I'm not against the ruleset (if it is in fact what the polls showed), but I do think its going to be a ghost town in a couple months tops.
There's just nothing to keep people playing. If they think that the average casual is going to get to max level in record time for once and be like, "man I can't wait to become a raider now that I am max level in era", they're out of their fucking mind. The average casual doesn't want to dedicate to a raiding schedule. That's the whole reason they are casual in the first place. They play the game on their own schedule.
Getting them to max level super fast is going to do one thing in my opinion... cause the average casual to realize for the first time in their 26 year nostalgia trips that there is nothing at max level in era that they want to actually do.... and then leave.
The raiders are going to do what they always do... raid. They're just going to get there faster. And, they're going to burn out faster while waiting on new content to be unlocked.
I'm not against the faster experience rate nor the ease of gear consumption. That's great. It's just there is no hook to keep people playing. The server needs something that makes the average player want to keep playing for the long term.
I don't know what that is, but maybe they could expand on the persona system. Anything to increase the longevity of their players stay on the server. There needs to be a proverbial carrot for the player to chase, and I really just don't see one right now for this server.
*edit*
Actually... now that I think about it, I can think of a couple things that would add longevity to the experience.
Achievement system - Add a shit ton of achievements to the original, kunark, and velious content that the player can track in the achievements. Give them checkboxes to check off while playing through the content. They have great achievements later on, but they never went back and added the old world expansions to them (as far as I recall). Give the average player something to do. Let them see that they got their Jboots and other stupid shit that ticks that "ew I accomplished something" adrenaline pump.
Player housing - Open guild halls, player housing, and guild neighborhoods at launch and add in housing stuff you get from completing those achievements mentioned above.
Fuck if I know, but at least you would have something to do once you hit max level. Something.. anything. Be creative. Don't just do the same old thing as before.
