Was wondering how many guilds are completly bored by GoD and the numerous un-fun timesinks and repetitive raids in the same "dungeon". My guild is struggling to get people on lately because there is so little interest in GoD and its retarded time sinks. All the Koda'taz collection/raid stuff is rather uninteresting, and it looks like it has to be repeated over and over in Uqua, Qvic, Inktu'Ta. Also, having to get everyone in guild through single Koda trials is oh-so much fun, especially with a limited number of warriors who are tired of them. Uqua is now raidable finally sans exploit, but after experiencing the "fun" of the zone, it hardly seems worth the effort. I think this is going to be the first major raid expansion where very few guilds reach the final zone - partially because of its poor design, partially due to MMORPG competition and just growing bored of EQ in general. At least PoP encounters were more varied/interesting and there was less repetitive camping, this expansion reminds me of taking the worst elements of Luclin and expanding them 100 fold.

I won't speculate as to why, but my guild has definitely seen a fall off. I'd say decimated, but that implies that only 1 in 10 has disappeared, when, in fact, it seems more like a full half just are no longer logging in. And of those that do log in, it is incredibly difficult to get even a full group interested in GoD. The interest in GoD dropped drastically after the first two weeks.

So I end up soloing in Kod a lot....

Think only a few people in my guild have even raided there... and I come from a very large guild. Initially they were interested, they they were dazzled by some drops, now they don't even talk about it.

I know that some of the people I know, myself included, didn't even bother buying it... I just wish I could get rid of that nag-ware every time I log on asking me if I want to buy it.

Its not just Discord causing this. My guild was just getting the POP stuff taken down until about a month ago. Now hardly anyone bothers to do anything anymore.

I was going to say, it's been a few weeks since I've since an "EQ IS DYING!" thread. Had there been a sticky "EQ IS DYING!" thread from the beginning (when I first began seeing them in late 1999), we could have saved a lot of bandwidth. <img src=http://lag9.com/biggrin.gif>

Well, since this isn't an "EQ is Dying!" thread, really, I'm not sure what the relevance of Tuda's comment is....:)

But since he mentioned "EQ" and "dying" in the same sentence, I think it only fair to point out the latest MMORPG subscription information...

http://thedruidsgrove.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7102

Bah, this is nothing. You should see all the "Horizons is dying!" threads on the Horizons boards :)

Unfortunately they may be true :(

Yes, Fayne, although my guild hasnt been hit too hard yet, it's easy to see that frustration with the ass design of GoD is building, and I feel much pity for the overworked warriors/chanters (clerics are used to it by now!) who have to keep redoing the fooking trials to ferry us less useful classes through.

My guild has slowed down too. We aren't in GoD yet, but it's certainly true that GoD has provided no new content to keep people interested.

Bizzarly, I am thankfull we were not in time when GoD came out.

We pushing hard for time at the moment and can take out xeg nps.

We have just ignored GoD for the most part and only done weaponsmith rhondo the other night for a larf. Mostly GoD we just let the guild run about in and get xp.

As such, we got a large turn out on raids ( moreso than ever almost ), and people are happy with farming augments in GoD and just messing about there.

As I say, thankfully our focus is on time. I pitty guilds that have been in time for ages and are bored ridged there looking for something more intresting to do. GoD at this time, just doesnt seem to be it :( ( unless Im missing something which is quite likely :P )


- nieros

Edit: Oops, question was answered in the original post. :P

Still, I'm very much enjoying GoD so far. The encounters I've seen have been a lot of fun and a nice change of pace, and I haven't seen any shortage of things to do.

Every spring there are similar drop offs, seems like nothing new.



Sliggoth, druid/ tradeskiller of Lanys

Our guild is seeing a drop off, we have seen this before at the beginning of other expansions ..but there is something new here:


GOD is hard, and we arent seeing good loot yet (same as other expansions)

GOD is buggy, and we arent progressing cause of coded cockblocking (same as other expansions)

EQ is old, and so is our guild, boredom factor high and loot motivation low

but I think number 1 reason is

Raid size of 54 means no matter what, somedays you get left out unless you are tank or cleric.

We went from 7 active druids in POP to 4 active and one half active and have no plans to recruit, since 4 is about the size we can be sure to be in the raid of 54.

This could conceivably be a real issue if a guild lost too many too suddenly.

GOD is hard, and we arent seeing good loot yet (same as other expansions)

Ikkinz loot is quite nice for the difficulty and time involved. Expecially Ikkinz4, which has zero trash mobs. I wouldnt say Quarm+ loot is not good.

GOD is buggy, and we arent progressing cause of coded cockblocking (same as other expansions)

Amen. I chuckle now, thinking back at how Uqua was a few months ago (3300 quad'ing trash, spirits that hit for 3000, and proc'ed a 3k DD that spawned every time a person died). It is so obvious that SoE coded it to be so hard, so as no guild could progress past it (until later content is finished). It is a wonder they don't just come out and say they are still working on the end game zones.

So far, GoD is quite boring IMO. I am having fun in the Ikkinz raids, but then again, I can only take so much of one damn zone design. At least when they used instancing in LDoN, they had a few different maps for each theme. Not so in GoD.

-Dragons, Nameless

A friend of mine that is an acct broker for mysupersales.com called me last night to tell me they are having a sell on plat. He mentioned that he could get me a time flagged acct very cheep because a lot of them are coming up for sale right now. Seems that there is some truth that high level people are seriously leaving since they are getting picky as to which accounts they take on commission. Personally, I have played this character since release and never bought an acct, but he has brokered accounts for the past 4 years and has not seen so many High level acct come open at once. They are not even looking at lessor account right now due to the influx of people wanting to sell.

Seems that even the Plat and acct business has noticed the drop off and while he is in Fanfare it will be a subject of discussion.

Between the pain in getting everyone through the single group trials, then all the BS involved with the 30-40 quest pieces needed just in Ikkinz/KT, it's burning alot of people out. If this was needed for the end zone, maybe, but people know this is only tier 3.

They need to make ikkinz trial 2 take two groups and ikkinz trial 3 take three groups like they originally planned. Then increase the drop rate on the bloody Ore. Could reduce a bit of the other quest work too. Make some of it just needed to get into raid 4, but then skipable for the masses or something.
Making it so you don't need two damn moges just get late comers into Uqua or something might be nice too. Just reduce or remove the see invis or leave a path of no see invis mobs into the trials & uqua.

They are really going out of their way to piss people off with WoW in Beta now. You'd think they'd be trying to make us happy...

GOD its kinda boring after a while. However if you take a look at the works they did and its pretty amazing I gues. If you care to explore natimbi, kod etc.. and you can see the amout of details that has been put in to them.

Giving those ikkinz raids/group trials the same theme its no thanks. Sure they pretty to look at first time. Gets really old really fast. Those bosses were fun to try a few times but if you have to do them over and over, it gets really really boring. I am guesing this is a VT key camping time sink all over again. As for myself, I kinda like this expansion, I really like the flag progessing idea, it gives me a feeling that I have won something etc.. It also giving me major headaches also, since finding a well blanced group to beat those ikkinz trials and stuff later on are really a pain.

As for mass quitting, I havn't seen it yet. Only one or two people quit that I know of.

Kulothar's post got me wondering... so I went to two websites which purport to sell characters, including one he mentioned.

I looked for characters from my server, which is the one I'm most familiar with.

Both sites had multiple characters for sale, with accounts without a 65 char outnumbering accounts with a 65 character. Between the two sites, there was ONE which claimed to be a Time flagged rogue... with under 100 AA, and still equipping a Ragebringer. (Which doesn't sound like most Time flagged Rogues to me.)

