Is the raid scene really that bad?

[gotrocks]

full circle confirmed gone.

i may be one of the last few with a tag still on [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Ezrick]

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

So, I only just started a few weeks ago, but from what I hear TMO pretty much kills everything every time it's up. If you want your epics, you pay TMO for the pieces from the raid mobs that they kill.

Is that really how it is? If you aren't in TMO, is it really that rare to be able to kill any of the raid mobs or are people over exaggerating?

I don't have any problem with competition, I enjoyed raiding in EQ all the way up to Planes of Power and was part of top guilds on the server I played on. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I thought even then we set up rotations so it wasn't just one guild getting to do everything?

I'm enjoying my time playing again so far, but it seems like it would be pretty dull if at the end of it all it was just TMO farming all the raid mobs and nobody else getting to do much of anything.

The funny thing about the "raiding scene" is that there is a "raiding scene". It's not classic. Classically I remember Verant/SOE complaining about the excess time they had to devote to these encounters that would ever only be seen by 1% of the players.

WoW ruined you. Now everyone thinks they are entitled to the big, pink, teddy-bear. Classic EQ NEVER indulged the masses in a "raiding scene". Only the best (yes you will say 'no-job geek-living-in-momma's-basement) players could do it.

Obviously times have changed and EQ live is different, but we're talking 'classic' here.

[Naena]

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

The funny thing about the "raiding scene" is that there is a "raiding scene". It's not classic. Classically I remember Verant/SOE complaining about the excess time they had to devote to these encounters that would ever only be seen by 1% of the players.

WoW ruined you. Now everyone thinks they are entitled to the big, pink, teddy-bear. Classic EQ NEVER indulged the masses in a "raiding scene". Only the best (yes you will say 'no-job geek-living-in-momma's-basement) players could do it.

Obviously times have changed and EQ live is different, but we're talking 'classic' here.

I spent many, many hours raiding in classic EQ. I'm not talking after Planes of Power when they added instances for everything either. Our server had at least 3 or 4 guilds that raided regularly, even more after Velious came out. I remember times of there being over 200 people at once in the Temple of Veeshan.

EQ classic had what, maybe 500k subscribers at its peak? I bet if you compare the ratio of players to people who got to see raid content in classic EQ, it's probably even higher than classic WoW was. Even before Kunark I remember at least 3 guilds doing Plane of Hate/Fear and getting Naggy/Vox kills before they brought out Sky. If I remember correctly each of those guilds had at least 50 people. I remember them doing a serverwide message at one point telling people to get their friends to log on because they were almost at a record of people online, was it 50,000 maybe? I'm sure most other servers had just as many people raiding as ours did, that seems like a pretty big raiding scene to me.

Anyway, all I wanted to know from posting this was if TMO were really this huge guild that took every single spawn within minutes and nobody else ever had a chance for anything. It sounds like others are able to get some spawns, but most of the server just isn't willing to put in the effort to challenge them. Sounds like FE is working on it, and I'm sure with Velious there being much more raid content for everyone that will help a lot too.

Thanks for the information everyone.

[Ezrick]

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

I spent many, many hours raiding in classic EQ. I'm not talking after Planes of Power when they added instances for everything either. Our server had at least 3 or 4 guilds that raided regularly, even more after Velious came out. I remember times of there being over 200 people at once in the Temple of Veeshan.

EQ classic had what, maybe 500k subscribers at its peak?

Sounds about right, and there is no way anything close to 5000 individuals ever saw VP before Velious came out. 1000 or maybe even 2000 at that time is about right. I'm not talking about guilds going there once Luclin was live.

[Naena]

Verant, from 1999 to 2001, and SOE, from 2001 to 14 January 2004, issued formal statements giving some indications of the number of EverQuest subscriptions and peak numbers of players online at any given moment.[12] These records show more than 225,000 subscriptions on 1 November 1999,[citation needed] with an increase to more than 450,000 subscriptions by 25 September 2003.[citation needed]

I don't know if those numbers are correct, but Kunark came out April 2000, if it was around 250-300k subscribers that still isn't that bad. I know there was at least 2, maybe 3 guilds that did VP on our server before Velious. VP probably was closer to WoW's ratio of people who did Naxx before TBC, or people who did Sunwell before WotLK though. Before WotLK WoW also had only 1% of its population seeing the top end content.

Either way none of that really matters, current EQ and current WoW are both incredibly easy compared to what they used to be. Classic EQ had just as much of a raiding scene as classic WoW, and while it isn't as big as most MMO's that come out now, it still was a raiding scene.

[Ezrick]

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

I don't know if those numbers are correct, but Kunark came out April 2000, if it was around 250-300k subscribers that still isn't that bad. I know there was at least 2, maybe 3 guilds that did VP on our server before Velious. VP probably was closer to WoW's ratio of people who did Naxx before TBC, or people who did Sunwell before WotLK though. Before WotLK WoW also had only 1% of its population seeing the top end content.

Either way none of that really matters, current EQ and current WoW are both incredibly easy compared to what they used to be. Classic EQ had just as much of a raiding scene as classic WoW, and while it isn't as big as most MMO's that come out now, it still was a raiding scene.

The point is that 1,2, or 3%, whatever is a small fraction of what is here.

The long, non-classic delay and the copious amount of data available to players has seriously skewed the population on P99 to the high end.

There is a super-large percentage of players at the higher level here. The population of straight level 60 characters is probably ten TIMES the number on a live server pre-Velious. We won't go into the number of people with multiple characters 50+, multiple accounts with the same whether purchased on or off line.

