Nice to see you F0lak. I don't think anyone was directing that at you, it's just a common reaction to fresh users posting in OG.
Eh, maybe I'm just too used to BYOND website community. They tend to blame game creators for the players' actions.
So you're saying it's easier to build a house out in the wilderness somewhere and it respected, or not end up violating some island wide policy that ends up getting it burnt to the ground?
Totally. As it stands there's one major kingdom headed by myself (The Kingdom of Settal - you might recognise it as an old Heritage) which was actually the first kingdom established in the game 5 or 6 years ago when we released. From what I know most of the new players end up joining that for their first character. Other than that there are a few Orc settlements up in the mountains, and I think (I'm not 100% sure) there's another human town popping up somewhere in the archipeliago.
Roleplay wise there are a few things we as admins are doing to enforce it. First and foremost, deaths which occur in a roleplay event such as a fight or a quest to slay a monster are expected to result in the roleplay death of the character, and the player is expected to begin a new character. We've also become more active in the community both as Aels and as characters ourselves. This helps us not only to help catch ne'erdowells in the act, but we can take an active role in promoting positive and constructive roleplaying.
The game itself just underwent some pretty major internal changes to accomodate the new 24 hour seasons, so there are a few bumps we're still smoothing out. Overall it's playable, but until the next patch (which I'm expecting out in a day or two) you'll find animals hard to come by on the mainland, as they currently procreate on a year-round basis. This is being changed to be completely unrelated to the time of year, so they'll always be replenishing their populations.
As far as establishing yourself goes, subscribers now have the ability to create groups which can have custom flags and custom clothing colours, chosen by the person who created the group. It's a pretty nice way to tell who's who. As long as you aren't extirpating any locals from a place in which they've already settled there shouldn't be any issues with you establishing a settlement anywhere, really. That isn't to say you can't extirpate the locals if you wanted to. As long as it's roleplayed!