Keep it free to play I would try maybe eliminating any white-light/black-light and player made kingdoms and just let people strike out on their own. So this means no overt bonuses to play around with; everyone is more or less balanced minus their physical building locations. Maybe make the island even smaller, and one huge landmass instead of a bunch of snakey ones would be interesting, as it would force people to interact fiercly as there would be no physical way to escape each other. So perhaps something like a real island with a large volcano/mountains in the center and then it levels off to the sea.
