How realistic is casual raiding?

[Fammaden]

Everything DSM is saying is true. If you're out there lurking this thread, just give it a try and find out for yourself after you get to 60, or even 55+. Try one of the high end guilds and decide for yourself, worst case scenario you politely back out and go join someone else.

Many of the people who would be asking this question have come to one of the top two raid guilds on either server and suddenly found out that they got a ton of good loot and had a fun time even just playing during primetime weeknights or whenever, contrary to what all the forum posters tried to tell them.

[Keebz]

For a fresh server, the trick to casually raiding is being in most dominant guild. Earn DKP doing scheduled planar clears for 2 years, then dump it while you have uncontested access to VP, ToV and Sleepers for months while the other guilds catch up.

Today on a late stage server, you can still be semi-casual. Just park at ToV and kill whatever during your available time on the weekends. As people drop off, lots of stuff sits up overnight, so Saturday/Sunday mornings are a good time to log on and knock out 4-5 targets, then go about the rest of your day.

In general "casual raiding guilds" are the absolute worst for casual raiding outside the scheduled shit. If you're in one and want to do ToV/VP/etc, get your Epic/HoT/Sky gear then get to a guild with no-lifers who can do the socking for you.

For everyone saying the neck beards will take all your loot for their alts, this is somewhat true. For example, you're gonna have a hard time on a monk bidding against every shaman/druid/necro/etc warm body in your guild. However, you can gear your hybrid to the teeth pretty quickly. On the monk - hybrid spectrum there's a number of other speed options for gearing.

[cd288]

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

For a fresh server, the trick to casually raiding is being in most dominant guild. Earn DKP doing scheduled planar clears for 2 years, then dump it while you have uncontested access to VP, ToV and Sleepers for months while the other guilds catch up.

Today on a late stage server, you can still be semi-casual. Just park at ToV and kill whatever during your available time on the weekends. As people drop off, lots of stuff sits up overnight, so Saturday/Sunday mornings are a good time to log on and knock out 4-5 targets, then go about the rest of your day.

In general "casual raiding guilds" are the absolute worst for casual raiding outside the scheduled shit. If you're in one and want to do ToV/VP/etc, get your Epic/HoT/Sky gear then get to a guild with no-lifers who can do the socking for you.

For everyone saying the neck beards will take all your loot for their alts, this is somewhat true. For example, you're gonna have a hard time on a monk bidding against every shaman/druid/necro/etc warm body in your guild. However, you can gear your hybrid to the teeth pretty quickly. On the monk - hybrid spectrum there's a number of other speed options for gearing.

Yup a hybrid (not including Bard here just to be clear) can generally get geared faster for less DKP because there are some good pieces that are limited to their class for instance

[Rick Sanchez]

Problem with reality is it's real OP. In MMO's the more time you spend on the game, the more progress you make. Everquest in general was made with competition in mind with the keyword being "contested". If you genuinely want a EQ raiding experience on here be ready to spend more time than a rational adult with responsibility will allow. I'll admit when this server dropped in 2009 and I heard that midi music again, I was immersed as close as I'll ever be to the first time and I knew I was going to neckbeard hard at that time because before this server nothing even came remotely close. I for sure got my fill here and I am grateful for all the staff(except for amelinda). However, luckily the EQemu community is robust for how old the game is which is nice. So give it a shot and see what happens man /shrug.

[Kich867]

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

Problem with reality is it's real OP. In MMO's the more time you spend on the game, the more progress you make. Everquest in general was made with competition in mind with the keyword being "contested".

Just out of curiosity, since I was like, 13 when all this came out...but I look back at EQ and I just think like, was EQ really made with "competition" in mind?

I honestly question if they had anything at all in mind. I always got the impression the devs were just like, "Man idk, sure, here's a fuckin dragon with a bunch of hp and a ton of damage, kill it, don't, we don't care."

Velious feels slightly like an outlier where the content seemed very catered towards the idea of raiding, but classic and kunark seemed sort of like they were just yoloing shit that they thought would be cool.

What I mean by the original question is, did the devs ever actually communicate with the players that this is how they wanted stuff to work or was it more like, "It is what it is because we made it that way and we didn't really have the tools available to do anything more complicated than this"?

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What I mean by the original question is, did the devs ever actually communicate with the players that this is how they wanted stuff to work or was it more like, "It is what it is because we made it that way and we didn't really have the tools available to do anything more complicated than this"?

It was 1000% "it is what it is cause we said so" in the earliest days to the point of being a running joke how out of touch and condescending they were to the players. The playerbase quickly learned things that the devs didn't understand and wouldn't take input on. You can see how it began to shift quickly though, VP was kinda made as the first raiding loot pinata zone and then Velious was just a whole theme park full of them.

(Velious still had the classic feel though IMO since a lot went into lore and zone design that started to be more phoned in as the expansions went on.)

So yeah, they were flying by the seat of their pants. That one streamer dude who was an original dev said they all expected to be out of work in under a year. So half of the weird shit in classic/vanilla/pre-Kunark was just them being like "IDK fuck it put that drop in a level 10 dungeon, whatever".

[cd288]

Lol I cannot believe DSM is now going to argue that someone's definition of casual play in a video game is not their own subjective opinion and that you have to define it his way.

This is amazing

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lol I cannot believe DSM is now going to argue that someone's definition of casual play in a video game is not their own subjective opinion and that you have to define it his way.

This is amazing

If everything is subjective, how can we have a discussion? There needs to be definitions that people agree upon, or talking is pointless.

If your subjective opinion is that the word "onion" means a tuna sandwich, of course there are going to be communication problems whenever someone says the word "onion".

I am not sure how my definition of casual raiding is wildly off base.

[cd288]

Casual P99 Player: "Yeah I plan to raid casually, maybe I'll play an hour or two a week just to see some of the quick FTE kills here and there if I happen to be available at the time."

DSM: "No you can't say that's casual raiding. You can only use the term casual if you attend at least 10 raids per year and also do other DKP work orders within the span of that year. Otherwise don't say your casually raiding. That's the definition I have chosen so please limit your use of the term 'casual raiding' unless you fall within my definition."

Aforementioned Casual P99 Player: "..."

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Casual P99 Player: "Yeah I plan to raid casually, maybe I'll play an hour or two a week just to see some of the quick FTE kills here and there if I happen to be available at the time."

DSM: "No you can't say that's casual raiding. You can only use the term casual if you attend at least 10 raids per year and also do other DKP work orders within the span of that year. Otherwise don't say your casually raiding. That's the definition I have chosen so please limit your use of the term 'casual raiding' unless you fall within my definition."

Aforementioned Casual P99 Player: "..."

I didn't say people must use my definition at all. You have reading comprehension issues, which are also apparent in the other thread. I am not saying this as an insult. I am getting concerned at how you interpret what you are reading.

I explained my definition of casual raiding, and I don't think it is off base. Your definition of somebody hopping on for a few hours a week to catch an FTE could easily get 10 FTE's per year (attending 10 raids). So I am not sure where the disagreement is. Our definitions appear to match just fine. You could also easily do a DKP work order if you had the time on a weekend or something. It isn't like people who play for a few hours a week never get a free weekend to play more.