New Green

[Ooloo]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There's a very, very, simple way, and I truly hope they adopt it for /list 2.0 in Green 2.0: just make it so everyone on the list has a random chance of getting the item. If you sit there for three days without sleep, or trading accounts with others you get ... three days of chances to win the item.

But if you just play like a normal person (ie. login when you want to play and logout when you don't) you also have chances to win the item, based on how long you play. This both fits the spirit of the game better (no one on live was ever guaranteed anything as a reward for sitting in the game for a long time: it was always a random chance at whatever camp) and it eliminates the issues of /list 1.0, making it viable for normal/sane solo players.

Yeah but this would kind of just be trading one unfair thing for another. If I sat there for three days and just got unlucky, and never got the item, and people kept getting it ahead of me who had only been there for a couple hours just by sheer luck, I'd be just as pissed as facing a long camp due to account sharing.

I think the /list system as implemented was the best possible solution, even though yes some people are gonna game it by account sharing. It's still MUCH better than allowing the poopsock guild to just say fuck you to the rest of the server by passing the camp off the guildies forever until the items stop dropping.

One thing that might make it fairer would simply be that if you log out\switch accounts you get booted from the list. Yes this would also be unfair to the occasional person who loses connection, but honestly in the modern age that almost never happens unless the power goes out or something, and p99 generally only crashes while zoning so that wouldn't be an issue at a list camp where you're just in one zone for a long time. So at least in this system, the unfair thing would happen very infrequently.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah but this would kind of just be trading one unfair thing for another. If I sat there for three days and just got unlucky, and never got the item, and people kept getting it ahead of me who had only been there for a couple hours just by sheer luck, I'd be just as pissed as facing a long camp due to account sharing.

I think the /list system as implemented was the best possible solution, even though yes some people are gonna game it by account sharing. It's still MUCH better than allowing the poopsock guild to just say fuck you to the rest of the server by passing the camp off the guildies forever until the items stop dropping.

One thing that might make it fairer would simply be that if you log out\switch accounts you get booted from the list. Yes this would also be unfair to the occasional person who loses connection, but honestly in the modern age that almost never happens unless the power goes out or something, and p99 generally only crashes while zoning so that wouldn't be an issue at a list camp where you're just in one zone for a long time. So at least in this system, the unfair thing would happen very infrequently.

This

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah but this would kind of just be trading one unfair thing for another. If I sat there for three days and just got unlucky, and never got the item, and people kept getting it ahead of me who had only been there for a couple hours just by sheer luck, I'd be just as pissed as facing a long camp due to account sharing.

I think the /list system as implemented was the best possible solution, even though yes some people are gonna game it by account sharing. It's still MUCH better than allowing the poopsock guild to just say fuck you to the rest of the server by passing the camp off the guildies forever until the items stop dropping.

One thing that might make it fairer would simply be that if you log out\switch accounts you get booted from the list. Yes this would also be unfair to the occasional person who loses connection, but honestly in the modern age that almost never happens unless the power goes out or something, and p99 generally only crashes while zoning so that wouldn't be an issue at a list camp where you're just in one zone for a long time. So at least in this system, the unfair thing would happen very infrequently.

Welcome to EverQuest: what I described is just as "fair" as (literally) anything else in the game.

Nothing else in this game is guaranteed ... you don't get to sit at the mushroom king camp for X hours and get handed a Fungi Tunic, do you? Why should items that are so good, they got removed from the game, be guaranteed ... when a Fungi Tunic isn't?

[Ooloo]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Welcome to EverQuest: what I described is just as "fair" as (literally) anything else in the game.

Nothing else in this game is guaranteed ... you don't get to sit at the mushroom king camp for X hours and get handed a Fungi Tunic, do you? Why should items that are so good, they got removed from the game, be guaranteed ... when a Fungi Tunic isn't?

Because they *aren't* guaranteed, especially if you kick people from the list if they account share. It took me several attempts to get a guise before they were removed cause I wasn't willing to account share and I can't stay up for 24hrs straight.. I finally got one after a 9 hour camp just a week or two before they were removed.

The entire spirit of the game that attracts this niche playerbase is that not everyone gets a participation trophy. Some people cynically think that means everyone has a mindset of wanting to deny others, when I think it's more that they want to actually feel some sense of achievement for doing something hard.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Because they *aren't* guaranteed, especially if you kick people from the list if they account share.

