New ToV Racing Rules

[Raev]

Here is the thing, though: Kunark was a grouping expansion while Velious is a raiding expansion.

In Kunark most of the content was geared towards single groups: new levels, new spells, and new dungeons that contained some of the best items in the game. The raid content consisted of VP and a few outdoor dragons, some of which dropped Classic items! And with the armor bp/greaves tradeable, if you were in an 'R' guild you could see 95% of the content and get 95% of the gear (everything but PD).

In Velious most of the content is geared towards raids. No new levels. Only a few new spells. Three fun new dungeons that no one goes to (with these words I summon Xoquil) because they are harder than Sebilis and don't have the signature loot items. Meanwhile the raid content is massive: Temple of Veeshan is really three raid zones welded together, Kael is also huge and well designed, Plane of Growth, Sleeper's Tomb, and plenty of random targets. The gear difference is also huge; you can effectively get PD loot in every slot.

So if you are in an 'R' guild you are basically limited to grabbing uncontested Kunark dragons and finishing epics and farming ToV East or West endlessly (or you could just BDA and help Chest's alt get a crown of rile). You get to see maybe 50% of the content of Velious and get 50% of the gear. And I think we are starting to see the rumblings of this on the Raid Discussion forum. CSG, BDA, Divinity, Anonymous, etc are all starting to get tired of that 500th Halls of Testing raid.

I've been there in the trenches on the raid discussion forum trying to get the staff to change the raid scene to something that rewards coordination and player skill rather than zerg poopsocking. After about 2-3 years, I gave up. It's just not going to happen. The staff may not like the current situation, but they don't hate it enough to fix it. Who can blame them? Rogean burned out long ago but he keeps the server up for free anyway. I can't imagine spending 20+ hours a week answering petitions and watching raid guilds lawyer each other without getting paid.

So I decided I'd rather zerg poopsock a bit (my schedule is flexible, so logging in for 10 minutes to kill a dragon periodically isn't particularly onerous) than miss out on 2/3 of the expansion. There are also quite some decent people in Rampage/Awakened, and nothing is stopping me from doing some of the group content too. I had a fun time in Siren's Grotto today doing the lower temple with a few pals.

TLDR: I decided to stop fighting a losing battle.