this all goes back to John Gabriell's Greater Internet Jerkwad theory, which basically states:

Normal Person + Audience + Anonymity = Total Jerkwad

In all honesty, I'd get more of a kick out of PvP knowing I could potentially lose 20+ days of my life, and that the other side had the same stakes, than I ever will in the current system. Feels more intense when you have more to lose than two minutes to the dickhead interrupting your questing. Hell, I don't even bother to fight back anymore because there's no loss and it wastes less of my time.

At the risk of derailing this outside of the context of WoW, that's not entirely true. While we do not live in the sort of nomadic honor society described above, the reach of modern centralized governments is not quite as pervasive as you make it out to be. Many pro-gun arguments are based on the principle of self-defense: that every human being has a right to defend themselves from violent attack with violence of their own. Now ideally the police take care of this for us, but its not an ideal world. There are many rural and urban areas in the states where the government is simply unable to keep the peace on a regular peace. Take a stroll in a few select neighborhoods in Chicago and you'll find areas where the police are afraid to go. If you live there and need to defend yourself, your on your own. Likewise, if you live out in the country, it can easily take 2 or more hours for the nearest peace officer to get to you and protect you from an attacker. While we don't live in a nomadic honor society, the principle of self defense, and the notion that "arms" make for a polite society, still has some relevance even today.

As for the validity of the theory itself, there are some flaws but overall it still holds together. Calybos is correct in so much as not every criminal out there is a rationale person capable of weighing risk and reward, but a good deal of them are. While a minority of criminals are lunatics that can't be reasoned with, a majority are guided by rationale self-interest. This is why nearly every state that has introduced Conceal and Cary permits in the last two decades has experienced a drop in violent crime. This is why the rate of violent crime in the United States has been in a decades long decline while the number of guns in this country has increased exponentially.

Relating this all back to WoW: I would agree that consequences matter. By changing the balance of risk and reward, it should be possible to deter ganking. For the same reason that a rationale mugger isn't going to go after someone in a dark alley if he suspects they have a gun, BillyBoB the Rogue will be a little less hasty to camp outside Booty Bay and wait for an unsuspecting level 30 if he thinks the level 30 has friends who will not only avenge him, but make BillyBob's life a living hell of continued gold/level/item loss.

Gankers may be sadists with no regard for the well being of others, simply in it to cause grief, but they are still rationale beings capable of being deterred by the prospect of extreme punishment that would diminish their ability to harm others.

All that said, harsh penalties for death in pvp may make our virtual society more polite, but at what cost? While most of us try to avoid violent conflict in the real world, most of us are playing WoW to find and enjoy it. Stiffer penalties would diminish ganking, but also all other forms of legitimate PvP. WoW would become more polite, but is that what we want? A world where we are reduced to talking about our feelings with the opposing faction? Ganking is the regrettable but necessary cost we pay to inhabit a virtual world where the goal is conflict.

Heinlein's theory is actually fairly well founded in anthropology. He's describing the situation that historically has tended to arise among nomadic herdsmen with only loose allegiances to effective governments. These people's most valuable property is herd animals, which are essentially fungible, often hard to identify to a particular owner, and subject to theft. In this situation, there is no law enforcement with central authority and the practical ability to deal with the situation.

Briefly, in places like this, your personal security in this situation depends on your ability to extract swift and disproportionate revenge. You must be careful to repel any suggestion in word or deed that you cannot do so. The code requires that people living there must have a perennial chip on their shoulder. Failure to act accordingly makes you look like easy prey.

Anthropologists call this a "culture of honor." Popular culture tends to romanticize them - they make for vivid stories of adventure - but frankly you wouldn't want to live there. They note further that these cultures tend to develop elaborate and formal codes of courtesy. These codes seek to mitigate the undercurrent of violence in these sorts of societies, by offering alternative paths to redress perceived slights short of homicide. Heinlein was presumably aware of at least some of the background when making his statement, and within the context of a culture of honor it makes sense.

Yeah, Heinlein as a deep thinker is well into Totalcrockland. It's a magical place with Libertarian geese keeping the lawns cut and firearms for all so no one objects to our grocking our own nieces or putting our brains in their bodies.