Most of the level 65 characters looked like I would imagine a PL for sale character to look: much droppable gear, little "raid" no drop gear, no epic.

I'm not disputing what people are saying about their individual guilds' experiences. But I would argue that minimal research indicates that Kulothar's informant is wrong or misleading him/her. Even a quick glance at the front page for the web site Kulothar referenced will show a number of <65 and non-Time flagged character accounts up for sale.

I have a question: Does Magelo Premium show the flags you have, or would you have to add those separately?

You have to add your flags not matter if you pay for the service or not. But the charm will show states even if you don't update your flags. So a time flagged char's charm would be maxed in stats. I think max stats would give 15ac not sure since i'm still not timed flaged.

Max stats = +10 all resists

I know my information is antidotal but what just checking the front pages doesn't show is they amount of people that have offered up their accts. The ones listed for sell are the ones that have been accepted on commission. As I understand there is a process which takes a while to verify ownership, not being banned, reputation etc. (not that they would worry about reputation).

My comment were bases on a person that is contacted by people interested selling their accounts who stated that he is getting a higher number of offers from higher level characters than he has seen in the past. It is only logical that if there are more offers to sell, that fewer accounts would be listed. The reason being that people would not be offered what they fell their character is worth and therefore would hesitate to sell to a broker.

His other statement is that the business is losing money due to a glut in the market and they were being more selective in accounts they accept. This is from someone that had been a professional headhunter for a corporation before becoming an EQ marketing professional. I just assumed he knew what he was saying.

I did the same insidental cursory search you did. Last time I check that website which was a couple of weeks ago, for my server (MM) there was one lv 65 acct listed. When I just checked it a few minutes ago, there were 9 (nine) level 65 accts listed. I had never seen more than two listed at any one time before on my server. The two non-65 accts, I believe, are ones that had been listed there for a while.

Not that I know anything really, but some servers it will be able to see any deviation from baseline much easier.

For a server with only one or two guilds in time, you may see 2 or even 3 accounts for sale instead of one, and it would be hard to tell whether that was real or just noise.

For a server with 5+ guilds in time, you'll probably be able see deviations more easily (ie if there are 9 instead of 3).

Of course, I haven't had my caffeine for the day, so my mind could be mush.

And back to the first post, a lot of my friends have stopped logging in as well. If I had an Everquest Confidence Index, it would be at it's all time low. (With that said, I'm still having fun for the most part.)

- Xylem, E'ci

I see a lot of people in my guild logging on for nights we are in Time, and a lot not logging on for nights we do raids in GOD. When we do the Ikkinz raids I find myself falling asleep most nights during the raid. Drops can be nice, the augments, etc. But I see Major Cockblock as they took the worst of Lucin (long annoying progression quest) and the Worst of POP (Trials and Flags) put together to make a lot of people miserable and thinking that the rest of their guild will progress without them. I myself do not want to have others take me through the single group trials because they made them virtually impossible for a druid to get in since most call for 2 clerics and not cleric/druid combo.

A good druid can work with a cleric in all 3 of the trials if your tank has enough hp. Good means both skill and a decent mana pool, ie 6.5k+. Otherwise, yes you will need two clerics.
The main problem with these trials is that you NEED the trilogy. One warrior, one cleric, one chanter and these 3 classes are getting burnt out and we're not even close to being done yet. Paladins & Shaman are getting shafted the worst here. They are effective in the trials, but not in there normal roles, so alot of people don't think to use them.
Most of my friends in druidsgrove chat are reporting burnout in their guilds too. These are all high end raiding guilds we're talking about to. Atm, most of our war/clr/enc are reserved 1 week in advance for trials cause we don't have enough to go around. One week reservation to get help from your own guildmates... Not their fault either, but bull**** that SoE has made us come to this...

I almost feel sorry for the Dev's at this upcoming FF... Almost...

IMHO, they need to make Trial 1 a bit harder, but then make trial 2 take two groups and trial 3 take three groups like they originally planned. They can make both there difficulties scale up too. That would atleast easy the pain a bit.

I think the Dev's will make themselves scarce at FF but hopefully they will fix the trials to the orginal 1/2/3 group concept. Maybe even up the 54 character max to 72. but we will see.

Signs of the times:
1) Full gear server x-fers: These are important as the top guilds lose numbers. People can x-fer in and be immediately effective. People can merge cross server guilds. A full /movelog will become possible as server populations drop.

2) Discounted Yearly Renewal: How do you lock in subscribers? Offer long term low cost contracts when your subscriptions start to drop. This means you only have to capture new users as your old users are locked in.

These two activities are a sign of SOE doing agressive things to preserve the current level of EQ. I suspect sometime this fall, we will see our first server closures as the competitive offerings of Blizzard, Sigil and others come online.

Sigil is like 2-3 years out I thought. Blizzard will most likely be a X-mas release, but ya. Once WoW goes live, especially with this latest expansion and the next one down the pipe with the new levels rumored to be based on your aap (high aap to is the rumor, like you will need 500+ for level 70), SoE is going to take some serious hits among it's hardcore raiders.
Those hardcore that remain are seriously going to have to merge within the top guilds left on the server. Some servers will most likely have to x-transfer just to be able to continue raiding.

Well, I don't know about other guilds, but we've had to turn down a number of pretty good applicants lately because some people in my guild feel we're getting too large. Maybe a few mergers will happen due to circles of friends leaving together, but overall I highly doubt we'll see any kind of mass exodus. I don't expect any servers to close for several years.

I'm sorry to say this... but if your "farming" Time. Its time for you to find another game. Sadly, you cannot expect Sony to continually add new content for over-equipped, 300+AA EP/Time farming guilds. Just ain't gonna happen. People want new content. Not just even MORE uber gear than the stuff your already farming. EP/Time raiding guilds only represent about 10% of the EQ population but you seem to cry about everything that comes out that doesn't provide the ELITE FEW even more stuff to raid and overwhelm. I mean, thank Tunare they didn't make the trash mobs of the zone worthwhile or the rest of us wouldn't have any mobs to fight because the zones would be permacamped on rotation like time/VT/EP are on a every hour of every day basis.
And has anyone even bothered to check out the new quests and tradeskill gear? Of course not. Your probably getting your 18 level 65 300+ AA maxed stat characters out to try and saturate your guild with every point of anything you can scrounge up. If the uber guilds are having problems with attendance and boredom... good. Maybe it will finally open up some of the zones and mobs that are permacamped for the rest of us to enjoy.


Let the flaming begin...

And has anyone even bothered to check out the new quests and tradeskill gear? Of course not.


With regard to tradeskill gear, the only stuff I've seen so far is rather pathetic. PoP tradeskill items were significant items, and the tradeskill-related quests were worth doing. Haven't seen any of that in GoD. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

As far as quests, none of the early quests I've seen give anything worthwhile. And the most significant quest I've seen so far combines the worst of PoP (flagging) with the worst of SoL (the VT key quest). Ugh.

One thing I have observed is that GoD was designed for the more upper guilds "elemental" so to speak. Now that being said, in order to do some of the trials in GoD you had better be Time geared.

The problem that I have observed is that Time drops are plentiful and for some they are rotting. Now go on to KoD/ikkinz/uqua the rewards are minimal at this point. I think for some this may be disappointing to go from a zone that had multiple drops/rewards for many and now going up another tier in a new zone only to have minimal drops for the hours and hours of raiding.

This to me would be where the level of commiting to raiding day in and day may be burning out some people.

