I've always wondered why developers constantly insist on adding pvp gear, granted, mmo are rpg's which require "stats" but if we remove gear completely from pvp and leveling the playing-field (making everyone a equal) it will be a more pure and skill based experience. The only reason I can think of them adding pvp gear is for the sole purpose of keeping people interested. So how can we remove gear from PvP completely and keep them playing? Here are a few suggestions:

*Have a ranking system like we had in vanilla wow.
*Each rank will unlock a title / achievement (if any in the game).
*X ranks will unlock vanity items and stat-less gear and weapons so they can show off their awesome looking, unique pvp items. (a transmog type feature would be needed).
*X ranks will unlock abilities specifically designed for an pvp encounter to give them a small edge over someone who just occasionally plays pvp.

Those are a few things I can come up with at the top of my head, got any suggestions yourself?

One suggestion for lolz: Make it about money. Only money from subscription that is not returned to players is some decent wages for staff, rest goes back to players? Get money over time from holding a keep in PvP area. The collected money is added to the keep gold vault. Then you must transport it to your home city to cash in? Or maybe to the at the moment owned central objective (that this game have). Problem is that all countries have different laws for income.

I think Zenimax has already stated that they won't be putting out different sets of armor/stats for PvE and PvP play. In new MMOs, there usually isn't that degree of specialization and it's usually one size fits all.

For a new MMO, it's easier to design only one armor type but really it comes down to the design philosophy of the developers. One reason why MMOs have different gear for PvE/PvP is to allow specialization in either PvE and PvP, if the player base is large enough.

The design for PvE can be different than for PvP. The play styles usually are very different. In MMOs, there are usually rewards for specialization in terms of better gear stats, set buffs, bonuses, etc. This requires more time and effort to get but lets you play the game the way you want to play much better than the guy who doesn't put in the same effort to specialize.

For example, someone who spends their efforts entirely on PvE would accumulate gear to better survive in PvE instances and dungeons fighting npcs. On the other hand, someone who spends their efforts to hone their PvP skills and tactics would accumulate gear to better survive PvP dueling and conflicts. Different objectives, different gear specializations. But the player base has to be large and diverse enough to support the developers' efforts to create specialized gear.