there seems to be some misconseption, on TDG I regulairly see people are saying that the Hard core raiding guilds are only 5% of the population if not less. This is completely wrong. Its a weak attempt to prove some point or another about ubers vs nonubers... bla bla.

On my server there are 3 guilds that I know are working twords time. these three guilds daily will have a combined 240+ people. With the average of about 2500 people per server that is close to 10% of the population, and again, this is only the three guilds that i am familiar with. Reasonably, one could take that 10% up to 20% with out pressing the bounds of reality.

10-20% is a significant portion of the population of any server.

While 20% is a significant portion of the server population, it's far from anything close to a majority. By your logic, everything in the game should be aimed at 20% of the player base? What are the otehr 80% supposed to be doing?

well, in all honesty i didnt even touch on the fact that at least 50% of the people in my guild have second accts. The reason that i did not mention this before? I really am not sure if the other two guilds are the same in this aspect. Anyhow, if you take alts into account, i can see easily 25% of the population being in those 3 guilds.

Are you saying that the other 75-80% of the people are all lumped together in the "casual guild" category? Somehow i doubt that is the case.

Unless SoE provides some hard data, none of us can do anything but speculate as to how many people are hard core raiders or how many people are hard core casual.

Even if they could provide some data, what do you base the figures on? How many PoP flags a character has? Time played? I can see problems with almost any statistical data SoE comes up with on their own.

Perhaps a poll allowing people to self-identify as raiders or casual players would be the truest method. Wasn't there a recent poll after log in that asked how we spend most of our time in game? Wouldn't it be interesting to see those numbers? Or at least some averages?

Well I definately think that 2500 concurrent online is way way low for the mature servers.

When they stopped showing, Bristlebane was 2500 easy on a slow day.

3500 was the norm. That was a long time ago, though.

Bazaar is consistently at 490-500 traders.

Even say 1 out of 3 people online at any given time is in an uber raiding guild. That's _still_ only 33% of the actively playing toons in uber raiding guilds....there's twice that many people actually online at the same time that are not in uber raiding guilds, and don't particularly care why you're irritated that you just zerged through Plane of Phat Lewtz for the 8th time this week....

To focus the game at a minority of the game population, regardless of their vocality, would kill the game. Even if they did nothing to keep the high-end guilds happy, and you all quit tomorrow, there would still be twice as many people _still playing_, and they wouldn't notice the difference in what they're doing...

I wonder how many people would really choose to be in the mega-guilds versus being in a smaller guild, or going the way of the casual player, if there were alternative growth paths available to them? It's rhetorical, no need to answer, cause no one knows unless SOE does a login poll and shares the results, which they won't.

I think raiding guilds grew by a ton during PoP simply because if you weren't in a raiding guild you had no new content since Luclin. So either raid or shrivel up and die of boredom. Or both!

Will that trend change? It will if SOE starts to put limits on raid sizes on new encounters.

Remember at one time SOE talked about putting a limit on the number of players you could have in a guild?

<strong>there seems to be some misconseption, on TDG I regulairly see people are saying that the Hard core raiding guilds are only 5% of the population if not less. This is completely wrong. Its a weak attempt to prove some point or another about ubers vs nonubers... bla bla.

On my server there are 3 guilds that I know are working twords time. these three guilds daily will have a combined 240+ people. With the average of about 2500 people per server that is close to 10% of the population, and again, this is only the three guilds that i am familiar with. Reasonably, one could take that 10% up to 20% with out pressing the bounds of reality.</strong>

5% is pretty accurate estimate of raiders in EQ, 20% is just wrong. On Karana there are about 9 guilds worth of people that are currently in elemental/time. Call that 1000 people. Karana is above average for number of raiders but that 1k probably isn't even 10% of the active accounts on Karana. 10% is a very high estimate for number of hard core raiders. Even a low population server will have 5k+ accounts on it, your example of 240 people won't even be 5% of your server's population, 20% IS way out of the bounds of reality.

There are less than 10 hardcore raiding guilds on Xegony with a couple of them being rather small and only working on PoP progression through alliances. At any one time if ALL these individuals were raiding it MIGHT equal 400 people. That aint no where near the majority, and as a matter of fact I would call the number miniscule compared to the whole.

Don't even get started on ubers and their extra accounts. Our guild is as casual as they come and my wife and i have 5 accounts, I know another couple with 6 accounts and dozens of people in my guild with 2 accounts.

*yawns*

Next argument to be dismissed plz!

Most EQ servers have over 8000 different accounts on them. 2500 is a very very old number for the # of simultaneous players that may or may not still be valid.

Full time raiding players spend more hours a day logged on , thus giving you the perception you have. For instance while raider x has been logged in 16 hours today, 2 non full times raiders may have been logged in for 8 hours each.

People playing longer hours does not benefit SoE in any way. I think it is great if people enjoy full time raiding, i can see where that appeals to some people.

The point of these silly arguments is always that by focusing on full time raiders you are ignoring most of your customers. even with your numbers (which are wrong anyway), that statement is still true.


Limiting Raid sizes in way prevents full time raiding guilds. The size of raiding guilds were required to baloon recently and the smaller full time raiding guilds got crushed.

If (for example) a 36 person raid becomes the norm. (That is a pretty good sized velious btw, in fact on most Velious content people would call that zerging).

Then some mega-guilds probally will shrink down into more manageable junks. It is difficult to keep developing open ended raid encounters. if players have trouble, they just go find more, until they have enough to be the mob. Sure the encounter could have been done with half that many people, but there seems to be little motivation in figuring that out now.

I must be the only person who thought the PoJ trials and the Hedge Maze were fun.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> must be the only person who thought the PoJ trials and the Hedge Maze were fun. [/quote]

I loved the trials. Hedge Maze was so-so. I didn't find it that much of a challenge, but I was focused on trying to get my guild through it, and was horribly annoyed at the bugs. As long as you had a couple of defensive tanks and 2 chanters/bards, it wasn't very challenging.

...fussy, fussy, fussy...and man we had to do it like 8 million times.

If they are going to do these limited number things, they need to be sure NOT to make them required as well. That was a horrific mistake, and sapped whatever meager pleasure the encounter itself held.

Doing a 2h plus mini raid 10 or more times because you have no choice but get all your people flagged in small groups is by no means fun for me.

Sony says themselves they have about 118,000 subscribers

118,000 / 47 servers = roughly 2500 per server on average

on my server i only mentioned the three guilds i knew were in EP and i knew their average turn out daily. If you take in the hardcore raiders that are not in EP you can get to 25-35% easy. One in every 3 or 4 accounts is not a significant number?

You can dismiss the argument all you want, put up something that has substance, that shows i am wrong and i will drop it.

Uh... figures are a bit off there. They have 430,000+ subscribers. 118,000 is the biggest number of subscribers they've had online at anyone time. I'm betting that 18,000 of them are bazaar traders though.

So, 118,000 per server is an *average* of 2510 per server. So there's another large percentage that didn't log in, like 6500 other people. So 500 of those are bazaar bots, so that's an average (yes, yes, your server is more/less crowded) of 2000 players per server.

Probably of that 2000 a good portion of them are hardcore players, since they play more. So if hardcore players make up 50% of the maximum online players, that'd be 1000 players, but I think that is a little high. On my server I'd put it at 500. But we'll say 1000. That's about 11% of the server population if you include the people that are subscribers.

This is, of course, just guesswork. Unless someone wants to go analyze guild rosters and figures out who all the bots and alts are, we won't really know.

thank you Panamah, i knew there was something i was missing.

I am not looking for an exact number(all of my examples were as best i could figure), only trying to reply to the people that seem to think Hard core raiders are some patheticly small portion of the server population. Where this is just not the case.

Better than half of the people that responded to this thread are not a total surprise :D

On a side note.... 5 million a month is a nice chunk of cash...

There are 179 zones in EQ currently. Of those 179 there are approx 6 that arent accessible to non-raiding folks.


I make that 3.35% of content available only to the top 5% of players.


This means non-raiders have 96.65% of the content of EQ available to them.

What was the complaint again?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There are 179 zones in EQ currently. Of those 179 there are approx 6 that arent accessible to non-raiding folks.[/quote]

Actually, just because you can enter a zone, it doesn't mean that it is accessible in the sense of being playable.

But you are correct. A majority of zones in the game are accessible and playable by non raiding folks (to use your terminology).

I think that what irritates many non raiding folks is the fact that PoP was an entire expansion in which a majority of the zones were inaccessible to them when it was first released. I know that it was a long time before I found PoP zones (other than knowledge) to be of any interest. I felt like it was a waste of money because my character could only access about a third of the zones that were a part of the expansion.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This means non-raiders have 96.65% of the content of EQ available to them.[/quote]

To further make the point of non raiding folks (not sure if that is the best way to characterize this category of player, but I will keep using that term)-- Raiders have 100% of the content available to them, even if they choose not to utilize the vast majority of it.

So the question is, who should SoE cater to? Well, I say that providing more content that 100% of the player base can access (whether they choose to do so or not) is always a better option than providing more content that only 25 percent (give or take -- again, we have no idea how many people classify themselves as "raiders") can access.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Well, I say that providing more content that 100% of the player base can access (whether they choose to do so or not) is always a better option than providing more content that only 25 percent (give or take -- again, we have no idea how many people classify themselves as "raiders&quot;) can access.[/quote]

I couldn't agree more, but there HAS GOT TO BE that top teir of content that caters to people who want to and are able to play a lot or they'll be done with the game in a few weeks. As I showed above that currrently stands at less than 4% of the total which is probably very close to the % of high end raiders.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Raiders have 100% of the content available to them, even if they choose not to utilize the vast majority of it.
[/quote]

Actually, you pretty much can't get into Veeshan's Peak and Vex Thal by raiding alone.

You would have about the same chance of soloing Rallos Zek as organising a raid and have it hold together for the 20 hour camps needed for VP. Similarly for Howling Stones (although Sebilis is doable with a small raid, as the key-droppers are instant respawn)

Come to think of it, PoV and PoS also can't be entered by raiding. As those flags are needed for all elemental zones, that means there are more zones that can't be entered by raiding than those that can't be single-grouped into:-)

soru

Kaleden,

I was using Deneldor2's terminology.

You make valid points, both you and Deneldor2.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Raiders have 100% of the content available to them, even if they choose not to utilize the vast majority of it.[/quote]

Maybe I should have said, "People who prefer to raid the high end zones", rather than "raiders".

These people can choose any play style whether it be solo, grouping, small raids, or large raids.

The more (*cringes at the term*) "casual" player doesn't have the last option available to him or her in most cases [They are unable (though some are simply unwilling) to juggle RL obligations to be able to become high end raid capable].

That's what I was trying to convey. I hope I succeeded this time.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There are 179 zones in EQ currently. Of those 179 there are approx 6 that arent accessible to non-raiding folks.


I make that 3.35% of content available only to the top 5% of players.


This means non-raiders have 96.65% of the content of EQ available to them.

What was the complaint again?[/quote]

Guess it all depends on how you count.

Veeshan's Peak
Sleeper's
Vex Thal
HoHb (don't the trials take more than a single group? forgive me if I am wrong)
Tactics (didn't they take out the alternate quest? it's what I read)
Lair of Terris Thule (did they remove the hedge flag from entering this zone? I would love to fight here)
Sol Ro Temple (is there an alternate entry?)
Plane of Fire
Plane of Earth
Plane of Water
Plane of Air
Plane of Time

Not trying to be arugumentative. Maybe you have a different perspective.

Also, of those 179 zones there's many fewer that are really content aimed at high levels. So if you discard all the lowbie zones, all the town zones, all the non-combat zones, the percentage is much higher.

Not that I care really. I don't want to go to PoTime or VP or even VT and I don't begrudge raiders their own content, just as long as casual players get an upgrade path and content geared towards them as well.

Like I said in the other thread, I have no issue with SOE providing content for high-end raiders. My issue is that there really isn't the equivilent for high-end non-raiders. Hopefully LDoN will address this, but non-raiders want the same thing the raiders want: zones and encounters that will challenge them at their style of play and provide desirable rewards.

Up to now, SOE has been catering to the raiders, and its not really hard to understand why. Put good loot on a mob designed to be challenging to a single group and someone will come in with a raid to take it down. Make the mob a rare spawn, and people will camp it endlessly. Basically to prevent too many instances of good loot from entering the game to easily, raid-level content was almost a necessity.

Instanced content, and content that is coded to be limited to single groups (ala the PoJ trials) or small raids (such as the Hedge Maze) allows them to provide content for non-raiders that cannot be raided. That is it will if it works. Provide an encounter specifically tuned and balanced for a single group, one that is difficult to overcome except by the best of players, and you can legitimately provide comparable rewards.

<strong>Like I said in the other thread, I have no issue with SOE providing content for high-end raiders. My issue is that there really isn't the equivilent for high-end non-raiders. Hopefully LDoN will address this, but non-raiders want the same thing the raiders want: zones and encounters that will challenge them at their style of play and provide desirable rewards.</strong>

As people's power goes up, raid content becomes easier. A lot of the low end Luclin encounters can be done with 1 or 2 groups of 65s with non-raiding equipment. The majority of Velious content can be done with 1 group. Derakor is a bit out of reach for a single non-raiding group but 2 could probably do him easily enough (thanks SOE for nerfing the BP drop on him.)

The problem of course is that even with the tons of high-end content for the 5% or 10% of the server that is raiders theres never any up because the respawn is so slow, now imagine how long the low-end content stays up when 50%+ of the server can kill it! I've argued before that spawn rates for previous expansions needs to go up, and this is one good example of why.

It's too scarce though, like you said. Also there's nothing most of those mobs drop that you can't get better of in Bazaar. Except that Vindi BP is quite nice for shammies. :) I lucked out on one of those for my shammy alt because no one else wanted it.

<strong>With the average of about 2500 people per server </strong>

Not since the year 2000.

I'd be very surprised to find out that Karana had less than 5000 accounts.

<strong>Sony says themselves they have about 118,000 subscribers</strong>

It was only about a year ago that Sony was bragging about having broken the 400,000 subscriber mark.

If they dropped down 118 already...the game would be about to die a horrible death.

And Karana wouldn't be so damned crowded

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Sony says themselves they have about 118,000 subscribers[/quote]

Actually, Sony says they had about 118,000 people online at a single time.

Is it your contention that every single active EQ account was logged in at that time?

Stewwy, yes maybe peoples perspectives differ and your count might be different to mine but a few of your list do not require a raid or simply aren't "hunting zones".


Veeshan's Peak... no reason for non raiders not to go here unless you restrict yourself to 6 people, thats your choice but Trak is doable with very, very few now.


Sleeper's...is 1 groupable without uber loot and zlandi is easily 1 groupable for keys.


Vex Thal.. agreed

HoHb (don't the trials take more than a single group? forgive me if I am wrong)..not really a hunting zone, a little tough for 1 group.


Tactics (didn't they take out the alternate quest? it's what I read)... not that I know of, in fact i believe they made it easier by a whole group being keyed by 1 member handing in.


Lair of Terris Thule (did they remove the hedge flag from entering this zone? I would love to fight here)..no you wouldnt. :) Only 3 types of Mob, all hard, crap experience, no loot.

Sol Ro Temple (is there an alternate entry?)
Plane of Fire
Plane of Earth
Plane of Water
Plane of Air
Plane of Time

...these are the ones I was thinking of, including VT thats 7, I said approx 6 so i was close.

As a somewhat hardcore raider with a guild getting its shards together for Vex Thal, I agree that it takes commitment. Our guild commited itself to not skipping content, we want to see all of the game. Some of our folks get impatient and leave the guild because they want to see the "end game", this has always kinda cracked me up personally because SoE probably has no intention of ever having the game END (5 million a month as someone said earlier is nothing to sneeze at). The true addiction to EQ IMHO is that there is something for many different personality types to do. Some folks have 8 characters under 40 and will never advance to the level that would be considered worthy by an "uber" guild. That is ok and I hope they have fun. For me I am totally in tune with our guilds goal not to skip content, and have been fortunate to be in the guild long enough not to have missed Sleepers Tomb and Veeshan's Peak. The VP key was a pain in the ass (but NOTHING compared to the key to Vex Thal). VT key and VP key require the combination of personal drive and guild oriented drive to see those places (without both you are not gonna see these places). Is this a good thing? I think YES. Casual gamers can get to these places as well as hard core gamers, its just gonna take them longer. Thats why some guilds are in PoTime, some are in Vex Thal, some are excited as all heck to be raiding NtoV, and some are thrilled to be whacking Naggy. That is the joy of the content of EQ, and to me why I stay playing this game. I enjoy the aspect of accomplishing goals with my guild. Different guilds have different goals. I am sorry to see friends leave the guild, and we have had some move to other guilds because they want to skip to end game mobs, we have also seen others quit because they felt too much pressure to raid and wanted to go back to a more social guild that did not spend the 5 hours needed to kill Tunare or the many days needed to get Emperor keys and keys to Vex Thal.


In some ways I dont understand the point of threads like these. I guess some people think that they should get it all without effort. I am not one of those people. Effort is part of the draw of this game. People who receive "uber" items are kinda like getting Fancy Cars and Plasma TV's with no effort involved, Yes we all want a porshe/ferrari possibly along with our 60" plasma, but if it was handed to you the thrill would be gone quickly. Working to acheive the means necessary to have these things is actually the thrill that makes these things valuable. Sony is smart enough to realize this, and thats why they are so successful.

Raiding != effort.
Grouping != lack of effort.

Battling these assumptions is the point of these threads.

Grouping != effort
Raiding != lack of effort
Raiding != zerging

Most of your posts seem to be written from the perspective that they are.

No, I'm trying to battle the generalizatons I see many (not all, and some only to some extent) raiders making that their way of playing the game is the only legitimate way to play. If you don't want to raid, you're a lazy casual player that wants to have everything handed to them without effort and you don't deserve to have any fun in the game.

That is an extreme summation of the raiding snobbery I see expressed over and over.

The thing is Panamah that raiding and grouping aren't exclusive. If you dont raid you group, if you raid you raid and group, you dont just wake up with level 65 and a zillion AAs. So yes there is more effort simply because we do what non-raiders do AND what raiders do.

<strong>With the average of about 2500 people per server that is close to 10% of the population</strong>

They actually aim for more than 10,000 active accounts per server, assuming that not everyone is going to be playing at once. As noted above with the 110K vs 400K+ total numbers

So using the original estimate of number of high end raiders, that turns out to be 2.5% to 5%.

Because 2.5% of 10,000 is only 250 people per server.

I have not seen anyone who has actually done a server profile in this thread (or any of the tens of billions of others like it) come up with less than 1500 accounts associated with raid guilds.

It is falacious to only count Time guilds on any server, though I think they are the ones who will be most in need of new content soon (how many times will it be fun for them to kill Quarm?)

On 7th, there are 4 guilds in elementals (none in time yet heh), 3 at RZTW, and another 5 or so spread around pre-VT content. Each of those guilds accounts for something around 125 mains, plus probably another 50 - 100 secondary accounts depending on the guild. Lets be conservative and say each guild, mains and twinks, adds up to 150 accounts.

So....7 Elemental or near elementals guilds are 1,050 accounts, and the other 5ish guilds are another 750ish accounts...and we are at 1,750 accounts out of 10000, or 17.5%.

Serious raiding guilds on Solusek Ro. Just off the top of my head...

Blood of Ro
Wolfsclan
Magna Charta
Odisea
Triadica
Darkblood
Eternal Flames
Necessary Evil
Gathered Might (only NToV level, but moving up fast).
there are others who I am forgetting (and I am to lazy to look at my server board to find out the rest)...

At ~100 per guild (average), just the ones I can remember to list would account for 900 people.

<strong>I have not seen anyone who has actually done a server profile in this thread (or any of the tens of billions of others like it) come up with less than 1500 accounts associated with raid guilds.</strong>

Well, 3 or 4 came up with about 1000 accounts, you are the only one to come up with more than 1000 people, how you can claim you have not seen anyone come up with less than 1500 accounts associated with raid guilds is beyond me. You came up with 1750 but did that by including guilds that are raiding velious content which no one could seriously claim is a hard-core raider if they're doing 2 year old content which even non-raiders can easily do with 1 or 2 groups of people.

10% is a good top estimate of the percentage of hard-core raider accounts on a server.

Wow, I thought it was bad when I was in a raiding guild competing against 3 other raid type guilds when I played.

I'm curious. If most servers really have 1000 to 1500 people dispersed over 8-10 raiding guilds per server doing Luclin+ level of content, how the heck do you find mobs to raid every night? The racing and head-butting with competing guilds must be insane on FFA servers, which most are to my knowledge. It used to be that all worthwhile raid mobs were dead with a couple days of a patch. It must be mere hours now!

PoT does appear to have a lot of raid progression in it so maybe I'm wrong /shrug.

Quote:

10% is a good top estimate of the percentage of hard-core raider accounts on a server.


Again, I think we need to agree to disagree.

And I have two further questions for you.

First, since I was refutinga claim that raiders made up 2.5% of server populations, is a dispute about it being 10% or 17% really that meaningful?

Second, why do you assume that only guilds that have beaten every prior encounter care about a new expansion delivering new content? In my experience, INCLUDING POP, every type of player got something from every expansion. I didn't agree with how POP was designed, but really, this is the first expansion without raid content.

The reality on my server is that there is too much competition for too little content. Each expansion up to now has let guilds at all levels add variety to their raid diets, as well as given more content for them to consume. New opportunities for competing guilds meant that while they were pursuing new goals, old targets were freed up for others to try.

Whatever though...I suppose I will just let this thread keep going its way until 3 or 4 posters all agree that there are really only 2 active players per server who want to raid and are interested in new raid content. And of course let them drive off anyone who disagrees.

Did you somehow lose your ability to group when you signed onto a raiding guild? As I see it, if you buy LDoN you're getting as much content as the next person. Contrast that to PoP where you are getting far more content than most people, and I don't mean in terms of zones, in terms of playability.

Veeshans Peak/PoNB isnt avaiable to "just" raiders.... both take 18 people max in this day and age, neither are hard or require massive AA or Gear...

<strong>Second, why do you assume that only guilds that have beaten every prior encounter care about a new expansion delivering new content? In my experience, INCLUDING POP, every type of player got something from every expansion. I didn't agree with how POP was designed, but really, this is the first expansion without raid content.</strong>

You're talking about LoY I take it? SOE says LDoN will have 36 player raid content.

I think I have already clearly enough said that I think that they threw half assed raid content in at the end, and that 36 person limits would not tailor well to the raid game that has been built Velious forward.

But there, I said it again.

<em>But there, I said it again.</em>

Are you already done with the 72 person raid content?

What is that argument about, really?

I already said that I would sooner have them put no raid content in this expansion than do it half assed, but read up a few posts....

New raid content helps all raid guilds...if it is suitable raid content. Guilds have more to spread out in, more variety to their raiding. Some guilds change their diet enough that older content is freed up.

I am sorry but hte "unless you are done with Time you don't need new raid content" argument is complete BS. Until this expansion, EVERY expansion has added raid content at the 72 raid level. And no, most guilds that benefited were not "all done" with what went before.

I am not looking forward to headbutting in elementals with 7 other guilds. And yes, I damn sure hope that the next expansion in Spring delivers in ALL areas of the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As I see it, if you buy LDoN you're getting as much content as the next person. Contrast that to PoP where you are getting far more content than most people, and I don't mean in terms of zones, in terms of playability.[/quote]

You know thats just not true Panamah. When you bought PoP you got everything on your PoP CD that he got on his but your <strong>chosen</strong> play style means a lot of it is no use to you. If he prefers to raid then LDoN will be exactly the same for him, he will have all the content you have on his download/CD but he'll probably choose not to use it all.

/rofl
And weren't you and Tiane up in arms just a bit ago telling me that you hardcore raiders do everything non-raiders do, including dungeon crawls and experience grouping?

How do you know what I've chosen, Deneldor? That's pretty presumptious of you.

Did I choose my timezone? Well, I guess I choose not to leave it. Are you saying that people should choose to change their jobs or quit working so they can play with raiding guilds? Are you suggesting that I should choose to neglect my family so I could raid like that? (more of a hypothetical situation in my case since I'm not attached). And, most importantly, should I choose to leave my friends in a small guild because it's no longer convienent to my progress in the game?

If those are the choices that mega-raiders have to make, then I gotta think that that play-style isn't a very mentally healthy one. Ones priorities in life shouldn't be built around acquiring uber-gear in a game.

