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United States, Michigan, GMT-5

@Ryan
I too am concerned about the alignment system and the flag system.
It might be because it sounds very complex, a lot of different flags each having their own set of triggers and consequences. Perhaps it will all be very straight forward once we start playing the game.

The few concerns I have about the system as I understand it:
-Combative/pvp minded players will feel they are forced to be evil, even though they like to play as good but also enjoy a healthy portion of pvp.
-Good settlements will mainly hold crafters and non-combative people. Making it easy targets.
-A paladin will mainly be a pve content player. As it is hard to do pvp and stay within the alignment requirements.
-players not affiliated to a player settlement/organization (and therefor not able to be pulled in a war) will be able to target LG settlements players in the settlement hex and not be punished if they do hit and runs. Making the LG settlement a prison for it's villagers. (possible solution later on). Depends a lot on how quick a combative player can kill a non-combative or low geared player. It could take several minutes before anyone gets to where you are to help.
-for each crafter going out of the settlement hex to gather resources you would need several people protecting the crafter and mining expedition and still be overwhelmed by the evil players. Because in my opinion there will be a lot more evil players than good due to the alignment system. (this is just how it feels from reading the blog and the posts here)

Possible solution for point 4:
One of the buildings a Lawful settlement can make is a courthouse, where players that attack the lawful settlement or it's players unprovoked (from now on I'll reference to that player as the thief) more than X amount of times will be flagged as a criminal to that village(for a long time).
When a player from the settlement encounters the thief in the settlement hex or in neutral territory, that player can query the thief to willingly be arrested or pay a fee, the thief can choose to pay the fee(this should be a rather large sum,especially if he killed), be arrested or resist arrest.
If the thief resists arrest he gets some sort of flag and the player from the settlement can kill him with no alignment hits or when the thief falls to 1% health is arrested.
Being arrested would i.e. block skill training and/or movement for as many hours or days as unprovoked attacks done to the settlement (double if resisting arrest). Kind of like being sent to jail, or being shot in the leg or killed when resisting arrest.

This is a rough explanation, I am sure a lot of people will have problems with it or want to modify the idea. I just mainly put it here to give the Lawful Good (or any lawful) settlement the chance to not be sitting ducks. Up to Ryan & his team to look into lawful handling of criminal activity.

I don't know how much R.A. Salvatore books are used in pathfinder lore (if at all), but I remember in one of the Icewind Dale books that Bruenor crafted a magic infused weapon Eagis-Fang with some diamond dust, a scroll and some other -probably very rare- components. Also it seems that the time in the moon cycle and some other things were very important.

Perhaps this is how the crafting of rare magical items should be, each rare magical item has it's own unique steps you need to perform and materials you need to gather.
For example lets say the legendary bow Sun Flayer (made up name) which is extra effective against creatures of the night due to it's infused pure light/holiness, requires the following steps to be created:
- A one year old willow (need wood lore) where the bow staff will be carved from, needs to be cut down on the dawn of the longest day of the year.
- The string needs to be made from the leg muscle of an ancient silver dragon, needs to be procured by either killing it in single honorable combat (impossible?), or willingly given when the dragon is passing on, by having done an act of extreme valor. It needs to be cured by oiling it with blessed ointment from a paladin/clerical order, and left to soak in for 3 moon cycles.
- The handle grip is made from a pristine piece of hide from a magical beast that prefers light over darkness.

Also to find out how to make this items you need to run across several pieces of information that are randomly found (never found in the same place), some of which are from ancient books in the game, others from tables you find in ancient ruins, or from bardic songs of legend, ...

You get the picture, very hard to get and takes a long time frame to create them. Perhaps this way we too will get that amazing sense of pride in the fact that we were able to create something unique, something only a couple people will ever get. Something that may feel like a life's work (while not actually taking up a life time of course). The odds that one player can make one item is very small, the odds that one player can make two items is near impossible.

I realize this is very idealistic and maybe a lot of people will not support this view, let alone the fact it is probably extremely hard to implement this with enough rare magical items and with each it's unique steps and materials. I just think this would be the crafting pinnacle of an MMO.

I was one of those that voted with his head in the sand,

I still think the mounts are probably my #1, but deities for Paladin/cleric type players could be important, as well as some pets for other classes.

So a re-vote might not be a bad idea, and it is not like 2 minutes reading a complete post and clicking a button is going to take a lot of time.

shield mate taken