Encounter Locking in 2024

Literally was GM and Guide mantra from relatively early (SoV I think?) until about 2015, but OK...

Gotta love this day and age of complete revisionism that puritanical people delude themselves into believing always exist.

Look up the term "Everquest Play Nice Policy"

So I went ahead and looked up the play nice policy and copied it over for you
There will be no first in force or engage rules arbitrated or enforced by a Game Master or Guide on any server. We believe players can resolve disputes about camps and raid bosses between each other. Game Masters and Guides will not help negotiate these disputes between players and guilds.

Feel free to link me to anywhere Daybreak ever said first to engage was a rule before the actual FTE mechanic.

FTE was the rule from 2000-2015-ish. Basically from shortly after the game launched until they started launching these TLPs and we jerks couldn't manage to get along and they realized they didn't have the CS bandwidth to deal with the plethora of "JimmyBob KSed me!" tickets so they changed it to DPS wins because that was already a built in game mechanic and didn't require them to intervene.

Reposting for the clearly blind lol, FTE ruleset isn't to fix these supposed Killsteal tickets, as they have never cared. It's to deal with the tickets for trains, from lets be honest, mostly botters, as in 15 years+ playing outside of accidental trains, noone's stupid enough to use them on anyone else. As that is literally the only time they actually will ban you.

PNP had it come down to "however the players agree to get along", in the absence of an agreement, first tag was the default, however. Thus why PNP had a lengthy section on kill stealing, which was defined as assisting with someone else's kill without their permission in an attempt to take credit from it or otherwise monopolize their space without any attempt to share.

And no idea what warped one you found (perhaps that was an update when they sunsetted PNP) here is the original, as sent to Senior Guides (perhaps lower, I was a Senior at the time):
Kill Stealing

Kill Stealing will now be regarded as disruption and will result in disciplinary action when witnessed by any EverQuest Customer Service Representative (EQCSR). The EQCSR will review these situations on an individual basis and issue a decision which is considered binding upon all parties involved. Kill Stealing is defined as the killing of a mob for any reason that is already fighting or pursuing another player or group.

The intent of this rule is discourage and make note of habitual Kill Stealers, not to punish those who honestly try to work together or those who make an honest mistake. Its enforcement by the EverQuest Customer Service Staff will reflect this philosophy.

Contested Spawns

There are cases where two or more groups wish to kill the same thing. In these cases, the groups are required to compromise. If an equitable compromise cannot be reached between the players prior to EverQuest Customer Service Staff involvement, the EQCSR will mandate a binding compromise. Refusing to abide by a compromise mandated by an EQCSR will be considered disruption. It is therefore strongly suggested that the groups make every attempt to reach a compromise that they can live with prior to involving an EQCSR, who may mandate a compromise that does not suit you to the extent that a player-devised compromise would.

Note: A "group" in this case is defined as a party of one or more characters that are united in a common belief or goal and are capable of completing that goal.

Foul Language

Excessive use of foul language in an inappropriate context, including swear words, real-world racial slurs, and other language that is not consistent with the fantasy environment and designed to hurt, will be considered a disruption. The existence of the filter (/filter) is not a license to be profane.

Harassment

Harassment is defined as specifically targeting another player or group of players to harm or inconvenience them. Harassment can take many forms, as it goes to the state-of-mind of the person or party on the receiving end of the action. However, in order to account for those who are excessively thin-skinned, the EQCSR involved will make a determination as to whether or not the average person would feel "harassed" and act accordingly.

Zone/Area Disruption

Zone/Area Disruption is defined as any activity designed to harm or inconvenience a number of groups rather than a specific player or group of players. This includes things such as:

Monopolizing most or all of the kills in an area.
Deliberately blocking a doorway or narrow area so other players cannot get past.
Refusing to cooperate with the other parties at a contested spawn site after having been instructed to do so by an EQCSR.
Making excessive and inappropriate use of zone-wide communications (/shout, /ooc, /auction).
Reports of Fraud
Fraud in all transactions between players will result in disciplinary action when confirmed by an internal EQCSR. Fraud is defined as falsely representing one’s intentions to make a gain at another’s expense.


Guilds

Disciplinary issues involving guilds will also be addressed on a broader basis. Guilds whose members habitually violate any of the Rules of Conduct or Play Nice Policies may be disbanded. In addition, monopolizing numerous spawn areas with the intent to exclude other players will not be permitted. If investigated and verified by an internal EQCSR, monopolizing will result in the disbanding of the guild.

Training NPCs

The intentional training of NPCs will result in immediate disciplinary action when witnessed by an EQCSR. We are aware that accidents often happen causing unintentional trains, and will scrutinize each report of this activity closely.

