War December Newsletter + Looks like it's coming to a console

[Shapechanger]

Scott/Lum, hey please say hello to your wife for me!  I used to game with her on Percival as Davina, when she was Averra.  She was always the kindest woman, and she would occasionally pimp me out on Pendragon with great gear!  Miss her 


PS - hope you don't mind me coming over here from Warhammer Alliance, (Some of my threads!).  We are rabid fans over there.  And it is difficult because like noted, open forums get all kinds of posters.
It can be extremely frustrating at times, and lately we have had a lot more destructive trolls than usual and it makes trying to have a productive discussion very difficult.  Sometimes I wish I could mod posters myself, but I know I'd be a terrible mod because I just can't stand destructive posters.  They don't have to agree, but they have to be polite and add to the quality of the thread, not reduce it.


I've been following Warhammer Online intently since the news came out last fall, and I've learned a lot.  Mark has been up front and honest with us since the start.  I really think that by and large Mythic is on the ball with this one.  There are some things that worry me, like doing the beta old-fashioned spreadsheet style, but by and large I think that among the pros and cons of what Mythic is doing they are doing a VERY commendable job.

[schild]

You're like a baby deer.

It's so cute.

[Lum]

My wife is much nicer in MMOs than I am. It's really irritating when she gets on one of my characters and I log in later to find people being nice to me.

I'm not joking.

[Yoru]

stuff

Fixed your links. BBcode is not HTML. You don't put the URLs in double-quotes, just plain.

Like so:

Code:

[url=http://www.google.com]Google[/url]

[Ironwood]

My wife is much nicer in MMOs than I am. It's really irritating when she gets on one of my characters and I log in later to find people being nice to me.

I'm not joking.

This is a wife thing.  My Guild can always tell who's actually playing what character at any given point.  When I logged in with her Priest, I was spotted almost instantly.  Of course, saying 'Heal yourself, you stupid fucks' was probably a clue.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'd like WAR to try some new ideas and not to just blindly accept design choices from the past even when they work well.

Using communication a simple example.

DAoC & WoW don't let the opposing sides talk to each other, that's an excellent solution to the pvp trash talking problem and I would fully expect it to be used in WAR.  However totally removing communication between the sides seems a bit extreme just to stop Fred insulting Bob's mother.  SB and EVE (I believe) don't limit communication but that's not really going to happen in a mainstream game like WAR.  I think a clever solution was UO, the defeated player in UO could still speak as a ghost but everything he said came out as OoooOO OoOoo, it's funny because you can't get offended by it but you can still imagine it's pretty offensive.  Playing Call of Duty 2 online, the sides can talk freely but in addition there are key bindings for side specific voice activated insults. 

I'd like to see a combination of preset voice and text taunts in WAR, I also like the idea of preset racial graffiti that can be placed on walls, statues etc as the zones will be changing hands often (I seem to remember reading something about defacing statues already).  I'd expect the funniest, insulting taunts and frequency you can use them to be rewards earned in the game as you progress.

If they have a more extreme form of pvp server in addition to the normal pvp servers, I'd like open communication between the sides but maybe after a death anything you say in the zone channel gets converted to gibberish for 10 minutes.

[eldaec]

The biggest downside if you let realm enemies talk, is that they then want to group, once they group they want to guild, and pretty soon the whole opposing realm thing goes to pot.

Graffiti and taunts are cool. Though most people would probably be surprised how many people considered emoting at the other team to be some kind of horrendous insult in daoc.

Some of the comments made suggest it might be possible in WAR to be a pve zone with members of an opposing realm, and not be able to attack each other. I don't know if that's was ever true or is still the case - but if it is, then it becomes really important not to let cross-realm communication happen; in RvR the teams are arbitary and selected by game mechanics, so the mechanics need to reinforce and maintain that separation so that communities form along the same lines(unlike in guild v guild where the teams are self selected and built out of whatever barriers the community creates). If the rule is always 'dwarfs can hit orcs wherever they see each other' then it's less important I guess.

All in all I'm still a fan of the 'interact with enemy players as if they were npcs' approach in rvr...



"Hrose says something in a language you don't understand"



...and maybe even on the forums.

[Ironwood]

 However totally removing communication between the sides seems a bit extreme just to stop Fred insulting Bob's mother. 

