I agree with the OP about one thing. A game that only offers FFA PVP servers doesnt sell well in US and EU. It only works here if there excist PVE servers that have optional PVP next to a FFA PVP server.
So regardless of your personal preference, I think that the OP is right about the mass appeal for such a game in the west.
There are already plenty of games out there not designed with open world pvp in mind (pvp servers for pve games don't really count imo). Can't there be just a few games that other people like, too? It does add a level of excitement, especially when we're not talking permadeath consequences. Besides that, not every open world pvp game turns into an insane killfest.
Also, too .. open world pvp = raping underage girls? LOL, what did I miss?
Why don't PvP servers for PvE games count? If PvP is so popular, there should be no issues getting people to play on the PvP server. Why can't a game developer offer both types of servers? Btw, there are already a few games out there that cater to PvP, maybe you've heard of a few, Lineage 2, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Eve, just to name a few.
I hope they do include a PvE server for those of us who want to experience the game without having to worry about someone elses fun infringing upon mine. With both types of servers, you do your thing, I'll go do mine.
The poster above you already answered for me. PvP servers of PvE based games are "fake" PvP. There are no consequences involved because the game isn't designed for them.
As for listing pvp-centric games ... do you really want to go there? Instead of "naming a few" you essentially named them all lol. No reasonable person could debate that PvE-centric games vastly outnumber PvP ones. Which is fine, I like PvE as well.
I just don't understand why people would be bothered by a PvP-centric game releasing. Just like I didn't understand the previous crapstorm when Rift did a great job with a new PvE-centric themepark game. Variety can only be a good thing. Try something new. Heck try out Darkfall, its not anywhere near as bad a gankfest as people make out .. its flaws were in other areas as someone else stated, pve, ui, crafting, macroing, etc.
I think what some people are concerned with is that we have a game that allows for a lot of creative freedom but could potentially just end up being destroyed for the hell of it by someone else.
It would be a shame to have a game where one can create forests, farms, villages, houses, livestock, etc. only to have it burned to the ground because someone came by and felt like it.
There is a lot more depth to creating something for the sake of sharing it or expressing yourself rather than just creating something for the sake of protecting it.
Granted, both reasons are valid, but we have far less of that style of mmo than we do FFA pvp games. So I think it would be nice to have a certain amount of protection regarding player made persistent structures. And I do believe that is what we are getting with ArcheAge anyway. Two of the three continents are fairly protected and the third is a form of FFA.
Agree ^^ by all means have pvp, but give people option to protect their resources - maybe some kind of 100% insurance policy. And to peeps who spout 'carebear' etc they are being entirely selfish, A sandbox is about community not full loot PVP. PVP where 1 party is not interested is about providing fun for 1 person at the cost of another - nice. I also hear the arguement, 'make it full pvp and pveers can go elsewhere' well I can counter that arguement by saying if you cannot handle playing in a community without being destructive then you go elsewhere. However, Archage should have room for all types of players, and the game will be much the richer with this mix.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I think what some people are concerned with is that we have a game that allows for a lot of creative freedom but could potentially just end up being destroyed for the hell of it by someone else.
It would be a shame to have a game where one can create forests, farms, villages, houses, livestock, etc. only to have it burned to the ground because someone came by and felt like it.
There is a lot more depth to creating something for the sake of sharing it or expressing yourself rather than just creating something for the sake of protecting it.
Granted, both reasons are valid, but we have far less of that style of mmo than we do FFA pvp games. So I think it would be nice to have a certain amount of protection regarding player made persistent structures. And I do believe that is what we are getting with ArcheAge anyway. Two of the three continents are fairly protected and the third is a form of FFA.
if those 'protected' areas are similar to the high sec in Eve, then its possible... if they arent, then the game will suffer because of it, because regardless of how popular PvP might seem to be, it really isnt, as the number of successful FFA PvP MMO's is... zero.. and its not for lack of trying.
Carebears have 900 WoW-Clones to go raid in and be all passive aggressive in chat with one another.
Give me an open pvp world any day of the week.
