At this point we can pretty much forget about blaming anyone of anything other than being unable to provide hard evidence other than their own testimony. If the parts involved can't agree in what has happened there's no way we, parts not involved, will ever know what really happened.
I'll get back to the subject of the alleged rule deficiency. Also, I'd like to state that I'm completely ignoring this one event as to decide and point if there was any rule broken or not. Any resemblance with what has happened (at this point there's no way telling)
Quote:5.10 A player who was killed in a PvP fight must not re-engage the enemy (player or players involved in the death) with any of the characters on his/her account(s) for 4 hours.
I think the problem is not about the rule in itself, but about a literal interpretation of it. See, some may treat re-engagement as firing on the guy until his shield downs to 50% of it's maximum (or original state for that matter). So, if I down a ship in a system and come back to another system to find it trespassing my characters RP boundaries, say I'm lawful and the guy is pirating inside another one of my ZoI's systems. Even though he may not be breaking a rule at the light of that literal interpretation, it is still an aggression per se.
If I'm lawful and down a pirate in Colorado and move to New York to find him pirating again my role requires me to re-engage, I cannot ignore that and, to be honest, he shouldn't be doing it in the first place. He's not directly re-engaging me and he's not in the same system where he was killed, but in an RP stance, he is to blame for re-engaging, since he's pretty much forcing me to go after him again. Not very long ago the whole community was bashing a Corsair character that was doing pretty much the same thing in Liberty.
One thing that has happened multiple times to me is this: I down one character's ship and start fighting his wingman. A few minutes later the first character gets back to my peripheral view (scanners range). I can't trust the guy won't suddenly start shooting at me again, so I have to divide my attention and I'll have to control my current opponent's nano and batt stock to see if the first guy ain't resupplying the second.
If he did any of those there would be a clear rule violation. But let's say new forces arrive and the fight moves to the next system. Now the second guy comes again and starts shooting the new forces, completely avoiding me. Still, even though this may be a slight loophole in the rules, he should be avoiding any interaction with my character, even though he's not directly firing at me he's now in the same furball I'm in, worse yet, he's getting back to the same fight through a very small but existent loophole.
Quote:5.11 After a death in a PvP fight, players are recommended to switch to other characters (preferably with different role-playing status) for no less than 4 hours.
That's when this recommendation comes in handy. This was made a recommendation and not a requirement to allow people to continue playing their characters provided they understand that character now has a few limitations as to where it may go and who they can meet/interact for a period of four hours. This is pretty much the source of the loophole. If instead of 'recommended' it said 'obliged' this could be settled real quick, but it wouldn't be nice to a lot of people. If anyone remembers the rules' revision, that was made as such so people could still have some fun with their characters, even though they "died". I'd pretty much like to see people paying more attention to this.
As the letter of the rules go, there's a lot of loopholing to find not to blame anyone. But as the spirit of the rules go, there were violations left and right.
So, Lancer, after a fashion you're right. There's a tiny little loophole in the rules as they are right now, but that loophole was left on purpose so people still could have a little fun and had the opportunity to play the game lightheartedly. The real big issue is that people shouldn't exploit that loophole.
EDIT: Thinking about it more carefully I'd say incidents like those can be accounted for Out of Roleplay behaviour. There's no roleplay whatsoever allowing yourself being seen 'dead' by the very same people who killed you.
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