I am sure many enjoy raiding the new expansion ( like me) to see the new mobs which I think are some of the best designed so far and excitement it brings when you finally achieve the goal you set out on. What I have noticed though is the lack of drops in these instanced raids. Gearing in GoD will be slow but I'm thinking all these instanced raids are leading to something bigger. The question is how many will hang on long enough to see the completion of GoD?

The problem that I have observed is that Time drops are plentiful and for some they are rotting. Now go on to KoD/ikkinz/uqua the rewards are minimal at this point. I think for some this may be disappointing to go from a zone that had multiple drops/rewards for many and now going up another tier in a new zone only to have minimal drops for the hours and hours of raiding.


Quite a lot of stuff drops on raids for the time they take, but it’s usually the same stuff and so it rots because everyone who wants it already has it.

From the 1 group trials there is a nice ring which drops over and over. From the raids there is a chain BP, ranger sword, priest shield and caster cloak. My guild is at the stage where everyone wants one already has it, so what’s the point of doing the raids again for them to rot.

Uqua we haven’t made it far enough to get any loot. It was far too hard when first implemented and a lot of people got burnt out while we were testing it and aren’t wanting to go back until it is all fixed (it still seems to hard from the reports I’ve been hearing of people who are still trying it).

Looking elsewhere there are the primal insects, but they don’t seem to be connected with progression and the loot isn’t really an upgrade to time loot (its about the same).

Which essentially leaves very little to do – raid for rot loot, beat our heads against Uqua or farm various bits of KodTaz for progression drops (not very exciting). Alternatively there is getting AA, but almost all the people in my guild have lots of AA already – they have all the useful ones and would be xping for marginal upgrades at best.

we had to farm time for 8 months cause there wasnt anything else to do..

next please

we had to farm time for 8 months cause there wasnt anything else to do..

next please

We did that too. I'm not sure what your point is.

And has anyone even bothered to check out the new quests and tradeskill gear? Of course not. Your probably getting your 18 level 65 300+ AA maxed stat characters out to try and saturate your guild with every point of anything you can scrounge up.

quests and tradeskills bore the hell out of me. i really don't know how anyone can stand dropping 100k for 1 skill up or camping a mob for 7 hours for one rare piece to finish a quest. so i guess this means i should just stop playing? because i dont' choose to play a game, that is appealing because you can "do whatever you want", the way i want to?

If the uber guilds are having problems with attendance and boredom... good. Maybe it will finally open up some of the zones and mobs that are permacamped for the rest of us to enjoy.

what zones and mobs are being perma camped by people in "uber" guilds? from what i can see on days off [from raiding] when i try to go xp and get groups, the people that are perma camping area's are those that have no guild to raid with.

thank Tunare they didn't make the trash mobs of the zone worthwhile or the rest of us wouldn't have any mobs to fight because the zones would be permacamped on rotation like time/VT/EP are on a every hour of every day basis.

VT, time, EP's.. they are raiding zones, not for exp. if you aren't in an "uber" guild then why do you even care what happens in those zones? go fiddle with your tradeskills

VT, time, EP's.. they are raiding zones, not for exp. if you aren't in an "uber" guild then why do you even care what happens in those zones? go fiddle with your tradeskills..

OMG, there are so many people who would love to slap you for saying that.

The guild I am in is hurting bad. Attendance is at an all time low. Some people with older PC's that used to be able to play fine are choppy as hell now. The Dx9 upgrade was a marginal improvement for some systems. I had to upgrade my 2nd box, at a $300 touch, which tecnicaly met sytem requirements but was unplayable. This is a big reason attendance is down for us.

2) Discounted Yearly Renewal: How do you lock in subscribers? Offer long term low cost contracts when your subscriptions start to drop. This means you only have to capture new users as your old users are locked in.


This isn't exactly anything new. There has been long term subscription offers with a discounted price for EQ for a LONG time.

Yeah, ever since they raised the monthly price I switched to a plan where I'm billed for 6 months at a time.

I'm sorry to say this... but if your "farming" Time. Its time for you to find another game. Sadly, you cannot expect Sony to continually add new content for over-equipped, 300+AA EP/Time farming guilds. Just ain't gonna happen. People want new content. Not just even MORE uber gear than the stuff your already farming. EP/Time raiding guilds only represent about 10% of the EQ population but you seem to cry about everything that comes out that doesn't provide the ELITE FEW even more stuff to raid and overwhelm. I mean, thank Tunare they didn't make the trash mobs of the zone worthwhile or the rest of us wouldn't have any mobs to fight because the zones would be permacamped on rotation like time/VT/EP are on a every hour of every day basis.
And has anyone even bothered to check out the new quests and tradeskill gear? Of course not. Your probably getting your 18 level 65 300+ AA maxed stat characters out to try and saturate your guild with every point of anything you can scrounge up. If the uber guilds are having problems with attendance and boredom... good. Maybe it will finally open up some of the zones and mobs that are permacamped for the rest of us to enjoy.

Nice troll, go back to where you belong please. Don't talk about stuff you don't know about....

Yay twit go away, still carring the chip on your shoulder i see

And for the record i am a tradeskiller and frequent the eqtrader boards go look there is as much bitching there about how unbeliveably pathetic the god tradeskill stuff is tae ew > god smithing and tailoring, and the devs come in and say well you havent found the better ts stuff yet, NO casual players are going to be able to get ahold of the drops in koda'taz to play with the combines and 90% of the raiders arent even going to bother because the weapons are so bad and the tailoring is just a joke

Kay

Well...the upper end of casual players might be able to pull it off (Kod'taz access that is). Some have already done reasonably well in the sewer trials, leaving Vxed and Tipt. And in those two trials skilled charmers can make up for a lack of gear. It won't be easy but I think it can be done.

Simply put, most people are missing the point. GoD was NOT designed to cater to the upper end guilds, they were designed, and designed well, for average guilds to get access to better gear then THEY have. This is done by groups, not by raids... as most guilds aren't capable of getting deep into the trials yet, but by doing groups on expiditions. The only people complaining are members of the upper guilds that they didn't put enough upgrades for them and/or made the upgrades that are there too difficult for the effort needed to get them, or people who bought thier characters, don't know how to play and simply get overwhelmed in genuinely tough zones. In many of your own admissions, you finally get zones you can't breeze thru and present an actual challenge and OH NO... whats this??? Lower attendance and people leaving??? What a shame.

quests and tradeskills bore the hell out of me. i really don't know how anyone can stand dropping 100k for 1 skill up or camping a mob for 7 hours for one rare piece to finish a quest. so i guess this means i should just stop playing? because i dont' choose to play a game, that is appealing because you can "do whatever you want", the way i want to? (/QUOTE)

No, it just means that there is parts of an expansion that weren't tailor made to fit your wants

[QUOTE=Megadwen]what zones and mobs are being perma camped by people in "uber" guilds? from what i can see on days off [from raiding] when i try to go xp and get groups, the people that are perma camping area's are those that have no guild to raid with. (/QUOTE)

Again, you seem to miss the point and bypass understanding someone in favor of the opportunity to flame someone. The zones were the ones I listed (note: the knock on you not actually reading a post as I did say what zones I was talking about... but for you, I will repeat myself... EP/Time/VT.

[QUOTE=Megadwen]VT, time, EP's.. they are raiding zones, not for exp. if you aren't in an "uber" guild then why do you even care what happens in those zones? go fiddle with your tradeskills

I am in a guild that is on the verge of being able to raid these zones, many are VT keyed, and a majority are now advancing rapidly thru the planar progression. The problem, as I again stated previously, is that most, if not all, of the named mobs that drop anything of remote interest are on a rotation. Most don't stay up more than a half hour from spawning. This leaves little or no opportunity for guilds that reached that point later in the evolution in EQ access to these zones/mobs/drops as they never stay up long enough for anyone else to have access to them.

i dunno about your server but nothing is really in rotation besides time (naturally) on bristle /shrug

most guilds that do ele's dont even bother with VT.

