Raid Changes

[Tarathiel]

I also do not like the idea of raid guilds spreading their camped alts around in order to quickly log in and out to maximize raid targets.. but I'm not seeing any good solutions to that problem.


make account sales against the rules. or allow only one account per player.

[Splorf22]

I also do not like the idea of raid guilds spreading their camped alts around in order to quickly log in and out to maximize raid targets.. but I'm not seeing any good solutions to that problem.

And you do have a point in saying that people who quit on live generally wouldn't be seen again, their subscription would run out, nobody is going to bother paying $14/month just to keep them standing by on a raid spawn so they can quickly be logged in to kill something.

I offered my idea of char binding but I admit it has problems. An alternative idea is some sort of anti-camp rule, where if you log into a zone that has a raid mob spawned, you automatically appear at the safe point with no buffs. This has huge problems for zones like fear of course. In general I am a fan of computer code rather than police squads, but maybe the best solution here is just to ask people not to do it during the simultaneous repops.

[Nirgon]

I mentioned it in another thread but if you were even caught playing on someone else's account they'd slam you. I knew I heard of it happening but not to anyone I personally knew.

And yes, the 14$ a month thing is quite valid for people having waves of alts.

Some people have many very geared characters and more are probably on the way.

[Fountree]

Some of these rule propositions seem a little extreme to me. IMO, just let the players play already and stop pretending you're being altruistic when you're just trying to stop people from playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Sorry, in this game there are winners and losers. This is neither a cooperative game nor a competitive game, its what the player makes of it. You can't dictate the terms of how people play this strongly (I'm talking specifically about the end game) without destroying what classic EQ stood for.

[Fountree]

With that said, I'm for some of the non-classic changes that have happened in the past on this server. I support the ban on boxing because of the greatly extended content timeline on this server. I mean, the entire server would be level 60 if boxing was allowed at this point (I think we're coming up on 18 months since Kunark release). Some things need to be done to maintain a balance, and generally I think Nilbog and Rogean have done a great job with that. But the constant whining about the raid scene, I don't see why. I really don't. Make some specific FTE shout changes and more random repops, boom I think it's mostly solved. Any enforced rotations or more rule lawyering burdens on the players or GMs is not in the best interest of the server, imho.

[Rogean]

Some of these rule propositions seem a little extreme to me. IMO, just let the players play already and stop pretending you're being altruistic when you're just trying to stop people from playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Sorry, in this game there are winners and losers. This is neither a cooperative game nor a competitive game, its what the player makes of it. You can't dictate the terms of how people play this strongly (I'm talking specifically about the end game) without destroying what classic EQ stood for.

Read the first two sentences then saw his signature and ignored the rest.

[Dragonzord]

Some of these rule propositions seem a little extreme to me. IMO, just let the players play already and stop pretending you're being altruistic when you're just trying to stop people from playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Sorry, in this game there are winners and losers. This is neither a cooperative game nor a competitive game, its what the player makes of it. You can't dictate the terms of how people play this strongly (I'm talking specifically about the end game) without destroying what classic EQ stood for.

my god dude, god help your soul

[Tecmos Deception]

Do you really think limiting 1 player to 1 account (if this is even enforceable) would accomplish much of anything? I'm guessing that the players who are currently willing and able to buy multiple raid-ready characters also happen to be the players who would be willing and able to PL + gear out multiple raid-ready characters on their 1 account if such a limit was enforced.

[Orruar]

Some of these rule propositions seem a little extreme to me. IMO, just let the players play already and stop pretending you're being altruistic when you're just trying to stop people from playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Sorry, in this game there are winners and losers. This is neither a cooperative game nor a competitive game, its what the player makes of it. You can't dictate the terms of how people play this strongly (I'm talking specifically about the end game) without destroying what classic EQ stood for.

If it's not a cooperative game, why do you require the cooperation of 50 of your guildmates to kill a dragon?

[Fountree]

Ok, so we all know now where Rogean stands on the things I've talked about. Here's to the future of GM-enforced rotations, bans on account sales, more spyware, more rules, more non-classic coding/gameplay changes to appease the poor players who are stomped over by the big bad TMO? Am I right Rog?

Oh, and also, am I not allowed to have a valid opinion because I'm in TMO? No one's completely objective in this world.

[Fountree]

To Orruar: There has always been guild vs. guild competition over spawns, you cooperate within your guild and compete with others. Sorry you've overlooked that glaring fact.

[Autumnbow]

This is one of the top issues for P99's raid scene, but I don't know how to begin to address it. Characters don't DIE on this server, they just get new owners. On Live, when you quit, your character, all the work put in to him or her, was gone. The server needed fresh blood and new items because old characters and old items would be removed from the system when a person stopped paying $10/mo. The game world never benefited from it again. Here, if you quit, someone buys your character and that character can now be used to track, camp out at another raid spawn, etc. Its so damned easy to acquire new characters: Rare Trak loot and epic items go for twice the amount of most L60 stripped characters, PP-wise.

This does seem like a problem, imo. I can sort of understand why it's okay to sell/trade characters for in-game stuff, as it prevents outside sources of profiting from these sales, but it just seems so scummy, wrong, and not classic. Buying and selling accounts was never okay on live, and it hurts the server. To me it's worse than having these characters available on RMT sites, because at least if you buy from a place like that you know you are taking a big risk and your account will hopefully be permabanned for being traded off.

It's really a shame that accounts are actually encouraged to be sold, bought and traded by the staff here, but maybe they had no other choice :(

[Lazortag]

Ok, so we all know now where Rogean stands on the things I've talked about. Here's to the future of GM-enforced rotations, more spyware, more rules, more non-classic coding changes to appease the poor players who are stomped over by the big bad TMO? Am I right Rog?

Oh, and also, am I not allowed to have a valid opinion because I'm in TMO? No one's completely objective in this world.

Your problem is that nothing in your post was relevant to the raid changes. You just went on some hyperbole about how the server is going in the direction of nazi germany because the GM's are going to enforce rotations, when the latter is obviously not going to happen.

Also why do you keep saying the changes are "non-classic" when they are, in fact, much closer to classic than the current system?

[Splorf22]

Fountree, just step away from the computer and relax. Remember, as I posted before when Ambrotos deleted it: the raid changes presented by Nilbog and Rogean are fucking great for TMO. You're going to do more raids and get more pixels.

[Rogean]

Fountree, just step away from the computer and relax. Remember, as I posted before when Ambrotos deleted it: the raid changes presented by Nilbog and Rogean are fucking great for TMO. You're going to do more raids and get more pixels.

It's not sufficient to him if he doesn't get ALL the pixels. God forbid other guilds might get something.

[Fountree]

Giegue,

I was merely expressing my opinion that some of the people posting possible changes on here are completely missing the point and proposing changes that would, I think, seriously harm the server and reduce its population. Rogean has had an open ear to these ideas (the idea of limiting players to one account, Rogean said that he agreed that camping out multiple characters at raid spots was something he disliked).

What you didn't notice was that I supported the FTE shout and repops, the moderate changes that were proposed. My posts were just my opinion on things and a check on a lot of these players who are slowly making this server into a place that I feel is less and less enjoyable to play.

Also, all of the time wasted on this is taking time away from CONTENT RELEASE which should be #1 priority because that will fix 99% of these problems. Not grasping at straws to appease a few extremely butthurt individuals.

[Rogean]

Also, all of the time wasted on this is taking time away from CONTENT RELEASE

How exactly does a programmer's time spent result in a delay in content?

Code != Content.

You should give it up.

[Fountree]

It's not sufficient to him if he doesn't get ALL the pixels. God forbid other guilds might get something.

I've actually been a vocal supporter that TMO abstains from raiding Naggy, Vox and some non-epic related Kunark dragons for months. I've supported the "Endangered species" thing. I just don't want to see competition get trampled on. I'm not here to start shit, just to express and protect my interests as a long time player here. All I see from your post is a general "assumption" that because I'm in TMO I am a whoring lying douche. Fact is, you never met me and you have no idea where my opinion lies, so don't assume. Thanks.

[Rogean]

you never met me and you have no idea where my opinion lies, so don't assume.

because I'm in TMO I am a whoring lying douche.

Hypocritical much? That's the most contradicting paragraph I've seen.

[Fountree]

Don't see it. But good luck with the raid changes, I wasn't looking to start an argument here again, I was just giving my opinion. Thanks for the server.

[Ferok]

I've actually been a vocal supporter that TMO abstains from raiding Naggy, Vox and some non-epic related Kunark dragons for months. I've supported the "Endangered species" thing. I just don't want to see competition get trampled on. I'm not here to start shit, just to express and protect my interests as a long time player here. All I see from your post is a general "assumption" that because I'm in TMO I am a whoring lying douche. Fact is, you never met me and you have no idea where my opinion lies, so don't assume. Thanks.

I give anyone the benefit of the doubt, I don't care what guild you're in. Your perceived attitude towards the rest of the server and inability to "see what the problem is" has destroyed, in my eyes, that benefit.

To the public, someone like me who has no guild affiliation, you have come across as a selfish, loot whoring, elitist in this thread and the last. Maybe you should go back and re-read your own posts before you start talking about how others have 'assumed'.

You talk about how you have the server's best interests at heart, but that talk seems awfully hollow. All I see is your own best interests at heart.

[Fountree]

There's a difference between TMO giving those mobs away or choosing not to compete on them and the GMs enforcing things that give an advantage to one guild or another.

[Fountree]

And, honestly, I don't have many personal in-game interests left. I've been 60 since June '11. I've experienced all the content. What interest I have left is seeing that the rest of my guild doesn't get shit on, and that we preserve the competitive nature of classic EQ for p99.

[Ferok]

There's a difference between TMO giving those mobs away or choosing not to compete on them and the GMs enforcing things that give an advantage to one guild or another.

Yes, to your original point - I think a lot of the stuff being suggested in the late pages of this are well over the top. The original changes, Rogeans post, are solid changes that are not only classic, but will improve raiding throughout the server.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

If you don't want to start arguments then maybe you should think about what you say before you spew out the same old garbage you normally flood into these threads. Raiding with variance is not classic. You and your 50 man "skilled" raid force wouldn't be in such a dominant position if the raiding here was more like classic. Now that Rogean and crew are working on a solution you start complaining saying they are messing things up to make the game easier for unskilled(people that can't track 18 hours a day or log on at 3am for a batphone) players when they are in fact trying to make it as close to classic as they can without cause a big shitstorm.

TL;DR - Fountree, shut up...

[Fountree]

Maybe you're right about that Rusty, but we didn't have any say whether variance was the best option or not (I personally think it is). We worked within the framework that already existed, even though it "sucked", like previous raiding guilds before us. So...I don't see your point.

[Slave]

There's a difference between TMO... and the GMs enforcing things that give an advantage to one guild or another.

(1/2) Massive Variance: Not Classic, still gives the clear advantage to TMO, and will still provide the majority of the items that drop in the game. If you want to start with unfair game mechanics, that is the obvious choice.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

My point is that they are trying to implement a solution to the problem that was formed by putting variance in in the first place. It's broken and needs a fix. Period. You can say thy are babying the rest of the server if you want but you are wrong. The ones being catered to are the ones taking adavtage of variance by being in a zerg guild. When they roll out the new changes and you see taken, divinity, chaos, full circle, flawless victory, and other guilds killing targets with 3 or 4 groups that's players working together using their skills to win. That's what eq raiding should be. Not see who can log 50 people in on top of a boss the quickest.

[Fountree]

Again, I don't see your point, we've killed every Kunark target at one time or another with ~25 players or less, even VP mobs (Nexona with 27 comes to mind, and that was with the beefed up AoE). Not our fault we have a lot of members who like to play :)

[Fountree]

Oh and in honor of this thread I've decided to raffle off my 39 mage pots bound account today in EC. Look for my post in EC forums later today.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

Well yeah sure your zerg force keeps running off any sliver of competition that pops up. I'm not saying you guys don't have good players. I'm simply saying the other good players aren't getting a chance cause of the unclassic variance. GMa are trying to find a way to fix this and you keep saying they are just messing the server up by trying to baby everyone outside of TMO.

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

And also it is very much TMOs own fault they gave so many players that want to raid. You guys could beat IB back in the day on equal ground so you absorbed another guild so that you could just out do them with numbers. That led to IB forming their relationship with VD to bolster their numbers to compete in the level that you guys took it to. Correct me if I'm wrong...

[mgellan]

I agree with Nilbog about teleports, I don't mind up to 10 mins (it goes fast!) and if ppl don't want to get stuck in dangerous places then get a freakin' hat, it's trivial for insta-port to WC.

THANK YOU Rogean and Nilbog for the upcoming changes!!!

Regards,
Mg

[stonez138]

Originally Posted by Fountree
And, honestly, I don't have many personal in-game interests left. I've been 60 since June '11. I've experienced all the content. What interest I have left is seeing my guild shit on the rest of the server.
Thought I'd correct that for you. What you posted was laughable.

[happyhappy]

I agree with Nilbog about teleports, I don't mind up to 10 mins (it goes fast!) and if ppl don't want to get stuck in dangerous places then get a freakin' hat, it's trivial for insta-port to WC.

THANK YOU Rogean and Nilbog for the upcoming changes!!!

Regards,
Mg

The actual effect of porting groups to safe spot is to keep guilds from camping fully buffed raids on top of a spawn point and spam connect, ensuring the "safety" of farming groups on reset is more of a side effect.

[cyryllis]

ITT: Proposed repop and reduced variance = good
TMO= evil because they like playing a lot and raiding all the time

I just keep getting this feeling that very few of you played live or can actually remember what went on. On my server (Fennin Ro) there was always a top guild pretty much dominating the raid scene and leaving very little for anyone else. No, they didnt have batphones- much of the time they just spent the vast majority of the day on and formed up when numbers were sufficient/ had designated raid times. The population was higher and despite having multiple higher end guilds with various timezones, the "top guild" still got 90+% of raid targets-especially early on.

Even when it came to later expansions, like PoP, when there was vastly more content than we have here, guilds complained about the same stuff. TMO was clearing PoF/PoE/PoA/PoW, while the guild I was part of Severed was trying to catch up, but just then taking the chance to backgear in Vex thal and lower planes since we never got the chance to farm much during luclin. When TMO was farming the crap out of PoTime (before they made it multiple instances) we were shit out of luck and they owned the zone.

Game has always been this way, regarding the high end. The difference is that back then, a much higher percentage of the server population was happy just experiencing the 1-60 content, grouping with friends, chatting with guildies, having random adventures, etc. The high end game raiders were a smaller percentage of the server for years, until Sony decided to basically 100% devote content to these people, add instancing, etc. However, on this server the majority of players that came here are from raiding guilds and very few care about the low end now.

People want a classic experience (or so they claim)- but on a server this top heavy, where everyone wants to raid and see all the content- you simply cant see it all and keep it classic.

[Fountree]

To add to Cyryllis's point, Club Fu on BB had every server first from PoP till their dissolution a few years ago. That's pretty insane. And before Fu, AO dominated just about everything. I saw most raid boss's on live after they had already been beaten by the top guilds. Do you really expect this server to be different?

[Sweetbaby Jesus]

The argument isn't that there shouldn't be a top guild, there is always a top guild. Its the fact that the top guild is there because the spawns on here are not like they were on classic.

[Ferok]

I don't recall any top guilds in classic getting all the spawns. Getting a couple of chosen spawns, sure. Clearing every raid mob on the server, not so much.

[Nirgon]

After the variance is cut in half and given how long Kunark has been out, throw them a freaking bone every now and then.

It helps the population.

[falkun]

Here's to the future of GM-enforced rotations, bans on account sales, more spyware, more rules, more non-classic coding/gameplay changes to appease the poor players who are stomped over by the big bad TMO? Am I right Rog?

