Well, I'm pretty upset about this so I did the feedback thing. Let them know if you think it's a bad thing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Look, you alienated the majority of your 60+ players with PoP that are not in uber guilds. Finally players have figured out they can come together in larger groups and get past the flagging mobs into new places. The common player is bored out of their mind by EQ now because you've boxed them into a microscopically small box.

You virtually limited people who are 60+ into playing in 2 zones every night, night after night by making everything else light-blue and green in the old world. There is no loot or spells to speak of dropping in the first 2 tiers and almost nothing in tier 3. Where is the reward? AA experience?

What are you supposed to do in this game when you're 65 in a casual guild? Just grind AA experience and continue to compete for Velious and Luclin mobs with the rest of the people (i.e. most of them) that can't progress in PoP?

How long do you imagine people are going to be satisfied doing that? Let me tell you, they are very dissatisfied now. Some servers have started to work and band people together to overcome these barriers. People are beginning to have fun again... They can stay in their small guilds and work together in larger numbers. And what do I hear you're doing?

You're going to limit the number of flags to 72.

/sigh

If you continue to put in these types of barriers to the casual or non-uber guilded player. I'm ejecting out of the game and out of Sony Online Entertainment products permanently. It's clear you're only pandering to uber guilds at this point. So I guess we should just let them support your continuing development and pay the bills for this game. You seem to have no interest in keeping and satisfying the needs of casual and un-uberguilded players.
[/quote]

I don't think the Feedback to the developers is working, I just get a blank page after I hit submit.

I'll send it to the black hole eqfeedback@soe.sony.com where I'm sure it'll be ignored. Who knows, maybe if we stuff enough of these into a black hole something will happen.

clarification-- what is the source of this rumored 72-person cap? I had not heard of this...

I haven't heard about this either, but it seems predictable. How do you send feedback btw? I want to send something much like what you said to them to add to the 'unhappy with the change' column in their database.
Oh, and please either clone yourself or move to Tholuxe. We really need something like this.

edit: nm.

"This decision is not made to accomodate the "uber" guilds"


Yes it is, or i'd at least argue the change benefits Uber guild gripes and their agenda against the masses more than anyone elses. It clearly doesnt benefit the ones stuck in a few zones to play in.

Once again Verant shows who they cater to :P

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>clarification-- what is the source of this rumored 72-person cap? I had not heard of this[/quote]

Someone here said it's already on test.

So you zergs will have to spend more time/effort to get flags just like real guilds do by having to learn encounters and wipe a few times, /cry.

"So you zergs will have to spend more time/effort to get flags just like real guilds do by having to learn encounters and wipe a few times, /cry"


Or by using strats the guilds before you have, and making it twice as easy.

For the record, you shouldnt be talking about the term 'effort' if your not doing side quests to get into these zones. lol, you think theres alot of 'effort' for killing one mob that keys your whole guild. Now thats funny :P

We have a large roster...we don't zerg so save your typing if you are about to say large = zerg.

Most raids we have about 40 to 50, every once in a hwile we get a lot.

Our first MB kill we had our highest attendance ever...about 80 people. It was insane and the lag did more harm than the extra bodies did us good. Heh I nuked him MB exactly once that fight because he was almost dead by the time I realized we had gotten him low enough to nuke.

But what it DID mean was that we got the majority of our guild flagged in one fell swoop. While we still need MB for some more people, it is a contested mob on our server.

Limited flag counts really suck. I am not looking forward to the endless repetitions of the CODB keying we are going to need to do. 30 flags per kill on that one as I understand it..ugh..

You guys are BITCHING about a 72 person limit?!? What the hell is wrong with you? If you can't do the same thing you have been doing with these open raids and 'only' using 72 people to do them then something is wrong. You don't need to be uber equipped to beat MM, Bertox, Saryn, RZ, or any of the others. You just need 50 moderately (Try NToV) equipped people that are willing to put in a little effort to learn the encounters. So just split up your raid force and go do two flags at once.

They need to just cut all the bull**** and implement virtual zones for each guild to play in. Artificially scarce raid content is rediculous.

I feel like a broken record. The goal of the flag rebellion is to get people past flags. We don't want to redo the same thing every weekend for the next 6 months. We want to do it 3 times and be done with it! If there was a 15 person limit on flags wouldn't you feel a little ticked having to get your 110 person guild past it? Well, no different here. The scale is just different.

Oldoaktree, most of these "ubers" equate large with zerg.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>They need to just cut all the bull**** and implement virtual zones for each guild to play in. Artificially scarce raid content is rediculous.[/quote]

Artifically scarce flagging mobs are ridiculous I agree. Its also ridiculous to wait in line for trials.

But the first part of the quote above is much more interesting to me. What you are saying is that the concept of MMORPG just doesn't work. That it is not possible even in a virtual world for people to share enough and get along well enough to play together with a minimum of conflict. Every square inch of virtual ground is claimed by right or might, and anyone who wants to trespass upon it deserves to be banished from your presence.

The more I think of it, the more I regret the VI/SOE ever decided to put keys on any zones, or create more exclusive zones for hard-core gamers to play in. It appears that the more time that these people spend in their world, the more entitlement they feel, that things should run their way. I am sure someone could also argue the reverse. We all mostly pay the same tax rate in Norrath (our subscription fees), yet some feel more entitled to rule it by virtue of the personal time iinvestment they make in it. Rather an interesting social microcosm.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So you zergs will have to spend more time/effort to get flags just like real guilds do by having to learn encounters and wipe a few times, /cry. [/quote]

Feel free to leave these boards and never come back. You sir, IMO, are an elitest snob and have no business playing a multiplayer game, MUCH LESS a MMORPG. Thanks for reinforcing the beliefs of folks around here about uber guilds. Keep it up, pretty soon, all tier1 and 2 guilds will be hated because of you. I've been a regular lurker of these boards (and poster from time to time) for the past 4 years of my EQ career, and I've never been so pissed off at someone's selfish, childish comments. Look, now I've stooped to your level, and flamed you. Mission accomplished, now take your trolling elsewhere.

Pana- Hoorah, well written and it echoes my opinions, I think I'll just copy and paste it into my email and send it to them again.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You people are the biggest bunch of whiners I have ever seen. So now you cant tag 300 people at a time. Cry me a river and learn to play the damn game the way it was designed instead of zerging @#%$ to death. [/quote]

See above!

I think this is just a rumor - I havent heard about this from anywhere else. That said, the purpose of the cap (if there really is one which I doubt at this point) is mainly just to prevent people from skipping content. Verant has always hated people skipping things - look at the lack of CoH/summon corpse in many PoP zones, and the incredibly high price to re-charge res sticks nowdays. They didnt "envision" people killing a mob with a large force and then flagging a ton of extra people who didnt even take part. However, such a limit does screw over guilds who form alliances to take down mobs - how do you choose who gets the flags and who doesnt? I have mixed feelings about this - I really dont think you should be allowed to zerg mobs with 100+ people, but I also think some of the lower tiered bosses/side quests should be easier to allow players access to CoD/HoH/PoTactics for more spots to XP (the side quest parts are especially too rare to get a group into a new zone). Perhaps a better implementation would be to only apply such a cap to tier 3 and above bosses?

Damn, you've hurt me deeply, Not only do you want to deny me of an opinion, you flame me for it.
How about this one,
Thanks for reinforcing people's beliefs as druids being whiners, you sir, IMO, are an anti-uberguild-and-get-everything-for-nothing snob and have no business playing a multiplayer game, MUCH LESS a MMORPG.
Oh look I can do it too
No one will hate tier 1 and 2 guilds, because no one really gives a crap.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The goal of the flag rebellion is to get people past flags. We don't want to redo the same thing every weekend for the next 6 months.[/quote]
So basically, you want to be able to do things others have put time into effortlessly, without having to learn anything, or putting ANY time into, and get loads more people flagged than real guilds?
Can't have it both ways there.

It just makes me laugh how some of you condone people being funneled into 4 huntable zones, and call them whiners for complaining about it. Get real. You'd be bitching if you were in their position. Unfortunately your not, you've got it good having 5x's as much access and places to hunt.

