raiding seems heavily over-camped, was live like that? [Archive]

Lagaidh

03-16-2011, 04:07 PM

Actually... it was on the Rathe. I started a mere 3 months after launch and already there were three planes-raiding guilds.

Folks that don't remember this... did you just not raid then or concern yourself with knowing about it? I didn't raid, but it was hard to ignore the drama a few guilds caused.

It eased with expansions. However, there will always be X% at the bleeding edge of endgame content. The players in that X% will bump into each other a lot.

It seemed quite okay by the time Velious rolled around. Of course... I'll admit I didn't really pay attention to the raiding situation of that end game content. I started getting to the planes and some of the Kunark raids.

But back when there was only one expansion's worth of end game... yeah... it was crowded. You knew this even if you didn't raid.

Sorrow*qc

03-16-2011, 04:26 PM

yep i was on the rathe also and ppl were racing for end boss

Phallax

03-16-2011, 04:40 PM

nilbog

03-16-2011, 04:56 PM

guilds didnt really part off and kill stuff by themselves until Velious.

People actually came together and killed stuff instead of trying to be "THE" top guild.

Wow. This would be a different experience than I had on Erollisi Marr.

Cool to see what per-server differences there really were.

Harrison

03-16-2011, 04:57 PM

Why am I not surprised that Tunare was the hippy feel-good server? lol

Nameless was downright cutthroat.

leezard

03-16-2011, 05:04 PM

Bristlebane might have even been worse. Dunno, long time ago. But Fu, RoV, CoL, and every couple months a new guild of defects from those, constantly fighting over every spawn.

hateshadow

03-16-2011, 05:14 PM

Can't wait to participate in some horribly long pick-up raids like there used to be!

stonebeard22

03-16-2011, 05:15 PM

On ECI we had the Public system as well, lead by Ashorty a gnome enchanter. Everyone joined the channel /ashorty and when raids were called hundreds of people mobilized together and quick.

Several of the top guilds ended up forming the Alliance. Which tried to fight ashorty and didn't work out the best as the Alliance wouldn't let you raid with ashorty. But other guilds would let you raid with him when they weren't raiding so you could get double the loots or gear up alts quickly having twice as many raids to go to.

Come PoP there was what was known as "The Core" which was the main raid for flags, and that group would kill the targets and be stacked with DPS. Which allowed ashorty to drop people in and out of the raid to hand out or deny flags for the later planes. You got gear based off of attendance % and dkp. The system worked VERY well.

XDrake

03-16-2011, 06:31 PM

Wow. This would be a different experience than I had on Erollisi Marr.

Cool to see what per-server differences there really were.

Damn right. I remember seeing Da'Kor, Midnight Sojorn, Magister, Afflication, Midnight Fury, and Divinity going at it for multiple expansions. I still remember nights of LGUK being unplayable due to train wars between guilds.

Aah... E Marr.

philbertpk

03-16-2011, 07:55 PM

I remember the races on Fennin Ro even to get to bosses after server reset. Huge amount of competition even before Kunark.

philbertpk

03-16-2011, 07:59 PM

I also remember train wars in SolA and Guk all night. Wasn't ever as bad as I heard on other servers, but for a "family server" it was pretty brutal at times.

Alderac

03-17-2011, 12:44 AM

Wow. This would be a different experience than I had on Erollisi Marr.

Cool to see what per-server differences there really were.

Emarr wasnt that bad, Magister and DG were usually pretty cool about letting smaller guilds have a shot at content once they had done it a few times, hell we even had magister monks come to help us pull our first shot at NToV =D They did fight with MF alot, but that was mostly to keep MF from cockblocking everyone below them, imho. =)

Hobby

03-17-2011, 01:22 AM

Mith marr had both...wasnt highly cutthroat but guilds held grudges lol

h0tr0d (shaere)

03-17-2011, 01:32 AM

Guess we were lucky on Tunare. We had a friendly community and guilds didnt really part off and kill stuff by themselves until Velious.

