Beginner questions

Not a beginner playing Ultima games but a complete newb playing multiplayergames.

After having played Shroud in Singleplayermode for a while I started to play online for the first time with the server going on again after the last release.

Solace Bridge outskirts certainly appears different when suddenly players run through all the places while the NPC´s are the only ones who are going instead of running...

Questions:
1) With "0" on the keypad I can see "Nearby players". What does nearby mean? In my vicinity, visual range or simply anywhere on the map (Solace Bridge Outskirts)?
2) Some players cut down trees and shoot zombies without stopping to collect anything. An hour ago I saw someone who used a distorted version of viking or such running up grom the river to the camp and I suspect he did fell the tree and the zombie. At what point is collecting the wood and loot fair game that was left lying?
3) In the rocks where the Alpha Wolf has it´s territorry I observed a battle between a player and the Alpha Wolf and their health bars hardly moved and healed again while I watched. I assumed that the player was doing hardly any damage and released some arrows into the wolf to help. Is there any risk involved there (e.g. if I accidentally have the last shot and kill the monster, could I deprieve the player of his Alpha Wolf head)?

 

in the scene. players that are pvp-flagged will show a question mark.

for most of the period before loot despawns, it's tied to the player (or party, if they are in one) that it rightfully belongs to. you CAN'T steal their loot. there's a small period before it despawns where it's opened up to anyone. so if the game lets you take it, feel free.

the polite thing to do here is to send a party invite. if they want help, they'll accept it. they might not ever want help, or they might specifically be testing something this one time that you would throw off.

 

scene = map (Solace Bridge Outskirts)?

As I come from playing only singleplayergames and have played SotA only offline, I´m using currently in my first online game the "private" setting. As far as I understand it, I would have to change that to "Party" to be able to invite a player into a party? Does that disable the ability to have companions like in singleplayer and I would have to stay on"private" to have NPC-companions later in the game?

When I would try to invite someone in a critical situation like an ongoing combat I would have to press ENTER /invite <playername>.
Most players that I have observed running around use strange spellings, some are more than one word. Is there an option to "invite the closest player" instead of typing the awkward names some players have?`Do I have to use the full names with all words or only the first name that a player displays?

 

yes

party membership will override your private setting. your multiplayer settings have no effect in offline mode. the three permanent npc companions are not available in online, though you will sometimes have companions for specific quest scenes.

right click them.

 

When scene = map, how is the range of the chat defined? Zone = map and local just the closer surroundings?

 

Local chat (/L) extends a little bit beyond what you can see on your screen, not sure how much,
Zone Chat (/Z) everyone on the map (Solace Bridge) can see
Universe Chat (/U) Everyone, everywhere in the game can see
Party Chat (/P) Only party members can see
Guild Chat (/G) Only guild members can see

 

You can also open and drag out tabs and resize the chat windows. Then click the left blue gear to check which items you want to show in each window. This helps to not miss any whispers from someone. It's not lost in your noisy window.