Im not sure if you consider this on topic or not considering the whole discussion is off-topic from the original post, but here goes...
let me first say, that Ive only been playing for two weeks now(12 days to be exact), I only started posting in the forums a few days ago, and i\'ve only just joined this debate as of a a while ago when i stumbled accross this thread. In short, consider me a \"noob\" if you will.
If I had to clasify myself i\'d say im what everyone calls a PL\'er. Actually, take the fact that i\'ve nearly maxed out my stats in a mere 12 days, and you could even might say I am an extreme PL\'er. Believe it or not I enjoy this aspect of the game.
This a chalenge to me, a quest even. Similarly IRL there are body builders who spend most of thier time training thier bodys and taking them to extremes, so maybe PL\'ing isnt so entirely OOC as you may think. A gladiator would spend most of his life in an arena, fighting to make a living. This is also a viable IC choice of lifestyle. Not all RP\'ers have to be adverturers, explorers, merchants, farmers, legendary wariors, barkeeps, etc.
I have friends in-game, I socialize, and I have explored a almost every part of the world that Im aware of. As a child my character played war games, and was apprentice to his father, a blacksmith. So it\'s also not hard to believe that my character would be fascinted or preoccupied by fine weaponry and a good fight. I also plan to make my character a skilled weapon smithy like his father was, but for now that is not possible in-game AFAIK.
what im trying to get at is that maybe people should be less critical of how people choose to enjoy the game. Not all PEOPLE are very social, or team players, or what have you, and not all CHARACTERS will be either. Some will like a chalenge, some will play it safe, others may not even fight at all, and spend thier time within the city limits. Believe it or not, some people even try to cheat thier way through life, and thats thier perogative of course(at least until they get caught)
I say let the PL\'ers powerlevel if they choose. there are ways to PL in-character. and there are also ways to make OOC powerleveling less appealing. For starters, i think
changing the stats system(read the whole post) would have the most immediate effect. Other ways, which i\'m sure are already in the works are:
giving more quests and making them more appealing (rewards like experience, unique items, good weapons)
making a wide variety of quests such as: fighting, adventure, strictly story, Magic, Farming, character development, etc
quests that take more time to complete, maybe even month long quests that no single character can complete alone? (forced interaction/cooperation)
quests that are required at certain points in order to continue progressing in certain skills?
more things to do in general (farm, craft, smith, etc)
populating the wild with more monsters (most of it is completely empty)
balancing monsters (no weak 5 pp rogues and the like)
having more diversity in monsters
make the monsters spawn in semi-random places, and allow them to wander rather than stand in place (This should probably be top priority, considering that 90% of players know exactly where to find almost every monster in the game)
Once those things, and many others, have been implemented you will see a lot less of people just killing things, but lets face it, for now there\'s not much more to do... honestly.
well, thats my point of view anyway.