Sandbox o Illy

There are usually people willing to set up war games as well. Probably not quite the same as impulsive warfare, but it's an option. 

Quackers wrote: There will be a war, and all you war people will wish there was not war.

Anjire wrote: I believe that LWO/BSH/CoK conducting a war recently with barely any interference from GC.

 yep scary isnt it, so blinded by fear that they go insane.

First i'd like to say hello to everyone as it is my first post on the forums.
And... *gasp* im not using my ingame name.

I'm a new player to Illy just about 2-3weeks now, but i have played great many games, mmos included, and most of my favourite were sandbox style. From Sandbox MMOs I've played Saga of Ryzom, Darkfall, Eve Online.
Ok so since we have this out of the way i'll provide my thoughts on the issue and then you can flame me to death :) as a deserving newb i am.
I'd ignore that OP started and copypasted this as an inflammatory topic (from H? vs Valar thread) to begin with. However it does create debate and an open discussion and that is always good.

When looking at the issues above its very easy to blame one power block or the other, cause well thats what human beings do we speculate and blame. So i will try to be as subjective :) as possible here and say outright its neither H? nor Crow.s.z.s.es (there are just so many of them), nor even GC Police fault.
 It is human natures fault.

 Allow me to explain... better still answer this simple question.

After building up your 7-9-10 Cities spending countless hours, many months or maybe even year or more researching, upgrading, hoarding and maybe even spending money on prestige...you get wiped out...How would you feel?
After all the time and money invested you have nothing but reputation left, 1 pop settlement and the prospect of starting from scratch in the world where you've made enemies (you weren’t wiped out by a friend were you?).

Risk vs Reward (Fun) for waging wars is disproportionate, so human natures asserts itself, adapts and exploits the system.
The system being:
If you are wiped you have Nothing left, apart from fuzzy feelings of the person/alliance who just wiped you.
When you "restart" how effective can you be to your alliance...or even yourself for pvp? I might be wrong here as i'm new, but as far as im aware you can do nothing, squat, nada.
What prospect of fun do you have when restarting...?
 Being harassed by the player/alliance who just wiped you..?
Having to spend countless hours, working months getting back to where you were before with nothing carrying over from the previous "life"...
Is there fun in that? Not Much.

So we create power block alliances and force out players who would take away our right to play the game in a "fun" way. We create GC Police so that if anyone steps out of line they are immediately expunged from the "good" community that is just trying to have fun, and at the end we are left with the sandbox game that just became stale because half of the game is too "risky".

Of course one can make an argument that in Real Life....i'm sorry that’s why im playing a Game and not trying to invade another country in RL and get myself permanently offed in various entertaining but ultimately gruesome and permanent ways.

Right about here i should start getting flames from all the fanboys and girls in the audience :)
Please Bare with me for just a little longer.
I Love Illy, I Love the Community, I Love the actions and consequences that Illy provides. But it is not perfect, nothing in life is.

So here is my oh so very subjective view on how the game can be improved so that we can keep wolves fed and sheep safe.

First
This game is compared to Eve online in various media and devs themselves stated that it was one of the inspirations for Illy. So lets look at Eve for just one second and see how can we improve Risk vs Reward so loosing wars could be more fun .
Contrary to popular belief one week old player in Eve can contribute tremendously to pvp if guided by an experienced corp.
 Needed player skill and game mechanics to support it.
 One of the most useful things that player can do is get into a frigate (fast, cheap and accessible in first week of play) and become a tackler...get in fast, slow the enemy down and stop them from fleeing, allowing the older players to take the enemy apart.

So why do we care about one week old players in Eve?
Well lets say your 10 cities have just been sieged and wiped. Back to square one with no fun in front of you and maybe have an inexplicable desire to quit?
 Ok then we are on the same page. I do not say devs should copy Eve, but it is the only game i know where the game mechanics allow you to participate and be useful (not god like) in group pvp from almost day one.
I do not have an answer of what can be implemented to have similar mechanics, but i hope more experienced players would start bouncing ideas around, and eventually that would get to the devs.

Second
Risk vs Reward and Persistence...
Lets get back to Eve again (sorry it does have the best analogies, and does quite a few things right)
Loosing the ships in Eve is a reality. Its not a question of if, its a question of when. How big a deal that is depends solely on the smarts of the player. But even if you had no money, lost your last ship and have to use a newbie one. You still have all the skills you spent months or years training, so it is easier to restart. (Yes there is a chance to loose your skills but you have to be either very absent minded or clueless)
So enough with analogies. And some people would say Heresy!!! You just want to dumb the game down to make it more like (pick your favourite mmorts game you hate  )
I do not want to remove the thrill of actions & consequences we have in Illy, i just want it to be a little easier to start over. Lets face it all those players who have been wiped out of Illy, for better or worse, how many of them decided to restart back from scratch? I do not have any figures, but if i were to make a scientific wild guess, the precise number would be...not very many.

Again i do not have a precise answer for you of what could be done, but either implementation of some kind of Character (non city bound) Persistent global research or combat/non combat magic that once researched or gained persists even after the last city falls. Again to allow players who already dedicated tremendous amount of time and money to the game to be able to have an easier time getting back into action.
This would of course need to be balanced to make sure its not too powerful, so to still have real consequences for getting involved in the warfare. Last thing anybody wants is for Illy to turn into just another one of 'those' browser mmorts or call of duty RTS after all.

And i suppose to address last concern. Of the more peaceful players in the audience.
Concern being:
If there is more war, comunity spirit will vanish and everybody would act like a jerk towards each other.
I'd like to draw your attention to Ryzom community. While pvp implementation in that MMO is no ideal (2 forced factions so either one or the other dominates the server) Both Factions are very passionate about the outpost wars and there are a lot of passion and heat flying around. Yet Community as a whole are extremely friendly, supportive of newbies and so much alike to Illy with friendships going across factions. So you can have wars and friendly supportive communities, it is of course upto every player to maintain that.

Well to finish off I apologize and Thank You all for reading my wall of text, and i hope that it might spark some ideas in the community and devs down the line as to improving the game we have all fallen in love with.
Let the flaming commence