1. I dont consider PO to be a sandbox game - yet it hardly matches any of the criteria, though id love to see it become one someday.

2. PVE has to be everything - a monotonous grind for the ones only wanting to make credits, a solo-experience and a group experience.

3. I completely disagree and have seen this so many times over the last 15 years.
Whenever you make pvp consensual it becomes a farce, worthless, a waste of time, an instanced poo game.

pvp is about dominating and harassing other people - it always was - winning fair games is something else and has nothing in common with pvp - except at least 2 persons with differing goals interfere in something that is not necessary. pvp is necessary since one side has to loose something. therefore - it cannot be consensual by system concept.

The current concept is quiet solid allthough pvp flags shouldnt exist or be able to be carried over to alpha. Generally alpha is too big und beta too small and meaningless.

4. I wouldnt overexaggerate the importance of PVE - what is good pve? wow? scripted ***? hell no. Good pve serves its purpose to gather ressources.

But what keeps people having a solid game base? Thats the social fluff - a bit of everything. And there we are again at the beginning - there isnt any fluff and/or sand in this game yet.