Taken from the TLP announcement "this server will be our first attempt at encounter locking. In short, once an NPC is engaged, it will be locked to that character, group, or raid. Characters not part of the lock cannot contribute damage. Spells from outside characters will not land on the NPC. If an actively locked NPC loses aggro for a short time period, the NPC will go home, reset, then unlock." I hope this is not the feature they are suggesting coming to live from TLP as hinted at in one of the EQ live shows. I like being able to help others while out of group. Makes it so I'm not sucking off XP. If this feature is applied to all mobs its a fairly huge change. If it does come to live, I hope its only applied to world level bosses/names.
I'm not sure what exactly it hopes to achieve if released on live servers. ....or even tlps? Maybe something with open raid targets or something? Idk. Help me make it make sense, someone.
If this feature is the one they talked about possibly being used on all servers I think it would depend on how it works out in the TLP server.
I do not see anything in the Producer's Letter that says Encounter Locking is going to Live. I support trying of new ideas with the game, and limiting it to a TLP is the right way to do it. We'll give it a year and see where it stands. If the implementation stinks, it won't go to Live.
I can see how this can be used to mess with people. Don't like someone in "your" camp. Pop mobs with a 1 pt thing, FD, stand up hit stone throw, FD, etc.
That was my first thought. No way to PL someone out side the group if they can't cast or tap the mob. This is so not needed on live and I hope they don't go this route. Live and TLP are totally different servers and usually most players prefer one over the other. Let TLP have this if that is what they wanted (I don't remember this being asked for) but we do not want this on live.
"We're going to be trying new things" Oh, you're going to go the newMMO route and give everyone who engages mobs a share of the experience, un-flusterclucking loot tables and streamlining certain aspects of the game? Oh. No. The exact opposite. Okay then.
New TLPs have a reputation of not respecting camps. Kill stealing becomes a bit too normalized ruining the fun of a lot of folks. New TLPs where everyone needs gear are cash cows for RMT folks. Being nice and respecting a camp usually takes a back seat to $. At least that is my guess as to what its all about. Not sure why it would come to Live I dont see nearly the same degree of problem. In general most folks on Live respect camps.
The way the TLP players are reacting to it, I don't see it staying in for the launch of the new TLP. I'm disapointed this got passed the CRC if they had any input on it.
So many ways to grief with this idea. Should have used a variation of Ragefire for the name of this server, there will be a lot of rage...
if EQ keeps being WoW, we may as well just play WoW For like 10+ years now, it feels like some EQ devs are really wanting to go work on WoW, but didn't get the job.
It's also fairly common for live players to have a sense of entitlement to a camp that they should have no right to. It's not uncommon for a person on live to send passive-aggressive tells, messages in ooc, or even tells to other people in someone's guild just because they felt their "territory" was being encroached on, even if it was absolutely not. I'm assuming darkpaw is sick of dealing with the complaints about it on all servers and is "experimenting" with this first-to-engage business even though we all know it is going to have the exact opposite outcome they think it will.