User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 453: A Father's Job, Review and Commentary/@comment-26287497-20150920142614/@comment-4829046-20150921010740

@anon If you ask me, he gave humanity way more chances than I would have given. And he is cursed with having contradictory thoughts too unlike Acnologia who truly loves extinction.

I see your argument, but again, his thoughts are messed up. His sole drive for many years was to kill himself while simultaneously harboring the wish to revive his brother. He created Alvarez to deal with Acnologia and technically, he ended war and strife within the various groups that are part of the empire so that's still about a continent's worth of humans having better facilities and unity than citizens in Fiore. But that was on an artificial place. It probably started out with just some small groups of survivors(probably from that nation that Acnologia destroyed) pledging themselves to serve Zeref. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Fiore was natural. Zeref's early creations were the only things causing unnatural effects to the land and that by was the work of other parties, not Zeref himself. If he interfered directly, that would complicate the resolve he desperately clings to in the face of contradiction. Even teaching Mavis was something he was coerced into, not one he initiated himself. So frankly, he watched and waited for humans to settle their problems by themselves, as would normally be the case if he happened to never get the curse. If he was the usual kind of genius immortal villain though, he would be the mastermind of everything right now, but he wasn't.

I hope that gives a bit more to your understanding of him. :)