I am in a guild that is on the verge of being able to raid these zones, many are VT keyed, and a majority are now advancing rapidly thru the planar progression. The problem, as I again stated previously, is that most, if not all, of the named mobs that drop anything of remote interest are on a rotation. Most don't stay up more than a half hour from spawning. This leaves little or no opportunity for guilds that reached that point later in the evolution in EQ access to these zones/mobs/drops as they never stay up long enough for anyone else to have access to them.Well all I can say to you at this point is "Get in line and work yourselves into the rotation!". Complaining about it here won't do a thing, especially when you are making genralizations that are completely false insulting at least half of the posters here. The only way you are gonna avoid lines and rotations in this stage of EQ is to get yourself tagged to a guild that shoots for server firsts. Don't blame the players. Blame the game design. It's not a coincidence that the same thing is taking place on ALL the servers.

At the moment, I think a lot of the dwindling numbers is due to time of year. Even with a buggy new expansion and recent computer problems, my life is busier lately than it was in the winter and I WANT to be outdoors more, which may leave less time for EQ. Much as I like to think of myself as a unique being, I have some traits that are common to most humans. "Spring fever" is one.

As for GoD? So far, GoD is BORING. Flat out boring. The expansion offers little to hold the interest of someone who is daydreaming as they look through the window to gorgeous weather outside.

The first time I did a trial.. and another NEW trial... FUN! The second time is ok... but when you see the same zone and the same MoBs and the same drops over and over.... well redundancy IS boring. Doesn't mean that the content isn't good, doesn't mean that the drops aren't good. It means that they are BORING. And the worst I see about GoD is that not ONLY does a player have to finish a dungeon with a single group, but also with a full raid. And not finish ONCE, but over and over and over until everyone has the quest items to progress.

Despite the sideline taunters, if you want to see ALL of EQ, you join a guild and you raid... and you shoot for the higher end content when you have done the rest. Unfortunately, SOE has made getting to the upper end of GoD boring, tedious and redundant. If we could treat it like an LDoN and play it more casually, that would be fine. But when players are forced to endure countless runs through the same content to move forward because it is the only new content in the game... think about it. LDoN was popular because it appealed to mid-level and higher and it was OPTIONAL content. Some played it and some didn't. GoD trials are required redundancy.

Let me firstly thank you Arienne for at least trying to come up with constructive points rather than regressing to insults and name calling. I appreciate someone who has more to say than just calling someone a troll or assuming the person doesn't have a valid point or argument just because you dont agree. Many players are playing for different reasons and each player has a type of content that appeals to them. I have nothing against that. But, if you have killed every major mob in the game, been to all the zones and you find yourself getting bored. You might want to seriously consider moving on. And I am part of a raiding guild. We raid 4-5 nights a week. The thing I like best about GoD is the expiditions. Similar to LDoN as it is instanced, but theres no time limit, and players can be switched in and out as needed. There's chances for named mobs and good drops for the appropriate expidition. So once again I will return to my original point... yes, the trials from what I hear are very repetitive, and with limited content. and yes, I can understand why people in upper end guilds would feel that there was very little available to them in GoD. But for the general population, GoD is exactly what middle/average guilds needed. Access to zones and mobs that are instanced and have very good drops compared to what they are likely equipped with. Unfortunately many were scared off by the many posts of people either complaining that it was either too hard or not worth it, depending on the poster. Many friends have come away with some nice loots and have benifitted from this expansion because they ignored all the negitive posts and decided to go and try it out on thier own.

actually there is a time limit to vxed. had a few bad mishaps and got a 15 minute warning until my group was to be booted to the zone.

It's supposed to be like a 6 hour time limit correct?

it was best not to keep track of time, just the number of kills =p

True, but I really do love the fact that you can switch out group members without quitting the expidition.
BTW, does anyone know for sure if Named mobs have a chance to spwan during expiditions and does it require killing ph's like other non-LDoN camps?

Simply put, most people are missing the point. GoD was NOT designed to cater to the upper end guilds, they were designed, and designed well, for average guilds to get access to better gear then THEY have. This is done by groups, not by raids... as most guilds aren't capable of getting deep into the trials yet, but by doing groups on expiditions. The only people complaining are members of the upper guilds that they didn't put enough upgrades for them and/or made the upgrades that are there too difficult for the effort needed to get them, or people who bought thier characters, don't know how to play and simply get overwhelmed in genuinely tough zones. In many of your own admissions, you finally get zones you can't breeze thru and present an actual challenge and OH NO... whats this??? Lower attendance and people leaving??? What a shame

GOD was designed for post time people really , if you followed all the threads about GOD etc.. you wil see it is. It is something to conquer after you have farmed potime for months. From the hit points of mobs, the damage they dish out and amount of effort to kil them you can easily see the expansion is based on the upper tiers. However, there are plenty of VT level items you can get as a causal player by a small group or so. Zones like Ferubi its a very good example where you can get good items with a small group.

You know why people complain about GOD? First join a raid that is going into Uqua and you will see why. Mobs there dish out godly damage, 6 k damage on trash mobs later on and everytime someone dies a spirit mob pops that hits for like 2 k? Also the longer you stay in the zone, the harder tha mobs are. So its like if you have someone died during one of the fights, then you have 50 % chance of wiping since those spirits can wipe an entire raid out fast. Not to mention the zone ae Aura of Destruction http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5051&source=Live . Time guilds stuck on it cause its design its absoulately stupid and horrible. How do you tank a 6 k hitting trash mob without someone going spalt and wipe the raid?

Pulls take around 10 minutes just for a single mob, takes about 2 minutes to kill. If we didn't wipe then wait another 10 minutes for another mob. If we do wipe then its 20 minutes for recovery. Monks dying left and right and there hasn't been such monk dying feast since the old NTOV days lol.

No one likes to wipe and of course everyone gets bored of this stupid content sooner or later. So that's why you see the low attendence thingie. Its not people whining how hard the content its, its how stupid the SOE designer made the zones.

Noli put it pretty well.

obviously windex doesnt see very clearly =)

The first time I did a trial.. and another NEW trial... FUN! The second time is ok... but when you see the same zone and the same MoBs and the same drops over and over.... well redundancy IS boring. Doesn't mean that the content isn't good, doesn't mean that the drops aren't good. It means that they are BORING. And the worst I see about GoD is that not ONLY does a player have to finish a dungeon with a single group, but also with a full raid. And not finish ONCE, but over and over and over until everyone has the quest items to progress.

While I am not very advanced in GoD at all (too busy moving through the EP - prolly do GoD later on), I dont see why GoD is more boring than other EQ stuff. I mean, look at this :
- TS = repetitive and boring
- Xping = repetitive and boring
- Raiding backflag mobs = repetitive and boring
- Raiding old world content = repetitive and boring
- Farming Time over and over = boring
- Getting Seb Keys, VP keys, ST keys = repetitive and boring

I mean, what's new? Enlighten me, please. How is GoD so much more boring than the rest of EQ? Any time anything new comes up in EQ, I already know it's going to be repetitive...

For the record, I dont find EQ boring ;)

And I understand the frustration. From the sound of things, there are things that sound a bit too easy for PoTime guilds, and those that are next to impossible. Leaving little sense of direction to these people.

