My live server, Prexus, also had a rotation system. It was used from Classic through the start of Velious (only Dain was rotated). Although clearly rotation systems have benefits, my first-hand experience playing on a server with a rotation leads me to believe the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. Many of these drawbacks have not be recognized so far in this thread. Rotation systems lead to slower progression, to waste, and although have the veneer of altruism, actually prevent guilds anywhere but the bleeding edge of the curve from ever catching up.
On Prexus, dozens of guilds rotated the planes. There were so many "planes capable" guilds that many of us were lucky to see a planar run more that a couple times a month, and that was including double-dipping the calendar with friendly guilds (a common practice). Although I will admit that the RNG hated my guts, by I finally got my ranger his TV BP during Velious. Yes, Velious. That was from raiding the planes at every opportunity the calendar would allow me during the Kunark period.
Waste was terrible as well. I put "planes capable" in quotations earlier as, although many of these guilds were capable of clearing a plane, it often took them over five hours. (This is after the level cap was raised to 60 as well!) In other words, if you were unlucky enough to follow a slow clear guild, you were in there for five or six hours even if your normal clear was an hour or two. The result was that the powers that be chose to divide a planar day into two twelve hour blocks instead of three eight hour blocks. Not only to prevent the wait, but to give people the experience of a full break. But in the end, a full spawn was wasted every day, ironically in the name of giving people more opportunity.
It gets even worse when key mobs are involved. This is how it generally goes, by the time the second tier raiding crews are ready to step up to, say Trak, the first tier crews are already keyed. More people get let in on the rotation. During that period of Kunark, I was in an alliance with a guild that was the 4th to kill Trak on the server. After consulting a calculator, we found it would have taken us roughly four to six months to key our core crew for VP. Realistically, it would have been longer, as a few months down the line, the rotation got even longer. Towards the end of the lifespan of the calendar, a guild joining the Trak rotation would require of a year and a half of waiting in line to key up a reasonable raiding force. Although perhaps this is fair, this sort of time frame is not reasonable.
In the meantime, the top tier guilds can farm VP virtually uncontested, while the teir below trying to step up is prevented from progressing by the system. This creates a cycle in which the gap between the top and the mid gets larger. The more casual raiders are just happy seeing Trak and praise the fairness of the top guilds, where as in reality, the top guilds are merely guaranteeing that the mid tier can never catch up in gear.
Not only that, but the top guild(s) can leisurely kill old, rotated content that they really only farm for guild bank gear only after they kill their priority targets. This benefits the top tier more than the middle tier. It helps the top tier's guild bank at the expense of the middle tier's progression.
So yes, although rotation systems help the most casual of the player base see some content every now and then, they also serve as an effective tool for keeping the "hardcasual" crew from ever advancing. Rotation also result in a larger stratification between the raiding guilds. In simple words, the gap between the haves and have nots becomes even wider. As a direct result guild poaching and feeder guilds become a much larger problem/reality.
Having had the misfortune of raiding under such as system of constraints in the past, I was happy then when the calendar was abolished on my live server, and I am happy now that P1999 does not have one.
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