Darth Hater

What do you want from Open World PvP?

Make it matter through some rewards, special buffs, more XP from quests, etc for whole faction or for the people on the planet.

Does it have to be rewarding?

Since people are apparently not satisfied with the way it is now (you kill somebody in World and you get just some Valor, I think), then yes

Should BioWare actively encourage it through server announcements and other means?

They should, I would love to see more active BW presence on servers, not just announcing PvP, but simply some sort of GM channel to assist people immediately when there is a bug, so that they do not need to wait until their ticket gets processed

Should it include vehicles, turrets, encampments or purely a mass player versus player zerg?

As stated in my little bit crazy idea about planetary strongholds, most definitely yes to encampments, turrets etc. Using vehicles, well, riding a walker into the battle would be cool.

Allow the spawn to be near the battle focus. It's annoying to mount and travel 2 minutes back into the fight.

Balance groups by attributing different objectives in separated areas to different groups. That should provide some larger PvP experience, without the boredom of swarming pvp and the performance problems. People could join the PvP World in raid groups and the system would automatically send them to a place where a similar group from other faction would go fighting for.

1. lag free area for xx players
2. faction balance

After this we could see a variety of possibilities and if you've seen the interview with Gabe about Illum... Bioware had/ has tons of ideas, many of which would be really fun but first you have to find a solution for the two points above. 

It would be really great (let's take his "January (or not)" event on Illum. If they could bring in pvp on several levels, vehicle combat including space combat etc. with a list you have to do during one week to fullfil your weekly to get rewared with special vanity armor skins/ speeder/ title etc. that would be really interesting to do. I think that would draw a lot of player over to Illum to finally make their peace with this planet.

Battlefront 2 was the most fun I've ever had in a Star Wars themed multiplayer. Capturable points/areas, turrets, vehicles, multi-seated vehicles, choosable/dynamic spawn points, and weak NPC allies that spawned to fight and take things over with you.

There needs to be a weekly that rewards the faction that controls the most territory by the end of the week. Everyone of the winning faction (or maybe just the level 50's) gets their rewards sent to them in the mail when the weekly resets. The rewards can be based on which points are controlled. The harder points yield cooler rewards, but you can only get them if you win the weekly.

I also think world PVP kills should grant you comms, and that there should be PVP quest terminals and venders not too far from world pvp objectives (for people to hang out around). Bosses/heroes that can be summoned might be cool too.

A few of things I'd like to see:

• A mechanic that gives diminidhing returns when focus firing players. e.g. first attacker does 100% dmg second player does 50% damage thrid does 25% This gives people like healers a chance and reduces the appeal of a mindless zerg.
• A perk for capturing the objective like being able to craft some nice pvp gear while the objective is held. Anyone remember the old Deathwatch Bunker to go and craft Mandolorian armour? That encouraged grouping and teamwork.
• A third faction, harder to impliment but how about the Hutt Cartel which Reps and Imps can defect to. This is used to balance the battles, so which ever side is weakest the Hutt Cartel are sent to reinforce, like mercenaries. Give them a Fleet like place on Hutta with a Palace instead of a ship.

There are a lot of things they could try they just need to take a small risk, copy what has worked elsewhere and use some imagination. Don't be all corporate and tkae a no risk/no innovation approach, people will get bored if you do that. We want the game to succeed, give us a reason to pay you our $ or £'s!

Third faction, no, as it was stated even before launch, making it possible to "defect" to other side would be impossible from Story point of view (and do not forget, Story is one of the most important things in SWTOR).

too many mmo necessities were sacrificed in the name of story.  that's why this game is failing.

Exactly what MMO elements were sacrificed in the name of story?
PvP in Battleground? No, you have Warzones
PvP in World? No, you can fight other players wherever you find them
PvE Dungeons? No, you have Flashpoints
PvE Raids? No, you have Operations
Guilds? You have Guilds
Group Content? You have Heroic Quests
Anything else I forgot that is MMO element?

You cannot switch faction in any MMORPG I remember (Aion, no, WoW, no, Anarchy Online, no, Secret World, no).

this game launched with a serious lack of modern day/standard "mmo features" that a "triple A" mmo needs/should have and BW's been chasing their tail ever since.  this has hurt the development and implementation of real content since 1.1 was executed.  the game we've been playing/paying for would be what i consider a paid beta.  

the focus on cinematic story was never a sustainable venture.  it's too expensive and takes too long to implement.  since BW is unable to provide that same experience post launch there is also a huge disconnect for the player between the leveling experience and post cap play.  it's like a completely different game-one that most people aren't really fans of.  

having said that, i have issues even with the leveling game.  it's crafted in a very single player rpg linear way.  there is no scaling/level normalization, no sidekicking mechanic, nothing that would promote players of varying levels to play together.  this also makes the worlds/zones "throw away".  

at any rate, it's clear to me where their massive budget went and what was sacrificed to achieve their cinematic story goals.  if you don't want to accept my views on it, then all you need do is to watch the buffed.de interview with Matt Bromberg.    

I think it would be great if they brought about all the different game play types together under a single war event.  You could have a traditional land war as the core event in the conflict (maybe two operations groups of 24 to each battle).  The land war would essentially focus on two opposing groups in a race to reach a certain score by capturing points of interest and completing key objectives.
 
The points of interest I'm imagining would consist of different types of game play gates such as space combat, heroic areas, and puzzles.  At the start of the battle, players would be provided with several different activities they could participate in to contribute to their groups goals.  I'm imagining a space port, a heroic area, and perhaps a phased puzzle area.
 
A space port would allow for players to participate in phased space missions to take out an enemies communications or clear the skies so reinforcements (trepan timer perhaps) could join the battle.  The space ship being used could be a standard model for all players (not your powered up player ship) - and this way would focus more on player skill and less on gear.  Different space missions could be unlocked based on the progress of the battle and depending on captured points of interest and completed objectives.  
 
Alternatively, players could form small groups and venture into a phased heroic area with the goal of unlocking a path to a particular location or resource.  I'm imaging something similar to the future Belsavis heroic quest, which has mechanisms in place that prevent players from soloing the content.
 
Puzzle areas could also be accessed by players who enjoy this type of content.  A puzzle could be something as simple as the droid race on Nar Shaddaa or more complex like the +10 to all stats datacron and I imagine there could be plenty of lore reasons for completing a puzzle during a battle event.
 
I believe this concept would provide players with more options to participate in the game, and if paired with rewards such as unique titles, codex entries or equipment shells I think it could eventually lead people to retry specific parts of the game they may be neglecting.

So, making it possible for PvE people to provide benefits for PvP people (and other way around, of course)? Interesting...

this is exactly how i see a pvp world. Going on missions with large groups spread throughout the planet all having the same main objective but contributing by completing different missions. You have a great suggestion and I really hope it can be done.

lol people still care about this game's pvp with the 28 coming up?

if by some miracle they pull their heads outta there arses, and if their servers don't shut down before then, there could (perhaps) be incentive to return at some point in the future.  this "freemium" model will have to go though.  i'm not really sure why people defend it.  you buy the content up front, you should be able to play it for as long as you wish.  they want to make Makeb a real expansion and have f2p players pay for it as DLC, that's fine by me, but what they've done to me (by shutting off my account) is tantamount to thievery, imo. 

How exactly did your account got "shut down"? If it was ban, there must be a reason, I cannot think of any other thing that would block you account.

Or are you talking about the fact that when going from Sub to F2P, some of your content that you unlocked before will become locked?