I'm New, Raid Questions

[Folly]

I've never played EverQuest. I'm the type of player that likes to be able to do everything. But I can't always have so much time to play. I'm fine doing slow leveling and grinding.

But raids require you to be at the computer for quite a while.
I'd like objective answers, how long does one need to be at the computer for a raid in an average guild.

And from reading some of the raiding post, there is all sorts of rules and rotations between guilds. Is that correct, do guilds have an agreed schedule for each other so they don't conflict? Or is there a lot of raiding conflict?

If I played 3 hours a day in the evenings, would I be suitable for a raiding guild?

Raiding is just something that scares me, I want to participate in it. I've never raided in any game.

[fiveeauxfour]

turn back while you still can

[Sweettouch]

turn back while you still can

[luckynclover]

From what ive gathered you can raid it just wont be the current top end of top end unless you basicly live and breathe your computer. This isnt wow where you can lfr everything. But if you get up there join a good guild meet people make friends youll see some raiding.

[simp403]

Raids are not instanced in Everquest, so raid bosses are on timers that can range from hours to days and there is only one spawn that all guilds must compete for. This means that raids can't necessarily be scheduled and instead must take place when the raid mob is about to spawn. From what I've read, there's also some variance to when a raid mob spawns with regard to the timer, such that it can spawn +/- a few hours from the exact timer. This means that guilds have to sit and wait for the spawn for a few hours in order to secure it before other guilds.

What this all means is that if you are in a guild that is contesting the major raid mobs, you'll likely have to log on at fairly odd hours and wait for a few more hours to be able to engage a raid mob. I'd suggest joining a casual raid guild instead. They are much more flexible on time and you won't have to fuck with your real life schedule as much to raid.

[Mojo24]

No. You'd need more than a 3 hour window.

Raids are just big zergs and whoever can field more players off a bat phone are the winners.

[kined]

if youve never raided in any game before you probly arent ready for eq raids, nor is it likely to seem fun. they are long, slow, and for the higher end guilds its more a matter of being available at any time to pop in and smack a mob down when the batphone rings.

casual guilds do raid the planes though, and that can be a fun experience to do a couple times but after that its pretty mind numbing. i dont recommend this raid scene at all, but thats just my own preference. with your limted availability - getting in the prominent raiding guilds is simply a no-go.

[Ele]

If I played 3 hours a day in the evenings, would I be suitable for a raiding guild?

Raiding is just something that scares me, I want to participate in it. I've never raided in any game.

Depends on what you mean by "raid." Have a good time exploring dungeons and getting armor with friends for a few hours? Or experience end game content and defeat the baddest of the bad bosses and get the best loot?

Can you dedicate more than 3 hours a day to the game?

Do you AFK frequently?

Are you willing to wake up in the middle of the night to a batphone alert or people yelling over your computer speakers when a dragon spawns?

Since you are new to EQ, you will need to spend your early time getting to 60 and getting a baseline of gear to be able to do the top end raiding.

What class do you play or plan to play?

[bktroost]

Raids are broken up into unspoken tiers, but they are ambiguous because different kinds of guilds exist that consider raiding differently.

Definitions of used terms:

Hourly Raids-- Defined by a guild locking down an area and slowing farming or killing that area of mobs uncontested and at their leisure.

Instant Engage Raids-- Defined by a guild having an intricate alert system to the player's real world forms of communication in order to alert them to a monster spawning and having players stare at a spawn location ready to engage the monster the moment it spawns for up to 16 hours. The mob is then instantly engaged, announces the name of the tagger and is pulled to the spot of the guild that must be logged in and ready by the time the mob is brought to the camp. (there must be zero downtime in the pull; directly to the kill spot or it is considered stalling).

Leveling Guilds:
Hourly Raids--Plane of Hate and Fear are top end raids. Mobs that generally are trioed or duoed by top end players like Yael could also be considered raids. Bread and butter are going to be Chardok Royals and Juggs, but usually they lose people around this area to full raiding guilds. (raids generally go a few hours)
Instant Engage Raids--None.

