Low pop and frustration.

ArcaneConsular

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Oct 27, 2021
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what are you saying, pve is in great shape who doesn't enjoy semi-afk mining or terrible yield time consuming gathering. Find it kinda funnay the ones that said pve is great don't even play anymore xD

The amount of time and effort it takes to make a stack of steel that sells for like 350g isn't worth it anymore. Mining in this game basically feels like crypto mining in that you leave it draining your CPU in the background while you get some ore in exchange
 
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adrelik

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The biggest mistake SV made was trying to release this as a full game. It should of had way longer in development and they should of done wayyyy more research/testing on the server before launch.

Imo they absolutely blew a massive opportunity to bring 1000's of new players into MO
 

Emdash

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Sep 22, 2021
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Don't underestimate the current player base! With averaged 1000 accounts in the steam chart (could be 800 during last week, but just for simple estimation) and averaged 3 hours play time per day we get 8000 active accounts. Of cause the real numbers are known to StarVault only.

My pov is that they wouldn't be acting so strangely if things were going at a proper pace. The server issue is something, and maybe that's the root, but in general I don't think it's going so well. Plus, we dunno about the sub pop.

But yea it's a sadlife that they can't market a game like this to people. It just has to be good and... not filled with cheating/cheese. Fix the fucking rule sets once you lay down the core game and see what's actually happening with the mechanics working.
 

Tzone

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May 16, 2021
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Don't underestimate the current player base! With averaged 1000 accounts in the steam chart (could be 800 during last week, but just for simple estimation) and averaged 3 hours play time per day we get 8000 active accounts. Of cause the real numbers are known to StarVault only.
The map design is bad need more people then we currently have, but the servers can not support the amount needed.

MK is pretty dead while Tindrem was packed. Which caused Tindrems nodes to lag out the server. Good map design would have been to spread out the player base like by making MK not suck to play out of and give it similar content as Tindrem has.

They also want to force players to live in cities which leads to a laggy and bad experience if you are in towns, while draining the rest of the map of content.

that 1k is falling, the necro/trinket will make some of the vets come back for a minute but the game has a lot of other fundamental game design issues.

For MMOs its usually a 1:8 ratio of concurrent to active player base. So yeah its around 8k players, but how many people will be subbing which is the number that is needed.

Right now people are complaining for reason that the game is feeling dead, and it kind is. We are about beta numbers but many of those harden bug proof, low content resistant beta vets have quit due to SV mismanagement and horrific changes to the game. So a lot of those numbers are not as stable as the beta players.

SV needs 8k players for the game to develop but it feels dead to a lot of players which will lead to players quiting. If they get to many players then the game starts lagging and people start to leave. Servers matter but so does decent map design and dispersing players so the servers can handle the pop needed.
 

rgarrett

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Apr 23, 2022
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I just started playin a week ago with my crew.

Got a house got established.

getting bored already no pve content large map with empty forests
roam for hours looking for a small static spawn of mobs\

yes its a pvp game dont remind me im played uo half my life im a pvper but without pve theres a lack of pvp cuz theres nothing to do while yer waiting for the homies to get on and when they do get on theres about 5 bandit camps to roam between and thats all we got its getting repetitive

i need more action

100% of my game time is now running around

with 0 hotspots wars pvp or any type of PVP that i can solo player join up with a war of a faction and find pvp we wont last much longer



and dont get me started with the SPINNY DOODLE PVPERS

who spin in circles rapidly mindlessley feinting and attacking to where u cant see the weapon swings make those cheaters blackout or lose to 0 stam when they wildly flinger the mouse to cheat and hide attack animations
 
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Kaemik

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Nov 28, 2020
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We are one week away from the end of the month and we have no mid months patch. I'm seeing less and less a reason to log in as each day passes. What's the point of gathering resources if you can't use them?

Complete radio silence by SV this week. No stream, community manager is on vacation. I'm starting to wonder if they are shutting down the project.


Late April we had 1998 players on Saturday. We have progressively lower weekly peaks each Saturday after. This week it was 1143. That's a 43% drop. And that's THIS month. Like obviously the drop-off in the first month was ridiculous but that's a near-universal among all new games. A 43% drop-off between months 4 and 5 is pretty bad.

They haven't implemented subs yet. People are still playing for free.

Now would not be a good time to purchase shares of StarVault IMO. Though if you do it's 93% off: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SRVTF?p=SRVTF
I'm sure the fact SV isn't doing a buyback when their stock is worth 7% what is was on release doesn't mean they've lost confidence in their own game... right?
 
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Hodo

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Mar 7, 2022
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The map design is bad need more people then we currently have, but the servers can not support the amount needed.

