Everquest is, without a doubt, a community driven game. If you take a look at the actual PNP from this era, 95% of it was addressed to cursing, various PC chat rules, impersonating people, 3rd party programs, etc. Very little was actually dedicated to things like KSing and ninja-looting. Infact, that's about covers the rest of it in a nutshell - don't ninja-loot or KS and that all GM decisions are final.
This had 2 primary effects. It actually kept the power in the players' court, where it should be, and gave the GMs a bit of a wide lane in which to arbitrate disputes (This is where a lot of "what exactly constitutes GM involvement in a classic sense" comes from).
Infact, the latter contributed to the fact that one wanted GM intervention because of it's fairly whimsical nature. GM controlled raid calendars might have happened, but they were without a doubt a very small minority across most of the servers. Calling it a "classic experience" for most would be a large stretch. Most of the time, solutions were found in either "work it out or you're going to /ran 100 for the mob". If it was after the fact, simple FTE normally ruled the day. There wasn't any huge investigation beyond that most times because FRAPs wasn't considered evidence, and GMs only watched raids if they REALLY had nothing else to do or had been previously called.
That's, imo, what made it work. It was simple for the GMs to enforce and the players got to decide if they wanted to work it out or act like children and make their own lives miserable. And not a lot of people wanted GM intervention unless they genuinely thought they had been a legit KSing beef.
I firmly believe that competition is just as important as cooperation in this game. Keeping as much of both those intact is of vital importance and a balance must be struck. GM controlled raid calendars and complete FFA are extreme solutions that are not in the best interest of the server. Instancing is so far removed from being "classic" I have absolutely no worries about it ever being implemented here, I'm not even going to get into it (read even just one or two of the "why you left Live threads", LDoN and instancing are pretty popular reasons in those threads).
Because, that's ultimately what community based game is about. Player control, competition, cooperation, with as little GM enforcement as possible to ensure some basic rules are enforced in the most simple way possible.
If the community wants to act like children or waste their lives spawn camping, then that's up to them. Or they can grow up or work something out. But it shouldn't be the GM's responsibility to dictate how the community interacts with each other beyond some very, very simple anti-griefing rules because well - it's the easiest, most effective, and most classic solution.
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