Been there and done the server first...don't really care anymore tbh. However, I am always competitive in skill. Just because you are first doesn't mean you are the best. I will always try to be the best I can at my class while trying to have fun. It's when those soo called competitive first achiever people content lock people is when it annoys me. I can't put in the same hours I could back in EQ...but I can still put enough in to progress at a very good rate and raid often.
I don't like competition at all...never liked sports as well. My "competition" is more about making life balanced and fun, since I tend to fight to the death my emotions can get so extreme (I can't show anger, but I can boil inside). Competition gives me emotional stress and feels unnatural for me to do (I don't keep score and assume everything is "playtime").
I play with my dogs every day in very extreme ways, so it's a hard thing to understand. I tend to want to have indirect, massive power...maybe I compete by making others stronger than myself so that they can do the competing instead. I did this in GW2 by focusing on giving everyone buffs and/or heals, which was not a popular thing to do (it's massively powerful though). A few times I healed so well that my very small group on a wall was able to "defeat" a whole zerg that was sieging the citadel. They slowly started thinning out and leaving! As it was late, we had nothing more to worry about.
I have a favorite quote..."I have two wolves fighting in my head, which one will win? The one that I feed."
The real world I live in seems to be structured in far too many ways towards competing for the necessities of life, and sadly lacking in ways to work cooperatively towards the same goals. I find Pantheon's stated intent of being highly oriented towards group achievement to be a big part of it's appeal as an 'escape from reality'. I like having a few unique opportunities in the game world for a player (or group) to accomplish something big enough to get their character's names recorded ingame 'for posterity'. But I encourage the devs to be creative about making those opportunities somehow more 'heroic' than just being the first person to do something. Admittedly a difficult task in a numbers based game. But one can hope :)
I'm a fairly competitive person by nature, almost all games I play I try to be good at, if not one of the best. That isn't to say I can't keep things semi casual at times, especially in regards to Everquest and MMORPGs where the journey is a lot more fun than the rush to end game. I will always play on PvP servers over PvE servers, however, due to the competitive nature behind it and the additional challenge. I enjoy challenges, what can I say?
Competitive enough that I try to improve myself on a consistent basis and kick myself in the butt for stupid mistakes. I like to be above average.
My view is that when you start dissecting a game too much and view mistakes, either by you or another person, as unacceptable you're approaching a point where it's no longer fun for yourself or anyone around you.
Competitive gaming is great, but it's still a game at the end of the day.
Will there be boxing? If so i'd like to have the most!
I used to be really competive, pushed for server first achivements, get the best items asap, but all this really just burned me out really bad and made me not enjoy my time at all. Since then I have started to play RPG/MMO games with slower pace and just take my time to explore everything. I still do like to thrive for the best/coolest equipment in the game or defeat the hardest encounters.
i'm cmpetitive in the sense that i try to be the best of my class in my guild.
for example in everquest 1 i was the top rogue of my raiding guild and for me it was an achievement cause we were like 6 rogues and they were all great players, still i had the highest dps and was the main rogue of my guild meaning i was the one pulling (when they needed a rogue pulling) i was the one disarming traps etc etc, that's what i call loving being competitive.
on a wider scale, i like when my guild is one of the first guilds killing a raid boss on our server, but i can live without that achievement.
i hope Pantheon will stay true to Everquest spirit and be hardcore enough to offer a multiple challenges who will take at least a year to reach for an average player playing 4 hours/day 7/7.
I like some forms of competition, generally those with equal footing and non-exclusionary. That is to say something where everyone gets a shot like a sport: all players get to play but not all will win.
But I don't know where that fits in an MMO exactly. Raiding certainly doesn't fit that bill (old school open world raiding) as that is more like racing to claim the field and deny everyone else a chance to even play, and that always boiled down in the past to a few top guilds per server that would block everyone else out.
I'm not competitive, my motivation is being the best I can to help my community and friends spend a good time. I don't care about server firsts and I don't like when too much competition leads to excluding the vast majority of a server from whole parts of the content.
Too many competition in the real world, I tend to look for cooperation and good behaviors in virtual worlds.
i always try to play casually and enjoy the journey but when im "hooked" i play much to much and become competitive anyway....i dont know why.
next step is to bring my friends to "my level" and "helping" them with gear and power levelling but in the end i'll just stress them (and myself) since most cant/dont want to keep up with me.
example: helping my wife with a quest, but on our way she picks up every flower/ harvests any node we pass by and drives me crazy ;).
even though this goes a bit hand in hand i decline and refuse the "creative" methodes which are often used to get world firsts (bug-using, z-axis etc.). for me competitive gaming has to follow rules and must include good sportmanship behavior to earn my respect.
I like to find the absolute best hybrid spec I can find and maximize my efficiency balance between tank/healing/dps. I am usually "that guy" who has a super weird spec that either nobody else runs or nobody else has discovered yet. That said, I like to be extremely good at PvP. One of my favorite PvP moments was taking my Swashy out to the Freeport starting area (desert-like place) and ganking everybody I could find. I really enjoy being able to lifesteal (it's a HUGE contributior in the efficiency factor in MMORPGs since it takes just one ability to both do damage and heal yourself), so SK was my favorite class by far. I'm also an overachiever by nature so I like to DO ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHINHG.
I'd rather know the most, do the most, and be well-known in the community than be the first one to the mountain. Taking the time to turn over every stone... why, that's a step on the path to knowledge. Even if there's nothing there, you now know there's nothing there, and that's something.
I'm so competitive with video games that it's probably a borderline medical condition. When I played a Ranger on EQ2, nearly everyone knew me as the "best ranger on the server" I would join a group and people would be like "Oh good, we got all the DPS we need now" or "Good luck holding agro *insert tank's name here*" - I even had someone tell me that I should write a book on the class because when they were making a new ranger alt, they asked about the class in global chat, and got bombarded with "Go ask Flossie." replies. When I played a Brigand it was even worse, I had people sending me tells from different servers asking me about my spec, AA's, rotation, etc. This was also because I was in a Top 3 WW raiding guild when I played a Brigand. We won't even get started on PvP or FPS games, that's a whole 'nother realm of competition.