People actually came together and killed stuff instead of trying to be "THE" top guild.

This. I have loads of screenshots of raids. Every raid for a period was completely open. You would have 10, 20 guilds , represented, more sometimes. Non guilded. When we needed something killed, calls went out and we gathered people. But when the server split came, things started to change. I went to drinal, and guilds from mith marr came, to escape from MM and afterlife, and well.. I was glad to have at least experienced the early days on Tunare.

Here are some pics from out first Dojorn kill raid.. you can make out a number of guilds and unguilded even from the small photos.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/4179/firstdojorn.png

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/9221/sky6.png

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5074/sky7.png

Muergan

03-17-2011, 02:02 AM

Who was you character on Mith Marr Hobby?

Bubbles

03-17-2011, 02:50 AM

Veeshan didnt really have any competition till umm.. Veilous maybe?

Sparkin

03-17-2011, 03:19 AM

But when the server split came, things started to change. I went to drinal, and guilds from mith marr came, to escape from MM and afterlife, and well.. I was glad to have at least experienced the early days on Tunare.

Funny, I was just reading an old thread on the Tunare board a few weeks back that somebody had bumped (gotta make my checks back there once or twice a year) on all the drama that came with the split. I wasn't too into the raid scene back then, and I'm sure you already know this, but was interesting reading how a lot of people left because they felt Talisman / Krieger were trying to change Tunare from a server that used the old open raid system to one ruled by a couple elite guilds.

And... they were right. Open raids continued for a while in the planes and for old dragons and whatnot, but for the most part in raid content Velious+ it was Talisman and Krieger (though not together but competing) and then everybody else. People tried to form other big guilds to compete, and open raiding was pretty dead.

Interestingly, when Tunare and E`Ci merged the public raiding system from E`Ci that was already mentioned above came to Tunare heh.

ukaking

03-17-2011, 03:21 AM

I cant give as fair assessment. Coming from Rallos Zek, we didnt have the insane amount of poopsockers that are here on P99. If people tried to poopsock something like they do here, they got smacked up and shipped out. Only the strong survived and typically the poopsockers werent rollin with killer instinct.

mitic

03-17-2011, 04:24 AM

I wasn't a big raider way back when (played before Kunark and through velious) but I am curious to know, were raid zones/bosses like hate and fear so heavily camped?

I don't even raid here yet but it seems like things are killed almost as soon as they pop.

no, cause on live we would have been already in kunark for half a year ;)

Teeny

03-17-2011, 04:50 AM

All I remember on Veeshan, was FoH dominance, no one really competed. There was no rotation, first in force got the kill. I hate to say it but rotations are for sissys, its part of what is missing from MMO's now a days at least in my point of view, a big part of EQ's fun was mobilizing to get a kill and then getting that kill. It seemed alot more epic. Beating someone to the punch.

nickyboy1981

03-17-2011, 05:36 AM

i used to love those open raids on tunare, im sure i remember a booking system later on to, as a euro i remember staying up till like 5am on my 1st naggy raid, scary as hell.

I loved all the fear and hate raids but the euro community got ruined by a few dictators on power trips during kunark trying to keep up with all the big guilds, merged all the guilds to one 'inspiring' you to level over guild chat and crap, ruined the game for me and i quit shortly after luclin.

i still remember all the drama though, basically everyone slagging that warrior thogg off iirc. :)

Ennoia

03-17-2011, 08:13 AM

I wasn't a big raider way back when (played before Kunark and through velious) but I am curious to know, were raid zones/bosses like hate and fear so heavily camped?

I don't even raid here yet but it seems like things are killed almost as soon as they pop.

The raiding guilds on Brell were mature enough to work out a scheduling system.

Anuril

03-17-2011, 09:04 AM

Lanys T'Vyl had a very active forum & the server community was kinda built around that. Soul Assassins/Conquest/Vision??, Tri Airs, and Inner Circle/Fire dominated most raid content till late Kunark/Velious but they weren't locking lower tier guilds out of content just for the hell of it. We used a calendar system that was located on the community forums and it was honored for the most part even by the hardcore Soul Assassins. Open raids were very common, Xkhanx <Bears of Oboo> iirc lead a lot of open raids on Vox/Naggy.