Casual Guilds:
Hourly Raids--Spending an afternoon or day in Temple of Veeshan doing East wing (Halls of Testing), Plane of Growth or Plane of Sky. Occasionally AOE Fear or a hate crawl for epic pieces. (raids generally go between 2-6 hours depending on content)
Instant Engage Raids-- Anything classic and Kunark. Some Velious outside of North Temple of Veeshan.

Less Aggressive Hardcore Guilds:
Hourly Raids-- Hall of Testing or West Wing in Tower of Veeshan. (No idea how long they go).
Instant Engage Raids-- Anything Classic, Kunark and most Velious and Veeshan's Peak. Some North Temple of Veeshan.

Hardcore Guilds:
Hourly Raids-- None that I've ever seen.
Instant Engage Raids-- Everything including Sleeper's Tomb.

Breakdown of Notable Guilds (as I see em):

Leveling: Clue, Kittens who say Meow, Knights Who Say Knee, and others not mentioned.
Casual: Europa, Omni, Azure Guard, Asgard, Haggard Krew, Anonymous
Less Aggressive Hardcore: Taken, BDA, Divinity
Hardcore: Rampage, Forsaken


I'm sure people will disagree here to some degree, but this is not meant to be inflammatory towards anyone who disagrees. Just going off the kill count and how fast people can get a zerg to an area, train their enemies and take their kill.

[Spyder73]

if youve never raided in any game before you probly arent ready for eq raids, nor is it likely to seem fun. they are long, slow, and for the higher end guilds its more a matter of being available at any time to pop in and smack a mob down when the batphone rings.

casual guilds do raid the planes though, and that can be a fun experience to do a couple times but after that its pretty mind numbing. i dont recommend this raid scene at all, but thats just my own preference. with your limted availability - getting in the prominent raiding guilds is simply a no-go.

I don't want to get started b!tching about the time sink that is "raiding" (aka sitting around not actually playing EQ), but needless to say it is time consuming and not fun. If you want dragon loot, expect to immerse yourself deeply into the game. You can get nice stuff from questing, planar runs, epic, ect - But don't get your heart set on killing anything that is on a 5 or 7 day timer.

[simp403]

I don't want to get started b!tching about the time sink that is "raiding" (aka sitting around not actually playing EQ), but needless to say it is time consuming and not fun. If you want dragon loot, expect to immerse yourself deeply into the game. You can get nice stuff from questing, planar runs, epic, ect - But don't get your heart set on killing anything that is on a 5 or 7 day timer.

Real question: what is the appeal of raiding? If the raids themselves are not enjoyable, then is it just about getting better gear? That better gear is only good for raiding harder mobs, though. It seems like a bit of a masochistic pursuit.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Raiding in classic everquest, which this server replicates, requires a high level of organization and readiness.

The closest analogy I can give is, imagine a large prairie, with competing groups of predatory animals waiting for a difficult prey to wander into the prairie. When the prey finally appears (and it can take 12 hours), the fastest and best organized group of animals get the kill, and then divy up the internal organs and the choicest parts.

The competing groups of animals then move on to the next prairie, to wait for the enxt prey to appear.

It's fun.

[Jay F Kay]

Are you willing to wake up in the middle of the night to a batphone alert or people yelling over your computer speakers when a dragon spawns?

The lengths you people will go for pixels..................... Do you guys ever step back and look at what you're doing objectively? It's pretty god damn absurd.

[jcr4990]

The lengths you people will go for pixels..................... Do you guys ever step back and look at what you're doing objectively? It's pretty god damn absurd.
I try not to think about it

[bktroost]

Okay so I answered in great detail and the only interest is in criticizing raiding.

Troll post confirmed.

[teija]

I work a good 50 hours a week, dont wake up for batphones on work nights and I still average a good 55-60% RA in a "hardcore" raid guild, Its not as bad as some people lead it to be. We are able to do alot of things during "prime-time" Like ST since we have the only kill force for it.