Callahad

i think the problem with GoD is that it gets old fast and is hard as hell. when people get bored they tend to be less attentive.
if you've farmed time for 6 months, it's boring but you can get by if you aren't attentive at every second... not the case with GoD

personally though, i really haven't done much in GoD (aside from trying to farm ring in ikkinz, getting advent, killing named at zone in and leaving), so i can just guess by what i hear.
doing ldon's and exping with friends is a lot of fun and i can't see myself getting tired of raiding time (or raiding in general) for a long while to come :)

We've been in GoD 5 days a week since it was released.

The problems with it are not that bad as far as "playability" goes. The problems are in the limits and itemizations. We had to take our 72 person time raids and compress them to 42 initially in GoD for the first events we were doing. Thats all well and good. We got come nice upgrades to finish some slots that were lacking. Then came the ranger swords. Now we do these Kod`Taz events, steamroll them with the new raid limits (54) and receive the greatly itemized loot. (Ranger Sword / Elf Shoe) You tell me how thrilling it is to be in the same instanced zone with 4 different raids and 3 different single group events to receive the same "Ranger Sword".

I'm just thankful we're still in the PoTime rotation, that at least gives us a nice variety of drops and lets our new apps get geared up for maximum boredom.

You tell me how thrilling it is to be in the same instanced zone

See this is what I dont get. You tell me how thrilling it is to kill Klandicar for the 250th time, receiving that same key piece, in the same zone, etc. How is GoD different from that? How is it even more boring?

You tell me how thrilling it is to kill xp mobs for the millionth time, receiving only a small xp gain, with only a small worthy subset of them? Even if the subset was considerably larger, it doesnt change the fact that the basic principle is exactly the same : you apply one of a few strats, you rack up the xp.

Callahad

Well if you look at this way. Lets take the 4 of the ikkinz raids as 4 klandicars and compare them. Each time you do an ikkinz trial = 1 klandicar ok? Now, you gotta do 4 of them since there are 4. So klandicar x 4. Now you have to do each of them lets say 6 times to get people flagged. so 4 x 6 = 24 times of the same klandicar. Lets compare it to another expansion. Say there are 4 trials also in this expansion and I wil name them Klandicar, Woushi, Gore, and Tale. Each of them unique and not the same boring looks as GOD. Now you have to do all 4 of them to progess and each of 6 times. So now you get Klandicar 6 x, Woushi, 6x, Gore 6x and Tale 6x instead of all klandicar 24x in GOD. Since they are different you get bored slower than doing the same thing 24 times. Hope I made it clear for you. :)

So klandicar x 4. Now you have to do each of them lets say 6 times to get people flagged. so 4 x 6 = 24 times of the same klandicar

Except with Klandicar, you only flag 1 person. So you have do it all over again for every single member of the guild, instead of flagging a few each time. You dont even have the luxury of varying the type of encounter. It's the same one every single time.

But you see, the number of times you do it is irrelevant, because I can name other tasks you have to repetitively do a lot more times than that, pre-GoD... And in fact in many other MMORPG out there. The fact is it's repetitive, I get that. In fact, I was expecting that. I would have been surprised of the contrary. What were you expecting?...

Callahad

Dragon fights are by definition more fun!

Seriously tho... they arent comparable. My guild back in the day was among the first in ST (think pre-soulbound keys...), when Sontalak was basically unkillable and there wer 3 mobs you could kill for keys. Yet we did it, got everyone keyed by killing those same 3 dragons for the most part... part of the fun was that there were no artificial limits (i.e. number of people). There wasnt a lot of mindless trash killing. Class balance wasnt so hot (druids S U C K E D in raids back then) but we were still absolutely critical for moving people to the raid quickly. The loot tables were deep, with a wide variety of items. And the encounters DIDNT TAKE ALL NIGHT. You could go wax Zland in an hour or two and then tool around in DN or ToV or whatever... there were *other things to do as a guild.*

Which is precisely what GoD lacks. It's a guild leader's nightmare. There's NOTHING that you can take your whole guild to (well one or two things but we are again left with the fact that you need to farm things to trigger the events, and the loot tables are extremely shallow.) So you take 54 people out of your regular 72 person potime raid force (which we were forced to bloat up to) and do an either too boring or too tedious instanced raid that takes up 3 hours for another ranger sword, in the mean time members of your guild are left out based solely on what class they play or the fact that they havent completed yet_another_trial07 because the warriors were all taken in other trials or had simply had enough and logged.

If they actually aimed GoD at post-time guilds, they missed, because there's nothing there for a post-time guild to do together, *as a guild.* These McRaids are a laugh, and the endless single group trials are NOT raiding... I havent a clue who they thought would enjoy this, but it aint me...

Except with Klandicar, you only flag 1 person. So you have do it all over again for every single member of the guild, instead of flagging a few each time. You dont even have the luxury of varying the type of encounter. It's the same one every single time.
Mmm..kay You have the option to get your flag via a few other dragons too tho, including king tormax and even the Vindicator if yer lucky. Me thinks you missed the point.

You tell me how thrilling it is to kill xp mobs for the millionth time, receiving only a small xp gain, with only a small worthy subset of them?

i have no idea why i like it so much tbh. there's just something about getting that aa, about getting that ldon aug, about getting that new shiny item to wear. i have absolutely no idea why i enjoy it so much, but i do.

Erm, you missed my point. I took klandicar as an example for an ikkinz raid..... Not take her as the dragon...

Sleeper Keys didnt used to be on Vindicator or Tormax, Kland, Zland, Sonta and Yeli were the only sources I remember.

To summarize again:

The problems with GoD causing lowering of on-line times:

1) Raid size of 54 ...hurts guilds that had to bulk up for Time.
2) The Raid maps/dungeons are the same, over and over
3) The Loot Table has 12 items on it, for Raids
4) We are artificially COCKBLOCKED in Uqua and is no where at this time to progress.
5) and the latest one !! they have now fubared the login server to further delay our consumption of content.

http://d7w.critical.ne.jp/godprogress.htm

Mmm..kay You have the option to get your flag via a few other dragons too tho, including king tormax and even the Vindicator if yer lucky. Me thinks you missed the point.

No I didnt. What you say is true. However, it's still a boring and repetitive task of getting everyone flagged for ST. Take another example, if you like it better /shrug : VP key. THat one was taking a lot of time at the time, and you needed, for example, Trak, for each and every one. With lots of trash mobs.

You say GoD is much more boring... How?

There are decent points : raid-size, time taken, loot itemization. Let's talk about em, one by one. Raid-size : it prolly does suck. I think SoE put that in intentionally, to get more manageable guild sizes in the future? Time taken : well, it needs to take time. Otherwise new content gets old after 2 weeks. The key is to design something that takes time yet not too much. Loot itemization : I get the feeling its not great...

But personally, these things can make GoD frustrating, not boring...

Callahad

Fun for me = raiding with my guild
GoD = a f*ckton of 1group events
GoD = Boring

Easy math :)

I think I probably would've enjoyed GoD up to a point IF:

1) I had a good group of friends and good players I could rely to log on and play with regularly.

Being non-uber, defeating hard encounters with a single group was the most enjoyable thing in EQ for me. But trying to play in GoD with pick-up groups, I probably would've slit my throat, or cancelled EQ, but since I did that last Nov...

And I thought quadding and Root/Rotting Spirocs in TD over and over and over and over and over (you get my point)...level after level after level (same here)...was boring! That 1 or 2 pp per kill makes it all worth it though, and the "words of distaste" and "ruin of crap" that occasionally drop are really the attention getters for me. I could group I guess...3-4 people, pull, root, melee w/DD if needed, loot same crap, rinse repeat...over and over and over and over and over...at least at my level I can go to different zones and sleepwalk through the same routine...ahh the fun of EQ. The higher up the pyramid, the narrower it gets.
It’s just fun to read about all the excitement I get to have latter in the game. Can’t wait to be bored in POP and progress there doing whatever over and over (I’ll stop with just these two) so I can be bored in GOD doing whatever…

The biggest complaint that came from smaller guilds when pop was released was. How are we supposed to get the 70 people together we need to kill a flag mob and make any kind of progression.

