LOL!!
I'm going to play grumpy old man here:
In my day, EVERY single area outside of a town was an unlimited PK ("Player Killer") zone. Even in HC.
In fact, there used to be PK's that would use hacked scripts to, in one automated move, declare "hostile", fire off a spell in your direction, cast TP, and teleport out before the spell even hit you.
In D2 HC mode, leaving town in "Hell" mode without maxing out ALL your resists was begging for one-hit death if you were playing on an open server.
You had to build your character up just to be able to survive a massive Glass Cannon PK one hit attack if you wanted to play on open multiplayer.
(And we liked it,dammit!)
shyt, I'm old enough to remember how rough dealing with PKs in D1 was. You could be minding your own business making a run with someone you grouped up with in chat, and then have to deal with them hitting you with a bullshyt ass hacked staff of apocalypse or some shyt.