What was wrong with Unholy Wars??! Why didn't you play this game?

I've played Darkfall since it was released in the very beginning on the EU server (may 2009) because I follow the launch of every FFA PVP game/server that I can for that head start just in case its worth playing... I play MMORPGs primarily for PVP but I also enjoy mindless game within game type activities while crafting or something at times (but for the love of God let me use the stuff that I create on killing other people!). I generally do not like PVE in MMORPGs because I think that solo games are funner for this, but if there is a chance for PVP while I am doing it, I find it much more exciting. I also do not tend to grind in MMORPGs and would rather play a dozen of them casually instead so that it doesn't seem as bad, but I look for ways to be satisfied like creating low level twinks or simply staying ahead of most people (damn it I even had to PVE). Since there are so few games that have good PVP I usually catch up to people eventually though if I just keep playing casually.

So this is about Unholy Wars, not the original, so I will try my best not to bring up the good ol days.. and get to the point.

I was a hardcore fanboi of the original Darkfall though (especially when I found out that the game was dying)... and even was active on the forums enough that many people tried the game because of me. I have received so many thank yous from players that would have never found out about it without my posts that I think it was well worth it... even trolls that harrassed AV on the forums for years I ended up convincing them to play it despite its flaws and they all ended up thanking me for the most part. Unfortunately, the game aged.. and as time went on.... so did everything else and the population was pretty bad before each major patch.

Darkfall Unholy Wars came out... and here are the problems that I had with it.

Its not a solo friendly game at all. At least in the first game I could live in a chaos city and grind at my own pace with nooby spawns and NEW city to visit... I could find that I could compete so long as I looked for it despite being behind the people who would grind. In Unholy Wars there was safe zones and no NEW city and no chaos cities... so I had to say goodbye to all of that and accept grouping with others more. It was fun though.

No more racial wars. Upon first logging into the game I was totally disappointed that I couldn't try out being an alfar in the alfar lands... sure I was trying to get a smaller hitbox (yeah I like PVP) but giving everyone the same hitbox was so lame to me that I would have played an Orc if things went back to how they used to be.

Population. The game never quite had the numbers that the first game had . .. which to be honest didn't matter as much in the end because the game seemed to be designed for a smaller population. I would still be playing it today if it had not shut down and I know many people who are totally depressed as I am about it. The game was still playable.

No more GM events. This really made the game seem alive in the first one. Where are the GM controlled mobs? There is so much potential for this I don't even know where to begin. In my opinion AV should have had someone dedicated to making the PVE unique by constantly throwing events similar to what the first game did. Instead they seemed to try and encode it... good attempt and it was pretty cool but not nearly as fun as GM controlled mobs.

Safety. Simply put, too much safety I felt in this game... the original had enough ways to create a safe environment but this version made it too  guaranteed... not nearly as thrilling.

Well those were my hangups about the game.... but I still love it and would play it now if it were online!

Thanks for reading and especially for giving your input.