So with GoD they have made options. You dont have to kill the smith with 50 of your guild instead you can do the 4 sewer trials and then vxed and tipt to be flagged for kodtaz. I dont know off the top my my head what the progression is like from there on in, but I know there are more single group challenges.

Also backflagging, people hate dragging 60 already flagged people back to do MB or Grummus for the nth time because we need more for the rathe or xegony or anywhere piggybacking members in is difficult and time consuming. So instead you can now do some of your flagging outside raid hours and with a single group.

Is GoD is frustrating, damn right it is. I've spent hours in vxed and tipt getting my flag and helping others. But its a challenge, and one where each player makes a difference, not where you can be afk for the whole fight come back, hail a flag mob and bid on some loot. Its wining at these challenges that makes the game fun, and why we or at least I play.

I guess you cant please all of the people all of the time. Some love GoD, some hate it.

"Also backflagging, people hate dragging 60 already flagged people back to do MB or Grummus for the nth time because we need more for the rathe or xegony or anywhere piggybacking members in is difficult and time consuming. So instead you can now do some of your flagging outside raid hours and with a single group."

Yes, now you have the same warriors and clerics doing the flagging dozens of times while the other lesser essential classes sit on their thumbs waiting to do a 3 hours 6 man group trial.

Yeah what fun.

I'm too lazy to read everything so I'll just respond to the first post. I returned this week after about a month of not playing. I just hadn't gotten the urge to log on. When I returned, I found that my guild that normally has at least 30 people on during off times now has about 5 people on during busy times. There's definately been a decline going on. Hopefully, The next expansion will be able to pick things back up and fix things.

If they wait for 6months to go by and an expansion to be released (and to make us buy) before fixing things, there wont be anyone to come back to. We'll all be playing WoW.

Actually GoD isnt a bad concept and here is the good ideas:

Instanced Raids: No more racing, cockblocking isnt possible
Alternate Advancement Paths: This Sewers or Smith was a great idea
Puzzles and Riddles: Yes they incorporated some of that old First Person player **** into the game.
Decent Loot at very low Teirs: there is some nice **** out there for people that never made it to time.
Adding people to raids: This is a nice fix.
Raid size limit: No more zerging.

The problem is, I think, that it was very ambitious, it changes alot of old EQ mentality, and its NOT FINISHED NOR TESTED.

Add to that the graphic engine changes, and you have us Beta testing not ONE, but TWO major game changes at the same time.

Fortunately for me, I Like to Beta test.
I dont particularly like paying for it though.

The sewers do work, I've run several people through them. Never had a problem with making them work. It's just that when you finish Vxed and Tipt after the sewers you almost always have to straighten out your flags with the stupid scribe before you can zone into KodTaz.

End game guilds are having problems as a result of GoD and the way the raids/progression works. I believe though that 90% of it is attributable to two things and one isn't GoD related at all.

First off, end game guilds got used to raiding one day a week clearing time, and doing nothing else. This went on for a very extended period because LDoN raiding was for the most part completely non worthwhile. So people in end game guilds who already mostly had the AA they wanted and basically only wanted items from time became used to raiding one day a week and spending more time doing real life stuff, or whatever they did with their spare time. Along comes GoD and all of a sudden the "quest" to discover all the secrets of KodTaz is a big long pain in the ass that requires daily participation and alot of time spent camping random items that look alike but aren't and are lore. [Hey can you loot that one. no damn lore...well I just need one more.. next person try.. nope nope nope.. okay calilng it in guild but we all still need 1 or 2 each right.. right...]

PoP and LDoN basically lowered the play time of a ton of end game people. No other expansion did that quite as much. Even with NToV clearing guilds in velious there was other stuff up in other zones worth kiling at random times. Same with Luclin (mosta the time) or at least it wasnt all dead on the exact same day so people would log in to see what they were gonna get a chance to race to on any given night. Nobody only did VT in Luclin. When you got to the point of clearing time though most end game guilds just cleared time.

6 months of raiding one day a week took a HUGE toll on end game guilds Those guilds progressing in GoD now that still farm GoD. I'd bet you anything that the turnout on their days for time is 3x their turnout out on a normal day if notmore. And that their turnout for time raids is at least 2x their turnout for any other raid day.

Now the other thing that hurts end game guilds is the frustrationg that is Uqua and the constant "minor retunings" of Ikkinz. The real problem though is Uqua. It's very obviously mistuned so that nobody can win. People still remember the intentional block that the Rathe was. I'd say it's probably because Qvic isn't finished and they don't want to let anyone into it. Well fine turn off the Uqua instance and say yer not done with the expansion then. But letting people burn out trying to get through Uqua when they don't really have any reason to farm Ikkinz trials much is pointless and just causes people to not want to login.

This later situation would not be nearly as detrimental to players morale and desire to play if it didn't appear to be an exact repeat of what happened with the Rathe Council.

Thecklos (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=36220)

First off, end game guilds got used to raiding one day a week clearing time, and doing nothing else. Thecklos (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=36220)

Sorry, I don't buy that at all. Just because a guild clears time in 1 or 2 nights, doesn't mean they sat around and xp'ed the rest of the week. The guilds that farm time so fast are the hardcore players, the people who play the game to raid, and beat tough encounters. Maybe this wasn't the case with your guild, but I am willing to bet the majority of uber guilds were not JUST raiding time. They were doing tier 4 gods, occasional backflag, EP named ganks, and for the most part LDoN raids. Honestly, I doubt most guilds would have survived to see GoD if all they did was clear time 1 day a week, and nothing else. And from what I have heard of LDoN raids (haven't experienced them unfortunately) they were tough, harder then Time.

Its not that the guilds are not skilled, or equip'ed enough. Its the fact that, like you said, Uqua is just a roadblock so they can finish the expansion that should have been done months ago. But is it really any surprise SoE is doing this? Happened in SoL (Emperor), and then in PoP (Rathe).

-Dragons

Backflags? *shudder* By the time you got to Time, that word sent shivers down your spine. As for EP mobs, again, once you got into Time, the drops were so much better that it wasn't worth your effort. Some guilds did still farm the Ele gods, but usually that was more for cock-blocking then anything else. Their best drops were tier 3 at best.
Very few guilds really pharmed LDON either. Most didn't want to deal with the limited raids. What officer wants to be the one to have to tell 1/2 your guild that you can't come?

Pretty much what Thecklos said is true. Once you beat Quarm, you pretty much settled down and only raided on your Time day/days. Other then that you built up your ldon stone, explored this new concept called the "outdoors", etc, etc. Sure, sometimes you went off and did a ldon if you happened to only have 30ish of the right classes on or did a 3 group VT clearing for twinks, but that wasn't every night, hell, that wasn't even every week usually.

Tilien has a good point.

we did farm time, in fact we deliberately stretched it to two days to give us something to do.

we did some backflagging, and tried some LDON

we tried to keep up the discipline of raiding every day, even doing bristlebane (fun fight)

but the fact is, logging on every day and staying up till midnight stopped, and people did figure out there were other games.

we have threads on our boards about books, music and other FP games.

we have threads on our boards about books, music and other FP games.

Good heavens! What is the world coming to. :p

There's nothing revolutionary about that. PoP also had single group alternate entry quests to higher regions. Both of them petering out as you started to hit zones that were predmoninantly raid oriented.

