Eabon
03-20-2013, 02:13 AM
Hey there,
First of all, before I start, this is going to a VERY long post, as there's a lot of stuff I want to cover and I would like for this post to explain everything that somebody wanting to come to an open Sky needs to know. And so I strongly recommend that if you aren't considering whether you yourself want to come to open Sky raids that you don't try to read the entire thing. It's pretty fucking stupidly long.
I've been putting together open Sky raids for the past five weeks and, all things considered, they've been very successful in a lot of different ways. When I first envisioned it, I had two general aims in mind. Firstly, to provide a place and an opportunity for people from all different guilds to come together and cooperate and actually get something productive done. And secondly, simply to pull off a well-executed open Sky raid for the first time on the server, and to clear the entire zone. I know that we've accomplished #2 (Bixie Queen downed thrice; entirety of zone cleared twice; quests finished from every isle), and am fairly confident that many will agree we've accomplished #1 also.
For the past two weeks though I haven't been advertising the raid via a thread in these forums like I did for the first three weeks. This is because by the end of the third raid we had gathered together a nice little group of people who liked to come regularly, and we were attracting a little more interest than we had space for at any given raid. And so I'm making this thread to serve as a general advertisement for all future Sunday open Sky raids.
THE GIST OF THE RAIDS WE HOLD:
The open Sky raids are every Sunday, and ports generally begin from 630 PM EST. Typically isle 2 will start respawning ~8PM EST, and that's usually when we start the actual raid. For the most part, the aim is to clear the entire zone while isle-to-isle crawling. This means starting on Isle 1, and ending with an Eye of Veeshan corpse on Isle 7, having traversed and cleared every isle in between. Typically we've been ending between Midnight and 1AM EST - so it's certainly a fairly long raid - although we're working on streamlining certain things (i.e., KoS usually holds us up for 30-60 minutes and we're working on triggering it considerably before we start the raid, instead of just at the very beginning of the raid). Copious instructions are given/spammed in /shout.
As already mentioned, we have a sizeable group of regulars who form the core of our raids - I keep a list of these people, and I currently keep in contact with everybody through PMs on this forum, although I might be moving to regular email shortly.
WE HAVE ONLY LIMITED SPACE:
Although these raids are open in the sense that all individuals, regardless of their guild tag, are welcome to express their interest in attending, they are not open in the sense that people are not just able to show up on Sunday without having previously contacted me and expect to come along for the raid. This is because it's difficult enough to keep 30-35 people from disparate guilds organised and coordinated (to a very high standard) on a whole zone isle-to-isle crawl, using /shout, and the more people we add the potentially more difficult to manage everybody it becomes. And given that I'm wanting to keep numbers reasonable, it means that I only have so many spaces with which to make sure that key classes/roles are filled.
Long story short, I can't take everybody.
Having said all that, for the time-being at least, attendance will be restricted to those who are at least Level 55, with preference given to those who are higher .
I'm really sorry that I can't take everybody, I really do regret it, and I wish that I could. The simple reality however is that if I allowed unrestricted attendance we would end up with at least 60-70 people every single raid, at least 10 of whom would be low 50's/sub 50's rangers looking primarily for cloaks, at least 15 would be low 50's/sub 50's warriors/shadowknights/paladins, and it would be an absolute nightmare to keep everybody in line. And as anybody who's a competent raid leader knows, the more people you add to a raid, the greater your number of liabilities. So yeah, I'm very sorry that we can't take everybody, but that's the way it's going to be for the time being.
If you're a lower level, and you'd really like to come on these raids, you're going to need to wait until you're a little bit higher.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE AT LEAST LEVEL 55 AND INTERESTED IN ATTENDING:
If you aren't already certain that you're on my list, and that I consider you a regular, here's what I'd like you do.
Please send me a PM entitled with your character's name, level and class (Eabon - 60 Warrior). In this PM briefly state (i) what level of experience you have in Sky, and (ii) what the likelihood that you'll be able to attend the next Sunday's raid is (time's are under the "gist" section above). And that's all I'd like you to do. I'll respond to your PM as quickly as I can, and I'll let you know whether or whether not I feel that we have space for your character. As I've already mentioned, I have a strong interest in keeping numbers reasonable, and there has been a lot of interest in these raids, so let me just reiterate: we can't take everybody and I'm very sorry !
If we have space for you on the next Sunday's raid, I'll contact you some time after the end of that raid and ask you whether you'd either like to come again on next week's, or whether you'd like to be added to my list and come regularly.
NOTE - If you've already sent me a PM in the past regarding a past raid, but have been unable to attend, please send me another PM re-expressing your interest, according to what I've written above.
