I asked a GM to clarify the new rules regarding hunts and early pulling

[JowyAtreides]

My question through this whole thing is, how do you clearly define early pulling?

It can’t just be that somebody aggroes before everyone is ready; although it is nice when they wait. In order for there to be a hard and fast rule about this it would have to be based on agreed upon parameters. This is the real reason why early pulling doesn’t exist.
Pre-pulling on the other hand..

I'm an advocate of "you can wait 20 minutes and there will still be people on the way who will miss out and shout "early pulling""

[Xatsh]

Early pulling does not exist.

A ranks are designed to be killed with "ONE" full party not 50+ ppl. S ranks are designed to be killed with 1 Alliance of people not 5 hunt linkshells of 200 ppl.

The whole wait for all the hunt linkshells is a player policy. Killing a hunt as soon as you find it is simply not against TOS in anyway no more then killing a Fate boss is not against ToS before the whole zone getting to it. The only real penalty I can see for early pulling is if the community polices it and kicks said "Early" puller from the hunt linkshells.

Then again I have done hunts waited for 8mins after calling it and people are still in major cities screaming "WTF, Early pull.... I was on my way". So what exactly is an early pull.

Way I did it with my Guild. If we found a hunt. It was called on the public hunt linkshells and we gave ppl 6mins to get to it. After that we killed it regardless if ppl were still on the way. If ppl are doing hunts that is more then enough time to get anywhere in the game. We did not participate in the practice of ok lets let everyone finish the crafting leve, lets let ppl finish the quest then come, or hold on let me get my friend to log on real fast for the kill. You were doing hunts with the hunt groups or you were not doing hunts. That simple.

[Aylis]

Except now, your "early pull" can be considered nuisance or obstruction of gameplay. That rule about it not being a thing used to stand, does it still? They can't answer the question, where as previously they could.

Personally, no, I don't think early pulling is a thing. But there are a LOT OF PEOPLE that do. On any world. This used to be a easy cut a dry "No" response. Now it isn't.

Yoshida himself once stated hunt's are first come first serve. If you got the force to take it then it's okay. Trying to add "early pulls" as a nuisance or obstruction of game play would both be impossible due to how hunts were designed. B ranks were made for light parties, A ranks were made for full parties and S ranks were made for alliances. Not to mention their open world encounters and no one has anymore right to an open world encounter no differently then anyone has more right then the next over a FATE or whatever.

Secondly trying to enforce this is a very slippery slope. The stigma about early pulling began when the community wanted to treat all hunts as alliance raids. This is a community created thing, not an official SE thing and asking any game company to enforce player created rules is a recipe for disaster because then they would have to enforce any player created rule. Even down right absurd ones like say I see someone I don't know standing on the lawn of my free companies house and I don't like it. Well, I made the rule of no strangers standing on our lawn so now I should be able to report and have it enforced against the offender for nuisance reasons. Lastly what is the cut off time limit for a hunt to go from nuisance or game play obstruction to fair game? If I get messaged about a hunt and it takes me 5 or 10 minutes to log on and get to the place and the thing is dead can I cite early pulling and obstruction of game play against the ones that pulled it?

Yeah, trying to enforce player and community rules would make for a very large headache for SE in the end and would probably lead to the destruction of the game. I'd think having the choice of playing a game where you're forever walking on eggshells and could be reported and banned for anything because a small group made a rule vs a game where you can relax and play in peace in. I'd take the second option far more then the first.