Rohan had an interesting post on Blessing of Kings on Wednesday regarding PVE over-entitlement. The gist of the post is that there’s a perception that PVE players in complaining about PVP focus in the upcoming game Crowfall are being pretty unfair given that, according to his count, they have a choice of 11 games versus the one for PVP-oriented players.
I can understand this viewpoint, I’ve complained about PVP focus or features being introduced in games that I’ve played and possibly not always with good reason. As regular readers of this blog may know I abhor PVP, it’s just not my idea of fun in any form. Forcing me to PVP in an MMO is a good way to persuade me to quit for good. But I was one of the carebears posting on the Allods beta-forums asking for a PVE server. I also stated over the years that the constant re-balancing of the classes in WoW would be a good justification for splitting the function of class abilities between PVE and PVP game content.
I think Rohan is maybe over-exaggerating the imbalance though. Tera is heavily focused on PVP and GW2 has a lot of PVP players (well either RVR or PVP). Archeage has a big PVP component as well.
Most existing or announced sandboxy MMOs are PVP-heavy or PVP-mandatory, games such as Eve, Archeage or upcoming titles like Camelot Unchained and Pathfinder Online (just ugh, a D&D PVP game is sacrilege). So that’s an area where ‘entitled PVE-ers’ really have a strong justification for moaning – where’s the sandbox games for crafters/builders not looking for PVP?
GamingSF 
Everquest Next?
the problem with those games listed is that their content overwhelmingly focuses on the PvP side of the game. Tera is way more dungeon focused and that is the main way of actually gearing up, getting in the way of PvP. GW2 barely gets any pvp patches, balance has been poor for a while and wvw has had long standing issues since beta. what they did add to it wasn’t great either, more getting in the way.
As for sandboxes I believe the main one coming is Shroud of avatar. I know there is another that will have pve too… hmm.. Oh and wurm online looks pretty cool as well.
I get why we do it though. there are some great systems that other mmo’s don’t seem to be doing that you want to try as well. do the same thing when I knowingly jump into pve focused games.
I’m not that familliar with RuneScape, but Eldevin isn’t really much PvP oriented, and both are more freeform (after seeing games like Landmark, it’s hard to call anything else ‘sandbox’) than your average themepark.
Part of the focus on PvP in sandboxes stems from the fact that it is a simple way to get players to interact with eachother, and give a purpose. Sadly, too often it degenerates into ganking and griefing – though paradoxically it may also prevent griefing as well. If someone keeps ‘stealing’ your fishing pools (or Raid targets for that matter), in a PvP game you can resolve the conflict yourself or die trying, while in a PvE game things may degenerate so much you’ll need a GM (who are useally hard to come by, as too little money is spent on CS and too much on devs.IMO).
But I understand your sentiment. Personally what I miss in most sandbox-y games is having a bunch of different races (and no, five different flavors of pretty boys and an obligatory Dwarf doesn’t cut it) with Racials that matter, something that only older themeparks offer in spades.
Whenever someone starts talking about “entitlement,” I immediately check-out. It’s one of those ad hominem buzzwords people thrown around when they don’t want to make a real argument, and sure enough, the post you linked offers little to support its point beyond a totally arbitrary listing of games deliberately skewed to make the point.
It is true that MMOs as a genre have a bigger focus on PvE, but that makes perfect sense because MMOs are a much better environment for PvE than PvP. Honestly, I don’t understand why you’d play an MMORPG for PvP in the first place when there are so many other genres of game that are so much better suited for it.
Even so, though, the PvP MMO is not nearly as under-served a niche as some would like to claim it to be. Just off the top of my head, there’s EVE, ArcheAge, both Planetside games, Age of Wushu, Black Gold Online, World of Tanks and its spin-offs, and Guns of Icarus, among others. Then you’ve got games that are PvE-heavy but still have a lot to offer PvPers like Guild Wars 2 and TERA. Most every MMO includes PvP in some capacity, even when it makes no sense at all for the lore or the gameplay of the title — The Secret World, Star Trek Online, and World of Warcraft come to mind.
Then you’ve got a glut of upcoming titles that will feature PvP as the main focus or a major aspect of gameplay: Pathfinder Online, The Repopulation, Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, H1Z1… Meanwhile the field of sandbox games that aren’t endless gankfests is looking pretty barren, with EQ: Next as the main source of hope.
So no, I don’t think that PvE players are overly “entitled,” nor that PvPers are suffering as a result.