I dunno I havent played much recently but I dont think it's as bad as all that is it joker? As far as "peasant hunting" goes, that's a state of mind you'll get in any online pvp game anywhere. It's "noob hunting" - easy kills and crpg is going to be no different for that.
I think players would generally expect it, and look forward to the time when they are no longer the easy kills (and it's probably this group that do the most peasant slaying).
The thing is I don't know any other game where (in the case of melee, at least) the interaction with each other is that deep. I mean, in other games you shoot someone, and he shoots back, you hit or you miss, but the interaction is only one-directional, the only things you can do to react is to dodge or to take cover.
In cRPG melee is like tennis, and you can only score if the other one makes a mistake. If you strike someone he can try to block, chamber block, dodge, kick, nudge or attack faster than you. This is something completely different. In a shooter game a noob has still the chance to land a lucky headshot on a veteran player, but in cRPG defeating a veteran by a lucky blow is almost impossible. This is very important when considering the relation between noobs and veterans. It's probably the highest difference of all games I know.
And next to this you can often enough spot a noob miles away, while on other games it's not that easy. Yeah, of course, you can see by the weapon the guy uses how many achievements he unlocked in CoD, but it's not that obvious as in cRPG, and due to the game mode where two armies meet on a (relatively) open battlefield round wise, you can literally pick the noobs. Multiplayer shooter for example have those urban maps where you rarely meet more than two enemies at a time. So you can't "hunt" noobs actively.
The only thing which is slightly comparable to the difference in skill and character stats to cRPG is PvP in MMORPGs, and even there it's mainly only a character stat difference, and no skill difference at all. Everyone can spam his 1-2-3-4-5-combination. And yes, I know in MMORPGs people also tend to go for those guys who do not have the biggest shoulder armour or biggest sword, but here I think the things re still quite different as well. First of all an all blue max-level noob will not be as worse compared to a full epic max-level veteran like a cRPG peasant will be compared to a veteran Kuyak hero, since PvP often is divided into level ranges, and if it's open PvP the veteran will not get any advantages if he kills the much lower level enemy, a mechanic we do not have in cRPG.
And the noobs being closer to the strength of the veteran like it is in MMORPG (those epic items often only give a few percent more damage or armour or whatever, it can make a huge difference, but still) means that a noob player in blues and green can still harm a full epic player quite well, which means he is a threat and thus should be dealt with. On the other hand a peasant is barely a threat, even when supporting other players with his pitchfork, he will most likely glance anyway on that +3 heavy Kuyak.
Long story short: I think cRPG is a special case, and since it is about medieval times I could imagne a community sticking to the romantic view of knighthood and having the custom to spare peasants whenever possible, giving them the chance to fight someone on their level and have a bit of fun, too. It's at least what I do. I don't touch peasants who try to stay back and to survive. Perhaps they will meet another peasant and have their own thrilling fight on their low level of speed and damage. I mean: the Counter Strike community, which consists of 80% assholes and 90% children, did have the custom of a knife fight at the end of the round, and if someone shot anyway they often even kicked him from the server! So if those retarded Counter Strike kiddies can have social customs in their community, why can't we?
I know, because our community is far worse... but still...
