I agree to a certain extent but I don't think the crafting system and house building is customizable enough to attract the population Blazzen is talking about. It's also still an Alpha, so who knows? I think the instant that one of the carebears got their keep looted, doors blown off and replaced with the intruders doors "All your base are belong to us", they'd just quit.
I think where Darkfall messed up big in DFUW was the crafting system and failure to implement enchanting. If you want to keep the carebears around, you need to give them cuztomization and depth of crafting. What they SHOULD have done, was make armors and weapons customizable (different colors, hues, hilts, blade shapes, etc). But don't make the top tier stuff just pretty to look at, make it valuable to PK's/hard core PvP'ers. That way, the crafter is motivated to go get the rare items to craft it and the PK's/PvP'ers are motivated to pay for it.
For example, make all the mats that allow items to be dyed traditional PK colors (black, crimson, etc) rare and only able to be obtained in FFA areas. Enchanting solved this to some extent in DF1 because the Q4 and Q5 mats that made the best enchantments were difficult to obtain and therefore expensive.
Also, I would have eliminated safe zones and made the top tier items (black armors and weps, top tier enchantments, etc) ONLY craftable in player cities. Now the carebears have a reason to join clans, opening them up to the social aspect of the game and requiring them to participate in sieges (to defend the place they are able to craft these l33t items).
Anyhow, we could go on all day I'm sure but I agree with you Blazzen re: giving the sheep a reason to stick around and immerse themselves in the game.
