Positron's Address to Returning Players

With Issue 13's free access weekend (on now through midnight Sunday), Positron has released an address to the player base (it popped up in-game, too).

One tidbit that immediately struck me was that they are allowing some of the Issue 13 PvP rules changes to be optional in Arena, and this is hitting the training room "very soon".

On the one hand, I kind of prefer people to be "forced" to use the new I13 rules for a few months to give people a chance to acclimate to it.  On the other hand, allowing for optional rules in Arena may make some PvPers happy, and it might bring some people back (there aren't a lot of them, but more people is always better than fewer; the in-game population hasn't changed one iota due to quitting PvPers though).

My PvP bailiwick is zone PvP.  And in zone PvP, these Issue 13 changes are absolutely necessary.  It was way too easy to avoid combat and turn tail and run under the old system.  The new system helps limit that kind of thing, and this is especially important in zones where there is way too much room to maneuver in (on the smaller Areana maps, it's much less of a problem).

Overall I approve, with the caveat that we need to let PvP 2.0 have a chance, rather than strangling it in the cradle.

Read the announcement at the official forums.