So, I could chose to make changes in my life, like moving to a new time zone, quit my job, and neglecting those I love, to fully utilize PoP. You're quite right, Deneldor. I don't choose to fully utilize PoP. I gotta question the mental stability of anyone that would make changes like that to do so.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I gotta question the mental stability of anyone that would make changes like that to do so.[/quote]

So would I. I'd really have loved to spent a year travelling the worlds best surfing beaches. I have a family though, I dont really have the time so I accept that that's not for me.

Maybe you need to accept that high end EQ isn't for you? After all I don't demand that the worlds best beaches be built on my doorstep to save me the effort.


Incidentally I /movelogged because of time zone differences and wanting to progress, luckily I didnt have to do it alone, but that is one thing thats never gonna change unless you do something about it. The friends I did leave behind I still chat to via ;serverwide.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Maybe you need to accept that high end EQ isn't for you? [/quote]

You think?

As it currently exists, EQ past level 60 isn't for anyone that wants to play casually. That's what I've been complaining about.

Unlike having beaches in your backyard, EQ is a product that is designed by people who make decisions about how EQ expands and gets developed. Currently that development has been skewed in favor of a relatively small number of players (and probably a disproportionately high number of SOE employees) that are in mega-raiding guilds.

So, rather than give up just yet, I hope that some of the dialogue about the problems inherient to the game for the casual player will sink into the developers at SOE and they'll start building the game for <em>everyone</em> instead of the minority of players who believe that the only content that is valid is mega-guild raiding content.

As far as your problem with the beaches well, you'll either need to discuss that with a supreme being of your choice or look to relocate. My problem is much cheaper and easier to solve than yours. ;)

"I am not looking forward to headbutting in elementals with 7 other guilds"

Really?

I thought that that was part of the allure to raiding, part of the excitement. It is for many raiders. Many raiders enjoy the racing and cockblocking.

I specifically did not mention PoP, let alone Time, for the simple fact that vast amounts of raiding content has not been consumed; even by those we would both consider hard core raiders.

And, and, doubtful that it will even be consumed, at least in my mind until the next expansion comes out in 8 or so months. An expansion sure to cater explicitly to raiders again.

While I certainly do not wish to begrudge hard core raiders and their enjoyment of the game of racing and cockblocking, I have no problems saying, "Wait 'til the next one". No one had a problem telling casual players or even those in family style raiding guilds that, "Ok this one is ours, you get the next one", when PoP came out. I know that <em>waiting your turn</em> is not customary, at least many raiders are hard pressed when asked to, but oh well.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
As it currently exists, EQ past level 60 isn't for anyone that wants to play casually. That's what I've been complaining about.[/quote]

all but 3 XP zones and 6 raid zones are easily accessible to anyone....

Open raids can do most of the raiding encounters up till Bertox/RZ

You no long have to spend long time getting places...

You can get very good xp w/o having raid quality equipment....

No class has a lockdown on groups...

Start of PoP was pretty bad if you were casual, but its dramatically improved now

Well, you can count me as one of the people that enjoys raiding but not racing.

In general I enjoy cooperative games more than competitive games...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Start of PoP was pretty bad if you were casual, but its dramatically improved now[/quote]

Yeah...I think that that is part of the point that Panamah is trying to make. (Forgive me if I am mistaken Panamah).

Originally, the vast majority of PoP content was NOT accessible to the more casual player.

Greater accessibility only came after a VERY long time -- and not until after hard core folks had a chance to have the content exclusively to themselves for a good long time.

I like what Oldoaktree says too....seems like the raiding content was added on to make raiders happier...well...based on the some of the reactions here, that was a wasted effort because a lot of the big raiding guild members think it offers them nothing. Maybe it would be best if they left out the raid content and kept it focused on small groups. /shrug.

I also like a point that Panamah made. I always did get the feeling that SoE developers were catering to their own likes/dislikes with each new expansion. Maybe with Smedley they finally did some good market analysis realized that they should try to cater to the majority of the player base. A lot of changes over the past year have shown that SoE is trying to make the game more fun and more accessible for the casual player who prefers to group...opening more of PoP without the necessity for raiding is just one example of this.

I personally hope that the trend continues. Sure....provide more high end raid content...but be sure to provide it proportionate to the player base. That means NOT creating more expansions like PoP which is accessible to only 20 percent of the player base upon initial release. Instead, it means releasing more content like Kunark and Velious in which there is a good and fair mixture of content.

Ideally, even extensions like LoY should provide something for everyone. LoY should have had a low level zone and one strict raiding zone, in my opinion.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As it currently exists[/quote]

...why are we still talking about pop as it originally came out, now that it has changed?

I never agreed with having so many zones locked. I felt that raid content should be self selecting, but the challenge it presented.

But apparently all's fair so long as it suits your own playstyle.

<em>...why are we still talking about pop as it originally came out, now that it has changed?</em>

Is that rhetorical?

I'm not talking about the number of zones in PoP, I'm talking about the content. I pretty much finished all the content in PoP I had access to, which was all the zones they eventually opened, in February. By March or April I had spent enough time in PoP to be starting to get completely bored.

I remember that one guy that posted "My guild has finished PoP" on the shaman board. I think even Moorguard wrote about that, that was probably 4 or more months ago. But it was true. He'd done all the quests for keys. They'd all gotten access and "finished" PoP as far as they could go. PoP for the casual player was like trying to suck a soup off your shirt, not enough there to be satisfying and doesn't taste right. Definitely not gonna get much nourishment from the soup stain nor much playability from PoP, unless you're in a mega-guild.

The point being, there just really wasn't a whole lot to do for anyone that wasn't a raiding.

I dont know anyone in my guild who enjoys the racing or cockblocking. Personally that's always been the most annoying part of the raiding game. Makes things truly unpleasant.

Once your maxxed out your aa/levels what has their ever been do to besides raiding/tradeskills/quests/camp for items?

Now all of those are pretty easy to do for anyone... even raiding, most servers have open raids almost up to RZ, some in elementals...

I can certainly see why pop sucked at start for casuals, but now it seems pretty much the same as any other exspantion in open VS raiding only zones...

Hell prekunark had what.. 2 endgame xp zones and 3 raiding zones (fear/hate/sky) ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>While I certainly do not wish to begrudge hard core raiders and their enjoyment of the game of racing and cockblocking, I have no problems saying, "Wait 'til the next one". No one had a problem telling casual players or even those in family style raiding guilds that, "Ok this one is ours, you get the next one", when PoP came out. I know that waiting your turn is not customary, at least many raiders are hard pressed when asked to, but oh well. [/quote]

If only! That isn't the message I'm hearing at all. I hear a lot of groaning because this next one isn't their's too! A lot of the raiders are making it pretty clear here they don't feel there should be any place in the game for casual players, certainly no content should be wasted on us, certainly no upgrade path. "Let them play alts!" is the message I'm hearing.

I know tons of people that had to quit EQ because there was no path to follow once you got to high levels outside of raiding. A friend of mine quite awhile ago chucked it because his wife and family wanted to see more of him and the raiding and guild stuff wasn't compatible with a happy family life. I hear that story echoed all over. SOE has to balance it, or they're going to eventually lose out to someone that can create a game with the right balance.

There's so much misinformation, selective reading, and tons of other bull**** semantics in this thread alone I don't even know where to begin. I have read ever single thread on this board about "uber vs non-uber" debate crap (and that's alot of reading since some posters feel like bringing it up in EVERY SINGLE THREAD). And that's exactly what it is CRAP!
I am a member of the "hardcore raiding" community if you want to call us that. I do feel that you should be offered a "growth path" per se. You know what happened though? You blew through you "growth path" so that there really isn't THAT much of a difference in our gear. Amazing huh? So now you want to be equal to me? Eff you seriously. I have 2 jobs, 2 kids, a wife, a house, a dog, the whole 9 yards. I spend time with my family keep everything done and still manage to raid 5-6 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. Most guilds don't start raiding till 7ish EST later for other guilds. My kids are in bed at 7 and 8 respectively. Now I have a few hours to sit down at the computer and raid. Why don't you? Cause you'd rather be doing other stuff? That's fine by me BUT don't you dare come in and say that you have earned the right to the same rewards that I have. Cause you haven't period end of story. I'm so glad this post was finally made in the bitter druids, cause this has been pent up for quite a while.
It boggles my mind to see these "casual" gamers who spend 2 hours a day on message boards, say that they "can't" raid. You can BUT it takes sacrifices in real life to do it. You don't want to sacrifice real life stuff for a video game? FINE DON'T BUT DON'T COME HERE AND TELL ME YOU HAVE "EARNED" THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT I DO AND GET WHAT I DO! Cause alot of us have sacrificed going out with friends on some nights cause our guilds needed us. Have sacrificed other things cause our guilds needed us. That's why I've earned the right to be "slightly" more equipped then you. And I get to enjoy my 7 zones that you don't. k?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Cause alot of us have sacrificed going out with friends on some nights cause our guilds needed us. Have sacrificed other things cause our guilds needed us. That's why I've earned the right to be "slightly" more equipped then you. And I get to enjoy my 7 zones that you don't. k?[/quote]

Sorry, but piss off. I pay the same amount of money for my account that you pay for yours. I deserve to have the same option to advance that you do, at my own pace. Which means while you may burn through the content in a month, I'll spend a year getting through it, but at least I will get through it, unlike the bull**** it is today.

EverQuest is a <strong>game</strong>. Not a second job. You should not be forced to sacrifice things in your real life outside of EQ just to play the game.

Everquest is a game, I agree. But who's to say that because you don't put forth the same effort of said game that you are entitled to reap the same rewards?
And why is this just now coming up? It's has been this way since the beginning of the game. Was everyone allowed into PoF & PoH? To some extent yes, but you had to be 46+ (which isn't exactly the cake walk it is today) and be prepared for 8 hour CR's could a "casual" player utilize those zones? Newp. Kunark, hell everyone still hasn't seen VP, OS wasn't exactly easy to get into, neither was Howling Stones for that matter. Velious, Sleepers Tomb? with non soulbound keys even. ToV? NToV? hell "casual" gamers are just now hitting these zones 2 1/2 expansions later. VT shards? ugh! Seru bane? Seru earring? Emp key? Emp bane? Time sinks "casual" gamers "can't" do And now with PoP you guys just pop up?
Who's to say that one day you won't reach sol ro, or the elemental planes, or hell even time? It seems to me that you "casual" gamers don't want to do things at your own "casual" pace. <strong>YOU WANT TO DO THEM AT MINE!</strong> You guys say you want it to be equal time put in for equal rewards? Fine I'll see you in PoFire NEXT OCTOBER.
We "the hardcore raiders" (as we like to be called) have put in countless hours of time to get where we're at, anyone wanna do Bert or Saryn for the 800th backflagging? Anyone else wanna do another 14 hour Maidens Eye shard camp? Camp Ssra Commanders forfreakinever to get emp keys for your whole guild? Ssra mines for Ore? Everwhere for Seru bane components? I have logged well over 250 days /played in this game, doing countless "timesinks" to always see the entire game. I have been to every zone in the game except time. And yes I have had to sacrifice some real life things to do it. Now these casual gamers want access to everything I have access to, at the same time I have access to it? And this seems fair to you?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I'll spend a year getting through it, but at least I will get through it, unlike the bull**** it is today.
[/quote]

Can you either:

give one reason why anyone should believe that that is not the case for PoP, when it has been true for every previous expansion, and PoP (outside PoTime) is much more casual-friendly than any previous expansion (e.g. max raid time 3 hours instead of 16, much lower effective difference between raid and bazaar loot then ever previously, etc?).

-- or --

find something else to post about

-- or --

find somewhere else to post

soru

Hmm...so POP came out and the casual's were screwed for a few months...then they losened up POP to make it more casual friendly...good !!

I am already BORED with TIME, we have killed Quarm twice, and I for sure dont like the idea of doing Time for 8 months till the next high end raid expansion, so I hope two months after LODN is out they add high end raid content for ME !!

yes, for me...with my 500 days played !! = )

neener neener = )

However, just in CASE they dont add raid content my druid will enjoy, my level 65 cleric and level 65 chanter (classes that CAN get groups) are very excited about LODN.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>who's to say that because you don't put forth the same effort of said game that you are entitled to reap the same rewards?[/quote]
High end raiders should keep in mind that high end non-raiders have done plenty of boring camps in order to obtain their gear. For every hour a raider has spent camping shards so that they could get into VT for the gear drops, a non-raider has farmed plat so that they could save the money to buy gear in the bazaar. If you compare the gear that you can get on a raiding growth path with the gear you can get on a non-raiding growth path over the same days played, you'll find that the raiders come out way, way ahead. In the past, the game needed to be this way because placing nice gear on single groupable mobs would mean that they'd get taken down by larger forces (thus trivializing the drops). With LDoN, it will not be possible to bring a larger force so the gear will not be trivialized.

Looking into my crystal ball I see...

On September 8th the revolution came and went.

The world was a little bigger, but all in all, nothing changed.

*laughs* Hope you like the taste of your foot as well Oldoak. LDoN is going to completely change the way pickup groups and dungeon crawls are done.

But, my point, which from your other posts I doubt you are interested in is:

It won't change the itemization philosophy of the game

It won't represent a long term shift from the mix of raid versus non raid content in the game

It will not change the fundamental dynamics for how the game works.

There will be more exp zones. They will be kind of fun. They won't mean that all the planes will go empty forever. It will be another experience group option. NOthing less, but nothing more.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It won't change the itemization philosophy of the game[/quote]

I think it will. Instead of getting the most uberest drop of drops with one kill by the zerg herd, you spend time with a close group of friends doing lots of content and gradually working your way up to the uberest of uber drops. And because SoE can limit the numbers you can zerg an encounter with... they can create great loot for very challenging encounters, without worrying that GuildX is going to bring 40 people to a 6 person encounter and farm it to death with very little challenge or risk.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It won't represent a long term shift from the mix of raid versus non raid content in the game[/quote]

I bet almost every future expansion includes some kind of instanced content now. It's flexibility and ease of use offers so many more options for the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It will not change the fundamental dynamics for how the game works.[/quote]

*laugh* I think it will. I know I could have a lot more friends from real life playing if they could do instanced dungeons once a week or so and see some real advancement for their character and some real interaction with the game setting.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There will be more exp zones. They will be kind of fun. They won't mean that all the planes will go empty forever. It will be another experience group option. NOthing less, but nothing more.[/quote]

Please take the time to go read the damned articles about LDoN that are already out there. Sheesh. The points you bring up... are points that only a person who has not read the articles and fully understood them, could make.

They are going to be far more than just xp grind zones. They are <strong>dungeon crawls</strong> with a quest behind them. Again, go read the @#%$ articles. Do you read the little stories that you download every now and then from the patches? Have you been to Lavastorm lately? There's a whole camp full of people there with a story to tell.

But I guess you're too busy raking in the phat lewts with your herd people you can walk on top of to look down upon the lowly people like me.

...we will see in a month, won't we?

I have read all the material on LDON other than the annoying RP nonsense they put up to build the hype. That stuff is always drivel, and generally poorly written. I stick to the more substantive sources of information, not inferences I might make from a poorly written bit of claptrap. Every interview, every bit of substance.

yes, they will be dungeon crawls. I do not, however, believe they will be instanced in the way you seem to think. All the information I have seen has only made the claim that the mobs will randomly generate as the group zones in. I think there will be 40 zones, useable by one gruop at a time. Instancing is a tag that others are applying to what SOE is saying. That is the first thing I think you will find is different from your expectations (ie, it won't be 7 groups doing the same zone in different versions simultaneously). I challenge you to find any quote from SOE that says it will be.

Second, they have made NO COMMENTS AT ALL about the relative value of the loot, or how it will compare to say Time loot. There will, as always, be some Good Stuff (TM). But that does not mean you are going to wander into an exp group and get 200hp/mana items. Nor even 125hp/mana items. Sure, there will be some...probably as rewards for completing say all 40 dungeons.

For a return to dungeon play I am looking forward to it. For the addition of treasure chests, I am looking forward to it. For dungeons that are not about respawn and camping, I look forward to it. Not really new for me...I have done plenty of exp group crawls in the old dungeons. I do think it will be fun...I regret that I won't have the freedom to duo a dungeon if I choose (like I might have before) or trio one. But whatever, when I have the time for an exp group I think it will be good fun.

But again, we will soon all see...

One last thing:

Quote:

But I guess you're too busy raking in the phat lewts with your herd people you can walk on top of to look down upon the lowly people like me.


Nasty little cuss, aren't you? You infer a lot of wildly inaccurate things about me and my guild.

But then, the truth is when you get right down to it, I am enough like the person you think I am to not really give a damn what you think of me. If you don't want to have an intelligent discussion about a topic and must resort to insinuation and flames, you are not really worth my time.

Alyssia,
Why are you so bitter at people who put more effort AND time into the game and hence are <strong>SLIGHTLY</strong> better equipped then you? I'm guessing your 65 w/a reasonable amount of AA's? I'm sick of you making every "hardcore raider" (I hate that "title" that you have bestowed upon us) out to be the bad guy. We put more time and effort into the game BUT we should get nothing more from it then you, who only plays 1-2 hours a night 3-4 nights a week?
The lack of common sense from some of you "casual" gamers astounds me. I can't see why it's so hard that the more you put into something the more get out of it, as does happen in real life and in any scenario really. You want more money? Work overtime. You want a better body? Work out more. You want to be smarter? Study more. You want a better Everquest character? PLAY MORE. It's really not that tough to figure out. Can I throw a fit cause Arnold Schwarzenegger has a better body them me? Cause well I live a life too, pay all my bills, and everything, BUT Arnold spends 5-6 hours a day 5-6 days a week in the Gym and I only spend 1-2 hours a day 3-4 hours a week in Gym? No I can't why? cause I don't put for the effort required.
I'm usually a silent lurker, I've been reading these boards since, god well forever. and my post count is only at 16. You wanna know why? Cause I don't have alot of free time. And what I do have I'd rather spend PLAYING Everquest and ADVANCING my character. Spend half the time playing your Character as you do on these boards and you'll be able to get into a raiding guild and advance your character.
Most people put up the numbers of how many are online and how many are in raiding guilds and how many are not. You want to know why these number you guys throw around are useless? Out of those people not in raiding guilds how many strive to be in one? How many people are leveling up and working on required AA's simply to be in a raiding guild? The "casual" gamers are alot smaller "majority" then you would like to think. And I believe on most boards you are by far the vocal minority. Why? Cause "casual" gamers don't care about the intricacies of the game. They only play "casually" and to tell you the truth, there isn't anything wrong with the casual side of the game. They have made leveling a cinch, expounded hand and fist on the trade skills, made dropable armor with VERY nice stats, what more do you want? You want to be the endgame? Then put in the time and effort we do, till then shut up.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I think there will be 40 zones, useable by one gruop at a time. Instancing is a tag that others are applying to what SOE is saying. That is the first thing I think you will find is different from your expectations (ie, it won't be 7 groups doing the same zone in different versions simultaneously). I challenge you to find any quote from SOE that says it will be.[/quote]
I sure hope your wrong because that would be a spectacularly stupid implementation and a massive let down. The entire expansion could only be used by 240 people at once. Given that people of ALL level ranges can potentially use these zones, there would be long, long lines just to get in. It would also allow a guild of griefers to block access to the entire expansion just by sending a group of 5 into each dungeon and then going AFK.

Logically it would have to be iterated to make any sense I guess....I had not done that math.

I will be happy to be wrong on that point. But I have to say, one of the interviews with Absor made me think that he was saying there were "a number" of themes for 5 basic dungeons (8 on average) and that a group could be in any one.

Still....I would MUCH rather be wrong on this...240 at a time is just...impossible. They could never launch it that way.

...really can't conclude anything form it but as you noted, the math would really suck if they are not truly iterated:

<hr />

GameSpy: What's the idea behind LDoN?

Shawn Lord: The Lost Dungeons of Norrath is designed to bring back the thrill of the dungeon crawl. There's a certain sense of danger that comes along with being a small group of heroes traveling into the depths of a dark cavern seeking adventure. LDoN is built for single groups of characters that want to push their way through a dungeon from beginning to end. There won't be any "camping" of spawns. To further your adventure you'll have to forge ahead and see what lies in wait for you in the gloom around the next bend.

GameSpy: Please explain how the new "Dynamic Dungeon System" technology works.

Shawn Lord: Your group can approach certain NPCs who will ask them to perform a task or explore a location. If the party leader accepts the adventure, the party will be given what is, essentially, a key to the dungeon. All members of the group will be able to enter that dungeon to face the dangers there, but other player characters will not. These dungeons will be created on the server specifically for their use, and will only exist as long as the characters are having their adventure.

GameSpy: Will the dungeons feature randomly generated elements?

Shawn Lord: Random would not be the proper word to describe it. No content is completely random; we prefer to make certain that all the content is hand-crafted. These dungeons will not be randomly generated from parts, but factors such as the level of the party and the type of adventure that they want to undertake will determine what sort of encounters they have.

...in the Gamespy interview they do use the word "instance..."

<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/everquestlostdungeonsofnorrath/preview_6030604.html" target="top">www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/everquestlostdungeonsofnorrath/preview_6030604.html</a>

<hr />

GS: How does the dungeon system work? Is it a way to keep groups from competing with each other, or camping areas to get specific rare items?

RP: Players will be introduced to the Wayfarer's Brotherhood through world events long before the launch of Lost Dungeons of Norrath. These events will orient them to the coming changes in Norrath, including the ancient dungeons that have been found. Player groups will contact a member of the Wayfarer's Brotherhood to get their assignment and the key to the dungeon. Their adventure may be to kill the boss monster, rescue someone, or clear the dungeon of creatures. All these assignments will offer plenty of opportunities to gather loot and experience.

GS: How much will the dungeons be customized for a given group? Are there any randomly generated areas?


Groups of five or six characters can venture into the more than 40 new dungeons for a private adventure.

RP: There are some rules associated with the dungeons, in terms of the level range of the group, the time allotted to complete the adventure, the time allotted to start the adventure, and so on, but overall the dungeons are balanced to provide groups of five to six with an independent dungeon-crawl adventure that's tailored to their experience level and the adventure type they've selected and also balanced to offer them the hand-crafted content EQ is famous for.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Still....I would MUCH rather be wrong on this...240 at a time is just...impossible. They could never launch it that way.[/quote]
I would much rather you were wrong too. :-) However, I can see how the info from the interview could be interpreted the way you interpreted it.

All I can say is that I REALLY look forward to EQII. Maybe they will start the game out in such a way to keep people from being so concerned about gear.

My greatest hope is that they will make Uber Loot/Rewards accessible to all types of players from the very start. That way people can't get all riled up about the fact that only hard core raiders get the best loot, nor will the hard core raiders get all riled up at the prospect that a casual player can attain the best of gear without going on a single raid.

That's what this whole casual vs. uber thing seems to be about to me -- the best loot and who is entitled to it.

Pretty darned silly if you ask me.

I have never been one to participate in the rat race in real life...I sure as heck don't understand why people choose to participate in it in the game. Competitive spirit perhaps? Well, I just don't have it. I will be happy with my Elysian armor. I don't care who has better nor do I care to brag about my equipment to those who have worse. The way I play the game, I don't need better, and I don't really give a darn what gear anyone else has.

Now....getting back to play styles. I really think that more content needs to be geared to a majority of players. If encounters in LDoN require elemental gear, they aren't really going to be accessible to most players are they?

Quite frankly, I don't care if a group of 65's that have conquered Plane of Time can walk into an LDoN dungeon and farm it in a half hour. Let them do it all they want. It doesn't hurt me. I just want the higher level content to be challenging without being impossible for someone like me...someone whose gear will probably never be better than Elysian, and whose guild/alliances can't scrape together more than 40 players for a raid.

Yes, that's a bit selfish of me, but it sounds to me like most folks posting here are being selfish, too. :p

Oh! And I forgot to add my biggest request!!!

The world of Norrath and the game of EQ should revolve around me and my wants!!!

