Power leveling and sharing the zone

[captainocd]

My buddy and I are new the server and couldn't be having a better time. I'm in a full suit of banded that I forged all on my own and he managed to scrape together the platinum for a Charred Guardian Shield. Life is good and we're having a blast reliving what was literally our childhood. Some of the best times we ever had was in a little zone called Unrest. Incredible experience, excellent layout, cool monsters... just the perfect dungeon. I remember as soon as our characters were created, our first and ultimate goal was to tackle the estate.

Level 10 could not have arrived sooner. We marched (and sailed) our way to Dagnor's Cauldron to begin the hunt. It was as wonderful as we'd remembered. Experience flowed like water. We had our share or problems, sure; the occasional train, a bad pull, a fizzled spell... but none of that mattered. The setbacks were overshadowed by the achievement.

Unfortunately, we had to leave tonight. There was nothing to kill. A Druid and his guildmate were pulling the entire yard leaving us with next to nothing to grind on. At first, we tried to work around the problem. Rather than camp a spot, we'd wander the zone for mobs and try to claim something as soon as it spawned. This proved less fruitful as mana bars don't appreciate being moved around. They like it when their caster is meditating, preferably behind a hedge maze. It was also dangerous. We may get lucky and land a spell on a death beetle, only to have a torrent of respawns drop on top of us in our new vulnerable, open position.

Our experience faltered and our options wore thin. I eventually turned to look at the druid and his friend fighting yet another army of yard trash with thorns. He'd just returned from another legion pull and some of the mobs were still fresh. I hesitated for a moment and then half-reluctantly pressed my Disease Cloud hotkey targeting a Jack O' Lantern. The silly little scarecrow thing happily bound it's way to our position and promptly began to be murdered.

Almost immediately I received a tell, "Did you really just peel a mob off of him?"

"Yes," I replied.

"If you keep that up, you'll receive a suspension"

"Is it against the rules?" I asked genuinely. You see, while I understand that EQ has an unwritten etiquette that really forms the basis for it's wonderful community, I wasn't aware it was literally against the rules to snipe a trash mob off someone. Maybe bad mannered, sure, but not a punishable offense.

"Yes. The GMs will enforce it. Not after one mob, obviously, but if they see a pattern it becomes a problem."

I leaned back in my chair and tapped a finger on the desk, watching the text cursor blink in my chat window. I respected his position. He had every right to be in this zone, just as I did, just as my friend did, and just as the people camping the basement did. Hell, that might just be my friend and I a couple months from now.

Clearing my chat bar, I leaned forward again and panned my view around the yard. A death beetle! I began to cast disease cloud but quickly interrupted it as a wolf peeled around the corner of the house to enlist another member into his death parade.

This felt wrong too.

"It won't happen again." I said as we moved toward the zone entrance to call it a night.

What's your opinion on situations like this? I wasn't about to be a stubborn prick and continue to steal from his pulls. A ban threatens the continued enjoyment of my after-work leisure time more than anything else, even wife aggro. I wasn't about to risk it all over a few zombies. Still, I felt like our position had some validity to it. Thoughts?

[Nakara]

He hasn't "engaged" a mob if he's just running around trying to aggro as much as possible before bringing them back, so feel free to peel mobs off him as he's running around and tell him to fuck off.

Also feel free to try and figure out if he was 2 boxing or not and report him because I saw no less than 3 different 2 boxers powerleveling in unrest in the past 2 days. GM's really need to institute a test to determine if it's actually someone's "brother" on the other account or just one of the many people who 2 box on this server.

[Stibe]

i had a major problem with this. P99 cant enforce a a non PL game. They dont have the manpower to go to every zone where it is happening. Unfortunatly you just have to roll with it and find somewhwere else to level, even if it may be slower. At the end of the day some exp is better than none.

But it is still complete crap that people do this and get away with it. The blame lays on the greedy players, not the staff.

[Darklake]

Couldn't find an official response to this (there might be, but god knows what search terms work to find it) but the nearest is regarding the definitions of camps :-

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2653

5. Outdoor pathing mobs are not campable unless you are sitting at the spawn point and able to engage it instantly. Outdoor mobs on fast respawn such as HG and spectres, if you cannot engage immediately you do not hold the camp. Please try and share with fellow players in these instances.

and

If one group was capitalizing on more than one spawn and a second group wanted half or to share and then petitioned, PNP would be enforced and the groups would be forced to share. This is a guide explaining how we would like things to be shared.

I don't think it's unreasonable to peel off a mob from a powerleveller's swarm if they are monopolising the zone, as long as it's at 100% (need before greed and all that) but I'd initially ask if they minded; if they do then ask if they could leave the corner of the zone you're camped in alone.

Not certain how the GMs would react to a powerleveller whining to them, saying that a level 10 noob just "stole" one of their 30 mobs. I'd like to think they'd laugh at them and tell them to /cope :-)

[karsten]

I found this to be a rather nice tale, friend

[Deathrydar]

I feel the OP's pain but I see one thing missing in his post...

I don't see where he sent the PL'ers a tell asking if they minded working something out to everyone's mutual benefit.

[Nazran]

Most of the time they do not respond to tells or requests for respecting the pulls, usually it is a nice tough shit or mute response. If they are rude I just peel mobs off of them. They will usually respond in a few different ways.

1. Dog cuss you in chat. /ignore
2. Nuke the mob you are on to kill it before you can get xp. Works for me because the power levelee is losing the xp too. I can play that game all night.
3. Not say anything because they know they are engaging in douchery.
4. Train you.

[Vonkaar]

Great post, but the whole thing might have been avoided if you initiated the dialogue first. I'm sure the PL team could have left a corner of mobs untouched for you and your buddy to camp. All you have to do is ask.

[Deathrydar]

Originally Posted by Nazran [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Most of the time they do not respond to tells or requests for respecting the pulls, usually it is a nice tough shit or mute response. If they are rude I just peel mobs off of them. They will usually respond in a few different ways.

That very well might be their response, but I think that there should always be an attempt to come to a compromise prior to stealing MOBs and such.

I have been sent tells before asking if I could give up some MOBs in a zone and I gladly obliged and apologized because I didn't even know that I was doing anything wrong.

You never know until you ask.

[Crone]

I was doing some power leveling in Befallen, and a group came in and asked if it was camped. We said nope, go ahead, and we took off somewhere else.

As awesome as the zone experience modifier is, and as easy as it is to pull nearly everything in the zone for the PLee's benefit, it's not worth being a douche and stopping actual groups for enjoying it.