Arena

Well, Live Update 16 brought Arena access to Freeport and Qeynos. This is a move SOE had to make. Every time I go to the Arena, it's completely deserted. This is a shame considering the amount of time they probably spent on it. And it's actually pretty fun.

I did say that when more people hit 60 it might see increased use. But I also said way back when that if there is no effective system of rewards or ranking it would never be truly popular.

I honestly don't understand why MMO companies (and SOE isn't the only offender) will spend resources to create PvP systems and then not focus on the reward or ranking aspect. I can guarantee you that if there was a great web-based or in-game ranking system for the Arena, plenty more people would use it. People love rankings and would enjoy seeing their names moving up the list. You could have all kinds of fun statistics. I can't imagine this is that difficult compared to actually creating the entire Arena system itself.

I had to poke around a lot to find that you actually can gain titles and trophies for getting a certain number of kills in the Arena (i.e. 500 kills, 1000 kills). But that fact is not really well publicized, in-game or out.

I hate to see content being unused because the proper systems are not in place and I really hope SOE is working on something in this direction. These comments will be even more important in terms of the upcoming PvP additions (whatever they might be).