What WoW Devs Learned The Hard Way About NPC Killing

Tyr

twev wrote: »

Bored players, players with some kind of grudge, or players who just enjoy griefing will find ways to annoy players (who just want to play the game) whenever they think they can impact other players successfully.

So what happens to players who decide to go outlaw, amass a bounty on their head, and have no gold or assets to pay it off?

What happens when griefers start making alts/mules with empty pockets to attack/kill NPCs, and then fall back on the 'Look, no gold.' defense.

What happens to those 'toons who can't or wont pay off the bounty? Is ZENi going to perma-kill the 'toon? Parole? Make them pic up trash on the side of the road to work off the debt?

How many deadbeat 'toons will a griefer be able to crank out before s/he decides to unsub?

...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Go and take a level 3 toon and try to punch a yellow mob to death and see how far you get.

As long as NPC's aren't like level 1 critters, you're gong to need weapons/gear to kill them before getting killed yourself by gaurds.

Nazon_Katts

Tyr wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Thank you for letting us in @ZOS_JessicaFolsom!

However, I've got a couple of questions, I'd be grateful if you could get them answered.

How are you going to prevent players from flagging other players against their will for pvp/crime? (e.g. by attacking NPCs and then spamming AOE heals in order to tag bystanders, pretending to be a guard and after being healed attacking NPCs)

Well it is simple if you think about it. In the first situation they can't tag you with heals because they can't heal you in the first place if they are marked as an enemy just like Enemy NPC heals currently don't heal you.

In the second situation, the moment they attack an NPC and become KOS, you're heal won't effect them because they become an enemy to you, though it may be different if you're in a group with them.

So, worst case scenario is avoid grouping with unscrupulous people that may pretend to be gaurds, and if you do get into a group and get duped, stop/run, pay the fine and be on your way.

Thank you for your input @Tyr, but since I've seen exactly this happening in other games, I'd like to hear it from the horses mouth they are aware of this bit and have taken sufficient precautions to prevent that from happening.

Automatic heals and target/kill sharing through heals, I suspect, will be one of the most vulnerable points in this system. With lag, maybe you can even pull it off to attack and heal almost simultaneously, other combinations or timings might be possible to pull something like this off.

This has to be thoroughly tested, because people just love to find loopholes and draw unaware players into pvp. I fear it's not as easy as you might think, even though it's probably the way it should work. But will it under all conditions?

twev

Tyr wrote: »

The_Sadist wrote: »

As stated, important NPCs will be protected and hopefully, by extension, cannot be attacked at all (the whole bank issue).

The system could work if done correctly, make certain NPCs fight back, make NPCs drop items of value and make the bounty system something akin to getting half of the total bounty (if not all of it). That being said I can see this being abused. Half a friend get a crazy amount of bounty, kill him, get bounty and repeat. What are the negatives about being a criminal? If you die from a guard or whatever is your bounty removed or do you have it until you can pay it off? The system is still very ambiguous, so who knows.

Like I mentioned before, I do hope they change provisioning.. Given 50% of the required materials you would have to steal in order to progress. Perhaps more nodes (berries, wheat etc) and animals dropping meats could be a solution, but we'll see.

My one issue is accidentally casting a spell or swinging your weapon, killing an extremely weak NPC and having to pay a fine.. But I suppose the obvious answer is take caution in towns.

they said you would be KOS until you pay the fine, and also you will lose anything you've stolen in your inventory.

What's missing is what happens after you die(I.E prison).
What they could do is a really steep gold penalty, but even then players could get around it.

The best idea is probably to give you the choice when you die to pay the gold penalty or let you re-spawn in jail and strip you of what you've got equipped.

That would be great.

I keep wondering how a character that is KOS because they didn't have the gold to pay the fine is supposed to amass the gold to pay the fine while bing K'dOS until they pay the fine.

It's ridiculous to imagine that a player can amass a 20K to 40K fine, be killed, rez to a wayshrine, and all is forgiven.

twev

Tyr wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Bored players, players with some kind of grudge, or players who just enjoy griefing will find ways to annoy players (who just want to play the game) whenever they think they can impact other players successfully.

So what happens to players who decide to go outlaw, amass a bounty on their head, and have no gold or assets to pay it off?

What happens when griefers start making alts/mules with empty pockets to attack/kill NPCs, and then fall back on the 'Look, no gold.' defense.