MK is pretty dead while Tindrem was packed. Which caused Tindrems nodes to lag out the server. Good map design would have been to spread out the player base like by making MK not suck to play out of and give it similar content as Tindrem has.

They also want to force players to live in cities which leads to a laggy and bad experience if you are in towns, while draining the rest of the map of content.

that 1k is falling, the necro/trinket will make some of the vets come back for a minute but the game has a lot of other fundamental game design issues.

For MMOs its usually a 1:8 ratio of concurrent to active player base. So yeah its around 8k players, but how many people will be subbing which is the number that is needed.

Right now people are complaining for reason that the game is feeling dead, and it kind is. We are about beta numbers but many of those harden bug proof, low content resistant beta vets have quit due to SV mismanagement and horrific changes to the game. So a lot of those numbers are not as stable as the beta players.

SV needs 8k players for the game to develop but it feels dead to a lot of players which will lead to players quiting. If they get to many players then the game starts lagging and people start to leave. Servers matter but so does decent map design and dispersing players so the servers can handle the pop needed.

Truth... so much so it should have its own website.
 

Kaquenqos

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May 3, 2022
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SV continues to make drastic changes that nobody asked for, instead of doing the changes that everyone wants, like sieging.

Continuously punishing pvpers is also completely moronic for a game that sells itself as being a pvp game.

MO2 is quickly following into MO1 footsteps and that is because the same people are in charge. The same decisions are being made. The same mistakes repeated.The same stubborn blindness is directing the games development.

What can we do? Nothing. You cant change stupid. You cant change Henrik.
I feel like for MO2 pvp to work, we need a polis/city-state system... I know, I know, it will never happen... but hear me out.

There is a reason most PvP MMOs launch with a sensible framework of rules as to how the PvP will occur that everyone can understand; usually with catch-all factions... You could do something similar to this in MO2 by implementing a civic faction system that wasn't just some 'murder count' counterweight.

For example, guilds sign up to be a member of a city faction (maybe member guilds of said state can vote to accept membership or not). With something like this, PvP would then have a sensible framework to take place between cities (and ostensibly the guilds who make up said cities & direct such things) who are at war; no murder count here (only murder counts if you fight blue people from cities you are not at war with). Guilds could lobby with other guilds within their city to go to war with other cities... If your guild ends up having disputes with same city guilds, no problem, your guild can leave the city and join another city faction. Boom, you also have more realism, civic pride/identity, etc... Implement city housing, apartments for the poors, etc. In a sense you can then have lawless city factions for all the reds/greys to dominate, and then you have your edgelord 'for the horde' factions as a counterweight to blue cities; obviously just as now these city factions & guilds that make them up don't have to operate within war/diplomatic frameworks and can just implicitly kill or not kill whomever they choose-- but on the other hand their cities are more susceptible to blue city raids. This would be the option for the hardcore guilds/players, which imo most outlaw RPK guilds already are (in effect outlaw cities would be the ones who operate similar to current pvp; ie. all their decisions are implicit & not directly defined by city treaties)

Would this be balanced? Of course not. But it would have a meaningful framework for PvP which is sorely lacking. The current system is not balanced AND has no meaningful framework beyond 'don't kill x amount of people in x amount of time or become an outlaw'... The siege mechanic is never going to work out on its own for the same reason it never worked out in every other MMO that has done it, it's almost impossible to implement in a fun way and just breaks down to zergfests. If you have city factions as a backbone rather than having JUST the siege stuff as planned, you might be able to mitigate this issue.

That's why I think it's the wrong move making guilds>cities, and moving towards guilds owning cities rather than being members of the overarching city faction, because it does not offer enough of a factional backbone to the pvp or offer any democratization of a game that sorely needs people to be able to participate. If cities>guilds, the city then has a natural incentive to help its new citizens who can then participate in warfare on behalf of the city. If guilds>cities, basically anyone in that city not a member of the ruling guild is marginalized in what is already a game that is brutal to newcomers, and you just end up with boring zerg pvp. The city would act as a failsafe to this boring 'sandbox gvg (zerg vs zerg) blob empire' bullshit that happens in every game with the guild>city model. All the player-housing guild territory in between could be the area that is competed over, whereas blue cities (& outlaw cities to a lesser extent, being guardless) are basically HQs not intended to be conquered outright, but instead competed for leadership of by participating guilds.