[Colgate 2.0]

raiding on red much more reasonable/casual

[Fanguru]

With 3 hours a day in the evening you can join any guild except Rampage and maybe Forsaken (afaik). There is no minimum attendance requirement.
Just be aware that a lot of raid mobs pop during different 16 hours windows. If your 3 hours overlap with one of those windows, you can join for that raid. You just need to get lucky and the mob pops at the right time for you.

As bktroost mentioned, some guilds also schedule fixed hours raids for plane clears, juggs spell farming, Velious faction farming or armor runs in ToV.
Note that the best gear does not drop from any of those scheduled raids.

[Pyrion]

You only need raid gear for more raids. So if you do not want to raid, you do not need to.

I don't like raids, but i do like groups. I am happy that way.

[burkemi5]

I work a good 50 hours a week, dont wake up for batphones on work nights and I still average a good 55-60% RA in a "hardcore" raid guild, Its not as bad as some people lead it to be. We are able to do alot of things during "prime-time" Like ST since we have the only kill force for it.


Very true, and very much agree. Some of the velious bosses require decent numbers, so a lot of the bosses stay up until a guild can yield enough people. This can sometimes be 4-8pm EST, making it far easier to get to. However, there are also some mobs that are still so highly contested that your guild will try to wake you up. It all depends on what kind of guild you want to join. I'd refer to bktroosts post first, then I'd talk to an officer or member of the guild you're thinking about joining. Do they bat phone overnight? Do mainly go after targets during prime time?

If you put in the leg work as far as moving around your mains before time, you can easily log in for 1-2 hours for an attempt and/ or kill and call it a day.

[Expediency]

If you're just starting off, forget camping mobs during your whole window and instead try to find a guild who is doing plane of sky during that time, or who targets fear/hate. Those are classics that anyone can try and are a good introduction to raiding.

[maskedmelon]

I've never played EverQuest. I'm the type of player that likes to be able to do everything.

Consider red! There are no ridiculous sets of player defined rules to learn and a much leaner server pop means you have overwhelmingly better access to targets ^^ Its not filled with griefers and trolls as some would have you believe ^^ Also the experience is much closer to Classic Everquest, but a bit expedited given the xp bonus. Give it a try ^^ and message a member of Thunderdome for a stable supply of leveling pals and valuable insight to getting started on red ^^

[bktroost]

Consider red! There are no ridiculous sets of player defined rules to learn and a much leaner server pop means you have overwhelmingly better access to targets ^^ Its not filled with griefers and trolls as some would have you believe ^^ Also the experience is much closer to Classic Everquest, but a bit expedited given the xp bonus. Give it a try ^^ and message a member of Thunderdome for a stable supply of leveling pals and valuable insight to getting started on red ^^

as long as you don't mind perpetual usage of "pras" and literally endless streams of people smack talking each other in zones you are nowhere near over incidents you have 0 involvement in and likely about people you will never meet.

Global chat isn't bad, the people who fill it with such inane content are. The community on red isn't as "toxic" as people think, it's just incredibly immature.

That said, I have a character there and removed chat windows. It's like having a server with more npcs that are randomly hostile.

[Sancta]

Consider red! There are no ridiculous sets of player defined rules to learn and a much leaner server pop means you have overwhelmingly better access to targets ^^ Its not filled with griefers and trolls as some would have you believe ^^ Also the experience is much closer to Classic Everquest, but a bit expedited given the xp bonus. Give it a try ^^ and message a member of Thunderdome for a stable supply of leveling pals and valuable insight to getting started on red ^^

I understand why you lie, you want more people on red.

People on red instantly backstab you for a yellow text the first chance they get. And force LNS for bragging rights. The whole server promotes griefing and trolls, especially in global.

[Kekephee]

I like raiding. I like raiding on Blue. I like chatting with my guild while we group up and buff up, I like racing other guilds for dragons, and I like killing dragons. Any of those bullet points are things that someone out there disagrees with me on, and that's fine. They can raid differently. If there's no option for what they like in this game, they shouldn't be playing it. Why would you play something that isn't fun for you?

