I’ve never been a huge fan of PVP in Wurm Online, but I did give it a bit of a try on Chaos for a while. I enjoyed the thrill of it, and being able to join different kingdoms. My main reason (at the time) was to create a priest of Libila, a black lighter instead of the usual white light priests. I had grand hopes of hiding out and working on my skills in the dark, then transferring goods over to the other freedom servers.
On Sklotopolis there’s a vocal minority of people who also want some sort of PVP (I say minority because I truly believe that a majority of wurm players are not looking for pvp to be their main focus). So it was that the GMs of the server created an area where this can happen. It’s between a bunch of mountains, has a tunnel leading up to it, a camp outside, and functions like a regular PVP place except for a few restrictions that they’ve implemented. These restrictions include banning the ability to dig or otherwise terraform the land, creation of all forms, and a few other things added to try to keep the area pristine. I think most people were hoping for an entire server, with kingdoms that they could join, but this does scratch a potential itch.
Or at least it would, if anyone were interested. Yesterday’s PVP event had to be cancelled due to lack of interest. I walked over with my alt and have been hanging out in the PVP zone for a day and a half now, but I haven’t seen another person come by or enter local. The other “issue” with PVP areas is that people like to stay close to their deeds, and travel (at least from the southern portions of the map) is awkward and filled with mountains.
Still, I congratulate the GMs on trying to please all the players on their server, both the PVPers and the “carebears”. I don’t know if it will ever really take off, I think that they’re making the same mistakes that Rolf constantly makes with Wurm Online and that’s dedicating resources to something only a very small vocal group of people want. The population of the PVP servers on Wurm Online is about 10% of the average total population. Perhaps they’ll find a way to make it more appealing, without making it incredibly over powered for only a handful of well geared / skilled players. I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens in the future.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.