In regards to having people break the rules of being dead, how about you have to have a higher ranked OP overlooking the battle. They can then judge when people are dead, and hold them back from being in the battle, maybe put them in a glass cage type thing floating in the sky so they can observe the rest of the war.
For the raiding, I'd suggest maybe sectioning off a small area of SW, and after the war has been declared you can go and build up defences and some small buildings in that area, of course having a no-mans land inbetween so both sides get to build defences. You could mark these boundaries with a flag of your team, so if I decided to call mine UK (because clearly master race right here) I'd put a load of banners with the Union Jack design on them , this is also purely an example, so would probably be the banner of the people who declared war on each other and are the "captain" or leader of their team.
Also, so that raiding is possible and you feel like you've achieved something by it. I think each side should put a chest somewhere within their defences and buildings. It should contain something valuable and the OP overseeing would probably have to check that both sides have things of equal value.
Edit:
There would obviously have to be 2 glass cages for each team because fighting could occur in the cage. You could also flag it but that's effort.
Edit Mark 2:
For the two sides and the no-mans land. There would be a maximum distance for each side to build up defences in. They can't go any further than this point, but they can build less than their maximum distance allows.
Also, a way for declaring war could be having a new section/subsection on the forums which could be a place for people to write down who they're declaring war on, the date for that war and the maximum amount of people for each side.
Example:
I [Person A] declare war on [Person B] on the [set date here]. The maximum amount of people for each army should be [number here].
I don't know. I think it would encourage people to get a forum account as well because they'd have to be linked to the forum if someone declares war on them and they don't have a forum account. Would also make it a bit easier to see for OPs what war is occurring when and how many people are on each side. Rules of the wars could also be placed in this section as a sticky'ed thread as well as a template for each new thread. We could also keep a small tally type chart and record who won how many wars ( would have to be the team leaders name if they choose a different team for each war they declare or a team name if they have the same people). This could make it into a small competition type thing with people wanting to beat others on this leaderboard and make a name for themselves/their team. I don't know though. Just throwing out a few suggestions.
And sincere apologies for the wall of text =P
For the raiding, I'd suggest maybe sectioning off a small area of SW, and after the war has been declared you can go and build up defences and some small buildings in that area, of course having a no-mans land inbetween so both sides get to build defences. You could mark these boundaries with a flag of your team, so if I decided to call mine UK (because clearly master race right here) I'd put a load of banners with the Union Jack design on them , this is also purely an example, so would probably be the banner of the people who declared war on each other and are the "captain" or leader of their team.
Also, so that raiding is possible and you feel like you've achieved something by it. I think each side should put a chest somewhere within their defences and buildings. It should contain something valuable and the OP overseeing would probably have to check that both sides have things of equal value.
Edit:
There would obviously have to be 2 glass cages for each team because fighting could occur in the cage. You could also flag it but that's effort.
Edit Mark 2:
For the two sides and the no-mans land. There would be a maximum distance for each side to build up defences in. They can't go any further than this point, but they can build less than their maximum distance allows.
Also, a way for declaring war could be having a new section/subsection on the forums which could be a place for people to write down who they're declaring war on, the date for that war and the maximum amount of people for each side.
Example:
I [Person A] declare war on [Person B] on the [set date here]. The maximum amount of people for each army should be [number here].
I don't know. I think it would encourage people to get a forum account as well because they'd have to be linked to the forum if someone declares war on them and they don't have a forum account. Would also make it a bit easier to see for OPs what war is occurring when and how many people are on each side. Rules of the wars could also be placed in this section as a sticky'ed thread as well as a template for each new thread. We could also keep a small tally type chart and record who won how many wars ( would have to be the team leaders name if they choose a different team for each war they declare or a team name if they have the same people). This could make it into a small competition type thing with people wanting to beat others on this leaderboard and make a name for themselves/their team. I don't know though. Just throwing out a few suggestions.
And sincere apologies for the wall of text =P