Removing TC:
If you remove TC, you remove 2 things. 1) Alarm, that notify people that there is any pvp action. So in general, it would ruin PvP experience for players that have not enought time to search cities for enemies.
Without alarm the time required to any PvP will be very unpredictable and IMO it would discourage players from organized PvP and it would let to quit or abusing players in mines,...
By alarm you mean the TC countdown, right? If that's so then I think you are wrong about it. People who want to take a town kill militia first, and I don't know if all factions do this, but in C88 or our alliances it has happened that we realize they are killing our militia (in other words: we know they are invading even before the countdown is triggered).
Also, the countdown is one of the things I hate the most: you see the countdown, everyone runs to Mumble, prepares everything, etc... Would be unpredictable you say? of course it'd be unpredictable, but that's what would make it exciting.
You say players would get discouraged from organized PvP and prefer to troll in mines. Well that makes me thinks they are cowards and that this is just another reason to laugh when I read "there should be no guarded towns, players should guard them".
2) The reason how to stay in norhern cites, so there would not be any reason to stay there (Look at Necropolis,unguarded (i think), no TC and voila! still ghost city.
Imho, Necropolis is deserted because of the following reasons:
-in the context of a server where TC is implemented, Necropolis can't be taken
-it's "too far"
-it doesn't have many quests
-it doesn't have many merchants
However, Necropolis is an awesome place for PvP, with its different areas connected by sewers for example... but anyway Necropolis is not what this topic is about.
So Eternauta, if gang X would lose its option to control Klamath (removing TC), the gang would not stay there (why? target to enemy?) and gang Y would not have reason to enter Klamath..
Merchants, quests, or just the desire to hang around. Also, a more real feel of danger: right now with TC, you can more or less predict how safe a town is by checking Pip-Boy and depending on the time it is irl.
PvP cities means, you have opportunity to interact with players in many ways, even killing. No PvP cities (oficialy named as guarded cities) means, that even you are robbed, bombed or abused by well known player, you cant do nothing, because you will be killed by city guards.
Yet, players just want to take them unguarded towns. They are usually not interested in staying and making them attractive or turning them into a place where PvP interaction different from combat can be found.
My suggestion:
Hmm, not enough players to retake any city (alarm function of TC), so i and 2 of my friends would check npcs for caps in those cities, and we would hope we can meet any players. Maybe they would shot us, maybe they can talk with us first, lets see. No need to take tier max weapons and armors, our bases is full of tier shit stuff, lets use it. If we will kill enemy that has tier max stuff, good for us. If we loose it, never mind.
I am still convinced that gang members would not get into "enemy territory" if they are not 100% sure they will win. Like I said, they don't like risk.
Russians? dont remember. We have relatively good contancts with russian players, because on Requiem, VSB is party of some "anti pk alliance" and they are helping us with knowhow, etc.
I bet he means the Broken Hills project. Chosen Soldiers and/or the Rogues (I was never sure) were trying to keep the town relatively safe, and BH actually became an attractive place for a lot of players. It was something really positive but APK factions like TTTLA and VSB kept attacking and eventually ruined it. C88 was still small and it was just a short time after I joined this game. I never liked that BH was attacked and innocents killed, but that's just my personal view of it. The point is that no matter if your gang is PK or APK or whatever, TC will harm the game.