PvP mmos with small servers/communities

sacred_band

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a pvp oriented game with many small seperate servers. I've tried WoW, GW, D&D online, EQ 1, Runescape, Knight online, but all are fairly similar and to be honest quite boring to me.

The games I'm currently subscribed to are both 2d-ish old pvp games, Tibia (which celebrated its 10th anniversary on monday) and Ultima Online. I play on the "hardcore" PvP servers on both and like heavy death penalties to make pvp feuds meaningful. It's not that I like bad graphics or retro games, on the contrary I'd like a modern 3d one, it's just that in the ones I tried you log on and feel like youre just a rat in a corperate maze with 10000 other people who never speak forming meaningless guilds, fighting pre scripted wars.

As an example: In Tibia the servers will only have a handful of people online thus you get to know pretty much everyone eventually, that and the pvp anywhere and high death penalties (10% of total exp level, unlimited max levels, i believe th ehighest player currently is 290, death would maybe take a year+ to compensate for) make the community really closely knit.

Youll leave a note in the cave youre hunting in for example with your name and people will actually pm you and say "hey ____, its ____ how long will you be?" and wait their turn, if you end up getting in a fight and killing somebody theres a very good chance their guild will show up 5 minutes later with 20 people and kill you in revenge. its genuinely a ROLE PLAYING game, its own world. Wars will last years against the same people.

The only problem and why I left is over the past few years, for whatever reason, the game has become about 95% Non-english speaking free trial account players and plagued with a lot of cheat advertisers and gold salesmen from there. I can no longer communicate with anyone, Ive actually been hunted off multiple servers (yes real pvp is when you can literally kill somebody every time they sign on) for speaking english instead of portuguese or korean.... As far as UO, I'm simply burnt out on it from too long.

Does anyone know of a substitute I might enjoy? Anything similar to what i described 2d or 3d old or new?

Thanks in advance, sorry for the long post

paulscott

wurmonline on the wild server has very hardcore play style(exp loss, full item loss(if they decide to take it), ability to have player made towns(the main(95%) style of towns) destroyed).  though the game is based around crafting rather than combat.

sempiternal

You sound like the type that might like Roma Victor.

Drafell

Take a look at DarkSpace. It is a 3D sci-fi MMO that only have a small community so it is very easy to get to know everyone.

The gameplay concept is different to what you are probably used to in other games as it is totally PvP focused, although this may well be what you are looking for.

Take a look and see what you think. You cannot lose much by trying it out.

varius

If you are willing to wait for it to come out, then Darkfall is the game for you. It aims to bring back the magic that Ultima Online had, when the MMO market was new and all of the EQ/WoW clones didn't exist. Darkfall will have unrestricted PvP (fight basically anywhere), full loot, realistic physics, characters that take up space (you cant run through people like in EQ or WoW), items that decay over time to promote a better economy, naval battles, and much more. It still hasn't started beta testing yet, but the game is very promising.

osc8r

I agree, Tibia WAS great.



I used to play during the times when there was only 1 server, and no fees anywhere to be seen.



The highest level was around 50, and the PVP was simply – outstanding. Full loot, death penalties and lots of Anti Pk’s kept RPKing to a minimum which lead to lots of excitement and good times!



Anyway, back to your question – I would suggest you try Asheron’s Call 1 on the Darktide server. They had a free trial going later last year, though I’m not sure whether it’s still available. IMO this game had the best PVP setup available, yes, better than UO IMO.



Although it’s nothing like it used to be its still leagues better than all the crap available today. Maybe that will change with AOC PVP servers and Darkfall (if it ever comes).

Obraik

SWG on some of the less popular servers might interest you

End_of_a_era

^ Friggin hell John Smedley, noones interested in your crappy game anymore.

shae

Maybe one game you might want to look at is Saga of Ryzom.

It has a fairly small, tight community with some genuinely great people in the mix there. During my time there I certainly had some moments similar to what you described. There is PvP in the game although it's consentual/permission based, whether that interests you or not I'm not sure.

I think it's important to note that it's also gone through some issues as of late. Nevrax, the original developer, has sold the game off to Gameforge (I think is the name) and has since apparently had some billing issues. Knowing that you might want to check the official forums first to make sure everything is good on that front.

If it is, I think you would be pleasently surprised. IMO Ryzom has an amazing story line, great skill based/level mix based system that's quite unique, amazing environments and graphics that might be a little aged but still look good and don't need a super computer to run.

I havn't been back in a long time but I loved my time there. Might be worth it for you.

bobbler

www.ashenempires.com



play on heroes server for pvp. :-)

Obraik

Originally posted by End_of_a_era

^ Friggin hell John Smedley, noones interested in your crappy game anymore.

Wewt, been a while since someone with their panties in a twist called me John Smedley