I think what you all are seeing is basic sociability. When you see a stranger on a PVE-C or even PVP server. You’re not likely to attack a would be friend and ally. I saw this behavior back when I played on the Rallos Zek (free for all) server in Everquest. Everyone was running around with red names, but not exactly attacking each other.
Now introduce a tribal effect, more specifically one that is restrictive. Imagine if you logged into a PVE-C or PVP server in Conan and you were assigned either a Red tag, or a Green tag. You can only clan up with people with the same tag. The ones with a different tag than you you cannot even talk to, you’re just muted to one another.
How do you think that will go down?
I can tell you exactly how that goes down. Just like it did on the Sullon Zek (deity team server) PVP server in Everquest and just about any PVP server in early World of Warcraft. You attacked each other on sight. And why not? You cannot help each other, you cannot even talk to each other. People go from being players behind computers to NPCs with random movesets.
This is sort of why I prefer RP-PVP. Devoid of arbitrary goals. Players are very much unlikely to willing engage in conflict. Because doing so can be taken personally, or come off as griefing. No one wants to be the ass hole here.
But playing one is entirely different. Anyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons or other tabletop roleplay will understand that the GM/DM (Gamemaster, or Dungeon Master if playing D&D), is not a jerk (or if he is, then an accepted one 
) when he plays the bad guys. Without someone to play the bad guys, there’s no cool adventures to be had.
Without RP, your bad guys are boring, static, souless, and nonsentient NPCs controlled by a computer with sadly extremely simple logic. With RP though, the bad guys suddenly have motives, suddenly are interesting, dramatic, have loves, hates, cares, likes, dislikes, goals, and everything else a real person might have.
But the ones you face off against may not be the bad guys. They may simply be other characters with goals like you have, but they don’t line up. How do you resolve those differences? Do you smash each other and might makes right? Do you reason with each other, and find common ground?
And what are those goals? In just regular PVP goals are sort of limited. Get and hold this resource or region of the map. And well, there’s plenty to go around, even in a 80/80 server. With RP-PVP, you can do arbitrary stuff like mentioned earlier. Maybe your Nordheimer wishes to be King of the North. And now wishes to impose his will and influence on other clans to pledge their allegiance to him.
Maybe you’re a clan leader of a smaller clan who is not liking the idea of a King, but wishes to see their downfall through cloak and dagger intrigue, turning his trusted advisors against him.
Or perhaps you simply wish to run a bar and listen to stories of war and political intrigue from everyone else. (You would be surprised how much PVP a bartender sees in a RP setting, keep an axe handy behind the bar if you go this route!)
Here’s the best part about RP-PVP. You don’t have to win in PVP to have fun. This is actually one of the traps and hang ups many PVPers get into when engaging in RP-PVP. The motive isn’t to win. The motive is to engage in situations and come to organic outcomes that engage everyone participating and leads to a fun setting. To put it simply you win when it makes sense to win, or lose when it makes sense to lose. If the outcome doesn’t seem like it should go one way or another, then you let fate decide and just let the PVP role however it goes.
I remember playing a character that wasn’t supposed to be particularly strong, but not a pushover either. It was a In-Character sparring match so the consequences of winning or losing was no different than RL sparring, at worst someone may get their bell rung. In this case I was using this as a means to practice PVP so I didn’t just want to throw the bout either.
Unfortunately the player of the character I was sparring against wasn’t quite as good, even though they had better gear (I was in some form of agility armor, and this was pre-Siptah, so only using it for its looks). They kept getting trounced. Instead of roleplaying it out that my character was dominating them, it was just them getting lucky hits. I wasn’t about to let my skill in PVP ruin the scene or make my character more than I wanted them to be. And the other player got some good practice in so they could be as good as they needed to be to play their character.
Its definitely not a means of playing these games that is for everyone. As it requires a heavy suspension of disbelief, imagination on the fly, impromptu and ad lib ability in some cases. And definitely the ability to swallow one’s pride as the consequences in RP-PVP aren’t always simply respawning at the desert. But in some cases the permanent death (and resulting reroll) of a character (of course this doesn’t apply to every server. Sometimes there are fates worse than death, and you will simply have to use your imagination as the descriptions of such consequences are not suitable for these forums. The Hyborian Age is brutal indeed.
