Someone Translate this wall of text from Omni

[loramin]

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

Well lucky for them the EQemu people figured it out about 10 years ago. Instancing is definitely possible on this server.

We all know that technical limitations aren't the issue: Rogean and Nilbog will never implement instancing on P99. So again, let's be honest: if you're bringing up instancing you're not seriously proposing it as an option, you're using it to falsely equate it to a viewpoint you disagree with.

All I'm trying to do is have an honest debate here. That means admitting that a lot of our raid circumstances are unavoidable. P99 has higher population than many in-era live servers, a higher concentration of people with the desire/resources to play EQ as a full time job, and most importantly (due to its long lifespan) it has an incredibly unclassic skew towards higher-end characters.

That's the reality we all have to face, so then the question simply becomes, in that environment, what's best for everyone? It's just utilitarianism.

P99 tried having a monopoly guild (TMO) for a long time. No one but TMO liked that. P99 tried having it's current "competition" system (several variations of it in fact), and as we are all aware that amounts to only a few guilds dominating (which is still way more people getting to experience content than under the TMO system). But we've only ever once, and only briefly, tried any kind of structured raiding (the whole class C/R thing), and never a true rotation.

Maybe rotations are the best system for P99, maybe they aren't. All I'm asking is that people honestly defend their views one way or another. Say "____ is the best system for our current top-heavy P99 server" (whose explicit goal is to make classic EQ available for everyone) and make honest arguments to that effect.

Argue that:

• a single guild monopolizing all top content and preventing anyone else from enjoying it is what's best for the server
• a few top-end guilds made up of the absolute most dedicated players monopolizing all top content is what's best for the server
• top content rotated among all guilds capable of killing that content is what's best for the server
• some other system is what's best for the server

But just, do it honestly. Is "scoring forum points" really that much more important than just making honest arguments about what you feel is best for everyone on this server?

[Champion_Standing]

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

We all know that technical limitations aren't the issue: Rogean and Nilbog will never implement instancing on P99. So again, let's be honest: if you're bringing up instancing you're not seriously proposing it as an option, you're using it to falsely equate it to a viewpoint you disagree with.

All I'm trying to do is have an honest debate here. That means admitting that a lot of our raid circumstances are unavoidable. P99 has higher population than many in-era live servers, a higher concentration of people with the desire/resources to play EQ as a full time job, and most importantly (due to its long lifespan) it has an incredibly unclassic skew towards higher-end characters.

That's the reality we all have to face, so then the question simply becomes, in that environment, what's best for everyone? It's just utilitarianism.

P99 tried having a monopoly guild (TMO) for a long time. No one but TMO liked that. P99 tried having it's current "competition" system (several variations of it in fact), and as we are all aware that amounts to only a few guilds dominating (which is still way more people getting to experience content than under the TMO system). But we've only ever once, and only briefly, tried any kind of structured raiding (the whole class C/R thing), and never a true rotation.

Maybe rotations are the best system for P99, maybe they aren't. All I'm asking is that people honestly defend their views one way or another. Say "____ is the best system for our current top-heavy P99 server" (whose explicit goal is to make classic EQ available for everyone) and make honest arguments to that effect.

Argue that:

• a single guild monopolizing all top content and preventing anyone else from enjoying it is what's best for the server
• a few top-end guilds made up of the absolute most dedicated players monopolizing all top content is what's best for the server
• top content rotated among all guilds capable of killing that content is what's best for the server
• some other system is what's best for the server

But just, do it honestly. Is "scoring forum points" really that much more important than just making honest arguments about what you feel is best for everyone on this server?

Why do I have to argue one of those points? they all suck. I'm completely serious. if you want significant change around here start pushing for instanced raid zones. Ultimately this would have the same effect as rotations, but you could kill dragons once a week instead of once every month and a half. The server is bloated af anyway and anyone dedicated to raiding is eventually going to get their bis items, does it really matter if it happens faster?

Small guilds could get pushed out of a rotation system just as easily as they get pushed out of raid zones. You'd have people lawerying even harder to get guilds taken off the rotation entirely after they wiped a few times or failed to clear the zone on their week. What happens if a guild gets removed from the rotation? When can they reapply? Should any guild that asks be put on or would there be a qualification system where the guild has to prove they deserve a spot? If so, what would the requirements be?

I know rotations sound nice, but it will not be as simple as the staff making a list then forgetting about it.

[loramin]

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

if you want significant change around here start pushing for instanced raid zones.

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

Howabout if the respawn timers were reduced?

Both these things have been shot down by the staff in the past. Instances are all but guaranteed never to happen here on Project 1999: either Rogean or Nilbog would probably have to have an aneurysm to change their minds. Suggesting them is a poison pill.

Reduced respawn times are possible, but extremely unlikely as the staff has consistently said no for the entire project's history. Even our current beloved "earthquakes" took years of lobbying before the staff finally agreed to implement them, and even then only because they simulated classic server resets.

If we're going to have an honest discussion about the best raid system for P99, it has to exclude the ideas the staff will never implement, and limit it to things that can actually happen here ... like rotations, which the staff literally rolled out a few months ago and (again) were absolutely classic on many live servers.

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

they all suck. I'm completely serious.

