With all due respect, Sirken, you're no Solomon.

[h0tr0d (shaere)]

I'd just say that if the intent is to relive the classic experience, you must define it. For some classic was hardcore raiding, others casual raiding in a rotation. Others still an open raid environment. So if this is to be a 'classic experience' server, must you not cater to all of those, and not one over the others? I don't think increasing content is classic, however we did have more spawns as a result of patching, and the fact guilds were forced to progress (which the OP covered).

And while Velious, and a new server seem like great ideas it is a temporary fix. It wouldn't prevent the same people from creating the same problem, or another guild to go to that second server and create the same problem there.

And someone mentioned it earlier, how this game's currency has always. It always has been those willing to devote more time that reap the rewards, and they (who define that as 'hardcore') should absolutely reap the rewards as we/they did in classic eq. But we don't have multiple servers to choose from (blue), and we don't have progression room. Not a fault of anyone, but it is the reality. What was truly classic about time invested and how it related to the top guilds was that those willing to invest more time got more loots. Due to said lack of progression that has been twisted and tainted, it isn't about time spent improving and progressing, it has become something else entirely here. The time isn't spent towards progressing and remaining 'top dawgs' it has become time spent stagnating, and stagnation has poisoned the server in a fashion.

I was asked by someone if we wanted handouts. No, we don't want handouts, but we do want a fair shot at experiencing classic everquest. As the OP said, you can't compare this server to classic because of the limited resources and space for players available. Twitter and social media, instant messaging changes the way we do things. Having over a decade of prior of knowledge and experience changes things.You all can scream about casuals wanting free loots, and unable to 'compete, but the meaning of the word 'competition' or 'race' here is totally different. You aren't forced to pay for your accounts so right there you can stop with 'in classic'. A lot of us aren't on dialup so that ends that too. Using Roger Wilco or Twitter? Mass texts or emails?

Do sport change as players and society adapt and evolve? You can't play pro football the same way you played it in 1920, and you can't think the same dynamic exists inside a game released in 1999. You just can't approach it in a naive fashion thinking it will be the same, there are different external forces at work. I truly wonder if all of the people shouting 'classic' actually played from release through velious, or joined late and think they understand how it all was back then.

If you want another analogy, mine is a literal sandbox. You would play in there with your siblings or friends as a young child, and inevitably one would want to play with a toy the other had; be it a bucket, Tonka truck, a shovel, etc. The responsible parent or person watching us inevitably would step in once the crying or fighting started, and sooner or later it came down to sharing, usually forced sharing by the more mature individual.

We as people in society have to accede or compromise and adhere to certain rules regarding behavior in order to function as a society. Yet within our own small community some of you adamantly refuse to cooperate, or share, or concede anything so that we in our own little world can work as anything except what I can only call dysfunctional.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by h0tr0d (shaere) [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'd just say that if the intent is to relive the classic experience, you must define it. For some classic was hardcore raiding, others casual raiding in a rotation. Others still an open raid environment. So if this is to be a 'classic experience' server, must you not cater to all of those, and not one over the others? I don't think increasing content is classic, however we did have more spawns as a result of patching, and the fact guilds were forced to progress.

That's the beauty I find behind the staff plan. Hardcores can define their classic experience as hardcore raiding, amongst themselves. Casuals can define their classic experience of rotations and friendly raiding, amongst themselves. So long as the two tiers of players, the two types of players, can agree to let mobs go back and forth between them, awesome.

Casuals give up ever bringing a casual atmosphere to VP, even if they got the keys, and if they ever want to, they need to play on the hardcore terms. In exchange, casuals get to work in a rotation, or some form of friendly competitive raiding, that includes epic mobs, so people can earn their epics without buying them.

Let each experience what each wants, and it can be done in such a way that the experience of one isn't degrading to the other. No, it wont be a full classic experience, this server isn't a true classic experience, but it will give everyone a chance to sort themselves into one of the styles, and enjoy their classic experience.

Surely, the ideal would be to have a hardcore blue, and casual blue server, but that's asking a bit too much I think. Instead, this is the second best thing.

[mattkwi]

The GMs owe nothing to anyone. They own and operate and you play voluntarily. If you don't like it, don't play. No small guilds ever went to Verant or Sony and demanded more raid targets because they could not get them on their own.

If the GMs want smaller guilds to have clean shots at raid targets then they should just implement a ruling themselves. Asking the players to work it out and then attempting to control the outcome by forcing a compromise is just pissing people off. If you want in on the targets there are means. You can do this through alliance (more resources), force, or politics. It is no ones responsibility to hand it out. Infact it wasn't that smaller guilds didn't get content that got the server here, it was The guilds at the top taking it to far. That should be the problem being addressed. Guilds who can and do kill and control the content owe nothing to anyone. Just like the GMs don't either. And if they want a compromise they should en force it themselves.

Everyone is right. It's all about play style and personal differences. It's a MMO. You work it out yourself unless someone is breaking specified rules. Everquest was that way and this server should be that way. If you want it, find a way. Form an alliance so you have more resources to track and park. Use your own force on targets you want one at a time. Create an agreement with a larger guild. If your not interested, so be it. Don't demand mechanics change and that everyone needs to share just because you play here too. They don't.

