Sklex

Some would argue they did more than something right lol. How many MMO's have you seen maintain these sort of numbers. Honestly what i see in this community is really quite sad. The game play experience has been so bad that people don't want to play together anymore.

You don't need to. Plenty of safe places where you can go about your business without ever having to fight another person.

Why not?

Ou of curiosity and with the aim of having a proper conversation. Why? What impact would this have on your personal game play?

Lol. This is one aspect where Atlas design is actually better designed for the concept. There is no gates that can be camped. Players can migrate between servers anywhere along the edges. An improvement imo.

I disagree. Completely. The current design of the game has every single camp upset. The game itself is lacking long term objectives and direction for the players. There's a huge chunk of people who stopped playing simply because there was nothing to aim for. There's lots of other reasons as well, but this game is lacking long term game play and that is not going to be healthy for the game. Gotta remember there is a significant different between this and Ark. The cost to run the server cluster. Without long term players this game won't last.

The unofficials can't compete with the scale needed to pull this off properly. The unofficials however can certainly offer enough space to maintain 100% PvP or PvE clusters.

TLDR: There's a pretty picture at the bottom... shiny! This is designed to appeal to multiple types of players in order to booster player numbers to maximum potential. The objective of this game is to experience life within this environment. Not to drive others to stop playing. The concept is designed to give people goals and objectives which will in turn create player interaction and game-play opportunities. I'm pretty sure the Dev's are fighting internally so this is really just a conversation piece at this stage. This idea will not appeal to everyone. But remember, there are always unofficial servers. Not a new idea, just rehashing it on paper. So with these things in mind. Why not scrap the PvP large tribe servers, scrap the PvP small tribe servers, scrap the PvE servers. Anyone can still setup one of those servers unofficially. However no one can afford to run an official size server cluster. So put it to maximum use. Basic Premise 2x PvE Colonies surrounded by PvE squares. This represents the land that has been colonised and is properly governed. These areas are under the defence of a governing force. Thus they are PvE. Players are limited to one claim flag. This lets them build what they like and maximises room for others to build also. Experience is capped at 1x. With low risk comes low reward. The flags represent the primary player hubs of the area. The Devs should make these places feel alive. It should house a Faction Controlled Auction House. Prices and content should obviously be controlled by the players. There should be an option for players to speak to a Captain of the local army here and sign up as militia. That would unlock a faction warfare game to encourage the PvE players to participate in PvP. They would gain faction points for killing players of the opposite faction. Perhaps a significant goal/reward could include the ability to drop an additional claim flag. Between the two factions is squares dedicated to ship PvP primarily. It supports raid PvP but uses the Raid Warfare system. This is for your casual PvP players who want to participate but also have to maintain a job and family life. 2x PvP Pirate Colonies. These two squares represent NPC controlled Pirate villages. Each one would be lead by a fearsome pirate band. It would offer a similar quest to the one above except they would obtain faction points by destroying members of any other faction. These squares would have a NPC run Trade House and form a player hub for the Pirates of the world. Player Hubs create community and are necessary in an MMO. These squares also offer a Dungeon Experience for other players. There is the option to raid these NPC towns. Incredibly difficult. But with great risk should come great reward. Perhaps once taken the successful company takes control of a tax bank on this island and they get a cut of all profits made via the Trade House. Outer Skulls These represent perfect islands. They have everything a fearsome PvP pirate warband could want including a juicy 5x XP. These are open PvP and designed to house the hard-core Mega-Company-PvP crowd. For living in constant danger they are rewarded with much higher XP. This lets them rebuild quicker and also entices them to live and play in the area. The 5x will also entice visitors. Holding one of the four skull islands needs to come with rewards. I'd like to see a rank system where players of the controlling company collect points for destroying members of the other 3x PvP Mega-Tibes. Have a live web board for displaying the top companies and even top pirates. This encourages the mega tribes to fight each other. Everyone around gets to hear about the epic fights and aim to one day participate. The surrounding areas should have a UNIQUE trade item that is necessary for high-end crafting. It will encourage people to seek out the items or trade for them. It doesn't matter which. For the people that seek it themselves it will generate PvP. For those that trade it will generate PvP and a Market. Markets will get people moving around the map move which will in turn generate for game-play opportunities. Ghost Ships - Replace them with.. If you must have Ghost ships. They should be incredibly rare and be incredibly difficult PvE Raid Content with amazing loot. British/French Navy ships who sail within their realm of control. They target players with enemy faction points. These ships should be encountered in the Raid PvP waters and offer a PvE Ship Battle challenge. NPC Pirate Ships should sail the waters all over the place. These are PvE Ship Battle Challenges. Various scales of reward. Resources and Skill Points Resources requirements and availability need to be overhauled. It should be possible to build low level things relatively easy. It needs to be challenging to gather the resources required for high level things. The resources need to be positioned strategically around the map in order to encourage players to have to go and get them. This will force movement around the map which will create play opportunities. It will also create the need for trade which will create a market. Again this will create play opportunities. Biome positioning will play a part in this. Skill Points need to be limited to ensure that no single person can achieve absolutely everything. You are not going to create a world where players create the content of the game if they don't need to interact with each other in order to achieve their goals. Players should need to specialise into skills making them valuable to their companies and assisting with the creation of a skill market. What Will This Do It's simple really. A game of this size needs players in order for other players to play with them. The content is largely player driven. This idea maintains that concept. The players will still largely drive the content for the game. It will still be a game focused on resource gathering, building, fighting and stealing each others shit. This however brings everyone into a single game. Allowing us all to play how we like to play while encouraging styles of play that will encourage player interaction.

