the idea I want to present here is not new. in fact, I first saw it in lineage 2. however the lineage system has its flaws, so I took some time to think about it. this is what came out of it...

the philosophy:
the goal of this system is to give all players what they want. that is, player killers should get a world with lots of player killing, and coop/pve players should get some sort of (but not complete) safety from player killers. in no way should player killers be punished for their style of playing!

the basic idea:
every player has a status which I call \"alignment\" (this term is borrowed from D&D and means something similiar). the alignment is a one-dimensional value which reaches from chaotic (lowest) over neutral (initial value for each character) to lawful (highest).
the alignment is affected by the way you interact with other players and affects the way the world (mostly NPCs) react towards you.

(NOTE: I am not a D&D fan. i just use the terms because they should be familiar to some readers)

how alignment is affected:
(1) your alignment always rises over time. but only very slowly.
(2) killing players affects your alignment depending on theirs:

if you are lawful:
 - killing chaotics increases your alignment up to some maximum (you are protecting other players)
 - killing neutrals decreases your alignment quickly
 - killing lawfuls decreases your alignment very quickly

if you are neutral:
 - killing chaotics doesn\'t affect your alignment at all (self defense)
 - killing neutrals slightly decreases your alignment
 - killing lawfuls quickly decreases your alignment

if you are chaotic:
 - killing chaotics slightly decreases your aligmment
 - killing neutrals decreases your aligmment
 - killing lawfuls quickly decreases your aligmment

(3) you can not affect your alignment in any other way! this is important! if it was possible to raise your alignment by killing monsters (as in lineage 2), this would mean that player killers who are powerful in pve can always restore themselves to neutral or even lawful by bashing lots of monsters

note that killing chaotics can not get you back from chaotic to neutral? why? because player killers often fight among each other. this doesn\'t reduce their status as player killers. should be obvious.

what are the effects of alignment?
as I stated above, player killers should not be punished.
my suggestion is that there are different zones with different alignments in the world. a lawful area (for example the capital city of the world) should generally be \"a bad place to be\" for chaotics. NPC guards should attack chaotics without warning and protect others from thieves and player killers. that is, if a player attacks another player within the city bounds, the guards will interfere.
chaotic zones should have all the benefits of the big cities (i.e. there should be merchants, quest npcs and all that), but there should be complete anarchy. guards don\'t care about fights between players, and there should be some (but not too many) unfriendly NPCs (thieves, robbers, bad guys of all kinds). lawful players who enter these areas have no protection at all from player killers. if they go there, it\'s their fault.

both kinds of players should have to go to neutral areas in order to do quests and get items. this on the one hand gives player killers a chance to get some non-chaotic victims. on the other hand, the only way for a lawful player to get a reward for killing another player is to kill a chaotic player. this should make it attractive for lawful players to protect each other. because lawfuls won\'t kill each other, they will usually be around in larger groups, so outside the safe bounds of a lawful city, they are usually stronger than the player killers who are usually more busy bashing each other than sticking together.

if this system is successful (just assume this for a while before you tell me why it is crap;), then the community will consist of three major groups of players:

1. player killers and thieves. mostly chaotic players who kill and rob each other, and sometimes the other groups of players too. some will stay in the chaotic (player killing) zones most of the time. others will try to ambush pve players and steal their loot. these players are unlikely to form large groups because they don\'t like each other that much... (experience from other games shows this)

2. pve players, archievers, socializers, mostly lawful players. these players will spend most of the time near the lawful cities. if they have to go far away from safety to gain experience, hunt for items, etc, they will usually do this in large groups to protect themselves against the player killers. sometimes they might even go on raids against chaotic cities, maybe to get back some of the stolen loot. this will (hopefully) force the chaotics to stick together at least for a while and lead to big army vs army battles between players (which can be a lot of fun)

3. solo players. we must not forget about these. perhaps most of them will be neutral, only defend themselves against player killers and avoid the \"hot\" areas where lots of player killers are roaming. this is the typical behaviour of the explorer type of players.