Oh, and also, am I not allowed to have a valid opinion because I'm in TMO? No one's completely objective in this world.
Emphasis mine.

Except the initial proposed raid changes are to bring the raid scene closer to classic. Variance creates a massively different raiding scene than that experienced on Live.

Not that I have a solution, or that your hyperbolic solutions are the only/best ones, but character preservation is an issue on this server. Not many people on Live kept 4+ accounts active at $14 a piece. I've stated my case about how its not classic and detrimental to server health and prosperity, please provide evidence to the contrary for me to consider instead of hyperbolic "sky is falling" whining.

After the variance is cut in half and given how long Kunark has been out, throw them a freaking bone every now and then.

Zero bones given.

[Artaenc]

I also do not like the idea of raid guilds spreading their camped alts around in order to quickly log in and out to maximize raid targets.. but I'm not seeing any good solutions to that problem.

And you do have a point in saying that people who quit on live generally wouldn't be seen again, their subscription would run out, nobody is going to bother paying $14/month just to keep them standing by on a raid spawn so they can quickly be logged in to kill something.

Is it possible to code it so that during the simulated down time you lock people in to being able to log on to only the first character they logged on with for a couple of hours? Maybe use a combination of IP and mac address? I know that IP and mac addresses can be changed using proxy and macshift or even another computer but it would definitely minimize the number of people that can camp multiple characters at multiple boss spawns.

[Fountree]

See this ^ is what I was talking about. If this pisses you off, please make yourself heard!

By enforcing something like this you're assuming that players are only using the characters for raid purposes and not real "playing". You're telling players that "hey, I know what you're doing with your characters, you're camping them right? I'm assuming you are, so you can only use your characters to do X on this server, not Y." And that's why this is just wrong.

[Lazortag]

Okay, some of this stuff is overly complicated. Firstly, it's impossible to enforce any rules against selling accounts or having multiple accounts, mainly because you can have two players living in the same house. Anything that is enforceable is probably overreaching. Secondly, it's not just TMO that benefits from account selling or having leftover accounts - casual guilds benefit too. Our main warrior, porter, and hate tracker are all bought accounts. A lot of our naggy alts belonged to other players first. As much as I dislike it, I feel like account selling and owning multiple (free) accounts isn't going away. Let's just see how the raid changes affect the raid scene, I'm sure they'll be satisfactory and we won't need many other big changes.

[Autumnbow]

ITT: Proposed repop and reduced variance = good
TMO= evil because they like playing a lot and raiding all the time

I just keep getting this feeling that very few of you played live or can actually remember what went on. On my server (Fennin Ro) there was always a top guild pretty much dominating the raid scene and leaving very little for anyone else. No, they didnt have batphones- much of the time they just spent the vast majority of the day on and formed up when numbers were sufficient/ had designated raid times. The population was higher and despite having multiple higher end guilds with various timezones, the "top guild" still got 90+% of raid targets-especially early on.

Even when it came to later expansions, like PoP, when there was vastly more content than we have here, guilds complained about the same stuff. TMO was clearing PoF/PoE/PoA/PoW, while the guild I was part of Severed was trying to catch up, but just then taking the chance to backgear in Vex thal and lower planes since we never got the chance to farm much during luclin. When TMO was farming the crap out of PoTime (before they made it multiple instances) we were shit out of luck and they owned the zone.

Game has always been this way, regarding the high end. The difference is that back then, a much higher percentage of the server population was happy just experiencing the 1-60 content, grouping with friends, chatting with guildies, having random adventures, etc. The high end game raiders were a smaller percentage of the server for years, until Sony decided to basically 100% devote content to these people, add instancing, etc. However, on this server the majority of players that came here are from raiding guilds and very few care about the low end now.

People want a classic experience (or so they claim)- but on a server this top heavy, where everyone wants to raid and see all the content- you simply cant see it all and keep it classic.

On VZ, Defiant got most of the top spawns, but other guilds were able to compete sometimes because of PvP. I guess I must be wrong, but I assumed that the situation on blue servers involved rotations. Honestly, I swear I remember reading about blue guilds signing up for rotations back in the day. Why is TMO so against this? Camping raid spawns for days at a time, spamming the target nearest NPC button for hopes at getting FTE, this is not competition and I can't imagine it being fun for anyone. Without PvP, there really doesn't seem to be any sort of competition. Wouldn't the game be more enjoyable for all of the raiding guilds if they could stop acting like children and learn to share?

I don't understand any of this.

[Ferok]

Is it possible to code it so that during the simulated down time you lock people in to being able to log on to only the first character they logged on with for a couple of hours? Maybe use a combination of IP and mac address? I know that IP and mac addresses can be changed using proxy and macshift or even another computer but it would definitely minimize the number of people that can camp multiple characters at multiple boss spawns.

Again, this is decidedly not-classic. If you've leveled multiple characters to 60, this should be an option to you.

But once again, I disagree with the notion of allowing people to have multiple accounts and to be able to buy/sell/trade them. This is fundamentally non-classic. If you can't play two characters, you shouldn't be able to have two accounts. Of course, a rule change here gives a one-time character transfer exemption or something.

[Rubin]

There's a difference between TMO giving those mobs away or choosing not to compete on them and the GMs enforcing things that give an advantage to one guild or another.

That statement doesn't make any sense and is misleading. Every guild will operate under the same rules, TMO isn`t particularly disadvantaged, the rules are just different.

[Ferok]

Okay, some of this stuff is overly complicated. Firstly, it's impossible to enforce any rules against selling accounts or having multiple accounts, mainly because you can have two players living in the same house. Anything that is enforceable is probably overreaching. Secondly, it's not just TMO that benefits from account selling or having leftover accounts - casual guilds benefit too. Our main warrior, porter, and hate tracker are all bought accounts. A lot of our naggy alts belonged to other players first. As much as I dislike it, I feel like account selling and owning multiple (free) accounts isn't going away. Let's just see how the raid changes affect the raid scene, I'm sure they'll be satisfactory and we won't need many other big changes.

The point here isn't to destroy TMO though, the point is to make a more classic raiding experience. That Divinity also benefits from account sales is nice and all, but I don't think that makes it okay.

If they can enforce the multi-boxing rules, they can enforce multi-account rules. It's not any different, and it's not any harder.

[Artaenc]

Again, this is decidedly not-classic. If you've leveled multiple characters to 60, this should be an option to you.

But once again, I disagree with the notion of allowing people to have multiple accounts and to be able to buy/sell/trade them. This is fundamentally non-classic. If you can't play two characters, you shouldn't be able to have two accounts. Of course, a rule change here gives a one-time character transfer exemption or something.

Understood but a simulated reset on a regular basis with variance and now cut in half isn't classic either. Let's face it, the difinition of classic have been skewed, altered, stepped on and torn in half here most likely not on purpose but a side effect of fixing other issues. I was just giving suggestions to solve a problem if they were going to move forward with this. When I play on this server I don't really care what's classic and what isn't as much as whether the boats are working or not.

[India]

On VZ, Defiant got most of the top spawns, but other guilds were able to compete sometimes because of PvP. I guess I must be wrong, but I assumed that the situation on blue servers involved rotations. Honestly, I swear I remember reading about blue guilds signing up for rotations back in the day. Why is TMO so against this? Camping raid spawns for days at a time, spamming the target nearest NPC button for hopes at getting FTE, this is not competition and I can't imagine it being fun for anyone. Without PvP, there really doesn't seem to be any sort of competition. Wouldn't the game be more enjoyable for all of the raiding guilds if they could stop acting like children and learn to share?

I don't understand any of this.

Every blue server had their own set of rules that they followed
On Rodcet we raced for the mobs. The only difference between Rodcet Nife and this server is on RN if a guild got to the mob and was prepping, and a second guild arrived and was ready to engage, the second guild usually (not always) gave the first guild xx minutes to pull and kill,,, else they would leapfrog.

If the first guild pulled and wiped, the second guild killed the mob

If the first guild didn't pull within the time allotted by the guild that was waiting for them,, they would generally rush past (leapfrog) and kill the mob.

As more and more guilds got to raiding level, we had a lot of racing, training, leapfrogging, etc. OOC was always good drama :)

[Llodd]

See this ^ is what I was talking about. If this pisses you off, please make yourself heard!

By enforcing something like this you're assuming that players are only using the characters for raid purposes and not real "playing". You're telling players that "hey, I know what you're doing with your characters, you're camping them right? I'm assuming you are, so you can only use your characters to do X on this server, not Y." And that's why this is just wrong.

So can you elaborate whether this is actually happening as much as people seem to think?

I suppose I could say that doing that is most definately not classic, but then that might skew your answer right? ;)

[Splorf22]

There are always top guilds, but whats crazy about 1999 is that the top guild gets 90% of the mobs rather than 50-75%. Think about what is being proposed, Fountree:

* TMO still gets every variance mob, especially b/c other guilds won't bother
* TMO gets 50% of simulated repops
* Everyone gets to have the fun of competing for mobs, only we get to race rather than stare at tracking windows for hours

TMO gets +50% pixels, everyone else gets +300% pixels.

THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE . . . . unless you hate the idea of other people getting stuff. And its really obvious this is how you feel.

[India]

There are always top guilds, but whats crazy about 1999 is that the top guild gets 90% of the mobs rather than 50-75%.

This is not true. See my earlier post.
On Rodcet the top guild got 90%+ of the mobs, at least until Velious was released.

In fact there was competition, some pretty stiff competition, but much like P1999 the guilds that were considered competition folded, went thru other iterations (names) and folded again.

History is repeating itself :)

[Writ3r]

That isn't how it was on rodcet

[Safon]

That isn't how it was on rodcet

Was too!

[Splorf22]

So Rogean, whats the chance we'll see a post recruiting more content developers for Velious? Fountree is right about Velious being great for the server, and its a huge amount of work for Nilbog alone.

[Rogean]

whats the chance we'll see a post recruiting more content developers

Low to never.

[Rubin]

This is not true. See my earlier post.
On Rodcet the top guild got 90%+ of the mobs, at least until Velious was released.

In fact there was competition, some pretty stiff competition, but much like P1999 the guilds that were considered competition folded, went thru other iterations (names) and folded again.

History is repeating itself :)

That's a ridiculous claim.

[Splorf22]

Low to never.

Does Nilbog just like to do stuff himself?

[Spitty]

My tier'd bag limit is still the best idea to allow full repops to happen (so VP dragons respawn as well) and to promote guild growth.

I think...I think you're biased.

Just sayin'.

[Bubbles]

My god it'd be so much easier just to instance this and everyone gets more dragon/god encounters, more loot, more sleep, and possibly even experiences with direct sunlight involved.

FWIW - In "classic" times thanks to the magic of 56k modems and server code in its infancy, if you threw more than 25ish people at *any* raid target you'd pretty much crash the zone, experience massive disconnect, and come back to a great bonding, team-building exercise known as 'LateNightCR (tm)'. Hell even in Kunark times it was pretty lucky to have 2/3's of a force of 30ish stay connected throughout the fight the first dozen or so times we killed Trak.

[Ferok]

My god it'd be so much easier just to instance this and everyone gets more dragon/god encounters, more loot, more sleep, and possibly even experiences with direct sunlight involved.

FWIW - In "classic" times thanks to the magic of 56k modems and server code in its infancy, if you threw more than 25ish people at *any* raid target you'd pretty much crash the zone, experience massive disconnect, and come back to a great bonding, team-building exercise known as 'LateNightCR (tm)'. Hell even in Kunark times it was pretty lucky to have 2/3's of a force of 30ish stay connected throughout the fight the first dozen or so times we killed Trak.

There's nothing classic about instancing. Competition for spawns is one of classics defining features.

[Ravager]

My tier'd bag limit is still the best idea to allow full repops to happen (so VP dragons respawn as well) and to promote guild growth. It's easy to manage and after 1 or 2 rule breakers, it would never get broken again ( I personally doubt it would ever get broken and would be managed at the guild level ).

After the other guilds get fed, you could even remove the staff backing and allow all the guilds to fend for themselves or keep the bag limit if they wanted.

I know that leaving it like it is, where vp dragons don't respawn with full repops, that other guilds will one day reach the ability of getting into VP, but it will take much longer for them to get VP capable... which Velious may already be out.

I know some TMO people actually like real competition, most of the top core people did when I played anyhow. My idea gives them what they want the quickest, gives other people more dragons on repop day and will help Velious launch with more guilds capable of taking out more targets (which ultimately means more guilds testing more content).

Things left the way they are now, TMO will still grab most of the respawns and have VP loot all to themselves (seriously they lose 1 PD a week by vp not respawning, but other guilds lose all of the other VP dragons).

Forced bag limit isn't classic, but it's not something hard coded in like IP lockouts and other silly ideas being tossed around. Whenever staff wants it off, they just simply make a post saying "this is no longer in effect".

The only other option would be to change it so training isn't allowed in VP for 24hours after a server repop, this would force TMO to either fully go for PD or split their forces to try and go in and get PD and pick up other targets (hard choice for most as many still need PD loot and not many need other targets). I personally think this is the more simple of the two to implement, but it also takes a GM to watch over once a week. (This could easily be enforced by Sirken himself)

+1 I like these ideas.

[heartbrand]

My god it'd be so much easier just to instance this and everyone gets more dragon/god encounters, more loot, more sleep, and possibly even experiences with direct sunlight involved.

FWIW - In "classic" times thanks to the magic of 56k modems and server code in its infancy, if you threw more than 25ish people at *any* raid target you'd pretty much crash the zone, experience massive disconnect, and come back to a great bonding, team-building exercise known as 'LateNightCR (tm)'. Hell even in Kunark times it was pretty lucky to have 2/3's of a force of 30ish stay connected throughout the fight the first dozen or so times we killed Trak.

This is very true, I remember all the LD's we would have to call out all the time during fights.

[India]

That's a ridiculous claim.

Is that all you could come up with?
Tell me then, what do you remember of Rodcet Nife?
How late were you allowed to play?
What guild were you in, and during what year(s)?
Did your raiding on RN interfere with homework, family time, or were you even on RN?

Or was the above just a statement you pulled out of your ass for lack of anything else to contribute?

[Splorf22]

My god it'd be so much easier just to instance this and everyone gets more dragon/god encounters, more loot, more sleep, and possibly even experiences with direct sunlight involved.

FWIW - In "classic" times thanks to the magic of 56k modems and server code in its infancy, if you threw more than 25ish people at *any* raid target you'd pretty much crash the zone, experience massive disconnect, and come back to a great bonding, team-building exercise known as 'LateNightCR (tm)'. Hell even in Kunark times it was pretty lucky to have 2/3's of a force of 30ish stay connected throughout the fight the first dozen or so times we killed Trak.

Actually this would be a hilarious addition to the code. Something like 'every tick, kick any player on the hate list with probability proportional to the number of players over 25'. ITS CLASSIC! The zerg weeps. Probably not a good idea though, especially since the potential for abuse is huge.

Personally my favorite would be a mix repops, tokens, and respawns with low variance. Something like a repop every two weeks, respawns with 8 hour variance and FTE (no poopsocking), and each guild gets to spawn 2 raid bosses per week of their choice, with the main advantage being that when you spawn your raid bosses you can take your time (multiple attempts even) and try to kill with low numbers rather than zerg it down.

The reality is though that instancing just goes against everything that EQ stands for. So I'm pretty happy with the proposed changes.

[Rubin]

Is that all you could come up with?
Tell me then, what do you remember of Rodcet Nife?
How late were you allowed to play?
What guild were you in, and during what year(s)?
Did your raiding on RN interfere with homework, family time, or were you even on RN?