IMO just address the bad behavior of the guilds killing the targets ( staggered engages or some sort of play nice policy). If you want the big guilds to give up targets then let them decide how to do that. If you want to ensure it happens then instead of Sirkens idea being a proposal, make it policy.

[Uteunayr]

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

The GMs owe nothing to anyone. They own and operate and you play voluntarily. If you don't like it, don't play. No small guilds ever went to Verant or Sony and demanded more raid targets because they could not get them on their own.

If the GMs want smaller guilds to have clean shots at raid targets then they should just implement a ruling themselves. Asking the players to work it out and then attempting to control the outcome by forcing a compromise is just pissing people off. If you want in on the targets there are means. You can do this through alliance (more resources), force, or politics. It is no ones responsibility to hand it out. Infact it wasn't that smaller guilds didn't get content that got the server here, it was The guilds at the top taking it to far. That should be the problem being addressed. Guilds who can and do kill and control the content owe nothing to anyone. Just like the GMs don't either. And if they want a compromise they should en force it themselves.

Everyone is right. It's all about play style and personal differences. It's a MMO. You work it out yourself unless someone is breaking specified rules. Everquest was that way and this server should be that way. If you want it, find a way. Form an alliance so you have more resources to track and park. Use your own force on targets you want one at a time. Create an agreement with a larger guild. If your not interested, so be it. Don't demand mechanics change and that everyone needs to share just because you play here too. They don't.

IMO just address the bad behavior of the guilds killing the targets ( staggered engages or some sort of play nice policy). If you want the big guilds to give up targets then let them decide how to do that. If you want to ensure it happens then instead of Sirkens idea being a proposal, make it policy.

No, they don't owe anything to anybody, but they want a meaningful improvement to the quality of the raiding scene on the server, and that can be achieved. The answer isn't to exclude people who want their classic experience, it is to try and create a way in which each can experience their classic experience, without gimping or interfering with the other.

The vast majority of issues come from two different type of raider trying to engage in playing a game the way they remember their classic experience. If you want to reduce the number of conflicts, you must keep ideologically polarized groups apart, and show them that there is a way to coexist, and experience what they want without degrading the other. This is a scientific truth that is pretty readily accepted in international relations, and if you wish to have that backed up, go read Mark Haas' (2007) book, Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics. It is very applicable here.

Any plan that keeps casuals being hardcore, and keeps hardcores dealing with casuals, it is going to lead to conflict, conflict that can be reduced. Casuals are not looking for hand outs, casuals want to earn their keep, but they don't want to do it by delving into the depths of hardcore raiding, an atmosphere that many of us have seen before, and despise. I work hard in my guild, I work hard with other guilds, I work hard with other necromancers of any guild, and one day, I hope to be able to do enough that when my guild gets a crack at CT, I am able to rip a Slime Blood off of him and know I earned it. I don't want to buy it from TMO or another top end guild because they have it on lock down. I don't want to join a raiding style that makes me feel like a horrible person because of what it encourages. I want to have fun, and I want to earn my epic, a goal I never achieved in live back in the day.

These are two sets of people who find enjoyment from totally different things, and mutually enjoyment is not going to happen. If you can create a system in which each can enjoy their type of environment without degrading the environment of the other, awesome. And that's what the Staff Plan allows for.

The big issue with the rotation side coming naturally, the more casual approach to raiding, is that there are none of the mechanisms necessary to make it come about naturally, given that the server is so heavily influxed toward the top end, more so than it would have been on live. You don't have states of relative equal power, who create lasting conflicts that are so degrading that it encourages the growth of cooperation (See Keohane & Nye, 1977, Power & Interdependence). This creates a situation in which there's no way to counter-balance a higher guild enough to encourage a rotation, there's no way to blacklist their people from ports, sales, etc. due to the high top-end population. You can't do these things to create a rotation, and a casual system, so it can't come about through natural player means as it would, for the same reasons that this server isn't 100% classic. And that's fine. But lets make an environment where each side can flourish. Why not? If it is for competition, hardcores should be behind this. If it is for schadenfreude, and their enjoyment comes from the failures of others, then it is incompatible with a harmonious, less conflict prone server.

[Valoril]

These are two sets of people who find enjoyment from totally different things, and mutually enjoyment is not going to happen. If you can create a system in which each can enjoy their type of environment without degrading the environment of the other, awesome. And that's what the Staff Plan allows for.

That. And I am ready to bet that the crushing majority of P99 players and staff want exactly that. Unfortunately there is still this toxic (yet loud) minority with the habits from the past trying to prevent this from happening.

[Uteunayr]

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

That. And I am ready to bet that the crushing majority of P99 players and staff want exactly that. Unfortunately there is still this toxic (yet loud) minority with the habits from the past trying to prevent this from happening.

