AOE in Skyfire

[mwatt]

This post is a combination warning and complaint about how AOE groups in Skyfire can affect an unsuspecting player.

The other day I zoned into SF and ran to the mouth of BW zone area, recalling from Live that this was a good place to pull too, there being plenty of mobs and a few nameds that wander near by. I wasn't there more than a couple of minutes before I was instantaneously being whomped on by a plethora of Wurms, Chromodraks and Wyverns. Needless to day death was swift.

At first I thought, what the heck? Is this a train? I didn't even see it coming. It turns out that it was the result of an AOE group doing it's thing at the BW zone line. I had heard a couple of people say that SkyFire was "no good" because of AOE groups pulling almost the entire zone. At the time, I had mentally written this off as hyperbole.

Now, having had the experience (or the lack thereof, heh) described above, I can see their point. The BW zone line and the area leading to it is a prime experience area for SF. The decision to do massive AOE fighting at this particular point within the zone seems somehow dicey to me. It isn't so much the fact that so many mobs at once are being pulled from the general surroundings, as it is the inherent danger in this type of fighting to passers by and other unsuspecting players.

I could wish that AOE groups would not set up right there and also that they would warn the zone before each mega-pull. As it stands, I actually have trepidation about simply approaching this area of the zone. For this to be understood, perhaps you'd have to have experienced what the experience was like. One moment, it was blue sky and a sunny day - the next moment, without any sort of visual or textual warning was: "WOMP WOMP WOMP WOMP ... loading...".

To be fair, a cleric from the group (groups?) involved did give me a 96% rez, which was nice. On the other hand, that is a 4% experience loss and a helping of aggravation that I don't feel like I had coming.