First of all, I played on Tallon Zek for 8 years. For about a year I did nothing but PvP night after night. Later on I was guildleader of one of the main guilds on the server. After the Zek servers merged I was an officer in the top guild. So I know what live was like.
Let’s be clear about it. The griefing on the Red99 server is worse than it was on the classic pvp servers. Back on Tallon Zek, the majority of people played by a code of conduct summarized in Myndpyre’s pvp 101 rules. We all knew what bind rushing was and we all knew what corpse camping was, but it was the exception. On here, griefing is common practice.
That being said, I like this server. There’s nothing about the technology or the ruleset that needs to change. The problem is that there are proportionally too many players that play to grief and it’s driving people off. Now I don’t mean to suggest that there is a “right” or a “wrong” way of playing pvp. Different people have different ideas about it. But one reaps what one sows. A community of griefers will inherit an empty server because only the griefers at the very top of the food chain will stay. There is nothing the staff can do about it. One can’t police a community where the majority of the people in it don’t want to play nice. Such a society doesn’t function.
Now personally I don’t mind a near empty server and I don’t mind the griefer mentality. I’m a soloer by nature and I'm good at survival. But if the problem with the server is that people can’t find groups? Global ooc, faster xp, none of that will make any difference if the mentality of the first generation is to grief everyone else off the server.
Cutting to the chase. The only way this server will get more people if the majority of the players play by a code of honor like
Myndpyre’s pvp 101 rules. Basically it means kill whomever you like but if you die you loot & scoot and if you win you let the other guy loot & scoot. It’s still very much pvp, but without the griefing.
This server will be viable when the majority of the people who play on it wants it to be viable. In the absence of a majority of sensible players, there is nothing that the staff can do.