Ele

03-17-2011, 09:44 AM

Prexus had a rotation system through classic and at the beginning of Kunark. KTF, Unity, Nameless Order controlled the rotation; guilds could attempt to join the rotation once per a cycle, if you failed to down the particular mob you had to wait for another cycle to complete. After Kunark had been out for a few months, the reality of a rotation system quickly reached its head. When some people realized that they may see get 1 Trakanon/VS every 3 months (i.e. guilds would stay on the rotation for trivial content to keep others out a.k.a. Trakanon and VP keys). Shortly after the first FCFS Trakanon, the rotation system fell apart and Prexus became a FCFS server (for the better I believe).

casdegere

03-17-2011, 10:15 AM

I was on Prexus. I actually believe it was due to new content like POP and smaller groups able to kill bigger things. Pharming Hate and Fear for gems with a single group etc.

I did experience alot of tense moments with some of the Luclin raid events. A couple of times other guilds sent in a breaker to agro and wipe the raid then another guild moved in and assumed control of the raid. Without proof, little could be done about it. It really sucked. The guild I was in spent so much time getting everyone keyed for the Shissar and we got into the rotation. I.E. No one appeared to be interested in this mob at the time. Or so we thought. Another guild showed up after us and while we were buffing and clearing trash they sent in an untagged breaker and people started getting summoned, deaded, it was nasty. Took several hours to clean up. All our work on keying and have it end like that. Was tough.

I'm not quite understanding keeping a lock on a specific mob rotation though. If there are X number of guilds capable of doing the mob, x number of guilds should get a shot at it. Keeping it locked by fanning out keys to random people or destroying them seems pretty weak.

Rasah

03-17-2011, 10:31 AM

casdegere

03-17-2011, 10:40 AM

It might be a case where I am not remembering it correctly. At this time, many Luclin and Velious named were almost being ignored. (Like dragon ring etc.) in Lieu of the newer content and not enough guilds interested or who could do them. (Though it was older content I had alot of fun over a weekend doign the Dragon Ring. My rogue got Myrlokar's dagger of blood or something like that. Was great fun!)

Molitoth

03-17-2011, 10:42 AM

On The Tribunal there was "The Elitists" and "The Vagrants" that joint raided together and pretty much owned the server.

"Assembly of Knowledge" (Later "Sol Invictus") provided a bit of competition until velious when "Legendary" and "The Companions" emerged.

There was no where near the level of competition as this server, and it was much more fun imo.

Mcbard

03-17-2011, 08:00 PM

I wasn't an officer in my guild, but once Luclin hit, the top guilds had worked out a deal for Vex Thal. There were 3 or 4 in the rotation, and new guilds needed to prove themselves to be able to negotiate into the rotation. I think you needed to clear several things in Ssra Temple to get into the conversation.

On Tarew-Marr there was one of the biggest cock blocks of all time over that zone. The "uber guild" Enlightened Dark locked down Emp and SSRA so that no other guilds could even gain access to the zone, and they farmed it this way for like 6 months. I believe they were in the elemental planes before another guild had even broken into VT.

I foresee a very similar thing happening on this server with Trakanon. :)

Valroth66

03-17-2011, 09:06 PM

On Tarew-Marr there was one of the biggest cock blocks of all time over that zone. The "uber guild" Enlightened Dark locked down Emp and SSRA so that no other guilds could even gain access to the zone, and they farmed it this way for like 6 months. I believe they were in the elemental planes before another guild had even broken into VT.

I foresee a very similar thing happening on this server with Trakanon. :)

My aunt was in ED, I remember her calling me to get on her cleric whenever she was at work and Emp/HP/Creator popped.

