Still convinced Variance is Dumb
So the longer I stay on this server the more I am convinced that the current implementation of the raid scene is retarded. I absolutely understand why we have variance: no one wants a raid where everyone knows precisely what time a mob will spawn and is sitting there fully buffed. Said raid mob is promptly blasted into oblivion in 25 seconds and the GMs get to figure out who killed him. OH WAIT WE STILL HAVE THAT. Let me recap what happened last night from my point of view (I'm an enchanter in Vesica).
#1 Venril Sathir: I was XP'ing on my warrior when VS pop was announced in guild chat. Finished killing my mob (60 seconds), logged into my enchanter who was camped at the entrance to KC, and VS was already dead because TMO had a bunch of people either sitting there or camped out in his prep room. We had a group of people camping the basement with Yendor scanning track like a madman, by the time they got to VS prep he was at 80%.
#2 Faydedar: Similar sequence, except we got to have 100+ people on the boat to Timorous, which was actually pretty funny. Depending on who you ask, either TMO was kiting it or had FTE, either way IB/VD got the kill in a general clusterfuck.
#3 Innoruuk: Similar sequence. Logged in and got a port to Hate where 3 seconds after entering the zone I was grav fluxed by Innoruuk who had been pulled there by IB, and about all I did was cast resist magic on our wizard who got some nukes in.
Look I want to compete for boss mobs as much as the next guy. If IB/TMO were wiped off the server, I would probably quit too because doing the Kunark content simply isn't that hard right now. What makes it fun is trying to get there before the other guy. The problem right now is that that competition takes the form of sitting at the spawn point for hours at a time.
I've proposed this idea before, but a 1000% better solution is to spawn all the raid mobs (including the epic mobs) at the same time. Collect all the 7 day mobs and put them on 1 timer with no variance, and all the 3 day mobs and put them on another. Results:
Casual guilds like BDA/Divinity/Taken actually get some mobs because IB/VD/TMO can't be everywhere.
Way less bitching and raid interference and kiting and such because there is a good chance the top guilds go after different mobs. It would be worse at the end when only a few targets would be left, but hardly worse than it is now.
No poopsocking - we can all clean our socks!
Actual skill-based competition! ZOMG! Success is determined by picking targets, splitting forces, killing quickly, and not wiping rather than by sitting in a room alt-tabbed out watching movies for 96 hours.
Tons of fun: The server population would probably hit 1000 for 8 hours or so as everyone races around trying to kill 20+ bosses.
I really don't see any downsides to this. I'm guessing that the distribution of loot would remain pretty similar.
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