I have read a lot of discussions about people not wanting to PvP or requesting a 'safe-zone' so they can meet other crews, socialise and show off cosmetics, and even form alliances and go on voyages together. In a recent post I made, it occured to me that this could be something created and controlled by the community at large. If the majority of people truly want this safe-zone idea, then we could create and police one ourselves, without any need to change the game.
Now, I don't think this is a new or unique suggestion, but put simply, if there is a place that the majority of the community designate as a safe-zone, then people could visit that location and know that others visiting are likely to be friendly. In my opinion, this would be better as a larger island rather than an outpost. That way, people would be less likely to visit with loot on their ship and making themselves easy prey. A larger island would also make it more difficult for a single crew bent on PvP to potentially dominate over multiple crews wanting to meet and socialise.
There of course will be those who target the location. However, with the majority of people working together, they could band together to fight others off, making it a difficult target. The opposite could happen, with those wanting to take over the safe-zone banding together with others to fight everyone off. Of course, you could argue this is then a safe-zone for those people anyway as they are working together.
Another additional consideration is that, with island locations being used predominantly for quests, it might be worth having the location change over a set period of time. Perhaps this could be on a month/bi-weekly or even weekly basis.
Now, the difficulty with this is getting the community to first buy in to the idea, and then actually agree on a location to be the safe zone. This I am afraid is the biggest hurdle to this whole enterprise, however it is my hope that putting the idea out there might start to generate some traction. It could simply begin with a community member starting a post saying something like, 'safe-zone is at Crooks Hollow until 5th May'.
I'd be interested in any comments people have!