So if you want to be the spoiled brat calling everyone else whiners, your more than welcome to show how much of a brat you are :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It just makes me laugh how some of you condone people being funneled into 4 huntable zones, and call them whiners for complaining about it. Get real. You'd be bitching if you were in their position. Unfortunately your not, you've got it good having 5x's as much access and places to hunt. [/quote]

The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Damn, you've hurt me deeply, Not only do you want to deny me of an opinion, you flame me for it.
How about this one,
Thanks for reinforcing people's beliefs as druids being whiners, you sir, IMO, are an anti-uberguild-and-get- everything-for-nothing snob and have no business playing a multiplayer game, MUCH LESS a MMORPG.
Oh look I can do it too
No one will hate tier 1 and 2 guilds, because no one really gives a crap. [/quote]

lol, there you go making assumptions. I've said in another thread or this one, can't remember, that I am flagged quite far in PoP. The only thing you have on me is your precious VT/VP keys, so maybe that is what makes you so friggin arrogant. If what I'm doing is whining (I considered it rallying for the casuals, as I wish I had the strength to play causually), then it's not because I WANT anything. Hell, I certainly don't want it if it's coming from folks like you. I earned my way to where I am, and have worked my @#%$ off to do it. I don't deny anyone that has worked their @#%$ off to get anywhere, be it VP, VT, ST, or Emp.. I don't like the elitest, I'm better than you because I HAVE been to VT attitude.. Take it elsewhere, it's NOT contstructive, it's NOT polite.. and quite frankly, it's getting VERY old. You had no reason to make your snide remark above. Pana asked for constructive criticism or agreement to her statement, not some smartass comment. Get a life.

"The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game."


Hummm, are you that naive? Others dont have the means to do what you do which is why theyre doing the whole 'REBELLION' thing. They ARE being proactive, your just being the jealous brat tellinig them theyre cheating because they didnt do it the way you did it with fewer numbers. Spoilt brats is really what some of you are. The ones stuck to 4 zones cant be the spoilt brats, that makes no sense when their inequities are much greater than yours.

To get back to the point instead of flaming, the fact is that anyone over 60 is now limited to just a few zones.

The only way to get to more zones is to belong to a large guild.

This just isn't the way to do things.

I'm not whining that I can't go to the uber zones and I'm not saying that the best items in the game should be given away without needing effort. All I'm saying is that they should accommodate both the casual and hard core player.

Since most of the player base now has toons level 61 and above, you would think that Sony would respond with more zones for them but just the opposite is true.

There should be plenty of zones for both the casual (or non uber guild) player and also zones for the megamaxing uber guilds from hell. I have no problem with the uber guild players killing SuperMob and getting the Ultimate Armor of the Gods and knowing I never will. What I have a problem with is that there is not much other content for the rest of us.

I was totally dumbstruck when I saw LoY adding zones for levels 35-60. Could Sony really be that clueless?

There is just something wrong with the game when you think it might be more fun if you de-leveled yourself.

Where's the true drawback to the limitation?

Let's face it:

1) Not every current member of your guild / guilds / alliance / whatever will be online when you get the kill.

Repeat content.

2) Every new member that your guild / guilds / alliance / whatever gets will not have the flags from that prior flag kill.

Repeat content.

There's no one that hasn't repeated some content or another, for these same two reasons. This will continue for the forseeable future unless the BAF code trivializes the entire flag system. If you have to repeat the content for 4 members, or 40, what's the difference?

Tuene

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only way to get to more zones is to belong to a large guild.

This just isn't the way to do things.[/quote]

Again, this is incorrect.

1. There are key quests that I atleast know of for the follow zones.
* Bastion of Thunder (3rd Tier)
* Halls of Honor (3rd Tier)
* Crypt of Decay (2nd Tier)
* Plane of Torment (2/3rd debatable)
* Plane of Tactics (2/3rd debatable)

There is atleast 5 zones right there that you can access, by putting in a little time and effort to actually achieve something. You cannot come here and say that casual players are cramed into 2 zones when they have provided means for you to have access to other zones.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game. [/quote]

I beg to differ. The reason we're having problems getting past the flagging mobs is because of our guild choices, not because of our lack of work ethic. I bet a sizeable percentage of any "uber" guild is watching TV, afk getting a beer out of the fridge, looking at nekkid pictures on another computer during raids. Some guilds work hard, some guilds slack. Some people get into an "uber" guild and get spoon-fed their flags and equipment. Is that hard work?

No, you're in Tier 3 or beyond because of the guild you joined not because you've got some sort of superior work ethic. Unless you're the guild leader, I don't think anyone can make that claim. Does no one else find it ironic that people playing a game as much as those in uber guilds talk about a work ethic?

If I really wanted to skip content in the game, I could join a guild already in tier 4. Let them power me past the tier 3 flags. What I'm doing is helping people access to the content they paid for and they're quite ready to handle. That's not skipping content. Unless you think VT is some sort of a prequisite for tier 3 and above. That's just absurb, imho. I confess, I skipped Veeshan's Peak too... is that skipping content? Should I be forced to stay in Kunark until I complete my VP key and do VP?

Anyway, if you're in agreement with me on this feedback to Sony. You can bet that the ubers posting here are doing the same.

haha Panamah that sigs cool!! :)


Tils

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There is atleast 5 zones right there that you can access, by putting in a little time and effort to actually achieve something. You cannot come here and say that casual players are cramed into 2 zones when they have provided means for you to have access to other zones. [/quote]

That is laughable at best. The flag quests are gimp, really, no offense, but it really isn't viable. Consider how the above zones are played. Groups are viable in HoH, so if you COULD get your non-uber friends flagged that way, great. Just doesn't seem right that it should take 40+ hours per key per member that you want flagged. It may not take that long for some, but I KNOW some of them DO take that long to complete, unless you have a guild laying waste to all the said mobs (which woudl mean you could probably just kill the boss for the flag).

I apologize for my flaming on this thread to all of you that had to read it :/ I just can't stand the elitest, keep the little man down, attitude. Forgive me oh great MB admins.

Panamah,

Random masses of people can get into the top 6 respective guild ranks on any server; it's been done before, and while it was easier during prior expansions, it can be done again.

I personally couldn't care less if people zerg a mob or not, it's fundamentally part of any free-market economy to take any legal advantage you can get ahead.

But the fact is people's comments about skipping content which you claim are "absurd," are no more "absurd" than your generalizing and degrading players in uber guilds when you apparently are not part of one, nor, I'm assuming, have played in one.

Tuene

PS. I'm not in an uber guild either. Doing other things while playing EQ is endemic to everyone, not just uber-guild card-carrying members. As for powering through flags? *chuckle* Repetitive content for anyone blows, not just you and your faction.

EDIT: content

How is it keeping the little man down?

72 is a reasonable number. Small guilds will still be able to form alliances and take down mobs, it will just take a bit longer if your alliance has 200+ people.

Ok, let me respond point by point:

Bastion of Thunder - as you say 3rd Tier, so that is out already, why even list it?

Halls of Honor - same.

Crypt of Decay - ok, I see that if I collect like 6 items off mobs I can get in here. That is not exactly casual but I will concede this.

Plane of Torment - I can't find a listing of how to get in here.

Plane of Tactics - requires passing trial in PoJ, right? Try to be a non uber guild druid and get past the trial. Perhaps if I logged in to the trial area in PoJ and hung out there day after day for a few weeks someone will take pity on me and let me in a group that can win the trial with a druid in the group. Heck, my friend a 62 shaman with the best droppable gear in the game and some good no drop stuff as well, can't get flagged for this. And we all know that Shaman > druid by far in this kind of thing.

Pana,
As far as feedback goes, I thought your letter to SOE was fair and not too inflamatory. If anything, I'm not sure I would have threatened to quit even if that was the truth simply because it might not really help your cause. I realize that's a consumer's only real recourse but my take is that it really won't matter to them as long as their numbers remain high.

Anyway, I agree with you (and Lindara from another thread) about the rewards of PoP being so narrow and essentially forcing a huge percentage of players into a few zones (a.k.a. <em>The Funnel Effect</em>) and even then only for AAXP. I really think folks would be a lot more content with PoP if they had a realistic shot at loot and parchments without being part of a big guild.

I really do believe most folks who disagree with you simply don't understand the frustrations that come from not being able to participate in the majority of PoP (loot, parchments and content) due to their guild affiliation. The rest may understand and be very happy to lock everyone else out.

<img src="http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig3.jpg"/>
Magelo Profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=562742)

Look at my magelo, Im in tier 3 POP, Hardly "uber" mid-ssra/ntov level equipped, and not VT enabled.
I just have more common sense than you uber guild haters who want everything for nothing because you feel that you paid for it.

