#Non-pvp the dream
If you give people the option you should make it so that you cant go from non-pvp to pvp. Otherwise people powergame their char and when they are really strong they will switch to pvp. But make it so that you are able to switch from pvp to non-pvp (but not back like I said!).
Give the pvp chars an experience bonus (like somebody already mentioned), sure people will abuse the bonus so that they could get abit more xp before switching to non pvp (if thats the idea
) but they also have the risc of getting killed by a PKer.
Both pvp and non-pvp get the same xp rate (high prererably
) so that people can chose to explore the world/vocations first on a non-pvp char and then switch to pvp if that is their prereference.
On the website if you're going to make a "Who's online" list. Give the nonpvp and/or pvp characters a certain icon so that people who want to pk (lets face it, this happends and is the main reason from alot of players) dont have to run towards a person and see they are nonpvp.
I'm a total noob when it comes down to scripting and editing and all those things. But perhaps you're able to make 2 different clients for pvp & non-pvp. Saw that the pvp players really dislike the hotkeys ALOT. And for non-pvp they are extremely usefull (runes on crosshair, mana fluid etc)