This is one of the differences between Darkfall and AoC. AoC wants to have more of these NPC safe areas which is not a horrible idea especially since they are implementing this bounty system, which sounds pretty cool other than the cost to bribe seems too high. But still I prefer the player run world. Let "safe" cities be ones that are either owned by very powerful guilds so no one dares to mess with them... at least not in the form of small random attacks on the town or let them be well respected merchant towns that have no real army of their own but everyone from the most evil to the most noble of guilds respect them for the goods they produce and so anyone who dares to attack them is soon fought off by an alliance of every guild that calls themselves customers of that merchant city.

"It's not enough to win... others have to lose."
-Stephen Colbert 'Colbert Report'
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