No, it does not. I asked it countless times from Angels and Admins. Freely means they do not have to have RP REASON to engage (political relations, piracy attempt/demand, bounty claim, law enforcement). Yet, they have to drop at least a few lines of engagement notification.
Then obviously, their is direct contradiction between what these admins and angels have been telling you and what is written as official statement in the forum.
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(04-27-2014, 09:39 PM)Ponge Wrote: Yet, they have to drop at least a few lines of engagement notification.
No, they don't. There has to be roleplay prior to an engagement, but one doesn't have to drop "obvious engagement notifications".
That's a thing people often seem to confuse.
One can start a 'suprise engagement' if there was a roleplay situation before. Of course that's very bad form, but possible. Then again, e.g. you can't engage a trader as pirate when you haven't made a demand ("stop isn't a demand"). But you can obviously shoot a nomad on sight who revealed itself to you (which would already count as roleplay, too). In the end, you can overwrite most engagement rules with roleplay justifications.
I'd rather prefer someone telling me "No worries, I do not mean any harm to you - trust me." and then start shooting my back, than the 08/15 "Engagabungag" notice that you hear so often. Both is possible (according to your ID of course).
Ok, maybe my wording was not clear. What Angels/Admins told me, that "can engage freely" does not mean "can engage without RP". And I think silent engagement counts as "engaging without RP".