The Loraen Plan
 

I thought I'd go ahead and do this since Xasten is trying to make some fixes. I think if we are going to push for something it should be something awesome. I doubt anything would actually work, but I like planning, and the sound of my own voice (look of my own writing?). Anyway, if I were in charge this is what I would do.

So, what are the problems with the current raid scene? (rhetorical) Our friends in TMO may love it but the reality is a huge number of people simply look at it like a smelly sock and turn their noses away as soon as possible. So here is how I would fix each of what I see as the problems.

Not enough mobs
The biggest problem we have is that we have a top-heavy player base which is far too large for the number of boss pops we have. Solution: repop all bosses 3 times per week simultaneously, each with 1/3 their normal loot table (so basically each boss would drop 1 item rather than 2-4). With three times as many raid encounters per week and everything synchronized, everyone who wishes will at least be able to attempt something, without flooding the economy with loot to the point that every L1 twink has a BCG.

Tracking & Batphoning
It's ludicrous that to have a shot to kill boss mobs with your friends you have have your char sitting at the character select screen while you watch a movie. Solution: remove variance and make all spawn times known in advance.

FTE nonsense
Most of this will go away with simultaneous repops which spread out the guilds. But it will still be a problem with a fairly obvious solution: any time a boss mob is engaged, it will shout PlayerX <GuildX>, you've ruined your own lands! or any other similar message.

Poopsocking
If spawn times are known in advance, everyone will sit on the spawn point for hours hoping for FTE/15 on the spawn for hours etc. Solution: when a boss mob spawns, everyone in the zone will effectively have the succor spell cast on them, teleporting them to the zone safe point and clearing aggro. Anyone who logs in to the zone while the boss mob is up will log in at the zone safe point. Finally, any zone which contains a boss mob will fully respawn. So no more ledge camping - instead people will have to make it all the way down, possibly dealing with see invis etc.

Alt Armies
Currently players with multiple L60 chars have a huge advantage over those who don't, because they can camp their characters fully buffed near the mobs. Even with the new spawn rules we know there would be a ton of people camped out at the KC and Sebilis entrances. Solution: any time you log into a zone with a raid boss, your IP is "bound" to that character. You cannot log into any zone with a raid boss with another character for the next hour.

95% of the server doesn't get to see Veeshan's Peak
Veeshan's Peak is the top zone in the Kunark expansion, yet even most of the people with keys can't zone in without getting trained. The whole point of the simultaneous repops is to spread out the server anyway; this won't be accomplished if TMO/FE both just send in the SKs to play defense while they clean up the rest of the ordinary targets.

Classicness
I don't think the Loraen plan is massively less classic (other than the antipoop/alt code, which is only necessary because of the slow progression on this server) than the silly variance we have here. If the devs want to revert to classic, I'm fine with that. If we are going to be unclassic, we should do it in a cool way.

Results
How do I see this shaking out: I think at first TMO/FE will still get the vast majority of pixels, but they won't be getting clean sweeps. If I were a top raiding guild I would camp out my ~100 raiders in 2-3 squads to contest a few old world targets (some assortment of CT/Draco, VS, and Trak) and then have them all evac to Skyfire to take out as many VP dragons as possible. But if see invis are up, it might take 10-15 minutes which might just be enough time for FE to take, say, Phara Dar, so who knows.

So basically I think under the Loraen plan the top guilds would get about the same amount of pixels they do now, but the 2nd tier guilds would get a few here and there and more importantly everyone would at least be able to participate in the raid scene, even if ineffectively. At this point the onus is on them to stop sucking, since raiding would no longer require such a massive time investment. The top tier guilds would probably spend the same amount of time raiding, but it would be actually fighting and killing mobs rather than poopsocking, tracking, and so on.

Simulated patch days, or bust. :D

Interesting plan but I think you are asking too much of Rogean and the GMs.

I don't understand what's so wrong with enforced rotation.

I generally find myself largely in agreement with both Loraen and Tecmos on many issues in the game, as we are in similar situations with similar temperament. I always appreciate their intelligent posts. Still, I firmly believe that even a combination of any two of the above fixes I listed would significantly improve raiding on P99 without the necessity of changing the number of spawns (and corresponding loot) so dramatically, which may have other repercussions.

Your asking something for nothing. Socking is a problem of behaviour from the players of the server and we have the power to fix it ourselves without asking someone else to do it for us.

Sure it would be great if the GMs wanted to step up and enforce it but we can't expect if from them.

Everything here sounds good but who is getting paid to implement it?

And why not? It's less work for them after it's been established. Anyone breaking it gets raid suspended. GMs need to go back, check logs, remove loot, redistribute loot, as it stands now.

If high end guilds want competition its on red99. Enforce a rotation and be done with all the bullshit.

Slave I said increase spawns by N but decrease loot/boss by N. So the net # of items/week into the economy wouldn't change. What you have done is very similar, but if patch days are fun why not have 3? :D

Lost: I'm basically proposing simulated patch days

Alarti: I'm counting on you to provide some rnf material