But they are the definition of guaranteed if the camp isn't 24+ hours (eg. I got /list-guaranteed JBoots), or if you don't sleep or share accounts.

And remember, the whole reason we have /list in the first place is that GMs don't have time to manage lists ... but if the GM's don't have time to manage lists, I highly doubt they have the time it would take research and find account sharers.

Just making /list a random chance is elegant in its simplicity: it solves everything in a classic-ish way ... except for people wanting a guarantee for their time spent (and I would argue those people are playing the wrong game).

[Ooloo]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But they are the definition of guaranteed if the camp isn't 24+ hours (eg. I got /list-guaranteed JBoots), or if you don't sleep or share accounts.

And remember, the whole reason we have /list in the first place is that GMs don't have time to manage lists ... but if the GM's don't have time to manage lists, I highly doubt they have the time it would take research and find account sharers.

Just making /list a random chance is elegant in its simplicity: it solves everything in a classic-ish way ... except for people wanting a guarantee for their time spent (and I would argue those people are playing the wrong game).

It would be dead simple to remove people from lists if they camp\go LD. It would be harder to track down people screensharing to essentially account share without logging their char out, but it's still another check. If you make something harder to do, there will inevitably be a set of people who won't do it who otherwise would have.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The entire spirit of the game that attracts this niche playerbase is that not everyone gets a participation trophy.

It could just as easily be argued that P99's oddball, cutthroat culture is part of why it's a niche community--it drives a lot of normal folks away. I definitely see conversation to that effect on various sites across the 'net.

----------------------------------------

That being said, I regard our defacto reality here as representing a sort of compromise: Anyone can, without serious hurdles, obtain sufficient stuff to let their characters do the jobs they're meant to do throughout virtually the entire game. That's good enough for me. "Participation trophies" or "welfare gear" or whatever derogatory term you want to call it by very much exists--it's called thurgadin armor (or its non-set equivalents). The folks who built this game made sure people could get the stuff needed for their characters to function, without being blocked. The high-end pixels that people argue and bicker so vehemently over are largely optional fluff. So let 'em argue and bicker. The folks who quit because they can't get that type of stuff are, I think, obsessing over unneeded stuff to an excessive degree and getting themselves bent out of shape over nothing of import.

Danth

[SenoraRaton]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah but this would kind of just be trading one unfair thing for another. If I sat there for three days and just got unlucky, and never got the item, and people kept getting it ahead of me who had only been there for a couple hours just by sheer luck, I'd be just as pissed as facing a long camp due to account sharing.

I think the /list system as implemented was the best possible solution, even though yes some people are gonna game it by account sharing. It's still MUCH better than allowing the poopsock guild to just say fuck you to the rest of the server by passing the camp off the guildies forever until the items stop dropping.

One thing that might make it fairer would simply be that if you log out\switch accounts you get booted from the list. Yes this would also be unfair to the occasional person who loses connection, but honestly in the modern age that almost never happens unless the power goes out or something, and p99 generally only crashes while zoning so that wouldn't be an issue at a list camp where you're just in one zone for a long time. So at least in this system, the unfair thing would happen very infrequently.

This doesn't solve the problem, it just makes you screen share your local machine to your friends instead. It adds a technical barrier that is surmountable.

I think the solution should be to essentially award DKP every time the PH/Named is killed.(Or possibly every time you pass an AFK check) If your logged on, and on the list, then you get a point, and the person with the most points gets the drop, if its tied, it rolls and selects one. This way you can log off and go to sleep, you can even spend an hour a day at the camp, and slowly accumulate DKP. Given enough time at camp you will get your item.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by SenoraRaton [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think the solution should be to essentially award DKP every time the PH/Named is killed.(Or possibly every time you pass an AFK check) If your logged on, and on the list, then you get a point, and the person with the most points gets the drop, if its tied, it rolls and selects one. This way you can log off and go to sleep, you can even spend an hour a day at the camp, and slowly accumulate DKP. Given enough time at camp you will get your item.

Except that there is no "DKP" (or anything like it, except plat) in the game. EverQuest is not a game about guaranteed rewards: even when you raid, there's no guarantee that you'll get the mob, or that it will drop the item you want.

That was the core flaw (IMHO) of lists: they were an amazing feat of "automated GMing", which is perfectly legitimate given that we don't have paid GMs here ... but they ultimately added a very un-EQ-like loot guarantee.