You could not drop the mission at the time.
You could not get any other missions FROM your contacts at the time.
And IIRC, heroes didn't have Safeguard missions at the time, either. (Those introduced one issue further along.)
So, yes, you were forced to do it. Or, y'know, have no missions of your own for 10 levels (15 = BB, 20 = SC.) And yes, when they were introduced, you most certainly *did* have to enter the PVP zone to do it - and to make it more fun, redside, mastermind pets on release did zero damage to players, the BB hospital (redside) had no roof, there was no 30 second rez timer and far fewer drones - so to *exit* the zone, at times, you had to log out, back in, and hope you didn't have a long load eat up your 30 seconds.
You could not get any other missions FROM your contacts at the time.
And IIRC, heroes didn't have Safeguard missions at the time, either. (Those introduced one issue further along.)
So, yes, you were forced to do it. Or, y'know, have no missions of your own for 10 levels (15 = BB, 20 = SC.) And yes, when they were introduced, you most certainly *did* have to enter the PVP zone to do it - and to make it more fun, redside, mastermind pets on release did zero damage to players, the BB hospital (redside) had no roof, there was no 30 second rez timer and far fewer drones - so to *exit* the zone, at times, you had to log out, back in, and hope you didn't have a long load eat up your 30 seconds.