LOOT RULES:
(i) NO DROP quest items
No Drop items contested for by more than a single person are determined by rolling - /ran 100. There is no bias on the basis of how long a person has been attending these raids. On any given raid, after having won a NO DROP quest item that was (i) contended for and rolled on by at least one other person and/or (ii) is going to be used in earnest as opposed to as a novelty item taken just for the sake of preventing rots, that person will not be permitted to compete for any further items against a person who has not yet won a NO DROP item, and will only be allowed to loot another item if that item was otherwise going to rot.
NO DROP ready-to-go items that drop from multiple bosses and trash mobs (such as class haste belts, INT caster bracelets, the Treant Tear, the Weight of Gods, and the Stein of Flowing Ichor) will not be counted in the same category as NO DROP quest items. For instance, somebody who loots a Treant Tear will not be barred from competing for a No Drop druid quest piece from Lord.
(ii) Droppables
Trash drops are master-looted, and will not be looted by anybody who I haven't already cleared. These are collected and banked afterwards, and this bank is available to those who regularly attend these open raids.
SOME NOTES IN CLOSING:
# It takes considerable time and effort to put these things together, but given that it's practically all I do on p99 and given also that I really enjoy Sky, leading raids in a general sense, and the fact that a lot of people enjoy and benefit from these raids, I'm willing to go to the trouble of running these. However, the one thing I cannot stand, the one thing that gets me really irritated, is when I receive PMs/tells from people who are under the impression that because the word "open" is associated with these raids, that they are ENTITLED or PRIVILEGED to come, regardless of what I say. This is simply not the case! Although I try as hard as I can to be fair to everybody who expresses interest, these are my raids and (as I've thoroughly explained above) I'm going to do whatever I feel necessary to keep them at my personal standard of coordination and organisation.
# These raids have absolutely nothing to do with TMO besides the fact that the person leading it, and a few of those attending, happen to be members. I am not organising these raids as part of, or on behalf of, the TMO leadership; I have absolutely nothing to do with the current TMO leadership, and these open raids will be entirely independent from the TMO leadership. They should not be interpreted as some sort of positive representation or reflection upon TMO. They take place simply because one guy and a few of his friends think that open Sky raids are a pretty good thing for the server as a whole.
# Zero attention is paid by me to peoples' guildtags, absolutely zero discrimination on the basis of guildtags will occur, and everybody (space pending, as explained above) will be welcome. Your tags mean NOTHING to me; rather, it is your willingness and ability to cooperate and get along with everybody else at the raid, while fulfilling your individual jobs, that I care about.
First of all, before I start, this is going to a VERY long post, as there's a lot of stuff I want to cover and I would like for this post to explain everything that somebody wanting to come to an open Sky needs to know. And so I strongly recommend that if you aren't considering whether you yourself want to come to open Sky raids that you don't try to read the entire thing. It's pretty fucking stupidly long.
I've been putting together open Sky raids for the past five weeks and, all things considered, they've been very successful in a lot of different ways. When I first envisioned it, I had two general aims in mind. Firstly, to provide a place and an opportunity for people from all different guilds to come together and cooperate and actually get something productive done. And secondly, simply to pull off a well-executed open Sky raid for the first time on the server, and to clear the entire zone. I know that we've accomplished #2 (Bixie Queen downed thrice; entirety of zone cleared twice; quests finished from every isle), and am fairly confident that many will agree we've accomplished #1 also.
For the past two weeks though I haven't been advertising the raid via a thread in these forums like I did for the first three weeks. This is because by the end of the third raid we had gathered together a nice little group of people who liked to come regularly, and we were attracting a little more interest than we had space for at any given raid. And so I'm making this thread to serve as a general advertisement for all future Sunday open Sky raids.
THE GIST OF THE RAIDS WE HOLD:
The open Sky raids are every Sunday, and ports generally begin from 630 PM EST. Typically isle 2 will start respawning ~8PM EST, and that's usually when we start the actual raid. For the most part, the aim is to clear the entire zone while isle-to-isle crawling. This means starting on Isle 1, and ending with an Eye of Veeshan corpse on Isle 7, having traversed and cleared every isle in between. Typically we've been ending between Midnight and 1AM EST - so it's certainly a fairly long raid - although we're working on streamlining certain things (i.e., KoS usually holds us up for 30-60 minutes and we're working on triggering it considerably before we start the raid, instead of just at the very beginning of the raid). Copious instructions are given/spammed in /shout.
As already mentioned, we have a sizeable group of regulars who form the core of our raids - I keep a list of these people, and I currently keep in contact with everybody through PMs on this forum, although I might be moving to regular email shortly.