Abuse

Though the following have always been in the GM/Guide FAQ, this letter is probably a good place to reiterate some of the items that we consider abuse:

• 
  Hate Mongering - participation in or propagation of Hate literature, behavior, or propaganda related to real -world characteristics.
  
  Sexual Abuse or Harassment - untoward and unwelcome advances of a graphic and sexual nature. This includes virtual , overt sexual overtures, and stalking of a sexual nature.
  
  Attempting to Defraud a CS Representative - Petitioning with untrue information with the intention of receiving benefits as a result. This includes reporting bug deaths, experience or item loss, or accusing other players of wrongdoing without basis for it.
  
  Impersonating a Customer Service Representative - falsely representing yourself to another player as a Guide or a Verant Interactive employee.
  
  CS Personnel Abuse - sending excessive /tells to a CS Representative, excessively using say or other channels to communicate to a CS Representative, making physical threats, or using abusive language against a CS Representative.
  
  Using Threats of Retribution by GM Friends - attempting to convince another player that they have no recourse in a disagreement because favoritism is shown to one of the parties by the Verant Interactive or Guide staff.

And yea, found it, that was Rules of Conduct - what expressly followed PNP. Jesus Christ, I literally gave the name to Google and that was apparently too difficult to follow.

All camp disputes should be settled with a match of Super Smash Brothers 64

-1v1
-3 lives
-Map is Kirby's Dream Land
-Pikachu is banned

Because EQ's PvP is so bad we can't even trust it for it's most obvious use lmao!

Daybreak? Try Verant....

LOL, true enough, predated Darkpaw even existing as a twinkle in anyone's eye.

One downside of FTE is that rogues can't do a driveby pickpocket anymore

Rogues just can't get a break

I feel that died off before FTE thanks to the "XXXX has stolen a Diamond from a_gnoll_soothsayer" type text from pickpocketing being public for a couple years now. Previous to that though... absolutely. Never played a rogue seriously in recent times, but heard a number of tales of rogue friends that would torment the HG campers and such when bored, lol.

That simply was not the case when Verant or Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) ran this game and I stand by my post the original intent was First to Engage and others here remember EXACTLY what I remember. I was 36 yrs old when EQ came out I remember it quite well.

Funny how EVEN daybreak named it FTE (First To Engage) and they did not name it NTP (No Training Policy)

You're wrong about that, period.

This game and all it's design intentions were based on Dungeons And Dragons.

I don't think Brad was some genius, I was a dungeon master and player myself, and in those years everybody imagined a computer game that could come anywhere close to doing it justice.

Brad and team made that dream real, and in that time with that tech it was beyond epic.

First to engage was NEVER a thought at first.

You were fighting an intelligent dragon that defended itself, you don't own it, it owns you.

You children don't have a clue.

Most D&D was considered PVE so it was not a player competition. The limited PVP in D&D was more like arena based. True D&D was player vs the environment set up by the Dungeon Master (DM). I played for years before EQ so you're simply either uniformed or telling a tale to support your argument. I never once played D&D where we had two groups compete against each other to get to the Dungeon Masters Environment. We did have arena games so a player could fight against another player. And we would do one on one, two on two, three on three and five on five matches.


EQ from the earliest of days was first to engage. I remember my original toon standing in line in East Commonlands waiting for an Orc to spawn to kill it for some XP...others coming up and taking the spawn by jumping the line and GM explicitly telling us what mattered was first to gain aggro as it was explained in 1999. people quit waiting in line and started racing to engage, then the entire concept of stealing the kill came in this all in the first month of the game being launched. Play Nice Policy immediately followed.

In reverse order.

What a GM told you is one person's interpretation of the company's stance on how to handle online players AFTER the fact of ALL design decisions having been long ago finalized.

You're going to try and school me about D&D? Your take shows only minimal experience.

There were many TSR made modules from the earliest years, that feature a 'third party' group or individual, played by the DM. And not uncommon to have a group that can't take a target to lie in wait for a party of heroes to come along and engage, then try and jump in at an opportune moment.

This thread makes me think of one of the mod strategies. Just keep it all contained and let itself burn out before closing it

1. The original PnP from 2000-2015 or so said the mob belongs to the first person to attack it.
2. They couldn't support that from a CS perspective when the TLPs launched because we are all jerks. So they changed it to be what they could support. This was DPS racing, because DPS racing was already built into the game and did not require CS intervention. They didn't WANT DPS racing to be the standard, it's what they could handle. How do I know they didn't want it? Because they never would have made FTE tech if they were happy with DPS racing.
3. They finally managed to build a system that could support FTE, which is their preferred system for determining who the mob belongs to. This is how they always wanted EQ to work, they just didn't have the tech to make it happen.
4. They would likely prefer to put FTE on every server moving forward. Though I suppose if the non-FTE folks make enough of a stink they would eventually throw them a bone. They did for the boxers.