That was honestly one of my favorite zones in EQ

Uthgaard

03-17-2011, 09:40 PM

Wow. This would be a different experience than I had on Erollisi Marr.

Cool to see what per-server differences there really were.

Karana had the KCOG (Karana Council of Guilds). Which was a player enforced rotation. By Velious there were over 50 guilds on the planes rotatation. There was one guild that formed to buck the system, but they didnt last long.

Nivar Quartz

03-17-2011, 09:48 PM

The raiding guilds on Brell were mature enough to work out a scheduling system.

Brell had a player run rotation, but the list was hella long, think it got up to 20 plus in the dragon rotation. The raid rotation was inforced all the way threw Velious and it worked much better with more content/gear in the expansions. There is always a guild that formed to buck the system back then, but blacklisted very fast.

mimixownzall

03-17-2011, 09:56 PM

quellren

03-17-2011, 09:57 PM

The raiding guilds on Brell were mature enough to work out a scheduling system.

And it was awesome. :)
At least in the beginning when there weren't 20 guilds clearing Fear trash.

Also they had a public raid slot, some guy would claim a plane, then post up they needed X# tanks, y# healers, and so on, you sign up and be at the place when the time came.

Cyrano

03-17-2011, 10:39 PM

Kunark is wayyyy behind release here so there's been a ton of time for guilds to gear out players.

If Velious isn't close to being on time you'll see the same thing happen in Kunark with epics.

Molitoth

03-18-2011, 10:11 AM

I was in Dragon Army for a bit. When did they start to rise up?

I'd forgotten about them. (They didn't last long)
I remember them trying to compete with EV, but it was never anything serious.

After EV burnt out it's core members in VexThal, (The zone Sol Invictus bypassed)... they had to mass recruit at the beginning of PoP and SI pretty much got most of the server firsts in that expansion.

EV got a few server firsts in GoD, and then fully recovered in OOW.

When Tribunal Merged with AyRo and EV lost it's leader "Puurrdy", Rest in Peace pretty much owned the server after that.

Amuk

03-18-2011, 12:27 PM

I was outside perma when elitists did server first vox haha shit that was so long ago I was only like lvl 30 haha.

Striiker

03-18-2011, 01:37 PM

I remember when nobody had killed a dragon. Rumors were flying that Lord Nagafen would drop the Firey Avenger (which Aradune liked to roam around with). When he finally fell there was some disappointment at the lack of the FA but it was still fun to see these big firsts in EQ. Breaking Fear successfully was another biggie. People were complaining saying it's broken and impossible.. but it was figured out eventually.. :-)

The servers which I was on mainly did a calendar rotation (Prexus and Lanys and I think Fennin Ro although I didn't stay on that server much past Q1 2000). I do recall people banding together to defeat the big content. It was a great community feeling. Kind of the feeling on P99 for the low to mid-level content..

Bubbles

03-18-2011, 01:51 PM

Actually, when we first broke fear mobs weren't even hitting as hard as lower guk mobs and it was a total loot pinata.

But believe what you wanna believe about Live's EQlore. ;)

Just be thankful no one had to experience the unitemized broken mess that was Plane of Sky when it first opened back then.

Rukku

03-22-2011, 06:48 PM

Just about everyone knew how to clear the planes once they started on this server. On live you had to probably have someone tell you everything and then see it first hand multiple times. Plus everyone knows where to go to level up the fastest here too to get to raid level.

This server may be about half the population that most servers were on live just before Kunark, but the lvl 50 population (that is normally on at any given time) is certainly greater.

I played on Tunare and quit just before Velious and we were a bit lucky with the crowd we had. Tunare had issues but I think it was more due to overcrowding just before the Drinal split. We never had 70+ people in a plane while I was there... at least not unless it was one full force and to kill something that people had trouble with prior. But there was definitely never 2 separate forces at the same time...

I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that if you weren't apart of that first force, you knew you could just send a tell to the raid leader and show up a little earlier next time and probably get in as they would likely tell you when they plan on raiding next and would put you on the list. Most raid leaders on Tunare were unguilded or apart of very small guilds.