No one is saying you can't have your ffa pvp server, we just want to know why there can't also be a pve server?
because if there is a split, pve and pvp servers, the pve servers tend to be the most populated.. the pvp players get lonely
There is also the problem of game balancing. If the game is balanced and structured around, say item loss or item decay, then a pve server would max out very quickly. It all depends on which side of the coin the game was designed for. I don't really think you can deign a game with the mechanics to support both sides in a vacuum.
Granted, im not a pvp player currently, but i did enjoy shadowbane for a bit, a pve server just wouldnt work there. Even if there were dungeons and such.
Ultima Online more than doubled its population after introducing Trammel and it's popularity pinnacle would have never gotten anywhere near where it did without it.
That's all I need to say really (for those that don't know - Trammel turned UO from a FFA game to a pvp optional game).
No it didn't.
Ultima Online had 150k player pre-trammel and was continually growing. It kept growing post trammel too, which proves nothing.
At no stage did UO get over 300k players.
So no.
Actually it did. So yes. There is actually a great analysis on the subject already available on the internet that actually uses *gasp* data!
And by the way, your argument just says, population was X pre trammel and never reached 2X, therefore the game did not reach it's population pinnacle after introduction of trammel. Do you see the problem there? You're not actually arguing against the population reaching a pinnacle post trammel. Just wanted to point that out... Instead, your whole argument hinges on that the population size wasn't doubled (which it actually was).
If you need to me to find the analysis blog for you I can in about 1 hour when I come back to my apartment. : )
In summary: providing more space and content for players who wanted to avoid pvp at their own freedom did actually contribute greatly to UO's success (success in terms of players paying for subscriptions).
This is a fairly accurate chart, as we can see, the peake of Ultima Online grew EVEN before Trammel, it was a growing game, Trammel came out and the game was still growing, then starting slowly losing subs and when AoS came out it peaked at around 250k and didn't take long for the game to iose its entire subscription base, today there is around 70k subs or less and Japan is where the majority of the subscriptions are now..
I still have 3 active Ultima Online account by the way and I must say, the game is dead, it declines, every single day, people scream for a classic shard, the developers don't want one, people scream for more PVP on stratics, EA doesn't even acknowledge UO anymore, if PVE helped Ultima Online at all, then this is not the fate it would have today. EVE has around 300k subscribers and Darkfall has around 100k, there is a MARKET out there for Open World PVP games and it is only a matter of time for they flock to a game that comes out that will appeal to those masses, there is around 25 million subscriptions total within MMO's, half of them are players that are screaming for a good "sandbox" game..
I think what some people are concerned with is that we have a game that allows for a lot of creative freedom but could potentially just end up being destroyed for the hell of it by someone else.
It would be a shame to have a game where one can create forests, farms, villages, houses, livestock, etc. only to have it burned to the ground because someone came by and felt like it.
There is a lot more depth to creating something for the sake of sharing it or expressing yourself rather than just creating something for the sake of protecting it.
Granted, both reasons are valid, but we have far less of that style of mmo than we do FFA pvp games. So I think it would be nice to have a certain amount of protection regarding player made persistent structures. And I do believe that is what we are getting with ArcheAge anyway. Two of the three continents are fairly protected and the third is a form of FFA.
if those 'protected' areas are similar to the high sec in Eve, then its possible... if they arent, then the game will suffer because of it, because regardless of how popular PvP might seem to be, it really isnt, as the number of successful FFA PvP MMO's is... zero.. and its not for lack of trying.
Not really, most of the FFA PvP games haven't had the gameplay to back up the PvP like Archeage is hopefully actually implementing. As I said in another post, the pvp in Darkfall isn't its problem, its the lack of development on all the other aspects of the game, even what should be no brainers like the UI .. jeez that thing is horrible in Darkfall. For alot of folks in my guild the other shining spot was the city building mechanics, it was fun to work toward a goal and build up your city. But even that was limited. Letting individuals build up and yes defend their own homesteads sounds awesome.
What I'm saying is that it wasn't really the FFA PvP that has limited the success of those games, it was the rest of the game that was put together with spit and bubble gum. I'm by no means a kill crazy pvper, but I'd still be playing Darkfall if it had ever got its crap together beyond the pvp mechanics.
