(Venting) A serious question

[KikiRook]

Has the community drive for custom servers really been driven into the ground? to the people actually taking time to host/edit/ect you're really putting out RL projects with a tweak as if you're unique? Have you not noticed the 9 others posted 20 minutes before yours that are dead? I Mean really man... The community is hanging by a thread of OG people that honestly already have their own rl project.. Take OT into what it was meant for. a COMPLETELY Custom touch of your own style and nature, FUCK RL Project bullshit.

Open TIBia is beyond dead compared to the community it once was when I Was younger and it's honestly upsetting to come back and constantly see the same trash nowadays..
YurOT
Roxor
Illusions
KeneticOT
and tons more completely custom maps were made back in the day that were legit made with a black map and are now servers in graves with HUGE history..

your RL Server means absolutely NOTHING

Can we just have an advertisement section made for ONLY the Rl-tards who think they have something going for themselves..

inb4 the make your own server comments or the completely irreverent garbage.

 

[Dkami]

KikiRook, Most servers now are not driven by passion... They are fueled by greed, People are just trying to make a buck from a server they edited and then move on to the next RL map project they say will be better.

OTLand is not about creativity anymore, it is just a cash grab that anyone can get in on... wish it would go back to just custom servers that the creators poured all their effort into..

 

[Infernum]

There are plenty that are still in development. Higher clients come with tons of new things to play around with and new things to create that isn't just a thrown-together piece of shit 8.6 bot 24/7 server, so it takes more time to develop. There's also not as many people in the community as there used to be and very few who are competent enough to even build a server, which means less servers and the list will only get smaller as time goes on, especially since nearly nobody new is willing to learn and put in the work it actually takes to create a server.

 

[Red]

KikiRook,

I understand that your post is a rant, however, @Delusion made some valid points - I'd like to add mine as well.

There are actually quite a few (and vastly different from each other) custom servers that have been developed for years that are available to players. These servers, had they been around when "YurOTS", "Illusions", or "RoXoR" were around, would be considered world-class masterpieces by every member of the community. (I, personally, consider all of the servers that I'm thinking of to be masterpieces.)

The majority of servers that are published are "RL Map" or "RL Map with a few edits" because it's what the majority of the players choose to play. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it's the fact of the matter.

I, too, wish that OT servers were all completely custom like they mostly used to be. But that does NOT mean that the custom server developer part of this community is dead or that there aren't multiple awesome custom servers to choose to play.

Red

 

[Zasranets]

My answer to your question is yes. The community drive for true custom servers has been declining over the years.

I think about this from time to time and you just have to accept the sad reality that this is what open tibia servers have become. I always dreamed that every single server would be it's own creative and custom world for players to experience, but of course that will never happen. Sometimes I'll look through otland's advertisement section, but I'll go to the pages in the beginning (2007+) and it's fun to see how nice, simple minded, and creative servers were back then. Then I look at the ones posted in the current time and it makes me sad to see how times have changed.

The way I see it is that as times goes on open tibia servers will keep changing and evolving into whatever the player base is interested in. I see these posts every now and then complaining about how there isn't enough custom servers and how everything is filled with real maps or download and run servers. I used to be one of those people too... but I realized it's pointless to complain because it won't accomplish much, if anything at all.

The player base for custom servers isn't as huge as it used to be. Most people don't feel like spending huge amounts of time creating a custom server just for 20-30 people to play it. Not to mention how long it takes to make a proper custom server. The only ones who do that anymore are those who do it as a hobby, love, and passion for Tibia. Other servers are most likely driven by money, and while it may not be the only thing that drives people, it's probably the main thing.

I'm also going to take a guess here, but I think in the earlier days it was a bit more dificult just for anyone to create and host a server. I think back then people were more inclined to be creative and custom. But as time went on.. more and more resources became available. There are a lot more tutorials, free datapacks, maps, script, etc.. so in our current time essentially anyone can make and host a server hence why there are so many garbage servers.

Tibia will forever remain the coolest and greatest game of all time for me. I always thought it was so cool how you could essentially make anything you want and enjoy it in a Tibia style. There is no limit to a server someone can make because it's all about creativity. You can't really say that for many games, if any games at all.

 

[Deleted member 49793]

I like to think we do a decent job keeping the custom server thing alive, but it's very hard, and far less profitable. It blows my mind talking to some people who sold something off to other projects how these RL maps seem to just print money... (I assume it's cost their costs are negligible). You really have to LOVE what you're doing to do a custom project nowadays, and have an iron thick skin because people know what they get with an RL map, they rarely have anything to complain about, but when you're going against the grain, theres more things for people to not like.