Yeah. The issue I have with the Proposal A plan, and things like that, is that casuals can only casual for the first bit of the month, rather than having kills diffused throughout the month. So, if someone in a casual guild has shitty starts to the month, something with their job, whatever... That person will miss out on all of this. Basically, casuals only get to be casuals for the first bit of the month, and then *everything* becomes FFA, which isn't the style desired.

I am really hopeful that the people in the negotiations today realize this, and realize that the biggest reason for conflict comes from, how Ambrotos put it:

"I just don't see how any guild, GM or guide can dictate any guild to adapt to a play style they don't want to. Focus on that, figure how the two different sides can adapt it to this problem. Limiting NPCs to one tier or another and forced into the other side's play style is the second biggest issue." -Raid Discussion, Proposals and Details, Page 2.

Rogean's plan permitted that, and the modified Rogean/Staff plan permits for it too. The goal should alwyas be that no guilds can exclusively control epic content, or anything like that. And further, that guilds should be free to participate in a type of raiding that is productive to their classic experience, which is not, by definition, a competitive one. Let the casuals casual all month long, doing whatever rotation they do for their mob, and let the hardcores hardcore it up.

The addition to the modified staff proposal, of making the epic mobs be a 1/3 rotation (Tier 1 -> Tier 2 -> FFA) helps secure Tier 1 even more kills on the epic mobs, while ensuring for two things. First, it ensures that we wont have another situation in which one guild holds that content exclusively. Depending on how Tier 2 dishes out their epic mobs, a lot more people will have a chance to earn them, rather than buy them. Secondly, it means that if a casual guild wants to compete, they can step up and do so. This is a compromise, this is casuals giving up what is permissible to them by fairness (See Rawls), to share amongst 11 other guilds 1/3rd of the pops... But it is one that may be acceptable if Tier 1 permits enough time and safety for the Tier 2 guild that is trying to break into it. First time on CT? Go for it, try it, wipe, come back in, rez yourself, try again, etc. (pending how Tier 2 decides, assuming a rotation), and if they can't do it down, bumping it to another tier 2 guild on the list after giving legitimate tries without trying to force them to rush.

So if CT is a 7 day, you get 4 a month. Of the first 3, one is assured casual. Lets say we have 11 guilds in the casual side, and casuals decide to create a fair rotation. For every casual guild to see CT once, it would take 11 rotations of 3 weeks (assuming no variance inflation) for each guild in the casual side to see it. So that'd be 33 week for each guild in the casual side to see it under careful planning terms. Or, once in 8.25 months.

These guilds will still see CT through FFA rules on the following weeks, if they wish, and I am certain Tier 2 guilds will be more than willing to team up with each other so everyone can see the fight, but loot is assured to be earned by a casual guild (assuming it is downed) to each of the 11 guilds once every 8.25 months, should they be able to kill CT. Additionally, they will kill Inny/Trak/VS, also, once every 8.25 months. So they get 1 epic mob every 2 months, while they get the non-epic mobs most often.

Seems to me that in this way, MQs are still going to be useful in a more cooperative Tier 2 raiding system. You get a Slime Blood, we get a Cazic Skin. Our guild would rather award a Slime Blood (laughable proposition, but for argument's sake, damnit! lol), and we will MQ for you a Cazic Skin. This way the tier 2, with each guild (assuming 11) gets a kill with loot every 8 months and 1 week of the game, if that loot whiffs for them, they can trade it for something more valuable to them, if the opposing guilds have something they see as less valuable than that guild's drops. It may not happen, but it is possible, and it's another way to have some strong bonds formed between the casual guilds.

I don't see these numbers as fair by any means on the best definitions of fairness utilized in modern political science and studies in international relations, and I believe that it is pure greed and schadenfreude that makes this unacceptable to the higher up guilds, but it seems to be all they wish to offer is to be casual for the first bit of the month, and then you have to be hardcore to do anything for the majority of the month. That doesn't get at letting each playstyle be itself. That misses the core of Ambrotos' post, and the wisdom shared there. There is more than a bit of scientific backing for Ambrotos' argument, whether he knows it or not. It is irrelevant, because what he proposes is exactly the thing that is most prone to cause conflict between rivals for limited resources.

[Fael]

Why can't casuals be happy with 25% of raid targets? You will get to kill more raid mobs in one or two months than you've been able to get in three years.


Dolic

[arsenalpow]

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

Why can't casuals be happy with 25% of raid targets? You will get to kill more raid mobs in one or two months than you've been able to get in three years.


Dolic

Why can't hardcores be happy with 50% of raid targets? You will get to kill just as many raid mobs as you've been able to kill in the past three years.


Chest

[Seltius]

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

Why can't hardcores be happy with 50% of raid targets? You will get to kill just as many raid mobs as you've been able to kill in the past three years.


Chest

Its not classic!

[whitebandit]

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

Why can't casuals be happy with 25% of raid targets? You will get to kill more raid mobs in one or two months than you've been able to get in three years.


Dolic

its been said 100 times before...

5-10% players, 75% loot
90-95% players, 25% loot


the numbers are seriously skewed...

I also believe this is beyond being about Playtime, I think there are a TON of people outside "hardcore guilds" that have higher playtime than that of some of the members of said guild..