I play at all hours of the day. Peak, off peak, in between, whatever. I definitely think the offpeak people have a valid argument. Being able to "/ooc 20 rogue LFG" and have every group on the server be able to see that you are LFG, let people who are thinking of logging see that they might have a replacement, or maybe have some shaman see you and think "hey maybe we can duo"... Well that makes things a lot more convenient. Then when you find your group, being able to "/auction Paying 100pp for port to XYZ from ABC" means you can actually get to your group in a reasonable time without annoying the piss out of every druid on the server with tells.
Can the same be accomplished with LFG? Probably. If someone is sitting there spamming /who all lfg nonstop. Is it as efficient? God no.
Auction is now a chore on peak or off peak. Before I could /auction while I was farming something and then if I had a bite arrange to meet up with the player. Now I have to sit in a boring ass zone and hope the people wanting to buy my items or who are selling the items I want to buy is in the zone. EC tunnel was neat for about 30 seconds. Now it is a waste of my life (please note that when I am enjoying everquest I do not consider it a waste of my life).
Also the person who said something about afk campers was quite correct. The offpeak hours 200 people is 40-50 people AFK camping a raid encounter, 20-30 necros, enchanters, mages, and a few other random solo'ers, 20-30 people afk in the tunnel, 15 people afk everywhere else... And a remaining levelling population of about 75-100 people across 50 levels. Is it possible to consistantly find a group? Damn straight. Is it likely? Not really. Does global OOC change this completely? God no, but it certainly softens the blow a little.
Also, I don't give a shit personally for grouping purposes, I have a 50 necro and less people on means I have more shit to farm. I just like having people to chat with when I am doing it. The people QQing about spam need to grow up. You don't HAVE to read everything, you can ignore people, and if you are that incapable of just blocking that shit out, you can always disable the channel. *shrug*
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