You have to love the tyranny of the majority line of justification. Its always around. Trying to destroy music, movies, food, fashion, and even politics. You know what, why stop at PvE servers, lets just throw in some Beiber features to grab the mass appeal factor even more. Who cares, throw in even more happy little Beiber features.
We won't even have to design a game people will want to play for more than a month, because we can make a profit by sheer entry numbers alone. We can downsize our R&D. We can have guaranteed profits by solid marketing alone. Creating new markets with novel ideas? People who want to play the same kind of game over and over again won't buy it. That's too risky.
You have to love the tyranny of the majority line of justification. Its always around. Trying to destroy music, movies, food, fashion, and even politics. You know what, why stop at PvE servers, lets just throw in some Beiber features to grab the mass appeal factor even more. Who cares, throw in even more happy little Beiber features.
We won't even have to design a game people will want to play for more than a month, because we can make a profit by sheer entry numbers alone. We can downsize our R&D. We can have guaranteed profits by solid marketing alone. Creating new markets with novel ideas? People who want to play the same kind of game over and over again won't buy it. That's too risky.
Thank you mass appeal.
While mostly agreeing with what you said .. it does confuse me as to whether your icon is ironic or not lol.
I think it is amazing how the west's mmo community contradicts itself. I read so many threads where people complain all mmos are WoW like ( instances, no open world pvp, etc etc..) and when a game does it right, people are unhappy and they want to play the same old boring PVE instances.
My question is, why are you people so scared of pvp? It really is not that bad, whats the point of playing a MMORPG if you just do PVE content. Get an offline game and play as much PVE as you want with not disruption.
Probably because people actually like to play with others and quest and do dungeons, you cant play with others in an offline game. I do like to PVP but prefer the option to not PVP also and just PVE so if there is a game with world PVP i wouldnt really care so long as I can turn it off and not be bothered by others who do want to. This is why most games dont have open world PVP and just offer battlegrounds instead. Either way you cant please everyone.
Yeah I understand that you can't please everyone. What is unfathomable to me is that so many people are willing to crap on games that don't please them. I can't imagine comming to these forums and hating on a game just because it doesn't conform to my exact playstyle. If I don't like it I just ignore it and move on.
Then again there aren't many mmo's that I don't like, I've tried most of them (not including the f2p browser games, just too many of them heh).
I didn't understand the hate for Rift for its pve themepark style just like I don't understand the hate towards this game's FFA PvP style.
When I read a book I want to see what the author has crafted. I don't want to read a book that I've written myself.
an easy way to solve this is to make players only able to attack people within a certain range of their own level,
A lvl 20 can only say attack people -3 and +3 levels of them openly, so anyone from 17-23 is fair game but make people below them flaggable for attack if they attack the higher level or say are in a party with someone who does so.
Ultima Online more than doubled its population after introducing Trammel and it's popularity pinnacle would have never gotten anywhere near where it did without it.
That's all I need to say really (for those that don't know - Trammel turned UO from a FFA game to a pvp optional game).
No it didn't.
Ultima Online had 150k player pre-trammel and was continually growing. It kept growing post trammel too, which proves nothing.
At no stage did UO get over 300k players.
So no.
Actually it did. So yes. There is actually a great analysis on the subject already available on the internet that actually uses *gasp* data!
And by the way, your argument just says, population was X pre trammel and never reached 2X, therefore the game did not reach it's population pinnacle after introduction of trammel. Do you see the problem there? You're not actually arguing against the population reaching a pinnacle post trammel. Just wanted to point that out... Instead, your whole argument hinges on that the population size wasn't doubled (which it actually was).
If you need to me to find the analysis blog for you I can in about 1 hour when I come back to my apartment. : )
In summary: providing more space and content for players who wanted to avoid pvp at their own freedom did actually contribute greatly to UO's success (success in terms of players paying for subscriptions).
I will play on the PvP server. I like the open PvP. But Ballista is right, most westerners dont seem to like FFA. You can see that in any MMO that has had the choice in the past many years.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I think it just boils down to what people feel is 'fair'. If all you want to do is have a sandbox where you can tend crops and invest in player housing, spend your game time doing non combat things and someone ruins that for you. Not so fun. Some people derive an unsurmountable amount of glee from just ruining another person's day.