[simp403]

Global chat isn't bad, the people who fill it with such inane content are. The community on red isn't as "toxic" as people think, it's just incredibly immature.

That said, I have a character there and removed chat windows. It's like having a server with more npcs that are randomly hostile.

Global OOC is like reality television. It's entertaining in a "wtf" kind of way. As such, it is best enjoyed in small doses. Create another chat box, filter all OOC to it, then make it as small as possible and store it in some rarely visited corner of the screen.

People on red instantly backstab you for a yellow text the first chance they get. And force LNS for bragging rights. The whole server promotes griefing and trolls, especially in global.

I have not personally run into this with the exception of the more mentally challenged players like Squeek and Libertarian. I did have some dude start attacking me once, but I sent him a tell saying "that is not nice" and he stopped (I don't expect this to work in a majority of cases). I don't doubt that there are some on the server who will backstab you, though, but it's not a frequent occurrence.

Learn to abuse the fuck out of the zone line and talk shit while doing so. It's the absolute best defense against twinks and assholes while you're leveling and if you have an SSD, there is pretty much nothing they can do about it. You do this by zoning out and sitting on the other side waiting for them to zone out with you. When you see their character load in, you just zone back in and repeat the process on the other side of the zone line. Make sure you send them messages like "stop being poor and buy a better computer" or "you suck at zoning". "hahaha you suck" is also appropriate.

[maskedmelon]

I understand why you lie, you want more people on red.

People on red instantly backstab you for a yellow text the first chance they get. And force LNS for bragging rights. The whole server promotes griefing and trolls, especially in global.

No lies here bub. I am just sharing my experiences because I am so happy I found my classic and I would not have tried red if it hadn't been for peeps advertising it like Swish. I know there are plenty others out there who woukd love what red has to offer, but are hesitant because of anti-red propaganda like what you are saying. What you describe is entirely non-representative of the red I know.

I suspect you've not played on red at all, or if you did it was some time ago (before I rolled there). I am sure there are peeps who will do what you say, but there are peeps on blue who would do the same. I've just been fortunate to meet such people on neither server. Whatever your choices are, your attitude is what determines the outcome. If you make a mistake, learn from it ^^ Don't blame society at large for your misfortunes ^^

Cheer up ^^

[jcr4990]

No lies here bub. I am just sharing my experiences because I am so happy I found my classic and I would not have tried red if it hadn't been for peeps advertising it like Swish. I know there are plenty others out there who woukd love what red has to offer, but are hesitant because of anti-red propaganda like what you are saying. What you describe is entirely non-representative of the red I know.

I suspect you've not played on red at all, or if you did it was some time ago (before I rolled there). I am sure there are peeps who will do what you say, but there are peeps on blue who would do the same. I've just been fortunate to meet such people on neither server. Whatever your choices are, your attitude is what determines the outcome. If you make a mistake, learn from it ^^ Don't blame society at large for your misfortunes ^^

Cheer up ^^What about people that tried Red and leveled to 56 and realized it's a 1 guild playground and no real pvp or contesting over raid targets ever happens? Or if it does its an extremely rare event. Server is poop. Wipe it clean and/or bring on Teams99. Red too topheavy and dominated by the same group of neckbeards for years and that's very unlikely to ever change at this rate.

[simp403]

What about people that tried Red and leveled to 56 and realized it's a 1 guild playground and no real pvp or contesting over raid targets ever happens? Or if it does its an extremely rare event. Server is poop. Wipe it clean and/or bring on Teams99. Red too topheavy and dominated by the same group of neckbeards for years and that's very unlikely to ever change at this rate.


This is my major qualm about Red. It would be a lot better if there were more guilds in end content that weren't just one massive zerg. TMO is there, but it still cant field the nearly same numbers as Empire does. All Empire has to do is roll over and let its folds of fat do all the work.

[Nisse]

Troll thread is obvious, and dumb

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

The lengths you people will go for pixels..................... Do you guys ever step back and look at what you're doing objectively? It's pretty god damn absurd.

