[ajohnymous]

For the past 6 weeks or so the guilds Aftermath, Azure Guard, Core, and the PSG alliance had an agreement on the terms for engaging and killing Tunare, one of the few raid bosses that drops several best in slot items. With every other raid Target, the first guild to achieve an FTE message (First to Engage) has the "rights" to engage and attempt to kill that Target until it dies or the guild wipes. The vast majority of the time, it's a frantic race to the Target where the first guild to engage or pull it gets the kill. Tunare was a rare exception.

With Tunare, there's a window in which she can respawn. While in this window, guilds will have level 60 bards and rangers waiting outside the PoG zone in who will spawn in and run as fast as their legs will carry them over to Tunare to obtain an FTE. The guild to win this foot race has 12 hours to clear the entire zone (a requirement before engaging the Leafy God) and kill Tunare without interference from any other guild. If a guild wins one week, they must skip the following week to give the other guilds a shot. That was working out pretty well until Aftermath lost three weeks in a row.

The thing with Aftermath, is that they're used to winning. They're the top guild in the server, the most experienced players gravitate into the guild, and they typically kill the most raid targets each week. When things don't work out for them, they tend to push, bend, or propose new agreements and server rules which benefits them. It's understandable: the leadership makes decisions to ensure their guild continues to obtain the most raid loot. That wasn't happening with Tunare so they backed out of the agreement.

Their counter proposal was the same terms, but with the time to kill Tunare reduced from 12 hours down to 4. Clearing the entire zone takes some guilds all day to do, some less, you can probably guess which end of the spectrum Aftermath is on. Sometimes Tunare will respawn at 2am which makes clearing the entire zone and killing Tunare from 2 am - 6 am unrealistic for most guilds due to the understandable lack of interest to stay up all night playing a video game. Aftermath does not have this issue as their membership includes players from variety of time zones and people who have no issues losing sleep over Everquest.

What does this mean for the future of the Plane of Growth? Does it degrade into the familiar chaos of guilds intentionally and unintentionally training each other once Tunare pops? Does Tunare watch the Out of Character chat fill with toxicity and defamation as guilds attempt to leapfrog each other? Probably. Will the raiding guilds grow tired of this atmosphere and begrudgingly enter into discussion on a new agreement? That's what I'm hoping for, but recent history shows that without regular involvement and mediation from server staff, player agreements and guild-to-guild communication quickly deteriorates into what's always happened across the raid scene.