Also, VP is @#%$, no one cares about it, being keyed for it means nothing at all.
POJ trials are easy, be level 62+, druids are extremely useful there/

Just wondering, why is a 62 druid great for trials and a 61 druid not?

Looked at your Magelo Cronuus, please tell me your tradeskill list is not up to date, heh heh. For someone who has the 8th shawl, your tradeskills are uuuummmmm somewhat lacking.

Idawen
60th Level Druid
The Forgotten Order

Yay, now we have 2 flame threads on the same topic!

I know this is a heated discussion, but keep attacks out of it. Tempted to edit a few of the earlier comments but it seems to be toning down a bit...Lets keep it that way please.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>We want to do it 3 times and be done with it! If there was a 15 person limit on flags wouldn't you feel a little ticked having to get your 110 person guild past it?[/quote]
Actually I am begining to think they should limit it to 18 flags per raid. Right now it is far too easy to make it to the elemental planes. And no, i haven't made it to the elemental planes yet.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But the first part of the quote above is much more interesting to me. What you are saying is that the concept of MMORPG just doesn't work. That it is not possible even in a virtual world for people to share enough and get along well enough to play together with a minimum of conflict.[/quote]Oh. it works fine. But why should we have to share? These aren't limited resources. It takes minimal effort to make sure everyone gets what they want without having to worry about someone else getting to it before them. I would say to keep common areas but allow guilds to spawn zones that only guild members can enter. I tell you what, it sure would be really nice to know exactly when your guild is going to do something and not hope that you can get to a mob before some other guild gets to it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only way to get to more zones is to belong to a large guild.[/quote]
I will let you on to a little secret. PoP encounters are not difficult. They are intimidating, but with a little work any guild alliance that can get 50-60 people together can make it to the elemental planes. And that makes me nervous, since there just isn't enough content to go around in the elemental planes, and why would you ever raid Ssra if you could just as easily be raiding the elemental planes and getting elemental armor?

The number one reason why you have guilds recruiting more and more people, is not that encounters are getting harder, but because in order to compete you have to have enough people to engage mobs before the next guild does.

What you guys are seeking doesn't exist in the zones you are trying to enter. What you guys want is the 60-65 Chardok, Sebilis, HoTesting, etc. But it doesn't exist. Not in PoP. The only thing you get in PoP are your lvl 60-65 Velks lab and Dread Lands. The rest of the zones are designed around raid groups.

I agree with the sentiment here.

Forcing people who ding 61 to go from 25-30 XP zones (don't make me list them) to seven reasonably accessible zones is a horrible mistake. I feel terrible for those casual/small-guild players who naturally seek to increase their power and find a big glass ceiling waiting for them at the end.

However, I do not approve of massive coalitions of these people annihilating content so they can score a flag for some Tier 3-4 zone. My guild and I worked hard to get where we are, we jumped through the requisite hoops fairly and squarely, and I don't think it's fair to have that time and dedication invalidated by some 63 mage who happened to hit Follow and toss a nuke on Sol Ro in time to get flagged.

In order to combat this growing 'fad', SOE has to enforce some kind of limitation, and that has yet to be determined. Until and unless the flagging system is changed or removed, circumventing the spirit of the system is just as much of an exploit as circumventing the letter of the system.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Looked at your Magelo Cronuus, please tell me your tradeskill list is not up to date, heh heh. For someone who has the 8th shawl, your tradeskills are uuuummmmm somewhat lacking.
[/quote]
Sec lemme look what my magelo says...

Cron,
Well I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly don't hate "uber-guilds" or their members. What I DO hate is:

1) <em>Not being told the whole story.</em> (pasted from Sony's website) <blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Veteran players will enjoy new content that will provide months of exciting gameplay.[/quote]
I was lvl 60 in some ToV gear and a decent-sized guild when PoP came out. Is that considered "veteran"? I thought so. Statements like the above led me to believe it would be a well-balanced expansion with lots to offer ALL upper level players, regardless of guild affiliation. The reality is "veteran" players not in top-tier guilds will probably not ever see as much as half of this expansion.

2)<em> Losing the Old World. </em> People can claim otherwise, but the bottom line is if you choose to level up to enjoy your PoP AAs and spells, you automatically lose the Old World. The insane ZeMs in PoP combined with the Funnel Effect means I can no longer gain any meaningful XP outside of the Planes, period.

3) <em>Being told "You're a whiner" by players who are not faced with these dilemmas because of their guild affiliation.</em>

I think it's good for the game to have some high-level keyed zones for the ubers to play in. No problems with that. Just don't be surprised when folks get upset at you rubbing their nose in the fact that they're not there yet and THEN gripe when they figure out ways to get there.

<img src="http://sun.he.net/~justin1/eq/sig3.jpg"/>
Magelo Profile (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=562742)

Its fixed.
I did tradeskills for 8th shawl, not for anything else, so I didn't really work em up much, fail rate wasn't bad at all.

If I always wanted to play professional basketball, but I didn't have the time to practice or I didn't want to leave my friends down at the local court or I have a hangnail, etc, but damn. I really want to win the NBA. I know, I'll just bring 40 of my friends to play against the lakers...

What? Why is everyone bitching? We are just as skilled as they are, but we don't have the time or money to develop our skills. So instead, we're just going to play with 40 people on our side. its fair for us...

This thread is going no where fast. Ubers vs. casual is definately getting old.

Oh yeah, the NBA example was awful.

Umm, You're not in the NBA.

It's more like a select group of kids are always playing in the community playground. Other kids that don't have as much time still come and play in the playground. A new playground is built, the kids that are always getting to play think only they should be allowed in this new fancy playground and the not so time fortunate kids should go back to the old playground.


Racmoor

Uber players: What would you do if you were not in a guild? How would you get flagged? Pretend you can play less than 20 hours a week, mostly on weekends.

I find it rather amusing that the zerg king of the RN server is posting here, putting down the DFR. I remember in the not so distant past how a 150-man AOW raid went down when yall first got together. You have certainly come a long way since then, but you have no right to put down the DFR. You were once in the same situation Eelyen.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I find it rather amusing that the zerg king of the RN server is posting here, putting down the DFR. I remember in the not so distant past how a 150-man AOW raid went down when yall first got together. You have certainly come a long way since then, but you have no right to put down the DFR. You were once in the same situation Eelyen.[/quote]

I hope you aren't referring to me with the zerg king comment. I have never been in attendance of any 150 man AoW raid. Although, I think I remember Ascent + EK? teaming up either early in Luclin to take down AoW or the one 110ish man EiE/DA AoW raid (Not that I'm saying anything bad about either of those 2 groups). Anthology never had more then 65ish for our AoW killl. Failed once, beat him the 2nd time. We have never allied with anyone, teamed up with anyone, nor have we allowed untold amount of guests.

But I have done nothing here to "put down" DFR except for labeling the large force as a Zerg. And if that is truely a insult to them, nothing I can say. I have given them props for what they did. And anyone who says 150-200 people is not a zerg, has issues.

Get your facts straight Kin.
And I was never in the same situation, Kinare.

It's worse than that really, since most of the "old playground" is also useless to the non-uber ******s any more.

Deleted my comments.

Made me feel better to type them, but isn't worth the effort to read the responses. Wasn't a flame, but it didn't add to the convo at hand.

OMG....the posts here are a prime prime prime example of just how much SOE and their Plane of Power has divided guilds, divided friends, divided divided divided. The ultimate in divisive expansions.

Why do players in the elite guilds feel soooo threatened by casual players who get flagged? Because they are greedy and want it all for just a few they deem annointed and deserving, the ones who raid 24/7 in order to get into the top guilds.

I just hope all the elite guilds hurry and get to Plane of Time, get all their AAs, get all the uber armor and loot have nothing left to conquer, get bored and quit EQ.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game. [/quote]

I know you are very proud of your efforts, I'm happy that you are. I don't understand your bitterness but I don't think you understand us either. You and I play two very different games and that's fine EQ allows us both to play the game we want to play within the setting of a single world and our worlds normally don't clash.

I've helped people like you get shards for VT and keys for Emp and been happy for them and enjoyed their company while we got experience killing the mobs needed for the drops. I'm not at all upset to now see them in VT and not be there with them. I have friends and former guildmates in every Uber and Up and Coming Uber guild on Drinal. They got their starts with us and many of them still come and kick back and relax with us from time to time.

