I love the back and forth on the alliances. You can see what type of player a person is based on their love or hate for the system. The players that strictly believe this is a pvp game seem apposed to it, and those that believe this is a pve or even a pve with the risk of pvp game are for it.
I for one am for the the alliances. I have played a ton this past week, which is fairly normal for me, and I have had good and bad experiences with the alliances feature. For me, the best results ended in new friendships of like minded people.
I find it very funny that the pvp peeps insist that the devs meant for this game to be a pvp game. As if to suggest it had no other purpose. But yet this game is packed with tons of pve content. So it is not strictly a pvp game. Conversely the pve peeps believe they should have the option to avoid pvp, in a pirate game.
I see arguments from people that pirates attack everyone, this simply is not true. Some were ruthless, but most lived by a pirate code that included not attacking each other. Stealing from each other was ok, but attacking wasn't. In fact most pirates rarely sunk any ships because it was bad for business. They would simply raid the ships of loot and let the ship and crew go, so they could get more loot from them the next time they sailed.
I think both sides of the pvp vs pve need to recognize this game is a mixed bag of both. Alliances are great for some people, and not for others. But it is a mechanic of the game I personally believe enhances the experience and fun factor of the game. PvP peeps need to recognize this is not solely a pvp game. It has pve content and there are people that want to do that content. And pve people need to recognize that there are pvp people out there that want a fight.
As was suggested earlier and often in many threads, I think the devs need to make an option to either invite a ship/crew to your server, or during the start up screen have that as an added option. Maybe limit it to only one ship to try and not make the server too unbalanced, but make it so you can play with your friends, especially during these special pve events.
We all chose to play this game, good and bad. And yes there are going to be people that do things that only enhance their own game play by making others miserable. People are what they are, simply move on, leave the server and let them do their thing. I for one will not let the few people that try to ruin the game for everyone else get under my skin.
I would suggest to pvp people, if you are on a server where others simply don't want to engage in pvp, why not server hop to find others more interested. It seems the only ones server hopping are the ones trying to avoid the pvp. Wouldn't finding others that want to put up a fight be more fun than simply overtaking a crew that just wants to stay away from you?