svayvti wrote:That seems to be a contradiction because I don't remember the "old pvp system" ever having anything to do with the writings and tests of Outposts we did through to Launch. In fact it seems like a lot of good ideas and working code has been thrown out to make them into PvP instead.
But do the crafters and foragers have to join the Outpost controlling PvP guilds to be a part of this then? It reminds me of AO's Notum wars which added tradeskills... but only as part of PvP. When PvP is optional, but content is linked to having to be involved in PvP... then PvP isn't really "optional" but necessary.
We're doing our best to avoid the "must take part in PvP to participate" syndrome. We don't much like the idea of non-consensual PvP, even sideways like that.
You don't have to join in the PvP, but if you want access to the unique stuff at Outposts, you will probably have to use some diplomacy. There are open avenues for both paths here. We'll be very interested in seeing comments on this, once it goes into open testing on the ATS.
svayvti wrote:So I don't expect an answer in this thread, but I hope it will be talked about at Nevrax and we'll eventually see some answers to all the many PvP worries.
To go with outposts a few questions I would like to submit (there is no current QA thread for XVI):
Are crafters and foragers being given parts to play in the conflict at all outside of support skills for combatants?
When will we see the content for the Guild Halls as was originally proposed through guild missions for Outposts?
What about tribes and Kitins raiding the outposts?
Will there be non-pvp outposts? or does your guild wanting to control an outpost for raids and other content mean that you forcibly consent to PvP?
Prior to release the words Outposts and PvP were never to my knowledge used together. In the last half year I've yet to seem them seperated. This is bothering a lot of people who were hoping to see Outposts as something other than another game with just PvP land grabs.
I say again: We're not turning this into a PvP-only game. These are all valid questions, but it may be that we can't answer them until we get actual player feedback on how phase 1 of the Outposts work. It may seem like PvP and Outposts are talked together in the same breath constantly, but a great part of that is that we spend a lot more time talking to the players about what we're working on these days, from initial ideas and feedback from you to completion. The only reason PvP seems so prevalent is that we are talking to you about it. Frankly, we had to make improvements for some of the features of Outposts to play better and just to fix some of the 'brokenness' in our first version of it, which I think we all agree had some issues,

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Let's also bear in mind that this is just round one for the Outposts. We made a promise to get them up and they WILL be up, but that doesn't mean the work will stop on them. We're a smaller team than many MMOs; we can't do it all at once. We try to compensate for that by communicating more with the players, listening to what they say and incorporating feedback when and where we can. We think that works better than just promising the sun, moon and stars or not communicating at all.