Tunare was with out a doubt by far the best live server at least up until Velious... I'll put it this way... of the 14 epics plus the Fiery Avenger... it was the first server to get four of them. Fiery Avenger went to Musk (sorry Drool), Ragebringer to Kaylum (in full Lustrous in Shaere's first pic here), Water Sprinkler to Kerania, and Fiery Defender to Loevon.

It was also the first server to kill the beefed up Venril Sathir as well as spawn and kill the Sister of the Spires. All of this was thanks to player co-op from all guilds. I don't believe any of these feats were accomplished without members from 10+ guilds or guildless.

Frieza_Prexus

03-22-2011, 07:00 PM

Shortly after the first FCFS Trakanon, the rotation system fell apart and Prexus became a FCFS server

It was Venril Sathir on a Wednesday (I think) afternoon. It was Trinity Alliance's turn when they were jumped. At that point, I believe at least 14 guilds were on the VS rotation.

Rotations worked best as agreements between guilds on the bleeding edge of new content. Even then, it only worked well for 3-4 guilds at a time. 5 is pushing it. In my opinion.

-Xasten

Cars

03-22-2011, 07:17 PM

I think Rodcet was pretty good until Velious, not a lot of high end raid guilds until late. However I didn't read forums for video games when I was 14 so I could be completely in the dark.

Lasher

03-22-2011, 09:29 PM

If only there was a way to fight for raids mobs and raid loot

Messianic

03-22-2011, 09:52 PM

I think Rodcet was pretty good until Velious, not a lot of high end raid guilds until late. However I didn't read forums for video games when I was 14 so I could be completely in the dark.

There were two or three - but competition wasn't that fierce @ about the time of kunark release. One of those was a Korean/Asian guild, too... Arirang I believe.

Twelve Prophets (IIRC) was one of the big ones. I think they bailed us out of a fear wipe once or twice.

Ronas

03-22-2011, 10:12 PM

On live i recall a few guilds locking down the planes so no other guild were able to go up. Got to the point where the GM got annoyed and disbanded one of them. Fennin Ro server. I think the guild was called Seekers of Norrath, T'Kagi, Mythical Synergy?

As time went on would downsize to 2 guild competing for everything on separate time zones during the kunark/velious era.

The Mystical Order vs Order of Redemption (Defenders of Akanan) and Zenith Sage vs Sacred Fyre. Heaps of other sub guilds competing as well, at least 10+

Overall, Fennin Ro Live work exactly like how things work on P99, cutthroat and ruthless. Everything heavily camped so there isn't much difference if you compare. Probably twice as much population as p99 so was worse

guineapig

03-23-2011, 01:11 PM

It was Venril Sathir on a Wednesday (I think) afternoon. It was Trinity Alliance's turn when they were jumped. At that point, I believe at least 14 guilds were on the VS rotation.

Rotations worked best as agreements between guilds on the bleeding edge of new content. Even then, it only worked well for 3-4 guilds at a time. 5 is pushing it. In my opinion.

-Xasten

Well with all the guild mergers, there don't seem to be too many guilds left on the server currently that would qualify for a rotation.

azeth

03-23-2011, 01:17 PM

tbh rotations defeat most of the reason i play mmos in general: competition in an rpg setting. even when you lose the race, it's still a good time.

guineapig

03-23-2011, 01:22 PM

I guess it remains to be seen if Kunark mobs will be a race or if people are just going to set-up shop waiting hours/days for the bosses to respawn (ie: not a race).

Polixenes

03-23-2011, 01:51 PM

Jigga

03-23-2011, 01:52 PM

Considering you can get faction for all but trakanon im sure the guild the last killed said mob will just keep a character with faction set up sitting there for 7 days

qwrtish

03-23-2011, 02:32 PM

On Innoruuk once there were several guilds capable of breaking into Hate and Fear there was a 'Guild Summit' meeting and an orderly rotation was agreed and more or less adhered to.

