[State of the game]

Yes I'd agree with these comments, game certainly feels longwinded at times, and there seems to regularly be long periods where there is little going on. Overall I would say I was having more fun with this game 2 years ago.

 

[Back to Nation driven open world]

Problem with having diplomacy in this game is that it can make large areas of the map unplayable due to lack of enemies.

If there must be diplomacy of any kind Pirates surely must be excluded from this.

 

[Next big patches: Real currency and Open world user interface update]

Surely the gold awarded for sinking a ship is some form of compensation for not taking the ship as "prize"  ( perhaps to be regarded as your pay as an officer). In this context this should be paid when you return to port not put into the hold of your ship to carry home.

[Wipe patch to live servers slightly delayed.]

I'm sure it's been said before but instead of speculating what the game may me like after the wipe why not  log in to testbed server and try playing some of the new features and get some experience of what the game will probably be post wipe. When the wipe does come it can only be to your advantage to have some experience of how things will work.

[Little things you'd like to see]

I'd like to see the smuggler flag disable the option to have fleet ships. It is quite unrealistic that you can sail a small trader to an enemy port with 2 powerful warships in fleet as escort.  Maybe even restrict smuggler flag to 6th & 7th rate vessels.

 

[Limited economy slots - coming soon]

Don't like the idea of a ruling elite who have the power to effectively control the game for other players.

The problem of taking part in port battles has been mentioned by many people, I suppose one solution would be for the "excluded majority" to start turning up early and gatecrashing port battles - don't wait to be invited by the clans, its yor game too.