I am as dedicated to my guild and my guildmates as you are. We just have differnt goals. While you spent night after night farming for VT keys for your guild. I spent those same nights farming for tradeskill components for mine. I'm as proud of our mass number of 250 traderskill members as you are of your mass numbers of keyed members. /shrug differnt goals same game. I still enjoy it, do you?

Again, I personally don't care how many casual people get flagged for atleast pre-elemental plane zones. Just as long as they don't trying to ninjaflag, training, camping points of flag events and argue when a guild shows up to do it, and other such BS with us.

I thought this pretty much says it all...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>We don't want to redo the same thing every weekend for the next 6 months. We want to do it 3 times and be done with it![/quote]

I don't want to farm Elemental planes for 15-20 times before we can take down all the damn gods. I want to do it once and be done with it!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If there was a 15 person limit on flags wouldn't you feel a little ticked having to get your 110 person guild past it? Well, no different here. The scale is just different.[/quote]

No I would not be ticked about it, since everyone else would have to do it too. "Well, no different here." seems to imply you would agree with me.

Good post from Tilien too! RN vs druids match it seems ><


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

Delheru: No, it's more a case of the ubers having made it to the elemental planes and now trying to shut the barn doors behind them. I've seen folks argue that the limit should be 36, not 72.


<strong>There is atleast 5 zones right there that you can access, by putting in a little time and effort to actually achieve something. You cannot come here and say that casual players are cramed into 2 zones when they have provided means for you to have access to other zones.</strong>


Thus spaketh Zara-Idiot, who has no idea of the difficulty of these alternate quests. I find it ironic that he recommends putting in a "little time and effort," when less time and effort per individual is required to go on Panamah's raid and get it over with. Sad thing is that these alternate quests are designed for folks with lots of time to play, and thus do little good for the folks that most need alternative access routes.

If you play EQ 2 hours a day VS someone who plays 10 hours a day, it makes perfect sense that the 2 hour/day guy will need to play for 5 times(or more) days than the 10 hour day guy to get just as far.

[qupte]Thus spaketh Zara-Idiot, who has no idea of the difficulty of these alternate quests. I find it ironic that he recommends putting in a "little time and effort," when less time and effort per individual is required to go on Panamah's raid and get it over with. Sad thing is that these alternate quests are designed for folks with lots of time to play, and thus do little good for the folks that most need alternative access routes. [/quote]

Oh yea, I most certainly haven't spent hour after hour after hour after hour after hour of farming lame quest pieces. How would I know anything?

First time poster here, hell I am not even a druid, my apologies.

I am an lesser officer in my guild. I organize/lead raids from time to time. My guild is currently NtoV/Ssra capable.

I am actually quite shocked to hear you guys think that Pan puts less time/work into getting one of these raids going than any one of you.

How long does it take a tier 3/4 guild to do MB? I know Pan spent over a week organizing hers. Then putting it all together took at least 3 hours just for the raid to form!

I honestly think you guys should give credit where it is due, she works hard, she is able to get a boat load of people to work with her, and she gets the job done. Yes, she gets more people flagged, but at the same time, I believe she spends more time getting her raids completed.

I honestly think the best way for Sony to fix the zerg problem is to give people a reason to stay in those zones!


My two cp, take em for what they are worth. Myself, I salute her relentless work for the underdogs of drinal.

I wish they would make it a pay-by-the-hour game.

That would be extremely stupid.

Scirocco:
It's more like uberguilds are swimmers in a "cross the english channel" competition. Suddenly we hear that some swimmers are dragging themselves after boats and will be overtaking us in about 1h. Yes we ARE complaining to the competition organizers saying that this is not how it's supposed to be going, or if it is, they should just say so so we could get our own boats.

But since the organizers have sold TV rights of the thing for 10 hours, the people leading the swimming have the feeling that the organizers actually did NOT intend for the use of boats.

PS Apply brain to figure out what refers to what in EQ, don't feel like decyphering it all since it's pretty damn obvious

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

Some hookers charge by the hour. I don't see anything wrong with that. Some have a flat-rate 'all the fixings in a night' package. Free enterprise. Gotta love it. That S&M deal with a couple of dwarfs will cost you extra, sir.

Sorry, Del, you're missing the point.

Up to this point, only some of the planar projections have been limited in terms of number of people flagged. When we did A'Dar several months ago, we ran many twinks and latecoming guild members through. Same for Behemoth. And I am confident that many other guilds have done the same all the way up through the elemental planes. It only makes sense to do this.

Now that <em>we</em> have all done this, retroactively changing it so that those that come behind are stuck with a 72 person limit IS attempting to close the barn door behind us. No denying that.

While I'm not uber and I don't like the tone some of the ubers have taken I do have to agree with them.

If you want to progress to upper tier'ed zones then you should kill the flagging mobs with a RAID force. Verant has deemed a raid force 72 people or less. How have they defined it? Raid modes, channels, etc.

Basically by doing that Verant has stated in a round about sort of way that any mob in the game should be killable by 72 people or less given various factors (equipment, levels, etc.).

When a flag mob dies it should flag...drumroll please. 72 people. There is a reason that there are limits to content. Whine all you want but that is the way PoP is set up. BIG DEAL you have to do AerinDar or whoever you are killing 3 times to get your people through rather then once. I'm sorry but wahhh.

So will slow things down but not to a horrible rate. Show your organizational skills and set up 3 raids instead of 1. Problem solved.

Is the work or the reward any less? No its not. Its what VI deemed as a sufficient carrot. If its not sufficient enough for you either A start a new character, B delevel, or C quit.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That would be extremely stupid.[/quote]

Of course it would be stupid. It would mean all those people who have fun doing things other than getting ahead, would probably not pay for that anymore, then prices would rise across the board, because people would play less. Then the top-end guilds wouldn't have the economic power of the hoardes of more casual players behind them to finance this crap and feel good about it. Yeah, paying "equally" for time spent in game would ruin it alright.

Charge by the hour *snicker*. I assume many remember GENIE (sp)....you want an EQ killer, that's it :) . If SOE is smart Stormhammer is as close to that as SOE will get.

Idawen
60th Level Druid
The Forgotten Order

Lets equalize everything! All zones must be unlocked, everyone's equipment will be set to 25 100hp mana 10wis 10sta 10int in all slots, everyone will have an all/all primal weapon, everyone will be set to level 65 with exactly 190AA.

Dunno about that really Scirocco... I think there's been one kill where we flagged more than 72 characters, and that was the first RZ kill. Had about 60ish people there, and I think about 40 others got logged in (mostly secondaries) for the flag.

Other massive event which saw over 72 flags there was our second Behemoth. Alas first was with about 50, and most of those 50 were present at the second one so doubt actual amount of flags obtained was more than maybe 30-35.

Of course just because we haven't done it, doesn't mean some haven't.

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

Reading many of these posts teaches me one thing:
too many people think they are above everyone else, and sit upon a cloud spitting on others.
Just because this person is in UBER guild and that person is in CASUAL guild, shouldnt mean a damn thing. all it is, is 2 different people that play the game differently.
PoP *IS* pretty much restricted to the higher tiered guilds.
Yeah, PoD/PoS/PoV/PoI/PoN/BoT/PoJ are for casual people, with a few extra casual people with access to HoH and PoTactics.... but for the most part, this expansion is for the higher tiered.
But by no means should people throw their uberness around. I am no better than that unguilded 65 druid over there, even though I am in an uber guild.
I think its tacky and tasteless to put others down because they arent in the same type guild you are in.
I get along with only a few druids on my server, and reading this thread right here, leads me to believe I wont get along with many others.

Hrm... Sorry if I mixed up the facts/guilds there Eeylen. I could have sworn it was anthology but then again it was about 6 months ago, or right when I heard you were attempting AOW too. =/

/smile Cronuus

I don't see where easing the timesink flags, allowing the "casual" quest entrances to count towards further progression, and demanding that SOE make more zones to play in is equivalent to your extreme statements. I have played my way for a certain (fairly long) amount of time, and I have had to make changes if I wanted to keep playing, but there are some things I don't want to compromise with my game time. I want to be able to come and go as I wish. I don't want anyone to demand my presence at a raid when I have other goals, and I expect SOE to deliver me an entertaining quality-assured product for the price I pay. Up until PoP, I was able to find plenty of entertainment without having to look real hard. I am bored. Bored with pos/pov/pon/pod/bot. These zones don't even have much of a different feel to me. I think bot is less difficult in many ways that pov/pov and pod (yes pod). I, too am tired of the crowds. I am tired of having to race ahead of some group that raced ahead of us while we were waiting on an afk member and having to have a verbal sparring match about some damn camp because some zones in PoP don't support everyone who wants to play there, and yet those everyone's want their spectral parchments and runes just like I do. Its crazy. I don't know who finds this sort of thing fun, but I don't.