Still, it IS a great line and OP made a good point. Lack of loss does change ganking. It's not only no XP/gold/gear loss but the ability to have multiple unlinked toons on an account. Play on one, gank on another.

EVE Online can be a truly terrifying place. Getting ganked once can take out months works--and ganking the wrong person might get you hunted by an entire cartel of the best armed people in the game (not server, there is only one GIANT server). I've been on both sides of that.

@Heraclea:

I think what Calybos is referring to is the context the quote is used in by gun rights advocates, that higher gun ownership lowers crimes. And if what you say is correct about the anthropological context of the phrase, then that would mean it doesn't apply to a culture with a strong, centralized government such as ours, making its application to gun ownership mute.

Exactly. An "honor-bound," armed society, in the absence of laws, may evolve codes of politeness... but in an INDIVIDUALISTIC society like ours, increasing the number of weapons simply increases the amount of violence.

And I don't think the World of Azeroth, made up as it is largely of players from the U.S. and other western cultures, is any more likely to evolve rules of courtesy even with an increase in disproportionate-response options.

"Even match" is a relative term. What do you consider and even match? All Level 70's? Level 70's with similar gear? I'm sure a newly ding'd 70 in mostly greens would consider it unfair if a Season 3 geared player camped them. While I agree that grieving a player who has absolutely no means of fighting back should have some sort of repercussion, I really have no problem with the current system. When you choose a realm type, you should have no illusions as to how that play-style is going to work out. PvP realms have grieving, it sucks but it's part of what makes those realms exciting. PvE realms give you the "option" to be attack. If you don't want to be bothered then for goodness sake turn off your flag.

To Bigglesworth:

Just because you can't get a perfect match doesn't mean you can't have some sort of system that at least attempts to mitigate the problem.

Yes level 70s that are newly 70 versus an established 70 is often no contest, but your point or argument seems to suggest that since you can't get a perfect fair result, the only option is to do nothing.

Excluded middle is a fallacy. There is plenty of middle ground. Blizzard already does it by banding the BGs in level spans of 10 levels.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people who want to keep the system as is. They pay their $15 a month too and should be able to play the way they want. Also I and just about every other player that suggests modifying the system knows that there's the PvE server option. What we're voicing is our desire to have a more middle of the road PvP server. One where ganking is shunned as much as possible and more evenly matched PvP is encouraged. I'd also advocate free for all servers where anyone can kill anyone regardless of zone or faction. I'm sure there'd be a number of players interested in that type of server too.

The bottom line is that many are looking for more options.

I do think a loss of honor for ganking a grey target would be appropriate.

There is noway that a grey player could possibly defend themselves against someone much higher than them unless the attacker was a total idiot.
True that a fresh dinged 70 in green is a similar equivalent, but with regards to the current system, no penalty exists for such things and no solid fair answer exists, so I'd be moved to argue the status quo in that circumstance.

There should be some sort of "PVP" reputation, offering both benefits and consequences. I am not sure about the ideal way such a system can operate, but, it should reward players for engaging in fair world PVP while punish for griefing.
Maybe when a player gets killed in world PVP, they get a buff which marks them as recently defeated. When that player gets killed again, the killer gets a debuff marking them as a ganker.
A player would get positive "PVP Rep" for killing a player in the world, but get negative "PVP Rep" for killing a recently killed player

It would encourage world pvp, but penalize a player for griefing/camping. Maybe a stacking debuff for whenever you kill another player, reducing the "PVP Rep" you gain for each "honorable kill".

I play PVP. I kill, and I'm killed. Its why I picked this type of server.
The first time I ever engaged in world pvp was my lvl 20 something rogue wandering around Stonetalon, by the Venture Co. I was new to the game, playing less than a month. Anther rogue was doing quests there, we heard each other stealth and kill. Finally, they spotted me and killed me. They were one level higher than me. We proceeded for over an hour working on still completing our quests, watching carefully around us, killing the other each chance we could. I'm sure both of us died many times.
It was a thrill, and I was hooked.