Ok so, here's my take on World PVP:
It is needed. It has been proven over and over that a mmorpg that lacks the thrill and risk of questing and travelling the open world, is lacking something.
A MMORPG is a social game and it needs that social aspect, both the good and the bad side.
The bad side is that you may get camped, that your "experience" may be affected by enemy players killing you while you are just trying to farm some herbs or mine an ore.
No one likes being killed when you are being "friendly", but in the end, you are not only playing a social game, but an rpg game as well, independently if you are roleplaying or not, there is a history, there is a lore behind everything.
Yes, you may be pacific, friendly and a flower-lover, but that doesn't mean the members of the enemy faction have to be so as well or ignore the conflict. For them, you are and will always be their enemy.
Killing you may mean that they get to harvest those fields, mine that deep underground mine or fish the lake. That means resources for their faction, power, so killing you even you are "not attacking anyone" is justified.
That's the bad side of World PvP (for some people), however, there is a good side. Just like you got killed by a random enemy assassin, you can just contact your friends, your allies and strike back.
World PvP is not something "nice" to add, is something SoH NEEDS to have.
I do like, A LOT, the idea of a bounty for people that exceed their limits in World PVP. Camping a player, killing low level players...those actions should have a drawback.
If in the end it's decided that World PVP is only enabled between a level range, I'll go with it, however, if that's the decision taken, the range should be increase a lot. Having World PVP in a 5-10 level range kinda kills the point of World PvP.
Instead of adding a "pvp-allowed range", what I recommen is this:
WORLD PVP SYSTEM
- No level requirement or limitations, anyone can attack anyone.
- There is a bounty system. The player accumulates "marks" when killing lower level players:
* If an enemy 5 levels lower is killed -> 1 mark
* If an enemy 10 levels lower is killed -> 5 marks
* If an enemy 20 levels lower is killed -> 15 marks
* If an enemy 25 levels lower is killed -> 50 marks
(this is just an example, it should be tuned accordingly)
Accumulating 50 marks will "flag" the player as a World enemy, granting a reward on kill (the more marks it has, the better the reward is). Being flagged marks you on the map for everyone, both enemies and allies, as you have become to "savage and bloodthirsty even for your allies", and allows anyone, no matter the faction, to attack you.
With this system:
1) You allow for complete world pvp, for everyone
2) You implement a system that penalizes killing and camping low level players and instead promotes "equal pvp". In the end, you can still camp ultra low level players, but the bounty on your head will be so high and so good everyone will go for you.
This is my proposal.