 

[yabsd]

there won't be anymore good custom RPG servers. last hope we have is mayube rangers arcan.
and knighter posting in this thread is the ultimate joke. that's a teleport server, shitty bloated sistems, that has INGAME bot you can pay literally THOUSHANDS of euroes and still have more things to buy in that server. that's the kind of servers that ruin the fun custom servers of the past, why make such a server when we see that players are accepting of paying thousands of euros and playing afk simulator

 

[Infernum]

Why do people keep making new accounts to post shit, are you really that fucking afraid to post on your main?

 

[Stanos]

Imagine playing any tibia server and spending money in it

 

[Deleted member 49793]

there won't be anymore good custom RPG servers. last hope we have is mayube rangers arcan.
and knighter posting in this thread is the ultimate joke. that's a teleport server, shitty bloated sistems, that has INGAME bot you can pay literally THOUSHANDS of euroes and still have more things to buy in that server. that's the kind of servers that ruin the fun custom servers of the past, why make such a server when we see that players are accepting of paying thousands of euros and playing afk simulator

Created same day, 1 post, just to shit on us, coward.

 

[FenX]

Agreed but it doesn't mean it's wrong. It's their choice to create rl-map semi-edits where botting is allowed. Even though it sounds shitty it's the truth that this is what attracts majority of the people, personally I hate them just as much as you do. Whether it's wrong or right we can't say or be the judges of that, everyone has their own opinion on the matter but just because it doesn't agree with your statement that doesn't mean it's a wrong opinion.

I'm personally tired of seeing the same servers being played with nothing new, same boring 8.6, oldschool 7.4 bot infested servers that last a lame month or two because owners don't profit as much as they'd want or like you specified, new tibia rl-map semi-edits that are nothing special compared to the actual real game apart from the fact that no premium account is required and that is why people play them.

I am working on a 100% custom server in terms of mapping/gameplay/systems etc. However, I'm a 1 man army so I can only do so much. Occasionally I seek help with making scripts work or requesting code here but apart from that I try to do as much as I can myself. Also considering the fact that I am pretty much a rookie when it comes to developing servers I'm still learning a ton in the process therefore I'd most likely be safe to say that I'd launch beta testing (most likely closed/limited) late next year (if this game even survives that long). Ideas are not an issue it's just the fact that they consume a lot of time to do and perfect. Not mentioning the fact that there will also be work in terms of the client/optimisation/website etc. But perhaps I will be able to create something as you say "unique" as I am part of the community that hates the consistant same bullshit.

 

[Lvitz]

There are still few nice older or younger custom ots (like 11 years old zezenia - it is ots, believe me or no, created for them many lua codes so I know how its lua looks), developed for years and never released as something higher than beta (phobos - same category as Zezenia both where based on same fork of unknown ots distribution, abandoned necronia - hope not abandoned). Feel free to list more, Anyway, most of players see ots as fun, place to fight together with bigger or smaller team. No more as addictive game - with many exceptions of course. Developers got two different possible ways to run servers. Hard job and touch-and-go business vs easy money from slighty edited distributions. Who is smarter then? Sadly second group, because they know how economy works. Hope, some day once my own ots will be released players will appreciate the spirit of custom maps.

 

[Damon]

[Germany][Custom] RANGER'S ARCANI RPG -NEW MAP/QUESTS/VOCATIONS/SPELLS-

www.rangersarcani.online Join the Ranger's Arcani Discord Server! (https://discord.gg/BafBt8c) Ranger's Arcani YT Ranger's Arcani FB Hello all! We are getting close to release of Ranger’s Arcani server. After all those years of development and many changes (project started in 2010) we are happy...

otland.net

 

[Fox Rother]

There are a few reasons for that.

First, most of the really talented people in here were leeched a lot for a very long time. There's a very small percentage of the community actually producing content and maintaining projects. They probably got frustrated, tired or bored and figured they should take care of themselves, which is very reasonable.

Second, still having "Tibia" tied to this community might not inspire potential new members as much as Unity does. And that's not a weird comparison at all. OpenTibia does not have anything to do with Tibia anymore. We got completely different codebases for both server and client.
However, the Tibia mentality doesn't allow these projects to grow... Why should we still use 32px sprites? Do we really have to imagine worlds in isometric pixel art? Server-bound accounts, really? A weight system?? Manage the inventory???
I'm not saying these ideas are bad per se, I'm just saying we don't need them.

Also, Tibia sets the bar really low. It was pretty fun 10, 15 years ago, but we got Mario Kart running on our smartphones nowadays. Anyone interested in making a game will not even look into what these projects have to offer. It's actually worse than that: we might not even be found! Again, we present ourselves as... Open Tibia!

