Carnage Cooties Cured?

From the April 27th Update Notes:

- Carnage flagging will now only transfer to other players inside city zones.

I know a lot of people did not enjoy the Carnage flagging system. But is this a good thing?

Archonix had this to say on the subject:

The original intent of Carnage Flagging was to allow PvP within the city walls, with the idea that the defending city could protect their town regardless of the aggressors level. The viral part kicks in to allow the aggressors to attack back, and so on and so forth. Instead of having the flags drop when you leave the city, and giving players the ability to bounce back and forth to avoid the penalty, we went with a 15 minute timer. It was supposed to be something that you chose to take part in, but this obviously is not what we have occurring today.

Within the next few days, we're going to make a slight modification to the system. Carnage Flagging will no longer be viral outside of the cities. If you choose to become flagged within a city, and wander outside, you'll still be open to attack by anyone of the opposing alignment. The only difference now is that they will not become flagged for attacking you.

Positives to Carnage Flagging:

It made the world feel a little more dangerous.

When you were flagged, you really felt like you were on the run until your timer wore off. This contributed to some fun.

Negatives to Carnage Flagging:

I think the majority of players never really understood the mechanic.

In the beginning, it was way too viral in nature. Too many players were carnage flagged. This was rectified to some extent already through changes to the way the timer worked.

It never felt like it had anything to do with cities at all, which was its original stated purpose.

People loved to exploit the system by "tricking" other players into becoming carnage flagged and then killing them. I don't know that this is a negative but it did become less of a clever trick and rather old after a while.

So what is the state of carnage flagging now?

It feels like a "criminal" type system. By that I mean that if you kill someone within the cities and become flagged, you become a sort of "criminal" who is fair game to be hunted down by all. What's more there are now no repercussions for hunting that player outside of the city walls. I don't know if that fits the "city defense" idea behind the system. However, you could just stay in the city limits and wait for it to wear off. I honestly haven't seen much combat within the cities thus far in the first place.

I can't say I'm sorry to see carnage flagging limited, but part of me will miss it. I guess it's one of those things where I'll have to see how it plays in the game before I make any final judgments.