I always thought it was great to have agreements in place. It was bad enough to spend five or six hours or whatever it was we used to take to get ready for a boss, let alone if you had to keep recovering from wipes from other guilds operating in the same zone.

My interest is competing against the game, not other players, otherwise I would have joined a PvP server

It wasn't just a rotation, there was an actual calendar that people would sign up for to reserve the plane for a day. Was pretty nice once, as you said, more guilds beyond LoD and Mystical Legends were able to take the planes (maybe Mystical Legends had disbanded by then though, can't remember).

Everything else was a complete clusterfuck; purely might makes right. There was so much drama over dragons and guild trains in the beginning, and that set the tone for Kunark. I remember it dying down around Velious, especially for zones like ToV since progression there was linear and people didn't want to leapfrog or be leapfrogged.

Juugox2

03-23-2011, 04:45 PM

on eci lots of public raids were held so alot of guilds just banded together i remember pulling alot of fear on my sk . Lenur if your remember me from eci :P

Vonkaar

03-23-2011, 05:33 PM

Nameless was basically Legacy of Steel and then 4 or 5 guilds fighting for 2nd through 6th place. That was truth through most of the first few expansions, though the melting pot of cultures and time-zone differences made things difficult for them for a few encounters. LoS kept a pretty strong lead over the rest of the guilds for years... often many months over the next closest guild.

We had a planar calendar for a little while on our server forum when it was roughly 4 guilds that were capable of clearing the planes. Decent guild leadership from most of the top guilds kept this running for a couple of months but it died a messy death in typical Nameless fashion. Cooperative ubers & dragon schedules were also followed for about 10 days as lesser guilds wiped out 10 times on Gorenaire or Venril Sathir... and then the stronger guilds got bored and just steamrolled anything they wanted. That was basically how it went through Kunark and LoS enjoyed VP pretty much by themselves for months until Remedy showed up shortly before SoV.

SoV introduced more high-end content and several new guilds showed up to try and challenge LoS but nobody really came close. It just stayed a battle for #2-5 and, "keep your best members from leaving for LoS." Which, wasn't *that* hard because LoS wasn't really that bad at poaching. The guilds were very cut-throat on the forums (nasty nasty rants) and especially in game (pretty sure our GM thought griefing was hilarious), but at the same time - there wasn't as much guild-hopping as I've read about on other forums. We didn't have that kind of drama on Nameless. Mangina drama, definitely. Fijian-roomate drama, for sure. Crazy-fucking-wife drama - absolutely.

Too many tangents here... back on point - yes, before each expansion there was a huge glut of max-levels permanently camping all of the best XP spots. It got better with each expansion, though my experience stops with SoL.

Massive Marc

03-23-2011, 05:45 PM

tbh rotations defeat most of the reason i play mmos in general: competition in an rpg setting. even when you lose the race, it's still a good time.

I'm curious, what other MMO gives you a sense of competition in a RPG setting ?

azeth

03-23-2011, 05:47 PM

I'm curious, what other MMO gives you a sense of competition in a RPG setting ?

vanguard, daoc, ultima online, eq2, planetside

Massive Marc

03-23-2011, 05:49 PM

vanguard, daoc, ultima online, eq2, planetside

lawlz. kthx

azeth

03-23-2011, 05:52 PM

lawlz. kthx

you're welcome Mark.

Hoggen

03-23-2011, 06:00 PM

Guess we were lucky on Tunare. We had a friendly community and guilds didnt really part off and kill stuff by themselves until Velious.

People actually came together and killed stuff instead of trying to be "THE" top guild.

There were "open" raids for stuff like VS and a few other mobs, but Talisman and Krieger were very competitive for VP towards the end of Kunark. The guildwars started at least a few months before Velious. For Planes and dragons, there were already guild clashes due to the Asian guilds ganking everything in the middle of the night, so poopsocking commenced to get a share for US time guilds. Also, the "open" raids were often fraught with controversy over loot awards. All was not sweetness and light on Tunare.