WE HAVE ONLY LIMITED SPACE:
Although these raids are open in the sense that all individuals, regardless of their guild tag, are welcome to express their interest in attending, they are not open in the sense that people are not just able to show up on Sunday without having previously contacted me and expect to come along for the raid. This is because it's difficult enough to keep 30-35 people from disparate guilds organised and coordinated (to a very high standard) on a whole zone isle-to-isle crawl, using /shout, and the more people we add the potentially more difficult to manage everybody it becomes. And given that I'm wanting to keep numbers reasonable, it means that I only have so many spaces with which to make sure that key classes/roles are filled.
Long story short, I can't take everybody.
Having said all that, for the time-being at least, attendance will be restricted to those who are at least Level 55, with preference given to those who are higher .
I'm really sorry that I can't take everybody, I really do regret it, and I wish that I could. The simple reality however is that if I allowed unrestricted attendance we would end up with at least 60-70 people every single raid, at least 10 of whom would be low 50's/sub 50's rangers looking primarily for cloaks, at least 15 would be low 50's/sub 50's warriors/shadowknights/paladins, and it would be an absolute nightmare to keep everybody in line. And as anybody who's a competent raid leader knows, the more people you add to a raid, the greater your number of liabilities. So yeah, I'm very sorry that we can't take everybody, but that's the way it's going to be for the time being.
If you're a lower level, and you'd really like to come on these raids, you're going to need to wait until you're a little bit higher.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE AT LEAST LEVEL 55 AND INTERESTED IN ATTENDING:
If you aren't already certain that you're on my list, and that I consider you a regular, here's what I'd like you do.
Please send me a PM entitled with your character's name, level and class (Eabon - 60 Warrior). In this PM briefly state (i) what level of experience you have in Sky, and (ii) what the likelihood that you'll be able to attend the next Sunday's raid is (time's are under the "gist" section above). And that's all I'd like you to do. I'll respond to your PM as quickly as I can, and I'll let you know whether or whether not I feel that we have space for your character. As I've already mentioned, I have a strong interest in keeping numbers reasonable, and there has been a lot of interest in these raids, so let me just reiterate: we can't take everybody and I'm very sorry !
If we have space for you on the next Sunday's raid, I'll contact you some time after the end of that raid and ask you whether you'd either like to come again on next week's, or whether you'd like to be added to my list and come regularly.
NOTE - If you've already sent me a PM in the past regarding a past raid, but have been unable to attend, please send me another PM re-expressing your interest, according to what I've written above.
LOOT RULES:
(i) NO DROP quest items
No Drop items contested for by more than a single person are determined by rolling - /ran 100. There is no bias on the basis of how long a person has been attending these raids. On any given raid, after having won a NO DROP quest item that was (i) contended for and rolled on by at least one other person and/or (ii) is going to be used in earnest as opposed to as a novelty item taken just for the sake of preventing rots, that person will not be permitted to compete for any further items against a person who has not yet won a NO DROP item, and will only be allowed to loot another item if that item was otherwise going to rot.
NO DROP ready-to-go items that drop from multiple bosses and trash mobs (such as class haste belts, INT caster bracelets, the Treant Tear, the Weight of Gods, and the Stein of Flowing Ichor) will not be counted in the same category as NO DROP quest items. For instance, somebody who loots a Treant Tear will not be barred from competing for a No Drop druid quest piece from Lord.
(ii) Droppables
Trash drops are master-looted, and will not be looted by anybody who I haven't already cleared. These are collected and banked afterwards, and this bank is available to those who regularly attend these open raids.
SOME NOTES IN CLOSING:
# It takes considerable time and effort to put these things together, but given that it's practically all I do on p99 and given also that I really enjoy Sky, leading raids in a general sense, and the fact that a lot of people enjoy and benefit from these raids, I'm willing to go to the trouble of running these. However, the one thing I cannot stand, the one thing that gets me really irritated, is when I receive PMs/tells from people who are under the impression that because the word "open" is associated with these raids, that they are ENTITLED or PRIVILEGED to come, regardless of what I say. This is simply not the case! Although I try as hard as I can to be fair to everybody who expresses interest, these are my raids and (as I've thoroughly explained above) I'm going to do whatever I feel necessary to keep them at my personal standard of coordination and organisation.
# These raids have absolutely nothing to do with TMO besides the fact that the person leading it, and a few of those attending, happen to be members. I am not organising these raids as part of, or on behalf of, the TMO leadership; I have absolutely nothing to do with the current TMO leadership, and these open raids will be entirely independent from the TMO leadership. They should not be interpreted as some sort of positive representation or reflection upon TMO. They take place simply because one guy and a few of his friends think that open Sky raids are a pretty good thing for the server as a whole.
# Zero attention is paid by me to peoples' guildtags, absolutely zero discrimination on the basis of guildtags will occur, and everybody (space pending, as explained above) will be welcome. Your tags mean NOTHING to me; rather, it is your willingness and ability to cooperate and get along with everybody else at the raid, while fulfilling your individual jobs, that I care about.