I play on both officials and unofficials, and the best I can rationalize why I play officials despite all of their faults is that no matter what anybody says, this is always going to be "the game" to me: the idea that under equally harsh but "fair" terms, I will be better than anyone else because I am better. This is a completely false premise, because the actual alpha/beta tribe meta game is the actual "game", and it's more about organization and coordination than any individual skill, but I still throw myself into that meat grinder anyway.

I'm also a member of a couple of communities for unofficials that I think are good, but here's a problem I run into: I kind of want the other people on the server to be scumbags because I'm going to do really bad things to them and I can't have a bunch of baggage like guilt weighing me down.

I like playing creative mode and building bases also, but that's not a game. A hobby, maybe, but not a game. Creativity is fun and all but I'm far more competitive than I am creative, so brutal competition is what will bring me back, again and again, even if it is pointless.