I understand random encounters are not fully implemented yet but in r29 ive noticed that a small area has them and have found that they activate very frequently, one thing that came to mind is - this is going to get old very fast, especially when you enter an encounter that has 5 sheep and a sheepdog. I understand that they still need a lot of work but perhaps a warning counter needs to be displayed if you are at a certain proximity to an encounter - not showing where the encounter is but giving players a chance to change directions to possibly avoid the encounters - also as we skill up I hope the encounters we enter will also reflect on those skills aswell as I would hate to have extremely high skills and enter an encounter with 5 skeletons only to be able to kill them with a few swings of my axe with little effort
If it's between Ardoris and Soltown, I think those encounters were always there and have not been modified at all since their first inception. I also think the idea is that we'll be able to see the encounters much like you'd see orcs and bandits roaming around in Ultima 4.