Hey Virg, I think your analysis is pretty much on point.
Regarding PvP. The Marauder faction was created to be a "pvpers factions". While this seems logical, it actually killed the PVP on Aniro. Why ? Because, before that, the compositions of the nation-states and of the factions was balanced. There were all sorts of players in every faction. But once the Marauder faction came to life, it attracted most PvP players and... There had nobody to fight anymore, because they all united together :-). It also killed the emulation for PvP. When you play with people who like to that, you tend to try it and maybe even a bit more. When you have nobody who likes that around you, you probably won't be bothered to try. So indeed, for this, the Marauders are kind of a black hole.
Regarding the lack of events, you have to take a look at how Ryzom does work. The whole Marauder faction idea was pushed by some players, who actually wanted to play like, and who successfully pushed the idea through so that it was implemented in game. You also have to realize that the Ryzom teams are mostly staffed with players (voluntaries).
I could probably speculate at how it went. Some players actually entered the event team to push the idea, started working on it, did a few events, but never bothered to finish what they started, hoping that someone else would do the dirty work, what was partly done by the way. You can pretty much see that the marauder Lore was never finished, since it is not as complete as other factions lore. It also means that the events should be managed by non-marauder voluntaries, and maybe those did not really want to invest their time in something that was pushed on them for "shady and interested reasons".
Furthermore, Marauder faction took all the focus of the dev team for really a long time. If I could, I would have given you the link fo the topic where Ulukyn explained why and how they decided to implement the Marauders (alas, it disappread with the merge of the forums). And in the end, the result of all this years long development is what you have at your disposition. And as we can see from topics popping all around, players want more than what actually exists.
You have to add to that the fact that the ryzom voluntary teams are now REALLY spread thin, and when I say, spread thin, it is a real euphemism. At any given time, there are around 5 to 10 people working part time on all the ongoing projects (and there are a lot, and new ones every now and then). You also have to realize that the staff turnover is quite high. So what one person starts is sometimes taken over by someone else (best caste scenario) or abandoned (usual scenario).
And just try to see how many factions there are in game, how many projects, and since this is not the battle of Britain, so few cannot do so much :-P
So maybe Marauders are essential. But the question is more like : is it a viable faction ?
Is it cost effective to have people working on them ?
Regarding the exclusive events, I agree with Naema.
Regarding PvP. The Marauder faction was created to be a "pvpers factions". While this seems logical, it actually killed the PVP on Aniro. Why ? Because, before that, the compositions of the nation-states and of the factions was balanced. There were all sorts of players in every faction. But once the Marauder faction came to life, it attracted most PvP players and... There had nobody to fight anymore, because they all united together :-). It also killed the emulation for PvP. When you play with people who like to that, you tend to try it and maybe even a bit more. When you have nobody who likes that around you, you probably won't be bothered to try. So indeed, for this, the Marauders are kind of a black hole.
Regarding the lack of events, you have to take a look at how Ryzom does work. The whole Marauder faction idea was pushed by some players, who actually wanted to play like, and who successfully pushed the idea through so that it was implemented in game. You also have to realize that the Ryzom teams are mostly staffed with players (voluntaries).
I could probably speculate at how it went. Some players actually entered the event team to push the idea, started working on it, did a few events, but never bothered to finish what they started, hoping that someone else would do the dirty work, what was partly done by the way. You can pretty much see that the marauder Lore was never finished, since it is not as complete as other factions lore. It also means that the events should be managed by non-marauder voluntaries, and maybe those did not really want to invest their time in something that was pushed on them for "shady and interested reasons".
Furthermore, Marauder faction took all the focus of the dev team for really a long time. If I could, I would have given you the link fo the topic where Ulukyn explained why and how they decided to implement the Marauders (alas, it disappread with the merge of the forums). And in the end, the result of all this years long development is what you have at your disposition. And as we can see from topics popping all around, players want more than what actually exists.
You have to add to that the fact that the ryzom voluntary teams are now REALLY spread thin, and when I say, spread thin, it is a real euphemism. At any given time, there are around 5 to 10 people working part time on all the ongoing projects (and there are a lot, and new ones every now and then). You also have to realize that the staff turnover is quite high. So what one person starts is sometimes taken over by someone else (best caste scenario) or abandoned (usual scenario).
And just try to see how many factions there are in game, how many projects, and since this is not the battle of Britain, so few cannot do so much :-P
So maybe Marauders are essential. But the question is more like : is it a viable faction ?
Is it cost effective to have people working on them ?
Regarding the exclusive events, I agree with Naema.