That's actually a really good point.
Though, I've seen some people whine about being killed when s/he stalked a group of shady fellas to a Graveyard or something along those lines.
For the sake of evidence, warning and reference, I'd still warn them, though showing me any of the slightest hostility, then I wont be a happy bunny.
RP fights and death always seem fun to me. Hell, IC i went to Elwynn to find out what happened to a friend, but OOC i was looking for some maiming which would add a certain aspect that my character needed. I dont think you need warnings if you do stupid things, just talk to the other player OOC is all i'd say, if they're a nice pal, they may let you go.
Well, for my two cents on this, I'd have to say that a lot of people fear character death because they have a grand story planned ahead of time, a vast and great exit for the character or for them to fade into retirement.
Personally, I've always enjoyed the notion of playing a character who may die at any moment, to create a story of a character who has to maintain secrecy and distance or possibly die soon and horribly.
That said, I'm still not keen on the idea of some player who's decided their character is the ultimate Forsaken Death Knight passing by me while I'm in Elwynn and informing me that he's taken my head off from 30 yards. My main problem with freeform character death in a venue like this is there is really no determinative as to how powerful a character is, so mary sue characters will be able to kill at whim.
I've been gone a long time, and last time I was on, the general chat was being deluged with an argument between a mary sue and another player arguing. The Mary sue was a forsaken mage or whatnot from before the reset that had been brought over, and the other had been walking through Undercity as a Blood elf, so the prior was going to kill him.
*shrugs* I hope its gotten better, or at least more polite about pissing contests, so I don't have to listen to people dick-wave while I'm trying to RP.
While it may seem like I'm telling everyone to stop killing characters, I'm not actually trying to say that. The point I'm trying to make is that:
Players generaly don't love to have their characters killed. We shouldn't become a server with many characters that are aiming to kill anyone over small reasons that normaly wouldn't cause a problem much.
I may over-dramaticising the problem, but it's just a reminder, of some sort.
I'd just like to add that if you plan on making a character, don't intend on having them live long enough to achieve all their goals in life or undeath... The odd maiming might just happening, even if you're not in obvious danger zones. After all, i'm pretty sure it's in the rules and policies of the server to not expect others to oblige when it comes to furthering your character's story. At the same time, I agree that no one should just go out and kill someone without a legit reason to.
EDIT: Fixed spelling of "others".