[Lazortag]

Warning: this post is long. (edit: so long, in fact, that I think it's lagging up the site.)

I committed to not responding to this thread again because I couldn't promise myself that I'd be civil, since I was taking what some people said in this thread a little too seriously, but I took a deep breath, came to the realization that this is just a game, and now I'm calm. Given how long this post is you'll probably still think I take this too seriously, which might be true, whatever. First, I'm sorry for insinuating that people in TR/TMO have no lives. I'm friendly with probably 99% of the members of both guilds so I basically insulted people who are normally nice to me, which is mean. It's also a little silly coming from me because as a lot of you know, I play this game constantly - even if I leave it on while studying or doing something else unproductive, I've still racked up a /played time so high that I'm ashamed to even post it, so it's hypocritical of me to say that others (who probably play less than me) have no lives outside of EQ.

See? Even I can admit that I'm fallible.

As for the raid scene, I've suggested a lot of fixes that I thought were fair for everyone, because I like consensus-building and I really do care about accommodating everyone and not just serving my own interests. I still think some kind of weighted rotation would be fairest, but a big objection is that it wouldn't feel competitive and it wouldn't necessarily give guilds the share of mobs that they deserve. I'll say right away that any rotation that allows every guild an exactly equal number of mobs is a bad idea, just like any rotation that lets guilds get mobs that they haven't even proven they can kill yet. It's not even worth getting into the reasons why it wouldn't be fair, the fact is that it would never get any support from the top guilds, and any solution has to take into account what all guilds think, not just the casual ones.

Since no rotation that isn't absurdly complicated will have the competitive feel that many guilds enjoy, I don't think we're ready for a rotation just yet. So let's try and think of solutions that would feel competitive but aren't too complex (and hopefully aren't too hard on the GM's), yet still make raiding accessible, fun, and fair. For one, I think that server repops on patch days are awesome and need to happen more consistently. Like, 100% of content-related patches should have server repops - they are great for both casual guilds and hardcore guilds, they promote competition, but most of all they're fun, and I don't see why we don't have them more often if everyone likes them and they're classic. If Rogean likes having a variance on server repops (which I don't think existed at this point in the classic timeline, but I wouldn't know), then that's cool too even if I don't prefer it, so long as we know that everything is gonna pop soon. I'm sorry if any of this sounds ungrateful - trust me, I'm glad that repops happen at all when they used to never happen, but I'm just making a suggestion that I think has a lot of support.

Secondly, the variance. I think we should first stipulate whether any variance existed at all and if it did, how long it was. I've heard people say that a small variance (like 6-12 hours) existed for most raid mobs and I've heard others say that no variance existed. Regardless, I think our server is unique in that it has a large number of european players who would be screwed out of content if everything spawned when they weren't as likely to be awake, which would happen if the variance was removed entirely. But I still think the windows should be shortened, I'd say to 12 or 24 hours or something like that, as opposed to 96 hours which is the norm for most raid mobs. There's enough raid content on this server that it wouldn't cause a huge clusterfuck (when before kunark it might have) - sure, people will camp out at trak and even be more likely to sock him because the cost of keeping your guild online at the spawn point of such a valuable mob isn't as high as before, but the worst that that would happen is that other guilds would be deterred from attempting trak and instead go for other targets, which they'd be satisfied with.

Many people (including some in the top guilds) say that the windows are unreasonably long and that they need to be shortened, so I think everyone would be okay with it. This would hugely boost competition on this server (something the top guilds want more of), but still give TR/TMO proportionally more mobs and more free time. Whether some people can manage the variance as it currently is doesn't change the fact that it's too long for classic, and that most casual players will attest that they just don't have the time to compete with windows that big. Again, I'm not saying that you have to be unemployed to track mobs with variance on this server, and I'm sorry again for suggesting that people who commit to tracking raid mobs have no lives outside of eq. But let's also stop with this narrative that people who aren't willing to track are "noobs" or that they "don't work hard enough" or that their guilds have poor leadership. I realize people said those things after they were provoked, but let's all just be nice to each other (again, I'm as guilty as anyone of being hostile, but it does no good to fling insults at each other).

We should also probably get rid of the "first to 15" rule, since it's kind of archaic, but I've never actually been involved in a situation where it was invoked so I can't definitively say whether it's a bad rule or not.

(edited out some grammar mistakes)