Thoughts, mainly on settings and classes. Note, I'm mainly a horsemen, somewhat infantry, and a ****e archer.
Gold from kills. I've played servers both with and without it and basically...Having a reward for fighting well is good. I enjoyed it a lot more when I could earn money by playing instead of having to wait for the mines. Heth's settings are a bit odd, so I'll use beaver as an example. 1k gold, gold from kills. Standard procedure for me is to spend that 1k on a horse, leg it to the mines in the hope that nobody takes a lance to my head, and mine 5k. Suicide, respawn with 2k armour and a saddle horse. That leaves money for a decentish sword and a decentish shield. If I fight well, I can keep this stuff and work my way up. If not, back to the mine. Without this, I spend as much time afk waiting for the 5k block to go as I do actually playing.
Starting gold. Again, having to mine to be able to do anything kinda sucks. With 0, as suggested, you have a five minute walk to the mines which leaves you incredibly vulnerable and quite bored. If you get there, you then end up killing yourself because walking to the village is another risk. Leaving the village with a weapon and no horse is suicide. 1000 works. You can't suicide spam a castle as a spy, because you don't have enough money for a horse and a faction tunic. You CAN, however, get to places.
No real complaint about the horses - I hate sumpter horses with a passion, and the server lag is understandable (Especially with my horrid connection).
Classes - I don't go crossbow or archer because I can't play a crossbow or archer. No problem, fair amount float around. Bandits are bandits. Average at everything. Decent amount go this. Civilian is a mainly RP thing. Mounted man at arms is the horseman - It works fine. Same deal for infantry. I don't think I've EVER seen a dismounted man at arms, though. The heavy armour just isn't good enough for the price, when you can lose it all instantly to some guy with nothing but a 200 denar shortbow. The 5k armour is as high as I'll go.
Castles - Red castle is amazing. Green castle is horrible for me as a horseman, but great for when I feel like assaulting a castle by myself. Could do with a straw mat near the gate, for horsemen, and some way to access the armoury as a horseman. If you get off your horse, 95% when you get back it's been nicked. And then that shiny new heavy lance you spent two minutes getting gold for? useless. White castle REALLY needs easier winch access. Having to make the slooow climb to the roof and then walk around the twisty bit makes that castle very rarely used. Having the vast majority of the castle never see use doesn't help, either. Having the only non-gate entrance require riding around 2/3 of the map also doesn't help. Great for invading, **** for the defenders. Maybe an access point on the opposite tower?
The special equipment - The masterwork sword is perfect. Out of the way, Just pricey enough to not see real use, and better enough than the cheaper swords to be useful. The dragon shield is...A wall. I've seen firsthand how useful it is if you get ganked. But 35k means you have to spend over ten minutes doing NOTHING but standing still holding F. This is boring. Maybe lower it to 25k, to make it at least somewhat more attainable? The only thing that comes close is the excalibur. Speaking of which, I'd also advocate that dropping by 10k. When somebody gets it, they usually get let into a castle and proclaimed leader and then...Instantly backstabbed. Nearly fifteen minutes of holding F and not actually playing a game. And with it being a greatsword, it's rarely in hand when someone dies. It IS very fun as an RP thing, though.
Not so much for the masterwork sword, but for the Dragon shield and the Excalibur...Is it possible to have it fire a trigger that ALWAYS spawns one when the agent holding it dies? That means that the massive investment one guy made isn't lost the second some guy decides he wants it without knowing how dropped items work. Also very fun for the wars that tend to spring up around them. It doesn't end as soon as one side recovers it.
...What else...Oh! Green castle gateway has some kind of invisible semi-barrier. A horse will just stop on one of the stairs, and have to turn around it. This happens everywhere on that step, though. Also green castle, underground. One of the doorways has a barrier preventing horses from passing. The one in the stable.
The tallest point of the excalibur tower is inaccessible due to invisible wall. Very rarely going to be noticed, but it was kinda a bummer when I climbed all the way up and found I couldn't reach the top.
Before I forget, village needs long arming swords. I've started wars over people refusing to let me into a castle to buy one
Also, moving the spawn nearer to the mine might help the ganking problem.
