not a single player has told me to plan on raiding

[Tiggles]

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

The one single good thing that came out of the hilarious failure that was The Sleeper was their idea of a dynamic raid spawning system. They never actually implemented it, but the idea was sound: every qualified raid guild would get their own, like, weekly allowance of tokens with which to spawn raid mobs. This would only have to be for the actual top end raid content as people aren't destroying the server over the rights to farm planes. A token turn-in system would probably be abusable no matter how you do it, but I think something could be done with temporary alternate server shards that people can transfer to and from.

Something like this will be especially important in Velious because that expansion is all about raiding, being a non-raider during Velious is just absolute garbage. It's manageable during classic/Kunark because so much of the high-end gear can be bought, but Velious is the point where you're either in a top raid guild or you're nobody. The stuff you can do without access to ToV/ST-like content is completely worthless, you're just an unwashed plebian of no value if you can't raid during Velious. That's an expansion where being a casual player just isn't enough.

Imagine a server where there is no content except the raid bosses and their associated trash mobs, you can't go there and farm Sebilis by yourself or camp some rare spawn without competition. You can, however, transfer there to raid (and back to P99 afterwards), but only to the shard that your guild has been assigned. Nobody has access to more than one shard, and in order for a guild to qualify for a raid shard, they have to prove that they're actually a serious raid guild that deserves access to the endgame content

This would make raiding available to enough people without compromising the rest of the game. There would be no reason to stay on the raid shards outside of actual raid sessions since there would be no other content, and there is no unfair advantage for anybody. This is the only way to accomodate a playerbase where several hundred people want to raid but can't because there isn't room. This is how you emulate the fact that EQ had twenty servers, without causing problems in the leveling and grouping scene.

Nah

[falkun]

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

being a non-raider during Velious is just absolute garbage.

"Casual raids" in Velious:
Kael plate cycle
Kael arena farming
Vindi (larger raid, but 8 hr spawn)
Lodizal
EToV
Sirens Grotto
PoG clear
Fear golems (post-revamp)
Hate minis/upstairs (post-revamp)
Abandoned Kunark content
PoM
Possibly Velk and Lord Djo
WW dragons

Most of the above can be 2-grouped or less, especially with the large contingent of L55+ players on this server. While you will be far from BIS/full NToV geared, you can complete these raids/group encounters for gear better than what is available in Kunark.

Hardcore raiding definitely sees a boost in Velious, and there is TONS to do, but all tiers of raiding are improved by Velious, and factioning actually spreads people around a bit so they aren't all fighting for the same mobs.

[maverixdamighty]

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

"Casual raids" in Velious:
Kael plate cycle
Kael arena farming
Vindi (larger raid, but 8 hr spawn)
Lodizal
EToV
Sirens Grotto
PoG clear
Fear golems (post-revamp)
Hate minis/upstairs (post-revamp)
Abandoned Kunark content
PoM
Possibly Velk and Lord Djo
WW dragons

Most of the above can be 2-grouped or less, especially with the large contingent of L55+ players on this server. While you will be far from BIS/full NToV geared, you can complete these raids/group encounters for gear better than what is available in Kunark.

Hardcore raiding definitely sees a boost in Velious, and there is TONS to do, but all tiers of raiding are improved by Velious, and factioning actually spreads people around a bit so they aren't all fighting for the same mobs.

this.

[Splorf22]

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

The one single good thing that came out of the hilarious failure that was The Sleeper was their idea of a dynamic raid spawning system.

I tend to agree. As I said I have been championing simultaneous repops for about a year and a half now. We got several over about a month recently. On one of them I estimated that there were 300 people on. Lets count up: we Rapture, Divinity, BDA, A-Team, TMO, FE, Taken, Europa, Full Circle = 9 raiding guilds. Meanwhile we have targets in Fear, Hate, Sky, KC, Sebilis, EJ, TD, DL, and Skyfire = 9 targets. Perhaps I am missing something (or someone) but basically if you don't feel like leapfrogging/otherwise playing hardball you aren't going to get much on a repop. I still feel repops are a huge improvement over the current situation, but they still encourage this ridiculous cutthroat culture we have here.

So I would support some sort of token system, say each guild can spawn two different raid targets per week with some sort of command. Those targets would simply banish anyone from another guild and despawn after say 1 hour. The main idea would be to allow all guilds to (very slowly) progress through all the content. It would also discourage these huge zerg guilds we have here because every guild would only get 2 tokens per week.

Anyway the problem with all this is that we have no programmer for 1999 at the moment. Rogean and Nilbog agreed over 6 months ago that some sort of change was needed in the raid scene, but Nilbog does content, Rogean is doing star wars and, Kanras swings by every 4 months to do one day of bugfixes. Hell we haven't even seen the invis pulling fixes in yet and that happened a month ago. The number one announcement I would like to see from Nilbog is a new programmer.

[Highbrow]

Nah

Great debate.

[falkun]

The repops were decent, but still didn't get stuff spread out enough. TMO/FE fought for most mobs, a second tier guild would get Fay, and then we'd all be duking it out in Sky for Dojo. Divinity did pull a big Talendar last time, but that's about it. Maybe change would come if the repops were maintained long-term, but as you said, we got a month of them or so and then back to the status-quo.

At this point I'm just hopeful for Velious and the epic mob revamps to happen sooner rather than later. As soon as the hardcores get through Velious, they'll have less motivation to log on. Right now they can keep motivated (somehow after 2 years) with the thought of, "There's still Velious." But the downside to the Velious coin the the ass-raping those of us wanting ST loot will receive when the hardcores wake the Sleeper on their way out, either as a final farewell, to cement themselves into server lore, and/or as a final "fuck you".

[diplo]

to OP...guess you never actually raided on live either.

[Faerie Blossom]

The Sleeper "raid token" idea honestly was a very good one. All the benefits of instancing without any of the downsides [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Sarius]

Downside of tokens: TMO loses competitive aspect of current raid scene
Upside of tokens: The other 95% of the server is happy

Who should this server cater to?

[Ele]

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

Downside of tokens: TMO loses competitive aspect of current raid scene
Upside of tokens: The other 95% of the server is happy

Who should this server cater to?

People that want classic.