If you wanted to do Trak on live, pre Velious, you needed around 8 clerics. These were live people who played clerics as a main character AND PAID $15 a month for the account. Today every level 60 or at least one in two has access to a 50+ cleric account. Add to that guilds REQUIRING members to do the Soulfire quest (really, what non-paladin EVER did that pre-Velious on live) for a 5 charge CH item, step-by-step how-to guides on how to kill every mob, and a decade and a half of precise information on everything that was classic EQ.

Raiding here is done by the guild with the most players, the most purchased/self-leveled bot accounts, and the most research. They probably couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag without a Wiki, but they are highly organized and highly motivated and they got where they are first.

To answer the original question, yes, raiding is dominated by a single guild almost to exclusion of all others. Yes you can go to Fear and Hate and Sky, but I never really considered raiding as anything other than fighting the highest content available at the time. That, you cannot do without joining TMO.

[Brut]

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

The long, non-classic delay and the copious amount of data available to players has seriously skewed the population on P99 to the high end.

That and us having sat on Kunark 3x as long as live.

Methinks this is all mostly just an issue of the internet and playerbase in general having changed from what it was in 1999. Back then it was more about the adventure and playing a game and having a good time in your spare time, all immersed and stuff. Now it's primarily about parses and bestinslots, especially once you reach the endgame. We've gone through tons of games/MMORPGs since, and that has turned much of the raiding crowd into jaded elitists that have some unhealthy need to go to bed thinking that they're "at the top". Which results in 24:7 batphones and having to maintain 60% raid attendance so you can one day be DMFd at EC tunnel entrance /Logging all the precious inspect messages.

Despite being EverQuest, this game has a level cap you'll eventually reach (unless Hujiko), and at that point you have to choose between hanging out with the crew you're pals with doing fear/hate/sky/royals clears until you're fed up, or app to some raiding guild and have your computer on character select all day waiting for your cellphone to beep so you can go copy paste your favorite internet troll quotes in /OOC for 5minutes at Trak lair.

The server community morphing the play style of the server is a laugh riot of a statement bytheway. The raidscene community is the most childish thing you'll see on the server, and unless the staff gives the community a reason to stop being idiots, they'll continue being idiots.

[JayN]

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

That and us having sat on Kunark 3x as long as live.

Methinks this is all mostly just an issue of the internet and playerbase in general having changed from what it was in 1999. Back then it was more about the adventure and playing a game and having a good time in your spare time, all immersed and stuff. Now it's primarily about parses and bestinslots, especially once you reach the endgame. We've gone through tons of games/MMORPGs since, and that has turned much of the raiding crowd into jaded elitists that have some unhealthy need to go to bed thinking that they're "at the top". Which results in 24:7 batphones and having to maintain 60% raid attendance so you can one day be DMFd at EC tunnel entrance /Logging all the precious inspect messages.

Despite being EverQuest, this game has a level cap you'll eventually reach (unless Hujiko), and at that point you have to choose between hanging out with the crew you're pals with doing fear/hate/sky/royals clears until you're fed up, or app to some raiding guild and have your computer on character select all day waiting for your cellphone to beep so you can go copy paste your favorite internet troll quotes in /OOC for 5minutes at Trak lair.

The server community morphing the play style of the server is a laugh riot of a statement bytheway. The raidscene community is the most childish thing you'll see on the server, and unless the staff gives the community a reason to stop being idiots, they'll continue being idiots.

sHIT JUST GOT real

[deneauth]

The point I was trying to get across before is haven't we as a community of players morphed the raid scene to be what it is now? The developers gave us a set of rules which we choose to follow or not. When the rules are broken and the guilty are discovered punishments are administered whether they are just or not. The developers have given us a classic experience and we as a community have molded the raid scene into what it is now which as Rogean himself has pointed out is very classic. I am okay with the way things are now because just like on live I am a casual player, I have seen more endgame content on this server than I ever did on live, but if leadership from raid level guilds got together and came up with a plan, then implemented it, things could be different we do have the power to do so as a community! Its what I choose to believe and I truly feel it can be done.

[Brut]

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

The point I was trying to get across before is haven't we as a community of players morphed the raid scene to be what it is now? The developers gave us a set of rules which we choose to follow or not. When the rules are broken and the guilty are discovered punishments are administered whether they are just or not. The developers have given us a classic experience and we as a community have molded the raid scene into what it is now which as Rogean himself has pointed out is very classic. I am okay with the way things are now because just like on live I am a casual player, I have seen more endgame content on this server than I ever did on live, but if leadership from raid level guilds got together and came up with a plan, then implemented it, things could be different we do have the power to do so as a community! Its what I choose to believe and I truly feel it can be done.

Not really, the rules have only changed as per dev whims from server's early days all the way to what it is now. There was a rotation early on, then there wasn't, then variance was added, then there were rules about 15 men sitting on spawn points camping dragons shouting to tell the other raid they're not afk, then there wasnt that, then there was frapsquest and guild suspensions, slight alterations to rules like not pulling inny to zoneline, then those got turned around, then there were poopsocks for end of window mobs, then there were extended windows to rid the poopsocks, yada yada yada. Pretty much all of these consist of playerbase stretching every new rule as far as they could (ie. the 15man sockfests was the ridiculous answer to 2-4day random mob windows) until GMs would step in to change things.

The thing is this server's guild leaderships dont really ever sit down and think "wow this is stupid" and fix the idiocy on their own. They keep the stupidity going until one of them gives up and the other can go on to farm everything.

Only instance I can recall where the top guilds got together and resolved anything on their own was a brief trak/VP rotation somewhere along the line. Unless I've missed some behind the scenes details and a GM forced them to do so.