Actually there is a few reasons pvp is dead on great lakes. But the real death of it is more on Crews hands than anything. For the most part Crew is a merger of all the former guilds you probably remember. That being the remainder of FS!, TDR, BC, and XV. Now before i go any further let that sink in for secound.
I know if you DID play back then your going WOW....ALL OF THEM?
The answer is a resounding yes, unfortunately for them they were found out to be harboring some really horrible players. I mean players playing 10 years and dying in 15 secs 1v1 on a mage.
Basically those who could pvp turned on the former oppresors and devastated them. This was not a slow beating this was a day after day after day beating.
Now dont get me wrong there are players with some ability such as cetric, but to see farimir posting is laughable, im sure even you in a set of gear and 2 hours practice would be dominating him in a duel pit!
So anyways the oppressed finally destroyed the oppressors and they grew and grew and grew. What did you think would happen?
The final kill of GL pvp came with crews decision of "no more 1v1s EVER". They have become a guild of people that cant and wont ever fight on their own and you wont ever find one on his own lol! Yew gate was left empty and DC had no one to fight so they stopped coming too. It was a process of waiting for something to happen that doesnt.
Dont believe me? Stop on gl and ask someone to duel lets see if someone other than cetric from crew comes, odds are if they do theres a WHOLE LOT OF SOMEONES COMING!
This really forced a large part of the population who liked to pvp on to atlantic or you must have a character on atlantic, because GL isnt enough anymore. It just isnt.
Heres to chasing Farimir and never fighting him where he cant run away
Here is a timeline of events from back then, just from my biased (i'll try not to be) point of view. It might and probably does differ from others (just a few years ago, when pvp went it to a sharp decline):
- BC and TDR are the 2 guilds that duke it out the most, with healthy mixes of UOD, and misc small guilds. At this time BC has a tram guild BR under its wing, using them as a champ/harrower killer. At this time, DC doesn't exist in fel otuside of doing some spawns, much like -Y- does now.
- Factions get big, but it is still the TDR/BC/UOD and add into that a larger EGO, BoA, FKD, etc with misc small guilds.
- BR, disapproving of how they are treated in BC, flocks to TDR for support and vengeance against BC, a few members stay with BC.
- a few higher ranking BC work on grooming DC into pvp, working on successfully grooming them into DC. This causes some breaking of the ranks of BC. BC feels they need a few more to compete with the growing size of TDR, the high skill and speed of FKD dexers, etc. Others in BC believe this SHOULD NOT happen.
- DC, growing very large as a "for-profit guild", breaks off to do their own thing, taking many of the "money-hungry" BC with them, leaving behind loyalists and pvpers mainly.
- TDR, with only a handful of active members (FS! guys have been with TDR for years), and BC with only a handful of active members join together. This was hard to think of at the time, being the two guilds were pretty big rivals. But at the time, DC could put 30 on the field, FKD could run 10-15ish, and BC and TDR individually couldn't hit 10 if their lives depended on it.
- DC began some sort of mass recruiting, eating up any smaller guilds or individual pvpers that were never in guilds, always guard hugging blues (Think of Wojoe) I would assume this was from Tami(GM). They would bring over small guilds to join them from other shards, always claiming to them that DC was always outnumbered and treated badly, asking for their help. In some cases paying them for their help, or just providing scrolls/resources.
- At this point, it became an arms race between the DC and BC/TDR (Crew) just to compete. At this time, DC who would field 30+ was able to be killed by a group of 10-15. But they were getting better as they brought in people who knew how to pvp. DC gobbled up ALL small guilds, Crew stayed afloat bringing old players back and guilding folks who knew how to pvp, but didn't want to be in the DC horde. At this time, you had to either be in Crew or DC. There was no other option. Small faction guilds would just get pummeled by numbers. At some point here, the small group (2-4) XV guys that were in DC left and joined CREW.
- Both guilds would have active nights or slow nights. Much of the time one or the other would need to get a fight forced, rather than found. Both guilds believe the other guild are cowards, both point out the weaknesses of the other but fail to see their own bruises. CREW would begin playing with some guilds that would play multiple shards. DC would bring in the likes of Larry(kicked from CREW) and Slipknot (Refused by CREW, paid to bring his guild from Atl), as well as others from multiple shards. Giving basically any trash person/player a chance, if they could help them pvp.
- Here we are now. From what i have seen recently, neither guild can get a bunch of active people on the same night as the other. When they do, there is always an excuse why they can't fight them (mostly do to being outnumbered, guardzones, something). Many people have put chars on other shards to look for pvp elsewhere, but its hard to come by no matter where you look. Now i know i'm biased but i've seen CREW fight heavily outnumbered, and know they are gunna get smoked, but just come back to fight over and over. DC seems to think if the percentage chance of them dieing is about 30%+ they won't come. They will just say, "oh ur not worth it, im getting on atlantic" Then you hop on Atlantic yourself and see them running 20 deep on a non-faction guild fighting groups of 8
If i missed something or you disagree, i'd love to see someone elses point of view.
The biggest issue is, there are 2 guilds on GL now, all other small guilds were gobbled up in an arms race for manpower and shard supremacy.. The shard would be better off if both guilds disbanded and became 4 or 5 guilds. The problem is, both guilds don't play unless there are people to play with, and why not, its a mmorpg, i don't think its cowardice.