You fear that RP-PVP is too niche to maintain a population. I have no evidence for or against this claim. What I do have is a sense for safety. The safest approach to this situation is to open a RP-PVP server no matter what. If the population does not reach a healthy level after 3/6/9/12 months, or whatever amount of time seems appropriate, then offer free but mandatory transfers to the citizens of that realm to any server they desire or at least ones who have a low enough population to support the influx.
Make the announcement, discuss the plan so anyone going in to RP-PVP knows what the future may hold. Even put a warning prompt on the server as you select it, similar to the high population prompt for queues that already exists.
Do not start with a strict hand if you don’t know it’s necessary. Adjust over time to a strict hand as is proven necessary.
It’s a safe approach.
PS: I’m not an RP’r and I won’t be rolling one, but good luck to you folks who feel like your home is being destroyed right now.
If they were “ok” with 10 people playing WoW…why wouldn’t they be “ok” with a low pop realm? Not saying an RP-PvP server would be low pop…I actually highly doubt it. But seriously…why not make even 1? Or 1 per time zone?
I have some evidence, go look at Emerald Dream in WoD or other places.
People transferred from pvp realms to emerald dream. The rppvp server. Why?
Because emerald dream was the home for world pvp. If you wanted world pvp. You went to ED.
Rppvp servers don’t even need hardcore pvp roleplayers. Pvp players love those servers because they know if they kill someone from guild A in silithis. In about fifteen minutes, the rest of the boys and girls from Guild A are coming.
The most important thing for me is that the RP-PvP server needs to be in at launch rather than something added later, otherwise people wont want to transfer/re-roll as much because they’ve already established themselves on another server.
This is very true, and something i feel, i’m not a hardcore PVPer or a hardcore Rper, i may not even RP on this realm, but i do love making content.
PVP or PVE
RP-PVP community’s do help provide this, I am not unwilling to work with people RP PVP and PVE wise. I plan to Maintank for a guild, and was will hoping to get something out of the community fun and silly etc off it.
I’m going to piggyback this thread. The beauty of a RP server is that it is more friendly and less competitive. It usually draws a more social crowd.
I also believe that a PVE server will never be a true wow experience.
RPPVP allows for that community attraction with the PVP experience. Please reconsider.
I do NOT, however, agree with providing a “safety net”.
If Johnny wants to play an an RP-PVP server, I support the option for him to do do. He should, however, make that choice with the knowledge that every other player has. ANY server may be “dead” after a period of time and they may have to refill if they do not feel their server has a sufficient population.
That said, Blizzard doesn’t understand the history of their own servers. What happened to RP-PVP servers is that tryhards transferred to the big name PVP servers like Illidan and Kel’Thuzad. Those that remained consolidated to Emerald Dream, who had the best reputation as a bloody nasty World PVP server.
Before server/faction transfers and super tryhard Arena nerds, the RP-PVP servers were pretty healthy.
This hit me right in the feels, thank you. Brought back so many memories of this exact thing happening to me in Vanilla.
I would gank someone to get wrecked by 10 of his guildies 10 minutes later. Then I would call on my guildies. Next thing i know there is a massive battle in the middle of nowhere between guilds. So much freaking fun!
I have a hard time believing that there aren’t enough people wanting a rp pvp server to populate ONE server. This seems silly.
Even by the most extreme of extreme conservative figures WoW classic is going to have 100k+ players. They’re worried about ONE rp pvp server? Something seems off.
I think there is a big concern with Blizzard that the launch of Classic will be massive but that people wont stay long term. And I think that is why they are reluctant to have RP PvP servers.
I am a die hard lover of PVP and I already plan on a rppvo server. I think there will be a LOT of support for rppvp in classic. I do not RP but I enjoy the atmosphere and community.
I think you may be right that this is Blizzards thought, but I think it’s misguided. If you asked me which server type is most likely to have a long term (by which I mean years) steady player base, my money would be on RP-PvP.