Sandbox is all fine and good, but there needs to be a sensible framework for how the sandbox will operate. All of the best sandbox games have this as a cornerstone. Imagine if Crusader Kings (I'm aware how extremely different the genre of game is, just bear with me), for example, had no factions\cassus belli\city-mechanics etc. and everyone is just 1 character occupying 1 region, there are no kingdoms, no civic mechanics, all you do is raise revenue hire levies and blob until someone is unbeatable; when you take a region the region's previous owner no longer exists-- it's just you. That would not be very fun. Well, that's the 'it's a sandbox' mentality MO takes to pvp... 'The player will make up the framework' does not and never truly has worked, and in the instances that it has seemed to, if you dig deeper there is always a sensible concrete framework holding it up.

I know this is not a finely tuned idea, but something reminiscent of this is what would make MO2 whole. You can pile as much content on top of the game as you want, but it needs a meaningful foundation like this. The lack of it is why nobody is happy re: the state of the PvP system, and why, as this thread suggests, pop. is in decline.
 
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finegamingconnoisseur

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I feel like for MO2 pvp to work, we need a polis/city-state system... I know, I know, it will never happen... but hear me out.

There is a reason most PvP MMOs launch with a sensible framework of rules as to how the PvP will occur that everyone can understand; usually with catch-all factions... You could do something similar to this in MO2 by implementing a civic faction system that wasn't just some 'murder count' counterweight.

For example, guilds sign up to be a member of a city faction (maybe member guilds of said state can vote to accept membership or not). With something like this, PvP would then have a sensible framework to take place between cities (and ostensibly the guilds who make up said cities & direct such things) who are at war; no murder count here (only murder counts if you fight blue people from cities you are not at war with). Guilds could lobby with other guilds within their city to go to war with other cities... If your guild ends up having disputes with same city guilds, no problem, your guild can leave the city and join another city faction. Boom, you also have more realism, civic pride/identity, etc... Implement city housing, apartments for the poors, etc. In a sense you can then have lawless city factions for all the reds/greys to dominate, and then you have your edgelord 'for the horde' factions as a counterweight to blue cities; obviously just as now these city factions & guilds that make them up don't have to operate within war/diplomatic frameworks and can just implicitly kill or not kill whomever they choose-- but on the other hand their cities are more susceptible to blue city raids. This would be the option for the hardcore guilds/players, which imo most outlaw RPK guilds already are (in effect outlaw cities would be the ones who operate similar to current pvp; ie. all their decisions are implicit & not directly defined by city treaties)

Would this be balanced? Of course not. But it would have a meaningful framework for PvP which is sorely lacking. The current system is not balanced AND has no meaningful framework beyond 'don't kill x amount of people in x amount of time or become an outlaw'... The siege shit is never going to work out on its own for the same reason it never worked out in every other MMO that has done it, it's almost impossible to implement in a fun way and just breaks down to zergfests.

I think it's the wrong move making guilds>cities, moving towards guilds owning cities rather than being members of the overarching city faction, because it does not offer enough of a factional backbone to the pvp or offer any democratization of a game that sorely needs people to be able to participate. If cities>guilds, the city then has a natural incentive to help its new citizens who can then participate in warfare on behalf of the city. If guilds>cities, basically anyone in that city not a member of the ruling guild is marginalized in what is already a game that is brutal to newcomers, and you just end up with boring zerg pvp. The city would act as a failsafe to this boring 'sandbox gvg (zerg vs zerg) blob empire' bullshit that happens in every game with the guild>city model. The cities could be the failsafe to the system, whereas all the player-housing guild territory in between could be the area that is competed over.


Sandbox is all fine and good, but there needs to be a sensible framework for how the sandbox will operate. All of the best sandbox games have this as a cornerstone. Imagine if Crusader Kings (I'm aware how extremely different the genre of game is, just bear with me), for example, had no factions\cassus belli\city-mechanics etc. and everyone is just 1 character occupying 1 region, there are no kingdoms, no civic mechanics, all you do is raise revenue hire levies and blob until someone is unbeatable; when you take a region the region's previous owner no longer exists-- it's just you. That would not be very fun. Well, that's the 'it's a sandbox' mentality MO takes to pvp... 'The player will make up the framework' does not and never truly has worked, and the instances that it has seemed to, if you dig deeper there is always a sensible concrete framework holding it up.
Essentially, something akin to what Ashes of Creation and Profane MMO envision for their respective games. Though whether or not they deliver on that vision is an entirely different matter altogether.

I do like your idea, it provides a more immersive context for guilds to build off of, and gives them a greater sense of purpose. Something greater than themselves to drive their ambitions and grand plans.

While great entrepreneurs and visionaries in our community have pioneered and established amazing projects and feats of grandeur, they and the npc cities exist more as separate entities.