Institute a fair system where after they've ganked you and corpse camped you a couple times, they have to go away or you become immune for a couple hours and that would probably lend 'non pvp'ers' a reason to like FFA PVP, or at least put up with it if the game is good enough. Most players I know that are attracted to sandbox games, are attracted BECAUSE it's not all combat. A completely different type of player from the one that enjoys PVP or FPS, adrenaline driven games.
I think it just boils down to what people feel is 'fair'. If all you want to do is have a sandbox where you can tend crops and invest in player housing, spend your game time doing non combat things and someone ruins that for you. Not so fun. Some people derive an unsurmountable amount of glee from just ruining another person's day.
Institute a fair system where after they've ganked you and corpse camped you a couple times, they have to go away or you become immune for a couple hours and that would probably lend 'non pvp'ers' a reason to like FFA PVP, or at least put up with it if the game is good enough. Most players I know that are attracted to sandbox games, are attracted BECAUSE it's not all combat. A completely different type of player from the one that enjoys PVP or FPS, adrenaline driven games.
I like your idea because I am one of those people who likes non combat. I like being able to go into a sandbox game and develop my character through non combat means. I like deep crafting, realistic harvesing, and plenty of things to do outside of combat. (Why I love the idea of Eve).
I keep reading that full-loot PvP is not popular in the States. I find it ironic, because people here say Soccer isn't a tough, physical sport and that they are so soft they just flop around on the pitch. So, why wouldn't they like to play a full-loot PvP, can't get any more hardcore than that.
I think it is amazing how the west's mmo community contradicts itself. I read so many threads where people complain all mmos are WoW like ( instances, no open world pvp, etc etc..) and when a game does it right, people are unhappy and they want to play the same old boring PVE instances.
My question is, why are you people so scared of pvp? It really is not that bad, whats the point of playing a MMORPG if you just do PVE content. Get an offline game and play as much PVE as you want with not disruption.
Well, to help your amazement, let me clear things up.
The 'MMO community' in the West isnt one single entitiy that shares one opinion and taste in play style. It is actually a huge stack of individuals that mostly all want something diffrent.
The 'MMO community' is a myth you have invented in your head. It dosent exist and there certainly isnt any contradiction in different players wanting different things.
When one guy posts he wants something and another guy posts he wants something else it is two people with very different tastes expressing their opinions, thats all. Nothing to be amazed by, happens all the time in fact
In short, there is no contradiction, so you are being 'amazed' at something that dosent even exist.
As for a 'game doing it right'... well, it obviously is only 'doing it right' in your opinion and according to your tastes. In others views it needs to offer something different to be attractive.
XL games obviously understand this and thats why they are preparing to offer alternate rule set servers.
My answer to your question is that no one is 'scared' of PvP. It has nothing to do with fear. Why would it? It's all just stupid games, and tbh the fact that some even start to think it comes down to 'fear' suggests to me that some folks have a real problem with their fantasy/ reality divide.
A lot of folks, myself included, love PvP, but they love it on an optional basis. We want to be able to control our entertainment and do things when we want, not when some ganker feels he needs some self esteem boost. A lot of folks feel like they pay their sub to have the fun they want when they want, and not exist to provide entertainment of some L90 (or whatever) thats chooses to grief farm them at L30 because he has had a bad day.
A lot of folks play MMOs for social co-op play, and thats perfectly legitimate, whether it's your taste or not.
A lot of folks also loathe the infantile angry posturing that soaks through open world PvP culture and simply don't want to have to deal with it as part of their leisure time.
Add to all this that the vast majority of open world 'PvP' isnt that at all but rather pathetic 'gank me gank you' play perpetuated by PKs in the safest possible way (twinked gear, more levels, attacking targets enagaged on mobs, hacking etc) then I would challange that there is much 'versus' in it at all. (PgP more accuratly in fact- Play Gank Player, and that is the safest lamest play style possible, no matter how the self proclaimed PK l33t' present it.)
As for telling optional PvPers, because thats what this thread is about, to 'go play offline games'...well, I have no answer to you because it isobviously my turn to be 'amazed'.