For the most part I agree with Thecklos. One thing I would like to add, however, is that when a guild is locked into a farm mode for survival, you can't really know the quality of your applicant pool until they have to perform. Performance can't be assessed in farm mode. I think a lot of guilds woke to GoD only to find that they didn't have the talent that they needed, as well.

Arienne has a good point. I think alot of that comes from certain guilds really bulking up their attendance due to the sheer number of bodies needed to beat the Rathe Council. So they added people sheerly as bodies to beat the Rathe regardless of how well those people really could play in single group/18man settings..because at the time it didn't matter if they could play well there or not. All that mattered was you really had to have a certain number of bodies to do certain things.

Then along comes an expansion where if you can't do both you really have problems. Those that can't hack single group content well are a drain on those in their guild that can. Also those that can't hang in single group content well get frustrated. Also and this doesn't affect certain kinds of guilds, any guild with a large amount of casual players probably had people flagging other people. This isn't any big deal when someobdy can just log you in for a raid and a hail. But with GoD it's more like having to log the person in and play them for 3 hours or more then do turn ins.

On top of that PoP really did make certain parts of the game so much easier. CR, running around to zones, etc. The one thing I really like about GoD is that you can't just piggy back ona guild and get flagged up. That you actually have to do a bunch of work yourself, and have to be at least somewhat competent playing your class.

Thecklos

Summary of that logic being, "They don't like GoD because of they suck". I'm sure that's the reason, it's not possibly that a lengthy event needing a warrior, chanter and 2 main healers marginalizes a number of classes no matter how well they're played.

PoP entry quests to higher level dungeons though wouldnt get you the EP flag.

They were Exp Only Flags.

Kireiina I wasn't remotely saying they suck. But there's definitely different levels of ability. I also still think the majority of the problems are related to end game guilds having a hard time switching back to raiding daily. Hell Afterlife now has every single class at medium desirability for recruiting. During PoP and LDoN it was almost all LOW. I assume that means they had a bunch of people quit. I know they did some LDoN (more than most other end game guilds.)

I think it's kind of interesting that people that weren't in a time enabled guild seem to think that most time enabled guilds kept raiding the elementals/ldon/etc daily. I don't know of a single time enabled guild that kept raiding daily elementals/other stuff once time was on farm status and they were doing time in 1 or 2 days a week (doesn't mean there isn't one out there, but I don't know of any.)

Also, there definitely are people that do not like being forced to do single group stuff. They basically want to login and raid and logoff. They don't want to grind, farm, or do much of anything else. Alot of end game guilds had a fair number of these kind of people because that's what PoP got you used to, and hell that's what Luclin got some people used to (post VT key farming anyway.)

F--K forced Single group stuff!

I don't know how other servers are set up but on ours you pretty much HAVE to clear Time in 1 or 2 days because that's all you get in the rotation

Dunno how it is on other servers, but on Nameless, before GoD was released, there were 4 guilds in Time, 2 US based guilds (Legacy of Steel and Euphoria), and 2 Asian guilds (Paradise of Nameless and Kylin Eyes). LoS was clearing time in 1 night, and I think Euphoria was just testing out phase 1-3 (PoN was clearing in 1-2 nights, dunno where KE was). Soon after GoD came out LoS stopped raiding time, and Euphoria got the zone all to themselves, lucky them~

I think it's kind of interesting that people that weren't in a time enabled guild seem to think that most time enabled guilds kept raiding the elementals/ldon/etc daily. I don't know of a single time enabled guild that kept raiding daily elementals/other stuff once time was on farm status and they were doing time in 1 or 2 days a week (doesn't mean there isn't one out there, but I don't know of any.)

Granted, I wasn't in Legacy of Steel, but I was a prospect, and I can assure you that LoS didn't sit on their asses the nights Time wasnt up. And I still think that the top 10-15 guilds in the game didn't JUST camp time and do nothing else. Just because LDoN has **** for loot, doesn't mean people didn't do it. Some people like to beat the hardest encounters in the game for more then just loot. Maybe I was a bit too general saying most uber guilds did more then time, since so many guilds are time flagged now, that its not as "uber" as it used to be.

-Dragons, Nameless

Granted, I wasn't in Legacy of Steel, but I was a prospect, and I can assure you that LoS didn't sit on their asses the nights Time wasnt up. And I still think that the top 10-15 guilds in the game didn't JUST camp time and do nothing else. Just because LDoN has **** for loot, doesn't mean people didn't do it. Some people like to beat the hardest encounters in the game for more then just loot. Maybe I was a bit too general saying most uber guilds did more then time, since so many guilds are time flagged now, that its not as "uber" as it used to be.

So LoS had just as many daily raiders (I mean 6-7 days a week) online as they had showing up the one day a week they did Time?

Having 30-40 on daily raiding whatever, and 72+ on one day a week was a big chunk of what I was getting at. I don't know about you, but our attendence on Time days vastly outstripped anything else. Also I'm curious to know on average how many elemental targets LoS went after weekly after they had Time on 1 day farm status for > 2 months.

If you have > 70 show up for Time one day a week, and only 20-30 on average (and raid or do whatever with that 20-30) that does mean that a large chunk of your membership has quit raiding daily. Think back to Velious and Luclin. The vast majority of your active people played pretty much daily then because you always had a shot at racing somebody for something.

Look at it this way did you have > 54 online daily for > 4 hours during raid time on non time days on a regular basis pre time farming? How about post 1 day time farming?

Did your daily attendence fall off when you had Time on farm status other than time farm day?

Did you regularly have enough online to do 2 LDoN raids at the same time (72 people) non time days? Did you even have > 54 onlline daily post Time farm for > 4 hours a day during prime time raid time for your guild?

And, how much of your DKP (assuming you are in a point system guild) came from Time farming (post 1 day farms) vs elemental mobs/LDoN raids/etc (basically anything non time.) I'd bet that if you actually went back and looked at it historically you'd find that probably 70% or more of your dkp through that entire period was from one day a week (assumes your guild didn't do things like crazily inflate LDoN earned points simply to try and get people to show up for them.)

What I'm getting at is I think the need to login daily fell off pretty sharply post Time farm, and that people got used to NOT logging in daily for 4-5 hours.

Remember FoH having to recruit clerics to try LDoN raiding because their clerics would only show up for time?

Any Legacy of Steel member care to comment?

I looked back through our dkp lists, there is very few elemental mobs with > 3 kills post us clearing time. That's less than 3 kills/mob for many months.

Yes, there was definally a noticable difference in the amount of people who showed up for the 1 day of time clearing (maybe 10-15 more), compared to the other 5 days (1 day off). But I fail to see how that makes a difference really, because you don't NEED as many people for LDoN or an EP gank, as you do for time (minus the rare rathe / coirnav backflag). Thats what, imo, makes LDoN worth the time. I guess I just don't understand how peple would have fun farming time 1 day a week and doing nothing else. Yes, time is fun, and the loot was great, but after awhile it gets boring, like anything else.

Also I'm curious to know on average how many elemental targets LoS went after weekly after they had Time on 1 day farm status for > 2 months.

Few, very few. But, what I am trying to point out is that there is more to raid then just time. Its not as lucrative, or challenging, but if time if down, no enough of the right classes for LDoN, why not gank an EP mob and get some twink / prospect armor? Not only does it help gear up potential members, but for the prospects that dont have Time flag, its a change to show the guild your skills.

What I'm getting at is I think the need to login daily fell off pretty sharply post Time farm, and that people got used to NOT logging in daily for 4-5 hours

I agree. But like I said, for most of potential raid targets, you don't need PoTime numbers.

