After eight years I have finally done the unthinkable: I switched from Open PvP to Optional PvP. Most PvP players would consider this taboo, but given the changes over the past decade, I can honestly say that I have no regrets. PvP servers are no longer a means of introducing a realistic fear to the game that creates a necessity for politics and human interaction. They have instead become a breeding ground for hatred and abuse.
The average PvP player seems to dislike the concept of not being able to use force to deal with other players. PvE (Player vs. Environment) and PvP have always been closely intertwined in Tibia. In fact, this is one of the few games where there is a very strict death toll, players are forced to interact daily, and the two main aspects of the game (PvE and PvP) are unavoidably mixed. The result is a thin dividing line where players on PvP servers have an incentive to engage in PvP combat only for fun or personal gain via control over PvE elements such as hunting spots. This interaction between the two sides of the game has created a frustrating atmosphere for the players that do not take pleasure in combating intrusive players. An increasingly top heavy social hierarchy has also allowed for cheaters and abusive players to reign supreme, while the lower ranks are forced to either join their enemies and meet their cruelty in kind or flee to optional PvP servers. Such worlds are therefore ruled by a plague that consumes social interaction and turns it into those who rule and those who submit.
Violence is a powerful tool, whether used directly or as a means of scaring commoners into a structured government. For example, in 2004 Eternia had a council with its own charter that included all of the most powerful guilds. It was signed in the name of peace and taken seriously by all but one guild. Eventually, the guilds that upheld the rulings of the Eternian Council went to war with this group of troublemakers and forced them to stop playing. Across Tibia there have been many such examples over the years, yet the presence of unified servers has become a thing of the past as PvP interactions have become increasingly malicious. That is to say, players are attacking other players purely for the fun of destroying gameplay. Why has the war system changed so much? The obvious answer is rampant botting and the products of its dominance in Tibia. Yet for the purposes of this discussion I will only refer to cheating indirectly in order to stay on topic. So what has changed in the combat system?
Purpose. Many say that wars these days have lost purpose, yet the purpose is still just as evident: control. Control was always the gem that caught every guild's eye, it just so happens that now the term "justice" no longer impedes these groups. In the age where MCing was the greatest moral threat, justice played a much greater role. Players wished to coexist and share their server, despite a much smaller map and content system. Today, the hot new hunting spot is almost certainly controlled by a guild trying to stay on top. Such guilds are powerful, yet most of the power is derived from cheating in order to obtain levels and skills. In such a case, the PvP system itself is the motivation for abusive behavior rather than an aid in community interaction. The PvE system is thus isolated and only "hardcore" hunts require the attention of an individual player. This leaves PvP alone to provide a challenging environment that must incentivize CipSoft's customers to keep logging in for more. Instead of using the potential for player vs. player violence as a tool for enhancing the human element, the potential is used as a tool for terror. Players that seek to remain neutral are pulled into the fray by malicious individuals hoping to make the fighting more interesting. While the Twist of Fate blessing diminishes the potential for direct gains in-game, it only augments the joy of PvP and self-destructive servers by making it easier for players to continue fighting. It is now quite common for guilds to have no reason to fight other than for the joy of PvP. Yet inevitably players that wish to enjoy the game for what it is rather than what cheaters have made it become are power abused, afraid to leave protection zones, and forced to hunt in sub-par spawns if at all.
The result? The population on open PvP servers has plummeted. Players that enjoy their place in the upper echelons of Tibian society have joined a community of guilds that travel across servers in order to combat each other for the right to rule. Yet at the same time many have forgotten the benefits of healthy, fully populated servers. The respawn rates on a full world such as many of the current optional PvP realms is outstanding relative to the weakened PvP servers. Hunting spots can be comfortably shared by players, cities are full to the brim with people rather than empty houses, and no one can force you to play a certain way.
The respawn rates in particular are certainly a point of interest that could shift the balance significantly if given the appropriate attention. The sensitivity of respawns to the online population has created a self-destructive cycle on many PvP servers. The maximum limit of players online may have been 800-900 people five years ago, but that was accompanied by hunting spots that easily supported two or more people. Currently, many of those hunting spots on servers with a population dropping towards the 300 range can support only one hunter, if any. Given the convolution of the system as a whole due to cheating, this direct hit to the ability of players to preoccupy themselves with an aspect of the game other than PvP has stressed social ties even more. Power abusers are frustrated by limited hunting and thus force other players to leave the popular hunting spots. Such players often grow frustrated and leave the server (or perhaps even the game), and thus the population drops and hurts the respawn rate even more. Over time, this has created alarmingly low respawn rates that continue to drop as the cycle continues.
Social interaction as a whole is also improved on servers with higher populations by increasing the need to maintain a good reputation. On small servers with only a limited number of neutral individuals, there is an opening for small, concentrated groups to reign supreme through focused efforts. Larger populations force Tibians to always be in the presence of other players while in public areas such as cities. In addition, groups seeking power have to deal with a much greater potential for pushback from neutral players that wish to maintain their PvE independence and the status quo.
The prior arguments certainly pose a great deal to be disagreed with, but consider the new Tibians that are logging in for the first time every day. These players are shaped by the environment they are raised in within the game, and dictate the future as they decide which path to follow. Which player is more likely to give back to the community, maintain a good reputation, and work to improve their server rather than strip it of its value and then transfer? The one that leaves Rookgaard and is killed the first day by a random player looking for some fun? Or the one that teleports to Thais for the first time and sees multitudes of players standing around, interacting, and a few willing to help a beginner? Shaping the minds of new players must always be in the forefront of a good Tibian's mind.
What has now been described in a variety of ways is in part the network effect: the value of the server increases as more people play on it. Facebook would not be much fun without a lot of your friends being members. Likewise, a Tibian server is rubbish without a large crowd of people to enhance the social network aspect of the game. Without that option to interact with others, players have shown that they turn to abusing others to PvP and casting justice by the wayside. Therefore, though there is no definitive solution at this juncture, it seems that raising respawn rates on lower population servers is one of the easiest means of targeting much of the abuse. An argument against this method? The damage is done, and players have already shaped a vicious world of abuse. However, at this point Tibians can only hope to solve such problems with long term outlooks. Craban has already stated that CipSoft does not want players to be kicked off of servers or forced to not play even if they lose a war. We can only pray that new implementations follow this goal, and that we as players can see marked improvements in the community as a direct result.
Here's to hope...