The point made in the OP is that to be bigger then a tiny niche this game needs to offer optional PvP servers, but nothing in your post seems to address that topic.
Having seperated servers is killing the community right away.
The best way to solve the problem is the way EvE Online handles it (high-sec, low-sec, 0.0) and this is possible within ArcheAge aswell.
The two main-islands should be heavily guarded by godlike NPCs and anyone engaging in non-consentual PvP there should be instantly attacked and killed, while the third island can be FFA. This way we can have both rulesets on a single server, not splitting up the community.
If ArcheAge will get seperated PvE and PvP-servers then it's yet another possibly good MMO down the drain. I for sure will instantly loose any interest to play ArcheAge if there's seperated servers.
Comments
And you're not foaming at the mouth in RIFT? Answer my question first.
Does the world really need another PVE bleh game? Gods and Heroes just came out. I'm betaing like 4 hero engine PVE bleh games. You have plenty.
Don't champion against a game that'd probably be too fast for you anyway.
What question? You didnt ask onebefore this post... you mean about 'foaming at the mouth in Rift'?
If so,I am not even sure what you are asking.
Explain yourself clearer and I will try to answer you.
I agree with the OP about one thing. A game that only offers FFA PVP servers doesnt sell well in US and EU. It only works here if there excist PVE servers that have optional PVP next to a FFA PVP server.
So regardless of your personal preference, I think that the OP is right about the mass appeal for such a game in the west.
The poster above you already answered for me. PvP servers of PvE based games are "fake" PvP. There are no consequences involved because the game isn't designed for them.
As for listing pvp-centric games ... do you really want to go there? Instead of "naming a few" you essentially named them all lol. No reasonable person could debate that PvE-centric games vastly outnumber PvP ones. Which is fine, I like PvE as well.
I just don't understand why people would be bothered by a PvP-centric game releasing. Just like I didn't understand the previous crapstorm when Rift did a great job with a new PvE-centric themepark game. Variety can only be a good thing. Try something new. Heck try out Darkfall, its not anywhere near as bad a gankfest as people make out .. its flaws were in other areas as someone else stated, pve, ui, crafting, macroing, etc.
I think what some people are concerned with is that we have a game that allows for a lot of creative freedom but could potentially just end up being destroyed for the hell of it by someone else.
It would be a shame to have a game where one can create forests, farms, villages, houses, livestock, etc. only to have it burned to the ground because someone came by and felt like it.
There is a lot more depth to creating something for the sake of sharing it or expressing yourself rather than just creating something for the sake of protecting it.
Granted, both reasons are valid, but we have far less of that style of mmo than we do FFA pvp games. So I think it would be nice to have a certain amount of protection regarding player made persistent structures. And I do believe that is what we are getting with ArcheAge anyway. Two of the three continents are fairly protected and the third is a form of FFA.
Agree ^^ by all means have pvp, but give people option to protect their resources - maybe some kind of 100% insurance policy. And to peeps who spout 'carebear' etc they are being entirely selfish, A sandbox is about community not full loot PVP. PVP where 1 party is not interested is about providing fun for 1 person at the cost of another - nice. I also hear the arguement, 'make it full pvp and pveers can go elsewhere' well I can counter that arguement by saying if you cannot handle playing in a community without being destructive then you go elsewhere. However, Archage should have room for all types of players, and the game will be much the richer with this mix.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
if those 'protected' areas are similar to the high sec in Eve, then its possible... if they arent, then the game will suffer because of it, because regardless of how popular PvP might seem to be, it really isnt, as the number of successful FFA PvP MMO's is... zero.. and its not for lack of trying.
No one is saying you can't have your ffa pvp server, we just want to know why there can't also be a pve server?
because if there is a split, pve and pvp servers, the pve servers tend to be the most populated.. the pvp players get lonely
There is also the problem of game balancing. If the game is balanced and structured around, say item loss or item decay, then a pve server would max out very quickly. It all depends on which side of the coin the game was designed for. I don't really think you can deign a game with the mechanics to support both sides in a vacuum.
