I'm pretty sure you only encounter people if they are already in an encounter and you are traveling over that area.
Confirmed. You only meet people if you're dragged into existing encounter. Currently, encounters are not created for 2 groups that are passing by themselves on the worldmap.
Can the player already on map have the encounter choice or just the traveler, or is there a bug ?
wouldn't it be great if a high ODM character can have some warning (in msg window) showing there are now many people and what are they welding