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We need this game to be the big sandbox it once was.

The towns rely on each other so conflict will always be stagnant and non-existant.

People who want to build crafting stations, outposts or whatever generally don't exist because they are always told No.

What made Gobaith the most fun was if you got up the resources and manpower, you could do anything. If you had no control over a town then someone could march in and take control.

Gobaith was brutal dog eat dog sandbox for big boys and girls. I want that back alot. It saddens me how far it's fallen from that. Town guards don't exist and there's no motivation for anything besides leveling and getting equipment or resources. Wth do we use the stuff for? sure we can have fun tavern rp but theres nothing outside of a fun conversation and I hate it. theres no useful titles, no wars, no town guards, no crafting guilds. AND IT SUCKS.

How exactly can we go about this? well have an open mind for starters.

A good start would be to stop idealising the past.

Just to mention a few problems related to your post:
We had settlements scattered all over the place leading to inactivitiy. Bad.
Especially in Troll's Bane we had problems with town leaders getting inactive, casuing a lot of frustration among players. Bad.
Player town guards are not around 24/7. There were always the bis discussion wether some baddies just waited for the strong chars to log off to cause trouble in town. Bad.

Is everything great now? No.
Was everything great preVBU. No.

It is not helpful to keep saying "Back then everything was better!", becasue it was not. We need to learn our lessons from both - pre- and postVBU.

Sure there were empty settlements but from what I've seen of the sandbox housing proposal (I know it will be some time before something like that comes around) it will take upkeep or the buildings will fall apart and eventually disappear. these places if uninhabited could be taken over by ambitious chars.