Before people started camping, we were racing. And it was sorta fun, we'd all do our best to assemble in the zone in the shortest amount of time. Because...that was how we'd decide who had rights to the mob. That was how we competed. We knew there were already 20 opposition logged out in the zone waiting for the signal, but hey, we wanted raid loot crazy bad so we did what we could.
So, a raid mob had popped, and I've called a bunch of people.... woke sleeping guildies, interrupted them at work, family dinners and other special moments in their lives, sent texts, calls, emails... everything. Most of 'em showed up hella quicklike, ready for some raid action. But, of course, the other team would have 15 in the zone just that much quicker than us, and all the hopes of those people I'd worked so hard to summon were shot down in minutes. It was a total anti-climax. The encounter itself was pretty easy so we wouldn't even wait to see if they wiped (they didn't). We'd log out either pissed or ambivalent about the whole experience. Not very satisfying.
I never understood why that had to be the end of it. Why couldnt we have stayed there until the last flickering hope of laying claim to a raid mob was extinguished with it's death or our own deaths? Why couldn't we just have taunted our rivals and marched up to the raid mob and started swinging like true raiders? Why couldnt we have opened a dialogue and struck some kind of deal that worked for us without worrying about what 700 other uninvolved people might think of it?
I'll tell you why we can't do these things. People are terrified of handling the competition themselves and seek to hide behind GMs and their meddling. People are terrified of losing some precious exp points, like their exp bars aren't already maxed out. And some people just want to have things they arent worthy of having. If you think that p99 is going to devolve into a hot mess where everyone delevels to 1 because of trains, you would be mistaken. According to that logic, classic servers on live would have never thrived like they did.
FFA is NOT characterized by its capacity to grief. Its about creating, enforcing, and honoring our own rules. Its also about maturity, reputation, and skills. In my opinion its a totally necessary step to facilitate the further growth and progress of the server.
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