:rolleyes:

Crap! I had a post all type up and I closed the wrong tab. *sighs* Anyway...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That stuff is always drivel, and generally poorly written. I stick to the more substantive sources of information, not inferences I might make from a poorly written bit of claptrap.[/quote]

Oh please... give me a @#%$ break. I wasn't inferring anything from the stories posted by SoE about events leading up to LDoN. All my inferences have been from the GameSpy articles.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why are you so bitter at people who put more effort AND time into the game and hence are SLIGHTLY better equipped then you? I'm guessing your 65 w/a reasonable amount of AA's? I'm sick of you making every "hardcore raider" (I hate that "title" that you have bestowed upon us) out to be the bad guy. We put more time and effort into the game BUT we should get nothing more from it then you, who only plays 1-2 hours a night 3-4 nights a week?[/quote]

Here's my rogue (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=764232). Pretty gimp gear compared to damn near any rogue in a raiding guild. Only recently have any weapon upgrades become available to me as a casual gamer... yet they're still pathetic rare drops off rare spawn mobs and they don't compare to any of the drops out of the raid zones in PoP. I can't solo for my gear... so I have to depend on groups... and I hate trying to force a group to camp one spot just for me.

I see no problem with casual gamers having a growth path for gear that could end up being as good as PoTime loot. The only difference there should be between the hardcore and casual gamers... is the speed with which the loot is gotten. The hardcore gamers of course would be the first ones to get it. So they have their chance to boost their ego's and shake their wangs about having a pissing contest about who's the best. I could care less.

I just want to have the option, the ability to eventually achieve that kind of gear at my own pace with just my group of good friends... instead of being forced to join the resident uber goober guild and sacrifice events in real life just to kill some pixels and get more pixels.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I can't see why it's so hard that the more you put into something the more get out of it, as does happen in real life and in any scenario really.[/quote]

First, because EverQuest is just a game. Not a second life. Not a second job. It's a game. If I could get everything you could, but at my own pace... what's wrong with that? You get more, faster... and I get stuff, at my own pace.

I'm not asking for LDoN to basically take my rogue and in a months time, make her equal in gear to PoTime rogues... I just want to have the ability to gather gear at my own pace that is earned by the <strong>challenge</strong> of the encounter... and not by how long I can sit in one spot killing the same mobs over and over.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Most people put up the numbers of how many are online and how many are in raiding guilds and how many are not. You want to know why these number you guys throw around are useless? Out of those people not in raiding guilds how many strive to be in one? How many people are leveling up and working on required AA's simply to be in a raiding guild? The "casual" gamers are alot smaller "majority" then you would like to think.[/quote]

I'm sorry, but what you said goes against what most everyone said in the thread about the numbers. It is a pretty damn reasonable assumption to assume that roughly 12-20% of the population of each server is a hardcore gamer. That leaves 80-88% of the server in the casual section.

Most uber guilds that I know of usually have a pretty stable population... that fluctuates of course... but for the most part... remains pretty steady. People coming, people going... it happens. Casual gamers are the majority and that's who the game should be catered too. We are the paying majority. Who would you rather keep around? The player that pays each month but only logs on a couple nights a week? Or the hardcore whiner that logs on every day for eight hours a day, whining on message boards, bitching at GM's, sending nasty feedback, and worse?

I know which market I would cater too... since it's an all access pass to the servers, 24/7... if it was pay by the hour... I'd be loooking at the hardcore gamers instead.

Quote:

Quite frankly, I don't care if a group of 65's that have conquered Plane of Time can walk into an LDoN dungeon and farm it in a half hour. Let them do it all they want. It doesn't hurt me. I just want the higher level content to be challenging without being impossible for someone like me...someone whose gear will probably never be better than Elysian, and whose guild/alliances can't scrape together more than 40 players for a raid.

Yes, that's a bit selfish of me, but it sounds to me like most folks posting here are being selfish, too.


There is absolutely nothing selfish about that. And it is a reasonable expectation, and something I am sure we all hope.

So far, I don't see any confirmation that anything besides level will determine the challenge of a dungeon. It may well be that the content of LDON will be trivial to the best geared players, which frankly would be a real shame. But I am not by any means advocating that it be impossible unless you are head to toe in Time gear. Hell, I wouldn't be able to do that either.

But the seperate issue that repeatedly comes up is RVR. And I think that if they make end game gear attainable in exp group settings they will cheapen the game and weaken the franchise.

Alyssia,
From what I see of your gear and character, there are TONS of upgrades in the bazaar. Not all that expensive either. You still have a HUGE growth path in front of you.
But I can also tell that you have not put in the equal time that I have on my druid. There for, in the words of casual gamers everywhere you should != me. Every argument made is that casual gamers should be allowed to do and access the same things raiders access with the same amount of time invested, correct? Every "hardcore raider" is level 65, but we die.... ALOT so we're looking at having to gain at least 2-3% xp every few days if not every day. Do you as a casual gamer have to do that? We have to think of the guild 1st on all our AA's. I want SCM3? tough guild needs me to keep working on advanced healing adept 3. Most raiding guilds require a minimum of 50 AA's and to be spent according to their requirements.
Like I said before, from what I see on this board casual gamers DO NOT want to advance at a casual pace. Where their time invested = my time invested to get to where I am. They want access to sol ro/elemental planes/time NOW, and that I'm sorry just isn't right. If you ever become a "hardcore raider" and have to spend all the time that we did learning encounters, the best/fastest way through the encounters, the constant back flagging, ect.... You will see what it's like and how much more "work" (for lack of a better term) it is to be a raider and why we get a little peeved when casual gamers think they deserve what we had to work for.

On second thought. I want to see the magelo's of all you "casual" gamers who have reached the end of your "growth path" and I can guarentee I can find you 3-4 slots you can BUY in the bazaar for an upgrade.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>From what I see of your gear and character, there are TONS of upgrades in the bazaar. Not all that expensive either. You still have a HUGE growth path in front of you.[/quote]

What the hell are you talking about? The only upgrades for me.. that actually mean anything... are Ornate Patterns (15k-60kpp) and new weapons. I have almost no growth path that can reasonably be completed by my rogue by playing a few hours here and there. Anything that costs more than 4kpp is out of my reach.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>On second thought. I want to see the magelo's of all you "casual" gamers who have reached the end of your "growth path" and I can guarentee I can find you 3-4 slots you can BUY in the bazaar for an upgrade.[/quote]

Again, I can't afford any reasonable upgrades for my rogue at all. My strength, dexterity, and agility hit the 280 stat cap with Focus, Boar, Wrulan, and Ferine Avatar. Four buffs I always make sure I have when a shammy is in the group. The only stat upgrades I need is for Stamina and resists. Not so many affordable upgrades now. I'm also quite fashion concious and am trying to replace my arm slot with some chain armor.

The other upgrades I need, my weapons, are most definately out of my reach. Grouping with people have the 16, 17 dmg weapons with +12% BS Mods and watching them take aggro constantly makes me wonder why I keep playing the rogue... I rarely have to even bother evading anymore in xp grind groups and never on raids. Even with warrior tanks. A warrior has to have far subpar weapons and be level 60 or lower before I start worrying about aggro.

When the only true upgrade path leads right through the hardcore raiding zones and mobs... that's wrong. I don't care so much about stats really. I just want to feel like I'm putting out the damage I'm meant to. Continuing to use Ragebringer, I don't feel that I am. And with the lack of good dagger upgrades, I'm stuck.

Would you group with a rogue in Droga for eight, ten, twenty hours just to get them the Goblin Spear of Dread Tidings? It's the closest thing to an upgrade I can get... but how many people are just going to spend day after day camping a mob so that one person can get a marginal upgrade?

Don't mind Alyssia folks, she's just in denial to prove her point. I've been telling her there's upgrades to be had for casuals, either stuff you can buy or stuff you can get off the mobs directly. But she wants everything handed to her, she just keeps proving that point everytime she falsely claims she can't upgrade by using lame excuses. I know plenty of casual rogues that upgraded on their own without ANY kind of guild. There's no reason why she can't.

Autumn,

Though I don't agree fully with what Alyssia is saying, I have to admit that the argument that better things can be bought in the bazaar isn't a great option for casual gamers.

I think the most plat my character has ever managed to have at one time was about 7K. Upgrades that cost 15K plus would require hours of plat farming. That's something that a casual player can do and it is indeed an upgrade path....but it is something that isn't enjoyable either. As a druid, I can supposedly get that kind of plat far faster than a rogue could manage. I don't see why anyone would want to spend hours farming plat or items that could be sold for plat. That just wastes time that could be spent on doing far more fun things in the game.

Same goes with camping static spawns. There may be upgrades available on some targets out there, but it requires a huge time investment and camping the same spot for hours on end.

Frankly, I don't enjoy either option.

I think Alyssia's complaint is really more along the lines of my own discontent when it comes to gear upgrades...I would LOVE to be able to do long epic-like quests to obtain all types of gear upgrades. Yes, it takes a long time, but the scenery is ever changing. Maybe a camp of a couple hours here, a couple hours there, etc. to get the required items, but at the end of 20 such camps I can turn in the obtained items and get something that is a VERY nice upgrade for me -- maybe even comparable to PoT gear. Why not? If I put in 40 to 100 hours of game time working on a nice piece of gear, it should be comparable to the best, shouldn't it?

I spent about 30 hours obtaining pages of dark power for a cloak of the wise. It wasn't a tremendous upgrade for me, but it was better than what I had. I know many people who have invested 100 plus hours obtaining their eighth coldain prayer shawl -- a VERY nice item for a casual player (Shawls are much easier to obtain on FV because of no drop rules-- Not sure how long it takes on a normal server to build up those tradeskills, etc.)

SoE should make more quests like these that allow casual players to get decent gear. Neither of these items I mentioned really compare well with the extreme high end gear that I have seen posted and on Magelo profiles, but why can't it if it requires an appropriate amount of time investment? I think that's really the core of Alyssia's argument.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>On second thought. I want to see the magelo's of all you "casual" gamers who have reached the end of your "growth path" and I can guarentee I can find you 3-4 slots you can BUY in the bazaar for an upgrade.[/quote]
Thanks, I'm never one to turn down free research on my behalf! :-) While I don't feel that I've quite reached the end of my growth path, I do feel that I'm hitting the point of dimminishing returns.

Just to clarify what my general goals have been, I've prioritized stats based upon my style of play like:

1. Mana Regen
2. Resists
3. AC/HP
4. Mana pool size

I plan on getting another Wanderer's Sylvan Bracer but I'm starting to eat into my resists a bit more than I like.

<a href="http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=465945" target="top">Klath's Magelo</a>

Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated. My AA's our out of date, I have quite a few more now but my gear is accurate.

Thanks in advance!

Now...having said that...

I also have to ask why a casual gamer really needs gear equivalent to the best in the game?

My character will probably never go anywhere that would require the best of gear. The gear I have been able to obtain as a casual gamer suits him well for the types of in-game activities I do with him.

Yes, there is a feeling of joy and pride when I obtain a nice upgrade for my character, but for the most part he doesn't really need the extreme, high end gear.

I don't really care what gear most folks have. I have inspect turned off, and I have inspect messages turned off. I neither care to inspect anyone, and I don't want to know when someone inspects me.

I have to admit that there does seem to be some envy expressed over the gear that hard core raiders can obtain because of their play styles. I think that we casual gamers need to ask ourselves if the gear we can obtain is "very good" for how we choose to play the game. If it is, why worry about not having the best of the best?

The real issue for me is whether or not new content will continue to be accessible to my character with the play style I choose. I think that's the main issue with both raiders and casual players. We all want content that fits our play style.

As Oldoaktree suggested, LDoN may end up being mostly about the casual player, and much of the content may be trivial to the hard core raider. Should we casual players resent it if the next expansion provides 50% raiding content?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Maybe a camp of a couple hours here, a couple hours there, etc. to get the required items, but at the end of 20 such camps
[/quote]

A couple of hours in chardok B, win a pair of 15k monk boots, a couple of hours in droga, maybe get the 20k sword, crawl round veksar a bit, get a 2k earing, swing through cazic thule, get a 50k mask.

After 20 such camps, even if 3/4 of the time you got nothing, you should be able to afford something nice from the bazaar.

And if not, it's still 20 times more fun that sitting in PoV pulling singles over and over.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I also have to ask why a casual gamer really needs gear equivalent to the best in the game?[/quote]
For the same reason that anyone needs better gear:

1) So we can continue to take our groups into harder and harder encounters.
2) So we can exp faster on more difficult mobs with lower risk
3) So that our characters can advance.

Klath,

I agree with number one on your list. That's a great reason.

Number two...exp has never really meant much to me, but I understand it does mean a lot to other folks, so I will grant you that. It's just that if this number two is main reason, it seems to me that it is a bit like getting a game shark so I can give myself extra items to make my game boy advance games less challenging.

Number three...what does character advancement mean? Does it mean more exp to get higher levels? Does it mean progressing to higher end gear? Or does it mean going to new and more challenging places? Or does it mean something completely different? Just curious.

For me, character advancement is advancing his story (but then, I am one of those silly RPers. :p ). It has nothing to do with what can be obtained via game mechanics...but then, that's just me. I am legitimately curious as to what other folks consider to be "character advancement".

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>what does character advancement mean? Does it mean more exp to get higher levels?[/quote]
Yes. And AA too. Although, once you get past 150 AAs, they aren't much of a motivation any more.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Does it mean progressing to higher end gear?[/quote]
Absolutely!
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>does it mean going to new and more challenging places?[/quote]
You bet.

Kaledan,

All great suggestions, and good options. But you assume that folks have the ability and time to sell those items. Yes, I could get a second phone line and dedicate one to EQ so that I could spend hours in the bazaar or in market channel trying to sell those items, but I would rather not have to do so. I would rather spend that money on my family.

Besides, my farming of those items that I can't use takes the opportunity from someone who might be able to obtain those items for their own use, eh?

Lastly, I play on FV. Some of those items may be trivial to my character, and thus would *poof*. Yes...I choose to play on FV, but TLC is well balanced with no drop. I wouldn't change the way things work on FV, nor would I ever consider moving to another server.

The reason casual players "need" gear upgrade paths similar to the raiders is because gear advancement is part of how you advance/progress your character. Outside of improving gear, you reach a point where you have maxed your character out, and then you're done. Maybe thats bad, maybe its not. Thats for the specific player to decide.

The problem is that outside of raiding there is no progression gear-wise beyond a certain point for non-raiding characters. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Thats bad. I do not consider farming plat to be able to buy an item an acceptable alternative. Thats like telling the raiders that they can raid for plat and then go to a special NPC vendor to buy upgrades. Doable, but it kinda takes the heroism/adventure out of it doncha think?

Whats more fun, defeating a difficult enemy and earning an upgrade for your character from said now-dead enemy, or saving plat and going and buying it from vendor_mule_123745?

What EQ needs to make the casual players happy are progressively difficult single-group zones with mobs that can drop good items (make them lore and/or nodrop and/or put ridiculous required/recommended flags on them if need be) that represent real upgrades. LoY comes pretty close to that, rewards are nice, good for the level, and the loot is otherwise good. I'm hoepful LDoN continues/enhances this.

*winks*

Can you tell I like playing on both sides of a debate?

:D

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What EQ needs to make the casual players happy are progressively difficult single-group zones with mobs that can drop good items (make them lore and/or nodrop and/or put ridiculous required/recommended flags on them if need be) that represent real upgrades. LoY comes pretty close to that, rewards are nice, good for the level, and the loot is otherwise good. I'm hoepful LDoN continues/enhances this[/quote]

Now that's a comment with which I can say I strongly agree.

Well said Zarnos.

The sand eroded shell is a great example of a nice reward from LoY. It has decent stats for a druid in the 50's and even 60's (I'm still using mine at 65 most of the time, until I can get a replacement from vex thal). The neat thing is though, even an elemental equipped druid benefits greatly from the clicky effect, usable from inventory, if he charms regularly. It's an item that should appeal to nearly all 50+ druids.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The sand eroded shell is a great example of a nice reward from LoY.[/quote]
Yep, and freeing up a spell slot is always a nice thing.

Autumn, stop trolling with your petty argument. You're adding nothing constructive at all. I am in denial about nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Which is exactly how much I care about your posts. Until you can provide some kind of intelligble debate, I won't be responding to any more of your posts.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
A couple of hours in chardok B, win a pair of 15k monk boots, a couple of hours in droga, maybe get the 20k sword, crawl round veksar a bit, get a 2k earing, swing through cazic thule, get a 50k mask.

After 20 such camps, even if 3/4 of the time you got nothing, you should be able to afford something nice from the bazaar.

And if not, it's still 20 times more fun that sitting in PoV pulling singles over and over.[/quote]

Knowing my luck... I could never get people to go to those places. Most people take guild groups... not pickup groups. And again, my luck on actually winning rolls is absolutely horrible. I'd be lucky to get one item out of that. Personally, I'd rather loot the item I want myself... then farming items or plat to buy it.

My odds wouldn't be 1 in 6 for those camps. It wouldn't be the same exact people each time and thus I'd be rolling off against new people each time.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Now that's a comment with which I can say I strongly agree. Well said Zarnos.[/quote]

What Tuppen said.

Your odds are still 1 in 6 regardless of who's in your 6 person group or how often they change...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
All great suggestions, and good options. But you assume that folks have the ability and time to sell those items.
[/quote]

I just got cable a few weeks back, and it improved EQ for me 100% - no more bank full of loot I didn't have time to sell, no more not being able to play when expecting a phone call, and a lot fewer LDs.

If you can't get that (or xDSL) try hooking up with someone who has it and getting them to sell your stuff on commision.

None of the mobs that dropped the stuff I listed would be trivial on FV. And I'm not saying go farm them (probably only veksar is easily farmable without 2 boxing), I'm saying go organise a group and do those areas. Explore the world outside PoP - the exp may be about 20% less (before the last change, it was about 20% of PoP exp, which sucked), but that just means you take a bit longer to level and so have more time to acquire gear. If you are power-leveling to join a raid guild, it's certainly not worth the trip. But if you are playing for fun, give it a try.

soru

Not really. If I group with 5 people.. and one item drops... my odds are 1 in 6. If I keep grouping with those people and those that have won something already can't roll, my odds improve. However, if I keep going back to the same camp with different people... my odds get worse. I'm rolling against 5 new people that haven't won an item yet.

And groups change frequently in item camps like that. Soon as someone wins a nice item... they often quickly find a reason to log out or leave the group.

My odds of winning in each specific group are the same... but overall, if the groups change... my odds get much worse.

Ok, I guess it depends how your group handles loot.

Still, your odds are ALWAYS at least 1 in 6. It never gets worse than that.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Knowing my luck... I could never get people to go to those places. Most people take guild groups... not pickup groups. And again, my luck on actually winning rolls is absolutely horrible.
[/quote]

Are going to continue posting until SOE arranges some in-game friends for you and fixes all random rolls in your favour?

soru

I have friends in the game. They're the only reason I keep playing. However, I am very uncomfortable with dragging them to various places to do something for myself. I hate, absolutely hate asking people to do something for me if I can't do it myself.

The three times I've killed mini's in BoT, I've lost two rolls and got the Torden's Ring container thing... because no one else had it. I've lost countless rolls on the spectrals that drop... and usually I'm not even allowed to roll because I can't use the spell. *sighs* I leave those groups pretty quick unless I have friends in them or guildmates of my alts.

I have the worst luck when it comes to camping mobs or winning rolls. I don't care how much or how often you call it a lame argument... it's true.

Yeah Kaledan, I do exactly that. heh.

Veksar is one of my new favorite places, as were the LoY zones when they came out. I only recently replaced a few pieces of gear that I got from Torgiran and Nadox.

Unlike some folks, I am pretty lucky. I belong to a tight knit little guild that loves adventuring rather than exp seeking. Almost every piece of equipment on our characters was obtained by ourselves. I am also fortunate in that I play on FV...if something drops that a guildmate in the group can't use, they hold onto it for someone in the guild who can use it. This means a lot of gear that would normally rot on regular blue servers gets passed on to folks in the guild (Because of the lack of no drop).

I just feel for folks like Alyssia who has a more difficult time than myself because I know how easily it could have been me in her shoes.

Alyssia,
I really don't know what to tell you really, you play 2 hours a day 4 times a week. You have never had more then 4k in your life.... Your probibly not going to be able to upgrade at that route. You have been shown places to go. But say that you don't want to take groups there. What exactly do you want if not for free loot? You play a rogue the worst possible solo class in the game, but yet you don't want to find a pickup group/friends and head out to see some of the places that drop upgrades for you...
I'm really at a loss here. On one side of the coin you say you want a "growth path" that you can access, like I said there are tons of upgrades in the bazaar, even for wepons, Acid Pocked Mithril Blade comes to mind, Gomwhateveritisthatcomesforveksar is also at least an offhand upgrade with 5% BS mod. Rhag2 drops a dirk and he's at the very most 3 groupable. Shadow Heart comes from Tarew and whatever in UP and they are 1 at the most 2 groupable you could also pick up the sta or agi/dex bracer from there would both be upgrades. Armor it really depends on what you want to wear. The obvious choice is ornate, but you can upgrade with PoP smithed stuff as well. Named golem in the grey drops Grey Flesh Sleaves for ya there. Barbed boots are also an upgrade over Soriz or head to ChardokB and get the Chodaki hide. Valorium rings are another obvious upgrade and you can camp all the pieces while xping. Helm and belt can be upgraded from CT barbed rubi stuff. None of these requires a raiding guild, and are all significant upgrades for you. I'm really not sure what else you want. For a casual gamer those upgrades anlone should take you a few months.. And they would be worth it imo, if I had your playstyle

Klath,
You upgrades are a little tougher, druid ones always are, I'll throw out a few that I would strive for though.
Shield - Tacticians Bulwark more mana/hp/sta but less resists... /shrug
Primary - I strongly suggest working on your epic, even this late in pop alot of druids still use theirs, maybe Bone handled scim till you can get it? Rhag1 drops a nice scimmy also and he's 1 groupable.
Mask - unless your still using moonfire all the time, get rid of that mask asap it's uselss now adays. Get a Tae Ew Ritualist, Golems Jawbone, or Mask of the Hailstorms.
Sleeves - Black Sleeves of the Night or Ornate IH IV is nice, but other then that black sleeves are on par with ornate and a helluva lot cheeper.
Bracer - get another ornate if you really want it, just depends how bad you want 2 more FT...
I'd also advise you to start working on Coldain shawl quests and Spirit Wracked Cords quest, maybe ditch one of the Valorioum rings and head down to ChardokB for Golem heart.
I hate the belt the most useless thing ever. FT2 is not that great and it sacrafices lots of decent belts.
Hands are iffy for you damn Karana druids, ornate or tailored gloves would be a 1st guess.
Head - Circlet of Falikan is nice, 1 groupable quest. Bellows cap is pretty decent too.
Neck - there are lots of upgrades out there, there's a reason the neck is clickable from inventory ;) 7/6 talismans aren't that hard to get anymore and I'm pretty sure there are 2 FT necklaces from Yekesha
Back - I've never been a big fan of lodi shields for everday use, they're quite situational imo, I'd go for a hiero or the pop quested one, cloak of the wise?
Legs and Chest are ok, upgrading to ornate from there is just as an after thought or for the effects.
And the boots are great.

well, I think it's a good thing that casual players can now experience "scripted" events with "time" limits...

nothing is MORE FUN than being ported out with the final mob at 2% life = )

*still laughing*

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I really don't know what to tell you really, you play 2 hours a day 4 times a week. You have never had more then 4k in your life.... Your probibly not going to be able to upgrade at that route. You have been shown places to go. But say that you don't want to take groups there. What exactly do you want if not for free loot? You play a rogue the worst possible solo class in the game, but yet you don't want to find a pickup group/friends and head out to see some of the places that drop upgrades for you...[/quote]

I don't want to pester my friends to waste their time on a time sink for only a possible chance at an upgrade for myself. I think that's pretty damn selfish of me. I don't mind so much dragging pickup groups to places, but there I'm forced to roll on any tradeable drops and compete with others for the drops that multiple classes can use.

I'd love to see more pickup groups to ChardokB, Droga, etc. but you just don't see them. At least not on my server. Whenver I do wander around to zones like these, nine times out of ten, when I do a /who list in the zone, I see clumps of guilds scattered here and there.

If the game wasn't such a horrid time sink, I'd gladly accept the help of my friends to go camp an item.... or better yet, crawl a dungeon for it. LDoN seems so far to be heading in that direction.

I'm just so damn tired of passing through the bazaar to pick up some armor dye... or some food... and seeing all these nice upgrades... out of my reach. It'd take me well over a year or two to make enough money to puchase a full set of ornate armor. By that time there's going to be two more expansions and pop will be obsolete, unless LDoN completely and utterly changes the direction of the game.

