As the title says, carebears tend to ruin MMOs for anyone that does not have their same playstyle. They tend to be extremely vocal about anything that encroaches on their item farming, dungeon runs, in-game marriages, and other carebear crap. Games that have had tremendous potential for pvp have all but tanked because the pvp was nerfed or altered in a way that ran off the pvp community. Then the game is done once the carebears find out that the endgame PvE can't hold their attention very long and they move on to the next shiny bauble.

Developers need to realize that their success can be guaranteed by the minority pvp community. After all the boring PvE has been done and the devs are finding it hard to put out new and original content/ideas to keep the carebears from whining, what is left to sustain the game's player base? It's the pvpers! We are the community that continues to play, provided the devs build excellent pvp systems, even after the rest of the game gets boring because we don't care about 90% of that junk. Look to history to show how the pvp community can keep games going indefinitely. UO still has a player base. Shadowbane had a player base to the very end and it is so strong even now that the game is being rebuilt by former players in an emulation project. EVE is huge. Pvp is the true key to a game's longevity.

So now that we've established that pvpers are what will keep this game alive for the long run what do we do to ensure that? The concept is two-fold: 1. Do not alter any pvp systems based on suggestions or advice from players that plan to play on pve zones or those with no real meaningful pvp experience(WoW does not count) and 2. There must be accountability in pvp to make it worthwhile. The former point is pretty self-explanatory so let me address the latter. Gankfests without accountability(i.e. any MMO that attempted to be pvp-centric to some degree and totally failed at developing and fleshing the system out[AoC was one]) will ruin any chance a game has at keeping the pvp community. While there will be a few people here that claim to be super hardcore because they played a game where people got camped for hours and whatever else, such a system is not hardcore -- it is boring and runs off real pvpers because it gets old after a week. A system that allows a FFA gankfest to happen can only succeed if those doing the ganking can be held accountable for their actions and be made to feel the repercussions. The prime example of this is Shadowbane. So you decided to come and gank a few lowbies and AFKers in our city? That's awesome because now I will be coming with 10 or 20 guildies to bash down your city walls tonight.

It is repurcussions such as those that allow for in-game politics to develop and keep people interested. It makes people think twice before they kill someone else. It deters random ganking(without stupid flagging systems) but allows for it. There must be a true political metagame in any successful pvp system and that just doesn't happen in a FFA gankfest system that has no accountability. The developers must heed to this because history has proven it to be so.

So here are some of take-away points that the developers need to pay attention to:

1. The pvp zones must be considered a completely separate entity and any design changes to the game must acknowledge that. Do not make changes to pvp on the pvp zones based on changes from the pve zones, i.e. carebears on a pve server whine that the system is still not carebear enough for them so you implement additional carebear changes. Also do not change PVE based on needed balance for PVP. This will allow both communities to have a better quality experience.

2. There must, must, must be accountability if you plan to make this game last. Killing other players needs to bear risk to both parties, and players that are killed need to have a way to retaliate against the players who are killing them.

3. Keep the number of pvp zones/campaigns to a very minimum number. Once the carebears figure out they can't handle or don't want to be on such a zone/campaign we'd like to still have good server populations that encourage PVP and not one Alliance dominating an entire map to have a place to farm and avoid PVP conflicts. Currently we have 3 dead survers and 1 pop locked competative server. I think buff server and campaign changes are a good start.

4. Player resources should be lootable, IE Telvarstones or gold from the Justice System PVP when it is launched.

5. If you actually invest the time into fleshing out the pvp system and making this game truly worthy of having pvp then you will have a guaranteed subscriber base for the life of the game.

Developers of today must face the fact that unless they are Blizzard, they are not going to keep the carebears' interest very long, at least in the US/EU. Sorry ESO, you are not the next WoW. Nor is any other MMO in the works. Face that fact and develop an amazing game that does not cater to that attempt.