PoP is too small for the amount of people who want to level to 65 and have a full spell book. Its just the way it is. There are so many people in Tier 3 that it seems foolish to me to think that Tier 4 won't get overcrowded, too. Ask for more zones now before things get that bad.

Ill agree that the single quests suck and should be made easier, IMO:
Diaku raiders need to spawn more commonly, and drop a piece of a medal at least 75% of the time.
Agony mephit should always drop a heart, luminii crawler always drop the brain, and corroded prototype always drop the perillium.
The CoD key quest is fine.
Also, for POS BoT flags, the minis should keep dropping 3 medals each, but make it so when a lord is killed it spawns an NPC that gives you a medal half when hailed, to get people mass flagged on 1 kill.

About the 72 man limit, yes. Everyone has run twinks and bots through flags. On our recent RZ killing we had about 80ish people actually logged on, this is a tonne even for us. Our numbers are usually around 65ish, but it was a sunday and we had casual's I haven't seen in weeks logged on for it and we're trying out a bunch of new recruits as a last chance thing till Time. Once he died, we had people pulling their bots and twinks out their @#%$'s it seemed. Never knew we had so many 2-3-4 boxers in the alliance, but you know what? We still have a few mains who some how missed the maddness. So we need to do it again. Then I'm sure some old guildmate we've know for 3 years will come back and were going to have to figure out how to get him up with us. The flags are a never ending quest... A 72 flag limit doesn't change that at all for us. Well, our bots and twinks will be unhappy, but I don't give two @#%$ about twinks & bots.

Kinare, kiss my @#%$. What were you planning on doing if Ascent had actually let you in? You've wanted to be uber for as long as I've seen you posting. What happened? Lack the "skills" to play a cleric? Hell, clerics just have to be able to count to 5 and push a button. You want to pretend this is Vault and play with the big boys and flame? Well better be prepared when we attack back.

As for the zerg king description, its BS. I rebuked Prellius when he brought it up on FoH and we've called BS everytime someone else brings it up. All you have to stand on is one AoW raid that broke 100. 2 guilds in a new alliance, a bunch of recruits and casual/semi-retired folks showing up for the big man himself almost a year ago...

I think the fatal mistake was making leveling trivial. Even if their statistics showed a lot of people at 60, atleast they had 2 expansions aimed for lvl 60s (Velious and Luclin), whereas there's only one for 65s and big parts of that are locked up.

I dunno what they really should have done, but I don't think adding levels was a good idea at all. They could have created quests/grinds that yielded huge rewards (extra 20% base hitpoints for example?) or whatever, but they killed off way too much content with the levels (and making them totally trivial to get).

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

Elevyn said

"The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game. "

What about the guilds that can do the bigger encounters and the mobs aren't up when they get there. In essence guilds are getting C*ckblocked. And that slows down guilds for months. It has nothing to do with skill, abilities, or amount of playtime. It has to do with being at location A with adequate force. Stop putting down folks becuase they didnt meet the requirement in the above sentence.

Cronnus said

"If you play EQ 2 hours a day VS someone who plays 10 hours a day, it makes perfect sense that the 2 hour/day guy will need to play for 5 times(or more) days than the 10 hour day guy to get just as far. "

My gosh we finally agree on something. Well actually not. IMO the casual player should get similar rewards by putting in 2-3 times the hours the uber player did. But as it stand now that factor is more like 20-30. Especially with the bait and switch approach that SOE has taken with PoP.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
If you play EQ 2 hours a day VS someone who plays 10 hours a day, it makes perfect sense that the 2 hour/day guy will need to play for 5 times(or more) days than the 10 hour day guy to get just as far.
[/quote]

Seriously, I would be fine with that. I don't mind the effort vs reward thing, that's one of the carrots of the game.

What I *do* mind is having to sell out my friends to join an elemental capable guild, or join a big alliance and hear that we leeched our way in.

I'd love for my effort, or the efforts of my small guild, to matter. But they don't really. Skill, dedication and talent aren't a factor until there are 50 of you online.

That, as a design element, is kind of bizarre.

More mother @#%$ contention for these @#%$ flag mobs. Per-f-ucking-ect.

Assholes. @#%$ @#%$ @#%$ @#%$ eating assholes.

Like, what the hell is the point of this? What? By limiting the number of flags they want you to kill the same thing more often. Why? People are advancing too fast? Don't want alts to get flagged so people can easily change characters if they get bored with the game so will instead quit and go play SWG? Why the hell limit the number of flags? It sure doesn't limit the number of people that can do the event, just pisses people off who do and puts more contention on mobs that spawn WAY TOO @#%$ RARELY.

Clue to SOE, you might have record numbers of people online but they're in the bazaar retards, they're not actually playing and you just might find half your population quit on you within a short period of time because they're fed up with this sort of bull****.

<strong> Its what VI deemed as a sufficient carrot. If its not sufficient enough for you either A start a new character, B delevel, or C quit.</strong>


Or (D), chew up the carrot and throw it back in their face. In PoP terms, it's going ahead and killing each mob with 100+ people until everyone gets flagged.

It's the essence of the PvV game. Verant (now SOE) is the opponent.

If a designer makes an encounter, designed to be challenging for a certain number of people, its pretty logical that it shouldnt reward people who litterally bypasses the challenge in the event, aswell as the buildup phase, as much as it rewards the people who does it the way it was designed to be done.

It certainly shouldnt be inviting people to burry the mob in corpses, like it does now.

The 72 people limit, as mentioned above, isnt exactly a low number either.


-Tetrian

<blockquote style="padding-left:0.5em; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; border-left:solid 2">If a designer makes an encounter, designed to be challenging for a certain number of people, its pretty logical that it shouldnt reward people who litterally bypasses the challenge in the event, aswell as the buildup phase, as much as it rewards the people who does it the way it was designed to be done.</blockquote>

OK how about they release specific info on the exact number and type of equipped character required for every high-end encounter? Anyone in violation of said number will be henceforth labeled as 'zerg.'

Except that there has never, ever been a limit on the number of people you could bring to an event, no matter how many people it was designed for. You could bring 30 or 100 people to ring-of-vulak, you could bring 25 or 125 to vox or naggy. The only limit was the skill of the organizers, not some artificial cap by someone who likely doesnt even play the damn game.

Someone above tried to defend it by saying something like "what's the difference, split it up into 3 raids instead of 1, same organizational challenge." Yeah but what it isnt is the same amount of TIME. Instead those 3 groups get to WAIT in between for the lame flag mob to respawn! That's fun! Sometimes we're talking days or a week. And with a flag limit the whole thing becomes contested, cause now it *needs* to be killed by everyone. Oh and dont start the flames now about uberguilds who need to go back and backflag one or two people... they just blew the spawn for 72 people who were waiting!

The only thing we can really invest in this game is time. Given a certain length of time, we need a reward, if that's loot or access to a zone or a level or a spell, SOMEthing. But PoP mind bogglingly defies that axiom, and each nerf keeps showing just how out of touch their devs really are.

If the carrot keeps moving further and further away, people will (and have already started to) say the hell with it.

Kiss those bazaar-bot and port-bot and res-bot subscriptions so long. And the customers with them.

Tia

I get a kick out of the people that point out the quest ways to get flagged. They look easy on paper but really aren't.

BoT isn't that hard, but it does take at least a couple groups to kill medallion dropping named in PoS, unless of course you're a VT geared uber or something, then I'm sure you can do them with one group or less. For a lot of smaller guilds though that might need a raid force basically.

HoH quest? Yeah right, give me a break. Crystal spider brains are rare( or at least the mobs that drop them), but not super rare. But how about the block of perilium and the mephit heart? I only ever saw one agony mephit up at a time and they don't always drop the heart. How long will it take to equip a guild like that?

Some of the other ones are the same deal. It can be just as hard to do the quests as the boss mobs depending on your resources. It's not viable for a single person to try and get these things on their own because the mobs or areas they drop in aren't soloable. You also will have a hard time getting a guild flagged since you would probably be lucky to get 2 or 3 hearts in a day of camping of mephits, the same with the block of perilium from PoI. Keep in mind these are casual players who can't play all day because of work and family.