Yes, it would be if that was what it was solely about.  However, in WoW not letting the opposition communicate to you beyond certain stock emotes is absolutely vital and, imo, really well done.  To the extent that I get bothered when I see some Alliance retard screaming 'I LOVE U' in /y during a battleground.

Attention seeking cockholsters.

[Arthur_Parker]

Eldaec, sorry if I wasn't clear, I fully expect the two sides will not be able to communicate.  I mentioned open communication as an option for a more extreme form of pvp server ruleset, I shouldn't have mentioned it as getting the normal type of server right for the majority of the players is more important.  Normal players can't handle trash talking, it's a big turn off for new players off as well.

[stray]

Whoever came up with the idea of segregating player communication is a retard and an asshole. Seems like a decision grounded in paying too much attention to extreme examples, and not practical, everyday game experience.

There are a lot of cool things to be had from open communication: Shadowbane had a whole political metagame because of it (and I'm guessing Eve as well). Spin, negotiation, peacemaking, scheming, new friendships -- all were possible merely because of communication. My server in SB had it's very own Iraqi Information Minister because of it. We even had our Jesse Jackson mediators too. This made the game more rich. It didn't make it worse.

If there was a larger conflict in context (a guild vs guild war), sure, there'd be trashtalk during battles....But usually it was harmless (in a French Guys in Monty Python and the Holy Grail sort of way). Nothing worth babysitting players over for sure.

As for gankers, I can count the number of times on my hand when players were really rude. Hell, most of the time, it was really friendly. If I ganked someone, they might send me tells laughing or congratulating me about it -- and vice versa.

On the flipside, I've dealt with plenty of trashtalk, rudeness, and idiocy from people of my own faction in WoW. One of the reasons I played a Druid was so I could have some leverage over them.

[Arthur_Parker]

Stray,  I don't see it happening on normal servers, it puts new people off, annoys normal players and causes a support nightmare with people turning the swearing filter off and then reporting swearing, also it's easy to defeat a swear filter.

I fully agree open communication makes a game more real and interesting for me as well but I accept I'm in the minority so I'll just hope for a ruleset that more suits me.

[Ironwood]

Making a game more real is not something we should be striving for.  Especially in a PvP game.  Especially in a PvP game that has an average player age of about 16 with an average IQ that's lower.

Forums can support everything that the game won't.  It works for WoW.

[Arthur_Parker]

I LOVE U

It's a different playstyle Ironwood, SB and EVE prove there is a market for it, even if it's not mainstream.  I'm not suggesting anyone forces it onto you, do you object to emotes in WoW as well?  Can you link me some stats to prove the average WoW player is younger than the average SB/EVE player?

[stray]

Making a game more real is not something we should be striving for.  Especially in a PvP game.  Especially in a PvP game that has an average player age of about 16 with an average IQ that's lower.

Forums can support everything that the game won't.  It works for WoW.

"Especially in a PvP game"? It's not like giant tentacles come out of your screen when an enemy player types a message to you. It might contribute to something more "real", but it isn't that real. Communication is harmless. Sometimes even benevolent. Often a source of great of humor. Interacting with and effecting people in this persistent sort of way is the sort of thing that should seperate these games from impersonal pick me up FPS matches. And they need more of it, not less.

[stray]

Btw, I'm not typing any of this because I expect WAR developers to listen, let alone comply. It's a general gripe. I'm just tired of the extreme sanitatized direction MMO's have been going in general.

No communication between enemies. No world effects from pvp. The proliferation of dumbed down, bearly tweakable, barely flexible class systems (as if classes weren't bad enough). Very few tools for character personalization. Instancing like a motherfucker. 

[Ironwood]

No, I agree entirely with you, Arthur and half the 'cool shit' I've heard from EVE just wouldn't have been possible without completely open communication with much opportunity for backstabbing and deciet.  I'm sorta coming from the WoW into WAR perspective.  I don't have any stats yet, but I would imagine that the EVE players are a lot more mature than the average NightElf Hunter.

And as to what I meant Stray - I'm talking about the fact that a PvP game, by definition, promotes conflict, which in turn promotes, er, different attitudes to how one addresses the enemy.

Sure, you say that it's Not as Bad As Getting Knifed - But I've had to deal with some pretty fucking stupid whispers from my teammates (Don't ask a Rogue 'y u not heal ?') and the last thing I'd want is to fend off the same fucking stupid whispers from a fixed Group whom I've just beaten into the concrete of embarrasment.

