One problem I'd see with something like an open-world PvP server is that the game isn't innately designed to do both PvE and PvP at the same time. In the case of frontlines and Wolves den, you have PvP ranks and PvP actions, how is that to fit in the open world where you have both PvE and PvP?

>Frontlines recently removed healer's ability to use cleric stance (and to the extent, I agree to this; I don't like the idea of healers being able to both sustain themselves and out dps most damage dealing classes in most circumstances like 1v1s.) That would definitely be the issue in open world, you can't reasonably fight back a roaming healer unless you were traveling with a group in the open world. Mind you this is all for the process of leveling, questing and gathering, not activity seeking out other players to PK.

>Like I said before, the whole presence of PvP actions leaves another problem. Should actions be allowed in the open world then? It leaves for a lot of clutter out in the field for even keyboard users who have a whole mess of macros. Let them be usable in the open world? Some of them seem outright overpowered to have access to at all times in a PvE environment. Make it only usable when you engage in PvP, now you have bars taking up your slot when its not needed. Make it switch into a PvP bar? Now it's even more cumbersome for people who get ganked to fight back as now they have to fight a PvE enemy in their PvP setup while fighting the PKer.

>There's also the problem of alliances and factions in open world. It's bad enough from what I've seen on frontlines, and it just compounds the issue with the area segregation and hunting logs. Having absolutely no alliance/factions makes things awkward for both gameplay and lore. It's just going to lead to mindless killing over and over with no order to it.

>What I do suggest is an area/region dedicated to open-world PvP with objectives. An example would be wintergrasp or tol barad from Wow (minus the balance issues with server population). Every few hours there'd be a battle where players from all GCs/factions can participate to capture objectives. The winner would have free access to the area's resources and daily during the respite inbetween battles. It's still an area that allows for PKing, but the captured objectives are under the protection of the GC under control, with the other two having base camps situated in not-so-convenient locations for resource gathering.
>>Now the problem with that, and this plagues every other game too, is the server population, and made even worse with the ideas of separating teams into GCs. If you were in a server/realm that had the underpopulated team, you were SoL in winning anything ever. And with the GC restriction in place, friends who joined the game together can't play together in frontlines or this open-world objective area if they decided to pick different GCs (sometimes without even knowing ahead of time that there was such a restriction).

It really goes to show that they haven't put a lot of thought into PvP for the most part (specifically long term to consider things like open-world). Are they paying attention to it? Sure, but is it the right kind of attention (GC seperation for frontlines...flatout removal of cleric stance instead of adjustments, etc etc).

And lastly, do they even have the resources to put aside for something like a PvP-dedicated server? Someone mentioned before that we'd get RP servers which have yet to comes. And from the reponses I keep seeing regarding the housing fiasco, they always have issues with server limits and what not, and we're not even into 2.4 yet!

One more thing, I'm all in all for duels in open world, something like right clicking someone's name and challenging them. It can work work shifting to PvP actions/setup and such. It won't be balanced for 1v1s, but who cares really when its not going to be ranked or anything?