Asking a favor from the two top guilds on the server

[Ravager]

An idea that's been brought up before, that would level the playing field a little more and involves no rotations and no "free handouts" is limits to guild rosters. Smaller rosters means more guilds, means more options for raiding, means more competition if that's your thing.

[Woahnelly]

what would stop TMO from turning into 3 guilds that share the same dkp system?

[Splorf22]

If you want competition, why would you possibly like variance, where players 'compete' to see who can leave their character at the login screen while they watch TV?

1) Enable PVP for raid encounters - there is some competition for you
2) Simultaneous repops, no variance, and antipoopsocking code - that is real racing
3) Forming the smallest guilds that can still handle a spot in the rotation, thus maximizing your pixels

I think you are a reasonable guy Mav, don't you think you can find better ways to compete in EQ if that is your thing?

[kenzar]

It's also open to a lot of rule lawyering.

[Ravager]

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

what would stop TMO from turning into 3 guilds that share the same dkp system?

TMO is the size it is just to pad numbers. They have a core of raiders and then they have a bunch of people who show up for loot. Split them up and things will get cliquey in a hurry and the core who would inevitibly be in the same guild doing all the heavy lifting won't be so keen on DKP spread out over 3 guilds.

[Woahnelly]

Certainly a neat idea. What about alts though? Since they can't be boxed would they be allowed to be in the same guild and not count towards x guild total?

[Kagatob]

FTE isn't classic yo, sorry to burst your bubbles.

All of you saying otherwise? You're part of the reason this debacle keeps going.

[AenarieFenninRo]

I have tried to be very civil throughout this thread, and said many times that I would like to see some system worked out... but i'm now moving away from this because its broken down once again into enforced rotation talks for pages on end.

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

It seems in its way, that even when I was a kid, we had to do something instead of just requesting that no other team was on the field so they could kick the ball toward the goal in the hopes of it going in.

I am all for everyone having fun, and everyone getting a chance to do something they might not normally get the chance to do, but the proposals I have seen thus far are simply asking the other teams to step off the field of play so that someone else can have a go at it.

I said it before, and i'm re-quoting it now... all this talk of "rotations" equates to my statements above. Now people are talking about "they have X time to engage or it goes FTE". "make the GMs enforce it"

So to continue the analogy, you make everyone get off the field for 20 mins / 4 hours / 24 hours / whatever... and all stand on the sidelines and watch you, and when you miss the goal they all bum rush the mob.

You're also requiring the GMs to stand and watch as referees to determine who's turn it is to be the lone player on the field, and make sure nobody interferes with you, and then blow the whistle for the free for all wtf800 people on the mob.

So why wait the 20 mins / 4 hours / 24 hours when the free for all is already the situation when a mob spawns?

Nobody is stopping smaller guilds from running 3 people in for an FTE snipe. Nobody is saying that the smaller guilds cant have a go at targets. You're putting these restrictions on yourselves because you "dont want to deal with the R&F / Fallout / etc"... I see it as you wanting someone else to do the work for you with tracking and just let you know when its your turn.

Grow a pair, and let them hang low.

Alarti came in here yesterday at 11am saying:

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I would like to offer divnity an opportunity here to show up at the next trakanon and compete. BDA, Taken, etc are invited also.

Trakanon spawned 3 hours later... it was again, TMO and FE. Where were ya'll? But somehow this is probably our fault right? I mean, we're the big bad wolf here... so saying why not come down for Trak and none of you showing is our fault?

Even given a straight up invite to come down to the mob, you dont show up... maybe we should have petitioned "Trakanon is up, please alert the small guilds so we can watch them engage it and hope they fail for our turn" because someone else "deserves" a go at it right? All our tracking of the target was pointless because we've killed him too many times yah?

To quote "A Knight's Tale"
You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.

[Woahnelly]

That trak raid would have been really fun, with the alleged FTE snipe, ensuing petition, and 60 page rnf thread. You don't need to make rotations out to be a complicated thing, as the really are not. They require little to no GM involvement so long as people abide by the rotation. Any any hypothetical rotation could still have FFA targets. There are currently enough raid targets where other guilds wouldn't be waiting on the sidelines, they could worry about their own targets.

[finalgrunt]

Gaaah too much posting during night! Need to catch up [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Alright here we go. Zeelot answered me, but his first answer was negative. I asked him to reconsider, because his fears were that it would require lots of organization around this "rotation". This made me believe there is a misunderstanding, because I would be willing to keep track of the said week and remind all parties before it starts, and when it ends. Also this is not really a rotation, all other guilds would deal with the said window.
That was for the news part.

Now let's answer some of the stuff which was said since yesterday. First I would like to see full rotations discussions avoided in this thread. It won't happen, it's not the scope, and it easily derails the topic.

