Well, if one thing is clear, it's that a lot of players want 100% total safety at all times. I have trouble imagining why they want to actually play a "massively multiplayer" game. Single-player games plus an IRC chat channel seem to be what they are after.
You know in Asherons Call they had PVP where you chose whether you wanted to fight or be be peaceful with fighting only animals. SWG had the alignment system as well. This kept those protected who didn't want to engage in fighting and those who wanted to could and they could still be in the same guilds.
Those were just two games but there were others too. So why couldn't we have that here. Those who are PVP ready had names in red so you always knew.
The social interactions with other players are not restricted to killing in my book I play MMOs to trade, fight together (against mobs), make friends, help out others and so on. If all you can do with others is to kill or to be killed then I think an FPS game would fit you better.
a game that has the option to full loot pvp attracts those kind of ppl unfortunately jadzia =(
Or an MMO that promised working PVP and actually delivered on that promise.
And, not wanting to trade for trading's sake, explore for exploration's sake, grind mobs just for the sake of grinding mobs, helping people who don't need to be helped just for fun, is not the same as not wanting to trade/explore/grind/help at all. A lot of players, myself included, are only interested in such activities when there is some kind of goal to work towards.
Saying "you have to make up your own goals because it's a sandbox" is a facile and useless response when there is nothing in the game to make worthwhile goals out of. In this game there is no competition because land and resources are endless; there are no challenges, no threats, no reasons to explore, no reasons to hunt. The allegedly harsh reality of the apocalypse actually turned out to be a safe and happy land of plenty and infinite leisure. Thus this grind is appealing only to those who enjoy grinding for grinding's sake, and people who are satisfied with having completed a grind even where there was no challenge or competition from other human beings involved.