A couple of other things...
I'm not a big PvP-er but I like to try new things...
I joined a company right before the launch, mostly old casual gamers... we donated whatever gold we made and bought a territory on the first day, in the evening.
Since then, we constantly had to run groups doing pvp quests in the world so we can either lower the influence gained from the opposing faction planning to take our city, build up the influence so we pressure another territory owned by another faction or just help fellow faction from another company defend their territories against opposing factions... it's a bloody handful!
And it feels weirdly entertaining! This is where organization and having someone calling the shots well pays off. Discord is pretty much a must.
Now we have an invasion happening tonight (PvE) and a war declared on us which we will have to defend our city from being taken over by another faction, which will probably happen tomorrow night. We don't want to lose all the progress and the money we have invested in levelling our crafting stations.
Almost all the zones on the map are now thrown into conflict, with upcoming wars, even 3-4 of them happening closely together, some even overlapping so you have to choose between acquiring a new zone or keeping your current one, 'cause you don't have the manpower to do them both at the same time.
And in between all of that, you have to level up as well so you have to quest, PvE, gather & craft as you need better gear etc. It's quite amazing.
All settlements start with being a Hamlet, looking scruffy with hay everywhere, walls made out of wooden spikes etc.
You can upgrade it to another 4 levels which are Village, Town, City, Capitol and each one changes the overall appearance of everything that's in that settlement. I personally cannot wait to see how a Capitol will look like... my T3 house which is a wooden one now might be transformed into a proper mansion
But that takes a long time involving a lot of effort and patience from everyone involved.
Each company that controls a territory gets income from all that happens in the main city: crafting, housing tax, Trade Post tax etc. If you set your takes too high, players will avoid your city and do their business in another city. But you also need money to grow your city so you need to balance the taxes in order to have players using it.
Crafting is also very very good, in my opinion. You can craft regular stuff but you can also add Azoth to a regular piece and the more you add, the more chances you have to have high quality perks (passives) proccing on that weapon. It seems to be a massive amount of attributes and they are random so requires a lot of crafting in order to obtain the right piece for your build.
Imagine you are a tank with 1h sword and you craft yourself a sword that proccs a socket, Lightning effect (jumps between targets), lifesteal and possible fire effect (AoE)... now that is a lot of threat and dmg for a tank!
So how many swords do you have to craft until you get that one you want?! But when and if you do get it, it will be the best sword and crafted by YOU!
It's just a silly example... I could go on and on about the game but I'll stop for now. If you have any specific questions, just ask, I might be able to help.
There are loads of things which make this game a very good one for me; the more I play, the more I discover things that I like.
The fact that a handful of bugs exist doesn't put me off as it's absolutely expected from a week old game. Queues are annoying but only temporary.
My advice to players, especially the ones who like to take their time in discovering various things and don't have the urge to rush to max level - buy the game, it's well worth the £35!