Okay so I have held off making a comment here till I had time to think about all that Wevoh had written.
On 1.8:
I personally think adding 1.8 pvp would be a great addition to earth. We had a discussion about it here: (
https://manacube.com/threads/hopeful-changes-to-earth.89722/). On this we had comments though that if earth is brought to 1.8 pvp that sva armor should be unbreakable. I still agree with this and more so after hearing staffs comments that the during sieges there isn't an intent for items to be lost in sieges. Right now only way to kill someone is to have numbers with blasters or break armor. Breaking armor is a big reason people don't join sieges.
On ce books:
I love the idea of somehow evening out items with those who grind. Maybe this is a challenge type reward for like a slightly above slayer kit or like on factions a slight buff armor but the more you do stuff the more it increase. Could be a random drop that starts at protection 2 but if you kill like 10k spiders you go to level 3 then 10k at another mob etc (just throwing numbers out for example not actual numbers)
On nation limits/town
So if we move to your proposal then its like factions and fighting . The part this will ruin is new players. Right now on earth I can invite and grow new players in the town. The fix for this of limiting members will just shove all the good players into a town together and then we still have similar issues. Need to let towns grow. Also remember there always needs to be a peaceful option its a balancing game
My suggestion is a complete over hall to sieges.
The time of sieges lasting 3 days with battle sessions is to spread out the fighting for different time zones. I personally think stuff could be done instead of sieges do something like the tournament session on factions. Let towns have a up to 10 player fighting pool and we fight in custom arenas. This could help solve lots of the issues with sieges such as randoms in the siege area, what you cant build/not build around banner, inaccessible towns, knocking out of siege area. I think winners could get something for the town like a sale boost etc. Just a suggestion.
Last comment these are my personal opinions not my teams, nations, etc