Perhaps now expansions will focus more on in depth and intricate content rather then a bunch of filler space with static camps and some loosely written lore.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't want to pester my friends to waste their time on a time sink for only a possible chance at an upgrade for myself. I think that's pretty damn selfish of me. [/quote]

That's an interesting statement. My friends, guildmates, and myself go out of our way to help each other get gear. We're happy to see each other improve in gear and lets our guild progress on to new and different experiances. Wether it be a single group endeavor or a 6 group raid we're there for each other. I'd be mildly suprised to hear anything different from other posters here.

Have you ever bother to actually ask your friends for help? Or, is your dislike or perhaps hatred of the game whats keeping you back and them back also... After reading pages of your "woe is me" attitued in multiple threads here I'm suprised you continue to bother to play.

You wan't a challenge? Take two groups and go do a BoT tower boss. It should take you 60 mintes of non stop fighting and be a challenge to players without Ssra/VT/Ele gear while providing upgrades for the people you take.

As for LDoN, I hope it provides you some entertainment. One less bitter person playing EQ will be good for everyone.

Alyssia stop trolling with your petty arguments. You're adding zip, zero, zilch. You seem to think in absolutes and extremes for some reason. You have a narrow view of the game and refuse to believe there's any other perspective or truth other than your warped ones.

There are plenty of more family oriented and casual guilds that raid a lot less than 6 days a week and 6 hours a night. They not only raid less than that but they do indeed raid higher end stuff. Case in point: my guild. We just started trying Bertox, and will be trying RX and MM as soon as we can find them up. We have also started camping shards for VT and Emp key items for an alternative path.

There's no law that says you have to be in an uber guild, and you don't have to be in one to do high level content. Again, you seem to be denial concerning just about everything. You remind me of the kids that put their hands over their ears and say "la la la" real loud to drown out stuff they don't want to hear. I will say it one more time: you don't have to be in an uber guild to kill higher end stuff and get raid type loot. These guilds also don't raid 6 nights a week for 6 hours each time. There are guilds like mine that raid 3 nights a week for 4-5 hours(sometimes less) and like I said we are ready to make the final push to the elemental planes. But of course you don't want to hear that because then you would have to admit you're wrong. DENIAL. "La la la, I can't hear you!"

Now are you done using this lame cookie cutter strategy? Alyssia? Actually read what I have written, then read it again and again. Try to grasp the concept if you possibly can.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, Talanon! They were most helpful. I prepared an <a href="http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=465945&alt=107696" target="top">alternate</a> Magelo profile using items you suggested and I gain about 300 hp and about 400 mana. I lose a bit more on the resists than I like but I think if I pick and choose from the upgrades you suggested I can definitely make some headway.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That's an interesting statement. My friends, guildmates, and myself go out of our way to help each other get gear. We're happy to see each other improve in gear and lets our guild progress on to new and different experiances.[/quote]

I do ask and receive help on occasion. But it's very rare that I will ask for such help. I just feel too damn selfish to ask for help. I feel like an ass when I do and I feel guilty about it, thanking the people that helped me over and over and over when I do get what I want.

On the other side of the coin, I hate being told thank you more than once or my help being made a big deal of when I do help someone, which is frequently. I recently helped my alts guildmates fix a wipe in HoT. Nearly everyone had wiped in the pit and I decided to put my AA, Shroud of Stealth, to the test. It let me sneak in, grab all the corpses and drag them safely out of the pit for the recovery of the raid.

I save them a ton of platinum. They were getting ready to use coffins to summon all the corpses. Some 40 to 50 of them. It made me feel good and is one of the reasons I still play the game.

Actually I feel exactly the same way as Alyssia does regarding asking for help. I hate doing it... was one reason my shawl sat ready for the war for over a year hehe... so dont be laying in to her for feeling that way, that's simply a normal way of feeling for certain people.

Tia

My 8th Coldain ring has been stuck in my backpack for ages. I just don't feel right, asking people to help me kill the dwarven traitors for their heads. I might, just might be able to solo them now... but I dunno. I haven't tried yet. Gonna wait until I finish my stamina/hp aa's.

Good god Alyssia. You really are playing the wrong game I think.

So you don't want to buy gear.
You feel uncomfortable bringing friends to do a camp for you:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I hate, absolutely hate asking people to do something for me if I can't do it myself.[/quote]

And you say you can't raid.

This is a multiplayer game. From the beginning they have said it's a crucial part of The Vision to get people to interact. I'd say a VAST majority of the people in this game like that idea, and it has very little to do with raiding or non-raiding.

So again lets go over what you said.
You want the same items that the ubers, but you're willing to let it take more time. 1 month for ubers, 1 year for you, right?
I call bull**** on that, more like 1 month for ubers, 1 month and 3 days for you.
I remember when our rogues were horribly excited about the concept of getting cloaks of flames for example. Or RAGEBRINGER for that matter. They had played the game in high end guilds for over a year by the time they got that. I believe your 12 years are not even close, and yet you're whining about your ragebringer. However lets go past that. Kunark WAS admittedly very long ago. However people in this thread don't want to count even NToV as high end anymore, since it's so easy to do with few lvl 65s? Wtf? That was about halfway through Everquests lifespan, so now we're talking 1 month for the ubers for 2 month for the casual. I think this is pretty damn fair.

Anyway in a social game the social people get favored. If you want to solo, how about trying out Diablo 2? I heard it's still around.

I think you're totally right, non hardcore raiders should be allowed to constantly progress. However I disagree with you about their inability to do so.

Getting a dagger for that rogue of yours? Knowing how much you seem to hate being social, this might be tricky for you. First you grind some in Cazic Thule.. it's not terrible exp, and those earrings are nice and I'm sure your friends would like them too... or whoever you choose to group with. Now with ask the person to keep an eye on tracking. If he/she notices an extra one of the slimes spawn all of a sudden with none grinding on them, that's the sign that Ring of Slime is up, and you guys should go do it. If you don't have a decent group going, see if someone else does slime ring. Start timers from there... I think it took like 3 days to spawn. You can even ASK from people in zone if they've seen it done, and they will probably tell you.

So now you grind in CT, probably getting at the very least some earrings to sell, and possibly even getting your weapon (though this will require a bit of luck... but luck can be countered by time, and I think someone said getting things slower than the ubers is not a problem).

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

It's obvious to me you haven't read through my posts and understand anything I've said. You're so dead set that to get anywhere you must grind or raid that you are blinded to the possibility of there being a better way out there, for <strong>every single person in this game</strong>. Raiding doesn't have to be the only way and it shouldn't be the only way.

I don't want to grind 5+ hours a day, every day of the week.
I don't want to sit on my ass for boring raids.
I don't want to sit on my ass grinding a camp of greenies for some rare drop for a quest.
I don't want to just sit around pressing backstab every six+ seconds.

I don't want this game to be boring. And right now, it is. The only enjoyment <strong>I</strong> get out of the game is helping my friends and the community. I really do enjoy helping other people, but when it comes to asking them to help... I feel guilty for days afterwards and it makes me sick to my stomach. I just don't like asking for help.

I do my damndest when I do ask for help to ensure that everyone that helps me gets personally thanked and if at all possible, gets some item drop, coin, dots reimbursed, et cetera, so that I don't feel selfish and greedy and guilt-ridden for the next few days.

As for raiding...

I just looked at your guild website and once again was reminded of why I will never join an uber guild if I can manage it. I'm hoping LDoN will preclude the need for an uber guild to get good gear. Your guild chat looks like the whispers of immature teenagers on the back of a bus or passing in the hallways. I've seen more mature and intelligble conversations from kids playing Pokemon at the game store.

I don't want to be just a number in the guild which is what most uber guilds are. Just a massive collection of numbers that have far too much free time to play this game.

I looked at your requirements. Six or more hours everyday pretty much. Same kinda of requirements I see from all the end game guilds. Massive amounts of time required. It's ridiculous that any game should ever require that kind of time allotment just to be able to see the game fully.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You're so dead set that to get anywhere you must grind or raid that you are blinded to the possibility of there being a better way out there, for every single person in this game.[/quote]

If you don't want to do grinding or raiding. How in earth do you want to progress in this game? By sneaking around you won't get much. Neither will pick-pocket give you much other then some change.

Why don't you start some class where you can do solo things with? You seem to not want to ask help but have choosen the worst possible class to solo.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm hoping LDoN will preclude the need for an uber guild to get good gear[/quote]

i don't see really why an expansion will do that. Part of progressing for uber guilds is both beating challenges and getting better gear.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your guild chat looks like the whispers of immature teenagers on the back of a bus or passing in the hallways. I've seen more mature and intelligble conversations from kids playing Pokemon at the game store.[/quote]

I thought this game is about making fun. Does it matter how it is done ? Also, keep in mind the quotes you read are quotes for a reason. It is because they are fun or "special" in that channel. I know KTF guildchat can have the most intelligent conversations about encounters while 30 mins before we were the teenages you mentioned.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't want to be just a number in the guild which is what most uber guilds are.[/quote]

I don't know where you get this crap from but in my guild (Keepers of the Faith) we are a guild with either 72 or close to 72 raiders every night. That however doesnt mean any of my guildies nor me is a number. We are a large family who is used to play with eachoter, fool around with eachother and just spend a lot of time with eachother. We <strong>choose</strong> to play the game like that. As far as i know, in Everquest there is 1 thing you are "forced" to do and that is to agree with the EULA. Other then that, you can play the game you want in the way you want. And unfortunately if you can't find the way you like to play in EQ, EQ is not the game for you. Like for me for example. No way i'm going to play games like Quake. It is not my type of game. But if i play it (which i somethimes do with some friends to fool around) you don't hear me bitch and whine that i lost track of where i am or that i don't have the weapons they are runnign around with.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Massive amounts of time required. It's ridiculous that any game should ever require that kind of time allotment just to be able to see the game fully. [/quote]

Those amounts as far as i know are only required to be part of that guild. I never read that you have to play so much to play EQ. It is a style some players choose. Just because it is not your style, does that make it rediculous ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you don't want to do grinding or raiding. How in earth do you want to progress in this game?[/quote]

By having fun. Being a part of the story. Crawling new places, exploring new dungeons. All these pocket zones and the instanced stuff from LDoN is gonna change the way the game is played and I hope it stays that way. I'm tired of this boring, static, content.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Those amounts as far as i know are only required to be part of that guild. I never read that you have to play so much to play EQ. It is a style some players choose. Just because it is not your style, does that make it rediculous ?[/quote]

Because it's the <strong>only</strong> way to progess through the game now. Casual gamers are never going to see PoTime unless they join an uber guild. Never. And I vehmently disagree with that. I pay the same amount per month for my account as you do yours.

I should be able to see the <strong>entire</strong> game at my own pace and earn the same kind of gear at my own pace. Right now, I can't. That's wrong. That's waht makes the uber goober guilds and the time requirements ridiculous.

But what happends if you have done the crawls a few times. Dont they get boring also then ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Because it's the only way to progess through the game now. Casual gamers are never going to see PoTime unless they join an uber guild. Never. And I vehmently disagree with that. I pay the same amount per month for my account as you do yours.[/quote]

Well, you can progress through the game. Just not in the pace we do it. I also don't see anything wrong with having a few zones that only some guilds can reach.

They i pay the same argument gets old also. Just because i deliver the same ammount of work at my boss doesnt mean i get payed as much as someone who does the same ammount of work as me. Or just because i pay an X ammount of money to get me a Supersize Steak doesnt mean someone else who pays the same ammounts gets the exact same size steak.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I should be able to see the entire game at my own pace and earn the same kind of gear at my own pace. Right now, I can't. That's wrong. That's waht makes the uber goober guilds and the time requirements ridiculous. [/quote]

If Everquest was a single player game. I would totallly agree on that. But fortunate (for me) it isnt. It is a multiplayer game. Gear is a reward for risk. I don't see how a single person encounter (or 1 group) should get the same rewards EVER compared to a 12 group encounter.

Assuming mudflation continues, you WILL get comparable gear eventually. The bar will have been raised a few more times by then though. During Luclin, who'd have thought a non-raider would be capable of reaching the FT15 limit (earring of the solstice[1] + medallion of arcane scientists[3] + blessed coldain prayer shawl[3] + boots of flowing slime[3] + belt of thunderous auras[2] + ornate bracer[2] + second ornate bracer[2] = 16, with other FT items available as well).

You'll never have what is at the time the best gear in the game, but that goes against doing things at your own pace anyway.

If mudflation stops somehow, then maybe you'd have a valid complaint.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Because it's the only way to progess through the game now. Casual gamers are never going to see PoTime unless they join an uber guild. Never. And I vehmently disagree with that. I pay the same amount per month for my account as you do yours.[/quote]

Ahh my dear, you most certainly do <strong>NOT</strong> pay the same every month. It takes more than money to get anywhere in game or in life. It takes dedication, commitment, and time as well.

Yes, you may pay the same dollar ammount. You do not however, pay the same ammount.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Ahh my dear, you most certainly do NOT pay the same every month. It takes more than money to get anywhere in game or in life. It takes dedication, commitment, and time as well.[/quote]

There! In a nutshell this pretty much describes the source of contention between raiders and non-raiders.

Putting this into my translate-o-matic I hear out the speaker: Casual players are lazy, they don't deserve anything because they don't play as much as I do.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't see how a single person encounter (or 1 group) should get the same rewards EVER compared to a 12 group encounter[/quote]

Okay...I just want to point out something that bothers me about that statement and others like it.

This insinuates that there is more "risk" in a 72 person encounter than there is in a 6 person encounter.

It all depends on what you consider to be risk. If you consider risk as "death" or losing gear, then I would have to say that I face far more risk in one person groups than I have ever faced in a raid of any size.

If risk is "how many people does it take to kill one mob because it has ungodly hit points and crazy damage spells and could never be taken by a single group", then yes, that is definitely more risk.

My character has seldom died on a raid. He dies far more often in one person groups in which we are pushed to the limits of our abilities.

So, I don't think it is fair to say that just because a target takes 72 people to take down, that it is somehow inherently more "risky" to the people involved in the battle.

Yes, if I walked in alone to face that target, I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance that wouldn't be risk, that would be stupidity.

On the otherhand, if your guild is taking on targets that normally require 72 people with a raid of 54, then I would say that you are taking some "risk".

It would be just like taking on a single group target with 3 or four people when most people insist on using 6.

So again...Risk is relative. Just because a target requires more people to take down, it doesn't mean that there is more risk...unless you are using far fewer people than most people deem wise.


Risk is relative to the encounter.

Having said that, I do agree that we shouldn't get the same rewards.

By my prior post, I was really arguing the definition of risk, not whether or not gear should be equivalent for multi group encounters versus single group encounters. After I read what I quoted again, I don't think I made that clear.

Sorry for any confusion.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Ahh my dear, you most certainly do NOT pay the same every month. It takes more than money to get anywhere in game or in life. It takes dedication, commitment, and time as well.[/quote]

I dunno, but I bet on my credit card bill it says $12.95 just like it says on yours (unless you pay for more months at a time or are on the Legends server). Time spent in the game is irregardless of whether or not I deserve to see the entire game.

The amount of time spent in the game should only determine how fast I see the content... not whether I can see the content or not. I'm not being lazy, I just don't want to waste that much time, not having, on a game and subject myself to crude atmosphere the pervades almost all the goober guilds.

Doing dungeon crawls over and over and over would get boring yes, but I have four different level 20+ characters with the skill and knowledge to quickly level up even a non-twinked character to 20-ish in a week or so. LDoN is designed for levels 20 to 65. That's a helluva lot of difference for me, playing one dungeon with six different classes and variable levels.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Having said that, I do agree that we shouldn't get the same rewards.[/quote]

Right. Single group limited encounters that are challenging should get better rewards. Afterall there was more relative risk.... so our rewards should be better.

Please don't comment on the risk aspect of raids, you don't know what you're talking about.

For example, you haven't seen a failed Carprin cycle, have you? In my experience, a single person's death results in a raid wipeout. This is because when any player dies, 4 skeletons immediately spawn, all close together. They attack the nearest person--usually the same person by all 4 skeletons--who generally dies within a second or so. This causes 4 more skeletons to spawn, and so forth...it snowballs until everyone is dead with 100+ skeletons standing around. It's possible to recover from one death, but difficult.

If 1 person's death out of 36 results usually in a 36 person raid wipeout, clearly that's riskier than 1 person's death out of 6 usually resulting in a 6 person wipeout.

Obviously this isn't the case for all raids, but the point is that your generalization is wrong, and this is a counterexample.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Obviously this isn't the case for all raids, but the point is that your generalization is wrong, and this is a counterexample[/quote]

I think you just made my point.

Your very specific example is ONE example where the risk is actually great in a raid.

You would have us generalize it to ALL raids, though you acknowledge that it isn't the case for all raids.

I am familiar with the encounter. I had it thoroughly explained to me by someone who left our guild to go to a large raiding guild.

Now that I have acknowledged that there can be great risk in raids, can you acknowledge that there can be great risk in single groups?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If 1 person's death out of 36 results usually in a 36 person raid wipeout, clearly that's riskier than 1 person's death out of 6 usually resulting in a 6 person wipeout.[/quote]

And because there is a potential for a greater volume of deaths, that means more risk to the individual? I don't think so.


The risk is that my character lives or dies, regardless of how many people die next to him.

Getting back into the middle of a dangerous dungeon for corpse recovery completely naked can be a tremendous challenge for a single group, and can result in multiple deaths, and a potential loss of all gear.

Not all servers have every zone overflowing with people who can help you out in a scrape. On FV, it isn't unusual to be the only group in a level appropriate dungeon, and I have faced more than one VERY risky attempt at corpse recovery in which there were complete wipe outs.

Yes, in my post about risk, I did imply that there is diminished risk when in large raid groups, but I find it offensive that some folks refuse to see the risk involved in stretching the less than ideal group to the limit.

Certainly there is risk in large raids, but I think that some people who raid regularly have forgotten how risky challenging single group encounters can be.

Me? Sure, I've never disputed that.

Keep in mind to see time quality loot from a single group encounter in the near future, it would probably be tuned for a group of elemental+ equipped people (or people with all equivalent gear from slightly easier single group encounters--that could take a long time). Unresistable AE's that might outright kill fully buffed velious-equipped people wouldn't be out of the question, for example. I'm sure people will have to put in the effort one way or another.

My point wasn't about the volume of deaths. My point was that if every person has to survive an encounter (because of adds spawning on death and such), the difficulty often increases the more people you have. Margin of error remains constant while potential for error increases.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Margin of error remains constant while potential for error increases. [/quote]

I will give you that one...for the example you gave at least.

In some cases, larger raid forces can actually compensate for small errors that would have been deadly in a single group. I have seen it happen.

Of course, my perspective might be completely off base for higher end PoP encounters, as I have never observed those and I may be generalizing my experiences too much -- though I find it hard to believe that those small mistakes can't be compensated for in each and every raid encounter one faces in PoP...but if you tell me that, I can't really refute it can I?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Keep in mind to see time quality loot from a single group encounter in the near future, it would probably be tuned for a group of elemental+ equipped people (or people with all equivalent gear from slightly easier single group encounters--that could take a long time). Unresistable AE's that might outright kill fully buffed velious-equipped people wouldn't be out of the question, for example. I'm sure people will have to put in the effort one way or another[/quote]

As for Time quality loot, I have absolutely ambition or expectation that I will ever see Time or Elemental quality loot in LDoN. In fact, I hope they don't include that sort of loot in LDoN for the very reason you stated. It would require gearing up to a level that I have no desire to achieve. Alyssia is the one wanting Time quality loot from single group encounters. ;)

My desire is to be able to see the vast majority of LDoN content without having to be UBER equipped. Something that I fear won't happen because of the fact that SOE WILL design the toughest encouters and dungeons around folks with the high end equipment. Sure, I won't mind if there are a couple of places my character will never see, but I certainly don't look forward to another PoP, where more than two thirds of the content will remain in accessible to my character because I choose not to belong to a raiding guild.

The posts regarding risk, those to which you have been responding, are an expression of frustration. I have to admit that I get irritated when people tell me that raiding is inherently MORE risky that single group encounters. I simply don't believe that it is -- or if it is for them, I would argue that they aren't pushing their characters to the limit in single group encounters.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>My point wasn't about the volume of deaths. My point was that if every person has to survive an encounter (because of adds spawning on death and such), the difficulty often increases the more people you have. Margin of error remains constant while potential for error increases.[/quote]

Give me a break. That is one single encounter that does that in the entire game. You cannot base your assumptions off that one single encounter. Imagine what would happen to a single group that had that happen to them? Same thing that happens to the raid. Once two or three people die, it's done. There's not many chanters I know of that can handle 8, 12, 16 adds all at once.

Here's what I'd do if I saw a group member going down at the Caprin cycle. I'd rush over to them so I would be the closest person on their death and get the aggro. Pop my nimble disc so I would be melee immune and have my hotkey set to inform the raid of the 4 new mobs. They'd have roughly 12 seconds to get the mobs under control or I'd be going splat. =/

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As for Time quality loot, I have absolutely ambition or expectation that I will ever see Time or Elemental quality loot in LDoN. In fact, I hope they don't include that sort of loot in LDoN for the very reason you stated. It would require gearing up to a level that I have no desire to achieve. Alyssia is the one wanting Time quality loot from single group encounters.[/quote]

*rolls her eyes* Again you people are just pulling words out the air and attributing them to me. I want good quality loot from single group encounters and by encounters, I mean the entire dungeon or series of dungeons as a reward for progressing through the dungeons. Some random twink item isn't my idea of a reward. I don't want to farm stuff to sell in the bazaar to buy Ornate drops. I want the reward to match the risk. Content limited to specific numbers of people are the only way that the reward will be able to match the risk.

My apologies Alyssia, I didn't mean to offend you with that statement...It was more tongue in cheek because that seems to be what people think you are wanting...hence the winking smilie.

Although loot isn't important to me, I do agree that limiting group and raid size is the best way for SoE to ensure that rewards = risk. Only problem with that I can see is the fact that they will likely balance the risk=reward content based on people at the extreme end of the spectrum (people with the best gear, a complete spellbook, and hundreds of AA's).

Like others, I don't believe that they will be able to account for the wide spread of inequity caused by gear, available spells, and AA's obtained when they instance those dungeons. They are going to look at level only and assume you have something close to the best gear, that you have at least the average number of AA's, and that you have most of your spells for your level and create the instanced dungeon based on a lot of assumptions -- which will NOT favor folks who are in small guilds.

Alyssia, that person usually dies long before you make it anywhere near them. Unless you plan to scatter people with similar disciplines throughout the raid, WHILE the raid is moving as well as during actual fights, you can't count on this working. Besides, how do you plan to watch all 30ish people's health?

And it's certainly not the only encounter to feature mob spawns upon death. Shei Vinitras spawns a mob that (if I remember right) must be offtanked every time someone dies, and guarantees that you'll need to offtank at least a few mobs by deathtouching every couple minutes. I'm pretty sure the Insanity Crawler spawns adds when anyone dies too.

Rangers have Weapon Shield. Rogues have Nimble. Those are the only two discs that I'm familiar with that could be used. As a rogue, I really don't have anything to do but watch mob health go down on raids. I can certainly keep an eye on my groups health bars and if I see one drop suddenly and no heal in sight, I can evade, run over and be close within six seconds. If the skeletons are stunnable, and I was playing a chanter, I'd be sure to watch group members health.

Each person in the raid needs to know how to deal with those adds or be able to think quickly enough on their feet to deal with them when they happen. Each group if possible should have someone assigned to such a task for those encounters.

So there's maybe three encounters then. Big deal. You can't determine the risk of a raid based off of those three encounters and apply it to all the other raid encounters. Those three encounters are the exception.

Alyssia, did you ever do the Carpin Cycle before ? =)

Keep in mind. It is pop. Before those 6 seconds are over (the 6 that take you to evade and get there) Is enough to kill any character in the raid. @#%$ hits for if i remember correct 5k per hit max. Might be procs also. Dunno anymore, just remember seeing "loading please wait" a lot more then i hoped for.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Each person in the raid needs to know how to deal with those adds or be able to think quickly enough on their feet to deal with them when they happen. Each group if possible should have someone assigned to such a task for those encounters.[/quote]

Problem with doing that. The encounter is not designed like that. The encounter is to make sure you do not get victems. Not to be ready to controll the adds.

