Discussion about what constitutes a camp and how to hold a camp
 

Recently I was in a discussion about camps on every quest and it was amazing to me everyone seems to have a different idea even though camps are often highly contetested. It would be good to have the rules plainly in front of us so everyone can be on the same page.

I’m going to start with my interpretation and where it comes from.

From what I understood anything can be a camp. Any 1 mob anyone chooses, they can lock it down if they choose to do so.

It is your camp as long as someone else wasn’t there first. You keep the camp as long as you are keeping your mobs engaged within a few minutes of them spawning. If someone wants the camp and you are sitting around while the mobs you are claiming are up, you forfeit camp. This shouldn’t be any different whether you are a group, solo, duo or trio. You can claim any mob(s) you want as long as you are keeping them down.

This is drawn from this:

I don’t see anything about having to be right on top of spawn points, just that you have to keep your spawns killed.

This ruling allows most camps to work as group content. Off the top of my head I think of crypt, howling stones north and west.

Many people think you have to be right on top of spawn points to claim a camp. I don’t see the wording in the quote I posted to support that. Is it right? I’m not sure where it comes from but it would be a ruling that would kill the crypt camp for groups.

Imagine your group is camping crypt for hours but you can’t possibly stand on all your valuable spawn points. Imagine you’ve been camping crypt for hours and shaman a decided to sit on hiero spawn, shaman b decides to sit on duke spawn and shaman c decides to sit on emp spawn.

I don’t believe the rules allow this to happen but maybe I’m wrong.

In a static/dungeon area, the rules change once a camp is "contested"- aka, you're killing stuff and another person/group wants a part of what you're killing. The rules say, figure out how to share. If you're killing 10 spawns and someone comes in and contests the camp, whoever was there first gets (group A) gets first dibs on ONE of the spawns, then group B gets to claim a different spawn other than the one that group A claimed. You can't just claim the entire zone and say, "we're keeping them down, so fuck off" to the other people who want to participate. Have to share/play nice. You also can't just walk into a dungeon and claim a spawn either if someone else was there first. Group A gets first pick of the spawns.

Beyond the rules though- it's generally a d-bag move to come in and contest a spawn if there's a group there exp'ing or whatever. It's a big game- find something else to do.

If a dude is in a place killing stuff, another dude shouldn't come along and interfere. If there's some problem, the dudes should talk it out like grown dudes and come to a solution. If one dude is less of a dude and more like a dude-child, there may not be much the other dude can do and may just have to be the grown dude and move on with their life. Must it be any more complicated?

Personally I've always thought that if you want people to follow the rules of any game, you should make those rules as easy to understand as possible.

In contrast the staff's opinion, as I understand it at least, is that they don't want to codify anything, because they want the ability to make judgements on the fly, and writing down any rules would mean they can't change those rules as necessary to make fair judgements. Because of this, I don't think you will ever see a clear definition of camp, camp stealing, etc. written down.

But, since this topic interests me, I've done my best to learn the "hidden" rules of P99 camps (based on my own experiences and reports from the forums), and I think I can give halfway decent answers to your questions:

Mostly correct, with a couple caveats. FIrst, that's the "outdoor" rule: indoors camp definitions are less clear. Second, even outdoors that doesn't include the exceptions, namely all raid mobs plus a few other special cases.

Again basically all correct, although there's probably some exceptions I'm forgetting, and the definition of "within a few minutes" has never (and probably never will be) defined: it's exactly the number of minutes a GM feels like it should be at that moment.

Again, this comes down to GM discretion. Let's take Droga as an example: when no one is there it's common for one player to do both the Chief and Soothsayer camps, which are almost on opposite ends of the zone (but less than a minute or so apart). In general if you kill Chief, run up to Soothsayer, and then someone logs in at Chief, you will be able to say "even though I'm across the zone at another camp, I'm killing Chief, as you can see because his PH is down, and I'd like to keep the Chief camp, but since I can only have one you can take the Soothsayer (or some other camp)". As long as you make it back to Chief before he respawns, you're golden.

But what if Chief spawns while you're running back? If you make it back 2 seconds after he spawns can you keep claiming it? What about 20 seconds, or 2 minutes? The answer is that there is no answer: it depends entirely the staff member. And it's not even just about them; Llandris (for instance) might normally give you a minute to get back to the camp, but because he saw you rudely cussing the other guy out he may decide to give it to them after only five seconds.

