What makes an OTS good nowadays?

[AngeloFuturo]

Hey all,

I've been on and off from both Tibia and the OTS world for many years now. I only recently came back and decided to give OT another shot. With this being said, I came to realize that I am very much out of the loop as I'm writing this (2019). There's so many different contents such as flashy events, custom sprites, pay versus play free, etc that it honestly confused me a little bit.

So I decided to open up a discussion here on this topic. I might be wrong, but a lot of them seem a little corrupt (such as pay2win), unstable, rude admins, overly flashy and simply "too much". It's like everybody is copying everybody and clumping together one, giant and complex server which (to me) seems more confusing than good. The idea I have now is very much based on minimalism and to keep things as simple and "raw" as possible.

So my question to you is: What, in your most humble opinion, makes a good OTS nowadays? What would you say constitutes a well-made OTS, versus a bad one? What are some common "traps" that you would tell people like me to stay wary of?

I hope we can get something interesting out of this discussion, before I hop in and put myself in the statistics of horrible OTS out there!

Cheers,
AF

 

[Neon]

Well made OTS doesn't get the recognition it deserves (low player amount), while bad OTS does (high player amount).

Tutorial:
> Download CipSoft Real Tibia Map
> Customize it with some shitty mapping
> Allow bots and unfair PVP (pay2win)
> Make shit-tons of VIP Spawns (pay2win)
> Spoof for some time (to make it seem you got alot of players)
> Stop the spoofing when you have a decent amount of real players
> Done, you now have a "Successful" OTS.
> Profit

 

[AngeloFuturo]

Well made OTS doesn't get recognition, while bad OTS does. Make a bad OTS > Make profit.

So things are as bad as I anticipated then... Hm.

How about, if ignoring the profit aspect, what is 'good' for you? Because personally, to be honest, I would be perfectly fine with having a low-scale OT with 50 players as long as we have a nice community on there.

 

[Dohko]

I will follow this discussion because I am a developer and need to understand well how and when to implement something and how to make my server a unique and innovative experience.

In my humble opinion, there is no problem in profiting from your server, but from the moment you give advantage to someone who pays, your server no longer has any credibility whatsoever.

 

[Neon]

So things are as bad as I anticipated then... Hm.

How about, if ignoring the profit aspect, what is 'good' for you? Because personally, to be honest, I would be perfectly fine with having a low-scale OT with 50 players as long as we have a nice community on there.

I'd say around 200 players is a decent amount nowdays, it seems.

 

[Dohko]

So things are as bad as I anticipated then... Hm.

How about, if ignoring the profit aspect, what is 'good' for you? Because personally, to be honest, I would be perfectly fine with having a low-scale OT with 50 players as long as we have a nice community on there.

Exactly! Imagine that incredible scenario, having a server with 50 players who love your server and play purely by feeling good to log in, like the people that are there and things like that.

 

[StreamSide]

I can agree with @Neon, but the most important point there is this one:
> Allow bots and unfair PVP (pay2win)
Actually this will polute your server the first month, the second month players will ask you to edit some stuff like paralyze and attack timers, but related to bot problems.

 

[AngeloFuturo]

I'm realizing now that there is a misunderstanding about the question "what makes a good OT". I don't mean "what, nowadays, is what makes an OT work" (which, yes, is shitty pay2win concepts, low effort, etc) - but rather what would you LIKE an OTS to be?

I mean, let's start talking about what we want to see. This way, hopefully, people like me can be guided by what is good content, rather than follow what everybody else does. I almost fell into that trap (just by researching what I see in the Advertisement section). It's easy to fall for it, since you see what others make, how "successful" it becomes and the potential dollar-signs.

But what people usually miss is the last few pages of all those threads. What do they have in common? They're all filled with criticism from the very players of that OTS. And with good reason.

I'm ranting, but the point of the question should be what we, as fans of Tibia and OTS, would like to see in servers in the future.

 

[AngeloFuturo]

Exactly! Imagine that incredible scenario, having a server with 50 players who love your server and play purely by feeling good to log in, like the people that are there and things like that.

My very first OT I had many years ago had 20 players on it at its peak. But oh man it was the best thing I ever made. All players were super happy about it, told me they loved my OT better than the ones with 500+ players on it and kept being loyal to it even when I kept screwing things up (I was just a kid at the time).

But THAT'S what I want to get back to. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. I'd take that any day of the year rather than 500 players on my server but making players on it feel like shit because of unfair play, pressure to pay/donate, etc.

 

[Neon]

If an OTS doesn't have alot of players, it's not a good OTS, simple as that. Even tho I disagree with what I just said.
I think, in my opinion that some OTS deserves alot more recognition because of well made maps/scripts/events and so on. But if it doesn't attract players, it's just not a successful concept. Which means it's a "bad server". It's the harsh truth.

 

[AngeloFuturo]

If an OTS doesn't have alot of players, it's not a good OTS, simple as that. Even tho I disagree with what I just said.
I think, in my opinion that some OTS deserves alot more recognition because of well made maps/scripts/events and so on. But if it doesn't attract players, it's just not a successful concept. Which means it's a "bad server". It's the harsh truth.

