In another thread Tom mentioned the difficulty in determining which battle is important and which is not. To have the game determine that objectively is probably quite a challenge. Instead we could have the players define what is important and what is of secondary importance. After all, the players will intuitively know if the outcome of some battle is crucial to them or not.
If there is a battle coming that is quite crucial, you could check a box somewhere that says "be heroic". The consequence of this would be that your character would become slightly more effective in the coming battle but should he be seriously wounded, he would die. If enough of the players click "be heroic" the game decides this is an important battle, and the participants gain valor. The amount of valor could depend on the role of the character in the battle and on total number of participants.
The risk of death should be higher than what the current hero class has, since it would be a voluntary choice made every time the situation warrants it. The box would likely be clicked in a very important defense of a city or stronghold or when assaulting one and it really mattered. Note that if you wanted to keep your character safe, you would never need to click the box yourself. The battle would be "important" if enough of the other players clicked the box, either on your side or on the other side.
My assumption is that the box would be clicked only very rarely. Thus only very rare battles would let you gain "valor" or whatever replaces the current "prestige".
