Poopsocking is the reason variance was added. Poopsocking is the reason Variance was adjusted to go longer.

I highly doubt that this is the ultimate reason variance was added, if anything it was most likely added due to the length of time the timeline has been extended. Removal of variance to me is a hit or miss fix for the raid scene, especially prior to velious. I think if you removed training from VP now and had regular server repops (every 3-4 weeks) those two things alone would do a lot to help the current raiding scene, especially prior to velious release.

I see. Ok, now I can understand the sense of "unfairness" and can see where you are coming from, but I also can't fully agree with that it's necessarily "unfair". Just because someone got something you didn't doesn't always make it "unfair" and suggesting otherwise just sounds like you're expecting a hand out. Some kid that inherited his father's fortune without doing anything to earn it doesn't make it unfair to me. It sucks and I wish I could be as fortunate as him, but things didn't work out for me. So, to stick to the poker analogy, I think it'd be appropriate to explain it like this: When the guy sat down at the table 4 hours ago, someone came to me and said, "hey, if you sit down at the table now they are giving a +2500 chip bonus" and I replied, "Oh sweet! Well let me try and put together $500 bucks so I can go get it a seat". Well, by the time it takes me to acquire that much money, the bonus is gone. They're no longer giving it out for whatever the reason. Who's fault is that? The guys running the rules of table? The guy who sat down and took advantage of the bonus? Or me? It's my own fault, whether or not I could help the circumstances, it's my own fault that I didn't get to the table in time to cash in on the bonus.

So, TMO and IB played the game right. Whether they planned ahead to get that seat at the table as soon as they did, or whether or not luck just favored them, they got to the table at just right the time. If your guild didn't, well that's your own fault. After a while the GM's decided that the chip bonus was no longer feasible and did away with it. It's not fair or unfair. It's just the way the way game panned out. Truthfully we can go back and forth on this, with analogy after analogy. I think it's best we just agree to disagree.

As far as the current raid scene not being classic EQ, I don't disagree there. Of course it's not classic, but for me I will say it's pretty close. That's my personal experience though and everyone's will be different. For me, training and variance aren't classic, no. I don't remember any of that, but you know what else I don't remember? I don't remember seeing EVEN CLOSE to the amount of epics on my server during the kunark era as I do on p99. Nor I do remember seeing more than 1 guild sporting epics. First epic I ever saw was the necro epic and it was under a Recon guild tag. I didn't see my next epic for WEEKS and when I did, it was another recon guild tag.

I keep hearing everyone talk about how they remember these rotations on their server. Well, we had rotations on E`ci as well. I remember a guy named Fhaldark used to lead public Hate raids every Thursday night. And there was a website with a calender you could go to see what raids were when and who had what slots. I also remember, that this was late in the Velious era. There was no rotation in the Kunark era. Recon dominated the raid scene (for the US time zone at least). And all these rotations and hearing other guilds tackle these raid targets in the planes and kunark didn't start happening until post Velious, post Luclin, post PoP. That's how I remember it, but even so, someone else who was on the same server might not remember the same way I do, because it all boils down to personal experience. I think people forget that we are STILL in the Kunark era and when you compare to classic, you need to stay within that era, not the timeline. If you're comparing P99 to the live timeline, you are WAY off. As long as p99 has been running, I'm pretty sure we would be in PoP right now. So, we can at least agree on the fact that no, p99 raiding is not exactly the same as live raiding, but if that's what you were expecting when you joined this server (for it to be EXACTLY like live) you set yourself up to be let down a long time. As far as comparing what the raid scene was like during the Kunark era on live and on p99, for me it doesn't seem to far in the regards that one guild did dominate the content.

In closing, I just want to refer back to my original argument and why I even brought it up. The premise of this thread is that "p99 raiding is not classic". However, it got derailed when people started screaming the rules needed to be changed. That the current rules weren't fair and catered to 1 guild. My argument is that, that is just not true. There is nothing wrong with current rules regardless of what the rules were a year ago, and whether or not they are classic. Yes the rules are different. No, the rules are not classic (some for reasons that have NOTHING to do with classic), but to state the rules are unfair, and cater to 1 group is just simply not true at all. Anyone is capable of tackling whoever the top guild is within the current rule set. It won't be easy and expect an uphill battle, but As I've said over and over again, how dedicated and determined you are is the deciding factor in whether or not you come out on top. Not a change in the rules.

I mean, Poopsocking was a stratedgy employed by many guilds on the more popular live servers.

I highly doubt that the dev's added variance with their main consideration being that it would prevent poopsocking. In essence, it does nothing to prevent poopsocking. If people are determined enough to kill a mob, they will still sit on/near it's spawn.

I think that a more logical explanation of why variance was added would be that Classic/kunark lasted ALOT longer on p99 than they did on live. Which leads to oversaturation of the server with high end items/loot/plat/etc, and would make velious far too trivial compared to what it should be on release. In otherwords, the variance was put in as a counter to the fact that our timeline is quite extended.


Autotune -- Do you have any proof that variance was added to prevent poopsocking or are you just assuming that?

One thing from a developmental point of view that I do not believe many people realize is that EQ is an old game, developmentally.

Keep in mind that the answer to player abuse and domination of contested content was the superficial addition of "instancing". EQ did not choose not to use instancing, instancing wasn't even invented yet.

I don't know of a single game these days that doesn't use instancing for the majority of its content, or at least the majority of its worth-while content (being anything that's considered of worth to the general populace).

Utilizing the systems that were developed originally with EQ, rules had to be constructed to ensure they weren't abused. It's the difference between not allowing individuals to carry firearms at all, or just instilling rules and regulations on how they can be used legally.

