@Darklords
I would like to chime in on your discussion question
Before I get started, note that I did not go through the currently 10 pages of posts of different players opinions and view points. I am not a forums surfer looking for the next post to comment on. To my own fault I don't watch the Wurm updates and dev team, so I don't know what yalls original intent for the starter islands were. Lastly I could possibly echo some or offend others with my discussion points to you because again i did not read all the forum posts from players. A little context, I am an off and on Wurm Player, I am a avid pvp gamer in the vast amount of pvp oriented games and always find my self returning to Wurm wishing for a solid PvP experience. Lastly I currently have a 1 month old character on Defiance.
My question is, what was the actual intent of the starter islands and is it actually achieving its goal? With the discussion being posed I would conclude that the feeling is that its working to well and no one wants to leave the islands. I feel the starter Island was an great start point, and after spending a week or so on it, I moved on to the mainland. in my opinion the real question would be, what might cause me or other new players to return to the starter islands to live? Living on the mainland has resulted in what I would expect from a PvP game, that is the fear of getting killed. (this doesn't come from the monsters) This should be a factor of all PvP games, and is for the starter island just at a lower chance. What I can see as being a discouragement causing players to return to a "safer" place is the character power disparity. In my experience everyone at some point wants to feel like they have a chance to win and will make goals to do this. The longer the server is up the more powerful accounts get leaving new players with the catch up task. The task of catching up does not involve playing the game, it involves power grinding certain ways to build certain stats to just become viable. If you don't play the catchup game you become the cattle that the aged accounts feed on. In my opinion It does not seem to be a productive way of keeping players that wish to play and pvp if that is a goal for the defiance server.
All in all this is what seems to be the dynamic that causes people to quit for a new shinny pvp game or return and live on starter islands causing them to no longer be used for their original purpose. I am sure there is also people that abuse the system, but sadly that is inevitable with any type of support system in pvp games. my last opinion is, starter islands aren't necessarily the things to put in question but by chance revisit a new pvp revamp discussion and then come back and revisit the starter islands.
I hope that this can add to some of the things you and the dev team are discussing, and I openly acknowledge that I did not purpose suggestions and only offered my limited perspective. Id be happy to purpose my suggestions at a later time since they are more towards a pvp revamp then the starter island penalties. Thanks and good luck in your decisions.
