Many Darkness-owned planets - namely Homeworlds - will unlikely ever be released for people to have free reign of. Other planets will be released or added as the galaxy team finishes them, there is no set timeframe.
Homeworlds were set up to be Darkness controlled, as at the time getting a coder to set something up so that they could be NPC owned but not slabbabled by PCs would take a while. So those planets that are Darkness controlled, will never be controllable/buildable by PCs.
Unlikely. ALthough we would prefer it if all the homeworlds were NPC controlled, some factions have sentimental attachment to those planets from long ago, or other such reasons. If such factions wish to give up the homeworlds they control now, the Galaxy team would look to see what could be done to make it a reality.
Despite galaxy shifts being "Done", I will still make exceptions for anyone willing to trade me their homeworld planet names in exchange for a move of their homeworld system.
Any planets owned by Darkness, will either remain as Darkness indefinitely, or be changed to NPC once we decide to do so/figure out a way to make it safe to do.
I don't really see any need for all homeworlds to be NPC controlled. We in the GE don't particularly care whether a world is a homeworld or not, but there are certainly worlds of prominence for the GE which also happen to be homeworlds. Coruscant being the prime example, but Kuat, Corellia, Thyferra, etc being other examples.
It's been years since the occurrences of n00bs being executed on homeworlds after spawning, and several game features have been coded since then to enable people to get through shields and such. So why would there be any need to have homeworlds NPC controlled?
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"Seele's Law: As a New Republic Senate discussion grows longer, the probability of comparison involving the Galactic Empire approaches 1."
More a safe zone for players to go on quests etc. Also, homeworlds also get shielded, and then it is a hassle to arrange access for a lot of these, which would be an issue if there are some quests down below people want to do. And although, yes, people could take NPC transport to said planet, now they don't have their own ship, and travelling around for the quests will be a massive pain that most people would then not even bother.
The entire quests system is going to be under particular strain regardless. Is this game a free-flowing SW RPG that allows the players to take any action they so desire? Or is this to become a cheap and poorly developed version of The Old Republic where some worlds just never change and are trapped in some Star Trek-esque time loop?
What happens when combat comes out and the Empire razes to the ground an entire homeworld, NPC structures included? Or are you planning on preventing factions from doing that just because it has quests there, or just because it's a homeworld?
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"Seele's Law: As a New Republic Senate discussion grows longer, the probability of comparison involving the Galactic Empire approaches 1."
Man, this is going to be like TOR where planets don't change. You're right, those 8/100% of the planets don't really change much in their storyline. Man, it also sucks that there may be a chance that like 60 of the over 6000 planets we have, may not change. Whatever will we do with that 99+% of planets?! :p
This game has never allowed players to take any action they so desire, there's always been constraints in the past where an admin would disallow something, or times when rules disallow, or when in general something isn't allowed for feature reasons. With so much of the galaxy free-reign, I have 0 regret seeing a few places being kept as safe-havens to have to explore/have quests/other future features take place. There'll be plenty/are plenty of new planets already out there.