Or was the above just a statement you pulled out of your ass for lack of anything else to contribute?

It is ridiculous, it's obviously not true, please prove it if you can, you're the one with the idiotic claim. I thought you were trolling and wanted to point it out so no one inexperienced believes it, now I see Minyin has a higher IQ than you.

** Your point is also irrelevant since with the selling of accounts, raid behavior/strategies of guilds (TMO) is vastly different from live, no guild on live would pay to have multiple raid forces on separate accounts logged out at different mobs.

[Bubbles]

There's nothing classic about instancing. Competition for spawns is one of classics defining features.

And there's nothing classic about more than 10% of the server even knowing how to find Nagafens spawn point from the SolB zoneline either.

Times and situations change. Problem is the same on p99 its always been: the top 5% of 20+ servers congregated here to relive their glory days, and it can't really happen.

Well it could with instancing. And save everyone the headache of arguing about whatever other non-classic raiding fix is going to be implemented again. 15 on spawn? FTE? Variance? Park your 52s in perma and solb? Most of this nonsense isn't really classic either.

I have no dog in the fight, I could really care less what happens. I'm just saying the obvious solution is staring everyone in the face. The only way instancing or Stealin's Bag Tier hurts is if you physically can only get hard via pixels in the actual act of depriving someone else joy. Splorf hit that nail on the head.

The guy in the storm trooper costume who gets the first ticket to the newest George Lucas film cuz he's been parked at the theater with a stack of comic books, a 24 pack of Mt. Dew and funions, and a pee jar, isn't the most skilled star wars fan, he's just the most OCD. ;)

IB was the most dedicated. Then DA was, Then TR was, Now TMO is. Congrats to TMO
, they've earned every pixel they got. Just don't fall into the same trap all your uber ancestors did on this server by claiming no one else had the *skills* to kill a dragon or god or whatever. Even the most delusional person on the gravy train doesnt believe that. If you did. the phone tree would slack, alts would get sold off or at least moved out of parked strategic spots, and then we'd see what would happen next. /sarcasm off.

Love and be loved. Life is good. :)

[Spitty]

(TMO) is vastly different from live, no guild on live would pay to have multiple raid forces on separate accounts logged out at different mobs.

No, you are wrong. The idea was directly lifted from Live. It started with Live's implementation of a level 52 cap on old world dragons, and progressed right into Velious with people camping characters outside of ToV in WW.

If people weren't buying characters, they were multi-boxing and PLing accounts themselves to camp at raid points. Nary a difference.

[Rubin]

No, you are wrong. The idea was directly lifted from Live. It started with Live's implementation of a level 52 cap on old world dragons, and progressed right into Velious with people camping characters outside of ToV in WW.

If people weren't buying characters, they were multi-boxing and PLing accounts themselves to camp at raid points. Nary a difference.

I don't know what every guild on live did, but I highly doubt most had a policy of buying enough lvl 60 alts on separate accounts to double their roster ($300+ per character (that number sounds conservative)? Plus sub fees). Alts take time and effort to level, most people wouldn't have more than one 50+ and most probably did have an alt. TMO has at least two raid sized forces on alt accounts they have bought, but this is just a guess. Clearly the number of lvl 60 geared alt accounts TMO has, from monopolizing and selling dragon loot, is far greater than what any top guild on live would have had, and it only helps them widen the gap between them and other guilds. You are aware accounts can be bought and sold on this forum? I mean, it's so easy and cheap (relative to live) to buy accounts, to claim their roster size is comparable to live is laughable.

[Splorf22]

Times and situations change. Problem is the same on p99 its always been: the top 5% of 20+ servers congregated here to relive their glory days, and it can't really happen.

This is the key point really and always has been, although I think you are a bit off. The guys who really kicked ass the first time aren't here for the most part, its the guys who were second tier on live who want to be first tier here, and the guys who were third tier on live who want to be second tier here and so on.

Anyway I'm enjoying the A-team quite a bit (another wipe on the Overking with 7 hehe. Freaking AOE groups keeping us from pulling him to the zone, next time we're just going to train you bastards!). Instances/tokens would be great for our little guild of course since we wipe a lot :D But Rogean and Nilbog are both strongly against that stuff and I think simultaneous repops are maybe even more fun anyway, they just aren't suited for small guilds pushing the PvE limits of the game. Instead its about larger guilds doing content faster.

[Llodd]

No, you are wrong. The idea was directly lifted from Live. It started with Live's implementation of a level 52 cap on old world dragons, and progressed right into Velious with people camping characters outside of ToV in WW.

If people weren't buying characters, they were multi-boxing and PLing accounts themselves to camp at raid points. Nary a difference.

Maybe the very top guild on their respective servers?

My guild, who were 3rd/4th mostly, never did.

[Orruar]

This is the key point really and always has been, although I think you are a bit off. The guys who really kicked ass the first time aren't here for the most part, its the guys who were second tier on live who want to be first tier here, and the guys who were third tier on live who want to be second tier here and so on.


There are some here who were "first tier" on live. They just seem to either be writing code for this server (aka Rogean) or they don't get involved in all the bs of the raid scene here. The few I know here who were among the best on live would never get involved with a raid scene where terms like "batphone" and "poopsock" are common. If terms such as "12 man trak" and "1 group royals" started to enter the lexicon, we might see a shift. The masses of zerglings here will likely prevent this change.

[Spitty]

I don't know what every guild on live did, but I highly doubt most had a policy of buying enough lvl 60 alts on separate accounts to double their roster ($300+ per character (that number sounds conservative)? Plus sub fees). Alts take time and effort to level, most people wouldn't have more than one 50+ and most probably did have an alt.

You and I apparently played on completely different live servers. The crowd I hung with that raided endgame consisted of many players that had upwards of six fully-geared level 60 accounts by Velious launch. Most people kept it to two or three - I only had two computers during Kunark/Velious, but I sure as shit powered a monk to 52 in less than 3 /played days (and picked up the RotWF in the same timeframe) when the old-world dragon restrictions landed - and this was with my shaman only.

Offhand, I can name a few people who would level a character to 60 in a matter of days with their clr/enc/mnk box squad simply to pass that character onto a guildmate, who would then gladly pay the monthly subscription just to have a fully-leveled rez or clarity bot parked in a raid zone.

Policy? Not the word I'd choose. Strategy, more like. P99's rules against multiboxing simply changed the strategy to selling raid drops for plat to purchase abandoned accounts.

This character parking idea isn't new, and those thinking they're onto something original here are coming off as pretty goddamn arrogant to someone who's seen this shit cycle through for the last decade.

[Spitty]

There are some here who were "first tier" on live. They just seem to either be writing code for this server (aka Rogean) or they don't get involved in all the bs of the raid scene here. The few I know here who were among the best on live would never get involved with a raid scene where terms like "batphone" and "poopsock" are common. If terms such as "12 man trak" and "1 group royals" started to enter the lexicon, we might see a shift.

Agreed, wholeheartedly. I spent about two days while apped to TR sitting on Trak's spawn before my desire to raid Kunark again was overcome by my desire to not do stupid shit with my time.

1 group Royals is already rolling, though - we just don't come and crow about it in RnF.

[Hurley]

"1 group royals"

We do this all the time

[Rubin]

You and I apparently played on completely different live servers. The crowd I hung with that raided endgame consisted of many players that had upwards of six fully-geared level 60 accounts by Velious launch. Most people kept it to two or three - I only had two computers during Kunark/Velious, but I sure as shit powered a monk to 52 in less than 3 /played days (and picked up the RotWF in the same timeframe) when the old-world dragon restrictions landed - and this was with my shaman only.

Offhand, I can name a few people who would level a character to 60 in a matter of days with their clr/enc/mnk box squad simply to pass that character onto a guildmate, who would then gladly pay the monthly subscription just to have a fully-leveled rez or clarity bot parked in a raid zone.

Policy? Not the word I'd choose. Strategy, more like. P99's rules against multiboxing simply changed the strategy to selling raid drops for plat to purchase abandoned accounts.

This character parking idea isn't new, and those thinking they're onto something original here are coming off as pretty goddamn arrogant to someone who's seen this shit cycle through for the last decade.

Well I don't remember guilds camping two separate, non-main, raid sized forces at VS and Trakanon during live (and the shenanigans you see going on now, either the GMs were better deterrents on live or guilds didn't have enough camped out alts to screw with every Trak/VS engage). I also don't remember many people leveling up three or more characters to 60 for the sake of camping mobs/passing time. If that's classic then whatever, the ease of buying and selling accounts still gives the dominant guild on this server a huge advantage. If they are alts on the same account that's fine but the way they have inflated their roster isn't classic, and clearly the resources they have by way of alts on separate accounts is larger than it would have been on live. It's much easier to farm a week of dragons and buy the 60s for sale on this server than it would be to PL the same number of characters to 60 on live.

[feanan]

Wipe it clean!

[Artaenc]

Well I don't remember guilds camping two separate, non-main, raid sized forces at VS and Trakanon during live (and the shenanigans you see going on now, either the GMs were better deterrents on live or guilds didn't have enough camped out alts to screw with every Trak/VS engage). I also don't remember many people leveling up three or more characters to 60 for the sake of camping mobs/passing time. If that's classic then whatever, the ease of buying and selling accounts still gives the dominant guild on this server a huge advantage. If they are alts on the same account that's fine but the way they have inflated their roster isn't classic, and clearly the resources they have by way of alts on separate accounts is larger than it would have been on live. It's much easier to farm a week of dragons and buy the 60s for sale on this server than it would be to PL the same number of characters to 60 on live.

We also didn't have 18 months of Kunark on live. If Velious was out nobody will bother poopsocking VS/Trak because the gear would be inferior and everyone that has a lvl 60 would be too busy farming gems to do the gear quest and farming ToV. If we get 18 months of ToV we will see the same thing again but this time it would be poopsocking AoW and Vulak. Variance on AoW/Vulak anyone?

[Artaenc]

Wipe it clean!

why, so that you can see history repeat itself?

[Raavak]

We also didn't have 18 months of Kunark on live.
Exactly. Some times you just have to accept that some things are going to be different than they were in 1999/2000/2001 and that there's nothing you can do about it.

[feanan]

why, so that you can see history repeat itself?

Well, one would assume in the years since this server has gone live, they've fixed a lot of experience exploits, pp exploits, dup bugs, etc
Not to mention the bans suffered to a lot of the cheaters, and people involved in the RMT.

So, no, history wouldn't quite repeat itself.

Actually, I think it would be a rather fascinating thing to see exactly what would happen here if they wiped it clean.

[Tecmos Deception]

It'd be the same.

[Rubin]

We also didn't have 18 months of Kunark on live. If Velious was out nobody will bother poopsocking VS/Trak because the gear would be inferior and everyone that has a lvl 60 would be too busy farming gems to do the gear quest and farming ToV. If we get 18 months of ToV we will see the same thing again but this time it would be poopsocking AoW and Vulak. Variance on AoW/Vulak anyone?

There were also a lot more people on live.

[baramur]

For the guy posting about the top guild on rodcet getting 90 percent of mobs before velious you are most defiantly wrong. Eastern keep got some, aod alliance got some, ancient souls some, tul Achron some, arirang some, dragon force some. You had 4 or 5 guilds constantly competing, yes trak was limited to ek, aod, and toward end ascent. Then when velious came ascent and aod alliance rotated ntov and sleeper, and later dol amroth and ek were added to rotation. It was not a forced rotation but the high end guilds worked together to not waste each others time. Rodcet characters were nimamok and later honch

[India]

For the guy posting about the top guild on rodcet getting 90 percent of mobs before velious you are most defiantly wrong. Eastern keep got some, aod alliance got some, ancient souls some, tul Achron some, arirang some, dragon force some. You had 4 or 5 guilds constantly competing, yes trak was limited to ek, aod, and toward end ascent. Then when velious came ascent and aod alliance rotated ntov and sleeper, and later dol amroth and ek were added to rotation. It was not a forced rotation but the high end guilds worked together to not waste each others time. Rodcet characters were nimamok and later honch

First off all, I'm female which of course = I'm right ;)
Arirang, along with notable guilds like EiE and Ascent weren't formed until after Velious release.
Read on... the interesting stuff starts at Kunark release about 1/2 down which clearly shows domination by an alliance INITIALLY (to be referred to as one since that's what is done here when one guild is allied with another...) It was generally always a race between the alliance and EK - with EK dominating due to their guild roster which included players from all over the world.

PS: started to bold the more interesting parts but didn't have time to finish...

[27th April 1999 or so] RN opens
[20th June 1999] 12 guilds formed, they represent the first 12 guilds on Rodcet Nife. Confirmed: Brew Masters.
[?] Feylin is the first level 50 (druid)
[?] Covenant of Peace formed. Lead by Rhyno, influentials include Dyvim, Mirax, Axine and lots of others.
[?] Legions of Rodcet Nife is formed and accomplishes... what?
[?] Order of the Dragon formed members would include Phad, Korban, Katia, Melissa, Heclrolv, Tilien, Seela, Maple (Sewerslop), Eldog, Creath, and many more.
[October 1999] Brotherhood of Steel formed mostly by BatMUD players with Glayde as the leader. Most Ascent officers will be members at one point or another (Delheru, Honch, Reia, Vesi)
[?] Souls of Relevance formed. Corona, Tuvas, Mairi as influentials and Fulkson as leader.
[?] Covenant of Peace falls to internal disagreements mostly between Mirax and Axine
[?] Warlords of Wrath (WoW) formed with Lachdonnan leading. The leads were to be passed on to later influentials such as Lliam, Emalith, Quintus, Grum and Foolra.
[?] Mirax leaves Rodcet Nife
[?] Something goes horribly wrong between Axine and Sinclaire (Vosh), and both are the types to hold a grudge
[?] Avatars of Discord (AoD) forms, lead by Satao with Dyvim, Axine, Asian, Morghul, Malsheen, Ailennin, Nails, Kimmy, Armanthus, Lofwyr etc as fairly key figures
[?] Arcane legacy (AL) forms, Rhyno leads with Ghime, Zinf, Ryne etc as key figures
[?] Harbinger of storms (HOS) forms as an "less" American guild with a lot of asians. Does planes etc. Lead by Valdraug with influentials like Sern, Gazloy and Liosliath
[?] Thelyn Amar forms, lead by Sinclaire (aka Vosh) with other influentials such as Vykdrago, Mirax, Celegrom and Xanatax
[?] Highland Clan formed with Snakes leading and other (later to be) influentials including Thun, Rogosh, Lighting, Sysquella etc
[June 1999] Sinclaire (Vosh) <Thelyn Amar> obtains the first Soulfire on Rodcet Nife
[?] Eastern Keep (EK) forms, lead by Carol with Jeet, Yohon etc as other influentials
[?] Guardians of the Malt Formed with Dajal leading. Other influentials include Fornza, Doraf, Vison, Hairen etc.
[?] First Nagafen kill - by a semi pickup raid run by... who?
[16th Oct, 1999] First Vox kill - mostly AoD/AL force lead by Dyvim
[?] Other significant guilds include Darkflame Knights, Brotherhood of Steel, Souls of Relevance etc etc
[?] Thelyn Amar disappears due to the political problems caused by the Axine - Sinclaire dispute
[?] Sinclaire rerolls as Vosh
[?] Rhyno retires?
[?] Honch, Xanatax, Morbos etc form Exiled Legion (EL) to do planes outside the domination of AoD/AL
[?] CT killed by AoD/AL
[?] Vosh joins Exiled Legion
[?] Plane of Hate opens
[18th Dec, 1999] AoD/AL kills Innoruuk
[December 1999] Ancient Souls formed under the leadership of Dundamoor. Eelyen and Locz other influentials.
[January 2000] Ancient Souls leadership passes on to Eelyen
[?] 3 day PoFear camp by HoS/EL/someone(DK?) to get CT succeeds, AoD/AL furious
[?] Delheru and Reia join Exiled Legion (EL) (!)
[?] Massive arguments about "farming" of Plane of Fear, with Dyvim, Zinf as the main attackers and EK on the defensive.
[?] Exiled Legion kills Innoruuk
[?] Exiled Legion kills Cazic Thule
[?] HoS kills CT
[?] HoS splits due to playtimes or whatever. What is now HoS is clearly dominated by asian players. Valdraug, Gazloy etc leading figures.
[?] Dol Amroth (DA) is formed by the Americans from HoS and the higher level players from Darkflame Knights, with Vyel, Nujai, Qadan, Filja as key figures originally.
[?] Mass exodus from Order of the Dragon, as Phad, Ashani, Heclrolv and others leave to help form Dol Amroth (DA), others join Exiled Legion (EL) and AoD.
[?] Darkflame Knights withdraw from the high end game.
[?] Exiled Legion kills Nagafen
[?] Dol Amroth kills Nagafen
[?] HoS kills Vox
[?] HoS kills Nagafen
[?] Sultania leads popular pick up raids to kill high end content. Huge conversation about official rotations and "planar calendars".
[?] Sultanias revolution overrun by the AoD/AL steamroller at Nagafen.
[?] Brotherhood of Steel and Souls of Relevance Merge to form Altered Destiny. Corona, Glayde etc as significants.
[?] Ancient Souls goes somewhere in here
[?] Krolins guild? Fear and Disorder or something
[?] Aegeis <Avatars of Discord> finishes the Fiery Avenger

[31st March 2000: RUINS OF KUNARK RELEASED] AOD/AL/EL - an alliance, clearly dominate.