Then, I'll answer to Sirken since he's part of the "vision" of this server:

we had batphones in kunark and velious. it equated to some awesome races for Lodzial (Lozdial?) the giant IC turtle. maybe some servers didn't require them.. we'll say for various reasons.

one thing ive noticed (and im not taking a shot at anyone here) from talking with players is that a decent amount of the players on the server were born after 84-85. and i know what your thinking, "But sirken, so the fawk what?" my point is that if you were 14 or younger, you probably didnt have your own phone, and you probably werent allowed to get phone calls from strangers on that "elf game". my point is, batphoning always existed.

as far as the variance, let me try to explain this for the 1000th time (btw, i think i know who the 1000th commander of the nights watch will be.. wait nm wrong thread). the staff and the players have extremely different priorities. for the staff, the variance exists so that no one guild can lock down content. so that they can not manipulate the repop times until ALL the bosses are in the the off peak hours (12am-7am), and then essentially unless you see the mob die, you will not know the repop time. furthermore, no variance guarantees that the top guild stays on top because no other guild will ever kill trakanon or get vp teeth. FURTHERMORE it turns every other guild into a stepping stone for the top guild. Now, SOME of you might say "Sirken, STFU! Some mobs are better than no mobs! wtf is wrong with you stupid GM, what cant you see this?!? you must be teh stupidz!!!1!!!11!!". and to that id say,we dont give a shit about any one particular guild, our interest is whats best for the server, and more over, planning for the future of the server, and taking into consideration guilds or players that may still yet join Project 1999. That being said, taking away the variance makes it impossible for the top guild to be dethroned (without pvp or /guildwar). So im terribly sorry, but we are not willing to just hand over the server to the top guild permanently, so that the smaller guilds can drop inny and maestro twice a month. Now the players dont see it that way, and to be fair, nobody expects them to think that way. Players simply do not think that way, they think about themselves and their guild, possibly some allies, and thats it.

First, I would like to state that I'm not a new player. Being in Divinity doesn't mean I'm not in touch with the current raid scene.

If the goal of p99 is to recreate Eq classic experience, it's obvious some things can't be left as they were on live. That's why we can't have all classic mechanisms. The most obvious tweaks are items recharging prices, lifetap hoops forbidden on bosses. The reason behind all this is to stay as close to the classic experience as possible. And I totally agree with this!

Now, if the server is about keeping the philosophy of Everquest, then there is a first issue here. You keep repeating that EQ was cuthroat competition on your servers. Ok we got it, but that did not happen on every server (and please, even more when it comes to classic era! competition really started on most servers with Luclin / PoP). Problem is, the rules applied on this server only catter to this overcompetitive vision. I've come to accept it (no choice), and in no way my proposition would change it. If I wanted a carebear solution, it would be a half/half split between the two visions. No, what I am proposing is a 1/10 vs 9/10 split for non priority targets. Still appears to be too much for some people, like you Sirken.

Anyway, let's dig into your reasoning behing the rules which forge the current raid scene. You tell us that without variance, the top guild couldn't be dethroned right?
Without variance, we fall back to pretty much poop sock and FTE, am I right? Everybody can do this, even a small guild. A top guild WOULD get dethroned quite fast, because it would pretty much become (simplified on purpose) a /rand N, where N is the number of parties involved with fast auto key hit means. That would still give future players a shot at dragons, and you can keep "not giving a shit" about any particular guild (no offense ^^, just thought this part funny coming from a GM hehe, we're not used to that).

If variance was the solution to this, then we wouldn't have such an extreme domination from top guilds. That's why I believe you got it wrong. Variance, like other raid scene rules (15 men rules, FTE, etc.) were created because the staff thought it would deter players from monopolizing content. And they did seem like possible good ideas when they were introduced. Everybody on this server has been welcoming new rules in hope it would change the current scene.
Time has proven the staff wrong on this: if anything it didn't deter top guilds to get more and more involved to adapt to these new rules, and worse even use/bend them to deny access to content to other guilds. All it did was to create an even greater gap between the top guild(s) and others. That's why the only way left to compete at the moment, is to form a guild with a huge roster, with enough people who can play around the clock to track and engage at any moment. Also requires people ready to know all the rules and how they can be bent, and going as far as GM corruption. That is NOT Everquest philosophy.
Instead of admitting your wrong doings, you keep making the raid scene catter to only one kind of players: those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get a kill.

People thought Kunark would solve the domination issues (will require more tracking, more opportunities for other guilds to compete). Turned out to be wrong again. And with Velious, the solution will be to have one monster guild to keep content locked down. So unless you want to turn blue into what is red (a one server guild thing), maybe it's time to listen to what others have to say.

And the worst of all here, is that by giving away non priority targets for 1 week every X, it would not address all the issues I stated. Because that's not my point. I'm just asking -for the 1000th time- for a small window opened for people who had a different experience when they played EQ, while leaving an overwhelming amount of time for your other kind (this way, we're not touching the server the way it's meant to be according to the staff, and if you were to be right on this, then I fail to see how this proposition would come in your way). Why can't you agree with this, if you say you really care about what is best for the server, is puzzling me to say the least, since it wouldn't needed GM intervention. You've always said solutions should come from players, and here we are. Why can't we give this a try for 1 or 2 times, and see how it goes? I don't see how it could be a bad thing, really.