Granted no rule is ever perfect.

But this is in many ways a focal point to the discussion. You can't really have a classic experience without a very large and dedicated GM/Guide program (which we do not have). P1999's staff just isn't big enough to police the system for everything, even with rules in place, so some things would need to be policed digitally via the code (which is very feasible mind you), and was one of my suggestions.

I still have not read a reasonable argument for the disuse of a rotation. Every argument I've read has been either an argument wrought of fear of not getting more loot, or an argument that might even have a firm basis, but of which even I seem capable of thinking up half a dozen things that could be done to quell the arguments that line that basis.

Whatever must be done, I for one am all for it so long as it gets rid of socking. I can log in at 4am. I can play 14 hour days. I can play 7 days a week.

I just hate the current way raiding is done. It's not fun. Gone are the days when we went to Hate and worked as a unit for a few hours killing mobs, talking, laughing, and having fun. Now are the days when we log in for 5 minutes because Trak spawned, kill him instantly before he even gets off his second aoe, then port to the next target in window just to repeat the process.

I just feel that it would be a lot more fun if we had another reason or reasons to be doing this. I just wish when Trak popped, we started at the zone in, got all our players to Trak safely, got buffed up, killed him, and tried to do it as effectively as possible and at a nice pace.

If there was some kind of system in place to even reward players for efficiency in that regard, I'd be all for it.

I'd also really like to give the lesser guilds a shot at more content, and I say that as someone who will tell you, is not in a lesser guild.

But I don't care.

I don't walk around on my toons in brag-mode because my pixels make me a better man. IF I were a better man, it's because I want others to succeed as well, NOT because I myself, have succeeded where others have failed.

You can take your cocky forms of competitive arrogance, and you can shove them entirely, straight, up, your, ass.

When I say "you", keep in mind I'm not talking to any poster here, but rather I speak to whoever is defending the current system because they feel they're better than everybody else.

I just wanna have more fun. I could care less if I almost never get anything out of it for my characters. For the sake of sharing though, it almost makes me want instancing, and I can't STAND instancing because I feel that it's a cop out choice forced upon developers when they can't control player selfishness.

That's really all it is.

The more I think about it in fact, the more I feel that's all this anti-sharing thing really is about. It's about children who's parents have to force them not to be selfish. We shouldn't have to be told to share, we should just f*cking do it. There should be no question, no arguments, no debate.

I don't even care if you worked 50 years of your life to earn a 100 million dollars. You are morally obligated to share that wealth. If you disagree with me, then all we have here is a failure in empathy wrought by apathy, and birthed by greed.

Morgander for GM!

That is all.

we need LDON! what a wonderful expansion

I don't care what you highly doubt. I told you why it was added.

It really is no wonder why staff don't talk to you guys, you don't listen worth a damn.

I had quite the post typed up, but apparently upon submitting it made me re-log and I lost everything I had written over the past half hour, so I'll attempt to keep this brief.

To address your first point, the way that epics and the raid scene on this server are handled highlights a glaring problem in the way that raids are dealt with. Raids have their own subset of rules and regulations that are put into place in order to keep things orderly and to create a more classic raid atmosphere.

You're correct in stating that raiding does feel close to how it was in live in regards to the fact that there is only one guild on top. However the reasons are very different. On live that was usually the case because the majority of players were not as skilled or knowledgeable as the players on this server are. Here the separation occurs because of rules, mechanics, and things being intentionally different.

The same does not hold true for epics. Epics were more rare on live, not only due to the shorter timeline for this Kunark period, but also due to the fact that there was not as much information out there about them, and people did not have the means to figure out the quests as fast and know what's needed to win fights and gather up all of the necessary pieces.

The difference is, with regards to epics, we have no rules, quest changes, or anything of the like to intentionally keep the number of epics deflated on the server so that it is more like it was during classic. So why are they there for raiding.

To your second point, no this isn't live, but it is supposed to be an accurate classic server, is it not? Or are we really so naive as to attempt to reshape and mold a classic experience for a non-classic playerbase? Because that is all that modifying items, rules, and mechanics is accomplishing.

To your point, it does create a raiding environment that is similar to a live raiding environment, but again not at all for the same reasons. I'm of the opinion, and I've heard Nilbog say this countless times, that the development of the server should be done necessarily because it's what the players want, but because it's what classic. He mentions things like adding back spell book for meditating pre-35, took away the compass and all sorts of things I'm sure the majority of players don't mind.

So why then do we have modifications that cater to raiding specifically? We have FTE shouts now, why do we need a variance? If 3 guilds want to show up at a known mobs spawn point and spam target and then empty all of their charges of Ivandyrs hoops in order to try to get loot for a mob, shouldn't that be exactly what raiding on a recreation of a classic EverQuest server looks like? Shouldn't that be the ideal beautiful goal that we're aiming for?

Beautiful not because it's fun, not because it's overly competitive, or not because it's even "fair", but beautiful because it's classic everquest?

The take away from all of this is that I don't think the server should have non-classic elements to appease any individual if it is to be an honest attempt at recreating a classic EverQuest server, and from my understanding people like Nilbog didn't think that either. Frankly I think it's a slippery slope and I don't understand how or why it stops.

Are the servers goals to imitate classic everquest, or are they to try to give it's players a chance to relive the experience?

Because if it's the later, anything short of a time machine is going to come short, no matter how close. The first seems so much more obtainable and logical to me, and really what a lot of people thought the project was all about. I guess that was wrong.