What happens to those 'toons who can't or wont pay off the bounty? Is ZENi going to perma-kill the 'toon? Parole? Make them pic up trash on the side of the road to work off the debt?

How many deadbeat 'toons will a griefer be able to crank out before s/he decides to unsub?

...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Go and take a level 3 toon and try to punch a yellow mob to death and see how far you get.

As long as NPC's aren't like level 1 critters, you're gong to need weapons/gear to kill them before getting killed yourself by gaurds.

It's not that hard for a lvl 3 'toon to go to the bank and withdraw a full set of armor and weapons that a players lvl 50 'toon left there for that purpose, yes?
EDIT'd:
I realize that the lvl 50 'toon can make lvl 4 gear, and not lvl 3 gear, and the new 'toon would have to lvl to '4'.... All else remains the same.

Insignia91

First I want to say that I didn't read all the comments so I do not know if anyone has said this. What would be exciting to see is if someone does attack the guards or npc in a town the person becomes killable. Anyone near him can attack that player for a short time until he becomes "Un flagged."

Haewk

Something I don't think has been mentioned yet:

NPCs collide with players. How will you prevent griefers from constructing blockades through guard positioning?

What about neutral players forming a blockade so the guard cannot get to the attacker?

How will you deal with pathing issues where a player is in a position that guards cannot reach?

In fact, can we have a list of potential griefing issues that you have identified and will be countering?

Haewk

twev wrote: »

Tyr wrote: »

The_Sadist wrote: »

As stated, important NPCs will be protected and hopefully, by extension, cannot be attacked at all (the whole bank issue).

The system could work if done correctly, make certain NPCs fight back, make NPCs drop items of value and make the bounty system something akin to getting half of the total bounty (if not all of it). That being said I can see this being abused. Half a friend get a crazy amount of bounty, kill him, get bounty and repeat. What are the negatives about being a criminal? If you die from a guard or whatever is your bounty removed or do you have it until you can pay it off? The system is still very ambiguous, so who knows.

Like I mentioned before, I do hope they change provisioning.. Given 50% of the required materials you would have to steal in order to progress. Perhaps more nodes (berries, wheat etc) and animals dropping meats could be a solution, but we'll see.

My one issue is accidentally casting a spell or swinging your weapon, killing an extremely weak NPC and having to pay a fine.. But I suppose the obvious answer is take caution in towns.

they said you would be KOS until you pay the fine, and also you will lose anything you've stolen in your inventory.

What's missing is what happens after you die(I.E prison).
What they could do is a really steep gold penalty, but even then players could get around it.

The best idea is probably to give you the choice when you die to pay the gold penalty or let you re-spawn in jail and strip you of what you've got equipped.

That would be great.

I keep wondering how a character that is KOS because they didn't have the gold to pay the fine is supposed to amass the gold to pay the fine while bing K'dOS until they pay the fine.

Alts?
Don't let your fine get so big that you cannot pay it?

If you give players an easy way out then the punishment becomes pointless and there is no deterrent for going on killing sprees.

Alphashado

Madval wrote: »

Killable npc and vendors in wow was fabulous. Because with a priest you can mind control them. Now wait for a player to sell his stuffs to a vendor. Mind control the vendor (high level npc insane damage output), and attack the poor player selling is stuff who don't understand: wtf the vendor npc gone crazy or what ?..
ONESHOT BAM DEAD !
ahahaha

So you think ganking lvl 10 players while they are trying to use a vendor is "fabulous".

Epic fail.

coryevans_3b14_ESO

Innocente wrote: »

What ZOS says, and what ZOS actually does, are often two widely separate things.

No they aren't. Over exaggerating is fun though isn't it?

Audigy

babylon wrote: »

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

try to understand that this isn't only their game, but also the game of PVP addicts

The moment this game caters to "pvp addicts" in the open world, is the day the game loses the pve players.

So... what would the downside of that be?

Game dies and ZOS pulls the plug, because pvp players just aren't a big enough crowd to sustain a AAA MMO and its overheads. Unless they turned the game into a spreadsheet like EVE.

Tell this DAOC, its still kicking after 10 years

I repeat, not every MMO must be like World of Warcraft. Its an illusion that you guys have, there have been MMOs before WOTLK and many of them are still very much alive.

