Give other capitals blue zones around them, similar to Sanguine. Or disable PvP loot drop in all zones, except red tiles, world dungeons, active villages and player holdings.

If you are going to launch this game on Steam at some point in the future and want it to be successful and have a growing player base, you need to extend the blue zones around all capital cities. Or get rid of the PvP loot drop, except for given zones and situations.

All Darkfall iterations and re-launches have shown the same symptoms: At the beginning you see a large number of players in the game. And after a short while, this number declines quickly.

The reason is simple: You can't reduce this game to PvP only and treat PvE players as a nuisance or prey.

This game offers so much for PvE players. They are in the majority. If you neglect them, you will get the same cycle over and over again.

With the huge competition and the history of PvP-focused RPG games on Steam, you will not be able to keep players if you focus on the PvP aspects only.

There is not a single successful PvP MMORPG that focuses only on PvP. The most successful PvP MMORPGs (EVE, Albion, DAoC) either offer a rich and safe environment for PvE players, gatherers, crafters, without the constant threat of being ganked and looted (EVE, Albion) or didn't have full loot PvP (DAoc).

Pure FFA full-loot PvP as the default state is structurally hostile to long-term population stability. PvE-oriented players are not optional or secondary, but economically, socially, and systemically essential.

PvE-players form the demographic and financial backbone. Darkfall has already proven that hardcore PvP players are highly visible but numerically small. At the end of each cycle, there are maybe just 50-150 players still active. Games like EVE and Albion survive because they retain PvE-focused players, not despite them. A game that alienates this group undermines its own revenue base. When every activity carries maximum risk, PvE-players start disengaging.

While it is exciting to have a full loot game, this excitement comes from voluntary, informed risk, not permanent exposure. If a player cannot choose when to risk full loot while crafting, gathering, exploring or doing solo PvE, the result is not tension but chronic stress, leading to avoidance and eventual inactivity.

Successful PvP MMOs always provide graduated risk zones, safety tiers and player agency in risk selection. Albion's zone system is a textbook example. While RoA also offers blue and yellow zones, blue zones are a minority and yellow zones already come with the full loot disadvantage. Of the 1024 tiles the Darkfall map offers, merely 33 are blue. Thats just 3% of the game that offers PvE-oriented players a place to be.

New player retention is impossible without PvE safety. Darkfall does not die because veterans quit. It dies because new players do not stay. Mandatory full-loot FFA PvP means no learning space, no tolerance for mistakes and no onboarding runway. Both EVE and Albion deliberately provide vast and early safety layers, large reduced-loss environments, time to build competence before full exposure. Darkfall never meaningfully solved this problem.

An MMORPG that treats PvE players as a nuisance, expendable or merely as prey will lose its economy, population scale, long-term retention and eventually its PvP community as well. PvE players are not a concession. They are the foundation. Not only for the game world itself, but also for the revenue of the company behind the game.