Granted, im not a pvp player currently, but i did enjoy shadowbane for a bit, a pve server just wouldnt work there. Even if there were dungeons and such.
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
This is a fairly accurate chart, as we can see, the peake of Ultima Online grew EVEN before Trammel, it was a growing game, Trammel came out and the game was still growing, then starting slowly losing subs and when AoS came out it peaked at around 250k and didn't take long for the game to iose its entire subscription base, today there is around 70k subs or less and Japan is where the majority of the subscriptions are now..
I still have 3 active Ultima Online account by the way and I must say, the game is dead, it declines, every single day, people scream for a classic shard, the developers don't want one, people scream for more PVP on stratics, EA doesn't even acknowledge UO anymore, if PVE helped Ultima Online at all, then this is not the fate it would have today. EVE has around 300k subscribers and Darkfall has around 100k, there is a MARKET out there for Open World PVP games and it is only a matter of time for they flock to a game that comes out that will appeal to those masses, there is around 25 million subscriptions total within MMO's, half of them are players that are screaming for a good "sandbox" game..
Not really, most of the FFA PvP games haven't had the gameplay to back up the PvP like Archeage is hopefully actually implementing. As I said in another post, the pvp in Darkfall isn't its problem, its the lack of development on all the other aspects of the game, even what should be no brainers like the UI .. jeez that thing is horrible in Darkfall. For alot of folks in my guild the other shining spot was the city building mechanics, it was fun to work toward a goal and build up your city. But even that was limited. Letting individuals build up and yes defend their own homesteads sounds awesome.
What I'm saying is that it wasn't really the FFA PvP that has limited the success of those games, it was the rest of the game that was put together with spit and bubble gum. I'm by no means a kill crazy pvper, but I'd still be playing Darkfall if it had ever got its crap together beyond the pvp mechanics.
You have to love the tyranny of the majority line of justification. Its always around. Trying to destroy music, movies, food, fashion, and even politics. You know what, why stop at PvE servers, lets just throw in some Beiber features to grab the mass appeal factor even more. Who cares, throw in even more happy little Beiber features.
We won't even have to design a game people will want to play for more than a month, because we can make a profit by sheer entry numbers alone. We can downsize our R&D. We can have guaranteed profits by solid marketing alone. Creating new markets with novel ideas? People who want to play the same kind of game over and over again won't buy it. That's too risky.
Thank you mass appeal.
While mostly agreeing with what you said .. it does confuse me as to whether your icon is ironic or not lol.
I think it is amazing how the west's mmo community contradicts itself. I read so many threads where people complain all mmos are WoW like ( instances, no open world pvp, etc etc..) and when a game does it right, people are unhappy and they want to play the same old boring PVE instances.
My question is, why are you people so scared of pvp? It really is not that bad, whats the point of playing a MMORPG if you just do PVE content. Get an offline game and play as much PVE as you want with not disruption.
Probably because people actually like to play with others and quest and do dungeons, you cant play with others in an offline game. I do like to PVP but prefer the option to not PVP also and just PVE so if there is a game with world PVP i wouldnt really care so long as I can turn it off and not be bothered by others who do want to. This is why most games dont have open world PVP and just offer battlegrounds instead. Either way you cant please everyone.
Yeah I understand that you can't please everyone. What is unfathomable to me is that so many people are willing to crap on games that don't please them. I can't imagine comming to these forums and hating on a game just because it doesn't conform to my exact playstyle. If I don't like it I just ignore it and move on.
Then again there aren't many mmo's that I don't like, I've tried most of them (not including the f2p browser games, just too many of them heh).
I didn't understand the hate for Rift for its pve themepark style just like I don't understand the hate towards this game's FFA PvP style.
When I read a book I want to see what the author has crafted. I don't want to read a book that I've written myself.
an easy way to solve this is to make players only able to attack people within a certain range of their own level,
A lvl 20 can only say attack people -3 and +3 levels of them openly, so anyone from 17-23 is fair game but make people below them flaggable for attack if they attack the higher level or say are in a party with someone who does so.