[?] AL core of Zinf, Ryne, Moglit, Ghime, Strago(?) move to Veeshan to join FoH after being clearly ahead of the leveling curve on RN. Zinf delevels, but Ghime sells to Arktreod of AoD.
[?] Few EL and AoD groups race for content like Sebilis first.
[?] Asian retires
[?] Dyvims playtime reduces significantly.
[?] Feylin and Arkmaru argue about who hit 60 first.
[?] Delheru, Dyvim, Nails fade away during the summer 2001
[?] HoS kills Venril Sathir
[?] Fargus, Reeves, Aktar etc had their own guild (Axiom Shift I think) thing going, definitely badly placed here.
[?] The new Ghime has leveled to 60 and starts his "Ghime's club" which does deep Sebilis with the first lvl 60s on the server.
[?] AoD/AL and EL are both in fairly bad shape, and during a Chardok raid decide to unite forces.
[?] Altered Destiny (AD) allies with Dragon Knights (DK) to take out Trakanon
[?] Lots of older AoD/AL/EL members return to the game
[10th Sep, 2000] AD/DK kills Trakanon
[10th Sep, 2000] MythMakers, Circle of Sol and friends lead by Fargus, Aktar and Reeves defeats Plane of Sky island 7
[?] AoD/AL/EL kills Trakanon
[?] The new Ghime joins AoD
[?] Delheru joins AoD
[?] AoD/AL/EL and AD/DK negotiate a rotation, but the terms favor the more hardcore AoD/AL/EL and soon the rotation turns in to their domination
[?] AoD/AL/EL kills Venril Sathir
[?] AoD/AL/EL kills Silverwing
[?] EK kills Trakanon
[?] EK gets overrun by AoD/AL/EL in a race for Trakanon
[?] FA quests released (more on those elsewhere)
[?] Llew retires(?)

AoD/AL/EL got their share of targets but EK ended up reigning supreme during Kunark (I don't have the WHOLE history posted) due to having players from all over the world in their guild. Because of this they could raid at anytime of the day or night

[Alarti0001]

There are always top guilds, but whats crazy about 1999 is that the top guild gets 90% of the mobs rather than 50-75%. Think about what is being proposed, Fountree:

* TMO still gets every variance mob, especially b/c other guilds won't bother
* TMO gets 50% of simulated repops
* Everyone gets to have the fun of competing for mobs, only we get to race rather than stare at tracking windows for hours

TMO gets +50% pixels, everyone else gets +300% pixels.

THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE . . . . unless you hate the idea of other people getting stuff. And its really obvious this is how you feel.

The downside is they aren't repopping VP, which they should (unless this changed recently)

[Splorf22]

Alarti, if I give you $1, but not $2, is that a downside? I think you'd fit in very well in Congress. They are always 'cutting' by reducing future increases.

[Autotune]

The downside is they aren't repopping VP, which they should (unless this changed recently)

TMO should bring something to the table to get Rogean to pop VP along with the rest of the targets imo.

Negotiate so the server gets the most classic update possible. I am positive Nilbog would be down for it 100%.

[Zeelot]

TMO should bring something to the table to get Rogean to pop VP along with the rest of the targets imo.

Negotiate so the server gets the most classic update possible. I am positive Nilbog would be down for it 100%.


I don't think it matters either way really-- Whether they choose to do full repops or limited repops (excluding VP). So there's nothing to negotiate, lol.

Putting the VP thing aside though, I think It would be better to have repops that affect epic NPCs and other rares on timers.

[Autotune]

I don't think it matters either way really-- Whether they choose to do full repops or limited repops (excluding VP). So there's nothing to negotiate, lol.

Putting the VP thing aside though, I think It would be better to have repops that affect epic NPCs and other rares on timers.

Usually there isn't any when it comes to rogean. However, guilds other than TMO will be raiding in VP one day and having VP targets repop is classic. I think they should go ahead and put in all the targets now, when they are adding repops, instead of waiting till later and having to take another 3 months to add those few targets.

If you're going classic, might as well not half-ass it.

If Rogean's main concern is a guild getting more VP mobs than they already do, which is strange for a CSR to worry about, and nilbog's main concern is his project being as classic as possible... I see that there are some possible resolutions that can be mutually beneficial to all parties.

[Alarti0001]

There are some here who were "first tier" on live. They just seem to either be writing code for this server (aka Rogean) or they don't get involved in all the bs of the raid scene here. The few I know here who were among the best on live would never get involved with a raid scene where terms like "batphone" and "poopsock" are common. If terms such as "12 man trak" and "1 group royals" started to enter the lexicon, we might see a shift. The masses of zerglings here will likely prevent this change.

1 group royals was happening before VP was even out. Get with the times!

[Alarti0001]

And also it is very much TMOs own fault they gave so many players that want to raid. You guys could beat IB back in the day on equal ground so you absorbed another guild so that you could just out do them with numbers. That led to IB forming their relationship with VD to bolster their numbers to compete in the level that you guys took it to. Correct me if I'm wrong...

TR had larger numbers then TMO.... The problem was it was full of such annoying dicks that no one wanted to keep playing with them so they had a very high turn over rate.

[Artaenc]

Is there an approximate ETA on this? Not rushing or anything but the server is getting a bit dull without any kind of change. It's nice to disturb the waters once in a while.

[bluejam]

*golfclap*

two years too late.

good for future players I guess.

[Vexxed]

The raid changes suggested by Rogean are excellent. The changes will revive the server and prevent those from leaving who want end game content without joining TMO.

I am not a TMO hater. They have their system and the server on lock. Bravo to them. One cannot hate them for merely taking advantage of how the server currently operates.
Sure TMO could not kill raid targets for alts or to sell epic MQs for absurd prices, but it's not against any rules and the servers current system almost encourages it.

These raid changes will actually make the server competitive, a much more lively end game.

A single guild can't be every where at once. With the variance now, it is possible for them to get every single raid target because they spawn at very different times.

I truly do hope these changes are implemented sooner than later. P99 will seem more classic than ever, and less like a custom server feeding a single guild.

[lindz]

I haven't played here in forever, so I am probably missing something, but doesn't this just mean more loot for the top guild? If TMO is able to mobilize faster than any other guild and get all the content currently, won't they still be able to mobilize faster and get twice as many raid targets? How does this change anything?

[Frieza_Prexus]

I haven't played here in forever, so I am probably missing something, but doesn't this just mean more loot for the top guild? If TMO is able to mobilize faster than any other guild and get all the content currently, won't they still be able to mobilize faster and get twice as many raid targets? How does this change anything?

Not necessarily.

With every target repopping at once, other guilds can coordinate to engage those targets while TMO tangles with its higher priority targets. As the lower guilds get better, TMO will be up against an increasingly slimmer margin for error in mobilizing.

[Supreme]

Poopsocking will exist no matter the variance.

[Calabee]

never had the poopsocking problems on live, and guilds were much larger lol

[gloine36]

Personally, I think my raid issues will be solved when EQNext comes out. At the moment grad school is doing a hell of a job solving my raid problems. No time to play = No raids to worry about!

[Silo69]

This is a continuation from the other thread ( http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=86005 ).

Here is what nilbog and I are currently planning/designing/brainstorming:

We will be cutting the variance in half on the existing raid spawns.

We will be implementing an FTE notice of some sort, whether this is an emote or some type of message.

We will be implementing a simulated patch day respawn. Here is how it will work.

The server will pick one day of each week (Random 1 to 7, Sunday through Saturday). It will then pick a random time. I will not disclose the range of the possible times, but it will only include afternoon and evening hours, so as to give the best chance for the most people to benefit from it.

A serverwide message will go off indicating that the simulated patch day respawn has or will be taking effect shortly. All raid mobs will (either immediately, delayed, or spanned, tbd) respawn.

These respawns will NOT affect the normal respawn times of the mob. For example. If Talendor was killed on Monday, and on death the server determined he would spawn again on Sunday. A simulated patch day occurs on Thursday, his death on Thursday will not reset his scheduled respawn time on Sunday.
Exception: If the mob's spawn time is scheduled to occur within (To be determined, probably either 6 or 12 hours) of the simulated patch day respawn, it will calculate a new spawn time for the mob as it would had he been killed normally, when he dies from the simulated respawn.

Discuss, and know that this system is not final, now or even when it goes live. We will evaluate how it plays out.

200% on board, not even gonna scroll through and read one post or opinion.

I work and have a family and this is great. It will flood some items in the economy, but it wont destroy it. If anything this will gear us up for vel, it will induce end game players to gear out to the max and force them through bordom to reroll alts wich will increase population. Nothing like lfg as a casual with no one in your lvl range.

<3 Rogean current raid scene is a cluster FUK, 150 people on a Friday night waiting for trak to spawn. To lose the spawn to FTE to the guild with the least amount of people on spawn, who normally would not be able to do the encounter without the 2 larger guilds plvling there raid scene.

GG

[Tarathiel]

who normally would not be able to do the encounter without the 2 larger guilds plvling there raid scene.

GG

really now?

[Splorf22]

Bump for the future!

[Autotune]

Bump for the future!

Promises change, delivers nothing.

Rogean = Obama

[Kender]

how about making it really classic

dont just stop at extr spawns of bosses... do the full reset (with appropriate variances).

dont just stop at the full reset either... take the server down. have a random variance for it coming back up (1-30 mins).

Half the excitment of a server reset on live was sitting there waiting for the servers to come back up so you could log in and check what was up immediately.

[doraf]

how about making it really classic

dont just stop at extr spawns of bosses... do the full reset (with appropriate variances).

dont just stop at the full reset either... take the server down. have a random variance for it coming back up (1-30 mins).

Half the excitment of a server reset on live was sitting there waiting for the servers to come back up so you could log in and check what was up immediately.

+1

[Splorf22]

Hmm I just had a random idea. The biggest problem with variance is the tracking. What if each guild got to pick 1 mob, and when that mob spawned a message would be broadcast in guild chat?

[McMuffins]

I feel that this is an unclassic step. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is an odd solution for a problem generated by arbitrary rules.

The only reason you need the raiding rules is because people were being assholes, or one guild was camping all the monsters. You know what, that's fine. Because the solution is for the player to join or fight or compromise with the top guilds.

I don't believe in care bears, it's a stupid term. I do believe that people get upset and would like easier solutions to problems that are made simply because they didn't get what they wanted.

In summary, fuck raiding rules, make people solve the issues themselves, this is everquest the original, not a fucking modern day power to the player mmo.

Play nice policy? Sure, don't train people, don't be retarded.

Solutions to the people who are complaining? Sure, but only if you're really really tired of hearing them complain and they won't compromise, join or fight.

TL;DR
Don't give in, remove all rules but play nice policy and make the players work with the guilds that are doing the killing.

If you're trying to remove tracking of monsters, (Real time in-game person all up in the nerd on their computer) then that's dumb, because that's a person putting in dedicated nerd time to empower their guild and themselves.

I've never done tracking, I don't play on blue, this is just my thoughts.

[Diggles]

Hmm I just had a random idea. The biggest problem with variance is the tracking. What if each guild got to pick 1 mob, and when that mob spawned a message would be broadcast in guild chat?

like, assigning a boss to a guild? or just giving all guilds a heads up through gchat?

[Kika Maslyaka]

I can imagine following:

Rogean broadcasts: "Good morning TMO! Weekly raid-boss lottery have assign you following raid targets for this week: Lord Nagafen, Venril Sathir, and .... (drums)... Fippy Darkpaw! Enjoy your stay at P99!" :D

[Autotune]

I can imagine following:

Rogean broadcasts: "Good morning TMO! Weekly raid-boss lottery have assign you following raid targets for this week: Lord Nagafen, Venril Sathir, and .... (drums)... Fippy Darkpaw! Enjoy your stay at P99!" :D

I can't.

Rogean gives 0ducks.

[Splorf22]

No, that is not what I was suggesting at all.

Something like: /guildraidtarget Trakanon

/gu Project1999 tells the guild, Trakanon has spawned!

The theory here is that small guilds would get a bit of automated tracking done for them is all. That would in no way guarantee them the kill, in fact it probably would not.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

No, that is not what I was suggesting at all.

Something like: /guildraidtarget Trakanon

/gu Project1999 tells the guild, Trakanon has spawned!

The theory here is that small guilds would get a bit of automated tracking done for them is all. That would in no way guarantee them the kill, in fact it probably would not.

irrelevant. big guilds will still track. trak died in sub 3 minutes on last spawn...i'm not sure people realize just how fast shit dies upon spawning. even sev died within 10 minutes of spawning today and that's including the pull. the actual fight was about 7 seconds, lol.

[Ele]

Can we get an update to the server raid rule posts? Having to distill 30 different threads with 4 different GMs/Guides previous rulings and statements is getting quite confusing.

[Yinikren]

The general rule as I know it (coming from a non-raider) is poopsock until something spawns on someone's alt/tracker, then race your mains to be the first to engage. The GMs want to take the method of least intervention, but unfortunately a lot of the server requires babysitting.

[Sckrilla]

Also, I think you should take away afternoon/evening limitation. This server has euro/asia-time players too that can raid at other times. Classic EQ server resets happened at all different times.
+love for us Euros!

[Tecmos Deception]

trak died in sub 3 minutes on last spawn...i'm not sure people realize just how fast shit dies upon spawning. even sev died within 10 minutes of spawning today and that's including the pull. the actual fight was about 7 seconds, lol.

Yeah, VS and Trak die fast.

But that was not a usual Sev. It was some combination of being very late in window, nothing else being in window, multiple guilds tracking to give everyone a bit of extra incentive to be there/get there quickly, etc., to cause Sev to die within 10 minutes.

And a 7-second Sev kill? That means there were probably 120+ raiders engaged with him at the same time. Again, not typical.

[pharmakos]

the progression servers on EQLive have a GM enforced rotation on contested raid bosses. works alright there.

[fadetree]

yep...that point's been made a few times.

[Heebo]

Yeah, VS and Trak die fast.