I'm too old to deal with these assholes.  I could manage it in UO, but a lot of water's been passed since then.


However, I agree with you on World Effects on PvP.  I'm solely talking about communication between factions and my own personal view.  (In fact, looking over your last sentence, I agree with everything EXCEPT the communication thing.  Odd.)

[Ironwood]

 Communication is harmless.

Oh, and you're NOT RIGHT.  Just so you know.

[Modern Angel]

While the completely no communication thing can be irritating in WoW it's also had the benefit of making both sides HATE each other. Setting aside whether the player base is borderline retarded or not I'd say that the lack of communication has way more to do with referring to the other side as scum and getting worked up than pallies/shamans.

[eldaec]

Spin, negotiation, peacemaking, scheming, new friendships

The thing is, these things aren't part of the premise in a fixed sides game.

Guild v Guild is a very cool pvp structure, and supports all this really well.

Realm v Realm is different, my guy can't switch sides and 'teh community' will consider anyone secretly communicating cross-realm as cheating; not least because we can't kick an Orc out of the Orc realm in the same way we can kick a spy mule out of a guild.

Also as I said above, Realm v Realm mechanics need to actively create a realm community, because it doesn't come for free. RvR has to build a community to suit the sides. GvG sets up sides to suit the community.

it's also had the benefit of making both sides HATE each other

Absolutely - strange as it may sound - dehumanising the other team in RvR is a benefit.

[Arthur_Parker]

We seem to have got sidetracked on the communication issue and yes it's my fault for mentioning it, lets ignore niche ruleset servers.  How about we all agree that WAR servers are going to have the standard DAoC system of you can't speak to the enemy, considering I think Mythic have already said that.

On the subject of emotes, preset Mythic approved voice & text taunts, Graffiti and defacing/destroying buildings/statues, what does everyone think?  Are emotes a good thing or a bad thing, are there any other options?

[Venkman]

@Hrose: I think this we need to recognize just who's interested in this sort of immersion though. Eve and DAoC RvR were not mass hits, not played nearly to the degree WoW BGs are. I agree BG execution was questionable in many ways, but it does achieve something almost no other stats-based MMO had previously: open PvP up to people who just want to muck around with it.

The more immersive, the more relevant, the more world-impacting you make it, the less people will want to be a part of it.

I agree in concept with permeable boundaries. I think CoH pulled that off well, one of a number of things I think others should be emulating but don't need to because CoH wasn't a market hit. But deleveling to me always struck me as funny. We spend all our time moving forward the left-behinds would either want to be left alone or find some way to catch up. I'd rather see more of what Nebu talked about with DAoC where high levels can powerlevel lowbies in 16 hours. That happened in Shadowbane all the time and worked.

Now, of course I'd much rather not ever need to do that anyway, drop levels and soft cap altogether, going pure Planetside. But since I don't see that happening, we work with what we've got :)

It's a different playstyle Ironwood, SB and EVE prove there is a market for it, even if it's not mainstream

But that's sort of the point. It's not mainstream at a time when we're discussing a game that hopes to be. I appreciate the political machinations that went on in SB (and SWG too, those were good times, paid off spies, counteragents, etc). But the average gamer is not here for that level of immersion. It just takes too much damned work to keep up, and it ends up becoming the playground of the higher levels of the player pyramid at the expense of incorporating newbies and casual players. It works well for those that like it, but it won't be part of the success of a million+ subscription game without a collective sociological shift in Western players.

There's a reason why the games that just keep growing the market-successful side of the genre are doing so with more contrived and fascist rulesets. That leaves the indie titles the freedom to give the harder-core immersion-seekers what they want. But it's also because those indie titles are not, by nature, trying to fight for the same shelf-space as WoW and FFXI. They don't need to because the buying habits of their target player are just different.

Communication is harmless.

I think you've played WoW Battlegrounds. Tell me what you think would happen if the realms could talk to each other. Communication can be harmless: until it interacts directly with the core game mechanic.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's a different playstyle Ironwood, SB and EVE prove there is a market for it, even if it's not mainstream

But that's sort of the point. It's not mainstream at a time when we're discussing a game that hopes to be. I appreciate the political machinations that went on in SB (and SWG too, those were good times, paid off spies, counteragents, etc). But the average gamer is not here for that level of immersion. It just takes too much damned work to keep up, and it ends up becoming the playground of the higher levels of the player pyramid at the expense of incorporating newbies and casual players. It works well for those that like it, but it won't be part of the success of a million+ subscription game without a collective sociological shift in Western players.

