If you rely on gear, you're not a PVPer...

Hardly would call it selfish, would just rather not hear people complain about gear imbalance when its fully capable of being overcome with a little effort and planning.

The grind from 1-60 valor is more than "a little work" if you do it as intended. You're also at the mercy of the RNG, which defies any real planning.

For all we know PvE gear will just be the new determining factor. As long as there are statistical differentials between players, there will be an uneven playing field. It isn't going to go away in this game.

The pvp isn't fun (Illum, Tat or the 3 WZs). In fact, it's mostly broken. And you are wrong. People need a payoff or they don't participate.

By the same token, you are saying we could remove loot from FPs/Ops and people would still play them for the fun of it....which is a borderline retarded statement.

Rofl on thread talking about pvp skill in a mmo without gear.

Play Halo if you want to level the playing field the most (ie player hardware is mostly the same, gear is mostly the same, classes are the same, abilities are same, etc).

Mmos are fundamentally different. Gear is a differentiator.

Depends when you start.

I was in the 40's when I reached level 50 and have got to 56 valor quickly without kill trading.

However, the difference between a piece of BM and a piece of champ armour is small (look at the actual stats).

If I wanted to play a game with equal odds and character development means nothing, I'd play one of the 10 billion FPS games out there.

True, the RNG system is a travesty. And by "planning" I meant getting a good premade together that knows strats and communicates well with each other, instead of going in solo all the time.

The payoff in any MMO is prestige.
On the PvE side, better gear and downing raids bestows that prestige.
In PvP, the rewards should not cause the playing field to award statistical advantages. People will PvP for other forms of prestige, like cosmetic gear, titles, mounts, etc.

Different stroke for different folks.

Every MMO I've played rewards you in some way for PvP. If it wasn't for that, I could be playing CounterStrike, CoD or Quake, instead of this game.

PvP without an incentive gets tired really fast, it's the reason Bloodline Champions adopted LoL's rune system. People need a reason to keep coming back. If not for the valor/gear farm, do you think people would chain que for Huttball game after game after game after game?

Speaking of incentives, Ilum would probably be a deadzone on my server if not for the boxes. Those boxes are so tempting even the underpopulated Republic on my server ventures out in search of them.

Why is Smuggler's Den empty? Aside from going there to buy some mounts, there's no reason to really go back.

I guess there are no "real" PvPers on my server because no one is in Tatooine showing of their epic skills and everyone is in Ilum/Warzones trying to become a Battlemaster and get geared.