I will play on the PvP server. I like the open PvP. But Ballista is right, most westerners dont seem to like FFA. You can see that in any MMO that has had the choice in the past many years.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I think it just boils down to what people feel is 'fair'. If all you want to do is have a sandbox where you can tend crops and invest in player housing, spend your game time doing non combat things and someone ruins that for you. Not so fun. Some people derive an unsurmountable amount of glee from just ruining another person's day.
Institute a fair system where after they've ganked you and corpse camped you a couple times, they have to go away or you become immune for a couple hours and that would probably lend 'non pvp'ers' a reason to like FFA PVP, or at least put up with it if the game is good enough. Most players I know that are attracted to sandbox games, are attracted BECAUSE it's not all combat. A completely different type of player from the one that enjoys PVP or FPS, adrenaline driven games.
No bitchers.
I like your idea because I am one of those people who likes non combat. I like being able to go into a sandbox game and develop my character through non combat means. I like deep crafting, realistic harvesing, and plenty of things to do outside of combat. (Why I love the idea of Eve).
I keep reading that full-loot PvP is not popular in the States. I find it ironic, because people here say Soccer isn't a tough, physical sport and that they are so soft they just flop around on the pitch. So, why wouldn't they like to play a full-loot PvP, can't get any more hardcore than that.
Well, to help your amazement, let me clear things up.
The 'MMO community' in the West isnt one single entitiy that shares one opinion and taste in play style. It is actually a huge stack of individuals that mostly all want something diffrent.
The 'MMO community' is a myth you have invented in your head. It dosent exist and there certainly isnt any contradiction in different players wanting different things.
When one guy posts he wants something and another guy posts he wants something else it is two people with very different tastes expressing their opinions, thats all. Nothing to be amazed by, happens all the time in fact
In short, there is no contradiction, so you are being 'amazed' at something that dosent even exist.
As for a 'game doing it right'... well, it obviously is only 'doing it right' in your opinion and according to your tastes. In others views it needs to offer something different to be attractive.
XL games obviously understand this and thats why they are preparing to offer alternate rule set servers.
My answer to your question is that no one is 'scared' of PvP. It has nothing to do with fear. Why would it? It's all just stupid games, and tbh the fact that some even start to think it comes down to 'fear' suggests to me that some folks have a real problem with their fantasy/ reality divide.
A lot of folks, myself included, love PvP, but they love it on an optional basis. We want to be able to control our entertainment and do things when we want, not when some ganker feels he needs some self esteem boost. A lot of folks feel like they pay their sub to have the fun they want when they want, and not exist to provide entertainment of some L90 (or whatever) thats chooses to grief farm them at L30 because he has had a bad day.
A lot of folks play MMOs for social co-op play, and thats perfectly legitimate, whether it's your taste or not.
A lot of folks also loathe the infantile angry posturing that soaks through open world PvP culture and simply don't want to have to deal with it as part of their leisure time.
Add to all this that the vast majority of open world 'PvP' isnt that at all but rather pathetic 'gank me gank you' play perpetuated by PKs in the safest possible way (twinked gear, more levels, attacking targets enagaged on mobs, hacking etc) then I would challange that there is much 'versus' in it at all. (PgP more accuratly in fact- Play Gank Player, and that is the safest lamest play style possible, no matter how the self proclaimed PK l33t' present it.)
As for telling optional PvPers, because thats what this thread is about, to 'go play offline games'...well, I have no answer to you because it isobviously my turn to be 'amazed'.
The point made in the OP is that to be bigger then a tiny niche this game needs to offer optional PvP servers, but nothing in your post seems to address that topic.
Let us have the choice. I don't see why PvP'ers would be bothered if the game had PvE servers.
Having seperated servers is killing the community right away.
The best way to solve the problem is the way EvE Online handles it (high-sec, low-sec, 0.0) and this is possible within ArcheAge aswell.
The two main-islands should be heavily guarded by godlike NPCs and anyone engaging in non-consentual PvP there should be instantly attacked and killed, while the third island can be FFA. This way we can have both rulesets on a single server, not splitting up the community.
If ArcheAge will get seperated PvE and PvP-servers then it's yet another possibly good MMO down the drain. I for sure will instantly loose any interest to play ArcheAge if there's seperated servers.