I like fallout 1,2 in that way.
Sure you met easy (but could if unlucky meet hard) enemies around the starting towns, but when traveling to other towns you had very big chance to meet hard enemies... like super mutants (master remnants), enclave, raiders with guns etc etc, it would be fun if this would still happen in the mmo (just don't make it too hard to escape
)
and well... it depends on how the traveling system is done >,<