On another note. When i'm reading between the lines a bit of most posts. I kinda get the feeling that people see Time as a zone where you zonein. Kill some mobs and loot it. Being a time raider. I can tell you that is absolutely not true. We were i think the 5th ot 6th guild to clear PoTime yet we still have trouble getting through the content. I wouldnt say its to hard. No, not at all. It is challenging. It is both hard and has a timelimit making it so that you cannot fool around to much. You will just get ported out by the zone.

I personally see PoTime as a kind of Dungeon Crawl. You have to clear "trash", you have to clear named. You have a time limit. It only takes a huge team effort to complete the whole.

omg, I thought I was a pessimistic person until I read this thread. Alyssia, you have contradicted yourself more times in this thread than I care to go back and quote. Although the following statement you made is not contradictory, it's completely wrong:

"I'm sorry, but what you said goes against what most everyone said in the thread about the numbers. It is a pretty damn reasonable assumption to assume that roughly 12-20% of the population of each server is a hardcore gamer. That leaves 80-88% of the server in the casual section."

Things are not that black and white. The 12-20% might be the % that gets into time/elementals, but there's a hell of a lot of other guilds out there who are hardcore as well in terms of the amount of time and effort they put into the game, but are perhaps an expansion or a few mobs behind the top 3-4 guilds on a server. For example, on my server there is 1 guild in time, 4 total guilds in the elementals, 3 more only an RZ kill away from being in the elementals, 3 or so more who do some boss mobs in pop and are at the vt/high end luclin stuff. And a bunch more who do velious, low end luclin, kunark content. Those guilds still killing velious content <em>might</em> play less than those in the elementals, but that doesn't make them a casual gamer either. Some people move slower through the content than others like you have said you do, but that doesn't mean they only play 1-2 hours a night which would indicate a casual player. I know some of those guilds on velious/luclin content who play 12 hours a day and work their butts off just as much as some guilds in time, they just aren't as driven to "be the best." But to clump them into some large percentage of people and call them casual players simply cus they're not in time and say what they want out of the game to prove your point is ridiculous. I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate their time being trivialized as "casual" because they're not a top guild.

You say you want and deserve the same loot as "goober" players because you pay the same amount per month and you're willing to do it at your own pace. I can understand that statement UNTIL you said in another post that you could earn the pp to buy a full said of ornate armor but by the time you got it it would be obsolete so it's a pointless venture. How can you say that you want to earn things at your own pace but then say that the armor wouldn't be good enough at the pace that you go? That's contradicting yourself.

You think you deserve to see and get all the same content that the players that put more time into the game. However, let's convert loot into aa points and levels. Now let's say Joe Schmoe just went out and bought everquest. By your statements, Joe should be able to demand that his character is automatically level 65 with 500 aa points simply because he pays the same amount of money. Do you think that's fair? He didn't put his time into the game to earn those levels and aa points. Now you have said that you want those things in your own time and pace, but who's to say it won't happen? 3 years ago or however long ago it's been since velious came out, I never thought that there would ever be a pickup raid in tov. I never dreamed that a group would be able to kill klandicar. Look now. There's been pickup raids in tov for quite sometime now, I know people who go there with themselves, fisting a few characters, or people who go there with one group and get armor. People kill Dozekar with 1 group and work on the armor quests there that can result in 100hp/mana items. It takes some time to do the faction and get the pieces for the quest, but hell, you can go and quest uber items with ease, just time invested. You don't have the time to invest? Then don't expect to achieve the same goals as someone else who does. Do you think an intramural football time deserves to go the superbowl simply because they also play the game of football? That's utterly ridiculous.

This is the way the game was designed. This is the way the game has been for over 4 years now. If you don't like it, no one is putting a gun to your head and making you pay to play it. I can understand wanting more content oriented towards more casual players and I've seen people post some legitimate concerns and good points here, but alyssia you're just coming across as a whiner refuting any good suggestion anyone gives you. "Oh I can't do that cus I'm too *fill in the blank*" that's all I hear from you. You say you like to help people, but all I hear is all about what YOU'RE not getting. Why don't you help people by stop making up excuses for your not wanting to put any effort into a game that you apparently hate? I'm not a mean spirited person usually and I haven't posted on these boards (besides the couple I made tonight) in probably 2 years, but my god, this was the most annoying thread I've ever read and made me want to post so badly. I understand your way of thinking because I get in that mode myself sometimes. No amount of good suggestions or arguing with you from these intelligent people and dedicated everquest players is going to make someone as stubborn as yourself admit to anything that is contrary to your own narrow views on the issues.

You say you have friends in game, but you can't ask them for help on camping things because you only like to help others yet all I hear from you is me me me and you condemn "goober guilds" yet this is their function, to help each other achieve goals and the end result is getting gear, but it's more about having a good time. You can go on being bitter towards "goober guilds" as you like to call them, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to those people. You seem to think they're evil, stupid, pathetic drones who follow their guild leader like stepford wives and who cut off all communication with the outside world (then again who's the stupid one, the person playing and having fun or the person paying to play a game they have such discontent for). Most people in "goober guilds" have families and jobs and friends and lives and still make times for eq because they enjoy it. You don't enjoy it? Then it's simple, don't play it.

God, I am sooo sick of these threads. Can't you guys just accept that there are some raids are easy (eg, 72-people killing emperor crush) and some that are extremely hard (eg, 72-people caprin cycle) and a whole lot in between. Likewise, there are some 6 people encounters that are easy (eg, xp camps) and some that there are extremely hard (eg, crawling plane of torment).

It all depends on the encounter designers, sometimes they miss by a mile, some times they it the bullseye. Whats more important, each player gets to choose what they do with their eq play time. I know some of you think there is no choice, but actually there is. Sometimes the choice is to bite the bullet and take the good and the bad together; you never know where u'll end up unless you tried, or to avoid that path; choose to do something else, or to find another game to play.

Bitching and moaning about how unfair it is doesn't really help reduce the feeling of unfairness that you are feeling. If you really think it is unfair and you want to do something about it, help the EQ developers, point out what's wrong with specific encounters, give concrete suggestions on how to improve.

"It's obvious to me you haven't read through my posts and understand anything I've said. You're so dead set that to get anywhere you must grind or raid that you are blinded to the possibility of there being a better way out there, for every single person in this game. "

Speak for yourself, I like raiding. I definitely think the challenge that comes along with running a good raiding guild is a very nice way to distribute higher level rewards... And if you don't get it, I don't mean that the mobs are hard, I mean herding the 72 cats. I doubt any top guild of a server could consider its members numbers. You have to feed the creativity and keep them motivated enough to come around.

From what you're saying, you're looking for some sort of GM running quests for you, that are ever changing and interesting. I hate to spell it out for you, but Everquest clearly IS NOT FOR YOU. You're like a person saying you don't like American football because it's violent, and that everyone should realize a non physical version of the game would be better just because. And you're boggling at people telling you maybe you should watch soccer, tennis, golf or something instead? Is the suggestion really that unreasonable?


Also what's funny is that I don't think you're a casual player. You're a powergamer with limited time and something of an antisocial streak. You associate yourself with the casual players, because even you don't want to be alone apparently. The casual players are HAPPY to get ragebringer. They are shocked to notice that someone might have a better weapon than the all powerful epic, yet superbly happy to get something better than that. Not to mention a great many of them will never even see ragebringer.

You fall in the category of 60-65s that aren't in raiding guilds and have no intention of applying to one. This is definitely not a majority of the 60-65 crowd. Only unguilded lvl 65s I saw on RN tonight were people who had disbanded from their previous guilds to apply to a different guild. Oh sure there were a few in guilds I hadn't even heard of, but the combined amount was still under 20. Every class except for beastlords cut short with a /who all 65 <class>. Guess /ano and /role are real trends for people like you.


And since you keep complaining about the money, I realized how my gym truly is robbing me of things. I just go to the gym and well, want to enjoy myself while bettering myself. Of course I'm no madman who wants to spend hours upon hours there, not to mention my RL is rather busy for that.

Yet after reading your texts, I have realized I'm being scammed. There is content denied me. There are 50kg weight for bench pressing. I simply can not put those on and bench press anything (would combine for minimum weight of 120kg). I pay the same as everyone else, yet MY money paid for that @#%$ iron and I just can't do it. Also there's a lot of weights in most of the machines that me, nor the majority of other people visiting there never get to use (like 100kg available on some shoulder machine.. oh please, most people use under 20kg YET THEY ARE PAYING FOR THE 80kg AS WELL!). Of course then there's these ubers who don't have anything better to do than to waste 5 hours a day at the gym. Not only do they lift weights paid for by me and other casual gym goers, but they show off their leet bodies in a rather annoying fashion... yeah rub it in you no lifers.

Anyway I have now sued my gym after seeing the light. Thank you Alyssa.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

I like your gym analogy Del. However, I would compare the complaints of Alyssia to someone who goes to the gym once a month or so and does a 30 min work out (not really knowing what she's doing, probably goes straight for the treadmill to get that toned look she'll never achieve on that machine) and expects to have the body of someone who goes every day of the week for several hours a day. Hey, she might have been going to the gym for more years than that person who goes every day and her combined time in that gym might be the same because she's been going there for so many years, but what she doesn't understand is that if she doesn't continuously work out and do the right exercizes to tone the parts of the body she wants to look good and really put the time and effort required to having a body like that, she's never going to have that body.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There are 179 zones in EQ currently. Of those 179 there are approx 6 that arent accessible to non-raiding folks.
I make that 3.35% of content available only to the top 5% of players.
This means non-raiders have 96.65% of the content of EQ available to them.
What was the complaint again?[/quote]

You are right. Lets change those 6 zones to Crushbone, Mistmore, Unrest, Befallen, Lake Rathe and Rathe Mountains and we will all be happy and noone will complain. Right?

Alyssia said:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I should be able to see the entire game at my own pace and earn the same kind of gear at my own pace.[/quote]

No you shouldn't. Just because you pay the same amount as me does NOT mean you should get the same as me. I put in more work and effort. You talk about risk vs reward, well it's the same as effort vs reward. I play more, therefore I put forth more effort so my reward is better.

Some seem to argue that they pay the same amount of money per month as me so they should have access to the same content. Money doesn't mean @#%$. You could be the richest person in the world but you won't be part of the Olympics. Those people work hard and deserve everything they get. MOST Raiders are the same.

You choose your own pathway, dont' hate on those who chose to go the uber route because they are rewarded justly.

The envy goes both ways. Some casual players envy the ubers for the gear they get and content they get to see, some ubers envy the casuals for their freedom to do what they want when they want.

There is just way too much hate towards eachother. I only dislike the fookin non-Druids that post their 2 cents...I'm a non-druid hater:)

You do not put in more work or effort. Get off that wooden horse of yours. You play longer hours more frequently than I do. That is the <strong>only</strong> @#%$ difference between hardcore and casual. And the only god damned reason I can't progress any farther is because EverQuest is a game and I will not sacrifice my life in the real world for a @#%$ game.

I do pay the same amount and I expect to see the same content as everyone else within a reasonable timeframe. Waiting for the ubers to finish with the content and beg for tidbits and crumbs from them is not how I'm going to play this game.

You <strong>cannot</strong> compare EverQuest to the Olymipcs. EverQuest is a <strong>game</strong>. The Olympics are more than that. They're part of the real world. EverQuest is a hobby; something to do for fun. Being forced to sit on my ass for hours upon hours more than two or three times a week is ridiculous.

I don't give a damn if people want to spend six hours a day, five to seven days a week playing a game.... but I will sure as hell never say they deserve better gear then I do. My sixty days played and your sixty days played are just that... sixty days played. Whether it takes a year or two years to get there... it's still just sixty days played.

I should have the opportunity to advance just as much as you have in those sixty days, regardless of how long it takes me to get to sixty days played.

Non-druid hater? Well, guess you don't hate me then. I do play a druid. *sticks her tongue out at Alyster*

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I should have the opportunity to advance just as much as you have in those sixty days, regardless of how long it takes me to get to sixty days played[/quote]

Oh dear, foot meet mouth!

I've seen your magelo remember and I can absolutely guarantee that you have waaayyyy better gear than I had at 60 days. AS has been pointed out to you, you do not want to put the same time in "regardless of how long it takes".

To put things into perspective for you I can tell you that my regular group of 4 myself/shaman/monk/mage (yes it works well) have over 1000 days between us and thats not even high. I can point you to many people with 400+ days pre-bazaar trading.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I should have the opportunity to advance just as much as you have in those sixty days, regardless of how long it takes me to get to sixty days played
[/quote]

Ok please delevel yourself to level 44, and destroy any piece of gear worth more than 400pp.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You do not put in more work or effort. Get off that wooden horse of yours. You play longer hours more frequently than I do.[/quote]

ok. How can we tell this to you. MORE HOURS IS MORE EFFORT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! got it ?

You keep sayign you can't progress further with playing Casual. I know 1 thing what is probably holding you back more then anything and that is whining on these boards and not trying to play in game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Being forced to sit on my ass for hours upon hours more than two or three times a week is ridiculous.[/quote]

who is forcing you ? As far as i know (i said this before) the only think in EQ that you are forced to, is accepting the EULA. After that you can take any path you want to take.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't give a damn if people want to spend six hours a day, five to seven days a week playing a game.... but I will sure as hell never say they deserve better gear then I do.[/quote]

So even if they put more effect into the game. you still think you are entitled to the same reward ? or even a better one ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>My sixty days played and your sixty days played are just that... sixty days played. Whether it takes a year or two years to get there... it's still just sixty days played.[/quote]

You are TOTALLY right on this part. Just 1 thing i wonder, who are you comparing your gear with? I hope not to the top of the rogue community. Shall i tell you why they are on the top ? Because they <strong>invested time</strong> in the game. Like my character, Molly is 318 days old atm. When i was 60 days old, i wasnt even done leveling. I was probably runing around in guk or something. Trying to get high enough to join raids.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I should have the opportunity to advance just as much as you have in those sixty days, regardless of how long it takes me to get to sixty days played.[/quote]

So i would guess because of the game evolving and expincreasements you actually progressed MORE in those 60 days then i asume a good 90% here. And still whine and bitch? I don't get it.

what people like Deneldor2 don't seem to understand is that there is a life out there that is worth living. a REAL life. but there are those of us that are looking for advancement in the game as well, but don't feel that the unhealthy levels of comittment should be necessary if we want to continue to advance our characters.

there shouldn't be ANY zones or areas that are reserved for people that have no life outside the game. there should not be a trade off forced on everyone that winner ingame = social reject in real life.

you mention earlier that many of the higher tiered guilds are putting in (/sarcasm on) ONLY (/sarcasm off) 20 hours of raiding a week...now isnt that just a little bit sick? and is it really fair to push that same sickness on anyone that would like to see some character advancement?

i dont think so. there needs to be a legitimate advancement path for people that have a healthy level of balance between the game and their lives. rewarding sickos that spend 20+ hours a week raiding, PLUS the time they spend exping is just not right.

I was thinking that 20 was kinda low myself.

I know casual players who put in more time than that.

What people like Sannen don't seem to understand is that we choose to play like this. We enjoy doing this. We could be 20 hours in the gym, or in a bar, or whereever, but we >> CHOOSE << to do it this way. What is so wrong with that ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>there shouldn't be ANY zones or areas that are reserved for people that have no life outside the game. there should not be a trade off forced on everyone that winner ingame = social reject in real life.[/quote]

And why not ? because we both pay the same ? And for the record. I find it very harsh to say that people successfull in game have no life. Not only harsh but very stupid and ignorant.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>(/sarcasm off) 20 hours of raiding a week[/quote]

Hm.. 20 hours per 7 days. That is less then 2 hours a day. I think most people spend more time on eating and drinking per week. That's nothing really.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>i dont think so. there needs to be a legitimate advancement path for people that have a healthy level of balance between the game and their lives. rewarding sickos that spend 20+ hours a week raiding, PLUS the time they spend exping is just not right. [/quote]

I don't get why people think their opinion is the only one possible. Just because its not YOUR style of gaming. Why shouldnt it be the style of someone else ? Like a friend of mine is in avg 3 - 4 days in the gym per week. He spends well around 25 hours per week in the gym. He spending 20+ hour in there. Why would that be ok and raiding not ? i don't understand that. Because you have balance in your life, doesnt mean i don't with my raid shedule. I have perfect balance. It is just different then yours.

Some people have a lot of time on their hands. Single people with 40 hour/week jobs, for example. Without a family to take care of, there's time left over for several 20 hour/week hobbies. (Let's see...24*7=168 hours in a week. 40 hours/week working, 5 hours commuting, 7*8=56 hours sleeping, maybe 10 hours cleaning or running errands and such, leaving 57 hours a week of free time.)

These people can play 20 hours a week and still live healthy, balanced lives.

There's nothing wrong with playing a game 20 hours a week, IMHO. Even more. A lot of people watch at least that much TV. What I think is wrong is reorganizing your life around it though. Stressing out over being late to a raid, being upset because you missed an important flagging event and will now be left behind from your friends going to a locked zone, turning down social engagements that conflict with raid schedules etc.

Personally, that's why I choose not to follow that path in EQ (any longer). After awhile it became stressful and not fun to me. I figure after 4 years the game needs to become more like a game and less like a job. I'm running into more and more long time players that want that more carefree play aspect to the game. Maybe SOE is beginning to see that people are wearing out on the standard formula and they need to reformulate it a bit. (I should be able to make some clever connection here between reformulated Coke and PoP.... but I'm far too sleep deprived for that right now, so fill in your own).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You do not put in more work or effort. Get off that wooden horse of yours. You play longer hours more frequently than I do.[/quote]

Wow, I didn't even need to pick sentences from your post..you put em all together for me.

Time = Effort.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>there shouldn't be ANY zones or areas that are reserved for people that have no life outside the game.[/quote]

Your right, lets remove the key requirements for ST, Emperor, VT, Elementals, Time. As a casual player we know that Alyssia will never get any gear from those zones, she can't even be bothered to ask for help from her friends. Whole lot of good it will do her.

Come to think of it, since we're removing the keys/flag requirements on those zones for casuals we're going to have to dumb down the encounters so a six person group of casuals can progress in them. Can't expect them to take down a mob with 500k HPs that can quad for 1k+, rampages and spawns multiple adds at them at various levels in it's health let alone nastier things.

And that leads us to the loot these new casual kill 'Boss Type" mobs should drop and another comment you made....

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>there needs to be a legitimate advancement path for people that have a healthy level of balance between the game and their lives.[/quote]

So Sennen, please define what you consider a legitimate advancement path? Exactly what kind of upgrades do you expect to get for investing five hours a week with a party of six? Do you expect an upgrade after every play session?

Do you honestly think making the game any easier will help casual players catch up to the so called uber players? The uber player is still going to play far more hours then the casual. Thier going to keep getting more gear upgrades faster then the casual. You've only made it easier for those "damned Ubers" to get further ahead of the casual player now.

These casual vs uber threads have at thier core a self imposed class, or perhaps gear, envy. Always with the casuals asking for what the "uber" player has but for less work, ie read "time investment", put forward toward it. Of course once someone utters the words "less work" someone else immediatly interprets it to mean "lazy" when infact that's not what's being implied.

It again comes back to what kind of upgrades do you expect a mob to drop thats tuned for a group of 6 that takes an hour to get to and kill, as compared to a mob thats tuned for 30-ish people and takes an hour to get to and kill. Those 30 people are going to have to work hard for an encounter thats tuned for 30 people, and a 72 person raid is going to have to work hard for an encounter thats tuned for 72 people. I dare say it's a heck of alot easier for 6 people to move through a dungeon in a coordinated manner then 30 or 72 people. You will always have people that fall behind, dont watch the raid channel for directions, die, get lost, go afk unannounced, die again, forget to shrink, dont invis when they need to, and typically die again. Moving a raid thru a zone is work, often frustrating and almost always thankless, and we havent even gotten to the named yet!

Once you get to your target you need everyone to do their job. Now you've got a few posabilities here. If you brought more players then you need for an encounter, read zerg, you probably have nothing to worry about. On the other hand if the encounter your doing was tuned for the numbers your bringing or for slightly more then you bring then your relying on everyone being on thier A Game or you fail. The reward for the "zerg force" is the loot needs to be distributed by a larger collection of players. Where as the players in the smaller force have better loot odds due to lower numbers.

Now I can see Alyssia grinning at an above statement getting ready to go "See! Thats what I'm saying, a well tuned encounter tuned for six should give the same loot!" .. But, you see, it shouldnt. If you take an encounter thats been tuned for 30 or 72 people, it will be more of a challenge to those 30 or 72 people then an encounter tuned for 6, simply because the event had to be tuned for 30 or 72 people so as not to trivialize it and therefore it should provide better loot. By it's very design it cant be done by less until players have progressed in level/gear/aa beyond what the encounter was designed for! At which point there's no incentive for them to go back and do the encounter as the loot is mediocre.

So that leaves us with LDoN. The last great hope for the casual gamer to get one up on the "uber." The only thing is the powergamer, ie "uber", is still going to be ahead of the game. For every hour of dungeon time a casual spends in LDoN they will have spent 5. With the loot reward system being implemented in LDoN the players that can dungeon crawl the most will continue to progress the most. Not to mention the "uber" players will be able to access the LDoN content at some of it's highest level giving them gear options long before a casual will ever possibly see it.

Everquest is what you make of it. Some folks can't seem to figure that out.

-End

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So that leaves us with LDoN. The last great hope for the casual gamer to get one up on the "uber." The only thing is the powergamer, ie "uber", is still going to be ahead of the game.[/quote]

One up? I don't think any casual player in their wildest dreams imagines that SOE would allow that to happen. I think what most of us would like to see is a way to close the ever widening gap between those who raid and those who don't. Failing that, just some sort of a growth path involving fun things to do and some equipment upgrades is probably what most of us would be very happy to see.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Everquest is what you make of it. Some folks can't seem to figure that out.[/quote]

Uh, not quite. I've been trying to shoot storm troopers in East Commons for a long time and it just hasn't worked out.

It's what the developers make of it. We're left with the job of trying to make a recreational pasttime of out what they hand over.

Y'know, I had this nice post all typed and well... @#%$ it. You people are so dead set in your ways, no amount of common sense and reasoning will get it through your thick, cro-magnon man skulls that your way should not be the only way. So keep on beating your chest. Keep on sitting in front of that computer waving your wang and having a pissing contest... because I'm done with you.

You're just too @#%$ thick headed to see it from my point of view and just bury your head in the sand like a ostrich waiting to take a jump off a cliff with the rest of your lemming-like guildmates.

One last thing...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>As a casual player we know that Alyssia will never get any gear from those zones, she can't even be bothered to ask for help from her friends.[/quote]

Excuse me for having a @#%$ guilt trip when I ask someone to do something for me or help me with something. I hate feeling guilty. I hate feeling like I used them just to get something for myself. I hate feeling selfish and greedy.

I'd much rather be able to earn some loot along with my friends just through playing the game and having fun. Camping the same spot over on some hillside in an outdoor zone is as boring as reading the Safehouse these days. And it's the only way people play unless you wrench their little toe's with a pair of pliers and drag them from their tuffet.

Alyssia,

If you think your intended audience is your opponent(s), you have already lost the debate.

Watch how some of the veterans do it, they make it look easy I know. They make their living(or pleasure) off of words. And that is why I am still here.

Good lord Alyssa just doesn't get it.

Lets try to take this slow. There's only one thing everyone has that is given at birth essentially... this is the first and most fundamental form of currency if you will. It can be translated to many things if you have the ability. Money, knowledge, perfect body, handicap of 1.2, fluency in 10 languages, being able to see everything first in EQ or 100 kids. What is this mysterious currency??? It's time. That's the only thing we have to use, and that's what gets us things.

"I do pay the same amount and I expect to see the same content as everyone else within a reasonable timeframe. "

Yeah your reasonable timeframe is like 3-4 months after the first people to get to the content. Sorry to burst your bubble but there's people who are new to that content entering it right then too. So it's NOT being hogged by ubers or anything. At least on RN there's always movement up. Why are you not on the bus? Obviously they can't all be die hard uber raiders, or they'd have been there before.


"I don't give a damn if people want to spend six hours a day, five to seven days a week playing a game.... but I will sure as hell never say they deserve better gear then I do. "

Yeah I think the same about those bastards at the gym. Some of them sporting like 8 abdomenal muscles showing and mine just do quick appearances on the surface every now and then. And I won't even start about the biceps, I mean wtf.