Right, well I sort of thought it went without saying, but given the constraints on this server (eg. no instances) there will never be a perfect solution that makes everyone happy. So when I say "best for P99", it's sort of implied that I'm saying "option that sucks the least".

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

You'd have people lawerying even harder to get guilds taken off the rotation entirely after they wiped a few times or failed to clear the zone on their week. What happens if a guild gets removed from the rotation? When can they reapply? Should any guild that asks be put on or would there be a qualification system where the guild has to prove they deserve a spot? If so, what would the requirements be?

I know rotations sound nice, but it will not be as simple as the staff making a list then forgetting about it.

So again, I'm not arguing that rotations are magical or will solve all problems, I'm saying they're the best (least sucky) solution for P99. All of your later questions can be answered, but the one that really bugs me is the first one:

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

You'd have people lawerying even harder to get guilds taken off the rotation entirely after they wiped a few times or failed to clear the zone on their week.

So what? People can "lawyer" all they want, but this server is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. If Rogean implements rotations, part of doing that would be establishing a system to answer your questions, including settling when people leave the rotation.

And if he's smart, he could even setup the system in a way that makes players police each other so the staff has less work to do. For instance, he could make it so that to drop a guild from the rotation a player from another guild has to fraps them failing on gatekeeper mob X twice. Or he could say that whoever gets ToV this week has to send a representative to observe new guild Y that is trying to kill gatekeeper mob X for the first time so they can get into the rotation.

Instead of a system designed to pit everyone against each other, the staff could implement a system where the players have to work with each other (don't send the observer for the new guild's gatekeeper fight? your guild loses its next ToV week). And again, such a system strikes me as massively better for the server and most players (ie. not just the top guilds, and not just the RnF-dwellers).

[Jimjam]

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

Not sure if you've noticed from the patch history but there isn't an army of C coders waiting to program for p99 for free. Requesting a feature that this old game wasn't designed to handle (instances) is out of the question.

Loot rights going to the dps/xp group is already hard coded... if it is a dps race by guild/alliance... well then that would be problematic.

[Wonkie]

joining multiple guilds carries the implied threat of colluding with other high effort players to corrupt the loot process to benefit themselves. its like the magnetic nature of capital.

and that's OK.

[enjchanter]

I mean I guess it kinda boils down to there being just different perspectives of how this game should be played.

I personally find enjoyment from progressing my characters and yes, I do gain some satisfaction knowing that I have an essence of nature and not every other enchanter has one. I gain a sense of satisfaction from having achieved such a nice item.

Now if the situation was that we did rotations, yes giving everyone a fair chance and lowering barrier to entry, I (personally) would suddenly have much less interest in the game because I've experienced the content forever, I'm familiar with all the fights so when it comes to raid content, I'm just trying to secure some loot that (ideally) is special enough that there is some barrier to getting such an item.

I'm not really equating rotations to hand outs but rotations makes it a game of waiting rather than being engaging and worth spending time on. I get that you still have to actually kill the dragons and for some guilds maybe this is challenging and exciting and good for them.

But ultimately I guess your right, rotations means tov nonsense is done, we can all just take turns killing dragons and hope the stuff you want falls on your turn

/shrug.

[Ella`Ella]

"It's 2019 and I still can't get Vulak loot. Please make more rules/less rules/enforce rules/ban competition so I can win EQ"

[Rizzle]

Loramin - I feel like you keep are the one that keeps deflecting everyone else's responses. It just sounds like your asking that your intramural football team have the right to play in the NFL because everyone should get to experience what it's like, even though your team hasn't put in the time/effort to recruit/learn and compete at that level.

Why is it such a problem for people to join AM/AG/Core to get to see the content they want to? If you want to stay in a smaller guild that doesn't compete, that's fine, but don't beg for rotations because you aren't large enough/have the desire to put in the effort to compete with everyone else. Instancing would solve this issue, but we aren't on a server that has instanced raiding.

[Oleris]

Not all guilds are equal. I never complained when TMO was kicking Asgard's ass on FFA mobs. I knew that TMO had more hardcore players, were more skilled and put in more hours to be prepared. I was in a "filthy casual" guild and knew that if I wanted more raid loot that I would have to join TMO.

Through the merger I ended up in Aftermath and I couldn't be happier. I can understand though how it can be hard to leave a guild and community of people. I was tempted to leave Asgard for greener pastures, but I didn't want to leave the guild that I started with.

If some of these more casual guilds want top tier dragon loot, then their guild culture would need to change either through leadership, recruitment or merging. Forcing an "every guilds equal" rotation would be unjust to those guilds that have recruited for the current end game raid scene.

[Erati]

Lora your “rotations are classic” argument really fizzles out on P99 style of locked server where new content either wont come (Velious locked) or slow to develope (not many Devs patching).

Rotations classically worked on a few servers bc typically it was not current content being rotated. On Bristlebane for example Nagafen/Vox had signup calendars and slots were rolled each month but that was in Kunark/Velious. I doubt any servers rotated current content w the public, maybe a couple did but it certainly was not the “norm” if it existed at all.

So what you are asking for basically never happened in classic, namely any guild given a free chance to experience what current content they wanted without having to make a bargain w the guilds that actively clear the content.

Thats why so many people will argue your viewpoint, it’s just not that realistic for a locked Velious server without literally requiring heavy GM moderation (creating an official P99 server rotation)