LDON Expansion This Year Please.... Also Side Rant..

Why not ? Are you a boxer ?

Yet those players are able to box existing missions and group content just fine and can even do it better then random pickup groups. Any attempt to make it harder for them is just going to make it harder for everyone else.

People are not boxing because they lack friends/guilds rather it is the way they prefer to do things.

There are reasons to not like LDON besides boxing (which people can do easily enough in the expansion) as it is just repeating the same thing over and over again with just different mobs and maps that just repeat each time you do it.

You are mixing up pro players with boxers. Boxing in fact is slower than a good multiplayer group. Players do and had started boxing because of the lack of other players, that they could form a group with. Now that about everyone is boxing right from the start, there of course are not enough single players left.

The question is going to I_Love_My_Bandwidth. LDoN is just as repetitive as every other content. Different NPCs, different tapestry.

I know boxers who are in 100+ active member guilds with whom they are social. They also group with guild members. They box when they have limited time or have to take breaks while adventuring, both of which would negatively impact other players if they were in a multi-player group. Would you prefer they not game at all except when they can be available for 2+ hours of uninterrupted game time?

We all know those boxers but the reality is that the most boxers do form their own little guilds and fellowships, to receive all the structural benefits like guild halls and campfires. And how can a boxer with six characters form a group with other guild members ? She/he would have to drop some of it's boxes to make room, which is something that boxers do not always like to do. I think that you are just using a strawman argument, and that such "nice and social" boxers do rarely exist. You tend to deny the reality by drawing a nice illusionary dream picture.

The reality is that players have to box because of the lack of other single players because about everyone does box and wants to keep boxing. Players cannot find any help to finish their Year of Darkpaw tower missions or any other missions and quests. When someone is asking for help in the chat channels, the usual reply is grave silence. Sending direct tells to other players that do not seem to be busy, like hanging around in PoK, does nearly always lead to replies like: "Sorry but I am busy" or "I have to log soon". Busy with what ? Chatting, tradeskills ? They do not seem to be busy with RL stuff, else they won't reply quickly. For them that is more important than to help other players. Everyone is only focusing on itself and does not want to help other players. The players have become selfish and egoistic and the game structure is furthering that. A LDoN style expansion could loosen up these encrusted structures somewhat.

In my experience, the majority of boxers will drop their box(es) to play with other players. They would much rather be playing with others than boxing but their real life doesn't always accommodate. Should they not play at all when they don't have a 2+ hour of uninterrupted game time available? Yes, they, along with the majority of the players in most games, are not as likely to group with people they don't know and would likely prefer to box over getting in a pick up group especially when they have limited time or need to take frequent breaks for real life stuff.

I have a regular Sunday group with someone who 6 boxes when friends are not online. She is perfectly capable of running any group content in game on her own and has been doing so for years. But, she would much rather group with other players that she knows. I also 2-box when my friends are not available or when I can get in a little gaming at lunch while working (and sometimes need to park in a corner to deal with work stuff). I absolutely loathe pick up groups but enjoy grouping with my friends. We've expanded our group with friends of friends, too. We also *gasp* roleplay!

But, my Sunday group aside, when I was on Oakwynd, almost all the boxers I knew would gladly drop boxes to get into a group with other players in the guild. Most didn't like pick up groups but preferred grouping with other players in the guild than just playing with their own box.

Which might be a core problem of the game. Why do players hate pick-up groups and playing with strangers ? They can be a great opportunity to make new friends and this is how everything started originally. The most fascinating experiences I had were mostly with strangers. Friends can be boring and predictable. Maybe the game does lack technical structures to make pick-up groups more enjoyable, like a better advanced loot system or dynamic loot. The players today seem to generally avoid risks and are fear driven which might be the main reason for only leaning onto friends. Even the death of the player character can cause drama, which is laughable today with guild lobby corpse summoners and minimal corpse runs.

Some of are also introverts that have social anxiety grouping with strangers, but we should be able to play the game as we choose and not be forced into group that's entirely people we don't know. Even you admit to not being in groups that are only people you don't know (i.e. mostly with strangers means you had at least one person in your group that you knew previously).

My friends are not boring. I'm sorry that you think yours are.

There is nothing the game mechanics can do to push players to group with people they don't know and it shouldn't.

Boxing isn't happening just because the number of players has decreased but also because it is just more convenient for those that do it. Regardless trying to make it harder for boxers is going to make it harder for everyone and it won't force them to group with random people. At most you will just get them to group with a small group of other players.

So you want an LDoN styled expansion, that would require several zones with many variations on the missions in each of those zones? When they can only deliver 6 or 7 zones, with 4 or 5 of those being copy/paste of old zones, with a handful of tasks in each and 2 missions and 8 raids this past year?
Im expecting even less content in the next expansion, maybe 1 mission and 5 raids is what they expect we will accept next time. Something like LdoN is out of the question,,its not even if the players want it or not, its simply too much work for the handful of devs the game has left and they have become accustomed to the players just buying in because its habit by now.

Didn't like LDON. The concept was flawed.

It would work with shrinked down content or another structure. I gave two examples here. The players got used to shrinked down expansions as they do still buy them.

Ok... what exactly was flawed ?

Didn't feel like Norrath to me.

Did a moderator require you to speak proper English going forward? What happened?

Hmm, beside Deepest Guk all other themes were new but they were very closely connected to original EQ and it's lore. Maybe you just didn't knew Norrath well enough during that time. Miragul was a bit special because of the many ugly abominations, but lore wise it made sense. To me most themes appeared being exciting and beautiful and the music is still great. I didn't liked Deepest Guk because it was way to dark and had not much new to offer but it was the favourite theme for other players, and today I do like it.

1. There are many reasons why people move to boxing - to suggest it is just one is plain wrong. Personally, I switched to boxing because I did struggle to find groups playing in UK time on a US server. I also did it to attempt group content in expansions where other players were pretty much non-existent and I didn't want to rope in the odd player whilst I failed over and over.

2. Isn't almost all content just doing the same thing over and over? People do the same missions over and over until they get the currency they need, people do the same raids over and over until they get the loot they want.

With the need for constant movement from start to finish and all the doors and ledges and tight areas, I think it would be a nightmare to box ldons.