I'm with both of you. 

The PvE was a big part of MoM and was missing in AoW.

Brad has talked out the dungeons so we know there is some PvE, I just hope the PvE is rewarding enough that it can act as a buffer between players.

Sammual

The way I see it what we really want is things to keep the player unbalance. We don't want to be sitting on our bottoms thinking our domain is secure.

It's interesting to think that at anytime a dragon might decide that our mountain protecting the back of our fortress is a nice place for a lair... why don't I create a lair here says the black dragon. There is a nice fat town downthere which is a nice food source hmmm...

I like that kind of idea and potential activity that keeps the world alive.

This is one of those elements that can really make a game feel like belonging in a world; if there's a strong basic framework, it would also make it easier for modders to make distinct variants, wouldn't it?

In any event, I would really like to see a heavy world/neutral faction presence in the game, especially combined with dynamic events.

Works for me as well.

I actually like the idea of having a "wildness slider" which allows you to set just how rowdy your Neutrals are.  I also like the idea of having certain types of things (structures, characters, etc.) that might decrease (or even increase?) the wildness of a countryside.

Spawning monsters is the most obvious and easy way to do it, but even having some terrain features that can be a bit of a mixed bag makes for some very interesting possibilities.  One game that does an interesting job of this is the Civ IV mod, Fall From Heaven 2, with some of their unique world sites.

I think it's also important to have some risk-vs-reward calculations in there too.  In a sense, many of the sites in MoM were resources, they were just resources that you could only harvest one time.  I'll be curious to see how dungeons interact with the rest of the game world, and whether other, similar features might have an impact as well.

It'd be like the barbarian levels in Civilizations.  And even though they can be a pain at times (for everyone), it also makes for much stronger early militaries and more distributed defenses than one gigantic mob.

And why not something like the pirates in Sins of a Solar Empire? But not as strong as in it. Instead of a "I'll attack <insert name of an empire>" why not disperse attacks? If I use more mana/gold/diplomacy to be in good relation with neutrals then I will have less problems with them, but I would still get some nuisances from them.

I definately think that this is something that should be put in.  I especially liked the idea put forth where the wilderness rating determined how wild a specific area is, and as humanity pours into that area and tames the wild (reducing the wiilderness level) there is an eventual backlash from the creatures and smallish tribes of creatures (like whole barbarian tribes pouring into the Roman Empire because of pressure on their land, except to include mythical creatures) and powerful individual creatures whose existance is threatened.  I also agree that being able to select just how powerful the environment is an absolute must.

Hey, as long as you do that near your enemy's cities everything is ok.

"Um yeah... sorry about that whole releaing a plague upon your lands thing.  Our bad... our bad."

I would love more E. I think GC missed a chance to make the E of space interesting and worth playing in. It should be easier in a fantasy game, so defo.