"I should have the opportunity to advance just as much as you have in those sixty days, regardless of how long it takes me to get to sixty days played."

In sixty days I was lvl 57 I think and really hoping that Donals BP would drop more from Trakanon. Damn it would have owned had it dropped. Guess I should give you a break, and let you have Mrylokars BP AND Greaves. Pimpin!


As bad as Alyssa can be with grasping the concept, Sannen sure goes to new heights of stupidity. Wow no @#%$ there's a real life, but people tend to have hobbies. People tend to be able to give several hours to their hobbies weekly or even daily.

At the moment I'm working in an internship at a rather major corporation, but usually I study. Studies take in general maybe 4-6 hours a day except when it's exam time, when I'm totally out for 2 weeks. But it averages at roughly 5 hours, which means I study 25 hours a week. I have sufficient funding that I have absolutely no reason to work while I study... it's actually been somewhat discouraged, except for internships in major companies. I sleep maybe 6hours a night on average.

Sooo. 24*7-7*6-5*5 = 121 hours. What can I say... feel envious? Let me repeat that to you. One hundred and twenty one hours of free time every week, with no worries about money or anything at all. Oh I do a great many things, starting from spending a lot of time with my gf (who also enjoys the game though), drinking, working on my companies (starting up two companies) and I still tend to end up with 50-60 hours of time to spare. This time is occupied mostly by the computer.

What can I say? I have money, I have free time, I get to go out a lot, I travel abroad on holiday multiple times in a year (so far once to France, once to the US and once to Sweden.. going to head to the US again soon) while playing EQ on a level you doubt you'll ever reach. If I were you and thought RL things such as having free time etc mattered in an EQ debate, this would be the time when I'd call you a loser with absolutely no life at all to live. How much free time DO you have anyway? If you can't spare 20 hours for a hobby, you seriously need to get more time for yourself.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I think what most of us would like to see is a way to close the ever widening gap between those who raid and those who don't. [/quote]

By the nature of EQ you can't close that gap. It will keep growing because the people that can play the most will continue to get the most. Even with LDoN and it's points reward system the people that play the most will always be ahead on points. People need to understand that gap will always be there based on the time spent disparity between players.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Failing that, just some sort of a growth path involving fun things to do and some equipment upgrades is probably what most of us would be very happy to see.[/quote]

But the growth paths do exist, people choose not to walk the paths because they feel their too hard or not how they want to play (ie. repetitive boredom). LDoN is going to help on the repetive boredom part to an extent but just how long do you think 48 dungeons are going to be new and exciting? Your going to get people that have done them all to the best of thier ability multiple times. Many of them are going to reach a stop point where they can't proceed any further because they can't beat the encounter, think exec trial in PoJ. When they reach that point what do you think their going to do? Why find a forum and whine that the dungeons are too hard and they need to be changed to let them progress thru them.

So Jack the druid decides to level to 65 as a casual gamer where he finds he's woefully under geared as compared to Jill the druid. Jill, being a raiding druid, has been in the elemental planes for 5 months and has a full set of Kerasha's armour and all other slots filled with 100+ Mana/Hp items. Bob could be in BoT or Tactics in a single group hunting for ornate drops, he could be working on his Emp ring with a single group, or working on the Hate range item quest, again, with a single group. What's holding Jack back? Time, Motivation, or a desire for EQ to play like Diablo?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>By the nature of EQ you can't close that gap[/quote]

I would say that that is the problem with EQ and any subsequent games that are designed around enormous ecounters. It didn't/doesn't have to be designed that way. The entire game could have been built around 6 people in a group. Then there wouldn't have been so many dependencies on things like time-zone, hours of play, # of people in the guild, etc, to have a progression path.

But I disagree with you on the "the people that can play the most will continue to get the most." Some casual players play as much or more, time wise, as raiders. They just don't raid for a variety of reasons. Currently it doesn't matter how much they play, they have no growth path unless they raid. LDoN does address that and gives everyone a growth path, or so it seems. Yay!

Hopefully it will restore one of the imbalances that has grown. If you're a casual player you can put in the same time and "effort" as someone in a large raiding guild but not advance your character.

But will LDoN really help? If you start out with marginal stuff, LDoN only allows you to upgrade your stuff to a certain point, I'm guessing. I doubt it'll close the gap at all.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But the growth paths do exist, people choose not to walk the paths because they feel their too hard or not how they want to play (ie. repetitive boredom).[/quote]

That's simply not true. Or at least, the growth path for casual players in every expansion so far is one that can be done in several weeks or maybe a couple of months of casual play. After that, it's just experience grinding.

Hate v2 was pretty new when I left the game and I don't think the quests had been discovered then. I'm sure casual players are grateful for the new quest. We need more of that! Not just bones thrown to us once every 6 months or a year. When I start playing again, I'll definitely look into it, but I imagine I'll be frolicking in LDoN. The Shissar Ring you mentioned isn't any better than what you can get in PoP from tradeskills and drops in the lower-planes.

Maybe you're not clear on what I mean when I say "growth path".

It is:

1) Your character's innate abilities like stats, levels, AA, etc.
Everyone gets this the same regardless of whether they raid or not... currently although they've talked of putting spell skills into the games just for high end raiders. /sigh

2) Your characters special abilities, like tradeskills.
In all prior expansions to PoP, this road was open to everyone. Now it's a very short road in PoP unless you have access to the Elemental planes for things that drop there.

3) Your character's equipment and spells.
Generally casual players make all the acquisitions they're going to make in this area in the first couple of months after an expansion is out. PoP was a little different due to them monkeying with drop rates the entire time. But playing off/on games with drop rates doesn't compensate for a real growth path, it just annoys everyone.

4) Your activities.
This is what you log on to do when you play. If you're not a raider, PoP left you very little to do other than boring experience grinding in a few very dull zones. Luclin was the same way with just a few zones at level 60 to spend any time in.

When non-raiders have just as much as raiders do in those 4 areas I'll be thinking the game is back on the right track. I hate to be overly optomistic, but I think in LDoN we're going to be nailing all 4.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Or at least, the growth path for casual players in every expansion so far is one that can be done in several weeks or maybe a couple of months of casual play.
[/quote]

I don't think the phrase 'casual player' means what you think it does.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What is this mysterious currency??? It's time. That's the only thing we have to use, and that's what gets us things.[/quote]
No. The only evidence related to <strong>time</strong> is that there are many "cauals" with hundreds of days played and focused with inferior gear to 20-30 day wonders who are in the elemental planes with uber gear. The <strong>time</strong> arguement is a <strong>myth</strong> and is used to perpetuate the disproportionate rewards for large raiding guilds who spend no more time, expose themselves to no more risks, who are no more focused and who are no more skilled than those not in large raiding guilds. <strong>Time</strong> is a more suitable arguement for casuals that has been hijacked and used falsely.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What can I say? I have money, I have free time[/quote]
Why would she be envious of you because of your parent's money? You have accomplished nothing to earn anyone's envy. How snotty of you to use the success of others as though it is your own and then throw that into someone's face who hasn't enjoyed the same advantages.

Your being the benefactor of someone else's success aside, there are many "casuals" who play as much and more than you and have inferior gear because they are in not in a large raiding guild with access. You "free time' is no more valuable than their's and is in fact less valuable than my own, but the "casuals" invest it into their characters just as you do your's.

I tried to take it slow for you as you asked and I hope you better understand the error in your logic.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't think the phrase 'casual player' means what you think it does.[/quote]

INCONCEIVABLE!

Anyone want a peanut?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><strong>Or at least, the growth path for casual players in every expansion so far is one that can be done in several weeks or maybe a couple of months of casual play.</strong>

I don't think the phrase 'casual player' means what you think it does.[/quote]
The term "casual player" does seem to be a misnomer. I think 'non-raider' would be much more accurate and it wouldn't invite the "you don't do the time so you can't have the rewards" argument.

-Inigo Montoya

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The term "casual player" does seem to be a misnomer. I think 'non-raider' would be much more accurate and it wouldn't invite the "you don't do the time so you can't have the rewards" argument.[/quote]

Then how would you define casual?

Personally I'd define casual as someone that doesn't raid much if at all. It could be due to a number of factors such as time, priorities, schedule, family obligations, dislike of raiding, etc.

I'd define it as not placing a high priority on character progression. Levelling would be incidental to hunting, rather than the primary goal, for example.

But that's simply a by-product of the game design, Palarran. It was a choice of the developers, not the players. Most games you can progress your character, civilization, space ship, whatever, despite all those things I mentioned. It'll be a slower pace if you play less, a faster pace if you play more. EQ's raiding requirements restricts a casual player's progression even more than the time limitations do.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Then how would you define casual?[/quote]
I'd define a 'casual player' as one who doesn't play all that often and, when they do play, they are not overly concerned about progressing. The English definition of 'casual' implies this and I think the problem in many of the debates we've had here is that some people are assuming this definition while others (including me) have attempted to redefine it. A non-raider who has 500 days played, the best gear they can buy or quest for with a single group, and maxed AAs is not a casual player yet they will have crappy gear compared to someone who has chosen to progress via raiding.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Personally I'd define casual as someone that doesn't raid much if at all[/quote]
Why not just call them a non-raider then? It would eliminate a source of confusion for many people (esp. those who read the last couple of posts in a thread and start flaming).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>No. The only evidence related to time is that there are many "cauals" with hundreds of days played and focused with inferior gear to 20-30 day wonders who are in the elemental planes with uber gear. The time arguement is a myth and is used to perpetuate the disproportionate rewards for large raiding guilds who spend no more time, expose themselves to no more risks, who are no more focused and who are no more skilled than those not in large raiding guilds. Time is a more suitable arguement for casuals that has been hijacked and used falsely.[/quote]

You're focusing on a rather small minority of raiding guilders here. Yeah those people probably get things a bit too easy.

Fact is raiding is harder than anything else in the game. Not because the mobs are so difficult, but because running a succesful and enduring guild is. Of course this means that the true effort in the guild is done by very few people, and the others are essentially getting a free ride. You could say this is wrong, but in general it is the way things work in a social environment. You have those key 1-5 people in guild who will make any guild on the damn server the #1 guild, and the others mainly affect how well the guild does serverwide.

Still, my guild averages almost 300 AA and about half of the actives have attended killings of over 1000 'uber' NPCs in the game. That is really rather massive use on time, while sacrificing a great many things to benefit the whole.

Maybe I'm an idealist or something, but I love Verant forcing large groups of people from vastly different background together to work for common goals. Essentially having alternative ways to do it would break that up, and it's by far the most appealing side of EQ for me.


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why would she be envious of you because of your parent's money? You have accomplished nothing to earn anyone's envy. How snotty of you to use the success of others as though it is your own and then throw that into someone's face who hasn't enjoyed the same advantages. [/quote]

This was aimed at the idiot who flamed everyone that plays 20h as being twisted and wrong and a madman and having no life. I sunk to his level, but I felt the need. He claimed I have no life, and I offered the alternative explanation that it's just him having a poor life that causes him to try to form this comforting illusion. I repeat: this was NOT for Alyssa.


-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

Alyssia, you should probably take the advice you've been given; EQ is not the game for players like you. EQ is built on greed, plain and simple. Someone who does not like "using" her friends and eschews the mass pursuit of loot has no business playing EQ. I understand your dilemma though, EQ is the best game with the most content, and it frustrates you that the hordes have ruined it. There's nothing you can do though, except wait for the MMORPG genre to grow until there's finally enough games around for niche games that don't cater to the greed of your average American 15-25 year old to come out and actually succeed.

Someone just said: "No. The only evidence related to time is that there are many "cauals" with hundreds of days played and focused with inferior gear to 20-30 day wonders who are in the elemental planes with uber gear. The time arguement is a myth and is used to perpetuate the disproportionate rewards for large raiding guilds who spend no more time, expose themselves to no more risks, who are no more focused and who are no more skilled than those not in large raiding guilds. Time is a more suitable arguement for casuals that has been hijacked and used falsely."

This is pretty much true. Uber guilds consist of a handful to a dozen or so "leaders" who run everything and 50-100 sheep whose only skills are following directions and never taking initiative on their own (the 2 critical skills of every EQ raider). Those sheep consider their "effort" to lift them above other players, when any halfway competent players could do the same thing they do every day/night. They don't like to admit this to themselves, but it's patently obvious, especially nowadays when EQ raid guilds and have become 2-3 boxer armys who all hit autoattack and then watch TV. What the EQ box should say on it is:

"Willing to join a greedy gang of 150 players, listen to non-stop cursing and discussion of the nuances of loot in guildchat, and sit through hours of mind-numbing setup every night to outfit your character? Can you shut up and follow the directions? Come to Norrath!"

LDoN is a step in the right direction, but it's so late that late is not even an adequate description for it anymore.

and my rant was not aimed at you in particular. but if the shoe fits...

its just that it seems that the raiders tend to be the dickheaded bunch with over inflated egos. i can only assume that the game allows them the ability to overcompensate for their RL situations. SOE just enforces this elitist attitude with their "raidcentric" world.

those of you that say it takes more skill to be part of a raiding guild...answer me this: how does it take more skill for someone to mash hotkeys to either cheal the tank or shoot a nuke, or the ever popular, hit attack and go AFK for a couple hours? sorry, but that's a load of crap. in my experience, the non-raiders are the ones with a heck of a lot more personal playing skills than any raiding player. because you are relying on yourself and your own skills, or your small groups skills, which allows for a LOT less of a margin for error. how could you possibly credit all 72 or whatever people on your raid with being skilled, just cause the "skilled" cleric can read their name on a hotkey for the cheal rotation and hit their cheal hotkey after counting to 10? sorry, but charm kiting frogs in POS when charm breaks and you get a couple adds, then actually living through it without having to succor takes a lot more skill than sitting on your horse and dropping a nuke or dot or spot heal on someone while you wait the 2 hours it takes for the mobs hpts to get to zero.

but neither of these are the issues i guess. the issue is that time played should be equally rewarding, regardless of what you are doing for that time. if you want to tradeskill and that is your thing and that is what you spend your time doing, that is what you get. better at tradeskills.

if exping and leveling and AAing are your thing and you spend all your time getting those, then THAT is what you get. more experience and AAs.

but if you are looking for a progression path that is based on improving your gear, but you dont have the time to commit to an 8+ hour raid, or 2 hours a night EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, your out of luck. and even if you spend the EXACT same amount of time hunting and exping as a non-raiding character, your just never going to add up. and THAT is what is wrong with this game. there needs to be a progression path for people that dont want or like raiding. and right now there just isnt.

While I certainly agree, in fact champion, adding content geared to casual players and non-raiders, I don't think its fair to label raiders like some of you all are doing by calling them children, greedy, sheep and that it takes no skill, any more than I think it's fair of them to label us as lazy or unmotivated, skill-less or whatever.

I've known many talented players who decided to join raiding guilds. One, in fact, who is a neurosurgeon, another is a fire fighter and so on. They're no different from anyone else, they just wanted to jump into the EQ "endless end-game" and see what it was like.

On the other hand, some of them are jumping out again to become casual players. ;)

And there's folks here in mega-guilds that would certainly agree that non-raiders need a growth path too.

<strong>its just that it seems that the raiders tend to be the dickheaded bunch with over inflated egos</strong>

I have had the (dis)pleasure of spending several evenings partying with pro football players. One was dating a friend's sister, and we all hung out...anyway...

You could substitute "aggressive, successful athletes" for "raiders" and it would be almost universally true. EQ is no anomaly.

Heh, actually you could substitute "Raiders" for "raiders".

Well, you're right, they are not all sheep. I said that, actually ;) , there's at least a handful on non-sheep in every uber guild. I should also mention that majority of the players in EQ are sheep regardless of what type of guild they are in, so I would not want to give the impression I think uberguilds are purely sheep-havens. They have more sheep then the standard server index/average, though, percentage-wise.

My point is that uber guild players are certainly no more skilled than other players, and that they are not due anything more for their self-professed "dedication, commitment, and effort". Please.

Bric, a friend of mine called men like that "The Testosteroni". In the back of my mind there are certain people I have run into with that overly agressive, overly self-absorbed that I call "the Testosteroni". To myself, of course. I'd be taking my life in my hands to speak it out-loud in front of them. ;) Cause being an Estrogeni I'm at a distinct disadvantage.

And, it has nothing to do with most raiders any more than soy bean futures have to do with orc pawns.

Some of the raiders obviously need to know a lot more about the game than pretty much any casual even can. I personally dare say I know more about the game than anyone that reads these boards... as in, the game mechanics and how things work behind the scenes etc. This is knowledge and it hasnt' come for free. However I almost must admit that there's just 3 other players on a relatively similar level of knowledge in the whole guild. This theoretically leaves a lot of room for sheep.

Sheep are definitely there. I remember when we started, we had a core of 18ish people who were NOT shy about asking eachother to help themselves get loot, and since everyone asked, everyone got what they wanted and everyone was progressing and happy. Then we began to grow to tackle things such as vindi which was new then. Originally we weren't really popular at all in the status quo, and the recruits varied quite a bit. However for a great part they were rather horrible... yet they complied, and how hard can playing a rogue on a King Tormax raid be?

However what you don't realize is that we actually DO appreciate initiative combined with brains. Just because a lot of loud people get refused doesn't mean we dislike initiative... notice there's a side requirement there with initiative, since there's nothing quite as horrible for a raid as a retard who tries to compensate for lack of intelligence by a boatload of enthusiasm.


Anyway I feel that I personally, and at the very least the core 20ish of the guild have done a lot more than any casual player or non-raider ever has, and as such we have deserved every bit of reward we get, and the leads we have on the bulk of players. The others in the guild I dunno about... how would you reward just the working core not everyone?

I will stress this point though: the greatest thing about this game in my opinion is the way it forces people to form communities, which makes this so extremely social compared to the vast majority of games... and that's what makes this so damn fun and addictive. I've met maybe 35 members of the guild in real life and had a great time with them. Also it sure opens your eyes about prejudices about different sorts of people. I never was a racist or anything, but I must admit to surprise (which somewhat disappointed me that it was there, but *shrug*) that one of the smartest and most open minded people that I've been guilded with is an Egyptian whose dad was even very religious or something. Also many of our most reliable and skilled people are orientals, and they can be damn funny too etc. I think I've gained a lot from knowing so many people from different countries and backgrounds (sorry but african americans, oriental americans etc just aren't quite the real deal imho). I would really hate to throw all that potential away (if raiding was not forced, the guilds are much less likely to form by playertime instead of by timezone, RL friendship etc) just because some powergaming non-raiders are malcontent... it's such a small amount of people after all, floating there between the large amount of raiders and huge amount of casuals.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguid.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I will stress this point though: the greatest thing about this game in my opinion is the way it forces people to form communities[/quote]

Absolutely. But communities don't have to be ones built of mega-guilds spending hours and hours doing mega-raids and mobilizing 50+ people. There's probably a hell of a lot more small guilds that that sort of activity is way out of reach for. I think people like you tend to discount them.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I personally dare say I know more about the game than anyone that reads these boards... as in, the game mechanics and how things work behind the scenes etc.[/quote]

After seeing that, I might just be more inclined to agree with the following quote:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>its just that it seems that the raiders tend to be the dickheaded bunch with over inflated egos
[/quote]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> I personally dare say I know more about the game than anyone that reads these boards[/quote]
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Anyway I feel that I personally, and at the very least the core 20ish of the guild have done a lot more than any casual player or non-raider ever has[/quote]
You've done a lot more what? Boasting?

not going to touch the "more knowledge" thing... :)

<strong> I will stress this point though: the greatest thing about this game in my opinion is the way it forces people to form communities, which makes this so extremely social compared to the vast majority of games</strong>

I agree it's a great thing, but DAOC is actually a far more social game. The scale of cooperation is vastly greater than EQ (300 man raids have been done), yet ultimately the game falls short.

EQ's strength is simply in the depth of the gameworld. You don't realize that until you play other, less richly realized, games.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>EQ's strength is simply in the depth of the gameworld. You don't realize that until you play other, less richly realized, games.[/quote]

Now if there was just a way for people like me to see the entire game at our own pace instead of being forced to endure the rat race.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I will stress this point though: the greatest thing about this game in my opinion is the way it forces people to form communities, which makes this so extremely social compared to the vast majority of games[/quote]
The problem is that people were forming communities in the game before there were Big Game Hunts (BGHs) and later raids. Guilds were already present and people socialized before raidflation. If anything, raidflation led to the demise of the social guild and the glory days of the large raiding guilds. The rewards of being in a guild was shifted from those intrinsic to the individual to those of access and gear commensurate to one's level and environment. The guild system in EQ has contributed to it's success, but that was before raiding and more associated with the still unfulfilled promises and potential of that system.

I don't think the "family guilds" really worked so well across timezones and/or cultures. I was in one originally (or well it was a place where people coming from a certain LPMUD went when coming to EQ), and the european and american populations barely mingled at all. Only time I really saw the Americans were when we first broke Fear... and what an interesting time that was. Then I joined a raiding guild where I eventually took over leading raids before starting a new guild, and suddenly I saw the americans every day, and eventually the Koreans, Singaporeans and Australians too (they play admittedly somewhat odd hours.. raids start around 6-8am for them).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You've done a lot more what? Boasting? [/quote]

Been there at pretty much every serverfirst on Rodcet, and lead a great many top 5 serverwide kills, including some serious thinking outside the box. Oh as for the knowledge, I'll yield if one of you knows the answer to the following questions even. These are things SOE did with the game code:

Sony changed things about stun and mez not long ago in a patch. What exactly got changed and why? (it was a rather background change)

What exactly does shielding do? The thread on fohguild has some comedy in it, though as a tip, some of the people are close if not right on money!


I've played DAoC, and while you take part in huge raids, I never really got to know anyone on those damn raids. Apart from VERY few people, their tasks were in no way critical. On one of these "zergy" 72man raids, I can name uh... at least 25 people whose total failure (for example afk, LD can be covered but afk is harder) would very possibly kill the whole raid. If 2 people would pull the afk, the failure would be almost guaranteed. This makes the roles defined, you want to know who is good at what and make sure they're there to do their best.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Now if there was just a way for people like me to see the entire game at our own pace instead of being forced to endure the rat race. [/quote]

If there was, how would you prevent people from going through it FAST by playing a lot? If you can't prevent that, the high end community goes bye bye, since the reason to suffer the mild inconvenience of constant dying and having to play when the raids happen would just not be there. Of course Verant tries to stop people zooming past by making the spawns really rare, but you said that's no good either.

I really don't see the point of a "social" guild. I mean, I have friends in RL. I don't play the game to find friends, they are a side product. I play the game to overcome the challenges, such as they happen to be, and the guild I want to be in obviously reflects that. We're rallied together for a common goal, and that goal is advancing in game instead of trying to create a social life =P

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If there was, how would you prevent people from going through it FAST by playing a lot?[/quote]

You wouldn't. Person A plays Final Fantasy LCXIII and plays every day for at least five hours a day if not more. They will beat the game before Person B who plays maybe an hour here and there, usually on the weekends. They both will eventually get the same enjoyment out of it. Just one will get it faster. I have no problem with that.

Concerning your second point... I'd much rather overcome the challenges with very small group of well known friends that number less then the fingers on my hands... instead of being part of a massive guild where I only know a few people well and most people not at all.

I know the vast majority of the people in my guild very well. I know how they're doing in RL, I know their likes and dislikes, their personal quirks, what they do for a living etc.

Oh there's a few cases where I simply don't care (like I admitted, we have that 20% of sheep), but I don't see the larger number of people making it impersonal. Granted I am a rather extreme extrovert, but I'd say most people have at least 15 people they talk with on a fairly regular basis. We have no clique issues, and people group with eachother pretty freely and socialize while doing that. Also since whoever is leading the raid always makes groups, people group with pretty much everyone. I'm not a fan of the 72man, but I'd say the most fun raids are the ones that range from 24man to 48man. That's by far the most fun size, and that would allow us to eliminate the sheep as well... but smaller than that? It would totally ruin the game for me.

Not to mention that, I'd also have consumed the game so fast that I'd probably have retired during Kunark at latest.

You're still not a casual player btw, but one of the powergamers with incompatible schedules/attitudes toward raiding, and as such you're a very small minority (I'd say representing maybe 20% of the lvl 65s, if that).

