I moved your thread to a new public part, so that everyone can read it.
An addition to answers already given by John:
1:
You will choose your faction at the beginning of your adventure but not before you had the occasion to learn more about them. This process is constituting a step in the tutorial. There are multiple reasons for that, one of them being that factions provide their members with a lot of goods, tasks and global objectives, as well as a general philosophy and intimate enemies. Having a non-aligned group in the game would force us to organize it similarly as players need to have access to the whole game content. And thus, it would basically constitute one more faction at the end. You have to understand that factions are not working the same as gangs used to do in previous FOnline games, or basically as guilds are used to do in other MMO's. Factions in AoP constitute entire communities, with their own principles, rules, inner ways of thinking, struggles for power, influences that will be also brought by their members - the players themselves. A constellation of attitudes and personalities will be present in every faction. That's something we support, and that is already present in factions even before they are influenced by players. Through squads - the AoP term for gangs or guilds - affiliated to those factions, players will play their role in the overall politics of their faction. You just have to find a faction that fits to your taste.
Factions are just as important in AoP as they are in games such as Planet Side, Dark Age of Camelot or even Word of Warcraft. You need to belong to one to be involved in the game world. Note that the reputation system will allow you to change your allegiance, you'll not be stuck within a faction forever or until you remake a new character. Also, remember that your own reputation will allow you take profit of more developed relationships with other factions as well. This is not an idle world: it's permanently evolving.
We already examined the possibility of having loners as a feature in the game. There is yet no conclusion, but in any case, that would be only for advanced players, and with quite big gameplay restrictions to accept. There is no plan for such a feature is the near future.
2:
The Core is a huge location, with many places to discover and guard. Driving people out of it would be counter productive, as John pointed out. If we wanted to add such outposts, we would add them in. But since they would be potentially subject to primary issues such as alting, there is no plan to add anything like that at the moment.