Darniaq, which part of me saying I was talking about open communication in reference purely to a niche WAR ruleset server did you not understand? 

I backtracked twice from the comment and said sorry twice for doing it, it's obviously very confusing to believe you can have a game with more than one type of server.  It clearly requires super multitasking powers to attempt to talk about both types of server on the same page.

No wonder some people are so against communication, it's quite clear there's a real inability to read out there.  Try reading what I'm writing instead of what you think I'm writing, I know my English isn't great but, Christ on a bike.

[Sairon]

I believe that in a game such as the one WAR tries to be, open communication wouldn't be beneficial. I've had quite a diffrent experience than Stray, I don't think I've ever been congratulated for killing someone in PvP where open communication was possible, people tend to take it quite personal when you beat them down. In a game such as Shadowbane though, where you had a political side of things, it was required and golden.

When it comes to emotes, well, you can pretty damn sure that the taunting ones are going to get used pretty extensively in PvP areas. Is that a good or bad thing though? I don't know, personally I don't find it that intresting in WoW when you see the other guy spamming the spit emote at you after you've gotten killed.

[eldaec]

The more immersive, the more relevant, the more world-impacting you make it, the less people will want to be a part of it.

This confuses cause and correlation.

SB and EVE don't fail to be mainstream because people are afraid of world impacting pvp.

WoW-type people avoid them because they feel they cannot compete with catasses and would regularly get one shotted and have no opportunity to fight back, and they believe that to have fun in these games you have to compete with catasses because getting one shotted with no means to fight back is not fun. They also believe that in these games the world will change around them too quickly and they can get involved in non-consensual pvp without a way to avoid it. But perhaps most importantly they also believe that it is impossible to have fun in these games without a strong guild, and that it is not possible to get into a strong guild without being a catass.



Since WAR is intended to be PvP focused, it is necessary to design WAR so that people don't believe the above about it. Whether the game allows world altering events is a separate issue, and more about retention of players than attraction of players.

I'd argue that in the long run world altering events are more important in keeping the casuals on board than keeping the hardcore.

If PvP is meaningless sandboxed battles with no ongoing impact then the hardcore will be happy enough just to compete on the individual scoreboard.

But for casuals to get a significant win you need realm level objectives they can contribute to (since they are unlikely to make an individual splash); and you need realm level objectives to encourage the hardcore to have a reason to interact with the casual.

[HRose]

Can I re-derail the thread toward the other part we were discussing? The PvP personal progression/rewards and the balance between direct kills and and objective-based PvP.

I still believe that one of the reasons of DAoC decline is because of its strong bias toward gank groups/8vs8 at the expense of the good, old keep warfare and conquest.

The PvP progression is an interesting topic because it brings up many different issues and because while Mythic has revealed a lot of how Warhammer works (classes, skills, tiers, zones organization, campaign progression, the three battlefronts and so on..) they still haven't said anything at all about the PvP progression. If the PvP progression is alternative to PvE exp as they said in various occasions, this still doesn't tell us what progression we'll have at the "endgame" when you are done exping your skills.

Maybe they have something new in the works, maybe they'll reuse DAoC's realm ranks kind of progression/power-ups. Or even WoW gear-based progression.

What would you suggest instead for a PvP progression? How to build a system that doesn't create gaps between the players and too much unbalance between veteran players and those who begin later on? And how you keep it interesting enough so that the players consider it a strong personal motivation?

The other part is about the balance between direct kills and objectives. In the idea I wrote earlier on this thread I proposed a bounty system where players gain bounty points from direct kills. But before these points can be used toward whatever is the PvP progression, the players need to complete objectives. So an objective works like a trigger that convert "x" bounty points in your pool into "real" PvP progression.

This is supposed to have two main effects:
- You never lose progress as your bounty points pool never shrinks.
- The system allows a game designer to balance the direct kills/objective-based PvP ratio by setting how many bounty points you can convert after each objective completed

This allows to create a "mix" of direct kills and objectives completed. If your bounty pool grows and grows then you are encouraged to go for whatever the objective is (conquering a keep/tower, control a zone, win a scenario ...), so that you can convert those points into an "use".