But that was not a usual Sev. It was some combination of being very late in window, nothing else being in window, multiple guilds tracking to give everyone a bit of extra incentive to be there/get there quickly, etc., to cause Sev to die within 10 minutes.

And a 7-second Sev kill? That means there were probably 120+ raiders engaged with him at the same time. Again, not typical.

Yeah, Sev was an odd kill. TMO killed it and FE generously provided what DPS the could.

[McMuffins]

http://s18.postimage.org/vse8si2gp/batphone.jpg

[pharmakos]

yep...that point's been made a few times.

sorry, i hadn't read all 45 pages =p

[Metallikus]

bump for promised changes? how long does it take to mull over a decision to implement the changes that most people agree will only do good for the server?

[cs616]

I'm not sure if this hasn't gone through because the devs are still considering options, but while I am a fan of reduced windows, in the event they are not implemented I was thinking a happy middle ground might be to have the variance operate on a bell curve. This would still maintain the chance of a mob spawning early or late in its window but normalize the spawn time to have a higher probability of occurring toward the middle of its spawn. For a 96 hour window mob for example, there could be a 90% chance that the spawn would occur in the middle 48 hours and 10% chance it occurs in the first or last 24 hours. This would also make the very middle of the window the most likely time for the spawn to occur, which would provide a more stable short term average of one 7-day mob per week than the current system. For a short term run of three 7-day mob spawns this variance would provide a 90% chance that 3 spawns occur within an 18-24 day window with the probability skewed toward the 21 day mark as opposed to the 15-27 day window that currently exists.

If the reduced window idea has already been given the OK then ignore this post. I just thought this might be an interesting way to maintain a degree of uncertainty with spawns through the potential of them spawning at low probability times while essentially halving the window to the middle high probability times.

[Enygma]

bump for promised changes? how long does it take to mull over a decision to implement the changes that most people agree will only do good for the server?

bumped for moar Metallikus QQ.

[Chedduh]

I gave my initial suggestions months ago prior to that thread existing. They were then echoed there. As far as I'm concerned, it has my blessing of green light for a test phase. If it doesn't work well, then we can try something else. Need to ask Rogean.

Via another thread... so big Rogean where you at?!? Let's make this happen in time for the Christmas season bro!

[Slave]

a happy middle ground might be to have the variance operate on a bell curve. This would still maintain the chance of a mob spawning early or late in its window but normalize the spawn time to have a higher probability of occurring toward the middle of its spawn. For a 96 hour window mob for example, there could be a 90% chance that the spawn would occur in the middle 48 hours and 10% chance it occurs in the first or last 24 hours. This would also make the very middle of the window the most likely time for the spawn to occur, which would provide a more stable short term average of one 7-day mob per week than the current system. For a short term run of three 7-day mob spawns this variance would provide a 90% chance that 3 spawns occur within an 18-24 day window with the probability skewed toward the 21 day mark as opposed to the 15-27 day window that currently exists.

If the reduced window idea has already been given the OK then ignore this post. I just thought this might be an interesting way to maintain a degree of uncertainty with spawns through the potential of them spawning at low probability times while essentially halving the window to the middle high probability times.

This is a quite advanced idea that I have not heard before.

[bluejam]

This is a quite advanced idea that I have not heard before.
Something similar was posted about ~1.5 years ago.

[Slave]

Something similar was posted about ~1.5 years ago.

Excitingly, it meets Rogean's arbitrary and unClassic "no removing variance" rule, yet is not nearly as shittastic as a full variance.

[Splorf22]

Here is the problem with low variance though: it exists to solve the whole 10 guilds on a spawn thing. If you lower the variance, no matter what you do, you'll get more poopsocking and more FTE issues. At the end of the day, the problem is there are simply too many high level raiders for this server. So you are left with 4 choices:

1) Ignore the problem and hope that FTE disputes get so awful that players agree to a rotation (would probably happen in the end, but hell for the GMs in the mean time)

2) Make the raid scene suck so much that a lot of the high level players don't want to deal with it (variance)

3) Instancing (in the end I think this is probably the best solution, ala WoW, but its not classic and our devs are against it)

4) Simultaneous repops (spread out the raid mobs so each player can only attend a few raids a week rather than all of them).

TL;DR: Rogean and Nilbog had some good plans until Rogean went MIA again.

[JayDee]

deleting all of my accounts will only do good for the server

[Slave]

Here is the problem with low variance though: it exists to solve the whole 10 guilds on a spawn thing. If you lower the variance, no matter what you do, you'll get more poopsocking and more FTE issues. At the end of the day, the problem is there are simply too many high level raiders for this server. So you are left with 4 choices:

1) Ignore the problem and hope that FTE disputes get so awful that players agree to a rotation (would probably happen in the end, but hell for the GMs in the mean time)

2) Make the raid scene suck so much that a lot of the high level players don't want to deal with it (variance)

3) Instancing (in the end I think this is probably the best solution, ala WoW, but its not classic and our devs are against it)

4) Simultaneous repops (spread out the raid mobs so each player can only attend a few raids a week rather than all of them).

TL;DR: Rogean and Nilbog had some good plans until Rogean went MIA again.

Happily, FTE Shout was one of the proposed fixes as described by the developers, which has the potential to solve the problem you are describing, all on its own.

[Tarathiel]

bump

[stormlord]

My opinion on this is depends. If raiders aren't doing anything worthwhile between raiding and the raiding has happening too rarely to keep them busy then what's the point of raiding? It has been clear for me a while... (read my signature about raiding)... that something is off in the raid scene in classic EQ.

[Tarathiel]

^^^

[Autotune]

This is a continuation from the other thread ( http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=86005 ).

Here is what nilbog and I are currently planning/designing/brainstorming:

We will be cutting the variance in half on the existing raid spawns.

We will be implementing an FTE notice of some sort, whether this is an emote or some type of message.

We will be implementing a simulated patch day respawn. Here is how it will work.

The server will pick one day of each week (Random 1 to 7, Sunday through Saturday). It will then pick a random time. I will not disclose the range of the possible times, but it will only include afternoon and evening hours, so as to give the best chance for the most people to benefit from it.

A serverwide message will go off indicating that the simulated patch day respawn has or will be taking effect shortly. All raid mobs will (either immediately, delayed, or spanned, tbd) respawn.

These respawns will NOT affect the normal respawn times of the mob. For example. If Talendor was killed on Monday, and on death the server determined he would spawn again on Sunday. A simulated patch day occurs on Thursday, his death on Thursday will not reset his scheduled respawn time on Sunday.
Exception: If the mob's spawn time is scheduled to occur within (To be determined, probably either 6 or 12 hours) of the simulated patch day respawn, it will calculate a new spawn time for the mob as it would had he been killed normally, when he dies from the simulated respawn.

Discuss, and know that this system is not final, now or even when it goes live. We will evaluate how it plays out.

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[Metallikus]

empty promises

[falkun]

empty promises

Discuss, and know that this system is not final, now or even when it goes live. We will evaluate how it plays out.

Nothing was promised. But I'll concede that discussions have died.

[Alarti0001]

empty promises

Metallikus' next rampage imminent.

[Hugmukk]

Some have expressed that 1 a week is too many, I would tend to agree with that. I'm sorry if this was discussed earlier in the thread but I'm not reading through all 460 comments to find out.

One solution would be if the "simulated crashes" occur too close together, that particular "simulated crash" would be skipped. But the following crash could not be skipped.

For example, if the SC (simulated crash) happened Sunday at noon, and the next SC happens Monday at or before noon. Then the SC that was suppose to happen Monday will not actually happen.

The time between could be tweaked, but it would add some variance.

Like I said I don't know if this was discussed already, if it was my appolagies.

[Thana8088]

There will be no simulated crashes until 200 people are all piled up on the VS spawn point.

Oh wait.....

[myxomatosii]

Thread summary: DER TEKIN ER MERBSSSSSS

/curtain

[Frieza_Prexus]

We've all seen it discussed a thousand times: FTE shouts, variance elimination, simulated patch days, etc. While those are all quality suggestions, this thread's purpose is the discussion of a single specific solution, so I'd appreciate it if we could maintain a narrow focus.

As the situation currently stands, I feel that the variance does a reasonable job at preventing FTE camp-fests, however, numerous late-window examples prove that the variance is not completely efficient at discouraging the FTE camp-fests. The following proposal is to help increase the efficacy of the variance in performing its stated purpose: discouraging sock-parties.

NOTE: Technically, all the calculations would be made upon the mob's death, however, that is a mere technical note as the playerbase will still be faced with uncertainty. All of the % figures are suggestions, and they could obviously use tweaking.

SOLUTION: When a mob's window reaches between 75% and 85% completion, the server has a 50% chance to extend the mobs window an additional 24 hours. The system then randomly places the mob's spawning at a new point somewhere within the duration of the final 25% to 15% of the window+24 additional hours. Should this new window reach between 75% and 85% completion, the check is repeated with a 25% chance at a 12 to 14 hour extension to the current window randomly placing the mob's spawning within the new window of 25% to 15% of current time left +12 hours. This 2nd 12 hour check may repeat indefinitely.

This might seem a bit confusing, but I've tried to make it as simple as possible. The reason the "extension check" is done when the window is between 75% and 85% completion is to keep the players guessing. For example, if the players know when the extension check occurs, they will just log on and sock until the window hits the point where the check is conducted. The players would still have a strong chance of the mob spawning right then and there. If it doesn't they just log out until the window nears closing again and sock until the neck check is made. To have the check made at an undefined point prevents this staggered socking style.

I've done some quick back-of-a-napkin probability calculations, and this scheme, in the long run if my math is correct, will not appreciably affect the number of pops per month of any given mob. Even if it did, I suggest that the one less Trak spawn a year might be worth it for fewer FTE bonanzas.

It is my hope that a productive dialogue occurs vis a vis this suggestion and that if we fine-tune it enough, we may draw the support of the server staff.

[Splorf22]

I prefer my solution: whenever you poopsock a raid mob, you forfeit the normal GM protection from trains. This means that a) we can all have fun training the sockers b) you guys can have fun fighting off the trains. Everyone wins.

[Slave]

The problem with variance is not only that it is not Classic, it is that it has led to a completely untenable situation in high end raiding whereby the largest guilds have a disproportionate amount of power to find and kill bosses.

It's just not Classic, and it's been shown to be very obviously flawed in almost every respect. Your solution speaks nothing to the real issues that variance creates, and I find the whole situation quite insulting to the player base.

[SupaflyIRL]

Wouldn't this just cause more socking with less pops? Once the initial window is expired everyone just comes back the next day and does the same thing, unless I'm missing something.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Wouldn't this just cause more socking with less pops? Once the initial window is expired everyone just comes back the next day and does the same thing, unless I'm missing something.

Once the initial window has expired, the mob may spawn at ANY time in the new window. For example, say Trak reaches 75% completion meaning that he has 7.5 hours left of his 36 hour window. At 75% the system will roll a two sided die, if successful, the window is extended another 24 hours. This means that Trak could now spawn at ANY point within the next 31.5 hours. (7.5 + 24).

He could spawn in 6 seconds after the check, or he could spawn over 30 hours later. This would severely discourage socking as there is no definable point or bracket on his "spawn timeline" where the probability of a pop is so large as to justify a multi-hour socking.

[Splorf22]

BTW a more serious raid proposal: make all raid bosses spawn every day at 7:30PM EST (well a few spawns at different times for our aussie/euro folks). Each mob drops 1/7 of its normal loot table. Everyone has a blast.

Your idea is not terrible IMO but it reminds me of our government trying to fix our excess of debt by going into more debt. Variance is the problem, not the solution.

[Frieza_Prexus]

The problem with variance is not only that it is not Classic, it is that it has led to a completely untenable situation in high end raiding whereby the largest guilds have a disproportionate amount of power to find and kill bosses.

It's just not Classic, and it's been shown to be very obviously flawed in almost every respect. Your solution speaks nothing to the real issues that variance creates, and I find the whole situation quite insulting to the player base.

I disagree, however, that is an issue for threads concerning removal of the variance.

As it stands, the discussion is a simple question of "Which of the following two choices: (A) Variance as it is or (B) Variance with window extensions, is more efficacious and productive for the server?"

[SupaflyIRL]

Mob has spawn time of 90 hours with 10 hour variance. At 100 hours everyone will leave and come back for the (second) late window spawn (which was your initial concern).

You're just putting your initial problem off another 24 (48, 72, etc) hours and hoping people get tired of coming back for the repeated late windows. So now instead of only having one opportunity for a late window sock you're allowing for multiple ones, which I'm sure won't make the already uncooperative guilds more antsy and inclined to ensure they are the ones that get the mob after waiting at the altar a couple times.

[Ele]

The problem with variance is not only that it is not Classic, it is that it has led to a completely untenable situation in high end raiding whereby the largest guilds have a disproportionate amount of power to find and kill bosses.

It's just not Classic, and it's been shown to be very obviously flawed in almost every respect. Your solution speaks nothing to the real issues that variance creates, and I find the whole situation quite insulting to the player base.

It is obvious that variance is not classic. However the server staff have already made clear their position about variance, so at this point we have to work within that paradigm. Xasten isn't trying to promote this above a classic spawn pattern, but working within the sandbox that the server staff have chosen to let us play in.

This is a rather simple check within the variance code that would discourage socking at the end of windows by throwing in the uncertainty of being there beyond a set time limit.

[Alarti0001]

BTW a more serious raid proposal: make all raid bosses spawn every day at 7:30PM EST (well a few spawns at different times for our aussie/euro folks). Each mob drops 1/7 of its normal loot table. Everyone has a blast.

Your idea is not terrible IMO but it reminds me of our government trying to fix our excess of debt by going into more debt. Variance is the problem, not the solution.

730 is too early for PST players ! 9pmest at the earliest!.
Either way Velious is the solution. If you hate socking go test those quests.

[Elements]

Id rather see some variation of raid mobs DT the entire zone upon spawning and banish anyone who enters their zone who hasnt been logged into that toon for at least 25 minutes. Fix socking and camping out toons at the same time and bring us back to classic raid mobilization.

[Handull]

I've done some quick back-of-a-napkin probability calculations, and this scheme, in the long run if my math is correct, will not appreciably affect the number of pops per month of any given mob. Even if it did, I suggest that the one less Trak spawn a year might be worth it for fewer FTE bonanzas.

doesn't take any calculation to see that any chance to make the mob spawn later, with no chance to spawn sooner, will cause less spawns per unit time.

one solution is rogean should just change the variance code without telling anyone. (maybe tell nilbog, but dont tell the gms). change it so the windows are just a bit smaller than they are now, maybe even make the different targets have slightly different windows. it would take a while for people to catch on to the change, and in that time socking will be way down because it will just seem like random luck that mobs haven't been going super late in window lately. when people start to figure it out, change it again.

or we could, ya know, start to all get along. make an agreement not to sock b4 so many hours are left in the window, agree to just roll for a super late window mob rather than fight for fte, or think of some other solution that doesn't involve crying for rogean to fix the problem.

[SupaflyIRL]

This is a rather simple check within the variance code that would discourage socking at the end of windows by throwing in the uncertainty of being there beyond a set time limit.

What I'm saying, however, is that there is no uncertainty, it just extends the sock and offers multiple late window opportunities for each mob.

The only way using variance would stop socking is to have spawns triggered in such a way that variance has an undetermined endpoint using statistics to try to achieve the same number of kills per week/month/year instead of a window. I'm not going to bother doing the math but on a one week spawn it would look more like:

Day 1-5: 0% chance per 30 minutes to spawn
day 5: 1% chance to spawn every 30 mins
day 6: 2% chance every 30 mins

etc. and have no cap, but after a certain number of days have a fixed percentage to spawn. This would more faithfully randomize the spawn than having a set window then increasing the set window by a set amount at a set percentage.