So what you're suggesting to Verant would:
1. make the raiding population, which has been estimated to be between 10 and 20% of the server (from Quarm to NToV and VP) less content than they are now.
2. destroy the mystery of the high end game. Anyone can reach it, you can't follow the adventures where quite literally a company full of heroes tackles impossibly powerful monsters.. meaning guild web pages simply die. You do realize how many hits LoSteel got during Tigole, fohguild still gets etc?
3. Make the top 3-5% of every server simply retire due to boredom.
4. Make a rather small group happy for a while, if you assume they will be happy about having reached the very end game (you realize there's nothing to do then, right? Especially since you wouldn't need to loot up for the next expansion)

I just don't see any reason for Verant to take such an insane risk with EQ. Maybe they'll do it in EQ2, but I suspect in a non PvP environment making the high end 6mannable just is not a good idea.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
You wouldn't. Person A plays Final Fantasy LCXIII and plays every day for at least five hours a day if not more. They will beat the game before Person B who plays maybe an hour here and there, usually on the weekends. They both will eventually get the same enjoyment out of it. Just one will get it faster. I have no problem with that.

[/quote]

If you want a single player game, you know where to find it. In a single player game, you are always the man, no other player is more powerful than you.

If the game was left exactly the same, but everyone wth more free-time/better organisation/who cared more than you do were kicked off to a seperate server, wouldn't that solve most of your complaints?

I guess some people just can't deal with the ego issue that there is any possibility that someone else might in some arguable way have cause to feel that they are 'better' at a game than them.

Maybe they really are 'better', maybe they just have a lower ping time and worse personal hygiene, whatever. It's time to grow up and admit that this is not an issue of overwhelming importance. Leave the member comparison to the quakeheads. And no, 'he started it', is not an adult response.

The only thing that matters, even within the context of the game (this is hardly a human rights issue) is whether it is possible for anyone with a given set of constraints and preferences to have fun. And IMHO these days it is, more so than ever before in the history of the game.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only thing that matters, even within the context of the game (this is hardly a human rights issue) is whether it is possible for anyone with a given set of constraints and preferences to have fun.[/quote]

The best point made on this particular page.

Well said Kaledan.

What i don't seem to understand is the thought that casual gamers don't have a path to upgrade by doing encounters doable with 6 players.

some examples what i did so far with 1 group or still want to try:

Venril Sathyr
Trakanon
Hot (incl dozekar)
vindi
Rhag 1 and i guess Rhag 2 also
Tormax
Statue (Think AoW is a bit to much to 1group ;) )
zlandicar
That dragondude in CS, KD i think (been a while ago)
The Va'Dyn
I think The Itraer Vius is also doable by a strong group
velketor
Dain

And that is only what i can think of right now. Sure, most of those will get killed on spawn by raiding guilds. But for sure you can do that with your group of friends and kill it. If i read this about casuals i get the feeling it isnt so much about "there is nothing to progress" but more about "we havent tried this or that yet but don't know we can". That is 1 thing i notice about high end players and many of the casual players i know: the high end players seem to just try things and see how it goes a lot more often then casual.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Sony changed things about stun and mez not long ago in a patch. What exactly got changed and why? (it was a rather background change)[/quote]

To fix a problem with the rathe encounter. What was fixed was a problem of stacking between ench and bard mez. Also i asume the stun part of the mez caused that was causing things to loose agro thus regen hp.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What exactly does shielding do? The thread on fohguild has some comedy in it, though as a tip, some of the people are close if not right on money![/quote]

It saves Molly from going down after you see, You will not evade me Molilya :D
If i'm correct, the shielding warrior takes 75% of the damage from the shielded person who takes 50% only of the beating on him / her.

i payed attention ;)

I would agree that there's a great many encounters you can 6man if you have the AA required (which these casuals are supposed to have, since they've had nothing else to do except PoV). Certainly all of NToV. Seru tower nameds. Seru himself might be doable if you got 3 clerics, might take a while tho. Yet I bet you people haven't even THOUGHT about getting serubanes with a few friends. Those grinds do yield exp etc, if not in huge amounts. Xerkizh the Creator was 12mannable when 60 was the max level, so surely you can 6man it by now... that's nice enough stuff. The list goes on and on, but Alyssaa refuses to ask 5 other people to help him/her/it with them I guess :( So it can't be content people think they might lose to. It must be something they KNOW they can and probably will win. I really pray they never do content based on what your groups want... would ruin the challenge completely.




<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>To fix a problem with the rathe encounter. What was fixed was a problem of stacking between ench and bard mez. Also i asume the stun part of the mez caused that was causing things to loose agro thus regen hp.[/quote]

That wasn't the main reason, it was a bit different patch. The issue was that stun and mez timers didn't stack. Or they were both you being stunned essentially. So lets say it's a boolean value just.
You get stunned:
stunned = true
You get mezzed:
stunned = true
Someone hits you while mezzed:
stunned = false

Now you're in KtF. That means you've killed VZ in PoTime. We actually messed around with this when we were getting pissed with VZ (back when just AL had killed it). Eventually we realized that this could be used... basically meaning an enc duels the MT.

Vallon zek melees MT.
Vallon zek procs on MT who gets stunned. [stunned = true]
Enchanter mezzes MT ASAP. [stunned = true]
VZ wont' have lost agro in the few seconds, so
VZ hits MT [stunned = false]

Which essentially made it really trivial to main tank. Hence the stun and mez got seperated. Yes it worked, we killed VZ once using this. Yet we reported it back and killed it the more honest way ever since, but that was just a funny little haxor that was available against any stunning encounter.


Oh and I was referring to the shielding you see on PoTime gear like Raex BP, Quarm cloak etc, not /shield =)

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<strong>I've played DAoC, and while you take part in huge raids, I never really got to know anyone on those damn raids. Apart from VERY few people, their tasks were in no way critical. On one of these "zergy" 72man raids, I can name uh... at least 25 people whose total failure (for example afk, LD can be covered but afk is harder) would very possibly kill the whole raid. If 2 people would pull the afk, the failure would be almost guaranteed.</strong>

Do you know the people in your guild? How about the people in your top 2 rivals? Probably so. There's no reason why you wouldn't know the same number of people in DaOC. In fact, you'd know more, because you'd know the low levels you were watching over (i.e. the bait :) ), the high levels that were guarding you, and the enemies you feared most. Your rivals would be guarding your flank, not leapfrogging you.

Perhaps you just didn't play long enough.

It sounds like your 72 man raid was on a poorly-defended regular fort. Those things change hands daily. I can assure you that 70 men on a Relic raid is (was) near minimum. You need a perimeter team, teams to tank the uber guards, a ram team, roaming rezzers, a well-guarded power regen group, a pet group to keep the castle archers down. That's best case, assuming you have no human defenders, and ignoring what you need once you get IN the castle.

Yes, that was sort of a tangent, but it was fun to reminisce, hehe.

Because you never got to know anyone, doesn't imply it's less social than EQ. I can tell you - from long experience with both games - that it is more social, in that everyone on the server shares a common goal. In some ways, the entire server is a single guild.

Of course, beyond the people, DaOC is just a cardboard sketch of a world. After eight months I had been to literally every point in my Realm. Socialization is important, but there's no substitute for the sense of depth and adventure that EQ's gameworld gives you. That's what separates it from the pack, and will continue to for some time.

The "family guilds" are older than the raiding guilds, so I dispute that they didn't work. PoP shut many down while virtually saving the uber guilds from becoming just another high end guild. Before PoP, the playing field was leveling and the family/social guilds were experiencing lower attrition to the "high level" guilds because there was no longer any reason for players to change guilds.

I keep seeing the definition of "casuals'' fluctuating depending upon the point the author is trying to present. Just as "raiders" also group, many "casuals" also raid. The real delineation is between those with large raid access to the elemental planes and those without access. We can play symantic games and you can say I'm really a powergamer and I can say you are a powergamer who would group if that is where the phat lewtz was, but the bottom line is that we all know what is meant by "casuals" and what is meant by "raiders" or "ubers".

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So what you're suggesting to Verant would:
1. make the raiding population, which has been estimated to be between 10 and 20% of the server (from Quarm to NToV and VP) less content than they are now.
2. destroy the mystery of the high end game. Anyone can reach it, you can't follow the adventures where quite literally a company full of heroes tackles impossibly powerful monsters.. meaning guild web pages simply die. You do realize how many hits LoSteel got during Tigole, fohguild still gets etc?
3. Make the top 3-5% of every server simply retire due to boredom.
4. Make a rather small group happy for a while, if you assume they will be happy about having reached the very end game (you realize there's nothing to do then, right? Especially since you wouldn't need to loot up for the next expansion)[/quote]
1. The estimate of 10-20% is liberal and by the examples you provide, I know you are counting in your court others who also resent the silver platter of gifts you enjoy because of your guild's access. This game was very successful without the raidflation and targeted access for large raiding guilds.
2. Those mysteries are only mysteries one time. What is mysterious about farming?
3. The "top 3-5%" of what? Do you mean the 3-5% who are the best equipped because of the itemization of the zones that required large raids to access?

Retire? You just stop playing a game, but there are no gold watches or trips to the Bermudas. If you quit playing the game because it balances grouping and raiding, then buh bye.
4. I think from your comment #3 that you agree that the small group is actually you. Why should we or Sony want the game to remain imbalanced as it is to keep you happy only until you get bored? You do realize that once you beat PoTime, there is nothing for you to do then right?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only thing that matters, even within the context of the game (this is hardly a human rights issue) is whether it is possible for anyone with a given set of constraints and preferences to have fun. And IMHO these days it is, more so than ever before in the history of the game.[/quote]
When the constraints are artificial and within the content of the game, those constraints should be as balanced as group experience is to solo experience, as balanced as a group's ability to take down a mini as a soloist and as balanced as the changes made to classes made throughout the development of the game.

For a minority the game is probably a blast right now. They are improving the gear at leaps beyond the difference we have seen in any other expansion, they are making a killing selling spells to those without access, they gain exp much faster than those without the access and their bazaar traders are more active than ever. Of course it is more fun than ever for you right now.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What i don't seem to understand is the thought that casual gamers don't have a path to upgrade by doing encounters doable with 6 players.[/quote]
Why don't you fully equip yourself and 5 others who haven't had time yet to build AAs built from the benefit of the exp in the elemental planes with bazaar gear (not ornate since that just started becoming available to us peasasnts) and show us how a single group takes down IV. The game is more than a wee bit different without your uber gear.

And why in the world would you think we need Kunark era gear at level 65? Typical.

Well my DAoC experience was tarnished by my slow computer at the time. Was second lvl 42 healer in the realm when we first went for a keep. My P600 with it's TNT2 card had me at roughly 0.4 fps. The whole mass was just mass to me, I couldn't recognize individual action :P So ok that caused me some massive bias.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>PoP shut many down while virtually saving the uber guilds from becoming just another high end guild. [/quote]

Heh Luclin was the best of times for the uberguilds. Emperor was such a dreamy cockblock that there was never anything quite like it before. We kept everyone out of Vex Thal until PoP came out without breaking a sweat. Which caused congestion below us and a rather massive amount of applicants to us. Guess our servers handled Luclin bit differently then.

Demasia is also putting way too much weight on elem planes. There's new people and guilds entering the elemental planes all the time. There's three forces combining probably 600 people who will get to the elem planes really soon on RN, and there's people coming up after them as well. I thought the idea was that casual people could take longer to get to the same goal as the aggressive raiders? You do realize the GOOD side of flags for casuals. You just have to reserve one weekend for RZ, ask the guilds ahead of you not to kill it (we'd happily comply at least, I'm sure the other heavy raiders on RN would too esp if we suggested it), and then kill it with a bunch of other casuals. You've said many times that it's terribly easy (hell, it is) so why don't you do it. Do you mean you NEVER have time on a weekend for a 6h raid? I call bull****. Or maybe you're worried about your ability to organize and lead such a venture?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This game was very successful without the raidflation and targeted access for large raiding guilds. [/quote]

I'm wondering when. All the greatest flamewars in RN history happened during the original game, when one alliance killed all the dragons every time they spawned. The disputes were huge. Guess 33% haste wasn't sufficiently more powerful than 13% haste for you to care. Nagafen and Vox were very much limited access, even if it wasn't artificial. You realize if elemental planes got opened, you would still never get to kill one of the elemental armor droppers there without some organization, right?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you quit playing the game because it balances grouping and raiding, then buh bye.[/quote]

If you quit playing the game because it keeps encouraging forming communities, then buh bye. You are delusional if you think you represent a larger percentage of players than I do. I'll wear the cloak of the raiding players here, and it sure fits me a lot better than you considering yourself a representative of the casual players. Most casuals still aren't 65 you know. Hell most accounts don't really have 65s yet even... 52% of the people that got to LDoN beta were lvl 65. This means 52% of those online at the time were probably 65. Considering 65 SURELY play more than the non 65s, to me it means a lot more than 48% haven't hit 65 yet.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> those constraints should be as balanced as group experience is to solo experience[/quote]

Nope, they need to heavily favor the group experience, just like they do now. The more you interact with people, the more you gain... it's a very good idea in this game, and one that keeps a lot of people playing it.


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>For a minority the game is probably a blast right now.[/quote]

Amusingly enough all those leveling up right now seem to enjoy the game immensily. Like every damn person I've talked to. They don't worry about PoTime gear or anything like that, they just feel the huge rush of power they get while leveling up. And this portion is already way over 50%, so don't talk about minorities.


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>They are improving the gear at leaps beyond the difference we have seen in any other expansion[/quote]

Shows how little you know. I'm upgrading my 100hp and 125hp items to 150hp and 180hp items, whereas in Velious I upgraded 0hp and 30hp items to 75hp and 100hp items. Which is the bigger upgrade?

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

/delurk

Sorry to interrupt here, but this:

"Heh Luclin was the best of times for the uberguilds. Emperor was such a dreamy cockblock that there was never anything quite like it before. We kept everyone out of Vex Thal until PoP came out without breaking a sweat. Which caused congestion below us and a rather massive amount of applicants to us."

...sounds like an admission of intentionally ruining other players' gameplay on a repeated and systematic basis. Of course you would never get banned for that, SOE double-standards being what they are, but I'm curious how you justify this to yourself as being the proper thing to do? Or do you admit to yourself it sucks but just do it anyway?

I'm not sure why you posted that particular bit, it basically validates the anti-uberguild sentiment that you're theoretically trying to fight against here.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>the high end players seem to just try things and see how it goes a lot more often then casual[/quote]

I disagree with this statement.

I find that my guild tries things with single, less than perfect groups quite often simply because we can't access a lot of the content as easily as high end raiders can. Therefore, we are constantly testing our limits with single groups (made up of the oddest combinations due to our guild make up) so that we can help each other advance with regard to gear, quests, and in order simply to see new content.

What I am saying is that you are generalizing too much by making this statement. I am certain that there are both casual players and non casual players who do just what you describe.

By saying that casual players don't try these things, the insinuation, to me at least, is that casual players aren't willing to stick their neck out and take risks in the game. That simply isn't truel, as I can personally attest.

It's not one uberguild @#%$ non-ubers, it's one uberguild @#%$ another. The other guild probably would of done the same thing given the chance. It's the way of the beast.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Heh Luclin was the best of times for the uberguilds. Emperor was such a dreamy cockblock that there was never anything quite like it before. We kept everyone out of Vex Thal until PoP came out without breaking a sweat. Which caused congestion below us and a rather massive amount of applicants to us.[/quote]
So you personally succeeded by prevented others from succeeding. Why does that not surprise me? Cockblocking as you were, the level gap was closed and less people were leaving their old guilds because of not enough other high levels in the guild. You can revise history or believe what you thought was happening, but the truth is that the number of reasons for people to change guilds was lessened prior to PoP.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm wondering when. All the greatest flamewars in RN history happened during the original game, when one alliance killed all the dragons every time they spawned.[/quote]
It is no wonder then why you excelled on that server.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you quit playing the game because it keeps encouraging forming communities, then buh bye.[/quote]
Make up your mind. Do you like the communities or not? In one statement you don't care about the social aspect of the game, the next you know everyone's third cousins and now forming communities is what it is all about and not the challenge? I formed one of the oldest guilds and it was a community where good people learned their skills and their characters grew up and developed into respected members on our server. Your idea of a community is recruiting already powerful and developed characters for the sake of power. You aren't qualified to presume to judge my views on the gaming community.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'll wear the cloak of the raiding players here, and it sure fits me a lot better than you considering yourself a representative of the casual players.[/quote]
I don't presume to represent anyone and I know enough ubers who would agree with my opinion about you to safely estimate that you aren't their choice. When it is a matter of opinion, I don't speak for anyone but myself. When it is matter of fact and effect, I @#%$ to collective that is affected.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Amusingly enough all those leveling up right now seem to enjoy the game immensily. Like every damn person I've talked to. They don't worry about PoTime gear or anything like that, they just feel the huge rush of power they get while leveling up. And this portion is already way over 50%, so don't talk about minorities.[/quote]
Another empirical statement for which I think you provide the data or admit you were trying to BS again.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Nope, they need to heavily favor the group experience, just like they do now. The more you interact with people, the more you gain... it's a very good idea in this game, and one that keeps a lot of people playing it.[/quote]
Nope to what? Balance does not mean equal and it never has in this game. A soloist can still get more/the same/a little less exp as they would in a group, but it was balanced in that grouping was made as appealing an alternative as soloing. Now only the rewards for raiding vs grouping are out of whack and will be on the balancing agenda.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Shows how little you know. I'm upgrading my 100hp and 125hp items to 150hp and 180hp items, whereas in Velious I upgraded 0hp and 30hp items to 75hp and 100hp items. Which is the bigger upgrade?[/quote]
I think rather that it shows how crappy your gear was before Velious or that you are trying to BS through another statement. Certainly VT gear doesn't lag far behind that in the elemental planes, but it isn't a secret that most players are skipping or have skipped VT altogether and I'm sure you had to have known this.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>the high end players seem to just try things and see how it goes a lot more often then casual.[/quote]
Uh, don't you think the fact that you have twice the hitpoints, resists, AC, and stats might have something to do you being willing to try encounters that a non-raider might shy away from? Loot at your gear for god's sake! You have more unbuffed HP than most non-raider tanks.

Regardless, it displays an underlying attitude of not just being interested in exploration and advancement (fine and dandy), but also retarding others' exploration and advancement (immoral and greedy).

This is exactly the label that's been slapped on uberguilds for years, and Delheru personally just set his own side of the argument back to 1999 by saying a little too much ;) ...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>By saying that casual players don't try these things, the insinuation, to me at least, is that casual players aren't willing to stick their neck out and take risks in the game. That simply isn't truel, as I can personally attest. [/quote]

I might have put it down a bit more black & white then i ment it to be. But overal, i think that is the difference in gameplay between the 2 kinds. Offcourse there are exceptions, but that does every rule has. I know there are casual players who will try even more things because of me. And i fully suport those. I find it really cool to hear what you can acomplish in this game with small force.

For example look what Alyssia kept saying, she/he doesnt wanna ask for help to get herself/himself loot. Considering most loot table in this game have multiple items, i don't see what's so wrong about asking help. For instance, if a npc can drop 5 different items. There will be most likely an upgrade for probably 1 in that group. Might be alyssia. Might be someone else. If you don't try / do things. You won't get anywhere.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Delheru personally just set his own side of the argument back to 1999 by saying a little too much ...[/quote]

Delheru is correct and in no way wrong in what he was doing. Uberguilded are in those guilds for a reason, we like to compete to be the best. One of the best ways to defeat your opponent (ie rival guilds) is to beat them to the punch. This goes right along with the uber vs casual debate. Hardcore raiders are also hardcore competitors for the most part. You only dislike it if you're the one on the losing end.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So you personally succeeded by prevented others from succeeding.[/quote]

You're damn right! More power to those who come out on top.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You're damn right! More power to those who come out on top.[/quote]
Whatever. That isn't being competitive. It is being greedy and mean spirited and trying make it smell like a competitive nature. Professional athletes are competitive, but they don't hire thugs to cause wrecks to pevent their rivals from competing. You people are screwed up and have a twisted sense of what winning is about. This certainly adds credence that you are lewt whore because you clearly do not like a challenge.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You're damn right! More power to those who come out on top.[/quote]

It's a computer game not a competition. The lame ass ubers made it that way and now the casuals are fubar'd because Verant/SoE catered to the morons. LDoN is a step in the right direction finally. Close the gap and make the entire game that I pay the same amount for accessible to every at their own pace instead of placing artificial constraints in the game that restrict my enjoyment.

Alyssia, can you please stop saying that same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Its getting kinda old.

We know how you think.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Alyssia, can you please stop saying that same thing over and over ...Its getting kinda old. We know how you think.[/quote]
"Silence peasant!" would've been more sincere. Of course, so was "let them eat cake".

At least Alyster is being honest. Here's a good example of the "fun" that casual players miss out on in the uber guild world:

pub208.ezboard.com/fstrom...=236.topic (http://pub208.ezboard.com/fstrommtavern82139frm11.showMessage?topicID=236.to pic)

Go to the flame pages of almost any server specific board and you'll see that similar types of incidents are very common. The uber guild I was in when I played was involved in many confrontations with rival guilds in the quest to stamp out the competition. A lot of players love this type of thing. Personally, I always thought it was childish blubie pvp for those too cowardly to do the real thing /shrug. Regardless, it's survival of the fittest at the uber raiding tiers unless you're the top dog on the server.

Ubers don't get all that great equipment you drool over handed to them. Sometimes they go through utter hell to get it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you don't try / do things. You won't get anywhere.[/quote]

Agreed!

:D

<strong>Personally, I always thought it was childish blubie pvp for those too cowardly to do the real thing /shrug.</strong>

I have to agree. That level of hostility on a blue server is just so...bridge club.

Ronnie thought she could put her peach pie RIGHT next to the judge, the b1tch, but I told him about her little "problem", so...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You can revise history or believe what you thought was happening, but the truth is that the number of reasons for people to change guilds was lessened prior to PoP.[/quote]

I'm curious how you know statistics so well? I'm talking from the experience of someone who had hundreds of applicants to his guild, and heard of similar stories in other guilds. I admit I have no huge statistics about all the 10000 people on RN, but I daresay you have nothing like that about any server either.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So you personally succeeded by prevented others from succeeding.[/quote]

Oh we succeeded by killing Emperor first ourselves. Then the competitive side kicks in and we buffer our ability to be #1 in the next expansion as well.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Make up your mind. Do you like the communities or not? [/quote]

I have always said that's the best part about the game. A friendly guild is not encouraged, that's all players. The way EQ encourages community forming is by making progression require a group of friends, or an even alrger organization, depending on how far you want to go.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>A soloist can still get more/the same/a little less exp as they would in a group, but it was balanced in that grouping was made as appealing an alternative as soloing.[/quote]

In my opinion grouping should be at the very least 50% better exp than any sort of soloing. Grouping is what tihs damn game is about after all, that and raiding. There's single player games for doing things by yourself.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I think rather that it shows how crappy your gear was before Velious or that you are trying to BS through another statement.[/quote]

I was high end during Kunark, yet I had pretty crap gear before Velious. Sure I had stuff like hiero cloaks, but I wonder what high hp bracers you we wearing when going to Velious. Or what gloves? Something very comparable to the Vulak gloves I looted during Velious? Some boots very comparable to the Vulak boots I got? I remember gear having really low hp/mana on it before Velious, which suddenly cranked everything up to 100/100 as a standard. No BS whatsoever there.

Find me some boots and gloves that I would have had during Kunark, from which moving to 100hp wouldn't have been a MUCH greater improvement than my greatest upgrade in PoP so far, which was from Tunare Earring to the 4 elements quest earring (80hp to 155hp).

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's a computer game not a competition.[/quote]

lol this is a contradiction in itself. In a game there are winners and losers. I play games to win.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>lol this is a contradiction in itself. In a game there are winners and losers. I play games to win.[/quote]

I'm sorry, but D&D is a game as well... and y'know what, I think after thirteen years of playing D&D, that I can speak with some reasonable amount of authority on that subject... there are no winners or losers in D&D. It's all about having fun. Which is exactly the way EQ should be, but unfortunately the less desirable population from the internet discovered EverQuest and found a new way to "pwn" people.

So don't blame me or the designers for the pathetic competition. Blame your fellow uber-goober guildmates that turned EQ into a game of cockblocking and whining. I do blame the designers for giving in to the goobers though, but LDoN is a step in the right direction. Glad to see they're finally making amends.