ESO was shipped with strong pvp content in mind, why else was it such a successful game on release?

Kewljag_66_ESO

Innocente wrote: »

WoW developers learned that despite whatever safeguards are put in place, high level players will travel to low level areas and simply wipe out every guard, NPC, and Quest Giver they can find. And they will keep them dead for hours on end.

Bottom line is that the griefers will simply ruin the PvE game for pretty much all the non-sociopathic player base.

Now, ZOS will eventually hear the laments of the player base, and be forced to get rid of the ability to kill NPCs. But a lot of damage will be done to ESO during the time that this behavior is allowed in the game.

ZOS would be wise to LEARN from the mistakes of others and not repeat them.

With the way the mega server works it puts you in your story instance which is much different than what other players see in teh same spot. Important NPCs and quest giver will eigther be immune to death OR only the player who killed them will have them dead. Otehr players will still be able to see and talk to the NPC that you killed

Audigy

EQBallzz wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

Denaia wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

Innocente wrote: »

WoW developers learned that despite whatever safeguards are put in place, high level players will travel to low level areas and simply wipe out every guard, NPC, and Quest Giver they can find. And they will keep them dead for hours on end.

Bottom line is that the griefers will simply ruin the PvE game for pretty much all the non-sociopathic player base.

Now, ZOS will eventually hear the laments of the player base, and be forced to get rid of the ability to kill NPCs. But a lot of damage will be done to ESO during the time that this behavior is allowed in the game.

ZOS would be wise to LEARN from the mistakes of others and not repeat them.

Yes Blizzard learned the hard way, they lost 7 million of their subs in the process

I don't want to offend you but your carebear mode just doesn't fit to MMOs. If players can not kill important NPC´s then the whole reason for the justice system is revoked.

We need a living world, we need interaction with players and one way to do this is world pvp. If a guild sieges a city, then everyone on the server has to work together to fight them off. If a sneaky Rogue camps a merchant, then players have to work together to find him. This is MMO stuff, this is what made UO, Vanilla WOW or DAOC so good.

I see the justice system failing before its even in the game, because of demands that have only one goal " the destruction" of ESO.

I feel very sorry for the DEVs, they have so many good thoughts but people at this forum just keep trashing them because they wont accept that this is an MMO and not Tetris.

It becomes a problem when the new level 1 players are being harassed by vr 12 players who go on and kill every single npc in the starting zones. As that is what is going to happen and how will those players be able to get new players if they don't know anyone to ask?

Some npc's should be protected from being killed or it will lead to massive abuse.

I played many MMOs with world pvp and this never happened to such an extend that I could not quest further. Yes some Quest NPC´s will be dead, but the good thing about MMOs is that there is not a linear story and they will respawn quickly.

If one quest hub has no NPCs for a few seconds until they respawn then you either go to a different hub or just wait a bit.

In the mean time there will be many guards, protecting the new spawned NPCs. The NPCs could also flee into the church or some temple which is heavily guarded, there are so many possible ways to do this.

Crossroads was under attack every now and then, but yet I never had issues with my chars at WOW. The high levels couldn't attack me and those few quests in the hub I could do later without any issues. Once the guards are up & higher level players there to defend, the attackers are pretty much always outnumbered and leave.

The scenario that some people make out of this where a single Rogue camps the banker is silly and not realistic.


The whole problem is, that by making unimportant NPCs only attackable - that players will lose their interest in the justice system very fast. Yes it might be fun the first time or the second, but sooner or later people will realize that its pointless to kill no name NPCs.

The whole purpose of attacking an NPC is the kill, not the bounty. Why should someone waste his or her reputation in a town, if only he has to feel the consequences but not the other players?

Its a horrible system that way, there must be a punishment for all sides and not just one. A one sided system will not work, as we can see at WOW now. World pvp is dead, 7 million subs lost - it says enough about the changes to the system there.

To disable pvp at the starter islands ok, but everywhere else it should be enabled and everything should be killable - else I don't see why anyone would invest time into becoming a thief or a criminal.

Interesting read but there are other ways to incentivize civilian kills while protecting important NPCs. There could be factions that are gained or lost by killing certain ppl. For instance, different towns or zone factions that would go up or down or possibly favor with the dark brotherhood for special rewards or titles. There could be special items only found on civilians and sold to fences for gold or traded for tokens that give special items, armor, mounts, weapons or costumes.

