popsicledeath
Potato del Grande
From my perspective, that's exactly what makes pvp awesome. PvE becomes what is worth fighting for. Want to exp? Better defend yourself or find a less obvious place to exp. Want to gear up your character? Better defend yourself... etc.PVP just can't be awesome in a game designed around PVE, IMO
The ironic thing, I suppose, is that coming from a 'hardcore' pvp server in EQ where you could corpse camp and lost exp and shit like that, I found the 'pvp' in more modern games obnoxious because you were ALWAYS getting into fights. There was no real danger or penalty to lose, so the system is designed to just be fight after fight after fight. The potential for a fight is usually what makes pvp more interesting than just zerging each other in an instanced battleground or at the gates of a city.
When pvp is designed around pve, though, and has ramifications, you don't just spastically attack everyone you see. Diplomacy and player interaction and player-created rules and all sorts of things like that come into play, making the social environment far richer and the pvp more meaningful, because if you agree to leave someone alone and then sneak up and kill them, it matters and there will be more retribution that simply bind-rushing each other because there's no penalty to die and no reason the area you're fighting is even important to control.
I guess this is why I love fantasy, mmorpg, pve based pvp and could never really get into first-person shooters.