The only thing I really hope is that the world is "open" and not in acts (like BD) and not like the Wastelands (in DD) with a point of no return !!
Open world and it's up to the player to experience if a area is surviveble (depends how strong enemies are, etc), old school rpg all the way !
Definitely not the only thing, see what I said earlier, but yes, that'd be very important. And no level scaling, so fully open but definitely not about equally challenging at any moment, dragons are dragons, hard to kill, hit like a ton of bricks, even if the player's level 5 and goblins are goblins, few HP and poke you with toothpicks, even if player's level 50.
