why do so many mmo's focus on pvp?

[Alisha]

seriously? i find myself to keep coming back to ffxi because i value PvE over PvP.

[dalucifer0]

It's fun to kick some 12-year-old's ass and listen to him cry.

[Ryos]

It's fun to kick some 12-year-old's ass and listen to him cry.

I remember when an entire server thought I was hacking because I kicked their asses. :P  But seriously, I'm not that big on PVPing either since it's usually a gankfest. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact I virtually always healbot in PVP...

[Fei]

PvP is a metaphor for life.  You get crapped on for the first part of it, then come back much stronger and say "How do you like me now?"  No?  Ok.

The thing that I like about PvP is that it adds a sense of urgency to everything you're doing.  

Otherwise, it's no different than why Street Fighter is fun.  If you want to argue that Street Fighter is consensual PvP, fine, but at least in WoW, the gang mentality discourages griefing.

Also, people hit the level cap and run out of things to do in terms of PvE.  

[Serene Prophet]

Well id agree about the Fighter Analogy, except fighters really only depend on two factors.  The character you choose, and your skill with it.  MMOs and their pvp have a shitton more variables to it.  And its much easier, IMO, to balance a fighter than an MMO with its ever changing infrastructure (I think thats the proper word to use here).

Im not a huge fan of it, mainly because I usually suck, and the PVE is much more intriguing and less frustrating for me.

[Ryos]

And its much easier, IMO, to balance a fighter than an MMO with its ever changing infrastructure (I think thats the proper word to use here).

Actually, with MMOs constantly changing, the class balance is usually pretty horrible for PVP.  See World of Warcraft, where at any given time in the game's history a class or two was leaps and bounds more powerful than the rest for PVP.  This has made some games pretty much broken when they rely on PVP as an integral part of the game experience, much like in RF Online where a particular class made a faction dominant by default because it was considerably better than anything available to other races.

[Alisha]

perhaps it's because i'm a girl but i take no joy in ganking people. i get much more satisfaction from helping people. to me PvP is just a competative venture. i'm the type of person that in a fighting game won't pick my best characters unless i feel the competition warrants it. but i gotta admit there is a contradiction in enjoying helping people yet enjoying jobs like monk instead of jobs like bard or white mage.

[Megidolaon]

Otherwise, it's no different than why Street Fighter is fun.  If you want to argue that Street Fighter is consensual PvP, fine, but at least in WoW, the gang mentality discourages griefing.
Also, people hit the level cap and run out of things to do in terms of PvE. 

I find PvP sorta boring.
I mean, the point of an rpg is to beat monsters, not other players. This already annoyed me in Hack//GU. There is so much of a game for PvE and then you only do it 10% of the time and 90% is annoying PvP.
If I want to fight against other people, I play a fighting game, not the sad excuse of PvP a mmorpg has to offer.
Even if it's really well done, the main point of an rpg is really beating monsters and that's exactly what I want I play one.

[Dios GX]

perhaps it's because i'm a girl but i take no joy in ganking people. i get much more satisfaction from helping people. to me PvP is just a competative venture. i'm the type of person that in a fighting game won't pick my best characters unless i feel the competition warrants it. but i gotta admit there is a contradiction in enjoying helping people yet enjoying jobs like monk instead of jobs like bard or white mage.

That's because monk is the fucking shit. I'm also the same way that I prefer helping out others, and even though I've got 75 Bard and White Mage in FFXI, among 10 other 75s, my biggest preference is, and forever will be Paladin. Tank jobs are the shit.

[Sagacious-T]

It's all about competition. I grief as many people as possible. I would prefer an open faction MMO game where you drop your loot like shadowbane. In pre-BC WoW I outgeared most players in AQ40 loot and would corpse camp entire groups of players for hours to the point where they would get horde players to whisper me asking to leave them alone. My guild also blocked off the Silithus gate and camped an entire raid of Alliance, not letting them raid that night. Good times.

[Daggerstrike]

It's all about competition. I grief as many people as possible. I would prefer an open faction MMO game where you drop your loot like shadowbane. In pre-BC WoW I outgeared most players in AQ40 loot and would corpse camp entire groups of players for hours to the point where they would get horde players to whisper me asking to leave them alone. My guild also blocked off the Silithus gate and camped an entire raid of Alliance, not letting them raid that night. Good times.

Wow, your epeen must be huge. I wish I was as awesome as you :-(

[Sagacious-T]

Nah it wasn't about e-peen, just having fun.

[Hathen]

If I'm not mistaken, EvE online took the worst of people over the internet- stealing items, lying to other players, and then created a game that ENCOURAGES that very concept, where basically everyone is an outlaw and nobody is safe, and alliances are all very fragile between players. Sounds interesting, but I've never checked it out myself.

[Tenchi-no-Ryu]

It's all about competition. I grief as many people as possible. I would prefer an open faction MMO game where you drop your loot like shadowbane. In pre-BC WoW I outgeared most players in AQ40 loot and would corpse camp entire groups of players for hours to the point where they would get horde players to whisper me asking to leave them alone. My guild also blocked off the Silithus gate and camped an entire raid of Alliance, not letting them raid that night. Good times.

Wow, you're a douchebag lol. I'm not trying to be all QQ Carebear, but calling that "fun" is about as honorable as kicking kittens.

[Sagacious-T]

Getting griefed is part of the MMO experience! It's not even that bad either! Try Shadowbane where you can assfuck some random farmer in the middle of the forest and take everything he's carrying! Or play a thief, and sneak up on an entire party while bribing the scout not to give you off. Then you can procedurally rob them blind. One time my friend somehow got a botter to teleport to a city and he proceeded to AOE the entire city, respawning constantly. He lost so much XP haha.

WoW is ultra-friendly now though so there's none of that anymore. Fly directly into an instance. No need to fight your way through Blackrock Mountain or Silithus. The most griefing you can do is camping lowbies (not that fun) or farming someone for arena points.

But yeah, PvP is fun because competition is fun. Why do guys play sports? Why should we have boxing when we can have punching bag competitions? Come on now.