PvP incident.

[Snarfy]

Just so I'm clear on the rules regarding when you're allowed to engage another player, I'll run down something that occurred the other night:

Sjinn and his friend are hunting in an area when we hear a whisper from a mystery person, I cast detect invis and spot the person, in this case a drow, but then they go stealth and tell us to "drop our items or this gets messy". Sjinn responds by saying "Is that so?", to which the drow replies "Xas". Sjinn and ally stealth themselves, and it's safe to say at this point that everyone knows PvP is going to happen. Sjinn and ally move forward as the drow backs off to the other side of the room behind an obstacle and puts up a buff, thereby breaking stealth. I right click drow and hit my expose weakness WITHOUT clicking togglehostile(I know I know, this is a no-no), and manage to hit the drow and take her out right before she re-stealth's.

I understand that not clicking hostile is against PvP rules, but given the scenario there wouldn't have been enough time to toggle hostile and get a shot off. My questions here are: does the drow backing off and putting up buffs constitute as a hostile action? And shouldn't the drow player, who clearly had the drop on us when she told us to lay down our items, have gone hostile on us when she made her ultimatum?

I was berated by the player after killing her for breaking the rules, and they did so in a meta-game fashion I might add, also they were unwilling to rewind or continue(due to sour grapes) and the whole situation was pretty much dropped from there.

So how do the PvP rules in this scenario work? I'm rather new to PvP so I'd appreciate some clarification. Thanks.

[Charraj]

does the drow backing off and putting up buffs constitute as a hostile action? And shouldn't the drow player, who clearly had the drop on us when she told us to lay down our items, have gone hostile on us when she made her ultimatum?

1. Yes, buffing is PvP consent.
2. Drow automatically consent to PvP on the surface; they are KoS there.
3. Going hostile is something that needs to be done before PvP for mechanical reasons. It does not matter when they go hostile, so long as they go hostile before PvP starts.