Quote:
Originally Posted by Lojik
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What was the theory behind implementing variance? Was it supposed to solve some problem that existed? (FYI I'm not a part of the sock scene just curious)
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Before variance there was static spawn timers. People would bring their raid forces at the mob 15 minutes before it spawned waiting for the boss and then fight over who actually gets the mob before and after it was killed. The length of time of waiting begin to increase from minutes to hours. During this time there was a first raid with 15 people at the spawn point rule. Who ever got 15 people to sit at a spawn point first would get first shot at the mob, so people would sit 15+ people at a spawn point hours and days in advance in order to claim the mob. GMs added variance to stop that and eventually did away with the 15 person rule in favor of a pure FTE rule, which resulted in pre-camping buffed raids, 24/7/365 trackers, DA/bladstopper/disc instant engages, and poopsocking for random spawning mobs.
Poopsocking paid off when the boss would reach the end of its 36-96 hour window (varies by boss, most are 96 hours) because the boss would pop by the end of the window. Then the GMs "accidently" added extended windows which randomly adds another 0-24 hours to a mob's variance window if it would have spawned in the last 15% of its timer. This extension will keep adding up each time a new spawn time is rolled and the spawn time is in the last 15%. This can result in an average 7 day spawn (5-9 days from last kill due to variance) in extending upwards of 12-14 days total time. This was supposed to be a disincentive for poopsocking, since you could no longer just wait the last couple of hours for an assured spawn.