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[faopcurious]

I don't think this new system is a great idea.  I'm sure when you were sitting around talking about it it sounded great, and maybe it even looked good on paper.  You have people fending for themselves in a faction based game, you can barely even go around and kill NPC's solo, let alone walk around the core for 2 minutes and not get killed by some kind of swarm.
We were a group with a teamspeak and it still took us ilke 4-5 hours just to get to level 6.  I know a lot of players were demanding factionless gameplay, but this just isn't it.
The overall idea isn't too bad, start in the sewer, you can get into the middle of the city very quickly, loot, and in theory head back to the sewer base ( when you aren't running around for 20 minutes looking for the hole that leads to base.)
It's neat that you can jump in, and start looting, but as I said, it's a faction based game, and even most NPC's are in huge hoards and will kill you in 2 seconds.  When randoms join this game they aren't going to have a chance in hell at even getting to level 3, the game just wasn't set up for this kind of solo play.
This free for all hunger games thing is a neat idea, but people are running around in groups anyway even before they could join a faction, which just makes it even harder for the factionless player.

Maybe if you can join a faction as soon as you start, but you don't get access to the base until level 6?  I will post to suggestions.

[Smalltime]

It goes without question that we didn't expect it to take so long to get to level 6. We're working out way through the bugs right now, but rest assured, we intend to smooth that process over. The level requirement was a very last minute thing, the initial thought was to induce a cap cost to get into a faction, then a rat pelt cost, but in the end we just went with levels and picked an arbitrary number  that to get to, you would have to have played more than a couple minutes.
Part of the idea was to make you think about which faction you choose more, and to hopefully work together with people you meet to stay alive.
Gets a bit harder to balance when groups of 20 are rolling around, but that's pretty standard FOnline. Honestly actually, the entire left column of the core was barren all day. I think I saw maybe 10 people walk into the top right map today.
There were places to grind in peace, it just definitely wasn't the center.

[BG Sexpert]

Level 6 isn't the problem, its the means to attain level 6 that is. There are no quests, there is nothing but a slow and painful grind against enemies that are much tougher than you.

A few sewer rat quests requiring you to kill a few things, maybe scavenge something, or even craft/science a few items you pulled from the core would make it exponentially easier and more enjoyable.

[naossano]

It would be nice to be able to help factions, through quest, Zone control or healing militia, to speed up the process. The more reputation you have with them, the better are the chances to be accepted. (there could be other alternative cost, for less combat oriented characters)