[mto]

Agree. I think Guild Wars 2 is a good example (in stark contrast to GW1). There are a lot of people but you don't really have to bother dealing with them. But the game itself embraces anonymous "the more the merrier". You don't have to group up or talk to others. But the more people are around, the more enemies, the more loot, experience etc. Everyone can res and you get experience for ressing. I haven't seen any other game where you die and a dozen people rush in to ress you.

That being said, as a teen I loved Ultima Online exactly because you could steal from players, block them, kill them, loot everything, kill their horse, steal the house key and loot the house, steal their boat etc.

The thrill was amazing because it didn't happen all the time. Might be you are on a guild trip and a group of other pass by and kill you all. But often it did not happen, or you needed a couple PvP savvy people with you as escort.

When they later split the world into a PvP and PvE mirror, the thrill was gone. The PvE world was boring and the PvP world was only full of people attacking you anyway (actually it was awfully empty but the couple of guys you met wanted to strangle you)