By the same token there could be similar (but different) rewards gained from collecting bounties from those players that decide to kill civilians or special access to quests in that area or special access to areas not available otherwise.That's just two quick ideas I could come up with off the top of my head..I'm sure there are plenty more.

Yes this could work, sadly as mentioned earlier the PVE crowd could complain that they must "pvp" to get the rewards - pure PVE players tend to not like spending a second in pvp

Hopefully ZO is aware of its strong PVP crowd in ESO and that they keep all our suggestions in mind.

Saerydoth

Alphashado wrote: »

Madval wrote: »

Killable npc and vendors in wow was fabulous. Because with a priest you can mind control them. Now wait for a player to sell his stuffs to a vendor. Mind control the vendor (high level npc insane damage output), and attack the poor player selling is stuff who don't understand: wtf the vendor npc gone crazy or what ?..
ONESHOT BAM DEAD !
ahahaha

So you think ganking lvl 10 players while they are trying to use a vendor is "fabulous".

Epic fail.

You didn't even have to do that. I saw someone make a guild named "Shaman trainer" and park a level 60 (level cap at that time) toon in that guild near where the actual shaman trainer was in the orc starting zone, wait for some clueless noob to click him, and then bam.

Rest assured, if NPC's are able to be killed, people WILL find ways to exploit it in unintended ways.

Dominoid

Most likely bounties will have a radius or at a minimum zone limit. You could be KOS in Daggerfall but bounty free is Crosswich.

babylon

Audigy wrote: »

ESO was shipped with strong pvp content in mind, why else was it such a successful game on release?

Because of the Elder Scrolls crowd, who don't pvp at all, because Elder Scrolls is a pve game (being a solo game) till the lead dev decided to make it exactly like Daoc and then decided to also introduce open world pvp into the game as well with this justice system. It isn't going to make it more popular if pve players get bothered by having their banker constantly shut the banking window down on them while they're doing the banking. It will make it LESS popular.

DaniAngione

So... I suppose that for PTS to really work for the Justice System update, we'll have to encourage the majority of the sociopathic/psychopathic population to test the game.

Sounds good, should we start spreading lies like "there will be killable elven children on PTS" to attract them?

DanielMaxwell

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

So every 10 seconds some guy attacks the banker and kicks you out of the bank screen. Awesome.

This is why we'll have testing on the PTS.

the griefing the person you quoted is referring to will not show up on the PTS .

the only way to prevent that type of griefing is to make it so that any NPC that is important to gameplay or progression is not attackable (obvious exception is hostile NPC's)

that kind of restriction will be seen as to strict by a certain segment that enjoys ruining gameplay for others , but not having it is to lax for many PVE players as that means they will consistanly have periods when the are unable to play the PVE portion of the game to its fullest extent as a direct result of greifers.

zhevon

Saerydoth wrote: »

Rest assured, if NPC's are able to be killed, people WILL find ways to exploit it in unintended ways.

Exactly

For those who have never been on a full world PvP - here is an example of griefing behavour: in a MMO I played there were rules about high level player ganking low level players and there were significant consequences if you attacked a low level players. Well you would be engaged in a PvE fight and low levels would intentionally run in front you and get hit so your account would get flagged.

Snit

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

So every 10 seconds some guy attacks the banker and kicks you out of the bank screen. Awesome.

This is why we'll have testing on the PTS.

Test Servers tend to attract fewer griefers than live servers. You need to encourage some players to put on their jerkhats.

Tyr

twev wrote: »

Tyr wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Bored players, players with some kind of grudge, or players who just enjoy griefing will find ways to annoy players (who just want to play the game) whenever they think they can impact other players successfully.

So what happens to players who decide to go outlaw, amass a bounty on their head, and have no gold or assets to pay it off?

What happens when griefers start making alts/mules with empty pockets to attack/kill NPCs, and then fall back on the 'Look, no gold.' defense.

What happens to those 'toons who can't or wont pay off the bounty? Is ZENi going to perma-kill the 'toon? Parole? Make them pic up trash on the side of the road to work off the debt?

How many deadbeat 'toons will a griefer be able to crank out before s/he decides to unsub?

...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Go and take a level 3 toon and try to punch a yellow mob to death and see how far you get.

