As far as guards that run to your aid, I suppose it depends on how the areas are designed in 2.0. In 1.0 I never found myself running -all- the way back to the city to escape a tougher monster. Typically monsters near the city gates don't aggro, and the ones that do aggro give up on you after awhile.

Having a more interactive/responsive city would always be fun. Granted, as far as kids following you around for a bit, with the number of players typically crowding around in a city, you're gonna run out of kids in short order... then NPCs shouting at you specifically to buy their stuff... hopefully that's localized to each player else we're gonna get

HEY Elficus Pointyearicus! Buy my stuff!
HEY Lalataru Fellshort! Buy my stuff!
HEY Badname Imagination! Buy my stuff!
HEY howfardoI needtogowiththis! Buy my stuff!

Spammed into our chat boxes X)
As long as they implement it wisely, I wouldn't mind. X)