Instead what you would propose to encourage realm/team work and objective-based PvP without making the players avoid each other just to cap objectives (WoW), or avoid the objectives to go for purposeless direct kills (DAoC)?

[HRose]

@Hrose: I think this we need to recognize just who's interested in this sort of immersion though. Eve and DAoC RvR were not mass hits, not played nearly to the degree WoW BGs are.

I think it's false.

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio). Or maybe you are saying that WoW has more players because of its shitty PvP?

The reasons why WoW is successful are NOT because of its endgame, either PvE raids or PvP. Those are the worst part and I believe there is a general consenus about this point. The success of the game is because of what there is before.

WoW didn't reach the mass market because of raids or battlegrounds. If you think so then we have OPPOSITE points of view and I doubt we can have a discussion or agree on anything.

And, honestly, Shadowbane wasn't successful because technically shit. WoW has proven (and I always believed) that the quality of execution and polish is much more important than interesting ideas. Give Shadowbane the same amount of money, quality, presentation and polish without changing its basic scheme and I believe it would have been a major hit.

[Ironwood]

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio).

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

[HRose]

By the way. Why HALF the servers are PvP in WoW?

The BGs are exactly the same on PvP servers as they are in PvE.

My point is: there is a strong DEMAND for what I call "world PvP" or whatever you imagine as a more immersive, deep PvP system. Blizzard wasn't able to give a satisfactory answer to that demand and if I was responsible of Warhammer that's exactly where I would try to outclass them.

[HRose]

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

No, that's the power of the carrot. NOT the preference of the players.

This is the same old debate about 5-man instances and raids. People don't like raids more than smaller instances, but it's the game design that determines what players do. Give the players TRULY alternate and parallel advancements between PvP, 5-man instances, normal questing and PvE raids and then we'll see what the players like more.

Give to WoW's "world PvP" more powerful rewards than those achieved through BGs and YOU CAN BE SURE that the BGs would be deserted in less than a day.

[Fargull]

WoW-type people avoid them because they feel they cannot compete with catasses and would regularly get one shotted and have no opportunity to fight back, and they believe that to have fun in these games you have to compete with catasses because getting one shotted with no means to fight back is not fun. They also believe that in these games the world will change around them too quickly and they can get involved in non-consensual pvp without a way to avoid it. But perhaps most importantly they also believe that it is impossible to have fun in these games without a strong guild, and that it is not possible to get into a strong guild without being a catass.

The problems that arrise here are more from the DIKU model and the box limitations that designers have built around that model.  The stratification of both gear, content, and of course then your player set is one of the main pain points I have with the current MMORG model.  Item stratification in WOW has even rolled higher up the divide between casual and the cattass.  The fact that WAR already is stratifying the zones has me worried, but without looking beyond the DIKU HP model, I am not sure where they can take it.  I do understand that the nuggets of character advancement is the main reason for keeping the DIKU, that and I am guessing it is much easier to tailor content to a box set of possibles than to leave it open, but I don't like it.

[eldaec]

I still believe that one of the reasons of DAoC decline is because of its strong bias toward gank groups/8vs8 at the expense of the good, old keep warfare and conquest.

DAoC increasing 8v8 focus makes sense *because* it is in decline. The hardcore are the people left playing.

The wrong lesson to take from this is that 8v8 is a good place to focus.

Because the masses liked the keep sieges, the elite liked ganking the masses in open field.

[Ironwood]

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

No, that's the power of the carrot. NOT the preference of the players.

This is the same old debate about 5-man instances and raids. People don't like raids more than smaller instances, but it's the game design that determines what players do. Give the players TRULY alternate and parallel advancements between PvP, 5-man instances, normal questing and PvE raids and then we'll see what the players like more.

Give to WoW's "world PvP" more powerful rewards than those achieved through BGs and YOU CAN BE SURE that the BGs would be deserted in less than a day.

Believe it or not, that was actually my point.

[eldaec]

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio).

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

In DAoC he's probably right - easily more than 90% of the people who got past the grind must have engaged in RvR. The only people I ever came across in DAoC who never went RvR were those who joined the game after level 50 became essential on the frontier and never made it to that level.

