Plebian

There were European lions in the not too distant past in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_leo_spelaea

Historical source for this claim please. Visor and joint piercings are all noted in historical accounts. Most rigorous medieval scholars agree that penetrating even decent plate was nearly impossible for bows and most crossbows except at the gaps in armor or visor slits. The main reason is the glancing of the arrow off the plate. Tanks during WWII used the same idea as medieval plate. You do not need to absorb the shell, glancing it away works just as well and takes much less armor thickness. Now it was historically noted that archers could just massacre the horses out from under cavalry. This is what most historical sources note make longbowman scary. They can negate much of the effectiveness of cavalry and force you to fight the English how they liked fighting, on foot.

Pattern-welding does not make a blade more durable. Wootz/crucible steel falls under the same myth as well about being more durable. All pattern-welding allows you to do, apart from looking pretty when acid etched(which is why modern steel uses nickel alloy along with a plain high carbon), is make the steel more homogeneous in its carbon content and impurities(usually nickel for the modern day). I always made the assumption we were pattern-welding in the game. We already get multiple small weight pieces of steel, heat them to welding temp, and combine them to produce the weight of blade we want. So we are already going thru the steps of pattern-welding in game. I really believe you are wanting differentially hardened steel for your increased durability of the blade edge. It is what Japanese bladesmiths are famous for doing very well. Which is were your Katana's hamon line comes from. You let one area of the steel cool more quickly than another(the blade edge in this case) to up its hardness while still allowing the spine to be softer and flex. This process was typically done with clay. It would be a nice skill(differential hardening) to add to metallurgy IMO. You could get a blade before adding a handle, add some clay, heat to working temp and quench the blade to create a hardened (blade of your choice). You have a chance on quenching to just create scrap from the blade. The hardened blade could just take less damage from use like oak wood or something. It would also let metallurgist have another set of actions besides just simple creation of alloys. It would also be just an easy add for the developers. You could just add a hardened version of metals with the reduced damaged from use tag. So there would be Steel longsword and hardened steel longsword etc etc. IF you want your fancy design for pure aesthetics. You could add a skill to make acid for the natural substances skill. They then take a blade and acid etch it to become an acid etched blade. It could give the blade a design OR just make it darker/lighter/glow different colors etc etc.

Find one historical account of a longbow shot THRU a breastplate. I will save you some time, and tell you there are none. Even decent quality plate made you pretty much arrow proof except for the inherent weak areas like visors and joints. Even at something like Agincourt where thousands of archers shot 10s of thousands of arrows. The french were only really worried about visor penetrations. Castilian raids on southern English shores talk about how they felt well protected from English archers BECAUSE they had quality armor. I love longbows and have a traditional D cross section English-style bow for flight shooting. She draws about 130 pounds or so, and it doesn't take a lifetime of training to get into the heavy draw weights. I hate to derail the topic, but it just tweaks me wrong when people talk like arrows 'easily' penetrating plate. WHEN no historic accounts talk about penetrating anything but gaps or visor slits. IF plate was easily penetrated by arrows no one would have paid the huge cost to make it.

Only real issue with adding hickory is that it was not native to Europe at all. 'Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (State of Assam), 11 or 12 are from the United States, two to four are from Canada and four are found in Mexico' 'Hickory (from Powhatan)' -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory The name is even Native American. Hickory also makes excellent bows. However, I believe Wurm is set somewhere in northern Europe. So I assume Wurmians would not have access to a new world tree specie.

IF you are victorious you get to label yourself a patriot. IF you lose... Well history has shown that tends to be unpleasant.

We were being treasonous for a good while before we declared it in writing. I know the Kingdom of Great Britain is upset over the break-up. It is quite normal. The US is like the hot, big-boobed chick you lost in college. Great Britain really needed a quieter more demure girl like Canada anyway.

Slower up dirt or grass hills... Significantly faster down same dirt or hills.

Would seem to make more sense to just go with M249? Like so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster-Miller_TALON

Belt fed m16s?

The difference between shark and killer whale attacks on humans may simply be the different methods used to identify probable prey. It could be echolocation used by the whales is much better at discerning humans from common prey animals. IIRC the whales are also social/pack hunting animals as opposed to the solitary hunting style of the sharks. It may have nothing to do with intelligence of the individual/specie and everything to do with hunting style and prey detection/identification method.

You have the reward of being able to PVP on a PVP server. You do not need other rewards. IF you have to try and lure people to the PVP. THEN the PVP in the game is obviously not that enjoyable. You should try and fix the underlying illness and not treat the symptoms.

I also think people take the 'arrogance' of the White Sharks as scary. Humans are used to most land animals knowing we are the top tier predators(Well, since the adoption of firearms we have been.) When we are faced with a top tier predator doing its normal behavior it frightens us in a very deep evolutionary way IMO. A top tier predator in its own habitat is kinda like Fat Bastard in Austin Powers. It is gonna test you out to see if you should be in its belly. You would see similar brazen behavior from wolves, polar bears, lions, tigers etc. IF they have not had experience with humans much at all.

I tried to be friends with sharks, but it was a long distance relationship and didn't work out in the end.

I have stated my opinions a few times in various posts. I played on Epic for a good while, and I played on Chaos some. My main issue was always with the personalities involved in PVP. There are a few 'main' groups of PVPers. If you wanna PVP in any realistic way. You are gonna have to group with them. Most of them I just do not get along with at all. So with the tiny PVP community it leaves many with no path to PVP unless they want to do so in a not effective manner with a tiny group. This tiny group will never have access to the higher tiers of metal/armor as one of the 'main PVP groups' will be in control of HOTA/dragon armors.