So a good server in your opinion has a lot of players, but for it to have a lot of players you need the horrible things that we all hate?

Let me tell you, I'm not surprised at all that you are "retired"

I get your point, but I guess I don't count "success" in having 500 players versus, say, 100. As mentioned above, a server to be is more successful if it has 50 or 100 players with a blooming community versus 500 players with a toxic community.

But that's just my opinion.

Too bad you don't have any personal criteria about what would be a good OT in your own opinion. Because so far you've been telling me things you completely disagree with on a personal level.

 

[Kaspar]

If an OTS doesn't have alot of players, it's not a good OTS, simple as that. Even tho I disagree with what I just said.
I think, in my opinion that some OTS deserves alot more recognition because of well made maps/scripts/events and so on. But if it doesn't attract players, it's just not a successful concept. Which means it's a "bad server". It's the harsh truth.

While I completely understand what you mean...
I just want to point out just because many people like something, doesn't necessarily mean that it is good. Vice versa; if many people dislike something, doesn't necessarily mean that it is bad. A good OT and an OT that attracts player is not two equal terms.

But yes, generally most people like populated server, and would consider highly populated server to be good, regardless of the fact that there might be empty servers that are much better.

 

[AngeloFuturo]

A good OT and an OT that attracts player is not two equal terms.

Yes! This is what I meant. Do you have any opinions on the topic? What makes a good OT in your opinion?

 

[StreamSide]

You can always create a server and expect to have 20 players, you will belive its good because you created it and you put all your effort on it, but for me 20 players is bullshit, what can you do with 20 players? this is not a play-alone game, it is Tibia. And also 50 players is bad, my first server was a devland map, like 10 mb map and 70 players on it, that was fun.

 

[Kaspar]

Yes! This is what I meant. Do you have any opinions on the topic? What makes a good OT in your opinion?

It differs so much... Some people like newer clients, whereas me and many others stick to the old 7.x versions. Many people tend to only focus on the content and the quality of the actual server, but in my honest opinion, what makes a server good is the staff.
If you have a server with great staff members that never give up on development and listening to their players, then you should be very proud and happy.
You can fix bugs. You can improve the server, the map etc. You can change the client and literally everything... But the staff's personal opinions, behaviors, egos etc very rarely changes.

 

[Wazzup88]

Havent seen one i liked in a long time honestly, I did enjoy archlight for a little bit, but its entirely p2w which turned me off after a while. I liked the custom sprites and cosmetic aspect though. So I guess like fresh sprites and items with cool quests, alot of people enjoy pvp but i've come to find tibia pvp pretty lack luster compared to many newer games. Bots are pretty lame too and most servers encourage/have built in bots now, Which I do understand the reasoning behind it. But I don't like it

 

[Arahnus]

Personally I followed this thread and made pretty successful ots - still in progress of development but it never ends anyway. Success Tips to Creating a Great OT [By Leftwing] (https://otland.net/threads/success-tips-to-creating-a-great-ot-by-leftwing.168102/)

 

[Neon]

Hosting and having an OTServer costs money you know. But if you have a big wallet already and don't care about making any profit out of it, yeah sure maybe a 5mb map with 50 players would work. But in the long-run, people will get tired really quickly on such a small map.

Which is why Real Tibia Map is the "Best" choice. It's Immensely big, and has all the spawns needed.
I've been into OT for 12 years. Your concept would probably work like 10 years ago, when people hosted servers on their Private Computer, and developed OTS for fun.
These days, people wanna make bank on OTS.

But like I said, if you already got the money and all set up, yeah a 50 player server would work. You would need a small map tho, because player-interaction will be non-existent.

 

[AngeloFuturo]

Hosting and having an OTServer costs money you know. But if you have a big wallet already and don't care about making any profit out of it, yeah sure maybe a 5mb map with 50 players would work. But in the long-run, people will get tired really quickly on such a small map.

Which is why Real Tibia Map is the "Best" choice. It's Immensely big, and has all the spawns needed.
I've been into OT for 12 years. Your concept would probably work like 10 years ago, when people hosted servers on their Private Computer, and developed OTS for fun.
These days, people wanna make bank on OTS.

But like I said, if you already got the money and all set up, yeah a 50 player server would work. You would need a small map tho, because player-interaction will be non-existent.

Good points!
Yeah I'm thinking small map + small amount of players, at least for starters. The guide posted above really resonated with me.

Glad we have so many different opinions here, because it helps me think in a better direction. You're certainly not wrong in most things you're saying either. Good things to keep in mind.

 

[Neon]

But if you want some "Perspective" on what I think, IMO is a good server. I would probably say;

@Sir Knighter with
Archlight - Landing Page (https://archlightonline.com/)

Is a great example of a well developed server. (I don't play anymore) but I have friends playing OTS, and I always recommend this server for them, because it's a server that deserve all the attention it can get.

Pros;
- Good map/mapping.
- Insane amount of stuff to do.
- Good playerbase.
- Active Staff Members
- Loads of Dungeons/Events.
- Great PVP.
- Very frequent updates.
- Website is gorgeous.
- Has some of my mapping in it ( )
- Has a really active WIKI.

Cons;
- The Exp is way to high for my taste.