So, allow me to see if I can understand something here; though I'm quite sure someone will be more than pleased to jump down my respective throat should they or others deem my observations incorrect.

After all the hardships this came has suffered, from content bugs and errors to population difficulties, the team behind WAR made a precarious if not somewhat smart choice in merging servers so as to provide a more robust player base. With that at last accomplished their next 'smart' course of action is to completely seperate races from their starting zones and place them on a proverbial front line somewhere in their faction's respective territory, i.e. Everquest 2? (Sigh) Forgive me, but I must the share the views of others that of all the choices they could have made, cutting off races from some very well crafted starting areas (something that will likely 'not' be appreciated by the RP community) was not one of the better choices they could have agreed upon. It has been pointed out in more than a few sites and blogs, as well as within the WAR forums themselves, that the largest problems players were having aside from low population was Fortress and Seige battles and essentialy 'forced' PvP through the game's RvR content. Would it not have simply been more prudent to address those concerns as opposed to going with what is essentialy a 'New Player Island'?

Now, in regards to the Fortress and forced RvR content, I myself dislike PvP with a passion. I have nothing but respect for those who not only embrace the PvP likestyle but excel in it as well as I have more than a few friends who revel in said subject. However, there are many like me who wish to experiance an MMO, either alone or with ingame allies, without the concern of being litteraly stabed in the back (digitaly speaking) by a thirteen year old player half way across the country or world, respectively. Like me, they simply wish to enjoy the story content of the Warhammer Universe without being waylaid by players who care nothing for any of the ideals that drive players such as myself. Now, what I have always found frustrating is that more than one MMO, and not just the 'King on the Hill' have found ways to seperate PvE from PvP, where-as WAR almost insists that you participate to some degree or suffer to some extent, whether via a slight xp loss or lack of truly impressive Gear.


Now, I understand that the reigning arguement from the camp of the PvP/RvR diehards is that WAR is supposed to be just that, War. As such, fighting your respective enemy faction is only logical; and, well, I agree. However! I fail to see why those faction enemies 'must' be other players. There are no shortages of enemy NPCs with-in the game, why not keep it as such for PvE players, and for those who feel the burning need to destroy another Human being, in the digital sense, they can have their respective content kept seperate via instances and closed combat areas. And yes, of course WAR has the latter mentioned option, however many, many, quests that are procured in the PvE zones require one to traverse RvR zones to complete quests leaving a player such as myself to either go forward with content I do not enjoy in the least or skip said quests and suffer XP and equipment losses. I fail to see how this is good gaming or a good buisness model. Sadly, WAR's less than sufficent profit margin serves to prove my point far better than any of my own words.

In closing, it would seem that the WAR team is attempting to appeal to 'some' of the smaller concerns in the game without addressing the proverbial 'pink elephant' in the room, i.e. the aforementioned concerns. What I fail to understand is why? Yes, a substantial number of what players the game has are RvR oriented; however, those number would grow quite quickly if they made the game far more approachable for those who are not PvP/RvR centric.

Should they dumb down the game? No, not at all. Should they remove the RvR content? No, not at all? What I am asking is that the WAR team utilize established systems that have been proven in more than one MMO title to seperate the two while keeping the content for both rich and rewarding, not favoring one over the other. Also, there is always the simple solution of having RvR only servers, akin to the concept behind RP servers. Again, a staple of many other MMOs.