I’m going to post a reply to this thread even though I don’t PvP or get raided very much. If you feel I’m misunderstanding a group of people, feel free to correct me.
People PvP on the server because slice of life RP gets old very quickly. From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, the reason these people play on LOTC instead of badlion to get their clicks is due to how their PvP affects a wider community and narrative on this server. They may not personally experience the roleplay consequences of their actions, but the thought of their PvP having actual impact on the server is enticing nonetheless. It’s like playing on a PvP-RP server on World of Warcraft. The gameplay experience is mostly about fighting things, yet the roleplay element lies in the consequences of the fighting. It is for this reason that LOTC’s PvP community exists even if some of them don’t roleplay at all.
For slice of life roleplayers experiencing the other end of the stick, these PvPers can seem somewhat bothersome. While most PvPers PvP in order to decide the outcome of political conflicts, gain fame for their character, and impact the server’s environment, many PvPers who don’t also roleplay don’t understand how to make their PvP impactful and roleplay-friendly. When PvPers raid a settlement, usually they’re trying to send a message to the inhabitants, cause fear in the characters living there, or otherwise impact the sort of roleplay inside the settlement through force. However, oftentimes none of this RP development is caused by the PvP due to over saturation, hard to understand raider motives, lack of roleplay leading up to the conflict, or lack of survivors capable of remembering what happened. This makes a lot of PvP conflict in LOTC contain little to no RP impact, for none of the roleplayers who experienced the raid can make anything out of it or use it to develop their characters.
There are a few PvP goons who only care about pixels and PvP for PvP’s sake. Those people are probably better off playing on badlion, but the rest of the PvP community has a good reason to play on LOTC.
Here’s a basic guide on how to PvP in a way that won’t make RPers hate you (unless they’re toxic and will hate you no matter what you do) and will have a positive effect on the server’s roleplay:
-When banditing/raiding a settlement or whatever, announce your intentions to those you wish to fight or otherwise make your motives obvious. If you want their belongings, tell them that. If you want to send a message/warning to the inhabitants, tell them that too. Don’t just walk up to people and start killing them without giving them a cause that their characters can react to. If the roleplayers don’t understand why you want to PvP them, they won’t gain any character development from the encounter
-Leave 1-2 survivors to tell the others about what happened. If everyone dies and forgets all about the encounter, the only roleplay impact of the raiding/banditry will be on the forum via victory posts.
-Give the roleplayers some adequate role play before clicking them to death. Without any roleplay leading up to the PvP, people will just assume you’re a bunch of goons who want pixels and will continue roleplaying after the raid/banditry as if nothing has happened. If you give the roleplayers respectable roleplay, they’re more likely to roleplay the effects of your actions. Nobody PKs to poor RP, after all.
tl;dr: PvPers actually help LOTC and roleplayers as long as they make their PvP something that can drive character/political development instead of random ganking for easy pixels. Roleplayers still don’t like many of the non-goon PvPers because many of them engage in PvP that’s hard to extract character development from.