Interesting idea. I am not sure I like the idea of progression and optional PVP honestly.
The PVP should be required in a scenario at all times, though you'd lose some playerbase either way, mechanically speaking though I prefer one way or the other, not both for the sole reason that people will come to the server and see that it's 1) PVE and quit, or 2) PVP and quit. Depending on the server type you see a different crowd coming to the server, and from my experience if you mix the two together it becomes either a wasteland or you end up caving into a certain playstyle entirely, because balancing them both is a mechanics nightmare from a dev standpoint.
I am not 100% sold on that the progression aspect will be a major success, however making content from scratch is a pain in the butt, especially considering approx. 20% of eqemulator servers get balancing right (PEQ, P1999) and those are livelike servers. Part of the reason there is because you have a balance already written, and the client loves to adhere to it as well as the server architecture itself (in fact, i've considered just using stock code with minor custom code changes like this for the sole purpose of balancing things.)
I am not sure that a progression based game could work in a PVP scenario as well, so I think it is good that you DID make pvp optional for the time being. Main reason is new players will get thrashed by the old players unless the newbies are very skilled in PVP, just due to the old players' gear. Some may argue that they earned that gear, but with no competition it's really unfair. Such is the life of a game like this though, I suppose.
Now that i've unleashed my negative feedback on this, i'd like to shed some light and maybe even suggestions for your server.
First, the PVP monster scenario seems like a very, very good idea and could be excellent if done right. Kudos on that, it's pretty unique and I have not seen it anywhere else so far.
The global, continental, and local objectives seem like a good idea, one that i've attempted before and failed to implement due to rushing the server out for production before it was ready. Make sure you actually use some sort of packet to world to control all of that DB stuff, because if you are using zone as your db connection... it's gonna detract from the gameplay's performance. Hell, even use UCS or something to handle the db stuff, just make sure it doesn't run on the same box. I tried doing the direct DB (and perl w/ mysql even) stuff and it isn't pretty performance wise. It would be kind of cool to see that in sync with all the other zones but effective enough to not cause your zones to lag (mysql in perl is notorious for this)
Will zones have a point cap? That's another good question; sure you may be able to upgrade a zone, but at what point does it reset? Would it be better to reset points on zone capture for replayable content's sake?
All in all it sounds like it could be a good PVP mixed with PVE experience, take what I say with a grain of salt though, I haven't made a server in forever.
Best of luck, Caryatis.
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