WoW Community Site wrote:
Honor is a concept that is central to our PvP ranking system. There are honorable kills and there are dishonorable kills. You earn honor for killing opponents at or near your level, and more honor still if you kill a higher level player character, as opposed to an NPC. There are also dishonorable kills, and these would include killing lower level PCs and NPCs, and especially non-aggressive NPCs like gryphon masters and quest givers. [b]If you repeatedly make dishonorable kills, you'll eventually go into the negative ranks, and lose experience and become attackable on sight by both factions.[b] Our intention is to punish dishonorable behavior and reward honorable PvP play.
I'm very anxious to see how this plays out...if it actually turns out to have any real teeth against griefing. I suspect it will but since it's not just an on/off switch, there's some flexibility. For instance, my level 57 Paladin can go ahead and smash that pesty little level 4 orc if he won't stop attacking.