[Vancha]

I could've sworn watching a GDC interview/developer comment recently that indicated that there wouldn't be an empire lock due to the F2P system making it irrelevant, but I'm damned if I can find it now.

Edit: Never mind, I misread Higby's comment in the Reddit AMA. If he acknowledges that people can create three accounts to have characters on three empires, surely PS1's system would be more beneficial?

I think it's more likely that if people could create all 3 empires on one account and then playing a character on one empire locked you out of playing on the other two for an hour or so, you'd have less spying than if it was common practice to make one account per empire.

I also think the convenience of having all your characters on one account would cause more people to buy more cash-shop items for their other characters...Plus you don't have the problem of people defecting to another empire for X months and then having forgotten their old account info when they want to return to their old character (that will happen to multiple people, I guarantee it).