It's like you don't really have a firm grasp about the game you are trying to make or you simply can't agree internally so you just said fuck it, lets just make as many copies as it takes to keep everyone happy. Stop trying to make a game and focus on making a world that feels alive. This game could be something really special imho. But not like this.

What sort of relationship are you planning on having with your governor?

You need to learn to adapt to the tactics... like people in other games did...

The pvp losses in eve have been so significant that it has made the regular news on occasions. Not gaming news. The stuff for normal people. If the game is designed properly opportunities will present themselves. If the game is designed properly more opportunities will present themselves are more people will want to play the game.

Honestly I don't believe it should be true 'PvE'. But the server design should replicate the real world in that there should be populated areas that represent settlements. Those areas should be defended by the Queen's Navy. It should be entirely possible for a well organised and equipped group of players to assault the colonised areas if they decide to. Be that they decide to sneak in or go in full force. It should be possible. Note: I'd like to see a reputation system built alongside this. Something that flags people who get stuck into Pirate activities. The higher your rep the more dangerous it would become to go into settled areas. The Devs have already advised they don't have the skill-set within their team to develop the necessary AI though. This it's a situation of lets work with what we have. And currently that is servers that can be configured as PvP or PvE. There's been a few discussions around this topic and even a few unofficial servers doing this. Having played Eve I know this model can work and I know this model stands to create and experience that is far superior to what we have. Have a read. I'd lost to hear constructive conversation about why this wouldn't work.

There's honestly not enough valuable items in the game for this to be a concern. This isn't WoW where you have epic items that you spent months acquiring. The long term benefits to the game from bringing in a PvPvE configuration with a proper economy stand to be a lot more beneficial for the game than maintaining the "you hit me so I must be able to hit you" game-play.

I dont think it's really possible to stop people from building in both. What I would do is use the multiplier's to create enticement in the PvP squares. PvE = 1x PvP = 2x Perhaps the further you go out the more the XP multiplier becomes. This creates an environment where pirate companies are more likely to try and create their own settlements in PvP zones ensuring base raiding is still an element of the game. The higher rates will appeal to them as it allows them to rebuild quicker after a war.