(Disclaimer- I am just speaking from about 1-1.5 months of experience, when I was prospect'ing in LoS. I do not know what it was like before that.)

One thing to think about, the people that still played constantly were most likely the most hardcore of a crowd. Therefore they are the ones least likely to get anything but twink loot bottom farming in EP's or LDoN, and consequently the least likely to wanting to be doing those just for "fun."

fun? wtf !!

being in a raiding guild isnt fun !!

its work dammit, work !!

I have a hard time seeing how a guild can clear Time in two nights let alone one. I guess as my guild gets more gear from there and hones it's tactics we will get to that point but right now that seems monumental.

Takes about 45 mins for each of stages 1-3, then 15 mins/god after that. Adds up to around 4.5 hours of raiding which makes it a pretty long night but doable. But the kind of guilds who can do it in that time have probably been farming it for several months and so it’s become routine. Can probably shave a bit off that time if you really hurry.

fun? wtf !!

being in a raiding guild isnt fun !!

its work dammit, work !!

Which is why you draw such a great salary for all that work. ;)

I thought the point of a game was to have fun. Oh well, I'm one of those weirdos anyway.

About the short time Time clearings. Its a problem I am not explicitly seeing here but one that comes up on Karana rotation boards (which are just about dead now). A few guilds get to where they can clear the high end fast, they then get it in their heads that everyone can (or worse, they actually tell everyone who can't that they are "unintelligent" not my words). I see it happen on many levels and its the lack of "seeing the big picture" that burns me about those arguments.

About the short time Time clearings. Its a problem I am not explicitly seeing here but one that comes up on Karana rotation boards (which are just about dead now). A few guilds get to where they can clear the high end fast, they then get it in their heads that everyone can (or worse, they actually tell everyone who can't that they are "unintelligent" not my words). I see it happen on many levels and its the lack of "seeing the big picture" that burns me about those arguments.

I don't get this.

On Rodcet Nife there were (at one point) two guilds clearing time in a day. Ascent on Friday, and the Dol Amroth/Echoes in Eternity alliance on Sunday. There were no other guilds in time when this was going on. After a bit it turned into one guild learning time (that still hasn't finished) and those previous two on Fri and Sun. Now Ascent has basically stopped farming time entirely.

I don't know about other servers, but I do know on Rodcet it was almost entirely guilds clearing time in a single day once a week (unless they were still learning/getting the zone down.) Realistically a clearing shouldn't ever take longer than 6-7 hours with a 4 hour time being pretty close to the min achievable, which would make it a 6pm to anywhere from 10pm to 1am thing.

Considering what kind of hours people used to raid, wait, chase after content that shouldn't be any big deal. Also once it's on a once a week thing people plan around it. Another thing to note: you don't need a full raid early on in a clearing so you can start Phase 1, 2 and time it so that prime time raiding or so is where phase 4 hits.

Not meaning to dick wave, but we (Ascent) actually hit 3.5 hours (I think it was 3:24 actually) from start of phase 1 to Quarm dead. Granted, we were actually TRYING to set a record time. We set up perfect groups and took a lot of chances, but it worked. Our typical was 4-4.5 hours. And after that was over, for months, we did no other raiding. Occasionally, someone would get a hair to do some LDoN raiding. But in general, it was just as others are saying.

But, with that said, at least it was *fun*. Time, even after doing it 2987234786 times, was still *fun*. PoP as a whole was *fun*. GoD is like one big backflagging session. Boring with no progression. No fun.

Now I havent been the model player the last couple weeks because of RL problems, but when I log in, we have less than half the amount of players we use to have every day. And from what I can tell, its because no one is having fun anymore. PoP was a challenge. It was fun. It wasnt 4 mobs quadding for 3k each (or whatever uqua is now) where 1 dead == raid wipe. I could go very far in depth on where I think all the problems with GoD lie, but its been beat to death. And it can be summarizeds with 3 words. It's not fun.

Fenani
Rodcet Nife

Did an ikkinz (righteous) raid and some yxxta primals this week and i have to say, it really wasn't that awful. was actually kind of fun to be raiding again when it's been basically time for 2 nights then exping.
i think the main problem (well other then sony producing a buggy, unfinished expansion..) is threads liek this have probably popped up on all kinds of EQ boards. and even those that have no experienced GoD get turned away by the major dislike. they just decided to not even try it for themselves.

The primals are horrible for the RvR. The loot they drop is pretty much rot for most guilds able to get there atm. The thing about KT & Ikkinz that you haven't run into I think is the shear repetitiveness of doing all 4 raids and 3 trials in the same small zone week in & week out. Plus the fun of getting everyone through the trials and all 40ish? quest drops needed. Having to relearn Destruction everytime you zone in gets old fast. Not even going to touch the BS of the Uqua cockblock.

ya, im' sure it'll get repetetive fast, but it'd be nice to have the people log on and get to uqua so when they fix it we can move right on through and not have to start doing the trials then.

I'm sorry to say this... but if your "farming" Time. Its time for you to find another game. Sadly, you cannot expect Sony to continually add new content for over-equipped, 300+AA EP/Time farming guilds. Just ain't gonna happen. People want new content. Not just even MORE uber gear than the stuff your already farming. EP/Time raiding guilds only represent about 10% of the EQ population but you seem to cry about everything that comes out that doesn't provide the ELITE FEW even more stuff to raid and overwhelm. I mean, thank Tunare they didn't make the trash mobs of the zone worthwhile or the rest of us wouldn't have any mobs to fight because the zones would be permacamped on rotation like time/VT/EP are on a every hour of every day basis.
And has anyone even bothered to check out the new quests and tradeskill gear? Of course not. Your probably getting your 18 level 65 300+ AA maxed stat characters out to try and saturate your guild with every point of anything you can scrounge up. If the uber guilds are having problems with attendance and boredom... good. Maybe it will finally open up some of the zones and mobs that are permacamped for the rest of us to enjoy.


Let the flaming begin...
Awesome Post. I feel the same way. I am a guild leader and it is very hard to get folks together on my server. I don't think I'll ever see POT, let alone farm it. I keep plugging away, anyway. This is still THE best game I have ever played...and there are so many things to do in Norrath.....if you are 65, and have 300 + AA's....good for you. You have made it to the top of the game. Go climb Mount Everest if you feel you need more challenge. Some of us still like to play this game and progress with the stuff that's already here. I would be comtent to make my way to the top....but SOE keeps raising what that is. I'll get there one day, though. And I won't complain for a new expansion to me made just so I can be even more "Uber".

I'm sure that in 7 pages, this has been said, but I'm not reading it all. (c:

You have a number of factors that will hurt raiding atm:

1) summer time ... people are doing things outside, they are traveling
2) several new MMOs just came out, none are EQ killers, but each of them will chew up players a little at a time
3) GoD is "broken"... many feel that way, so they just quit
4) WoW beta ... its not the biggest beta, and everyone isn't in it, but seeing whats on the horizon kinda makes one apathetic about what they got (i know when I was following wow info and waiting on my beta key, i had no interested in EQ... i never got a beta key, hate)

Beyond those things unique to the time of year and this summer specifically, its just an old game and old players finally get sick of playing. I don't think EQ will fail until they decide to pull the plug, there is enough invested time for most players that they will keep playing.

Very well said, Times have changed, Its not the same EQ it was when we all first started, but then again what is , the Real world changes, Technology changes, and so do we. There has been people who have left or are not playing but there are a million reasons why they are not here playing. But as always in EQ, guilds will reform and move on and then those players that left come back hehehehe