[Alarti0001]

Id rather see some variation of raid mobs DT the entire zone upon spawning and banish anyone who enters their zone who hasnt been logged into that toon for at least 25 minutes. Fix socking and camping out toons at the same time and bring us back to classic raid mobilization.

Hard part is, people EXP in KC, SEB, EJ, SF, TD, DL etc etc.

[Slave]

However the server staff have already made clear their position about variance, so at this point we have to work within that paradigm

It is only Rogean. And alarmingly, his illogical insistence on this only starts to make sense if you consider certain strange and shady scenarios. Occam is cutting himself somewhere.

[Ele]

Mob has spawn time of 90 hours with 10 hour variance. At 100 hours everyone will leave and come back for the (second) late window spawn (which was your initial concern).

You're just putting your initial problem off another 24 (48, 72, etc) hours and hoping people get tired of coming back for the repeated late windows. So now instead of only having one opportunity for a late window sock you're allowing for multiple ones, which I'm sure won't make the already uncooperative guilds more antsy and inclined to ensure they are the ones that get the mob after waiting at the altar a couple times.

No boss here has a 10 hour variance, they range from 18, 24, and 48 hour variances.

The chances that a mob goes to the last 10% of its window is already low, on top of that it would be highly discouraging to those wanting to sock something out that last 2-5 hours to have a coin flip that it could be another 24 hours, and yet another coin flip to extend again.

The reason socking is prevalent at this point (keeping in mind the variance as implemented is not classic) is because you know that the boss will spawn for sure within that rapidly closing window. The addition of FTE rules also further encourages sitting on spawn points for the FTE lottery win.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Mob has spawn time of 90 hours with 10 hour variance. At 100 hours everyone will leave and come back for the (second) late window spawn (which was your initial concern).

You're just putting your initial problem off another 24 (48, 72, etc) hours and hoping people get tired of coming back for the repeated late windows. So now instead of only having one opportunity for a late window sock you're allowing for multiple ones, which I'm sure won't make the already uncooperative guilds more antsy and inclined to ensure they are the ones that get the mob after waiting at the altar a couple times.

Not exactly. The mob would have an equal chance at spawning at ANY point during each independent window extension. IE: during window one it could spawn at 1 second in or at the last second.

Yes, there are "blocks" where a staggered sock is, in theory, possible. However, the idea is that the % chance at an extension is conducted at some point when the timer is between 75% and 85% completion, AND the first timer extension has a 50% chance of occurring (or tweaked to some reasonable % so as to make socking unprofitable). These combined raised the level of uncertainty to a point so that socking becomes immensely unprofitable.

Also: Should this new window reach between 75% and 85% completion, the check is repeated with a 25% chance at a 12 to 14 hour extension to the current window randomly placing the mob's spawning within the new window of 25% to 15% of current time left +12 hours. This 2nd 12 hour check may repeat indefinitely.

[SupaflyIRL]

Not exactly. The mob would have an equal chance at spawning at ANY point during each independent window extension. IE: during window one it could spawn at 1 second in or at the last second.

Yes, there are "blocks" where a staggered sock is, in theory, possible. However, the idea is that the % chance at an extension is conducted at some point when the timer is between 75% and 85% completion, AND the first timer extension has a 50% chance of occurring (or tweaked to some reasonable % so as to make socking unprofitable). These combined raised the level of uncertainty to a point so that socking becomes immensely unprofitable.

Also:

You're not understanding what I'm saying, every single extension's endpoint would be a known time which makes your solution "more of the same".

No boss here has a 10 hour variance, they range from 18, 24, and 48 hour variances.

The chances that a mob goes to the last 10% of its window is already low, on top of that it would be highly discouraging to those wanting to sock something out that last 2-5 hours to have a coin flip that it could be another 24 hours, and yet another coin flip to extend again.

The reason socking is prevalent at this point (keeping in mind the variance as implemented is not classic) is because you know that the boss will spawn for sure within that rapidly closing window. The addition of FTE rules also further encourages sitting on spawn points for the FTE lottery win.

Made up numbers for simplicity. Also, the odds that a mob will spawn in the last 10% of its variance are the same as the first 10% or at any other time, so a late window spawn is just as statistically probable as any other spawn time.

[Frieza_Prexus]

doesn't take any calculation to see that any chance to make the mob spawn later, with no chance to spawn sooner, will cause less spawns per unit time.

Obviously, this decreases the number of spawns in any given time period. My point is that the impact is negligible. Even if the impact were noteworthy, I submit that it would be worth it to lessen the amount of socking.

You're not understanding what I'm saying, every single extension's endpoint would be a known time which makes your solution "more of the same".

I understand you. My counter point is that each instance of socking becomes a gamble. Yes, it is true that strategic or staggered socking can and will occur. The point I am making is that this system lessens such occurrences. It is not "more of the same" it actually leads to "less of the same." The probability increasingly diminishes the efficacy of late window socks.

[Sizzle]

Looking for Skope's input on this situation. >.>

[Ele]

You're not understanding what I'm saying, every single extension's endpoint would be a known time which makes your solution "more of the same".



Made up numbers for simplicity. Also, the odds that a mob will spawn in the last 10% of its variance are the same as the first 10% or at any other time, so a late window spawn is just as statistically probable as any other spawn time.

I don't disagree with any of those points. I do disagree with you that people would keep coming back at each new close of window. In my opinion, the prospect of keeping people and bringing them back for sock after sock on the same single mob would be highly discouraging.

[Splorf22]

Xasten's scheme according to my back of the envelope calculation would be about a 3% reduction in spawns.

Why not do something simpler: 5 days after it is killed, every raid boss has a ~1%/hour chance to spawn. I'd have to do the math on what percentage would give us the same number of mobs, but it would totally eliminate poopsocking (there would be no rise in probability towards the end of the window) while being mathematically more elegant.

Of course none of this changes the problem that VARIANCE SUCKS DONKEY BALLS. I kind of agree with Alarti that Velious will help a lot, but it won't be the The Solution. Again, I think my solution of spawning all raid mobs every day at fixed times would a) be way more fun b) get way more people involved in the raid scene. But we've had this discussion, Rogean was going to implement some changes, and evidentially he lost interest. So the whole point is moot.

[Wiwi]

How long has variance been instituted?

Let's say Rogean became a vegan one day and suddenly decided to remove the variance for just one month. How bad would things be in comparison to how things run now?

If this is answered by another thread, please link for me.

[SupaflyIRL]

I understand you. My counter point is that each instance of socking becomes a gamble. Yes, it is true that strategic or staggered socking can and will occur. The point I am making is that this system lessens such occurrences. It is not "more of the same" it actually leads to "less of the same." The probability increasingly diminishes the efficacy of late window socks.

day 0: mob dies

day 8: 10% left in window start socking

day 8: new window expires

day 9: 10% left in new window start socking

day 9: new window expires

Repeat until infinity or mob dies in same exact manner as they do now. This will only increase the importance of zerg recruiting to meet the new socking requirements as opposed to causing any kind of significant blow to the practice. Explain to me how multiple potential socking points is less of the same and not more of the same, since you yourself said this can continue indefinitely.

I understand you've invested yourself in this idea, but you're wrong and your numbers and theory are garbage.

[Hugmukk]

Sounds like your just delaying the spawn in which case more poop socking will entail, spawn variance was a good idea but has caused other issues. It should be elliminated. Create a "simulated crash" I think that's the best option.

[SupaflyIRL]

I don't disagree with any of those points. I do disagree with you that people would keep coming back at each new close of window. In my opinion, the prospect of keeping people and bringing them back for sock after sock on the same single mob would be highly discouraging.

If you could honestly tell me you're certain guilds wouldn't stoop even lower to the challenge (as in you'd wager something important on it), I'll concede this point.

[Alarti0001]

If you could honestly tell me you're certain guilds wouldn't stoop even lower to the challenge (as in you'd wager something important on it), I'll concede this point.

Thats the issue people are already socking 3-4 days straight.

[Ele]

If you could honestly tell me you're certain guilds wouldn't stoop even lower to the challenge (as in you'd wager something important on it), I'll concede this point.

I have no idea what you just said.

[Elements]

How's about a rotation only for very late window spawns. If mob has < 6 hrs in window next guild in rotation gets first shot but if you wipe its FTE. TMO is still going to get the vast majority of spawns but the entire server can be spared FTE socking.

Also who evers turn it is in the rotation would have say 10 minutes to engage or it becomes FFA.

[SupaflyIRL]

I have no idea what you just said.

Not my problem, yours.

e: post is still there, read it as many times as you need to

[Splorf22]

How long has variance been instituted?

Let's say Rogean became a vegan one day and suddenly decided to remove the variance for just one month. How bad would things be in comparison to how things run now?

If this is answered by another thread, please link for me.

What would happen is everyone and their brother would sit on the spawn point spamming tab/autoattack. When the boss spawned, no one would know who had FTE, and every boss kill would require a petition for the GM to check.

HOPEFULLY after about a month of this idiocy everyone would work out a rotation, but I doubt it.

TBH this doesn't sound worse than now when 50% of the time the GMs have to check anyway.

BTW Xasten, I don't think poopsocking is the primary problem with the raid scene currently. The primary problem is that 80% of the population has no interest in it owning to the batphone/tracking required even when things are working 'well' as you would say. Any solution to the raid scene needs to address the primary problem first; if it makes sense it will fix poopsocking as well.

[khanable]

Does /guildwar work?

Fight it out, guilds.

[Splorf22]

Not my problem, yours.

e: post is still there, read it as many times as you need to

as someone who has written academic papers, this is just wrong. If someone doesn't understand what you are saying, that is YOUR fault. It doesn't matter if they have the IQ of an amoeba (average for tenured professors), it's YOUR job to make your points understandable, not criticize their intellectual equipment.

[SupaflyIRL]

as someone who has written academic papers, this is just wrong. If someone doesn't understand what you are saying, that is YOUR fault. It doesn't matter if they have the IQ of an amoeba (average for tenured professors), it's YOUR job to make your points understandable, not criticize their intellectual equipment.

My post was not in any way ambiguous and this isn't an academic paper.

[Alarti0001]

as someone who has written academic papers, this is just wrong. If someone doesn't understand what you are saying, that is YOUR fault. It doesn't matter if they have the IQ of an amoeba (average for tenured professors), it's YOUR job to make your points understandable, not criticize their intellectual equipment.

He has to write something that is understandable to a majority there will always be people who dont understand. However, I understood what supafly or what not was saying. It was pretty clear he was stating that people would just poopsock longer.

[Frieza_Prexus]

I understand you've invested yourself in this idea, but you're wrong and your numbers and theory are garbage.

Oh, you wound me so deeply.

Under the current scheme, you can guarantee that if Trak has 5 hours left, you WILL see him within 5 hours. This motivates the sock. The ONLY question is if will you win the FTE lottery. Trak is NOT socked until the window nears completion because it is not worth it to the guilds involved to invest so many resources.

Under the proposed scheme, if the current window has 5 hours left, you are NOT guaranteed to see him within 5 hours. This forces a calculated gamble as to whether or not a guild should commit resources to socking

I submit, that such uncertainty will lead to fewer spawn camps. Even if it only reduces spawn camping by a small amount, it is still a reduction and thus my statements hold true. The question then becomes is the reduction in camping enough so as to make ~3% less Trak spawns a year worth it?

Do you alternatively submit that this scheme increases socking? Also, as time continues, the "end of the window" becomes increasingly smaller in regards to the overall window size.

If a mob had a 6 hour variance, it would always be an "end of window" scenario. If it had a 500 hour variance the "end of the window" scenario would be an extremely small proportion of the total window. Therefore, window extensions contribute to making the "end of the window" a smaller proportion of the total window. Ergo, a decrease in the impetus to sock.

[Ele]

He has to write something that is understandable to a majority there will always be people who dont understand. However, I understood what supafly or what not was saying. It was pretty clear he was stating that people would just poopsock longer.

You speculated and assumed what he was saying.

[Frieza_Prexus]

@ Loraen, I agree that this is not the ultimate solution. However, as Elethia stated, the Devs seem to be hell bent on maintaining some form of variance. I believe that this scheme may alleviate some of the current problems posed by the variance. This is not a panacea, however, it might provide some relief.

It seems to me that we must, for the time being, embrace the reality of the variance. Thus, we are left with two choices in the interim: Variance as is or Variance somehow modified.

[Ele]

My post was not in any way ambiguous and this isn't an academic paper.

Not my problem, yours.

e: post is still there, read it as many times as you need to

You seem to have a thought in mind, but you are not presenting it correctly.

[SupaflyIRL]

Under the proposed scheme, if the current window has 5 hours left, you are NOT guaranteed to see him within 5 hours. This forces a calculated gamble as to whether or not a guild should commit resources to socking

I submit, that such uncertainty will lead to fewer spawn camps. Even if it only reduces spawn camping by a small amount, it is still a reduction and thus my statements hold true. The question then becomes is the reduction in camping enough so as to make ~3% less Trak spawns a year worth it?

Do you alternatively submit that this scheme increases socking? Also, as time continues, the "end of the window" becomes increasingly smaller in regards to the overall window size.

If a mob had a 6 hour variance, it would always be an "end of window" scenario. If it had a 500 hour variance the "end of the window" scenario would be an extremely small proportion of the total window. Therefore, window extensions contribute to making the "end of the window" a smaller proportion of the total window. Ergo, a decrease in the impetus to sock.

In your example, the guild that will get the most mobs will be the guild with the most people ready and willing to do whatever it takes to get the mob. It will also increase the fatigue of smaller guilds in keeping up with the raid scene. The only way your plan will contribute to "less socking" is by reducing the amount of INVOLVED PARTIES, not the amount of overall socking. The top guild or guilds will still do it because it will nearly guarantee the mob will be theirs since no smaller guilds will be willing to do it.

You are still ignoring the fact that the spawn uncertainty is the same as it is now in your plan, but endpoints are still known. Known endpoints are the problem variance is trying to solve, so either remove it entirely or overhaul the system to exclude endpoints.

You seem to have a thought in mind, but you are not presenting it correctly.

He has to write something that is understandable to a majority there will always be people who dont understand. However, I understood what supafly or what not was saying. It was pretty clear he was stating that people would just poopsock longer.

[Frieza_Prexus]

As a member of TMO that participates in the sock fests, I assure you that the proposition of staggered socking is extremely dissuading. I still submit that this scheme leads to a reduction in socking and a partial alleviation of the current issues.

[SupaflyIRL]

This is what you posted as your thesis:

As the situation currently stands, I feel that the variance does a reasonable job at preventing FTE camp-fests, however, numerous late-window examples prove that the variance is not completely efficient at discouraging the FTE camp-fests.

The only thing your solution does differently from current variance is to provide more opportunity for late window examples to arise. Your solution fails to address the causes you yourself defined. Either your thesis is inaccurate or your solution is ineffective.

[Alarti0001]

You speculated and assumed what he was saying.

It was presented clearly. No speculation needed. Just a dose of common sense and the related quote he linked.

[Alarti0001]

As a member of TMO that participates in the sock fests, I assure you that the proposition of staggered socking is extremely dissuading. I still submit that this scheme leads to a reduction in socking and a partial alleviation of the current issues.

As a member of TMO that participates in the sock fests. I assure you I will be really annoyed when I am socking for 4 days because FE,FC,BDA etc decides its worth it to them.

[Frieza_Prexus]

This is what you posted as your thesis:



The only thing your solution does differently from current variance is to provide more opportunity for late window examples to arise. Your solution fails to address the causes you yourself defined. Either your thesis is inaccurate or your solution is ineffective.