In real life, I was a neurosurgeon, but am currently running for public office. I find time.

[Folly]

I'm not a troll...assuming thats what some people think. I played vanilla wow maybe a year ago(first time ever playing wow) and I enjoyed it, its just slow peaceful grinding with some social stuff. But the strict raiding attendance was a bit of a tun off when I'm sorta having a torn life where I wanna play games and I wanna have a life and hang with friends at night. anyways then my brother recently found this game server and suggested we look into it.

Alot of the informative posts as well as opinions have been very helpful.

I wanted to know another thing, on the Red server which is open pvp. Are your items that drop when you die lootable by other players?
So if you get killed by a player, they take your stuff. Is that how it goes?

[Ravager]

No matter what people say, raiding here is a real time sink. But then again, this entire game is a time sink. Even if you're playing one of the more desired classes, just finding an exp group somewhere can take all of three hours. But raiding is possible in a short time, with some planning and parking. There's also mobs like Ixiblat that drop decent loot and are spawnable. Just know that if three hours is all you have and you want the best mobs, you'll be spending all of your time buffing, parking and recharging clickies for mobs you won't be on for 1/8 of the time. But when you get to 60, there really isn't much else to do.

[Fanguru]

You can park your raiding toon then go play any other toon.

[LethClaypool]

It's possible to play casually and raid. I've been doing it on and off since I started back in 2011. It's just all about finding the guild that suits your needs. For the most part people have pretty much covered it. You're not going to see some of the high end stuff unless you're around and an upper end guild invites you along (which I've had happen several times).

Planes are fun though and pretty easy to break into with a lax play schedule. I can personal speak highly of Knights Who Say Ni and Anonymous, as I was a member of both at various times, and Sea Bass is another good one.

[maskedmelon]

What about people that tried Red and leveled to 56 and realized it's a 1 guild playground and no real pvp or contesting over raid targets ever happens? Or if it does its an extremely rare event. Server is poop. Wipe it clean and/or bring on Teams99. Red too topheavy and dominated by the same group of neckbeards for years and that's very unlikely to ever change at this rate.

Not really sure quitters ought compete D: ^^My posts addressed OPs question. Red certainly caters to a variety of audiences. There are peeps there for the classic (me!) peeps there for competition, peeps there for loots, peeps there for alts and peeps there to be annoying among other things.

I've only been there 2 months, but fail to understand those who bemoan a lack of competition while refusing to compete themselves. Having a behemoth like Empire as an adversary is a much more challenging and exciting adversary than a bunch of smaller guilds you can steam roll. Those who refuse to take up the fight have already lost it. Empire's dominance is not immutable. It will just require tremendous, sustained and coordinated effort to unseat ^^

[jcr4990]

Not really sure quitters ought compete D: ^^My posts addressed OPs question. Red certainly caters to a variety of audiences. There are peeps there for the classic (me!) peeps there for competition, peeps there for loots, peeps there for alts and peeps there to be annoying among other things.

I've only been there 2 months, but fail to understand those who bemoan a lack of competition while refusing to compete themselves. Having a behemoth like Empire as an adversary is a much more challenging and exciting adversary than a bunch of smaller guilds you can steam roll. Those who refuse to take up the fight have already lost it. Empire's dominance is not immutable. It will just require tremendous, sustained and coordinated effort to unseat ^^I think you drastically underestimate the futility of attempting to compete against a massive zerg that's collecting free Velious raid pixels every day that goes by. Do you really think any other guild with their smattering of Kunark raid gear (at best) is going to compete? Everyone that's geared is already in Empire. Many guilds have tried and history has shown its nearly impossible. Only way Empire loses #1 spot (By a HUGE margin) is if the leadership quits playing and they fall apart from the inside OR get bant for RMT. That's the only reason Nihilum isn't still dominating right now. But in either of those cases a new juggernaut will just emerge in their place. Red99 will always be a 1 guild playground unless theres a wipe or somehow the server pop magically doubles or some other equally unlikely event.