Looking for advice from experienced Sysops

[Overlord]

Ok heres my situation. I started the game with a 2 level pvp. Due to user requests I raised the pvp level. When I did that I had about 13 players. Two of the players began to threaten low level players and in one case killed one (as far as I can tell) just to flush his gear and laugh about it. So now because of this I have at this moment 4 players in the game. Not including the two players who were pulling this stuff because it seems they have since quit.

Now I was under the impression that there arent many good mud games out there. So I put up the board just to give people a decent place to play. So my question is am I mistaken about that? Is there no need to even bother leaving the game up? It seems to me that if people are going to invest the time it takes to play the game wouldnt they want to not only keep the players they have but try to get more? I know from playing the game that most games are much better with more players instead of less. I would just like opinions on how the experienced sysops feel about this and perhaps some suggestions that have worked for you in the past. Thanks.

[Gardner Denver]

Unrestricted PVP is rarely fun for the "little guys" in your realm. You always end up with some higher level person who decides to be a prick. Most of the PvP'ers I know prefer +/- 10 level PvP max. It keeps the newbies from being slaughtered by the aforementioned prick.

There is a shortage of good quality boards out there. There is no "one size fits all" advice though on what makes a good realm to play on, or what makes a good Sysop. You have to decide for yourself what type of board you want to run. Obviously you don't seem happy with the anarchy type of realm, so change it.

[SouthernCross]

What I did was mix both genres, you can still have PVP on a non PVP board, by making the area and exploiting the arena flag.

You will notice, that hardly anyone wants PVP, but it is still a good option. IT takes a bit to set the areas, but requires just a little more than normal edits.

http://mmb.forumshq.com/index.php?topic=13368.0

[Mwuhaha]

on a fresh reset set the pvp lvl to 15 and stay out of it. On a board thats been running and no pvp leave it that way. A stock realm is pvp oriented anymore, there is nothing to do. A frequently added to realm has other options. Decide which you want to do.

[Overlord]

Forgot to say thanks. Thanks guys. All good advice.

O