[mwatt]

I agree that the current situation is untenable. What these guilds are dong is greedy and mean-spirited, made more so because one of the items that is locked down is not going to be available forever. It's a bad, selfish attitude being shown here. It almost smacks of PVP type behavior within PVE constraints. Some of the justification given by those that support it sounds just like that.

The first thing that should be done is that the reputations of these guilds should be considered tarnished. The last thing that should be done is enacting any rules that require more work or attention on the part of the GMs. Somewhere in between these two extremes lies the best answer. The suggestion of the OP is not bad, but it may end up more work and more headache for GMs.

I think GMS and those that are currently "locked out" are just mostly hoping that the guilds will get tired of this and it will become a non-problem. If they do not cease this well before the COS will be nerfed, then I anticipate confrontations that GMS will get dragged into anyway - then nobody is gonna be happy.

Something does need to change, and it needs to change pretty soon. This is not "classic behavior" in our beloved classic game. What's more it runs contrary to the spirit of cooperative MMORPGs that EQ is supposed to embody.