I don't know what the costs are in opening a new server or whatever but it would be neat to try, I wouldn't be opposed to it. Don't think I'd play it though, it would probably be filled with elitist dooshes.
I think the people who have posted that there is no market for hardcore pvp in mmo's are completely clueless. EVE online has constantly increased in subscribers over the years and has around 300 to 400k and that is definitely a hardcore system. Archeage is one of the most anticipated games on the horizon, and Lineage 2 is one of the most popular online games ever.
Now i don't think a full loot system would work in TERA since the game is just not designed for it, but something like Deathwish from AoC would be cool: random inventory looting, gold looting, ect. I think not captilzing on the hardcore crowd is a mistake, especially when TERA isn't doing all that well in Korea and has some very stiff launch competition this year. I certainly think they will draw in more people with a hardcore pvp server than they will with some RP server lol.
I think your right on the partial inventory looting. There has to be real incentive for pk pker guilds(anti-pk guilds) to actually form and hunt the pkers. Which in turn solves an off topic issue that arises.
The other part that Common may or may not understand is this game has, I would say, the majority of its anticipation from those lesser games which are more hardcore( as others have stated Linage, I'd like to point out Rohan as well). These games are old as others have stated and or dead because of bugs that were never fixed or company greed. Most of those other games such as Hero online, Rohan:Blood Feud, and Karos were mainly successful in the east and do not have as large of a player base in the west. It simply comes down to demographics East> PVP, West>PVE. I think this comes down to which games took dominance and shaped the player base for each area. So yes our hardcore pvp base is small in the west but it doesnt make us ache any less to have a game that is smooth, enjoyable, and innovative as Tera seems to be.
One thing to keep in mind on what might also help define roles between you(common) and the other "hardcore" pvpers is what games they might have grown up with. I know I for one never touched WoW but instead I grew up with the rule set of D1 and D2 were death can happen anytime by anyone and you had to retrieve your corpse. From there I went to Conquer Online for 11 months to Hero for 4 to Rohan for god knows how long then Karos for 8 months. I grew with those values of a death was a penalty and a pkers death was an extra penalty. In some games you lost loot, had to retrieve gear, lost gear, lost exp, and some you lost everything including your character(hardcore D2). I later went to Rift which pvp from day one annoyed me to no end. I had to instance every time, no world pvp at all. Sickened me to be blunt and bored me to be fair.
I tell you that ramble to bring this point. My close friend(room mate) has played WoW for years and now currently TOR. He's been watching these betas as I play and he just is appalled every single time I kill or get killed by a pker. He can't comprehend how I can stay calm let alone play this game. In fact it's these reasons I play this game because it's one of the first games that has no factions with the ability to kill almost anytime in open world. It allows dynamic politics and power struggles, Hunting and running, Alliances and Wars, Spies and thieves between guilds. Something that makes you just want to be in all hours of the day even if it's just to sit and protect a guild mate grinding.
Point is you two seem to arguing from 2 different dynamic points common you have been arguing from the wests perspective which is good because surprise surprise that's where this game is for.
Others you have been on the Easts side where I am to. I want penalties, risks, and motives to pk even if it is loss of exp(which sucks so much Karos was about an 8% loss each death). Inventory loot and money drop would be nice as well(prefered) not to the point of losing everything but so that we have a desire to constantly use our banks for money and items. An FFA with a limited Item loot (preferably inventory) would be, in my opinion, the best and easiest thing to implement. There might be something as simple as a few variable values to change or add a few variables, if thens, and a percent generate (or number generator for inventory slots). Possible time estimation less than a week to do and test at this point I would believe.
Sub point we may be a minority of gamers in the west but the gamers that grew in the 90's I'd say are the ones that are looking for hardcore more so and we want to have our needs met just as the carebears of WoW and such want theres met with pve content games. I say 90's mainly because of Diablo which for my small town of under 40k people was something every boy played because of the darkness,violence, and rebellion feel(highly christian area). "Hardcore" pvp is something that we want for nostalgia sake because we grew up with it, we loved it, and we simply want something that we know we love back.
Sorry for grammar, run-ons, ramble. Absolutely exhausted but had to post after reading all this
I think what is lost on most people is this.
Taking an existing game made for pve with some pvp and changing the rules to a hardcore pvp ruleset in an already niche game is a pretty bad business idea. I am all for a real pvp ruleset but Tera as it is would be just a disaster the game is not built for those rules. MMOers are lazy if you make a crappy bolt on hardcore rule set people will just find a way to avoid it. Since most bolt on ideas here basically do not account for anything but that person's bias of what they want. Their scope is just too limited to be a working idea and deal with everything the rules would affect.
Building a hardcore pvp open world pvp game from the ground up is what would need to happen. Imo to have full loot, real good open world objectives etc the game would need to be made with that in mind. Almost all of the sucessful hardcore style pvp games had those attributes from creation.
These kinds of servers always die out.
Huge initial community. All who have the idea of being able to kill people and take thier stuff. Till some realize its other people killing them and taking their stuff more so. So they quit. Guilds form. anyone who is guild-less cannot progress as they're constantly getting killed by zergs. they quit. At this point the only way the server increase in population is when people join already in fortified guilds. as any new player will be killed by anyone on sight. fortified guilds drive smaller guilds out. Eventually the server comes down to 3 or 4 super guilds. Join them or die. Guild drama occurs,players defect to other guilds. newly empowered super power guilds drive the smaller super power guilds out. super power guilds eventually dwindle down to 1. The server is now theirs. They have successfully beaten the game and killed the server.
L2 system was so easy to exploit. Granted, they had some weird [filtered] that made it even easier (like naked daggers 2 shotting ppl with backstab...wtf?) and not seeing hp which just lead to people baiting reds, and no loot binds, which lead to people running around white spamming pickup....and the HORRIBLE GRIND.... now wonder people played it for so long, it took forever to level, you had to spend forever to craft gear (and holy [filtered] drop rate was low even on craft mats).
If anything, the game revolved around baiting.
I have good memories of L2, but it was way too grindy, which is why a [filtered]load of people played with bot programs, and some even had a radar that will tell you the names of everyone around you and their levels and such making it easy to go red then go grind off karma in random spots.
Not saying a hardcore system wouldn't work, but quoting games in which PvP happened rarely and the prelude to fights was waiting around for people to flag and such which got so boring....
These hardcore servers get supported by PvEers who choose not to fight and if they ever lose a piece of gear randomly, they just PvE even harder to gain it back and gain back levels, meanwhile, a handful of griefer get the spoils. It's hardcore, but boring and drawn out PvP where you wait around for along [filtered] time and only have a few fights every once in a while.