This is not meant as a personal attack to anyone, more like my thoughts on the game's direction that might be (or might not be) useful to both the developers and the players.
When I say "game's direction" I'm not referring to Citan's plans on it (I wouldn't have a clue about those) but things I observed in game during the last couple of months that are starting to affect the gameplay.
1. The multiboxing (controversial) issue. Again, please read my disclaimer, it's not targeted to anyone in particular, it's more for the devs. It's becoming very common especially because many new players came from AC and AC2 in which games (like in most older games) it was allowed or fairly common (at least that's what I understand/hear, I've never played any of those games). I think it's draining the -already limited- resources. I read that many players think this can be solved by instancing. They can't instance anything big due to Unity limitations (Citan's explanation, I wouldn't know). . This will affect the whole server and not leave room for new players if one player multiboxing hogs an entire area. I am aware Citan made it illegal for combat but not everyone read that statement.
Many treat it as it's a finished game and work towards pimping their chars, I get that part. But this way of multiboxing (although very appliable to other games) I believe it's very detrimental for PG. Why? Because it will create super OP chars which won't be wiped at launch. The reson why Citan said he will ot wipe our chars at launch was to reward long term loyal players who stayed with his game all throughout alpha (some for 4-5 years). When people farm on multiple chars they can accomplish in 3-4 months what the rest of us took years to accomplish. Do at some point this might be very detrimental to the player base if he decides that too many players pimped their chars over short periods of time so the "loyalty" aspect will not count anymore. And he might decide to wipe the server clean in order not to discourage new players.
That is the main reason I dislike multiboxing, it artificially creates equal footing that doesn't actually translate in game time but in how many instances of the game your computer can support. This thing will end up pushing away players like me who don't like fast track. Because after all, why would I play for 2 years when I can triplebox for 3 months and grow cotton while i run Lab on 2 chars. In 2 hours of doing that I can make 85k+ each box from lab and 6 stacks of cotton at 4 k each. That is a minimum of 200 k that I could make in 2 hours of gaming and pour into my main char's skills. Please try to understand my point and the long term effects on the server, compare someone playing normally with the above described scenario.
2. The economy. Lately I noticed a trend taking over. Vendors camping. Leaving an alt at vendors like Hulon, buying things like poetry books and scrolls that newbies sell by accident, not knowing their real value, and reselling for the market value. Off a poetry book you can make up to 80 k profit that way. Why is that bothering anyone you might wonder. Cause I admit that in games that had an auction house I certainly did the camping too, buying cheap and selling expensive is a basic way to make cash. I'll call it "the auction house trend". In P:g its main developer is very much against an auction house/central market. That's why I think this trend is rather hurtful for whatever his long term plan is regarding the game economy. He created the vendor stalls and the vendor boxes so we can sell what we farm or craft, somehow I don't think buying cheap stuff off unsuspecting newbies to sell expensive falls into that category. I noticed some players even buy very cheap femurs, dirt, gems off new players without informing them on the real value.
3. The attempts to control a certain market niche. That happened before but most players boycotted and undercut the ones who attempted. How it's done in practice-get an OP character with many AoEs in a place where the mobs drop something that's expensive, don't bury the corpses to discourage other players and farm alone. Then sell whatever resource you were after (ie notus books, explosive runestones or whatever else). This way, by not allowing others to share the resource, you can control prices. Again, I think it's a big negative in the long run because it benefits only few players while taking advantage and draining all the others who need that resource (material or whatever else it might be).
4. The lack of courtesy towards other players. Complaining there are no mobs to kill but refusing to spend 2 extra seconds each mob to bury and make them spawn faster. And doing that to the next player who comes around and tries to farm. It's okay guys, it's a pve game, you won't lose anything by letting others farm, they won't kill you later or anything. I tried the ironman challenge but couldn't complete it. Too much junk dropped everywhere (including perch straight on Lawara on Anagoge...newbies wouldn't have perch imo), people killing mobs all over around Serbule town and not burying etc. Very offputting if I really was a new player.
Now allow me to explain my points *except the last point, that's just common sense and not being rude pricks) in an anecdotal way. Not showing off with how much of a good person I am but the way things should work from my point of view.
I will use cheesemaking as example. When I started leveling this skill I could have comfortably used my alts and a mule to level it without buying a thing. I had 2 cow characters sufficiently leveled and a mule to milk cows and a crapload of stomachs and mushrooms. Instead I made a deal with a new player who needed cash for his expensive skill training (fire+BC). He wanted to sell me milk with 100 a bottle, I gave him 200 and explained to him that was the market value (I could ve just taken his milk and paid him half, he didn't know any better). The guy spent all his game time farming stomachs and milking cows in eltibule and it benefitted both of us. He got cash for his skills, leveled his butchering+anatomy+combat skills and I didn't have to relog all my horde of alts and mules to make materials. Yes, it would've been much faster and cheaper for me to use only my chars but in the long run we're not attracting new players by playing with our alts 90 % of the time.
I know I sound very cheesy but if more of us would share info and offer the right type of help we'd still be a nice community and people would feel welcome. Lately it hasn't been the case. Many of us stayed with this game because we had such a nice community but we're staring to lose this "badge" slowly and surely. More and more insults in chat, impatient newbies who want everything handed to them, spoonfed info, many players jumping on srand with complaints and questions that could be easily asked from other players or wikied, exploits, short fuses blowing etc. I used to spend a lot of time on Help chat but during the last month at least I switched off completely, I read only the guild chat and ignore everything else. Even Help channel became very negative and I don't particularly enjoy reading complaints, the same question asked over and over and the answers dissed..more complaints and more older players who could actually help being discouraged by the results of their help. It's apparently insulting to guide people to wiki I noticed that today
Sorry for the long post, I hope at least the literature fans will read it. I won't call it an objective analysis, it is my point of view on the direction PG (or actually more like its playerbase) is going. It has nothing to do with the game's actual development but with how we play it.