EvE is harder to judge - empire (safe) space seemed plenty busy during my brief time in game.

[Venkman]

Christ I gotta hit this thread more. Would reduce the lengthy posts :)

Darniaq, which part of me saying I was talking about open communication in reference purely to a niche WAR ruleset server did you not understand?

The part about reading the "niche WAR ruleset" :) My turn with the "sorry".

As an aside, I'm personally not a fan of varied-ruleset servers for the same reason I don't like "PvP class abilities" vs "Normal class abilities". I prefer an experience developers work towards solutions that can be applied to whoever comes because anything less segregates players more than they already are. What's the point of a "massive" game if you're only ever delivering a MUD/FPS scale experience?

This is supposed to have two main effects:
- You never lose progress as your bounty points pool never shrinks.
- The system allows a game designer to balance the direct kills/objective-based PvP ratio by setting how many bounty points you can convert after each objective completed

The current WoW Honor Points system with a quest-based engine attached. Sounds good to me.

SB and EVE don't fail to be mainstream because people are afraid of world impacting pvp.

WoW-type people avoid them because they feel they cannot compete with catasses and would regularly get one shotted and have no opportunity to fight back, and they believe that to have fun in these games you have to compete with catasses because getting one shotted with no means to fight back is not fun

I feel those are related. When asked, a gamer may say they want world-impacting relevance. But games with strict linearity in that work against this openness. I try to imagine SB done perfectly or Eve with a less arcane UI and still don't see the average gamer sticking around because the motivations and results of being in these experiences are based almost "too much" on other players. The most successful games have been the ones that are basically RPGs with PvP as a toy, a fun side activity or one built around the same core grind motivation just against smarter AI.

I don't necessarily think that's right for a genre that needs to be unique to go on. It's anathema to emergent behavior, one of the bedrocks of the whole thing. But I also don't know how to solve the issue because I don't even know the right question to ask. Is it sociological? Or is it simply because execution to date has sucked for the masses? And if it's the latter, how do we convince deep-pockets to fund better execution of not-yet-proven concepts? And in wanting better execution, what do we improve? The UI? The ability for players to have more control and the ability to change who controls what more?

I think we have to answer the fundamental question first before diving into execution though. Anyone can make a world-impacting deep relevant PvP experience. To me that means the issue is really how do we make one the mass market wants to play?

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio). Or maybe you are saying that WoW has more players because of its shitty PvP?

I high percentage of a few players does not a mass hit make. WoW isn't huge because of Raids or BGs. It's actually not huge for any one feature. It's the delivery in aggregate, the options people have before and at 60. My point earlier was the dichotomy between Raids and BGs as two endgame options (beyond alt'ing and Faction farming, itself which could require grouping anyway). BGs are an endgame activity with almost no barrier of entry. Raids require much more from any gamer that did the 1-60 run though.

You've always wanted relevant world PvP from the days before BGs. But ask yourself this: why did Blizzard choose to go the BG route, and continue to make shallow their more recent attempts at relevant world PvP? Do you think they're shy or dumb? Or do you think they may be answering what the players want (no, not what the players "ask for" but rather what Blizzard thinks they want?)

There's a huge difference between low/no-barrier BGs and the world-PvP that preceded it and PvP servers vs not? Sh*t, I can even ask that: you say "why are only 1/2 the WoW servers PvP+"? Name any game of modicum success where that's ever been the case. All that preceded maybe had a few servers with that ruleset, and yet WoW launched that way. That wasn't stab-in-the-dark thinking.

I do not believe the nichiness of world PvP is because of executional issues of the past, as outlined above. I think it has to do with the kind of players this genre is attracting in its bid to grow larger.

[Nebu]

I do not believe the nichiness of world PvP is because of executional issues of the past, as outlined above. I think it has to do with the kind of players this genre is attracting in its bid to grow larger.

I think this nails it on the head.  The market continues to cater to the PvE gamer.  Hell, even the implementation of WoW's PvP and rewards scream of PvE.  WoW players farm eachother for gear instead of monsters.  The largest majority of the market doesn't want a PvP-centric game.  They want a PvE game that can be bastardized to a point where they can dabble in a reasonably fun PvP experience.  Until the MMOG market matures to a point where people bore with fighting AI, well-crafted PvP games will remain a niche market... and I'm ok with that.