I really, really really really like the idea of a 2 hour limit. Keeps things civil by avoiding trains and leapfrogging and 14 hour squats, but still requires speed, organization, and skill to kill the mob in the time allowed. And the best guild will still emerge the victor in the end, by losing less spawns to wipes and slow speed. And it also manages new raiding guilds better than either option. You shouldn't be able to hop in for your equal share of a raid mob if you haven't proven your ability to kill it. But you should have a reasonable chance of giving it a shot. A 2 hour limit gives you the chance to try it if you are dedicated (even 3+ tries if you are fast), but once you fail you are gonna have to wait for a while to try again, as it should be.
I say this, believe it or not, from the underdog position both here and in live. In live my guild was literally STALKED by the guild above us because we were biting at their heels. They would form impromptu raids the moment they saw us go anywhere, just to leapfrog us and deny us content. I hated them with every inch of my soul. And honestly it is a really lame tactic. In that case, it is NOT the best guild that is succeeding. They beat us simply because they had more experience on the content because they formed while I was still level 40 with my guild of 6. We had many GM interactions and a lot of drama. In one case they stole AoW 20 minutes after we spawned him with no GM punishment. In another case we got leapfrogged in NToV and the GM forced them to back off and give us our fair, and ultimately successful, shot at Aary.
There were a lot of cases where we competed for highly desired mobs and lost fair and square. I never was mad about this except at my guild for mobilizing so slowly. But there were also many cases where we got trained, stalked, leapfrogged, KSed, and fucked with in other ways that made our playing experience miserable and made my 16-year-old self want to murder their raid leader and jerk off on his corpse.
Ultimately, guilds don't feel shitty or slighted when they lose fair and square. At least they shouldn't. Guilds feel slighted when they get fucked with, trained, KSed, etc. That causes the drama. You won't ever see a flame post titled "soandso mobilized faster than us for the 10th time this is unfair!" The source of the drama here is because (1)raid mobs spawn at an EXACT time, and (2)the raid mobs in question have significant trash required to kill. Squatting for hours on a mob's spawn point is lame, I don't think anyone can deny that. It's a game of who has the most free time to completely waste, or who has the most people who can load EQ at work and not actually be there. But allowing the first to engage Naggy is also a bad idea, since then it just becomes a matter of "ok wait till the other guild pulls the last giants, then we train rokyl on them accidentally and engage naggy." Other raid mobs are easy to see a solution. In the case of King Tormax, for example, 2 guilds can set up on opposite sides of the zone and whoever can pull him first wins. That requires no agreement or rotation. With naggy, you're required to leapfrog each other.
Ultimately, the solution needs to prevent griefing, but still promote competition. The previous solution allowed both griefing (squatting raid mobs to artificially monopolize camps) and competition. The current solution prevents both griefing and competition. Both are poor options.
I think something in the area of a rotation with a 1-2 hour limit is the best idea. Leapfrogging and KSing and training should never lead to rewards, but artificially putting guilds of unequal ability on an equal footing with hard rotations is inherently anti-EQ.
And for the love of god, lets open Hate early so we don't have to rotate Fear trash. Rotating fear trash is so weak :/
P.S. Is adding a random component to the spawn time an option? It was added in later EQ, late Velious or in Luclin somewhere, but it was a fantastic addition that only led to INCREASED fairness and pure competition. It made raid mobs unexpected and thus rewarded those who could organize and mobilize the best.
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