So in theory as long as the CE group isn't letting the Crypt mobs stay up for very long (which is easy to ensure with a halfway-decent CE group), no one can take them. The most rules-lawyery thing any of those Shaman can say is "there are 7 total nameds/camps: 4x crypt, cryptkeeper, emp, and blood; you have six people so pick six and I want the last one". But again, indoor camps aren't necessarily a 1 player to 1 mob thing, so the staff could say "no, you can't have any, because they're one camp and the group has it". Or they could agree with the rules lawyer logic ... but no one wants to camp just the cryptkeeper or just the blood, so that never happens.

When it gets interesting is when the CE group can't kill fast enough and Crypt mobs are sitting up for "too long" (where, of course "too long" is defined by the staff at that moment). In that scenario, the GM could either say "sorry CE group, you left those mobs up for so long they became unclaimed, and the Shaman had a right to claim them" OR they could say "sorry CE group, you're trying to camp more mobs than you can kill, you need to pick the top X (probably either 'everything in crypt' or Emp/blood) and let others have the rest."

So in theory it's the amount of time the Crypt mobs are left up that matters: barely any time = group keeps them, awhile = group has to give up some of their spawns, but they get to choose which, and too long = group loses any claim they had. But in practice, since the staff defines "barely any", "awhile", and "too long" as they see fit, it's impossible to describe the rule any better than that.

Obligatory Legalese: I am neither a judge, lawyer, nor staff member of P99, and all of the above is just based on my flawed understanding as a player

Dude Law™

https://i.imgur.com/2TqsLIS.jpg

I think if you go strictly with the way camps work, based on my understanding at least, if that guy is letting his mob pop and he's not engaging within a 1-3 minutes, another player has a right to tell the original camper he's not holding the camp to the letter of the word and put pressure on him. I think it would be bad taste and a bad look to just take his camp but I do think it is morally acceptable to challenge him to keep his mobs down faster if that other person really wants the camp too. And this is going to bring me to my next paragraph.

Personally I've always played it safe and wait for the whole crypt to spawn before I even think about taking a camp there. After whole camp is spawned, I think you've lost the camp. It's probably still good taste to give them 4-5 minutes after that but I think that should come down to the discretion of whoever is currently at the camp.

A half decent crypt team will, indeed, be able to keep emp and crypt down with plenty of time to spare.

Now how about someone soloing hiero, duke and baron. The best cash mobs in crypt. Let's say a soloer(certainly not me >:D) is camping all 3 and is keeping them down with time to spare. Can a group walk right in and take 2 of these spawns? I don't see anything in the rules that allows for that. Do solo people have less rights than groups? How about duos? Trios? 4 people? 5 people?

Would it be so bad to put a time limit on when you lose camp or mob? Like you have 3 or 4 minutes to engage something after it spawns or you lose claim to it?

For those looking for the 2013 Play Nice Policy, here it is https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=132299

#2 is about "Contested Spawns" and camping

The only thing that will adequately handle someone who actively seeks to be a jerk is a direct GM babysitter. The server doesn't have enough of these...and the few we have don't deserve to be treated like babysitters for man children that want to shove as many pixels into their fat faces as possible.

You don't need a rule clarification. You need to return to kindergarten on the day they taught everyone about sharing and playing nice. Stop wasting people's time with your man child lifestyle.

Personally I've never seen that "1-3 minutes" figured specified anywhere. AFAIK the amount of time is entirely up to whichever GM answers the petition (although it will probably be in that general ballpark).

Solo people don't have less rights, but they certainly don't have more either. In general, everyone on the server gets to claim one spawn point, period, end of story. You can absolutely camp more than that if no one wants them, but the moment anyone else wants one of those mobs you get one (of your choice), they get one (their choice of what's left) and the rest are FTE (first to engage).

So yes they can walk right up and take not just one but two spawns ... but whoever was there first gets to keep the Heiro spawn (or whichever one they prefer). This would be true even if it was a single person or duo who walked up and not a group.

As for the rest of your question, it again falls into the "its up to the staff" category. They can choose to call Crypt one camp, and say your group of 2, or 3, or whatever can hold that whole camp. Or they can decide that you have two (or three) people so you can hold two (or three) spawn points. Again, AFAK there is no official definition of what is/isn't a camp, and therefore nothing specifies which way the staff has to rule.

Personally I think any further rules clarification would be good ... but then again I don't have to host a server with thousands of assholes like myself on it, and then get a bunch of my friends to volunteer their time to manage it. If I did I'd probably be more sympathetic to their point of view, ie. that specifying 3, 4, or any specific number of minutes would remove their ability to adjust rulings on the fly, which is something they need to be able to "babysit" this server properly.

Jude Law

Dude Law