One thing more... before you say your idea of fun is cockblocking others... it shouldn't be that. Your fun should have no effect on my fun. Period. The current design of the game does effect how I can have fun. It's about to change. I just wish they could do it to all the old zones as well.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>lol this is a contradiction in itself. In a game there are winners and losers. I play games to win.[/quote]
Preventing the other team from making it to the game is not beating them or making you a winner. Your sense of competition would benenfit from less time on the computer and a little time in organized team sports.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm sorry, but D&D is a game as well... and y'know what, I think after thirteen years of playing D&D, that I can speak with some reasonable amount of authority on that subject... there are no winners or losers in D&D.[/quote]

I played D&D for years as well, and as an experienced player like yourself I'm sure you had to have seen a module before. Well there is an end to that module and it's the same in EQ except they are called expansions. We race to finish the expansion faster than the next guild.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>but unfortunately the less desirable population from the internet discovered EverQuest and found a new way to "pwn" people.[/quote]

Less desirable? From the remarks about yourself from many posters and other threads about you I could say the same about you.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So don't blame me or the designers for the pathetic competition. Blame your fellow uber-goober guildmates that turned EQ into a game of cockblocking and whining.[/quote]

I don't blame you or my guildies. I congratulate my fellow uber guildmates for continuing their rise to the top and keeping our competition at bay.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your fun should have no effect on my fun.[/quote]

You talk as if you're in competition with me when you are far from it. Are you in a raiding guild? Do know understand how the top raiding guilds work? Probably not so don't try to debate raid target tactics.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your sense of competition would benenfit from less time on the computer and a little time in organized team sports.[/quote]

I've coached football for 4 years now. It's not like you can just /guildwar for a mob, if you could I'd love it. So the next step is to beat them to it. Speed wins.

the numb-nuts that claim there is plenty of raiding content that is one groupable fails to realize that one group of elemental/VT/PoT geared group is going to be a LOT different that the non-raider geared group. isnt this the same guy that knows so much about the game that he could teach ALL OF US how to play?

good lord, there is no question in my mind any longer why i made the decision to stay away from the raiding guild. i won't say it again, but my previous assessment of you raider types has been confirmed so many times in this thread and many others that the horse doesnt even need any more beating cause the bastard is dead.

Not it was not me who was estimating that you could do this and that 6man, and I was the one who claimed to be able to teach you all quite a bit about EQ, a claim which I stand by. If you want to get around something sometime, just ask me... ;tell rodcet.delheru I believe.

Anyway there's still a lot of advancement. My work firewall prevents me from actually seeing magelos though so I can't really name items you could upgrade, yet I bet there are lots. Quests, tradeskill items, doable mobs... and then your ability to do encounters is beefed up and you can probably indeed 6man a great many things... Dozekar for sure to name one, assuming you help equip your friends as well. That's a lot more 100hp items with decent ac and super high haste possibly. From there on you can grind in CT or something netting a huge amount of money and maybe scoring something good from ring of slime etc etc. It might take longer than it took the ubers, but it's the route many took and it's by no means undoable with what you're wearing now I bet (ok you might have to farm some resist gear, but if a lvl 65 can't farm a froggy crown or somesuch for himself, something is wrong).

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
You can revise history or believe what you thought was happening, but the truth is that the number of reasons for people to change guilds was lessened prior to PoP
[/quote]

This is just so obviously wrong I assume you never actually played the game back before PoP.

SoV: 'Ubers' kill all mobs with more than 32k hp. 'Casuals' kill named in Sebilis. 800Ac and 50% hp difference between uber and casual tank. Applicant to uber guild can walk in.

SoL: ubers mostly kill in SSra and VT. Casuals sometimes get to kill Vindicator or Rumblecrush. 700AC and 30% hp difference between uber and casual tank. Key progression mob on 7 day spawn. Applicant to uber guild probably has to complete most of VT key.

PoP: ubers kill in Time and elemental planes. Casuals get to kill just about everything else. 100AC and 20% hp difference between uber and casual tank. Key progression mob on 3 day spawn. Applicant to uber guild has to attend 20 or so flagging events.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I played D&D for years as well, and as an experienced player like yourself I'm sure you had to have seen a module before. Well there is an end to that module and it's the same in EQ except they are called expansions. We race to finish the expansion faster than the next guild.[/quote]

I don't care if you finish it first. Shake your wang and dance about beating your chest like you actually accomplished something meaningful. I just want the ability to finish it as well. Current design of the game prevents me from doing so at my own pace. You are forced to join a massive raiding guild to finish the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You talk as if you're in competition with me when you are far from it. Are you in a raiding guild? Do know understand how the top raiding guilds work? Probably not so don't try to debate raid target tactics.[/quote]

I've raided with some of the larger guilds before. I utterly despise their tactics, their behaviour, their creed, their lack of morals. I have been in the guildchat of at least five so called uber guilds, but they have been anything but uber. Cesspools of filth more like it. I've seen the rampant rants and flames about GuildA cockblocking GuildB or GuildB invoking the PnP on GuildA and such.

I don't want to play that kind of game. That's not fun. LDoN is fixing that. *thumbs her nose at all the idiots that want to cockblock each other, and won't be able to in LDoN*

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Professional athletes are competitive, but they don't hire thugs to cause wrecks to pevent their rivals from competing.[/quote]

Tanya Harding.

hee! There's someone I want to emulate.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This is just so obviously wrong I assume you never actually played the game back before PoP.[/quote]
Well, I play one of the few release druids on an original server.

For most of EQ's lifespan, the primary reason guild members would leave a guild to join a "high level" or uber guild was that they had leveled beyond the vast majority of members in their current guild and found themselves stymied in activities that were no longer rewarding or even at a level where they gained exp.

Between Velious and PoP, the attrition in the large yet not uber guilds steadily declined as the level gap disappeared. Instead of members leaving guilds for "high level" or uber guilds, some members would leave an environment that was still challenging and rewarding to their characters to join uber guilds for what the most honest of them said was the prestige and phat lewtz.

PoP added flags and access and the evidence is overwhelming that large raiding guilds blossomed out of nowhere and uber guilds have exploded in growth. The existing raiding guilds and "family" guilds that did not expand to pursue the access experienced an exodus that filled the ranks of the raiding guilds and uber guilds who were gaining access.

I think you are arguing this cannot be true as evidenced by the increase in applicants to uber guilds prior to PoP. The two conditions are not mutually exclusive. As the level of the server population increased, so did the number in that percentage of people who were still challenged and still developing but still wanted to join uber guilds for whatever their reason may have been. The net result was that the non-uber guilds were increasing their levels and retaining more than their attrition to the uber guilds. The gap was closing.

For the longest time, the biggest challenge was retention of the players who leveled up faster than the average. Yes, VT gear was an addition that transformed insignificant differences in most gear to very significant. But, that didn't have a significant impact on retention because the players still had access to improving and developing their characters commensurate to their level and content without VT gear.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Tanya Harding.

hee! There's someone I want to emulate.[/quote]
LOL. Others here must view her behavior as competitive and see her as a winner.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
PoP added flags and access and the evidence is overwhelming that large raiding guilds blossomed out of nowhere and uber guilds have exploded in growth.
[/quote]

The way I look at it, prior to PoP only the hardcore could successfully raid, because of the very limited amount of raid content (even more so before SoL). Two or three guilds could kill everything worth killing before most people logged on.

With the release of PoP, raiding was opened up to the more casual player. However, that left the non-raiding minority (mostly those who don't want to raid, as opposed to those who are unable to) relatively further behind.

And soon, LDoN will probably allow the hardcore non-raiders to at least catch up with casual raiders. In turn this will leave the casual non-raiders relatively further behind. I suspect this will be the next major round of complaints here.

soru

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't care if you finish it first. Shake your wang and dance about beating your chest like you actually accomplished something meaningful. I just want the ability to finish it as well. Current design of the game prevents me from doing so at my own pace. You are forced to join a massive raiding guild to finish the game.[/quote]

I'm going to try another aproach in this discussion. What content of the game did you do so far Alyssia ? I remember i seen your magelo but can't remember really what kind of gear it was. I'm just wondering where you are stuck. Was it NTOV, was it even before velious. Was it Luclin?

And you say you have been in 5 so called uber guilds ? Mind telling me which ?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>PoP added flags and access and the evidence is overwhelming that large raiding guilds blossomed out of nowhere and uber guilds have exploded in growth.[/quote]

I don't think that's true at all tbh. It might be that the raiding guilds became more obvious with PoP but the top 6 guilds on my server are the same top 6 it's always been with maybe a few switches in order. In terms of size I can only tell you about mine for obvious reasons. We have grown, thats true, but only to the order of maybe 10 on the roster and if anything it's dropping off again now.

I play on the same server as Alyster, and I have to say his uberness and love of competition don't affect my gaming in any way :) . I am neither thrilled by it nor bothered by it; I have my own goals I'm after (tradeskills and quests), and whatever zone I'm currently hunting (mostly in POM at the moment, that was a big in-game goal for me even though it's outdated).

My guild has a bunch of "casual" raiders - they're at NTOV level, perhaps some Sleeper's or Ssra, and they do various things in POP. They race with other guilds our level to be first to the dragons or whatever and seem to really enjoy it even though they aren't among the uberest on our server.

I just don't see that the uber-er are impacting us much. Now we are impacted at times by the fact that there are really a few more guilds at our level than there is content to keep folks busy, but that's really improved with all the expansions and with LoDN I suppose it will improve any more. But I honestly don't understand the sense of outrage in these threads at times. The hard-core raiders, and our more casual raiders, and really casual players like me, all seem to inhabit Xev without much conflict.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just don't see that the uber-er are impacting us much. Now we are impacted at times by the fact that there are really a few more guilds at our level than there is content to keep folks busy[/quote]

That's just because you aren't competing with them. I remember back in the Kunark/Velious era the competition for epic mobs was incredibly fierce, then the competition for ST key mobs and the Kael mobs. Then NToV... then later Luclin has to have the most highly competitive raid content ever. But as time goes by the demand has dropped off some.

More casual guilds just can't compete like that. Their players aren't guaranteed to be present at the prime raiding times. When you have to sign in blood that you'll be logged in between certain hours ready to raid, or get deguilded, you don't have as much trouble getting the content.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But I honestly don't understand the sense of outrage in these threads at times. The hard-core raiders, and our more casual raiders, and really casual players like me, all seem to inhabit Xev without much conflict.[/quote]
There is a difference with being disgusted by Alyster for her attempt to lecture us about competitiveness when she views cheating as winning and being outraged with anyone on our servers. There is a difference between wanting this group oriented game to be more balanced and being outraged at anyone on our servers. There is a difference with finding conflict in patronizing and outright insulting comments on a forum and having conflict on our servers.

That you enjoy tradeskills and quests is wonderful and I am glad you are content. But, because you are content doing what appeals to you in the game doesn't mean those who prefer to group as they have done since the game was released should also be content with the imbalances between raiding and grouping.

For the sake of clarity, Alyster doesn't love competition. Quite the contrary; Alyster loves power and will do whatever it takes to prevent others from competing.

Well Demasia I agree with you on that. During the original game and Kunark most people leveled really slow, and if you ht the max level you basically ended up in a high end guild. During Velious the high end guilds simply ran out of room (I think Velious was also when high end guilds stopped active recruitment and just sat there and boggled that hordes that came knocking, I remember we sure did). Anyway that meant a lot didn't make it in anymore, and people were hitting 60 all over the place. Suddenly a casual guild whose first 6 lvl 60s had applied to uberguild X (only one got in) ends up with 10 lvl 60s, and is able to raid things by themselves.

Basically Velious created the non-raiding guild raiders. IE people who were done with exp, yet were not in the guilds dedicated only to raiding. I do maintain they never did get rewards that were anything close to what the high end guilds were getting, not even mentioning the uber ones. However when new content was opened for the higher end guilds, they suddenly found themselves in possession of vast tracks of Velious and all of Kunark.

Oh now that i think about it, one thing really does come in to mind though. I think raiding is important, and SHOULD yield superior rewards, but I never minded the class armors dropping off very easy mobs... it made Planes of Hate and Fear very popular, and anyone could raid them. Sure others walked away with bloodfires and full sets of indicolite from those two planes, but pretty much anyone could have half a set of indicolite. In Kunark the ubers got full sets of Donals or whatnot, with some pimp VP weapons on top... but everyone else could have a full set without Bp or greaves. In Velious you could farm Kael, PoG, WToV or HoT without any real worry about it not being up to get a rather decent set of gear. Sure it was no NToV set with BoC + primal on your MT, but it sure was a nice improvement.

In that sense I definitely agree with you, the game has been getting pretty retarded for the more casual population. Luclin only had nameds dropping loots, and PoP continues the trend. However I'd like to point out that for example Furor suggested that the elemental armor shouldn't drop from the elemental nameds, but rather as a random and rare drop from the miscellaneous mobs in the zone. The nameds would have something better (maybe 180hp gear, with PoTime gear then being 200-260hp instead of 160-220hp that it is now), but yet it would allow for anyone to get a very nice set. Sure someone would get nicer, but at least you'd be getting something.

They should have ornate dropping in HoHB, Saryrns tower etc, so that you could actually get it yourself without a massive raiding effort. In time you would reach the elemental planes (RZ is subtly being tuned down all the time if you aren't aware) and could farm the armor there from the misc mobs that are always up.

Why Verant puts everything on the nameds and makes people race for them is beyond me, but I play the game I'm given. Oh I like the race, but I do admit it is unfair to have EVERYTHING on them. I want to have the best gear to be able to tackle the future encounters better than anyone, but that margin really doesn't have to be anything massive, just enough to make a difference... ie what do I care if casuals have 2-3 parts of elemental and rest of their sets ornate in 5 months? I have absolutely nothing against that.

However this does not mean i think you should get there without any raiding at all. PoH and PoF needed raids, as did WToV and HoT (PoG and Kael really didn't) and I think few people have any complaints whatsoever about those places. Maybe they should make potential loot droppers spawn randomly in the plane, and they would require maybe 2 clerics healing a weaker tank, so that you would need maybe 12 people there to farm the armor. I expect pick up raids for a great many targets would already be possible...
The 2 HoHB trials other than Rydda for sure. 24 people with very lacking gear can do those.
Saryrn could surely be done as well... 72man is a huge overkill for it, and once done you're done.
Caprim can already be done, and I've seen it being done by pick up raids.
Agnarr towers are done by pick up raids quite regularly on RN at least.
Rydda has been done by pick up raids several times all over the place. 72 people really are a bit much for him/her/it.

The problems we're left with:
Agnarr, Mith Marr, Bertox and RZ... Sol Ro if you want to access fire too, but there really isn't huge need for that if you have access to the other planes.

Agnarr I think is fine. A pick up raid would probably figure it out in 2-3 tries if they have solid tacticians.

Mith Marr is bit of an ass, since you need to think about it a bit and need pretty solid pullers. Also the cats really do hit rather f*cking hard if you have weak gear (I remember when we first went there). I'd say doable yet hard

Bertox is definitely doable too, esp now that it isn't so damn spazzy as it used to be (if you killed it long ago, you might understand what I mean... depends a bit on where you kill him I guess). Again a full raid might be a good idea to buffer yourself some against the problems caused by lack of teamwork (since people haven't worked together before).

RZ... well, RZ. He's the tough one. Now we're really looking at something that the pick up raid will have to try a few times before figuring it out. If you get all the available info on it beforehand, you can probably cut the training to 4-5 runs.

It's 4 admittedly painful encounters, but once they're done, they're done. I find it all quite reasonable, even if i dont' find making people race like mad for every drop of elem gear to be reasonable at all. Of course it's all pointless if LDoN doesn't offer new raiding content, since the local uberguild will exert sufficient pressure on the planes to force everyone "below" them to essentially bottom feed... which means killing said flag mobs for loot =/

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There is a difference with being disgusted by Alyster for her attempt to lecture us about competitiveness when she views cheating as winning and being outraged with anyone on our servers.[/quote]

Beating your rival guilds to a mob is not cheating.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There is a difference with finding conflict in patronizing and outright insulting comments on a forum and having conflict on our servers.[/quote]

Perhaps you should re-read your posts towards me and then talk about outright insulting comments.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>For the sake of clarity, Alyster doesn't love competition. Quite the contrary; Alyster loves power and will do whatever it takes to prevent others from competing.[/quote]

Why is it that racing to a mob is not competing to you? I don't train people, I've never KS'd. It's not like my guild blows spawns on purpose. Every mob we've attempted we try to beat. They drop loot that are upgrades for our toons. But you because we dont' sit around and let others take their turn we're the bad guys. If a guild beats us to the mob then gratz to them, they get to make their attempt. If they don't then they're out of luck and have to wait for next time they spawn to get their chance....but they better be fast.

I have some tradeskill items from Cazic Thule 2.0, rogue epic in my main hand (Kunark era), Naraithus from Veksar in offhand. Blue diamond resist gear and some random drops from various xp zones throughout the various eras. I'm still using the AC 6 / HP 65 crafted rings from eons ago since I can't afford two of the Valorium Rings of Gallantry.

My gear is just little bits and pieces from here and there and everywhere, but very few pieces are of raid calibre. The only reason I can still add some benefit to raid or xp group is the fact I'm a rogue and gear only matters in one spot: mainhand/offhand. Everything else is just gravy, but gravy is still nice to have.

Unless I drag some friends into Droga or Veksar for multiple hours long camps, I'm screwed in getting a dagger upgrade unless I just get lucky and some guild lets a Massive Heartwood Thorn rot off Tunare and lets me know about it as a rogue friend of mine once did.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And you say you have been in 5 so called uber guilds ? Mind telling me which?[/quote]

I didn't say I was in 5 uber guilds. I said I had been in their guild chat. I have some real life friends that play EQ and are of the uber variety. Lucky for me, in person they're nothing like they are online. I'm also including raid channels where I've been invited to join them because I had a friend or two in the guild. Course I never expected to get loot from them, but it was a chance, without responsibility or sacrifice to see some content I wouldn't normally see.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If a guild beats us to the mob then gratz to them, they get to make their attempt. If they don't then they're out of luck and have to wait for next time they spawn to get their chance....but they better be fast.[/quote]

That's a pathetic attitude to have in what should have been a non-competitive game. I'm so glad to see that kind of bullcrap going by the wayside with the release of instanced content.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If a guild beats us to the mob then gratz to them, they get to make their attempt. If they don't then they're out of luck and have to wait for next time they spawn to get their chance....but they better be fast.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



That's a pathetic attitude to have in what should have been a non-competitive game. I'm so glad to see that kind of bullcrap going by the wayside with the release of instanced content. [/quote]
No, that's called FCFS. Attitudes towards boss mobs and zones are different server to server - and are purely driven by the server population. If you don't like how your server works, then move servers. FCFS is absolutely compliant with SOE's policies - and so is rotation. They're just different.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>FCFS is absolutely compliant with SOE's policies - and so is rotation[/quote]

In actual fact and from experience of NToV rotation way back when, SOE couldn't give a rats arse about rotations but will enforce FiF (First in Force). So by SoE's rules racing is right!

okay to summarize, we no longer have uber vs casual

we have

Hard-core raiding
Casual raiding
Hard-core Non raiding
Casual non raiding

I am so happy we are clarifying everyone's position so well !!

And I liked racing other guilds to be first in force, it was FUN.

A clean race with the loser backing out gracefully was the best of sportsmanship and team competition this game could give. Cockblocking however, is another story, and I am not so decided on it, but deliberately blowing spawns with a force less than you could really kill it with is definately a low class act.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Cockblocking however, is another story, and I am not so decided on it, but deliberately blowing spawns with a force less than you could really kill it with is definately a low class act. [/quote]

You're not decided but you think it's a low-class act?

Do you like syrup on your waffles? :)

Uh they're two completely different things...

Cockblocking is fine if you have the energy, usually you don't have for long since the drops will be coming obsolete. In PoP we killed like 6 RZs in a row at one point to delay our rivals entry to elem planes, but we got bored of that fast. After that there has been no cockblocking.

However during Luclin our Emp killing was definitely partially done with securing VT in mind, though before PoTime the best items for casters were off Emperor, so killing him wasn't exactly pointless.

Spawn blowing is different though. It's having 12 people kill Bertox trigger way before your rivals have enough people online. It's having Cursed triggers staggered so you can't spawn him. Or in the higher end it's having those 12 people kill Coirnav or Fennin triggers at really inconvenient times just to have the events run out of time with none to do them... this I consider extremely weak and would never, ever do.

-- Delheru Tanreall
Ascent (http://www.ascentguild.com), Rodcet Nife

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>this I consider extremely weak and would never, ever do.[/quote]

I totally agree.

Well like I said, the raiders in my guild race for mobs, and most of the time they really seem to enjoy it. At least as long as everyone fights fair, and fortunately, on Xev at least, people seem to do that almost always.

OMG, is Alyster female?? My apologies if so. I'll get it right next time :)

>> Beating your rival guilds to a mob is not cheating.

Exactly.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>OMG, is Alyster female??[/quote]

OMG! My manhood is being challenged!!

Someone just posted all the guilds on my server. There are 262 of them. Of those, I think 3 are in Elemental planes or beyond. Another 5-6 are in VT or beyond. At best you could probably call 10 guilds hardcore on my server. That's not even 10%.

So... guildwise, hardcore guilds are in the very tiny minority of guilds.

Did that list eliminate all the inactive guilds though?

I bet there are a lot of guilds that still exist but really shouldn't be counted in such a list. My smithing mule, for example, is still tagged with a guild that (from what I've seen) hasn't had more than one person on at a time this year. There's a guild called El Drama De Ayonae Ro, which I've been told was created for alts just so that the main characters' guild could generate a zonewide message saying something like "Guild X has declared war on El Drama De Ayonae Ro!" There are guilds which merged, but left a few people behind in the old guilds (often people who were inactive at the time of the merger).

It wouldn't surprise me at all if out of those 262 guilds, only 100 or so could be considered active.

Umm Panamah like 60% of those guilds are inactive, and of the remainin 40% only half of them really have more then 30 people probalby

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Umm Panamah like 60% of those guilds are inactive, and of the remainin 40% only half of them really have more then 30 people probalby[/quote]

So now you're saying that you're not a real guild unless you have more than 30 people? *sighs* I hope you die to many, many trains in BoT. The size of the guild doesn't matter, only how active it's members are. I'd much rather have hundreds, thousands of little 8 to 15 person guilds that group together, quest together, and then band together with other like minded guilds to complete harder quests, but EverQuest, instead of following that path decided to go with the mega-guilds.

Even if you take out 60% of the 262 guilds, that still leaves roughly 110 guilds or so. Panamah said she counts roughly 10 hardcore guilds on her server. That's still only 10% of the guild population. So again, why would you cater to 10% of your customer base instead of the remaining 90%? Would you do that as a business owner in the real world?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Umm Panamah like 60% of those guilds are inactive, and of the remainin 40% only half of them really have more then 30 people probalby[/quote]

<em>Umm Panamah <strong>like</strong> __% of those guilds are inactive, and of the remainin __% only __ of them really have more then 30 people <strong>probalby</strong></em>

It is just as reasonable to assume that ___% of the elemental flagged guilds' rosters are alts, which is significantly higher than what we would find in the non-elemental guilds. The premise of the assumption is that hardcore players are more likely to have multiple accounts and more characters.

Well, you have to have 10 accounts (not characters) to make up a guild. Whether they're actively being played and how you define active, I have no way of knowing. I know that my old defunct guilds don't show up in that list.

But, it's pretty clear from the list of guilds that large raiding guilds are a very small minority of the guilds. I don't think there's any disputing that fact.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
But, it's pretty clear from the list of guilds that large raiding guilds are a very small minority of the guilds.
[/quote]

And if there was a flat fee per guild per month, maybe SOE would care about that.

soru

No any guild with 10 person or 200 people is still a guild in every sense of the word, however, comparing guild to guild as a raw ratio isnt really a good way to go about it, if one of the top end guilds has 120 Unique Accounts, and the other guild has 30.... thats a 400% difference. (Not saying anything bad about the 30 person, sorry if it came off that way) but, it does mean you cant take the 10 most active guilds with probably ~100+ Unique Active accounts each, and then make a straight comparision to all the other guilds in terms of people, w/o considering inactive guilds, or guilds with lower people.