So i noticed this line

[phalczen]

You can attack bases just fine here. The reason people don't is the modern MMO player only does PvP if they get comms and gear rewards.

 

Pre CU SWG, pvp was about pride. Destroying a base placed by a rival guild when groups could have 20 people and a hundred folks might show up for the fight was epic. Oh, and horribly unbalanced classes with an alpha class to boot. Still, it was only about pride and ultimately that wasn't enough for players to stay.

 

Pre shutdown SWG pvp was far more goal oriented, with its equivalent of SWTOR's warzones, but also multiple open world pvp zones, open-space pvp, event oriented ground and space pvp that occurred multiple times a day, and generic random open world pvp, and ALL of it contributed to an overall tracking system that would change the galaxy as the factions fought. Not on a huge encumbering scale, and not enough to ruin a newbie's experience, but enough that you felt like pvp'ing made a difference. Oh, and they fixed the player-placed bases that they screwed up with the NGE so that it was about pride and making a difference. Still, it had lost too many subscribers to save it by then. Not even atmospheric flight saved it.

 

SWTOR needs a lesson from SWG here. I'm not saying SWG pvp was perfect by any means, but the menu of entrees was longer than the 4 choices we have here (warzones, GSF, outlaw's den, and random pointless open world encounters), five when during the rare times Gree is going on, about three times per year it seems.

 

In SWTOR, you do get to improve yourself functionally (SWG pvp token rewards were cosmetic only), though even that is bugged (see any Bolster thread). However, you don't ever get the sense that all those fights over the cannons on Alderaan or the satellites on Kuat have made a bloody difference in the galactic war. You might get your name on a leaderboard, but it gets reset periodically, as if you didn't ever do anything for your side in the War. In fact, the only way you ever get a sense that you are making a difference in the galaxy is through pve content, and more specifically voiced over cutscenes from one time missions that introduce and conclude whatever the current latest op or fp is (which until 2.9 in August will be the Forged Alliances Pt 1 storyline.)

 

EDIT: I think, and certainly the pvp'ers can correct me if I am wrong, but pvp'ers want more than just gear progression and leaderboard tracking as the proverbial dangled carrots. The racing and boxing analogy was a great one, but with today's special sporting event it's probably more appropriate to compare raiding and pvp to The Triple Crown to the Heavyweight boxing championship. If a horse wins the triple crown, its history. If a boxer wins the heavyweight, its news. Similarly, if your guild completes the operations first, you are the first to learn the next page in the story that is SWTOR, and gear that helps you for the next page in the story. If your pvp group gets your name to the top of the leaderboard, you get a title for the season.

Edited June 8, 2014 by phalczen