quote:
I think more people would play and find it enjoyable keeping subs going longer. Otherwise you have like a minimal retention..ie 100 people try pvp...80 leave it....frick this BS

But they don't. Right now, there are enough min-maxers out there who chase grinding because it makes them "better."

Until MMOs find a way to make the grind actually fun, rather than a grind, it is what keeps subs going. The only people who will relentlessly pay for a subscription are those very people. They find the holes. They find the kinks, the game ends up balanced around grinders rather than casuals. Casual players, those who want a fair, balanced PvP environment, are not serious enough to balance a game around.

This is why every single MMO, at least the ones I played, ended up gating content, creating gates to gates (I'm looking at you LOTRO), ruining PvP, etc.

GW2 did it right by separating PvP and PvE content exclusively. Even your gear was generally separate. Over time, they closed the gap in the PvP zones, but it was still manageable to a degree.

I mean, in theory, people who play the game more should have the benefit of getting more out of it, ie loot and stuff. But this creates the rift between people who devote all their time and people who simply can't.

I actually think this is why MOBAs gained a ton of traction over the last 4-5 years. In many MOBAs, every single player in the game starts from the same level. Has access to the same gear, money, and options. It is purely skill that separates. Granted, better players are better players, but that isn't so present in something like Smite or DOTA2. (LoL at last check did give some benefits to players before the match, that's why I quite playing it).

Smite took over my MMO/PvP needs. It sucks that it isn't connected to a larger/over arching story, but it is exponentially more fair than any other PvP part of any game (even something like Halo just sucks when you don't have access to the same weaponry). I used to play MMORPGs all the time, but the lack of fair PvP, accommodations other than grinding, and just over structure-being built to siphon money out of people rather than to tell a cool story and be part of a world-pushed me far away. That's mostly WoW's theme park approaches fault, but it's the entire genre that went that direction. My hit list included everything from EQ, DAoC, Horizon, SWG, City of Heroes to Guild Wars, LOTRO, Rift, and a plethora of others I can't even remember.