Well, where to start on this shit. Firstly, the irony and hypocritical nature of this move disappointing. If you want to flex your authority, show a bunch of elf-dependent nerds "who's boss" the least you could do is call it like it is.
This entire ban is just a fuck you to TMO. During the 2 weeks they were banned from raiding, other raid guilds took the initiative to reach a temporary agreement. The raiding drama was minimal (if at all), competent guilds hit 32k targets, and the up and coming guilds like mine / the casual raid guilds did what their members logged on to do; have fun. 2 weeks later, TMO gets unbanned.... AAAAND ITS GONE. This just comes off as lazy, and to me, seems like the staff got butthurt that TMO was duping / blahblah behind their back and getting away with it. The staff took the time to write their own proposals (lol) but didn't take the time to address the root cause of it all? Guilds got disbanded on live for being fucks: thats a fact jack. I saw it happen in person on Tallon Zek, to which the birth of SZ arose eventually : a place for dumb asses to go grief while the GM staff opted to use minimal intervention. I don't think a second Blue server without any kind of PnP would be the way to go, because there isn't a secondary population to fill it while keeping P99 manned well enough.
So here's my "proposal" - Remove variance.. you know, that non-classic feature on the "classic" server. IT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL THE DRAMA. My guild doesn't hit 32k targets (yet
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] ), so I don't have a dog in the fight. Nor do I really give a fuck, I work 60 hours a week and so do most of us; there's an accepted reality that we won't ever be top dog thrivers in MMOs when we go outside 7 days a week. Poopsocking is gone, mass training is gone (because there aren't 3/4 guilds trying to ruin the raid for the 1 that got FTE because there's isnt shit up and they're butthurt they stared at a wall for 13 hours straight just for some other guilds monk to walk in 20 minutes ago and get the first shuriken off). THE STAFF would then figure out a rotation for which mobs spawn when, it would take a minimal amount of effort to know which mobs to spawn when, and which mobs to spawn at the same time, to be able to spread out the raiding forces.
Now, this won't happen. Because classic server GMs and devs have all their dogs in the most non-classic mechanic on the server's fight. So..
Just disband TMO. Who has 25x more Kunark raid loot than they need? TMO. Who, time and time again, was at the crime scene when training/greifing/poopsocking/hack/duping/RMT/RL info postings occurred? TMO. Who posted guild bank spreadsheets solely to mock and lord other guilds who attempted the content they did? TMO. Who's absence brought the first ever raid scene agreements/rotations/hand holding? TMO.
May seem like I've got a case of the angerz/jellyz for them, but i don't. There's quite a few people in TMO I enjoy playing with / have on friends list. But it doesn't negate the fact that at the core, there is 1 guild and a fractional chunk of the population, who are perpetuating the problems you want solved. I'm aware in the past IB could have been substituted in for TMO, yadda yadda before this argument hits the time machine, but this is now.
Since TMO got banned for 2 weeks, and this pointed forced agreement bullshit got put on us all, I've NEVER seen the staff mention donations so much. So, by my deductive reasoning, this also won't happen because it's apparent, to me, that TMO was donating their way to the shitmountain they sat upon.
Which btw, locking raids down for an entire server is a great way to get more people to donate money, good look on that one. This post may have seemed bash-the-staff happy, but honestly I have nothing but respect for what they do, and am grateful to be able to play here. I just feel like this decision was the wrong one, and there's a lack of HONEST transparency going on to let a real "agreement" be brought to.
You've created a slippery slope situation, that just gets more lubed the further we slide. Now EVERYONE thinks they've got the proposal that will get this lifted.. for fucks sake people were throwing ideas around in our guild chat last night and we don't even 32k bro. We just have fun clearing planes and doing the little guy stuff like DEs. You want the server to agree on a proposal, but my guild and our officers couldn't even post in the Raid Discussion threads, even though we raid? You cant put duct tape on someones mouth then punish them for not speaking. In your mind, you have set in stone who the "raid" guilds are : band them from raiding, and let us little guy guilds keep doing what we do / take our chances at 32k mobs the right way.