I think many people/devs get carried away with what it takes to make a sandbox game. The more hard-coded things that go into a game, the less sandbox-y it gets. Never played Darkfall, but red players probably should monopolize content because they're willing to get their hands dirty and risk their lives (plus they are better players :P). PvP should never be artificially limited, that's just blah.
You don't really need all your weird complicated stuff, either. All a sandbox MMO needs to do is lay the foundation; if you introduce too many hard-coded political/economic systems you really just end up limiting what a player can do. Just make an engaging MMO with great PvE that doesn't have instancing and discourages soloing, then turn PvP on. Instant sandbox MMO!
__________________
Perdita - Paladin
|