This is the best Hardcore Sandbox RP PvP MMO.
In some ways, yeah. I'll keep it 100%: the difference between playing MO while sober and playing MO while you are geeking on something is v stark.
When entering a game, an MMO... and I add hardcore to this, because I don't think hardcore ONLY means like... full loot w/e... you (or I?) ask myself, what can I offer this world that a bot or another warm body could not? The only answer is pvp. A lot of days, that's just not good enough.
Gearing, crafting, etc, is still the same (with fewer systems, less depth,) and they added all of these stack-of-gold +/- systems like... Necro, Spirit, Scribing.
The only thing they have added to the game is grind and what is lovingly referred to as 'zerg content.'
Combat is better (in its reaction/lag,) combat mechanics are way worse (by design, ironically.) If people ever get off the track of consuming whatever content they dropped, buying a new slot so they can, etc... they will reach a kind of ??? moment. A why?? Selling accts is also a dangerous model. Bloating the game with rolls and rerolls.
I would straight-face sub the game 2 or 3 accts if the game was not so flawed. Of course, I'd rather have like 2 accts w/ 2 slots.
The core 'flaw' or 'fallacy' in the thinking of SV, imo, is to make it 1 char based without allowing 1 character things to do. What can 1 character reliably do? Craft some armor/bows, maybe extract and do weps. That's normal, but there is no way to rise above any other character. There is only grind, buffing stuff like trinkz, etc. Nothing scientific or artistic at all. Unfortunately, that has to be ironed out in order for it to be a decent RPG. There absolutely HAS to be multiple systems that depend on intelligence, occult knowledge, etc. Of course, you have to grind cuz you have to get the mats, but you are working toward a goal that isn't gonna output the SAME EXACT SHIT someone else is.
Don't get me wrong, if I put some time into gettin pickables or if I exploited a stack of gold to obtain them, I could create some interesting things, but I doubt any of it would be worth the effort to me or the game community. I already know all the mats and how they interact w/ each other, it's just a matter of picking them. People are super green about that stuff, food on broker is like 'good' gear on broker. Good-->impeccable was an awful change for RP. Cooking also tops out, but it always did. The only thing... is you'd think with so much less depth in cooking, the very least you could do is give people little buffs for speccing all of the cooking skills (adv tool, adv cook, lore,) but nah... adv cooking doesn't really reduce poison or anything, either. I dunno, mane. Could write this shit forever, but the main idea is that as an open world PvP game, yeah, it's fun... just like me and oykd did before he finally quit, go out... fight people... fight people... die... laugh... log off.
One of the most under-appreciated parts of MO1 was the depth of crafting systems. It's like the open secret of MO1. So much fun to be had just messing w/ that... but you're in this crazy world where anyone can kill you. It adds up to a good game. It makes it immersive. It's immersive to chase people around and shoot them with arrows, too, but it's not a long term goal haha.