Cronuus you need an attitude adjustment. If the shoe was on the other foot you wouldn't be saying the things you do. It's that kind of uber entitlement crap that got this game into some of the troubles that exist now.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
If a designer makes an encounter, designed to be challenging for a certain number of people, its pretty logical that it shouldnt reward people who litterally bypasses the challenge in the event, aswell as the buildup phase, as much as it rewards the people who does it the way it was designed to be done
[/quote]

While that may have been the designer's intent, it's not how the game is played.

Do you think everyone who looted a Pearl Kedge Totem was challenged by the fight? A 20k Tstaff from KC, do you think those are never farmed? How about everyone who's wearing a Vindi BP? Were those "challenging" fights?

I see a lot of 50+ Shawl Questers killing griffons which are a challenge...at 35. We won't even go into faction groups.

People do kill hard mobs for the challenge, certainly. People also kill mobs for loot, or faction, or quests, or tradeskills, or epics. Or flags.

Everyone in the game has used overwhelming force on a mob, at some point,for some reason. It's unfair to pretend that because these people wanted flags, they had to suddenly abide by a different standard.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Except that there has never, ever been a limit on the number of people you could bring to an event, no matter how many people it was designed for. You could bring 30 or 100 people to ring-of-vulak, you could bring 25 or 125 to vox or naggy. The only limit was the skill of the organizers, not some artificial cap by someone who likely doesnt even play the damn game.[/quote]

The difference between PoP encounters and the ones you mentioned is the motivation for doing the encounter. When you do ring of vulak, etc. you are doing it primarily for the loot. The more people that come along, the lower the percentage of participants get loot from each encounter. The reason for doing most PoP encounters isn't the loot, it is the flags. The flag is essentially the only reward for the encounter, and it isn't limited to 3 or 4 people per raid. There is no incentive to continue doing the encounter after your guild is flagged because it has no benefit for the guild.

There is a complete paradigm shift in PoP. You don't kill a mob for it's loot, you kill a mob for a flag, which allows you to kill another mob for a flag, which allows......Only at the very end of that sequence is there anything resembling worthwhile loot. Loot is an improvement to your character, a flag isn't. A flag is simply something that allows you the chance to go somewhere that you MIGHT get loot.

How many people would want to do the ring of vulak if there was no loot as a reward? Ok, now how many would want to do it twice if there was no loot as a reward?

Yeah, huhu, I was being sarcastic.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Except that there has never, ever been a limit on the number of people you could bring to an event, no matter how many people it was designed for. You could bring 30 or 100 people to ring-of-vulak, you could bring 25 or 125 to vox or naggy. The only limit was the skill of the organizers, not some artificial cap by someone who likely doesnt even play the damn game.[/quote]

Hhehehehee, spoken like someone who never visited the high end game back then.

First of all during Kunark there were no serverfilters and the average network connection quality was a LOT worse than it is now. I saw one 80man raid back then and about 30ish went LD, including a lot of critical classes. The huge threat of LD was most definitely a very artificial cap indeed, one that pissed off everyone back then... I have to admit I miss it now.

Velious and Luclin encounters had a huge amount of hitpoints, and LD was STILL an issue because the datastream wasn't packed. Anyway Velious and Luclin mobs were mostly about loot, so the less people you brought the better, and usually it didn't make a difference to whether you won or not... the LDs harm the raid more than a small amount of added dps helps (because the fight is still long enough that heals have to work... if you bring enough to overwhelm the mobs, your @#%$ is LD for sure)

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

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Hhehehehee, spoken like someone who never visited the high end game back then.[/quote]

Hhehehehee, you'd be wrong...

However I dont consider LD to be in the same class of lameness as flag capping.

Tia

Normally my apathy is all consuming, however, I agree with the point that this is epidemic of the Ubers getting in, finishing the content, then it gets nerfed, after they've already enjoyed the high drop rates/brokenly easy fights/unlimited flag limits.

I salute the DFR, I only wish that something like that could happen on my server (sure, I suppose I could try to do it, but I know that I don't have the necessary idiot tolerance level and I'd end up getting myself banned or something)

I can empathize with the Ubers who don't want to lose their exclusive zone to the unwashed masses, however I have no sympathy for them. Guild affiliation shouldn't affect what zones you can exp in. But thanks to PoP, it does.

I myself in particular have been on the blunt end of the stick, every guild I've ever been in has been small and friendly, I don't have any interest in joining a guild that is just a ravenous horde for loot (FOR THE OVERMIND!). Because of this, I didn't get my epic until level 60, I've had to pay for my SS armor to be MQ'd, and I'll probably end up having to buy any spectral spells I want, at their outrageously inflated bazaar prices.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Normally my apathy is all consuming, however, I agree with the point that this is epidemic of the Ubers getting in, finishing the content, then it gets nerfed, after they've already enjoyed the high drop rates/brokenly easy fights/unlimited flag limits.[/quote]

I really don't get this sort of thinking. It seems to be coming from all over the place, and I'm wondering what's causing it... I've been at the top of the game on RN since, well, pretty much the beginning, and since my position there is quite secure I have absolutely no reason to lie.

Kunark... VP drops were pathetic to begin with, and still sort of sucked after the upgrade to be honest. I wasn't really prominent at the time so hard to really comment on the upgrades since I don't remember, but I do remember they were significant.

Velious. Tormax totally out of whack, and dropped quite horrible rewards. Statue loot incredibly sub par, with reaver actually being like above average. We lucked out with me managing to convince a few tanks to take chances with the statue BP which totally sucked at the time. Absolutely no special benefit for being first.
ToV normal drakes AE annul and are way too difficult for anyones comfort. Armor also sucks to begin with until it's later upgraded. NToV drops quite horribly when we began killing there... can get a lot better items from pretty much anywhere. Absolutely no special benefit for being first.
ST is the only one that really comes to mind as something where it was very nice to be first, and Klandicar having a very short spawntime back then. Those two were real bonuses for firstcomers, but other than that Velious was all uphill.

Luclin:
VT mobs BLIND everyone all the time (the Thalls), which causes no end of irritation to all melee. Yet we dragged ourselves through it, AND got drops that sucked and ended up on all the wrong chars because Verant upgrades items in a funky way. Oh yea on RN we were the only ones that cleared VT without being able to mez everything, so that sorta made things more difficult for us as well.
Ssra was completely bugged and had quite hilariously crappy drops to begin with, though only Triton managed to get useless stuff from Emperor. Cursed had DOUBLE (lol!) DTs which made trying him such a prime example of futility that I can't think of anything quite comparable.
Seru pathing was beyond horrible and caused wipes very, very easily. Oh yea, drops had to be upgraded here too...
Most shard drops were upgraded since the firstcomers had to find the ones which were horribly rare and complain about them.

In PoP there's been hmm... HoHA spectrals, PoTactics pit runes and uh. That's pretty much it, but those two things admittedly were pretty nice, but it's not exactly a huge trend or anything.


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

The trend started with PoP. Before that, no one but the Ubers cared.

Edit: oh yeah. You're also forgetting windblade drop rate, girdle of mithaniel drop rate, PoStorms summoning rate, PoValor snare immunity rate, and PoJustice trial ghetto flagging (CoH etc).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Hrm... Sorry if I mixed up the facts/guilds there Eeylen. I could have sworn it was anthology but then again it was about 6 months ago, or right when I heard you were attempting AOW too. =/ [/quote]

We actaully didn't start AoW attempts (all of 2 AoW attempts to win), until November, which was about 3ish months ago :P

I believe I knwo what raid you are referring to, we were in Kael that day killing tormax when it happened. So, I am pretty sure I know what you are talking about. But Anthology by far has never participated in any such zerg activities.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Edit: oh yeah. You're also forgetting windblade drop rate, girdle of mithaniel drop rate, PoStorms summoning rate, PoValor snare immunity rate, and PoJustice trial ghetto flagging (CoH etc). [/quote]

The HoH item drop rates were rather irrelevant. I have so much plat I can never run out unless I start ebaying or something (SH style!).

Forgot to mention flagging for BoT was a LOT harder before. You had to kill the actual camp lords instead of those 1 groupable wusses... we flagged the whole @#%$ guild from the lords, killing them all every 3 days when they spawned for several weeks. Just to see everyone walk in there like 1 week after our last lords were killed. Yeah it's fun to always be breaking the waves!

PoValor snare immunity mostly affected the quad kiters, which meant on RN like 15 people. While it might seem a huge advantage for people on a druid board, I have to say the whole thing annoyed most of my guilds members instead of making them happy.

