Trusting your players is a risky move in an MMO.
Accepting risky moves is often counterproductive to turning a profit, which is why the ‘safe’ choice when designing an MMO is to remove that potential risk and limit or eliminate any trust you might require from your players. At the same time, trusting your players and giving them more options or ‘freedom’ is an almost inherent quality to a virtual world. I think you can see where this is going.
Let’s look at a game like Ultima Online, EVE, or Darkfall. Lets pretend you believe those games are amazing in terms of presenting the player with a perfect virtual world; sounds good right? And not only is the design perfect, but whenever a new player logs in they could very well interact with a helpful player right away and be instantly pulled into what makes a virtual world so great, player-driven content.
Or they might be ganked and griefed.
And it’s that second option that terrifies most dev teams, because no matter how well they design their virtual world, no matter how perfect the coding, the art, the sound; by giving your players that freedom you accept the fact that even though many will put it to good use and IMPROVE your game, others will inevitable abuse it or add an element many find offensive.
That’s why in many ways, virtual worlds will indeed always remain a niche product, while the broader MMO concept has the potential to attract millions of ‘casuals’. The casual simply is not interested enough in the game to demand the more ‘advanced’ features that a virtual world brings by providing player freedom. A game without those freedoms is limited to dev-driven content only, but the casual player will never push far enough to get past that, or to reach its limits and demand more.
The ‘ideal’ player for an MMO is one who just logs in whenever content is provided, and if they consume content at a steady, sustainable pace, you never have to worry about losing them to some outside factor like ganking or how limited your ‘virtual world’ really is. The casual player does not view it as a world, does not demand it to function like a world, and overall simply does not ask as much from the game as someone who is more into what an MMORPG is at its core.
In direct contrast, a fan of virtual worlds will demand more and more freedoms in order to create or experience what they believe is the best aspect of the genre; player-driven content. They view the devs role as one to provide more tools rather than defined content, because with the proper tools such players will always create the content that suits them best.
Or they will abuse those tools and destroy the world.
The history of the genre has examples of both, from highlight-reel stuff like the stories from EVE to the “Play to Crush” debacle that was Shadowbane. It’s a very risky move to ultimately trust internet strangers with the health and ultimate survival of your livelihood, yet when done right the rewards are certainly there, and for me, that is far more interesting to watch then the next iteration of Simon Says for 30 minute mute groups.
Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris was the first black president.
Hardcore Casual 
Coming from restrictive “on rails” mmos and then jumping face first into DFO is something hard for me to put into text. The best way for me to describe it is when it’s missing I know damn well it’s gone.
The absolute freedom to set your own goals and accomplishing them is not something I had not run into previously in mmos. And the thought of loosing that “choice” or “freedom” is hard to accept no matter what the IP is.
I realize I am nowhere near your target audience.
That said, a sandbox-lover’s freedom is my prison. Why? Because the ganker is the only one who gets to play the way they want to. If I am ganked, my options are to log out, fight back, have bodyguards, or rally friends/allies to take the fight to my adversary. Nowhere do I have the freedom to not be ganked. In every circumstance, I must alter the way I want to play. In this fictional sandbox world, it is *I* who is limited.
I also take issue with attempts to redefine MMORPG (something that casuals are so frequently accused of, with all the talk of the “core” of MMORPGs, and “real” MMORPGS). The “game” is explicitly within the acronym. That there are MMORPGs that are virtual worlds is a given, but it is not the definition of an MMORPG. Nothing else is implied; not seamlessness, not sandbox content, not endgame, not character progression or risk vs. reward tables or anything else.
That’s what I was getting at really, that for people who DON’T adapt or accept other players interaction (including ganking), that inherent player freedom is indeed a major turnoff. Even if the sandbox is well designed and newbie ganking or griefing is difficult or strongly discouraged, the fact that it’s possible means people will attempt it, and that very fact is what keeps people like you away. If I’m a VC looking to invest in a new game, it’s a tough sell to say “well this entire section of the audience is out, but this sub-section may or may not be in depending on how we pull this off” (EVE vs SB).
Setting aside the fact that ganking != griefing, griefing exists in every single MMO.
It’s a gross misconception that such things are only bad when you are getting ganked.
In my mind, the very WORST griefers are the ones who are on “your side” and choose to abuse you. The guy spamming chat. The guy standing on the mailbox so you can’t click on it. The AFK guy in your battleground/scenario. The jackass in your PuG who keeps wiping on purpose.
Asshats and dickwads will exist in any game and it has nothing to do with how much “freedom” devs provide players. In fact, I would argue that the severe flaw in this type of griefing is the lack of control players have to police the offenders. At least in a FFA game, you can just kill the jerk.
I think what people fearing ganking in these FFA games is only a symptom of a larger concern. I think the larger issue is that they have no sense of place. What side on they on? Their own. A lot of people don’t like that. They want to be able to just pick a side and that’s it. FFA games require you to find your own place. It’s well established that gamers are largely introverts and FFA requires you to be social. I think many gamers prefer to lurk until they feel comfortable.
Guess I should have wrote it “ganked and/or griefed”, because yes, they can be two different things.
Usually though in a game like WoW the amount and extend of griefing one can do is very limited, and you only notice things like trade spam as a source because the more ‘damaging’ sources are simply not possible.
You can do far worse to ruin someones day in EVE than you can in WoW (and vice versa really, you can help a player out a whole lot more in EVE than you can in WoW really), but that does not mean that in any one single game you can prevent 100% of the griefing.
I disagree. While a suicide gank in EVE might ruin my day, AFKers or Ninjas or other asshats can ruin my entire enjoyment of a game indefinitely.
When I’m playing a game like EVE, I understand risk and the consequences. My day might be “ruined” if I get suicide ganked by a pirate. And it sucks, to be sure, but it’s also part of the game.
Whereas, a series of jerks who keep ruining my experience in a group instance or a battleground can very much impact my long-term enjoyment of the game.
It’s the difference between a single bad day and a series of consistently bad days.
To my other point, well, I still maintain that the reason many gamers don’t like FFA games is that they are mostly introverts. An FFA game forces you to be social in order to survive and seek the protection of others. You can’t just anonymously pick a side and hide in the group.
Perhaps that’s just the other side of the same coin you are talking about. That some people can’t or won’t adapt to other player’s interactions.
Yup, being ‘forced’ to group is considered by many games today as a ‘flaw’ to be fixed, while a FFA-style game embraces it (just not in a straight up EQ1 style, thought the result is the same).
And while you and I might be far more annoyed with the AFK abuse in WoW, I think more general players fear the ‘gank’ than the afk, right or wrong.