Third, there is a severe lack of documentation, making everything feel like some kind of dark art. I'm not blaming the contributors for that: they had a very demanding community to please in the past and now have to move on with their lives. What I'm saying is that it's really hard to give a glimpse of what can be achieved without even saying what can be done.

I wish we presented ourselves as an MMORPG platform more often, like TFS presents itself on its GitHub page.
Maybe then we'd see an influx of new members looking forward to actually making something new.

To summarize, I think that if we distanced ourselves from Tibia, focused on documentation and made it easier/faster to produce graphical content (pixel art is cool, but it's a pain), we'd see some interesting changes around here

 

[Beo]

1. Community was spoonfed constantly a few years back, I warned that it would make the community dive, no one listened and the feedback to my thread at the time, was that it would make the forums healthier and promote open source or some bullshit around that. I'm all for open source, but not when you're literally spoon feeding people who are using it. Eventually, it turns into a handful of people providing support and everyone else expecting to be spoonfed, rather than look for solutions themselves. Nobody cared.

2. There isn't anyone taking lead in the OT Community, everyone of importance has pretty much left or is barely active. Those who have the knowledge now, do not want to take on the responsibility. If they do, they don't have the skill set to manage a team long term and the enthusiasm dies out within a month.

3. Most of Tibia / Open Tibia players are, I'd say, 20-30 years old. Jobs, family, etc, all take priority over developing an open source game. The community has aged.

4. The community is greedy, but it's like this in other games too, so I'd count this as a factor, but more of a generic one.

Edit: to be more specific on your custom servers, the amount of hours to develop a custom server is incredibly large if you want to make it decent and actually custom.
They don't get players, it's as simple as that. Nobody has the time and attention span anymore to learn, effectively, a whole new game. New mechanics, new skills, new map, new monsters, etc etc etc. They time they have, they want to spend on what they enjoy the most, which most of the time is PVP on RL maps. Because custom maps don't get players, nobody wants to waste hundreds of hours developing their custom server, for 5-10 consistent players.

 

[ralke]

OTLand is no longer about creativity? I do not agree, personally I have seen incredible new resources in recent days, thematic pieces of mapping, pixel art, bug reports to learn from, new codes...

Do you want to make money through ots? Well then, there are those who think that their time is an investment, regardless of how much they have contributed to the development.

Do you want to develop your skills, learn from others, share your work, and receive opinions? better yet, and I'm more in favor of this.

However, everyone is free to choose and pursue their interests. But, more important than that, it is that the creativity to provide solutions in OtLand is what allows this decision to be possible for all who visit the forum and not for a few.

We should not detract from those who make the attempt to have their Tibia server, it all costs us time and dedication. ^^

 

[da1biglild]

damn some of yall really sparked my creativity with ur post.. how come no one ever puts rl map with a world that interacts with a custom map??

 

[Kuzyn]

there won't be anymore good custom RPG servers. last hope we have is mayube rangers arcan.
and knighter posting in this thread is the ultimate joke. that's a teleport server, shitty bloated sistems, that has INGAME bot you can pay literally THOUSHANDS of euroes and still have more things to buy in that server. that's the kind of servers that ruin the fun custom servers of the past, why make such a server when we see that players are accepting of paying thousands of euros and playing afk simulator

Honestly, I'm more ok with custom servers having huge premium shop than RL maps selling ingame items (and most of them on cancerous 8.6, most botted shit). Custom server takes ages to complete at playable level with voluntary work. So people want some money back for delivering free custom project for everyone. The common exception are graphic artists, they take money before release. Rest stuff needs to wait for launch.

About community, from the Ranger's Arcani point of view - players are looking for longterm servers, but many of them don't understand or don't appreciate RPG side and amount of work on custom things. They just want easy hunt and pvp. However, there is A LOT of players that enjoy custom rpgs and they are not crazy about competition, they just want to play and have fun.

 

[ScorpionOT]

 

[yabsd]

Honestly, I'm more ok with custom servers having huge premium shop than RL maps selling ingame items (and most of them on cancerous 8.6, most botted shit). Custom server takes ages to complete at playable level with voluntary work. So people want some money back for delivering free custom project for everyone. The common exception are graphic artists, they take money before release. Rest stuff needs to wait for launch.

About community, from the Ranger's Arcani point of view - players are looking for longterm servers, but many of them don't understand or don't appreciate RPG side and amount of work on custom things. They just want easy hunt and pvp. However, there is A LOT of players that enjoy custom rpgs and they are not crazy about competition, they just want to play and have fun.

Dude it died after 30 days, idont think u can speech about ots Maybe dont make p2w, maybe dont make shitty updates, maybe dont make server crash almost daily and it would still have a playerbase
Anyways i dont see custom rpgs coming anytime soon, we can only play bot servers maybe sands of time will be good but i dont have much hope anymore