Dunno about PoJustice ghetto flagging. Never saw any sort of need so never tried. (though I'm aware something like that was doable... I just doubt any uberguild worth a damn had to use it)

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

<strong>Except that there has never, ever been a limit on the number of people you could bring to an event, no matter how many people it was designed for.</strong>

Hedge Maze. PoJ trials. Endureance in PoI. Yes, even within the very same expansion they're now putting (even more) flag limits on, they have in fact been able to limit the number on a raid to an event.

Ulthor was a premier example of the devs wanting to watch you eat @#%$. 36 flags only there. Guess they enjoyed it so much they're going to do it with 72 on everything else now.

Well obviously I meant before pop...

Post pop they started to show up, yes they even advertised those limits. Of course, they also advertised virtual spaces where multiple guilds could each have their shot at the flagging mobs independantly of one another, and not have to worry about the cockblocking which is rampant in pop. (There's what, exactly one "virtual space" in the game, in PoN? And that doesnt even work reliably.)

Too bad one idea seriously sucks when you dont implement the other.

Tia

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Kinare, kiss my @#%$. What were you planning on doing if Ascent had actually let you in? You've wanted to be uber for as long as I've seen you posting. What happened? Lack the "skills" to play a cleric? Hell, clerics just have to be able to count to 5 and push a button. You want to pretend this is Vault and play with the big boys and flame? Well better be prepared when we attack back.
[/quote]

Read the post Tilien, I was talking to Eelyen. I later retracted that statement. I never said Dol/EIE was a zerg guild (EDIT: rearranged sentances).

I apped to Ascent on the request of my friend Fenani. She said a casual player could get into an uber guild. I was humoring her before I quit the game, and she was wrong. I could only long on twice that week, and every other day someone else was playing my character to get flags. Ask Delheru, he barely saw me on =p

EDIT: I also wanted to add that I would never have done this if my guild, Legacy of Storms, was still together. At the time I apped, me, my husband (who has not played since November) and another person I think quit are the only members. PoP tore our guild apart, and they all left to join bigger guilds to get flags.

Pretty much every "flag" giving mob before PoP had a number limit. Flags being essentially the same thing as keys. Some examples:

Kunark: Trakanon - drops 3-5 key pieces for VP, requiring your guild to kill him a good 10-20 times to flag your whole guild/alliance.

Velious: ST key droppers - drops *one* key piece per kill and with more people needed to kill the mobs, these mobs had to be killed at least 50 times to outfit many guilds.

Luclin: Emperor Ssra - drops 40 rifts for VT key, requiring 2-3 kills to outfit your guild.

PoP: CoD Chapel sequence - gives 36 flags before npc depops, requiring 2-3 completions to key guild for lower CoD.

Honestly I have no problems with them capping the number of flags at 72 if they decide to do so. It's certainly nothing different from what they've done with every key dropping mob in past expansions.

All these mobs are killable with 72 people... heh I come from a not so uber server, where we put up with several server crashes a day, character rollbacks, and every wierd bug you could imagine cropping up after daily patches (yay Test Server!).. yet even we managed to take out Rallos Zek last week and get flagged for the elemental planes with our 60ish person raid force. You don't have to be uber by any means to reach the elementals, you just have to put in the time learning all the flag mobs like everyone else has. Don't be afraid to try them just because they aren't spoiled on a message board somewhere.. most of them really are not that hard (exceptions being Bertoxx and Rallos, these guys are tough:P).

So yes you may have to kill these mobs more then once, but it's no different then if you wanted to get the masses keyed for VP/ST/VT. Kill the mobs 3 times, that's 216 flags right there.

As a side note.. if your goal is the elemental planes, I'm not so sure that many casual players would be happy there. These are raid zones for the most part.. and you won't see any runes/patterns/loot unless you have a solid 30+ person raid to take out the minibosses. Yeah there are a few spots a *good* group can exp at but it's not exactly the kind of place you zone in and flip on your LFG tag at the zonein.. (disclaimer: this applies to air/water/earth, we're doing the 10 hour flagging marathon in solro's tower this weekend so we haven't entered fire yet.. can't comment on there yet:P)

Anyway best of luck on your flag rebellion.. I'm not trying to piss on your parade at all and wish you success if you continue with it.

<strong>The only reason that the hardcore players have more access to these extra zones is because we aren't people who want to sit on our @#%$ content with grinding and are willing to do the work it requires to further ourselves in the game. </strong>

Wrong, @#%$ for brains. Just plain wrong. It doesn't take you any extra work to get where you are, unless, maybe, you've been with a top tier guild since oh, say Kunark.

You joined a guild that is capable of doing things before other guilds, that is fine and good.

Unfortunately, VI has created a situation where, if you do the right thing and level up to 65...you're basically stuck until you can get to Tier 3+ zones in PoP. You can't get past the likes of HoH, without VT gear (To the fool that suggested you can do so with NToV gear...oh lord, you're lost...NToV gear will not permit your tanks nearly enough HPs, let alone the lack of good focus items for your casters).

So..you have to go and deal with all the crap to get to and through VT...fine and good, except while your guild is busy trying to do that...you're stuck sitting around with your thumb up your @#%$ trying to kill in the same couple zones every one else is hunting in...not getting your 63+ spells, getting crap xp, and generally pissed off.

Or you can bail on your guild and try to join an "uber" guild...unless you're on a server where the best guild on the server (that actually speaks a language you understand), is still in HoH, and trying to get VT done.

You haven't worked any harder than most of the people bitching. Did you work harder than I had when I quit? I don't think so. I had the pieces I could get for my VT key. I had my Emp Key. I had my Solstice earrings (most likely before you did). I had my Velious armors and better. I had my 7th shawl (I admit, I slacked on getting the 8th). I spent untold hundreds of thousands of plat on spells and gear and helping my guildmates with miscellenious @#%$. Are you going to suggest you're entrance to Tier 3+ zones was because you worked harder than me?

Bull****. I take offense at the mere idea, because I suspect you haven't.

Oh wait...I just noticed your guildpage. You just killed Emp.

Erm, guy, newsflash...You haven't gotten there either. Get off your damned horse.

<strong>I really don't get this sort of thinking. It seems to be coming from all over the place, and I'm wondering what's causing it...</strong>


You must be blind. The cause is easy to see....SOE's actions in nerfing drops and other things a couple of weeks AFTER the uberguilds have gotten in an reaped the benefits. THAT's what causes this perception. And, for once, the perception is based on reality.

I think we should explore the Pay by Hour that Terimoon brought up. Why should a casual player that spends maybe 10 hours a week pay the same amount as an uber player playing 40 hours a week? The casual player will never see things they helped pay for. I think paying by the hour would be great. The ubers would have a reason for them getting all the special items / special content (and saying that you put more time into it so you deserve it is a croc if someone is paying the same amount for the same content they should be able to obtain that content without hassle).. They would pay more for it. Set the price at like 30 or 35 cents an hour, maybe stop the timer when your in the bazaar or something.

To use some of the poor analogies that some of you are using. If I buy a ticket to that NBA game I'm not going to pay the same amount (and shouldn't) if I'm in the nose bleed section as those sitting on the floor.

Why not leave the limit off of the flags that get you into zones that have a side quset that would get you the same entry.

Atm ANYONE who would have a need for new places to exp can get into CoD, HoH, Tactics, BoT (not sure if I'm missing any offhand) doing the quests which although stupidly designed are fairly easy. By making those quests the only means to get into those zones for the more casual player who is not part of a progression based guild all you're doing is creating a bottleneck on how fast ppl get into them and make them even less used than ever b/c only a handfull of ppl have access to them.

And the argument about bottlenecks to get into VP / ST / VT or whatever a bit a time doesn't really hold as much water here... for those eras those were big raiding areas where once you got in your guild would be able to progress quite a bit b/c of the loot they'd be pulling out of them.

In pop the first few steps of progression only gets you new exp spots where there is like 0 loot and the only real benefit is quicker exp.

Also b/c it seems to be a misconception these raids Pan has been leading are not really "hit the mob as much as you can before you die sorta deals... while they do use large numbers and may not have the same finese given that all these ppl aren't really used to raiding with each other they do use a lot of the same tactics progression based guilds do.

