I beg to differ.Do you believe thievery would be more meaningful to the overall population then an update that adds combat abilities and full speed casting or an instanced dungeon system that has group size restrictions?
I'm looking for dev time spent on meaningful change. We tried thievery before. It wasn't able to interest more then 500 players globally. Those are the facts. Thievery with improved graphics will have a net effect similar to the first thievery, that is to say "little to none".
I'm far too objective and i'm a results oriented pragmatic person. I've seen the system, I was unimpressed, the metrics speak for themselves.
The problem with that approach is that the same people that are attracted to this game without thievery implemented, will likely also leave when thievery is implemented.
Bringing in the wrong crowd in the hopes that it would boost player numbers is the same error that Ultima Online made when EA told Origin to implement Trammel.
The player count went up at first, then slowly fizzled out because UO was not and would never be the kind of game that the masses would stay for the long term no matter how many bells and whistles it bolted on.
Not only did the newer crowd leave, but the old vets that were attracted to the game in the first place also left because to them the game had sold them out and lost its soul.
Official UO would never again be what it was when it first launched. It was game over for the original target audience and fans in every way that mattered.
The way SV is going with MO2, it risks repeating history in the same way as UO did by not staying the course and give its target audience what it said it would.