But my solution changes the mechanics of a late window from a guaranteed mob appearance to a % chance of a mob's appearance. Apples and oranges. Let's tweak the numbers a bit.

When a mob's window reaches 75% completion, the system has a 95% chance to extend the window another 500 hours. If the 500 hour window begins to close, the system has a 90% chance at another 300 hour extension.

Clearly, the above numbers would all but eliminate socking.

Now, follow me here, this discussion is about bringing the above numbers down to a reasonable amount so as to discourage socking at least .00001% more than it is discouraged now. The discussion then becomes what the right balance of numbers versus reduced spawns becomes should the goal of reducing the sock become worth it.

I understand you've invested yourself in your idea, but...well, I think you know the rest.

[SupaflyIRL]

But my solution changes the mechanics of a late window from a guaranteed mob appearance to a % chance of a mob's appearance. Apples and oranges. Let's tweak the numbers a bit.

When a mob's window reaches 75% completion, the system has a 95% chance to extend the window another 500 hours. If the 500 hour window begins to close, the system has a 90% chance at another 300 hour extension.

Clearly, the above numbers would all but eliminate socking.

Now, follow me here, this discussion is about bringing the above numbers down to a reasonable amount so as to discourage socking at least .00001% more than it is discouraged now. The discussion then becomes what the right balance of numbers versus reduced spawns becomes should the goal of reducing the sock become worth it.

I understand you've invested yourself in your idea, but...well, I think you know the rest.

Should the check fail to extend the window, there is a 100% chance the spawn will happen by the end of the current window. This is the monkey wrench in your plan's gears.

e: It doesn't change the "what" of the spawn mechanics, just the "when"

[Frieza_Prexus]

Should the check fail to extend the window, there is a 100% chance the spawn will happen by the end of the current window.

But the playerbase will not know the check's results. Thus, they must gamble. Uncertainty will dissuade at least a few, and thus a reduction in the current symptoms.

[SupaflyIRL]

But the playerbase will not know the check's results. Thus, they must gamble. Uncertainty will dissuade at least a few, and thus a reduction in the current symptoms.

They will know the results as soon as the current window expires. If there is a sub 50% chance of the trigger happening it is rational to sock the current window until it expires. If there is a greater than 50% chance of the trigger happening spawns per month will be drastically reduced.

I'm not sure which is worse, your understanding of the math or your understanding of the social dynamics of the server.

[Alarti0001]

But the playerbase will not know the check's results. Thus, they must gamble. Uncertainty will dissuade at least a few, and thus a reduction in the current symptoms.

Lets just assume your idea would work 100% as you intend (Not that I think it would).

The server has limited resources in the way of devs. Limited time that these devs work and also other tasks that many would see as more important.

How much coding would be involved, how much time invested, how much testing. Once we have this information we could better understand the costs vs the benefits.
How close is velious to being done? Will variance exist on Velious targets...Once Velious comes out will variance still exist on old world targets. These questions are all relevant to whether or not your concept should be pursued.

[Frieza_Prexus]

They will know the results as soon as the current window expires.

At which point they face the proposition of a 12 or even 24 hour sock. Yeah, that's a real good motivator and morale booster.

"Oh man, Trak didn't pop at 3:47 A.M. CST on a Tuesday morning when the window closed, batphone it and grab a Snickers. We're digging in" Said no one. Ever.

[Alarti0001]

At which point they face the proposition of a 12 or even 24 hour sock. Yeah, that's a real good motivator and morale booster.

"Oh man, Trak didn't pop at 3:47 A.M. CST on a Tuesday morning when the window closed, batphone it and grab a Snickers. We're digging in" Said no one. Ever.

People will sock long hours for days at a time which has been proven on this server... over and over again. Will the variance you suggest decrease it? Probably.... by how much. That isn't something you can speculate on.

[Lexical]

I prefer my solution: whenever you poopsock a raid mob, you forfeit the normal GM protection from trains. This means that a) we can all have fun training the sockers b) you guys can have fun fighting off the trains. Everyone wins.

[gotrocks]

you are *grossly* underestimating peoples desire to kill raid targets.

like alarti just said, will this decrease poopsocking? probably. but also probably not by much.

[Wiwi]

How long did this server go without variance during Kunark?

[SupaflyIRL]

At which point they face the proposition of a 12 or even 24 hour sock. Yeah, that's a real good motivator and morale booster.

"Oh man, Trak didn't pop at 3:47 A.M. CST on a Tuesday morning when the window closed, batphone it and grab a Snickers. We're digging in" Said no one. Ever.

...and if he doesn't spawn by 5pm the next day? You have another sock fest. You just literally put the problem off until tomorrow and nothing else.

[Alarti0001]

How long did this server go without variance during Kunark?

Variance was around prior to kunark.

[Frieza_Prexus]

will this decrease poopsocking? probably. but also probably not by much.

Thus, the discussion becomes: "does adding this mechanic improve the efficacy of the variance system?"

Even a slight improvement is still an improvement.

[Lexical]

Allowing aggressive trains also fixes the problem though and is more classic.

[Alarti0001]

Thus, the discussion becomes: "does adding this mechanic improve the efficacy of the variance system?"

Even a slight improvement is still an improvement.

Again at what cost?

Any details regarding my previous questions about time investment etc.

[Frieza_Prexus]

...and if he doesn't spawn by 5pm the next day? You have another sock fest. You just literally put the problem off until tomorrow and nothing else.

Unless, you know, the mobs spawns at some point between the window ends. You know, during that large amount of time where socking is less likely to occur.

Again, window extensions lessen the overall time that a window will be within, say the last 5 hours or so where socking occurs. A 500 hour window has a smaller % of "end window" time than a 6 hour window. Thus, it is a simple game of tweaking the numbers so that there is an overall reduction in the impetus for camping.

[gotrocks]

Thus, the discussion becomes: "does adding this mechanic improve the efficacy of the variance system?"

Even a slight improvement is still an improvement.

but at what cost...?

if it drives the playerbase insane and causes them to murder their families, lose their jobs, and delete their characters, was it worth it..?

in all seriousness though, I think it does boil down to "is this worth it?" will it make enough of a difference vs time required to setup, implement etc.

in my humble opinion, it does not.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Again at what cost?

Any details regarding my previous questions about time investment etc.

As Loraen mentioned, and I mentioned on the TMO forums, the impact upon the number of spawns per year would be in the single digit range. Likely between 2-5% depending upon the numbers utilized.

I suspect coding such a scheme would be an exceptionally trivial matter, though I am not a coder. FTE shouts and the like have not been implemented for a want of time and the difficulty thereof.

Worst case scenario, I suspect that coding and implementing such a scheme would delay Velious by about, oh a few hours?

EDIT: For reference, Loly did a detailed simulation on the "Variance Simulator" thread on the TMO forums, which you may peruse at your leisure.



This simulates variance windows in a crude fashion and looks to see if they end in the last 15% of the window.


The result page will tell you this after a full run;

Single extend checks; 3447, Single extends; 1715, Double extend checks; 0, Double extends; 0, Counts until double extend 10001

Ignore everything but the first two entries.

When you look at the tables displayed it will show you the randomly chosen end window with Xasten's poopsock defeat idea applied to the first half. (I.e. If the window ends in the last 15%, it will roll a d2 and if 2 then it will choose to add a random number of seconds from 1 to a full day)

I think the secondary code is broken, but whatever. If you see what I've messed up on please point it out.

Note, greyed rows are those that extended beyond the normal window.

[gotrocks]

Since we have spawn variances already, why not just fuck the extra end-spawn variance and make the entire window crazy big?

give every raid target a 5 day spawn variance. i guarantee this will almost eliminate socking (except in late window, obviously.)

[SupaflyIRL]

Unless, you know, the mobs spawns at some point between the window ends. You know, during that large amount of time where socking is less likely to occur.

You know, like the current system.

How is the potential for spawning between window ends any different from spawning before the main window end? All it does is take the last 24 hours of a 7 day window and repeat it over and over again. You are cloning the worst part of the spawn window and repeating it.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Because the check has a 50% chance to extend and a 25% to extend the window a second time. This causes a weighting effect. The new windows will still resemble the old ones if you graphed them.

This simply makes the people wanting to sock ask themselves: "Oh man, I can sit here for 5 hours without a guaranteed spawn like I used to. Hmmm, maybe I should just wait for the batphone."

If you can't see that, then we're just going in circles. Good day.

[Itap]

Wouldn't it be easier with scheduled server resets? This would literally require no additional coding.

Or did big Rog come to the conclusion that it isn't happening

[Alarti0001]

.

I suspect coding such a scheme would be an exceptionally trivial matter, though I am not a coder. FTE shouts and the like have not been implemented for a want of time and the difficulty thereof.


I am not sure how you can project how much work is involved and then claim you have know knowledge of the process.
I supect your solution will have little to no affect on the problem at hand.

Maybe you should get some information from coders as to how long this would take to implement?

[Frieza_Prexus]

I am not sure how you can project how much work is involved and then claim you have know knowledge of the process.
I supect your solution will have little to no affect on the problem at hand.


It is supposition base purely upon what little understanding I have. If an actual coder corrects me, I will gladly account for the input. After all, this thread is a discussion meant to solicit input on the efficacy of such a solution.

Though I do find it interesting that your own suppositions are that this scheme will be ineffective, when you seemed to have supported the idea after Zagum brought it up. http://themysticalorder.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=8271&p=71132&hilit=oooo#p71132

[Alarti0001]

It is supposition base purely upon what little understanding I have. If an actual coder corrects me, I will gladly account for the input. After all, this thread is a discussion meant to solicit input on the efficacy of such a solution.

Though I do find it interesting that your own suppositions are that this scheme will be ineffective, when you seemed to have supported the idea after Zagum brought it up. http://themysticalorder.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=8271&p=71132&hilit=oooo#p71132

I'm an actual coder and I can tell you coding always takes 100x longer than a non-coder thinks it would. However, without seeing the relevant p99 code there is no way I can make a prediction. Nilbog or Kanras might be able to help you.

You must have read my post wrong. Zagum suggested your idea, I responded with ooo OR repops. As in Repops would do more positive good for the raid scene than your idea. I offered an alternative idea and did not support your idea at all :)

Not that the fact that its your idea even matters (which you seem to be implying, suppositions are fun!)

[fullmetalcoxman]

Who benefits from your shiny new plan?

News flash: people sock because that is the only way they can compete with you.


Want to eliminate socking?
R-O-T-A-T-I-O-N

[Alarti0001]

Who benefits from your shiny new plan?

News flash: people sock because that is the only way they can compete with you.


Want to eliminate socking?
V-E-L-I-O-U-S

[fullmetalcoxman]

Who has benefited the most from the variance? A huge guild that can mobilize quickly and track 24/7.

Hasn't TMO always said that he who puts in the most effort deserves the most loot? Isn't socking a competition to see who can put in the most effort?

Don't think of it as socking, think of it as 30 man tracking.

[Triangle]

This is a horrible solution that only benefits TMO. A reasonable solution has alreayd been offered: simulated repops.

[Splorf22]

This is a horrible solution that only benefits TMO. A reasonable solution has alreayd been offered: simulated repops.

[Vexenu]

The current variance/FTE/poopsocking system is absurdly bad. In fact, I don't even think it's possible to design a system that is more of a clusterfuck in every regard. Things would literally be better off with dragons and raid mobs spawning totally at random in any zone in the game.

The fact that hundreds of people actually sit around for hours at a time just for the chance to gain FTE on a raid mob (which must be later verified by a GM) is itself incredibly sad and pathetic even by EQ standards, and even moreso when you consider that many people actually defend this as "competition". But the only competition this policy creates is which guild can recruit more no-life, pixel-obsessed shutins to spend their entire lives sitting and waiting for dragons to spawn.

The current system is not fun for anyone. Not even the winners, because "winning" under the current system is a combination of luck on the FTE lottery and the sheer number of people wearing your guild tag who are willing to shamefully neglect their real life to chain themselves to their computer for hours at a time simply to "beat" other shut-ins in the pixel hunt.

Enforce a rotation. Allow training of poopsockers. PvP flag raid zones and pre-announce raid spawns. Randomly spawn dragons in the EC tunnel. Literally anything is preferable. Take your pick.

The current system is just so bad it would be funny, if it wasn't so pathetic to watch people get caught up in. It's like watching a bunch of retards compete over who can punch themselves in the dick the hardest.

[Alarti0001]

Who has benefited the most from the variance? A huge guild that can mobilize quickly and track 24/7.

Hasn't TMO always said that he who puts in the most effort deserves the most loot? Isn't socking a competition to see who can put in the most effort?

Don't think of it as socking, think of it as 30 man tracking.

You are lost... we designed our guild AROUND variance. We are the result.

[Nytch]

Allowing aggressive trains also fixes the problem though and is more classic.

If they allowed trains only the Sullon Zekers would survive on this server.

[Triangle]

We've all seen it discussed a thousand times: FTE shouts, variance elimination, simulated patch days, etc. While those are all quality suggestions, this thread's purpose is the discussion of a single specific solution, so I'd appreciate it if we could maintain a narrow focus.

Secondly, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that those solutions are quality. It is laughable to create such a bad solution then ask us to not focus on the good solutions and only focus on your PoS one.

[Alarti0001]

If they allowed trains only the Sullon Zekers would survive on this server.

And Fennin ro'ers

[Tasslehofp99]

THIS IS NOT A TROLL BUT SERIOUS AND LEGITIMATE IMPUT FOR THIS THREAD:


The problem itself is TMO, not the variance. When it comes down to non-TMO guilds racing for mobs, we have no trouble getting along and splitting kills/loots. TMO is the only problem with the raiding scene on p99. Why is that so hard to understand?


Examples are BDA/FE (and other guilds who have formidable forces in zone when a mob pops) working together on several encounters recently. We don't fight over content, we experience it together. When TMO gets involved suddenly we're being trained, KS'd, and all other sorts of dousche-baggery. How is variance the problem in the p99 raiding scene? If anything eliminating it will just lead to more socks, with more participants.

Ally up against TMO to fix p99 raiding scene, once they are dissolved/move to EQmac/p99 red we can all enjoy friendly raiding again on p99. Until then, nothing will fix the problems on this server when talking about high end raiding.

Velious won't fix a thing, it will be more of the same. TMO has over 100 players waiting to return for velious so that they can attempt to lock down that expansion just like they did in Kunark. What is velious release going to help? TMO will just have 2-3 different raids going at once, they have the numbers to lock down velious easily while only leaving scraps for the rest of us...JUST LIKE IN KUNARK!


So sit here and argue about variance and other non-factors, its hilarious and a huge waste of time. When you're all ready to realize that TMO is the main problem when it comes to p99 raiding maybe you can start coming up with real solutions.


Only other logical things that MIGHT make a difference on the raiding scene on p99 would involve GM intervention, or implementation of certain "anti-poopsocking measures" as stated earlier in the thread. Raiding on live was nothing like it is on p99, in fact the raiding scene here makes me wonder what game ya'll were playing back in the day. My most memorable EQ moments were those involving all out races across the EQ world for mobs, not sitting around talking shit to eachother at a mobs spawn point praying that he chooses our guild to attack first.

[Frieza_Prexus]

Secondly, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that those solutions are quality. It is laughable to create such a bad solution then ask us to not focus on the good solutions and only focus on your PoS one.

All of the other solutions I would greatly prefer to be implemented over this. Ideally, ALL of these could become a reality. In my view.

However, I made the request to focus specifically because I believe that the thread would otherwise simply devolve into "wru u brogean we want fte shoutz."

