Thing is those PvE'ers did need others they needed us to to protect them so they could earn billions and never helped us once. i'm sorry but if you aint willing to fight for something in EvE you simply don't deserve it.
This mentality being widespread across current players and developers both is likely the reason EVE has issues with player retention.
You weren't wrong, given how that game is built and the kind of player and gameplay it attempts to attract. Just don't be surprised when acting like that leads to players doing whatever is needed to never meet you, up to and including leaving the game altogether. I play games to have fun, not to butt heads with overly competitive players that think everyone is against them, and I don't think I'm alone.
(It's why I laugh inside whenever I see CCP's plans for increasing player retention. They tend to start from the point of view that, if the player can only be convinced to give low-sec or null-sec a try and be taught how to be efficient there, the player will like it enough to remain; they are iffed that only about one in ten players that purchase EVE even experience its PvP aspect. What they seem to ignore is that, for many of the players attracted to EVE — such as me, in the past — the risk of PvP from low-sec and null-sec can never be enjoyable.)
Honestly you say you don't want to be forced to play with others and you put people on ignore lists if they demand help, seriously why are playing MMO's since for you by the sound things simple multi player would suffice.
Demand is different from ask. If someone attempts to dictate how I play, in any shape or way, I will do whatever it takes to not play with that person again. Part of why I will never, ever, engage in PvP that is not consensual as long as I live. It's similar to how I'm in guilds; I will do my best to help in any way I can, be as friendly as possible, but as soon as anyone with actual power in the guild demands that I do something, I will /gquit and never look back.
I already have people in the real world, people that can actually dictate what I must do, demanding things from me; I don't need, nor will ever accept, this kind of abuse in the games I play.
And by the way EvE does well because of the way it is if they tried to implement a PvE server 1st the economy would go comepletely pear shaped and to be fair it would be dead in a month.
Not so sure. EVE is hanging on, surely, and I attribute this in part to a zero tolerance towards griefing newbies (AFAIK one of the few bannable offenses is griefing in the newbie systems) and in part to making sure there is a fair amount of space available where PvP is rare and (if non-consensual) costly to the attacker. In a way, EVE is far more PvE-friendly than most of the other open PvP games out there. Plus, it isn't shy about telling potential purchasers about how hostile the game universe can be.
At the same time, similar games that implemented PvE servers, or the equivalent, typically saw a higher than expected uptake of those servers. The classic example is Ultima Online where, after adding Trammel, Felucca became mostly a ghost town, despite making the rewards for PvE activity in Felucca much higher than in Trammel in an attempt to attract enough players there to keep the PvPers happy. It's not the only one; Xsyon saw a large surge in demand when it created a PvE server. Even WoW — a game where the idea of dividing the player base into two factions permanently at war, instigating PvP, was at the core of its concept —, in a way, fits here; it saw far more activity in the PvE servers than the devs expected (interviews before launch made it clear that the devs thought the PvP servers as the "correct" way to play the game, and the PvE ones were almost an afterthought for what they expected to be a minority of players that refused to engage in PvP).
