It's true, WoW does a lot of things right, UI-wise. There are lots of really brilliant people in this industry, so there's lots of inspiration to be gained by checking out what they've done before. When we work on things like this, we do check out the competition (which means not just WoW) to see how they've handled similar problems.

Of course, we're always looking to improve and innovate, which is where brainstorms like this come in handy ;-)

I just posted this in another thread but I'll repost it here.

Moving on:

Then you're doing it wrong.

I'm joking. Seriously though, naval captains are fine solo but multiply their effectiveness in groups and this is a key advantage of the career. This is particularly true at the high end in big ships, where NOs are devastating when they work together.

I realize no one ever likes to hear this, but refit ships are 100% optional to gameplay. They are a nice bonus if you get them, but they are not considered core to any career. You shouldn't have a problem being competitive in non-refit ships. They're chase targets for players who really want to earn that tiny edge, but they are not so overpowered that you're a fool not to have one.

Refits used to be substantially overpowered. We changed that circa open beta, but their reputation as must-have ships has lingered. That reputation is obsolete and they just aren't that critical to the power curve at this point.

So: they're nice if you can get them, but you'll be fine without them. They are meant to be rare and difficult rewards that provide small benefits, since there are players who will exhaust every route to receive even a small benefit. But we don't intend them to be anything that most players should need to worry about. If the lack of a refit ship keeps you up at night, you know what to do to get one.

Sorry, I overlooked his example.

Redrum: You're a pirate player, you had two ships in Jacob's Clock which is a pirate port, and one of them was destroyed while you were playing a mission in Jacob's Clock. When that happened, you respawned in some other port where you had a ship instead of respawning in Jacob's Clock where you still had another ship remaining.

Is that what happened? If so, it sounds like a bug and I need you to file a bug report with all the info.

What we want to happen:

Groups of players within a nation on a given server communicate with each other about strategic goals for their nation. They and their allies work to add unrest to a port through whatever means they want to pursue.

Other players of that nation who aren't part of those groups log in and check the world map. They can see which enemy ports are gaining unrest. If they feel like pitching in, they do so through whatever form of gameplay they enjoy (econ turnins, PvE hunting, or PvP once the red circle is up).

The aggregate of all this effort, over a period of time, results in the port entering contention or not.

Conquering ports is meant to be a strategic goal pursued by many players in tandem, and not something that a dozen players can do in an evening.

That's how it's supposed to work.

If you have a ship with remaining DP after being sunk, you respawn in that ship in the nearest port of your nation.

If you were sunk and that used up the last DP, and you have another ship someplace, you respawn in the nearest port where you have a ship.

If you were sunk and that used up the last DP, and you have no ships left at all, you respawn in the nearest port of your nation and we give you a free fallback ship appropriate to your level.

So: It sounds like you are frequently dying in a 1 DP ship, and then are being respawned in a distant port where you happen to have a ship. That's what's happening, and it's under your control.

Well, we disagree with your recommendations.

The Marks of Victory currently in the possession of players is not a permanent advantage. Those Marks will be used up over time in one of two ways:

1) Some of the Marks will be turned in for items. All of those items (ship refits, outfitting, etc.) are destructible/consumable and in time they will all exit the game. Players who use those items to their benefit in PvP will lose them, sooner or later, and probably sooner. The more active they are in PvP, the more likely they are to exhaust their supply of such items.

2) Some of the Marks will be sold on the open market. The more Marks get sold this way, the faster the price will drop, and the reward for selling them will be worth less.

In addition, having the items you can receive from Marks of Victory is a long, long way from an "I win!" button. Unskilled players who turn in 1,000 Marks of Victory will continue to be defeated on a regular basis. Skilled players who have 0 Marks of Victory will continue to win battle after battle. This is a very substantial change from other MMOs, where the best equipment is logarithmically more powerful than merely good equipment. We don't do that.

In short, we believe this is a bump in the road and not a game-altering, permanent imbalance.

What happens? If you mouse over it, does it light up? Is the cursor gold or gray when you mouse over it? What happens if you press X to enter it vs. clicking it to enter it?

The conquerable ports in the 1-15 regions already have greatly accelerated unrest decay compared to conquerable ports in the rest of the world. Putting a 1-15 port into contention should be very difficult, although not impossible.

That's already true of all the fallback/civilian ships. None of them give Marks of Victory.

Unrest bundles are delivered before the port is in contention, so there is no PvP risk for delivering unrest bundles in any case. The fact that some ships aren't rewarding for PvP is irrelevant to unrest bundle turnins.

I have two expectations:

1) Marks of Victory will be worth much less than 2500DB.

2) Gold farmers will spend their time making doubloons, which are highly fungible and useful for everything in the game including buying Marks of Victory, and they will not spend their time making Marks of Victory. Doubloons will always be more in demand and easier to produce.

We'll see if I'm right. I just don't see Marks of Victory as a major market for gold farmers.