The first year of Everquest was characterized by DPS being king when it came to camping things. Nobody owned any camp/NPC and nobody was entitled to anything, unless they earned it by doing the most damage to the target they wanted. Not everyone would try to play like that, many people chose to avoid competing somewhere that was "already camped", but it's the FACT of how the game was and how it was enforced. "Killing stealing" did not exist in terms of breaking any kind of rule (so long as it wasn't someone stalking another player everywhere), it was only a term that some players used to define competition, and a way of trying to blacklist the opposition.
Aside from the fact that the original EQ devs said they wanted a hands-off approach, and competing via damage for NPCs was explicitly allowed, until instituting the Play Nice Policy in 2000, there are also in-era documentations of these facts from players. Look at these quotes from an article written August 1999:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/edit...l_Stealing.htm
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You dont own any camping spots
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If you are in a guild, ask you guild mates to come by and help. If you have a caster in your guild that is a higher level than the kill stealer, he can just take all of the kills from the area until the kill stealer decides to rotate or move on.
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Some of you newer to being kill stolen from may try to petition the GMs for help. Do not waste yours or their time on that. The GMs, while they do a GREAT job (I honestly say and stand by that), can't do anything about it. Its not against the rules, or the exploiting of a bug. Im not so bothered when I see a dark elf or other evil race kill steal, they are just roleplaying their evil character.
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The player who wrote this was just Level 30, yet already had ample experience with having to regularly fight over NPC's. It was a thing, all over the place. An integral part of the game, and of the roleplaying aspect of the game even. Stop trying to deny it.
This player, who describes themself as "good-aligned" and "anti KS", also advocates creating trains as a method of competition:
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The other one that seems to work is casting Fear on the monster. Makes it run away, and they have a tough time making the kill. They still usually get the kill, but it gets annoying for them =) Also, in a dungeon they sometimes bring back a train ... annoying for you and your party, but if you have a good one you can deal with it usually. Deadly for the solo kill-stealing caster.
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Again, something that was part of the game. They mention that by this point in EQ, you were not allowed to explicitly train directly onto a player. But fearing a mob or running mobs through a zone, using legal pathing, with the intent of dumping them somewhere to create chaos? Allowed.
The game is supposed to be wild and unpredictable, fully interactive, with players being able to make impactful decisions on the gameplay and society. It's not supposed to be a stagnant pixel farm. The current proposed item camp rule for Green, turns the game into something more mechanical than ever, a literal pixel treadmill. Just /list yourself and go afk in a zone all day, never having to fight anything, and just getting the item you want eventually. This absolute mindlessness and on-the-rails, spoon-fed gameplay is not at all what classic EQ ever was or was supposed to be.
At the very least, the 2000-era Play Nice Policy made people actually have to kill the NPCs during their turn in the rotation, and have to pay attention to the camp if they didn't want to die from adds or someone else's failed pull, when sitting there waiting their turn. Play the damn game!