Often the npc cities exist merely as props rather than a relevant entity that the guilds work with on an economic, political, and military level. Players do not have the context to feel any sense of identity with the npc cities other than what they can derive materially from.

The greatest barrier to any of this becoming a reality is whether SV will implement any of it.
 
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Kaquenqos

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The greatest barrier to any of this becoming a reality is whether SV will implement any of it.
Again, I would be very (pleasantly) surprised if anything like this makes its way into the game. But I think it needs it. This is the type of all-hands on deck content/expansion that could ship with the sub. model &(with a tiny bit of advertising perhaps) actually pull in players.

My overwhelming feeling is that the reason nobody is happy with the PvP system is because it's founded on shaky bedrock. The fundamentals of it are too arbitrary and convoluted. You can keep adding new features to a broken mechanic and it will never remedy the underlying structural issue.

A meaningful faction system, whether it be my (perhaps overly optimistic/ambitious) city-state style one or not, might be able to provide the kind of foundation necessary.
 
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Tashka

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I would never even considered buying MO2 if it was RvR instead of GvG. The reason why nobody is happy with the PvP system is because we didn't have proper wardecs and still don't have sieges and TC.
 
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Kaquenqos

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I would never even considered buying MO2 if it was RvR instead of GvG. The reason why nobody is happy with the PvP system is because we didn't have proper wardecs and still don't have sieges and TC.
What I'm describing isn't really RvR, but I take your point.

I don't think (working)wardecs & sieges will fix this pvp & its underlying feeling of directionless. I'm far from the only one lamenting to this end here. Consider the issues played out by the amorphous GvG system of MO1... Just saying, how long do we want to beat our head against the wall before we admit something does not work?
 
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Tashka

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What I'm describing isn't really RvR, but I take your point.

I don't think wardecs & sieges will fix this pvp & the underlying feeling of arbitrary listlessness it has
Well i don't think your idea will. Check Crowfall RvR servers. No cooperation ever happens there, nobody cares about taking keeps, and on farming spots, people from the same faction see each other as annoying competitors they can't just kill rather than allies. It's just pointless. Look at Albion FvF. Does it look like people bother cooperating with eachother just because they are of the same faction? No, they do their own thing.

And what am i supposed to do if a guild i don't like just joins my city? I don't want to be friends with them, i want to kill them. If i want to kill them, i should be able to.

With GvG, alliances form voluntarily, with people sharing the same goals. If there is a drama within an alliance, you can leave it, but you aren't forced to move to another city and maybe abandon your stronghold that you've built nearby. The problem with factions is, they don't really exist. With GvG, if us and another guild is fighting each other, then it's not because we joined Tindrem and they joined MK, but because maybe there is some actual quarrel between us. Maybe they PKd our members, maybe someone insulted someone, whatever. It's real, and people get involved. And why should i be involved into a fight between Tindrem and Meduli? Because lore says they hate each other?!
 

Kaquenqos

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(note: Disregarding the Crowfall comment because, even if that game did have a political faction system like I'm describing, which it doesn't, it would not be the reason it is terrible. There are plenty of other reasons Crowfall is fubar)

And what am i supposed to do if a guild i don't like just joins my city? I don't want to be friends with them, i want to kill them. If i want to kill them, i should be able to.



Firstly, you would probably try to lobby to block them joining your city. Depending on the influence you have, this might be a viable option. If it's worth it to you, you could stake your guild against them; ie. 'if you vote to let them join we are leaving, and we will remember who you are'. Or, you could just suck it up and learn to live & compete with them politically. If you find that impossible, your guild can always leave and join an opposing city's faction... Or, if you're really sore about it, you could just remain as members of the city, murder them while outside town (just like today), and take murder counts (just like today) just like if you were murdering blue people that belong to another city you are not at war with... If you continued on this way, probably you are on the road to being an outlaw and may have to consider not being welcome in guarded cities (just like today) and joining an outlaw guild (just like today), or, if you have the influence/the rest of your guild is like-minded, encouraging your entire guild to go outlaw. The system I'm describing doesn't imply that guilds within a city are BFFs. The implication here is that this is just a manner of creating cohesion in a game that sorely needs it. The wars themselves will still be determined by events in game; competition over resources, coveting each others territory, PK's etc. Implying that the war between cities exists 'because lore says they hate each other' doesn't even make sense in regards to the system I am implying. War decs would be between cities, but it would be the leading guilds who determine them, presumably due to grudges, geopolitics/resources, territory etc

The other thing about this proposition; it delineates and defines being an outlaw in the wilds/outlaw towns, vs being a blue urban-dweller. As an outlaw you would effectively have an entire faction of 'idgaf about your urbane desires it's a free for all out here' consisting of as many guilds as are grey, and you can just kill whomever pisses you off anyway and ally as you please. That is to say, giving blues more cohesion & a need to work together inherently gives outlaws the perk of being uniquely self-deterministic. If being a blue/lawful is more meaningful, implicitly, being an outlaw becomes more meaningful.