As long as NPC's aren't like level 1 critters, you're gong to need weapons/gear to kill them before getting killed yourself by gaurds.

It's not that hard for a lvl 3 'toon to go to the bank and withdraw a full set of armor and weapons that a players lvl 50 'toon left there for that purpose, yes?
EDIT'd:
I realize that the lvl 50 'toon can make lvl 4 gear, and not lvl 3 gear, and the new 'toon would have to lvl to '4'.... All else remains the same.

Yes, but then you're spending gold, which isn't infinite, only to grief, so you can't do this endlessly.

Breg_Magol

Orchish wrote: »

How about we wait and see what they come up with before complaining ?

In the name of Meridia, how do you read the OP as a complaint?

The OP is merely a concern, a dire warning based on the person's understanding of what happened in that other MMO (as ESO is planning to implement something that appears similar).

It's obvious to me that the OP thought his previous experience was aggravating enough for him to provide his warning. They're not complaints and should not be taken the 'wrong' way by anybody!

Voodoo

I played Neocron. In that game (open world pvp). It had a bounty system where you could kill NPC's anywhere except major cities.. each time you killed a npc or lower level player you gained more bounty, eventually making you kill on site to anyone and everyone (including your own faction). I could not fight any player unless I was attacked first or of course enemy faction.

I tested this and became KOS. I trulely felt like an outcast and was a target to everyone. The only way I could start to reverse this process was to do daily quests for some "shady" NPC in the getto's. (think thieves guild) This eventually allowed me to return to normal standing but was hard and long as I was constantly being killed by players for my bounty trying to complete these "make up" quests.

..Moral of the story is if implemented correct with proper punishment we wont be seeing alot of dead NPC and it wont be a huge deal but instead will be a great (and realistic) option to try out once in a while.

being KOS to every player and NPC is a painful lonely experience!

Hopefully they balance it right then it will be awesome!

Audigy

babylon wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

ESO was shipped with strong pvp content in mind, why else was it such a successful game on release?

Because of the Elder Scrolls crowd, who don't pvp at all, because Elder Scrolls is a pve game (being a solo game) till the lead dev decided to make it exactly like Daoc and then decided to also introduce open world pvp into the game as well with this justice system. It isn't going to make it more popular if pve players get bothered by having their banker constantly shut the banking window down on them while they're doing the banking. It will make it LESS popular.

ESO was made based on the ES background but with a strong PVP aspect in it. The whole RvR or in our case faction versus faction pvp attracts tons of people, as we can see at DAOC. I hear it quite often that people think ESO should by Skyrim 2.0 but this was never the intention of ZO.

They said right from the start that they want to offer tools and features for MMO fans based on the ES lore.

This included world pvp, trading, questing, crafting, group pvp etc.

While I am not one of them, I do know many people who posted many times at this very forum that they came for the PVP. There was a massive uproar when Cyrodil was unplayable, I never saw this about the PVE parts

You guys managed to tear down the optional group questing content at VR, but I hope you wont be able to do the same with the justice system.

In the end I wish you would be all a bit more tolerant towards other players, because this is what MMOs are all about. There is no I in team, and without the MMO crowd you cant finance the game, remember this!

Cody

well, I doubt max lvl players will just be able to waltz in and spam impulse killing everything in starter zones. in the video in this thread, the guy was level 50, but got his butt kicked by a level 25 guard. so im sure you wont just be able to slaughter entire towns and grief everyone.
but even IF someone could get some friends together and attack a city, so what? that would be awesome! they could even make RP out of it!!! would definitely be an interesting thing to do in PvE.

Khami

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

I don't think this will turn out pretty either, but at least players can hunt down the *** that killed the poor banker.

Yep because the VR12/champ guy is going to be really really concerned about those 5 brave and fearless level 10 guys hunting him down.

I'm sure other VR12 people are going to hunt him down too.

Not just that, the person getting ganked might be on an alt and has a VR12 to use to seek revenge.

twev

Tyr wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Tyr wrote: »

twev wrote: »

Bored players, players with some kind of grudge, or players who just enjoy griefing will find ways to annoy players (who just want to play the game) whenever they think they can impact other players successfully.

So what happens to players who decide to go outlaw, amass a bounty on their head, and have no gold or assets to pay it off?

What happens when griefers start making alts/mules with empty pockets to attack/kill NPCs, and then fall back on the 'Look, no gold.' defense.

