It was mentioned in an other thread and though to put a few thoughts on a row.
As is guildwars aren't used to often. This is 1. because people don't feel the dueling is balanced and so it's not as atractive as it used to be and 2. it's unrealistic and it is pointless because you don't really know who won.
Well balancing the dueling obviously is a must but going to leave that to the other threads, but making it so armor makes one hit kills impossible again seems like one of the easiest solutions one can think of. Obviously there are many others, but seeing this is such a large topic on it's own lets move on to the next point.
Guildwars aren't realistic. You can fight anywhere and this would be strange if neither of the guilds have the power to fight against the guard of a city for example. It is also unrealistic because of the inviting required. As said before did Hitler invite Poland to a war and Poland went like "hey cool I'm sure we can win this one"? So I feel declaring war shouldn't be done like this, but should be a true declaration.
However to counter endless wars I feel there should be a maximum duration programmed to a guildwar for example it could be 1 week and after that you can't declare again on the same guild for 3 weeks. This to keep the enjoyment of the game so that some guild is not constantly harassing a certain other guild.
For realism and enjoyment there should also be safezones where the pvp doesn't work. Personally I would feel the safezones should be the Deathrealm and the cities. The deathrealm to prevent killing after killing after killing and because it should be hard and a torment just to get out and the cities because the guards would prevent the fighting there. Once the guards can really interact with the players when they do something bad you could change it that the guards find you hostile once you fight there, but at the moment the AI is simply not smart enough for that so sounds better to prevent pvp there.
Also a point would be the pointlessness. Unless someone is really superior it is really hart to see who has one and obviously this isn't really realistic either. In several wars the fighting might be so close that both try to claim victory, but in most wars there is normally a sign to clearly show to an objective observer who has gotten the upper hand. So a way to "win" a war should be implemented. Now I am not a big fan of killcounters, but in this case it seems to be the only real way at the moment to count how a war is going. Guilds don't own land or NPCs and there is no "king of the hill" system either. So the number of deaths I feel would be an objective way to show who is winning, specially seeing if people know this is the criteria they can easily change their tactics around it and with the safezones the "low leveled" persons don't have to partake in battles.
If a killcounter is chosen I feel there should also be a sytemmesage when someone has won. One shouldn't be able to win however unless they have passed a certain minimum in their score and a certain difference in score with their oponents. This to minimize misuse when ahead in the points.
Last point I feel should be done is make alliances useful. This could be done by making it possible to join an ally in a war. Why is this necessary you ask if war can simply be declared anyhow? Because people who declare using the ally option would then be in the same war and so try to gain the advantage together. With a killcounter this would mean it would count all deaths and kills of that side and not just the one guild to see who is victorious.