Howdy everyone,
First I will explain the server split.
Since launch, as far as I can discern from research and data Xsyon's population has been 80% PvE players and 20% PvP players. (In the past I noted it was 75%/25% but 80%/20% is more accurate).Since the server split, new players' choice of server (usually without any information regarding the population of each server) has followed this 80%/20% split.
At the time of the split, the game allowed for free play with limits as an introductory trial for new players. The game population had also reached its lowest point.
Many players were turned off by the existence of PvP. The daily combat logs showed repeated ganking of new players. I received many messages by players stating they would play only if there was a PvE server. A survey regarding Xsyon conducted on massively that revealed the same trend. I also surveyed players that had signed up on the website but never logged into the game (even for free). One of the main reasons given was simply that PvP was allowed.
In addition, conflicts between PvP and PvE players had often caused a lot of drama requiring me to step in attempting to mediate situations. This took away valuable time and often slowed development to a crawl. Something had to be done.
Among the PvP crowd there have been groups of players with different desires:
- Players that like the occasional thrill and danger of PvP.
- Players that want to participate in war games (capture the flag etc.) but not full on tribe siege or destruction.
- Players that want siege allowing the destruction of buildings and ransacking even full take over of other tribes.
- Players that want PvP based territory and resource control and use PvP to dominate trade or other players.
- Gankers / griefers that want to force PvP on players that don't want it.
Of course some players want combinations of the above.
Some of these desires were not not compatible with a server of primarily PvE players so to further advance the game for both type of players and for the other reasons mentioned above I proposed a server split.
Dividing the game into PvP and PvE regions as a compromise was discussed
here. In that discussion, the trend was for PvPers to want some advantage for PvP zones. That would not have been fair for the majority of players and I would be stuck with the issue of new players not wanting to join a game with open PvP. I proposed a PvP and PvE regions with no advantages for PvPers and did not receive a positive response.
Time was running out and I could not reach a compromise welcomed by PvP players, so the second server was added.
Unfortunately this met with resistance and frustration from many PvPers who instead of welcoming new PvP players and trying to build a new community, drove off newbies with griefing or left the game themselves.
Despite this, the overall population grew and conflicts subsided allowing me to focus on development and finally enjoy working on the game without constant distractions!
At this point I am open to the return to one server and have opened a
feedback thread for this as it would require several conditions. I welcome everyone to this discussion!