Our basic principle is flawed. That is, since only combat would hold an audience to MO 1 only combat will hold an audience to MO 2.
MO 2 has a luxury that MO 1 doesn't. The base game looks good and the combat looks arguable, MO 1 had the opposite problem the combat was the only thing good about it between the broken character progression and the walls and spiritism.
Its really not comparable to MO 1 at this point and trying to draw conclusions from MO 1 is pointless.
MO 2 is going to be successful as a pet taming/wilderness exploration/porno simulator regardless of the combat.
I have spoken.
Well, since I´m still allowed to post in my own thread about this I´ll take the oppertunity here.
I think your analysis is good and would like to expand on something I think is important.
It´s crafting, extracting and everything that goes with that. Even though the majority on this forum are PvP focused I´ve met many players that weren´t and that played MO1 for months and years simply to craft, gather and experiment.
Sadly it seems that SV is not interested in that crowd anymore. IMO there is no other explaination for the atrocity that is armor crafting.
Why is this relevant to combat? Because those crafters were the one who came up with the initial knowledge every PvP knucklehead relied on. All those guide on the old forum? Written by crafters.
SV is ignoring part of their demographic that kept them alive when all the kranesh kids quit to buy more mountain dew. They do that at their own peril.