"The same procedure as in any other game, James!"
it's quite interesting to see, that this very same discussion also appears on other games with pve/pvp elements: One side want's to overrule the other, and hates the style of playing the other had choosen.
I remember the old Neocron:PVP-Server, which was set up by ReaKKtor on high demand by the community. It got a big rush on start, and then went dead very soon. That experiment failed horribly. The mass has spoken.
Anyway: As we are discussing an alternative, i suggest a system like that one of an also 10 years old game. I'll transcribe it for Neocron:
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- There is no LE anymore.
- Let all appartements and city buildings be savezones. You can't PvP there. Period.
- If you leave an appartement/inner city building, you automatically consent to PvP.
- Inner City Zones are watched by NCPD. You may take your weapon at any time and shot on anyone, but after you begin shooting, you WILL INEVITABLY BE EXECUTED by NCPD with Soullight loss.
- The more away you are from the inner city, the longer it will take for NCPD, to catch you, but YOU WILL BE EXECUTED. No evade possible.
- If you are in the outer Zone, only the entraces/exits are watched by NCPD. You may evade the execution there by getting away from the entrances/exits.
- If you started PvP, you are flagged for - let's say - 2 Minutes after you last agressive action. Being flagged you can't change zone. -> No zone-whoring anymore. "Stand you man! You started war? Suck it up to the bitter end." ;-)
- If you are outside the city, you are free do do, whatever you want. NCPD does not watch there. But the 2-minutes-flag still applies.
- Sewers in City are also watched by NCPD-Drones according to their distance from the inner city; therefore the same rules apply there.
- There are also high level sewers in the City.
- The caves with the biggest provit promised are in the wastelands.
- Very rare items can also only be found in the wastelands.
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1.) Do you like this system?
2.) Do you recognize, from which game this systems is copied from? :-)
And yes ... in the other game the hardcore PvPers als also whining about the people not leaving "the city", and "the bad bad restrictions preventing them from being 'free'". But it still works fine.
Anyway:
It does not matter, which game you take: Both sides have the right to choose their way of playing the game. The maintainer/owner of the game is just obliged to ensure, that no one of the sides abuses mechanics from one side to interfere the other side.