System rotation target ?

[Aadill]

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

There was a reason the majority of the more successful guilds were college students and older people and not 14 year olds who had the most time on their hands. Right now, with the current rules + variance it boils down to: do you have endless hours to waste and/or are you willing to mass recruit?

College students have the MOST time to waste what are you talking about?! Also of note, the people raiding on this server were those 14-18 year olds.

Kidding.

As far as the staff not wanting to get involved: the point of Project 1999 is to make a working emulation of EverQuest as it was in 1999, right? The mechanics of social interactions are not part of that emulation. Take a look at the Fippy Darkpaw forums - they're doing the same variance style raiding and it has caused fighting. The alternative, however, has just as many people wanting to experience 1999 with the mindset and knowledge and I doubt it would be any different. The GMs there have had to do so much shit to appease the players that it is ridiculous.

And no, JenJen, post counts don't mean anything I was just being facetious.

[Lazortag]

Okay, I used to be against the variance but recently I've become for it. I think that the variance would have been great before Kunark, because without it most mobs would respawn at the same time which would mean no one could possibly poopsock every target, and it would be just like having patch day repops every week. However, since Kunark launched, some targets are massively prioritized over others (Trak/VS but mostly Trak). Not having variance empowers people who just camp the spawn points of raid targets, because poopsocking is less of an investment - you literally just have to arrive about 5 minutes before it spawns to get the target, whereas with the variance it's more about tracking targets and mobilizing faster (or camping the spawn point as soon as the window starts, but as I said that's a greater investment because you could be poopsocking the mob for up to 4 days).

It's also possible that a guild could arrive 1 minute before the first poopsocking guild, which then creates a race to the bottom where every guild is trying to out-poopsock the other, instead of gambling on mobilizing to the important targets faster. Since Trak is prioritized over the other bosses, this is where all the poopsockery would be focused, which would suck for everyone.

I also don't think of this as being that un-classic because it's more of a policy of the devs (like not allowing 2-boxing, or not adopting the same play nice policy as sony) than it is a change in content. Maybe these are silly arguments, I was in kind of a rush when I posted this, so if I need to clear anything up I'll come back and post later.

edit: also, the anti-divinity tags are totally unwarranted. Grow up.

[Skope]

My argument is that they shouldn't be trying to appease the players, and you apparently seem to be agreeing with me in that respect. The major part of p99 was to emulate the EQ experience, and the variance is taking massive crap on it. If they really wanted to make it happy-flowers-holding-hands they'd have put in a mandatory rotation, but they didn't because we said no. In fact, i still say no.

It's great reliving the leveling and grouping, and then you get to raiding and realize that it's nothing like you remember.

Geegoo, it is sort of silly. You can poopsock all you want if everyone knows when the thing died, but poopsocking doesn't mean you get the target. Without variance you'd need a new ruleset, therefore the notion that you get the target because you were there first is false. Therefore, get there 3 days before the spawn or 5 minutes, everyone has the same opportunity to drop it -- just like live. Poopsock holds no advantage. The only reason it was an advantage before was because people were abusing the rules we agreed to and it was something we failed to address. Variance as a mechanic is there only to make the GMs lives easier

[Bruman]

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

The problem is that getting there an hour before it spawns means other guilds will get there 2 hours before it spawns.

The problem with it is that it just encourages leap frogging. Which is supar skillz yo.

The point is - variance isn't solving anything. It just makes new issues, and doesn't represent classic gameplay. I'd be fine with non-classic solutions if they actually addressed issues - instead, this is just as bad as anything else. It was a nice try by GMs to shut people up and stop guild fighting. But it's not. So why deviate? We're not gaining anything..

[Aadill]

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

Variance as a mechanic is there only to make the GMs lives easier

That was the only point I was really trying to make, whether I worded it well or not. It's much less of a hassle for them to use one rule to make everything work. Beyond that it requires people who know everything about the game via searchable web content to beat it or not. Variance plays in a new aspect that still makes it challenging and keeps the GMs from having to deal with it every single week. The result, however, is an extremely large window in which one has to track. If they halved it I'm sure a lot of people would be happy.

[Skope]

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

That was the only point I was really trying to make, whether I worded it well or not. It's much less of a hassle for them to use one rule to make everything work. Beyond that it requires people who know everything about the game via searchable web content to beat it or not. Variance plays in a new aspect that still makes it challenging and keeps the GMs from having to deal with it every single week. The result, however, is an extremely large window in which one has to track. If they halved it I'm sure a lot of people would be happy.

but then it would defeat the purpose of variance in the first place -- to minimize the inevitable involvement.

It doesn't make it challenging... don't kid yourself. Challenging isn't 4 days waiting to see something spawn and wasting hours upon hours until it does. That's not challenging, that's called unnecessary.

Challenging would be 5 guilds all vying for a single target because they know exactly when it's gonna pop and the GMs saying "work it out amongst yourselves." That, my friend, is a challenge.

[Nedala]

lol @ everyone who wants the variance gone. You guys like poopsocking dont you?

No variance would either end in massive poopsocking or in a massive clusterfuck each time. gm has to come each time and see who attacked first because 4 guilds are camping the spawn, anyone remember when everyone knew nobles timer? oh the joy. The variance makes people actually race for targets, with no variance there wouldn't be any races ever, except for patchday repops.

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

if it was truelly a race to the mobs or even a real compition then fine , But the reality of the so called compition is camp at said mob, Mass text to log in form groups and kill it in under 5 min.

Yeah actually most kills are races and not what you describe above, you really sound like you have no idea how the raiding scene on this server works.

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

what i myself am not fine with is that in order to even get a chance at even oldworld stuff, i gotta quit my job, wife and be on call 24/7.

Shows how clueless you are again, most of my guildmates have jobs and/or family. Im working too and guess what i even get to kill kunark stuff!

[Messianic]

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

That's not challenging, that's called unnecessary.

Like 60% of everything we do in EQ is "unnecessary." We play it because we're elitist hipsters who don't like WoW, which endeavors to remove all that is "unnecessary" in favor of a gaming experience most people enjoy more to make more $$$ and have more resources to expand the scope and appeal of the game.

This is a niche game, and therefore has "unnecessary" rules and mechanics, i.e. we refuse to change mechanics which could be streamlined.

[Skope]

Nedala, are you fucking kidding me?

That's EXACTLY the way it worked on live. people KNEW when things would pop and they'd get there beforehand. If there were no variance here there would have to be new rules or no rules at all, and either one i'm completely okay with. FFS, that's why you GOT rotation, FFA, FTE, and all the other crazy shit people came up with. There WERE massive clusterfucks. I can actually remember rolling a /random to see who got the first shot at a particular target. Never, and i repeat, never was there any server or moment in EQ history where people waited for a target with a variance. Ever.

[Susanbanthony]

Keep the variance, just make it a full repop every time. Everything dies in a couple hours on full repops anyways, so the 7 day spawns with a +/- 2 day variance all end up in the same window anyway.

Just make the full repop a variance with +/- 1 or 2 days... there's still the unknown but it also forces guilds to prioritize and gives other guilds a shot at raid targets that aren't highly prioritized by the upper tier guilds while also having the element of needing to race to targets.