To me, it's just a piece of the puzzle that would make the currently directionless RPK system understandable. It would just give structure to PvP and make a sensible delineation between lawful blue & outlaw... compared to the current system where everyone is a murderer some of the time, and there is no meaningful distinction between lawful slaying & murder. Anyway, I'm not trying to sell anyone on it, this is genuinely what I think could make this game work. Without a major overhaul of the RPK system the game is going to be pure crickets whenever they drop subs unfortunately.

Again, the most important thing it would do is add cohesion to the game. Top tier blue guilds could still dominate the politics of cities, top tier RPK guilds would still rule the outlaw towns & raid all around, but even lowly noobs would still have a place in the bigger picture. It would create a greater sense of community within the city; it might be worth it for you politically to be a big fish in a small guild, vs being a small fish in one of the leading ones. But most importantly, people would no longer have to scratch their head in sheer bewilderment when learning about the murder system.
 
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Jatix

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I expect today, or later this week if the games lucky, to be the first day with sub 1k daily peak. Game needs to make some serious changes fast or its not going to last. Its hitting the breaking point. Sunday before yesterday vs yesterday dropped from 1.4k to 1. Thats massive. When the game bases all of its core gameplay on player interaction with pvp and trade, the lower the pop gets the more reason the remaining players have top quit.
 

Kaquenqos

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I expect today, or later this week if the games lucky, to be the first day with sub 1k daily peak. Game needs to make some serious changes fast or its not going to last. Its hitting the breaking point. Sunday before yesterday vs yesterday dropped from 1.4k to 1. Thats massive. When the game bases all of its core gameplay on player interaction with pvp and trade, the lower the pop gets the more reason the remaining players have top quit.

The parameters of PvP need to be defined by the game mechanics. There needs to be PvP that doesn't revolve around the terrible murder/flag BS, without having the game be a full on 24/7 grief-fest. There needs to be some easily understandable, broad-stroke mechanic as to what PvP is in the game. The current MC/flag/guards system doesn't cut it, and never has. Building off it as your foundation for defining PvP is destined to fail, because the system is inherently flawed.
 
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Tashka

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The parameters of PvP need to be defined by the game mechanics. There needs to be PvP that doesn't revolve around the terrible murder/flag BS, without having the game be a full on 24/7 grief-fest. There needs to be some easily understandable, broad-stroke mechanic as to what PvP is in the game. The current MC/flag/guards system doesn't cut it, and never has. Building off it as your foundation for defining PvP is destined to fail, because the system is inherently flawed.
People like the terrible murder/flag BS. They would like it even more with wardecs, alliances, and TC. There is no need for convoluted faction systems. People play these games to have maximum freedom that is unachievable in theme parks. That is the only thing that actually makes this game stand out.
 
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Kaquenqos

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People like the terrible murder/flag BS. They would like it even more with wardecs, alliances, and TC. There is no need for convoluted faction systems. People play these games to have maximum freedom that is unachievable in theme parks. That is the only thing that actually makes this game stand out.

Do they?
I think maybe you and the 300 other people who will be playing if they continue with it do. Maybe... Many of them probably just put up with it because they enjoy other aspects of the game, like I have been so far.

So this pvp system ISN'T convoluted, but actually having defined parameters is. No no, I'll just murder 3 people a day and I'm good... The amount of afk waiting, it's like they want you to not play the game. Not great design.


If you want to see population continue to dip and dip until MO1 levels, this is the express lane to it.


The quote “He who defends everything, defends nothing.” comes to mind. Even sandboxes need walls, or else it's just a bunch of dirt.
 
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Kaemik

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I think the red/blue system would work if:

A. It were way better balanced.
B. It reflected that they view reds as a legitimate playstyle.

I mean some type of system where being a red pushes you to the fringes of society and has you living out of outlaw hideouts would be fine if those outlaw hideouts were more evenly dispersed over the map, and there were points of interest that give reasons to PvP as close to them as the blue towns, or perhaps even closer.

Just being like "You get 2 towns in the NE!" "You can't use systems meant to generate positive PvP content!" "We're going to make you spawn super far from everything!" is a giant middle finger to the reds. There is a difference between making a playstyle harder, and making it apparent to all members of a playstyle that you don't want them in your game.
 
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