS,OTClient,RME (followed the official tutorials). Either due to outdated packages, or additional parameters you need to use. The information to fix this is around on the forums, but it's all scattered. I started writing a guide how to fix problems that may occur, and I have documented it. Decided to do everything on an Ubuntu VM for now, which seems to work well enough for what I want to do with it. Not sure if im allowed to share the link to archbee (alternative to GitBook), because that post got rejected. Assuming that's because of the link.

 

[M4rcin]

Either due to outdated packages, or additional parameters you need to use

Can you list one?
There are tons of comprehensives tutorials on how to run your server and all you need is a pair of hands and the ability to read English.

@topic

a lot of them seem to be bots.

Botting was always a part of this game and nothing changed recently.
If something, I would say that anti-cheat solutions changed and are much more efficient.

The game alone is not going anywhere, it's the community bandwagoning the popular ideas and complying with self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you give it a thought it becomes obvious.

Be the change you want to see, and if you are looking for justification to quit it, maybe it would be wiser to understand why you need the justification in the first place and start from there.

... and if you are looking for attention/a friend, it would be wiser to start being productive - otherwise, you won't get far in your relations with anyone worth your time really

 

[zbizu]

longetivity:
I like taking 6 years break and seeing all my items still being there. This is something most ot servers can't accomplish. If there are exceptions, their online count is low or they aren't listed on otservlist anymore.

scaling:
adding ways to skip noob levels fast feels like a mandatory for long term servers after a few years. Current servers either skip early levels super fast instantly making them doomed to reset (unless they deliver satisfying high level content) or slow the progress artificially by messing the exp stages up for high levels. IMO both are bandaid solutions. The game state is constantly evolving and ot servers fail to respond to that. Official servers delivered imbuements and high level quests/spots. Very few ot servers reacted in similar way.

storytelling:
making exact copy sure solves a lot of problems, but the rl map otservers are just hollow inside. They're like some guy retelling the already known by everyone joke. For the 10th time. Even 100% copy would be less desired due to shorter server lifespan (see longetivity section). RL maps despite the attempts still lack a lot of books and text on signs. Striped of its lore, the server becomes nothing but a mockery of moba genre. You play same map, you level a hero by slaying monsters, you fight other heroes, the end goal is complete map domination, you lose everything the moment the game ends. Only difference is that one "match" lasts months instead of 30 minutes.

 

[Astrax]

Yes, and I would dare to say that its dead both from the developer and player perspectives.

Developer:
Outdated codebase, barely any contributions since years ago, steep learning curve that gets harder as time passes by and the code gets more and more outdated (compatiblity issues, etc).

Player:
Younger players just don't see the attractiveness of a game such as Tibia, let alone OTS. The more long-term players are already tired of the same "rl map old school" servers relaunching again and again and again... and again. When they leave due to getting tired of Tibia in general, or simply because they now have many RL responsibilities, there are no younger players to replace them so the population of potential players for a server decreases and decreases.

 

[Handicap Ninja]

Open tibia is not dead. It's just asleep

 

[zbizu]

Open tibia is not dead. It's just asleep

more like wasted and half-dead with its face in a gutter
well, at least tfs and otc development moved forward

 

[Taranta]

Can you list one?
There are tons of comprehensives tutorials on how to run your server and all you need is a pair of hands and the ability to read English.

For OTClient, there was the issue with PhysFS. Building only worked specifying -DUSE_STATIC_LIBS=OFF
For RME you needed to get wxWidgets 3.1.4 or higher? and build yourself. Like I said, this information is either available somewhere on the forums or in case of wxWidgets, I found it in an issue on Github. Depends on your ability to search, which differs heavily per person. People that are new will probably search a few things, but will also give up quickly after that if solutions don't work or they dont find the correct information fast enough. Solutions to small problems should just be documented somewhere in the official docs aswell in my opinion, instead of having to traverse a ton of threads.

 

[M4rcin]

For OTClient, there was the issue with PhysFS. Building only worked specifying -DUSE_STATIC_LIBS=OFF
For RME you needed to get wxWidgets 3.1.4 or higher? and build yourself. Like I said, this information is either available somewhere on the forums or in case of wxWidgets, I found it in an issue on Github. Depends on your ability to search, which differs heavily per person. People that are new will probably search a few things, but will also give up quickly after that if solutions don't work or they dont find the correct information fast enough. Solutions to small problems should just be documented somewhere in the official docs aswell in my opinion, instead of having to traverse a ton of threads.

You can just get Cipsoft client/OTCv8 and RME release and you are ready to go.

The thing is that it's quite hard to just spoonfeed new users with a server because hosting one is quite complex and it requires (at least) the aforementioned ability to search, so that's not like you can just skip the initial process and you are fine.

Besides, this is the wrong attitude

Solutions to small problems should just be documented somewhere in the official docs aswell in my opinion, instead of having to traverse a ton of threads.

Correct attitude

I should document small problems somewhere if I find it usefull

 

[Taranta]

You can just get Cipsoft client/OTCv8 and RME release and you are ready to go.

The thing is that it's quite hard to just spoonfeed new users with a server because hosting one is quite complex and it requires (at least) the aforementioned ability to search, so that's not like you can just skip the initial process and you are fine.

Besides, this is the wrong attitude


Correct attitude

Thanks. Yeah I was aiming at "spoonfeeding" and I agree that it is the wrong attitude / mentality to go about things. Its also todays reality across gaming as a whole.

 

[Silba]

I agree 100 procent that we are missing a lot of players since its so difficult to start a new server. Even to play with just friends...

Is there anybody working on it being easier for people to get into making open tibia servers? I mean just the tutorials alone are very bad..

Well the thing is that it's became more complex due to security and and modern(ish) standards mostly I believe so it can't really get easier. What could improve is the tutorial and general information though for sure and some good updated FAQs and troubleshooting guides.

More people would be working on this stuff if the community wasn't so toxic though.