NOTE: This was designed as the "Regular" Realm for World of Warcraft, before free-PvP realms were confirmed, so it is meant to be desirable to both PvE and PvP player types.
Crafting a World of War (Spring 2003)
Create your "World" before adding PvE and PvP. Design races and faction. Establish a living breathing world of Warcraft, where each faction has history, enemies and allies, goals, and concerns. Give them the power to build cities, establish an economy, interact with one another through trade, politics, and combat. Reach a point where you have a living world that's inhabated.
Only once your done, add your PvE and PvP. Design your territories. Choose and alter some for PvE, designate others for PvP. Give each worth and notable traits. Provide enough content to make either type by itself as enough for a single player type, but make the other territories desirable. Make the lay-out realisitc. Perhaps design a trade route, that's PvE, that curves around a thick forest, and takes one hour to reach a friendly city. However, to travel directly through the forest e, only takes 30 minutes, but the forest is PvP. Travel the road for the safe-route, or risk the forest. Establish a faction system that is flexable enough to satisfy all gamers, and be able to fight or fight against their prefered races and factions, or prefered players or mobs. Integrate all aspects of the game, the PvE, PvP, and Crafting, to support the "Faction Wars". Make them all important and critical, do not seperate them.
Create incentives for each player type to engage in the content of the other play type. If engaging in PvE benefits his Orc clan, a PvP player will enjoy that normally disliked content a lot more. He may even be passionate about it. Give players reason to engage in war for their faction, rather than simply incentive to PvE or PvP. Make the different content interconnect so that unity and cooperation is promoted between PvE and PvP Orc clans. Above all, structure the world around the freedom to have conflict and politics between Factions - the freedom to prosper through trade, or prosper through war. Give players the freedom to live in a Warcraft world like the ones they've come to love over the years, and the freedom to engage this world through both PvP and PvE.
Example Scenario
An Orc clan and Human guild have been warring in the mountains for weeks over gold mines. The Human guild has the upper hand. They are establishing more bases at vital resources, and the increased control of gold mines boosts their economy. They have firm control of a special dungeon, defended by a camp and towers. The war between the Orcs and Humans finally takes its toll on a local clan of Gnoll mobs. They pack up and leave, and head south since, north is quite heavily fortified by the Human guild. The gnolls approach a small Orc border-village, right on the outskirts of the PvP region. They set up camp and start marauding the area.
The Orc clan in the PvP region must make a decision. Continuing fighting in the mountains so they don't lose total control of the region, and their last remaining gold mines. But if they do that, they leave their border-village undefended against the gnoll threat, which is vital to their infrastructure (it's a fishing village). They must either deal with either the Humans or the Gnolls.
They chose the third option, made possible by the "Crafting a World of War" design. They contact another Orc clan, one of PvE preference. They make a pact to fight off both threats. The PvE clan rush to the border-village to kill the army of Gnoll mobs, while the PvP clan push northward against the guild of Human players. The PvE clan sets up a temporary outpost at the mountain pass just outside the PvP region, and concentrates to strengthening the resources and infrastructure of the allied Orc territory. With this support, the PvP clan launchs an offensive into the Human's territory, and captures many gold mines and the special dungeon.
Both the PvP and PvE clans engaged willingly and passionately in the "Warcraft War", both concentrating in their prefered play type, and both worked against the Humans. Both clans were victories and prospered from the war against the Humans. Both clans fought for the glory of the Horde.