Speaking exclusively about the WoW environment I thing Abalieno is right here.
Another little example comes from EQ2. They put "arenas" in september trying to mimick WoW battlegrounds and to give the PvP-interested population a bone. But they forgot to put in rewards for that. So EVERYONE ignored the arenas. And with everyone I mean both PvE oriented players (of course) and PvP-orphan, who kept on breaking the boredom dueling (consensually) on the wilderness.
As soon as the (world)PvP servers opened, lots of people transferred there, showing that lots were interested in PvP, even in the traditionally PvE oriented world of EverQuest.
Still, those PvPers never touched the arenas/battleground even with a 10 foot pole, nor did the PvErs, as there weren't items to get there.
WoW battlegrounds aren't succesful (are they?) cause they are fun. They are, for like 20 minutes.
After those 20 minutes, it's just another way to grind your way to the best equipment, wow-style. And I mean colourful, casual and harmless.
On another note: I guess Arthur Parker numbers are correct, but I would love to know if the PvE/PvP population ratio were the same when the game launched. I have the impression that as usual, PvE servers got more people in the beginning. But when it became clear that it was a vanilla PvP, and especially that the game could be darn boring on the PvE side (and there weren't battlegrounds in the early days), people started moving en masse to the PvP servers.
Just a feeling. I'll never know without a comparison between old and new numbers.
I am an hardcore PvPer, and I am sure there's a stronger demand than ever for PvP games, I completely agree. But I am afraid those WoW server numbers could be misleading. Even in a carebear PvP as WoW one, I have lots of friends that hate PvP but are on a PvP server because of the mild death penalties. Still, when they get ganked, curse the day they rolled on a PvP server.
--
the Falconeer
http://thefalconeer.blogspot.com (the M.U.L.E. journal, sadly in a dead language you can't read)
Re: PvP and faulty thinking - How to learn all the wrong lessons
Speaking exclusively about the WoW environment I thing Abalieno is right here.
Another little example comes from EQ2. They put "arenas" in september trying to mimick WoW battlegrounds and to give the PvP-interested population a bone. But they forgot to put in rewards for that. So EVERYONE ignored the arenas. And with everyone I mean both PvE oriented players (of course) and PvP-orphan, who kept on breaking the boredom dueling (consensually) on the wilderness.
As soon as the (world)PvP servers opened, lots of people transferred there, showing that lots were interested in PvP, even in the traditionally PvE oriented world of EverQuest.
Still, those PvPers never touched the arenas/battleground even with a 10 foot pole, nor did the PvErs, as there weren't items to get there.
WoW battlegrounds aren't succesful (are they?) cause they are fun. They are, for like 20 minutes.
After those 20 minutes, it's just another way to grind your way to the best equipment, wow-style. And I mean colourful, casual and harmless.
On another note: I guess Arthur Parker numbers are correct, but I would love to know if the PvE/PvP population ratio were the same when the game launched. I have the impression that as usual, PvE servers got more people in the beginning. But when it became clear that it was a vanilla PvP, and especially that the game could be darn boring on the PvE side (and there weren't battlegrounds in the early days), people started moving en masse to the PvP servers.
Just a feeling. I'll never know without a comparison between old and new numbers.
I am an hardcore PvPer, and I am sure there's a stronger demand than ever for PvP games, I completely agree. But I am afraid those WoW server numbers could be misleading. Even in a carebear PvP as WoW one, I have lots of friends that hate PvP but are on a PvP server because of the mild death penalties. Still, when they get ganked, curse the day they rolled on a PvP server.
--
the Falconeer
http://thefalconeer.blogspot.com (the M.U.L.E. journal, sadly in a dead language you can't read)