When i contacted an old gaming community’s leader about the Repopulation, something caught my eye: despite being hopelessly casual in nature and also with a few set-backs in the closer past, he wanted to join what they call a “hardcore ruleset” server in that game. I hadn’t made the research yet, so all i was thinking was “FFA pvp”- but it turns out it’s so much more in this game.
PvP
Yes, PvP is harsher on the hardcore servers, looting is also possible, from what i understand, as is degrading of items. They’re taking the EVE approach, though, with areas that are not really safe, but close enough, thanks to “police”. The security status lowers the farther away you get from the capitals of your faction and will eventually be zero, which would of course mean that everyone can kill you. It’s possible to lose inventory or at least it will be lowered by one quality tier or destroyed if it reaches the bottom of this line. And there’ll be crafted “Biolocks” that can be used to make looting your corpse more difficult for other players.
So why, after asking the leader about it and questioning this plan, am i now in full favour of this mode?
Economy
There will be no global auction house. No, that’s not entirely correct, since you can buy stuff from the auction house globally, but there’ll be only local delivery. Also, there will only be local banking.
You can put out delivery contracts and pay other players to deliver your goods from one place to the other. If you take this route, you’ll need to assign a value to your goods and need to pay the player who takes the contract at least 10% of this value. This player would need to make a security deposit that equals the given value and receive his or her payment upon as well as the deposit back upon delivery. There might be NPC delivery, as well, although it won’t be as fast and more expensive than paying other players- but this is still under discussion.
Of course, you’ll get better and more resources when harvesting in more dangerous areas. Also, skill gain will be increased there. There’ll be no skill loss upon death in any ruleset.
Fast travel
There are two options being discussed- remove all fast travel options from the servers under this ruleset or fast travelling without inventory- all items in the inventory would be lost if using fast travel.
I’m sold
First of all, i really like The Repopulation – on paper. I also know it plays like an indie game at the moment; it’s a bit clunky. But then again, i can live with that if the features are implemented in a solid way and there’s a player-driven economy making crafting and trading a viable pastime in the game. This is something i always wanted to see in an MMO.
I don’t really care for the PvP part, either, but as with the lower production quality, i’ll take that if the economy is as great as it sounds.
I have to get into this game soon and see what i can do to help my old and perhaps new guildmates to get a foothold into this game. To get there fast, i’ll first “check off” Guild Wars 2 from my to-do list and try to get the Elementalist to 80 as fast as possible- then i’m not under pressure there, anymore and can raise my Ranger slowly whenever i feel like playing the game.
While i am sold on the server ruleset, there’s another thing the leader wants to do: forming a rogue nation. As of right now, i don’t agree on that part, but i’ll have to do my research on that one, as well.
Party Business 