Someone Translate this wall of text from Omni

[Rizzle]

Loramin - I feel like you keep are the one that keeps deflecting everyone else's responses. It just sounds like your asking that your intramural football team have the right to play in the NFL because everyone should get to experience what it's like, even though your team hasn't put in the time/effort to recruit/learn and compete at that level.

Why is it such a problem for people to join AM/AG/Core to get to see the content they want to? If you want to stay in a smaller guild that doesn't compete, that's fine, but don't beg for rotations because you aren't large enough/have the desire to put in the effort to compete with everyone else. Instancing would solve this issue, but we aren't on a server that has instanced raiding.

[Oleris]

Not all guilds are equal. I never complained when TMO was kicking Asgard's ass on FFA mobs. I knew that TMO had more hardcore players, were more skilled and put in more hours to be prepared. I was in a "filthy casual" guild and knew that if I wanted more raid loot that I would have to join TMO.

Through the merger I ended up in Aftermath and I couldn't be happier. I can understand though how it can be hard to leave a guild and community of people. I was tempted to leave Asgard for greener pastures, but I didn't want to leave the guild that I started with.

If some of these more casual guilds want top tier dragon loot, then their guild culture would need to change either through leadership, recruitment or merging. Forcing an "every guilds equal" rotation would be unjust to those guilds that have recruited for the current end game raid scene.

[Erati]

Lora your “rotations are classic” argument really fizzles out on P99 style of locked server where new content either wont come (Velious locked) or slow to develope (not many Devs patching).

Rotations classically worked on a few servers bc typically it was not current content being rotated. On Bristlebane for example Nagafen/Vox had signup calendars and slots were rolled each month but that was in Kunark/Velious. I doubt any servers rotated current content w the public, maybe a couple did but it certainly was not the “norm” if it existed at all.

So what you are asking for basically never happened in classic, namely any guild given a free chance to experience what current content they wanted without having to make a bargain w the guilds that actively clear the content.

Thats why so many people will argue your viewpoint, it’s just not that realistic for a locked Velious server without literally requiring heavy GM moderation (creating an official P99 server rotation)

[loramin]

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

Well lucky for them the EQemu people figured it out about 10 years ago. Instancing is definitely possible on this server.

We all know that technical limitations aren't the issue: Rogean and Nilbog will never implement instancing on P99. So again, let's be honest: if you're bringing up instancing you're not seriously proposing it as an option, you're using it to falsely equate it to a viewpoint you disagree with.

All I'm trying to do is have an honest debate here. That means admitting that a lot of our raid circumstances are unavoidable. P99 has higher population than many in-era live servers, a higher concentration of people with the desire/resources to play EQ as a full time job, and most importantly (due to its long lifespan) it has an incredibly unclassic skew towards higher-end characters.

That's the reality we all have to face, so then the question simply becomes, in that environment, what's best for everyone? It's just utilitarianism.

P99 tried having a monopoly guild (TMO) for a long time. No one but TMO liked that. P99 tried having it's current "competition" system (several variations of it in fact), and as we are all aware that amounts to only a few guilds dominating (which is still way more people getting to experience content than under the TMO system). But we've only ever once, and only briefly, tried any kind of structured raiding (the whole class C/R thing), and never a true rotation.

Maybe rotations are the best system for P99, maybe they aren't. All I'm asking is that people honestly defend their views one way or another. Say "____ is the best system for our current top-heavy P99 server" (whose explicit goal is to make classic EQ available for everyone) and make honest arguments to that effect.

Argue that:

• a single guild monopolizing all top content and preventing anyone else from enjoying it is what's best for the server
• a few top-end guilds made up of the absolute most dedicated players monopolizing all top content is what's best for the server
• top content rotated among all guilds capable of killing that content is what's best for the server
• some other system is what's best for the server

But just, do it honestly. Is "scoring forum points" really that much more important than just making honest arguments about what you feel is best for everyone on this server?

[Nexii]

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

Perma rooting the mobs opens up all kinds of questions about stalling. (see yelinak) I'm not advocating this but if you're going to perma root a mob, make sure it starts summoning players when it's at 100% health rather than 97%.

Yea this is why there was the player agreement to put a mob to 97% within one minute of engaging. I suppose there'd have to be that unless 100% summoning was also made a thing.

[jpetrick]

It’s 96% for summoning you noobs.

[Nexii]

Not to mention bosses that CH/gate. Which I think may be some of the reason the root the dragons thing hasn't been a thing yet. There's other implications. So realistically a player rule around it barring a lot of code changes..

[jpetrick]

Hey Loramin, Everquest has always been a game where those who are more casual don’t get to experience all the content. That’s as classic as it can get. Now stop writing ignorant essays please, we’re tired of them.

[Erati]

Live EQ servers had 2000-2500 people on them during heydays of classic, at least the middle pop / high pop ones did.

P99 while has a higher concentration of lvl 60 characters for Velious than live did still is less crowded than actual real servers. Think back, exp groups were happy to “camp” 3 spawn rooms all night as their exp grind. Zones were picked clean everywhere in era.

[loramin]

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

On Bristlebane for example Nagafen/Vox had signup calendars and slots were rolled each month but that was in Kunark/Velious. I doubt any servers rotated current content w the public, maybe a couple did but it certainly was not the “norm” if it existed at all.

Oh I know: I signed up on that calendar and led one of those raids against Vox with my chumpy family/low-tier raid guild, along with a lot of random people (Lord Bob style) [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] It was one of my favorite memories of live EQ in fact.

And that's exactly it. I'm not asking for Sleeper's Tomb to be rotated here. We're talking about rotating zones like ToV. Vox had barely even existed on Bristlebane half as long as Yelinak has on Project 1999 before the GMs on Bristlebane started rotating it. By that measure, ToV is overdue for rotation! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But really, now that people are finally starting to make honest arguments (and thank you to everyone doing so, even if I disagree with your stance) we can finally start actually honestly debating the issue. And if we're doing that, the question is simple: what system is in the best interest of the most people on P99? Is it better to let the most dedicated players monopolize certain content, or is it better to forcibly open up (as was done on live servers) that content to let other players experience it?

You can argue how unfair it is to the hardcore players that they should get less chances at loot per week. That's an honest argument, which relies on the core principle that what's most important here is the most dedicated players getting the most chances at loot.

I'm arguing a different principle: that the server would be more fun for everyone overall, and a better representation of classic EQ, if rotations were implemented.