This solution has not yet been parsed or discussed publicly. Yet, the others have been debated ad nauseum and are universally agreed to be good ideas. The only thing lacking in regards to those solutions is implementation, and it's not for a lack of the playerbase pleading with the devs.

[Alarti0001]

THIS IS NOT A TROLL BUT SERIOUS AND LEGITIMATE IMPUT FOR THIS THREAD:


TROLLS, INSANE BABBLE

.

[fullmetalcoxman]

You are lost... we designed our guild AROUND variance. We are the result.

How am I lost? I know what you did, that is why I pointed it out at the top of the post you quoted.

[Alarti0001]

How am I lost? I know what you did, that is why I pointed it out at the top of the post you quoted.

It seemed like you were saying the rules benefit us, The truth is they benefit us no more than any other guild. We made our guild to get maximum yield from these rules. If the rules changed we would redesign. So its a moot pt

[August]

I heard of this thing called 'instancing' I really think P99 should try it out. 100% Classic.

[fullmetalcoxman]

It seemed like you were saying the rules benefit us, The truth is they benefit us no more than any other guild. We made our guild to get maximum yield from these rules. If the rules changed we would redesign. So its a moot pt

I said the rules benefit a monster guild that can track constantly and mobilize at any time of the day or night. The rules benefit your type of guild, not you specifically.

You solved the variance problem one way, some other guild solved it another way. Xasten doesn't like the way that guild solved the problem, so he is calling for a rule change. If you guys don't like poopsocking then don't poopsock.

[Splorf22]

Tasslehoff you are just wrong. Before TMO, there was IB. I can also personally state that having raced BDA to ragefire today they are just . . . well I don't want to say bad, but not exactly good either. Let me gloat a bit here, because BDA ruthlessly leapfrogged my fear solo attempt so I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.

BDA turned in the pearl and wiped after training FGs on themselves. They began to rez up and managed to train themselves with BNB. We got our guys in zone and our monk trained the FGs away including tranix so we could get in; BDA seized that opportunity to get into the lair. I probably should have engaged (on Sak) but i wasn't sure where our cleric was. BDA engages RF. Rokyll of course comes back and blows up BDAs enchanter with one nuke then starts taking out a few of the other support team. BDA has their bard (ennio actually was pretty awesome) snare kite Ragefire's human form while they go to work on Rokyll. They are holding together (although my guess is the dragon form would have wiped them) and then they let Rokyll run. Of course he brings back a few FGs, BDA wipes. The A-Team kills RF, and then BDA petitions saying they were trained. Ephi looks at the logs and we get our shot at Ragefire, end of story.

Xasten, I think Triangle's point is that if we are asking Rogean to implement something (and this is by no means a sure thing) we should focus on something that would actually fix the raid scene to some small degree for everyone and not just TMO.

[Alarti0001]

Tasslehoff you are just wrong. Before TMO, there was IB. I can also personally state that having raced BDA to ragefire today they are just . . . well I don't want to say bad, but not exactly good either.
Xasten, I think Triangle's point is that if we are asking Rogean to implement something (and this is by no means a sure thing) we should focus on something that would actually fix the raid scene to some small degree for everyone and not just TMO.

Pretty much this

[gotrocks]

12 day spawn variance.

[Alarti0001]

I heard of this thing called 'instancing' I really think P99 should try it out. 100% Classic.

I'm down once we get to LDON. It was LDON right?

[fullmetalcoxman]

I'm down once we get to LDON. It was LDON right?

Yep, LDON. Since we are so classic and all, what expansion did variances get put in?

[Wiwi]

Or the GMs could threaten the top guilds to set up a rotation. If they don't, force luclin models on the offenders.

[Servellious]

I have never understood how having your favorite character logged out and playing a different game or an alt and waiting for your phone to go off is fun

[Elements]

Pretty much this

Fix for everyone? With no GM or Dev intervention?

How bout guilds agree to a very late window rotation? Simple and saves us from socking. The details could be discussed but basically rather than 150 people on a spawn for a "lottery" all night that you have about 1/3 or so chance of winning, you just get first shot at the mob, if its late window, without the sock. Probably end up being about 1/3rd of the time (more if you are TMO since the other guilds generally don't push targets out of prime time anyway). TMO would likely be losing the same amount of mobs that they currently are to multi-guild socks but without 150+ people wasting endless hours socking.

[Autotune]

instances are not a solution.

stop wasting everyone's time talking about them. The code for it was ripped out and perma deleted.


AKA, not fucking happening.

Carry on with the other suggestions that won't be implemented.

[Splorf22]

Fix for everyone? With no GM or Dev intervention?

How bout guilds agree to a very late window rotation? Simple and saves us from socking. The details could be discussed but basically rather than 150 people on a spawn for a "lottery" all night that you have about 1/3 or so chance of winning, you just get first shot at the mob, if its late window, without the sock. Probably end up being about 1/3rd of the time (more if you are TMO since the other guilds generally don't push targets out of prime time anyway). TMO would likely be losing the same amount of mobs that they currently are to multi-guild socks but without 150+ people wasting endless hours socking.

Because then everyone else will want to get in on the action. Hey even the A-team will sock trakanon once or twice if that means we can get in on a rotation.

The simple reality of the raiding scene is that there are too many players. So the staff had to do something, to have some criteria to decide which of them would get the pixels. They chose variance, which reduces their workload and gives 100% of the pixels to the people who were the most . . . dedicated. Any solution to the raiding scene has to address this. We have too many players relative to the mobs, so we need more mobs. It is simply the only way. I don't think the amount of loot dropped is quite so important, I think most people would be satisfied if a) they got to do the encounters and b) they would eventually have a shot at stuff, even if it would take a year or whatnot. There are basically two ways to have more mobs:

1) Simultaneous repops, where the existing mobs are concentrated in time
2) More pops, possibly with less loot per mob

My preference would be for both. For example if there were 3 boss mob repops per week with every mob dropping 1/2 the normal loot, with times known in advance. Say Wed @ 6:30 PM ET, Saturday @ 10:00 AM ET, Sunday @ 9:30 PM ET. Most people should be able to make one. Now you just combine this with some anti poopsocking code (say when the boss pops all players are teleported to the zone in, the zone fully repops, and anyone who logs into a dungeon while the boss is up logs in at the safe point), a 'player lock' where if you zone into a 'raid zone' with a boss up, you cannot log on another 50+ toon on the same IP address for say 1 hour, thus preventing the silly camped alts bs that goes on here, and disallow trains in VP, and voila, fixed raid scene.

What would happen: no poopsocking (everyone knows when the stuff will spawn anyway, and you get teleported out), no batphoning (obviously), no tracking (obviously), minimal interference at least at first because everyone is going for different stuff, and the top guilds can only get a few targets each even if they split their forces. And with no trains in VP, TMO/FE/BDA will probably all choose to play in there, at least until Phara Dar is dead. This would be about 1000000 times better than what we have now. I think there are very few people who would disagree with the Loraen Plan. Why Rogean hasn't implemented it, well I guess he has a job and a life and such. TBH if they gave me access to the source I bet I could do it :D

Anyway Xasten I don't think your plan is bad per se, its just that getting any changes at all has been super hard and if we're going to fight for changes I think they should be good ones.

[Silo69]

my fav section of this thread is when spaceman adds his personal input when hes played a necro to the late 50's, 98% solo

he is not in a raid guild nor has he ever pooped anything on this server

[Slave]

Things that would fix raiding on P99:

-Remove Variance
This would remove the unnatural advantages that the larger guilds have over smaller ones to Track raid targets. Additionally, it would bring the server MUCH closer to a Classic ruleset.

-Add FTE Shout
This would remove the necessity of the GMs to find these records and assuage lots of disagreement between players that would otherwise occur. It would provide a valuable tool to raid leaders and guilds to more strategically engage targets, such as in the case if a small, weakish guild obtains FTE.

-Apply Play Nice Policy to Veeshan's Peak
This would cause the top guilds to race for the most valuable targets as they spawn, instead of being able to use their entire raid force to block other guilds from ever entering the zone, through denial of Trak Teeth, epic drops, and important upgrades. It would be a more Classic implementation of the zone and rules, it would be fair, and most importantly, it would open up the raid scene completely.

-Add simulated patch days
This would cause raid mobs to spawn at the same time, and add more targets for guilds to engage over the course of the server. It would create the very situation that almost everyone claims to love: the race for targets. It would be completely Classic in nature, and it would have massive synergy with the other methods as described above.

[Slave]

I also think that Spaceman's method of the 2% flat spawn rate per hour, or whatever it should be to exactly match the probability of each raid target spawning over a longer period of time, has approximately a 100% chance to alleviate poopsocking completely.

Unfortunately, that does not remove the advantages that larger guilds already have with Variance and Tracking, leaving us with an unClassic solution that doesn't adequately address the core issues with raiding.

[SupaflyIRL]

my fav section of this thread is when spaceman adds his personal input when hes played a necro to the late 50's, 98% solo

he is not in a raid guild nor has he ever pooped anything on this server

look at how far over your head this whole discussion is flying

[Elements]

Because then everyone else will want to get in on the action. Hey even the A-team will sock trakanon once or twice if that means we can get in on a rotation.

The simple reality of the raiding scene is that there are too many players. So the staff had to do something, to have some criteria to decide which of them would get the pixels. They chose variance, which reduces their workload and gives 100% of the pixels to the people who were the most . . . dedicated. Any solution to the raiding scene has to address this. We have too many players relative to the mobs, so we need more mobs. It is simply the only way. I don't think the amount of loot dropped is quite so important, I think most people would be satisfied if a) they got to do the encounters and b) they would eventually have a shot at stuff, even if it would take a year or whatnot. There are basically two ways to have more mobs:

1) Simultaneous repops, where the existing mobs are concentrated in time
2) More pops, possibly with less loot per mob

My preference would be for both. For example if there were 3 boss mob repops per week with every mob dropping 1/2 the normal loot, with times known in advance. Say Wed @ 6:30 PM ET, Saturday @ 10:00 AM ET, Sunday @ 9:30 PM ET. Most people should be able to make one. Now you just combine this with some anti poopsocking code (say when the boss pops all players are teleported to the zone in, the zone fully repops, and anyone who logs into a dungeon while the boss is up logs in at the safe point), a 'player lock' where if you zone into a 'raid zone' with a boss up, you cannot log on another 50+ toon on the same IP address for say 1 hour, thus preventing the silly camped alts bs that goes on here, and disallow trains in VP, and voila, fixed raid scene.

What would happen: no poopsocking (everyone knows when the stuff will spawn anyway, and you get teleported out), no batphoning (obviously), no tracking (obviously), minimal interference at least at first because everyone is going for different stuff, and the top guilds can only get a few targets each even if they split their forces. And with no trains in VP, TMO/FE/BDA will probably all choose to play in there, at least until Phara Dar is dead. This would be about 1000000 times better than what we have now. I think there are very few people who would disagree with the Loraen Plan. Why Rogean hasn't implemented it, well I guess he has a job and a life and such. TBH if they gave me access to the source I bet I could do it :D

Anyway Xasten I don't think your plan is bad per se, its just that getting any changes at all has been super hard and if we're going to fight for changes I think they should be good ones.

If the A team or any other guild wants to get in on a late window rotation fine. Perfect in fact. You get your shot at the plate. You have 10 minutes from spawn to engage on YOUR late window pop, and if you wipe or don't pull it in time TMO cleans it up (most likely). This doesn't kill competition, it kills socking. Guilds will still want to be camped out and ready to snipe it when its not their turn depending on whose turn it is and this requires ZERO from the GMs.

Also note this would only be on a small percentage of the actually pops, those that go to very late in window not every single raid mob pop.

[SupaflyIRL]

If the A team or any other guild wants to get in on a late window rotation fine. Perfect in fact. You get your shot at the plate. You have 10 minutes from spawn to engage on YOUR late window pop, and if you wipe or don't pull it in time TMO cleans it up (most likely). This doesn't kill competition, it kills socking. Guilds will still want to be camped out and ready to snipe it when its not their turn depending on whose turn it is and this requires ZERO from the GMs.

Also note this would only be on a small percentage of the actually pops, those that go to very late in window not every single raid mob pop.

So, wouldn't guilds just sock up to the late window designated rotation time instead of the window end time to snipe the mob on their off week?

[Doors]

The only real solution is a GM enforced rotation. If you want competition, there's a pvp server for you to play on.

GM enforced raid rotations make this shit bearable for anyone with any semblance of a real life. Once a guilld breaks it, they eat raid suspensions for a few months. After awhile the players will take over and GM intervention should rarely be needed.

Everyone wins, and only the most selfish and greedy players on the box lose.

[Elements]

So, wouldn't guilds just sock up to the late window designated rotation time instead of the window end time to snipe the mob on their off week?

No one does this now, why would it be different with a rotation?

The reason people sock now 9 times out of 10 is because a mob is VERY late in their window and you know for a fact that they are going to spawn very soon. Other than some Full Circle 72 hours socking that has been going on lately (wow guys wow) I haven't seen much early-mid window socking going on.

We could also agree amongst ourselves to some sort of entry challenge to get into the rotation. For example your guild must have killed that target at least once (in the last 6 months?) to be eligible for the late window rotation.

It boils down to this. Late window sock your guild has roughly 1/3 chance to lottery the mob. Late window rotation your guild (likely) gets 1/3rd of the late window spawns (more for TMO cause well they can field a force 24/7).

Under the current regime 150+ people typically put in 6 or so hours for 1/3rd the loot.

With a late window rotation a couple trackers have to put in 6 or so hours for 1/3rd the loot and the opportunity for your guild to clean up more if another guild wipes.

[Autotune]

Things that would fix raiding on P99:

Okay...

-Remove Variance
This would remove the unnatural advantages that the larger guilds have over smaller ones to Track raid targets. Additionally, it would bring the server MUCH closer to a Classic ruleset.
Won't happen, possibly shortening it has been a thought tossed around by staff. Removing will never happen per Rogean's words.


-Add FTE Shout
This would remove the necessity of the GMs to find these records and assuage lots of disagreement between players that would otherwise occur. It would provide a valuable tool to raid leaders and guilds to more strategically engage targets, such as in the case if a small, weakish guild obtains FTE.
Would definitely help, but considering it was a good idea that was supposedly going to get added months ago and never has...


-Apply Play Nice Policy to Veeshan's Peak
This would cause the top guilds to race for the most valuable targets as they spawn, instead of being able to use their entire raid force to block other guilds from ever entering the zone, through denial of Trak Teeth, epic drops, and important upgrades. It would be a more Classic implementation of the zone and rules, it would be fair, and most importantly, it would open up the raid scene completely.
This would just end up being abused. It is very easy to get trained on purpose in VP. Raid guilds would end up being suspended often.


-Add simulated patch days
This would cause raid mobs to spawn at the same time, and add more targets for guilds to engage over the course of the server. It would create the very situation that almost everyone claims to love: the race for targets. It would be completely Classic in nature, and it would have massive synergy with the other methods as described above.

Has been discussed and was also supposed to be implemented in some form, still waiting months after.

[Tasslehofp99]

Lol how would removing variance do anything to help eliminate poopsocking? If anything make it weird variance like one week mob has +/- 12 hour window, then the following week it should have a different random variance like +/- 48 hours (or 24,36...whatever) my point is if every mob had a different random window every week poopsocking would be pointless.

[Tasslehofp99]

Also -- fte shouts would be cool and so would random repops. Still don't see any of these things from preventing socking though. VS is currently being socked by TMO and he isn't even 20 HOURS into a 96 hour window. TMO has killed vs more then the other guilds on p99 combined yet still feel the need to sock. I don't see this changing in velious without drastic extreme changes which alter the raid scene completely, forced on p99 by gms or by alliance against TMO.