What happens to those 'toons who can't or wont pay off the bounty? Is ZENi going to perma-kill the 'toon? Parole? Make them pic up trash on the side of the road to work off the debt?

How many deadbeat 'toons will a griefer be able to crank out before s/he decides to unsub?

...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Go and take a level 3 toon and try to punch a yellow mob to death and see how far you get.

As long as NPC's aren't like level 1 critters, you're gong to need weapons/gear to kill them before getting killed yourself by gaurds.

It's not that hard for a lvl 3 'toon to go to the bank and withdraw a full set of armor and weapons that a players lvl 50 'toon left there for that purpose, yes?
EDIT'd:
I realize that the lvl 50 'toon can make lvl 4 gear, and not lvl 3 gear, and the new 'toon would have to lvl to '4'.... All else remains the same.

Yes, but then you're spending gold, which isn't infinite, only to grief, so you can't do this endlessly.

Gold isn't specifically involved here, if you're willing to use disposable 'toons, but lets say you pay the fine:
Lots of discussion going on among the hi-lvls about how easy gold is to make at the upper levels, and there being so few gold sinks, that many of them have been advocating high gold prices and more gold sinks.

What they don't seem to advocate is high gold sinks at upper levels exclusively, but instead usually just gloss that over.
I've yet to see a high level play complain that he's got so much gold that bank space should cost more based on player level rather than on previous space bought.
Which leaves the low-bies with lesser gold earning abilities competing in the same higher cost game play as the guys with all the riches.

Which boils down to:
No, we keep getting told that hi level players have an abundance of gold, so some of the griefers WILL be able to do it seemingly endlessly.

Again: Bored grifers will go to extraordinary lengths to bork gameplay for just-plain-folk who only want to get through the game without people figuring out ways to trip them every chance they get.

The last online game I played had an exploit in it that mainly upperlevel griefers engaged in, because they'd played thru the game several times, were bored, and just constantly ruined crowd situations for lower level players trying to play through and level up.
They kept discussions on the forum filled with conversations about how it was the only excitement they had left in the game, it was fun, they paid to be there, so the rest of us should just get over it.

The game bled players because the dev team did nothing to stop it, and also condoned exploits in PVP as 'Imaginative game play'.
It's F2P now at a little over a year old, and pointless to play anymore.

cracker81

Ppl are scared of the unknown. Wow when did you start playing WoW? After they took dis honor away? Plz if you don't know wtf you are talking, don't say stuff. It was opposite faction and when dis honor was removed.

Cogo

Wount the "justice" system take care of this?

Spottswoode

twev wrote: »

Gold isn't specifically involved here, if you're willing to use disposable 'toons, but lets say you pay the fine:
Lots of discussion going on among the hi-lvls about how easy gold is to make at the upper levels, and there being so few gold sinks, that many of them have been advocating high gold prices and more gold sinks.

What they don't seem to advocate is high gold sinks at upper levels exclusively, but instead usually just gloss that over.
I've yet to see a high level play complain that he's got so much gold that bank space should cost more based on player level rather than on previous space bought.
Which leaves the low-bies with lesser gold earning abilities competing in the same higher cost game play as the guys with all the riches.

Which boils down to:
No, we keep getting told that hi level players have an abundance of gold, so some of the griefers WILL be able to do it seemingly endlessly.
.

There's an important point here, in that it is extremely possible for dedicated vr12 players to grief low level players no matter how much the gold cost may be. If they decide that they can't win in fair pvp or grief effetively in pvp zones, they can easily take to griefing low level with their bank accounts. They can easily pull off fines by selling high level crafted goods as well. Economic disincentive isn't effective against billionaires unless you absolutely make them burn for it.
So what I'm getting at is, there would need to be a blacklist for these people. Cut them off at their income. Don't group with them or buy from them. A list of convicted or wanted criminals by name won't suffice either. (Unless the account name is listed.)

moxiesauce

I'm assuming player guards would have an extra interact option or something to stop another player with a bounty, much like regular guard. Wouldn't make any sense to murder someone for stealing from a basket. Also assuming only players who are guards can kill on sight if they have that standing. Might even have a skill tree tied to being a guard. Gives passives like identify, arrest.. etc... I'm sure they are going to put a lot of restrictions on the open world PvP.