"Pretty much every "flag" giving mob before PoP had a number limit. Flags being essentially the same thing as keys. Some examples:"


I dont understand how you can blindly make this point between past expansions and POP without pointing out that POP requires flags for EVERYTHING. I swear each zone has 2 flags, one to get to it, and one to get to the bosses or something. That is NOTHING like prior expansions. That point also strengthens the argument of how lame 72 person limits are when your flagging for every damn mob.

Someone also mentioned how lame seeing twinks are in the higher tier planes in one of these posts and attributed that to the 'masses'. I meant to address this earlier but forgot all about it. That 'twink' is much more likely to be an Uber players Alt/Bot than it is some Non-Uber player. Many Non-Ubers are struggling to get their mains through, its the Ubers that are just bringing along all their Toons for some flag kill so they can 2-3 box or loot Uber no-drop loot that might rot. Afterall, its not like it harms them when all that alt/bot does is have to hail the projection.

So blame yourselves instead of blaming the 'masses', because you Ubers are more guilty of stacking your alts/bots with access to zone/spoils way over their heads. I swear Uber players are such hypocrites in so many ways. I mean if its not blaming the 'masses' for training(when Ubers tend to be more guilty for trying stupid things and training) its some BS about twinks.

Emperor had crappy drops? VT also? What kind of goofy server do you play on? I don't remember either of those ever having crappy drops. If you think they're crappy why are you even playing this game since that's like the best stuff in the game to date(not counting the elemental PoP planes and beyond). If you're not happy with VT stuff then you're insane...damn.

The whole 'work ethic' argument has gotten as stupid as 'utility' argument against druids. YAWN. I would be willing to bet I've worked a lot harder than a lot of people. I played since the first day the game went live, soloing a lot, grouping a lot, eating deaths, trying new things. Don't tell me what I've done when you don't even know jack about me. I worked as hard as RL would allow in this game so you can take those accusations and shove 'em.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Unfortunately, VI has created a situation where, if you do the right thing and level up to 65...you're basically stuck until you can get to Tier 3+ zones in PoP. You can't get past the likes of HoH, without VT gear (To the fool that suggested you can do so with NToV gear...oh lord, you're lost...NToV gear will not permit your tanks nearly enough HPs, let alone the lack of good focus items for your casters).[/quote]
Errr... Sure you can, my guild has. Well, we killed each dragon in NToV 2-3 times, no more. We killed every mob in Ssra/lucling 1-3 times no more. (Except AL. We must have killed him 7 times.) We killed AoW once. Yet, we are now inside of Sol Ro after less than 3 months of raiding. ANd we will be in Elemental planes inside of two weeks. All of this without ever touching VT. Though we should be in there soon. We got him once and are now getting shards.

And yeah, the above is somewhat of a brag. I am proud of what we have done. We took all of one week to get our people keyed for Emp. And yes, when we did MM many people thought we couldn't do him. Getting quads for 2k along with 3500dd procs really hurt. But the next day we went back and laid waste to him. The next day we did the same to bert who puts out 4 (FOUR!) times the damage of AoW.

You should see the stuff our people replace. Hell when we were farming Basement for ore our monks were taking the thought horror hide BP and upgrading with it. We actually enjoy killing 1-3 tier bosses because of the upgrades we get from them.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Emperor had crappy drops? VT also? What kind of goofy server do you play on? I don't remember either of those ever having crappy drops. If you think they're crappy why are you even playing this game since that's like the best stuff in the game to date(not counting the elemental PoP planes and beyond). If you're not happy with VT stuff then you're insane...damn.[/quote]
Oh.. they are good now. No doubt about that. But they were pretty @#%$ for the first people killing Emp and in VT.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Someone also mentioned how lame seeing twinks are in the higher tier planes in one of these posts and attributed that to the 'masses'. I meant to address this earlier but forgot all about it. That 'twink' is much more likely to be an Uber players Alt/Bot than it is some Non-Uber player. Many Non-Ubers are struggling to get their mains through, its the Ubers that are just bringing along all their Toons for some flag kill so they can 2-3 box or loot Uber no-drop loot that might rot.[/quote]

Not wanting to add to the rants, but.... I am afraid I have to agree with this. This has been endemic since before Kunark. Top tier guilds would sit i nHate and Fear and Farm and farm and farm......I saw level 46 druids in full Verm before I had my first piece, just because they were a twink of a high level player. Should they give the stuff away? Nah. But should they try to keep everyone else out? HECK NO!

No one raids to equip a twink or even an alt. However, if something would otherwise rot, it is better to put it on a twink.

Dalien your examples are rediculous...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Kunark: Trakanon - drops 3-5 key pieces for VP, requiring your guild to kill him a good 10-20 times to flag your whole guild/alliance[/quote]
Well, I suppose this is true if you are a NToV capable guild and nobody would wear the quite nice dragon haste or decent bp's he drops. But for the era he was in we didnt farm him for VP Keys, we farmed him for loot.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Velious: ST key droppers - drops *one* key piece per kill and with more people needed to kill the mobs, these mobs had to be killed at least 50 times to outfit many guilds.[/quote]
Again... for the era and if you arent guild slumming the loot they drop is quite nice. Some of the pieces are still nice loot to round out a VT-equipped person. They eventually turned into an ST-key farm, but not for a good long time, and then SOE added more ways to get an ST key.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Luclin: Emperor Ssra - drops 40 rifts for VT key, requiring 2-3 kills to outfit your guild.[/quote]
Except that this was changed too. Oh, lets not forget that the emp also drops nice loot.

Are you seeing a trend here? Lets finish it off...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>PoP: CoD Chapel sequence - gives 36 flags before npc depops, requiring 2-3 completions to key guild for lower CoD.[/quote]
What a POS event this is... god it's such a PAIN to complete, and you're lucky if the zone doesnt crash before you're done. And there is NO loot that's not a complete joke. Not even spectrals! All this for half your raid to get flagged... FUN! And this is just to get a key to ATTEMPT to get ANOTHER FLAG to maybe, eventually get to a zone/mob that starts dropping some decent loot.

Now tell me which expansion it is that bucked the trend...

Tia

Lord Yelinak still has crappy drops to this day, that I do know :p

Well until ID3 got added to his melee-mask...

And I still want a damned coin purse for my monk!

Tia

to the guy that said ubers reap the phat loots...

cloth caps anyone? = )

<strong>Lord Yelinak still has crappy drops to this day, that I do know </strong>

His head still produces some of the best gaunts in the game...unless they nerfed it when they revamped SS.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
I feel like a broken record. The goal of the flag rebellion is to get people past flags. We don't want to redo the same thing every weekend for the next 6 months. We want to do it 3 times and be done with it!
[/quote]

That in essance is the problem. End game guilds have to and have already done these mobs many many MORE times then 3. Setting a limit of 72 or 36 flags per kill still allows you to take a huge force and just forces you to do the flag mobs more than once, just like everybody else has done.

I (as you know) fully support and applaud your efforts Panamah and hope you continue. However I also agree that flagging 100+ people at once is not at all a good thing. Limiting the number to 36 is a good thing. This forces that even end game guilds kill each flag mob at least twice. You can still bring 200 people if you want, that remains unchanged. If you want to flag 200 people just plan on killing it multiple times, just like everybody else has.

Peoples shoes are way too tight these days. Need to loosen up. yikes.

I personally think it's a rediculous idea to add flag limitations and applaud Panamah's attempts to bypass this extremely unpopular idea. However, this is exactly why Sony will limit the amount of flags you get. They put these limitations in the game to ensure we'll continue playing and paying. Honestly, I'd love some dynamic limitations put into the game instead of "kill this mob over and over and over so you can get to the next area!"

Most people hate the flagging system, why make it more painful than it already is? On Karana we have at least 8 guilds all fighting over the same targets (3 European, only 1 guild in the elemental planes). It's extremely hard to find a flag target up and mobs like Behemoth and Agnarr only give you one shot anyhow.

The only way I think people would see this as a good thing is if at the same time they upped the spawn rate on mobs, but I don't think that will happen. The flags were not put into place as dynamic content, but to make sure we keep playing and don't get bored with PoP.

The ironic thing to me is that all these years Verant/Sony have been trying to promote cooperation, grouping, etc. and then when we do it, they try to change the system. Several guilds on Karana are willing to allow members of other guilds to get flagged with them if their guild will do the same for them. What are the chances that I'll be able to get a flag with another guild (so I don't have to beg mine to kill Terris for the 5th time), if they have a limited amount of flags to hand out?

I don't see this being a popular thing for them to do. Long live the flag rebellion!