It all boils down to: HvC - Hyper vs. Casual

I actually have a job and aren't supported by my family. Not everyone was able to have the first two weeks of the server off~

Actually, there were many casuals who didn't want the things you listed above. So your conclusions are flawed.

Uhm, not always. What you label 'hypers' have also given requests for things that are good for the game. It might not make sense to you or what others want, but from their perspective, it would help the game flourish.

Still waiting for my burly barbarian warrior pocket tank, but nothing so far. Darn you DBG!

I thought as much myself, until I talked with some players who are near level 50. They enjoy the grouping and leveling, and they are what you consider 'casuals'. And not everyone wants to 'dominate' things. That's just plain silly. You do realize it is a fraction of players who come to the forums, right?

Actually, I'd love if they brought back corpse runs. It's a shame they didn't though. Corpse runs bring danger to exploring. Make you think twice about heading into an area on your own. Now there is very little penalty for dying (lose XP? Use a potion, kill some stuff, and BAM you got it back!) so that danger feeling is gone.

Okay, now you're stooping down to some level that makes my brain hurt. Can someone explain what poopy socks have to do with anything?

So is this your entire meaning of this post? Because you could have just TL; DR and stated this at the beginning. Oh .. and it's a TL bashing thread too. So no different than others.

This is a sad sad attempt to try and hold them hostage. Man they are working the server how people voted for it to work... you do know that right? they did say they are open to adjustments if the majority vote for them but they are running it how we asked. get over it or take your one sub and leave if thats what you want., me and my 5 friends 7 accounts will be right here still having fun.

Except for the fact that if they do instancing right you would only be able to kill each boss once in the lockout period. So you wouldn't be waking up at 3am at all. You get to kill each boss once every 72 hours. The same as you can now. The only difference is that everyone can do it and not just your guild.

I am all for instancing raids. I am NOT for creating instanced versions of the same zone allowing 1 guild to kill the same raid mob 2-3 times in a lock out. We are NOT advocating for you to get more loot, we are advocating for others to be able to get the same loot

I liked how he chose a new word to describe his opposition to try and differentiate the thread from the 155326898 others on the exact same topic. Why don't we call casuals "slackers" while we're at it, makes about as much sense as "hypers". Because blanket "they took our mebs!" threads are always so helpful and productive.

I have one mage at level 50 which is my Main toon...I have an alt wizard to port him around who is also level 50.

If they instanced raids and introduced lockouts, I would have 4 mages for my alt wizard to port around. 4 mages, all in separate guilds, ready to raid lockout free whenever my guild called us to raid.

Lockouts are a pipe dream to start....and if they did implement them, I'm telling you there wouldn't be any difference.

Meaning you can do as many instances as you want? No problem there, pay for as many accounts as you desire, raid with all of them. Go! Fight! Win!

Or meaning you can still prevent others from enjoying content?

lock outs..... with that garbage. This isn't a new fancy give you all the l00tz rail rider.

Naggy can be killed by 1 player controlling a handful of mages. Please don't make this about "enjoying the content" when its really about being able to log in 2 hours a week and have all the best gear like you could do in WoW for the last decade.

Blanketed statement added to an obviously tongue-in-cheek generalization. Of course it doesn't apply to everybody categorically. But I believe it applies to the majority in general. On both sides.

I stand behind my original observations. In particular, the one that in general, most people that poopsocked to 50 within 72 hours (ie hypergamers, by definition), are for the most part against most if not all of these things, and I surmise it is for illogical selfish, not communal, reasons.

I take that back. It may be logical in their twisted mind of a world where one dumps 60 hours in a 3 day period into a game just so that they, along with their fellow stinky-sock friends, can dominate raids for the next six month, then yes, I guess it is perfectly logical to *them*.

So logical in fact, that once it looks like this insane position has evaporated (second server: check! instanced LGuk: check!), that they will, *in general*, justify how instancing is bad and will kill the game, or how a second server is bad, and is doomed to die. Or how raid instancing is terrible, when in fact for the vast majority of EQ raids, they are instanced!!!

Not very logical. Have you read these forums? To me, it's al very, very transparent what's going on here. Of course few come out and say it (some have!), but it's there. I can read between the lines just fine.

And if I'm wrong, it matters not! Why?

IT DOES NOT MATTER BECASE THEY ARE THE FRINGE PLAYER!!!

If they invested the necessary time to get to 50 in 72 hours, they are fringe players, meaning they are outside the meat of the bell curve. You know, the meat that pays to keep the lights on.

DBG should not make business decisions based on the wants and needs of the fringe, which to me based on the replies in the threads here, are quite transparently selfish, grasping for straws for anything that even remotely supports their unsupportable positions.

1) They'll say anything to keep what is theirs all for themselves, making it drastically difficult for casual players to enjoy the high-end game.
2) Somehow, somebody else having access to what they already have, makes their copy less valuable.

*MIND* *BOGGINGLY* *SELFISH*!!!!!

I'm sorry, but the proof of these two bullet points show up again and again and again in these forums over the past few days. It's quite sad, really.
If they (hg's) were right, then why has DBG so far made choices that the "more casual" players would "tend" to in favor of thus far?

It's Business 101: Make the most customers you can happy.

Yes, but not the one you're talking about. The pattern I see is the same one I see in nearly every game I've been apart of, people complaining about various elements of the game they don't like. This is nothing new. It's a bit like noticing that rain often accompanies thunder - in other words its pretty obvious.

I also wonder how you define "casual" and "hyper", what constitutes each? And how do you know, simply by reading forum posts, which is which? How do you know how many are in each camp? Are there only those two camps, in other words there is no inbetween? Also, how do you know this forum is an accurate representation of the server at large? Perhaps this is only 10% of the server, and the rest aren't on the forums because they're too busy playing a game they enjoy...

Bottom line, you don't know. You're likely basing this rant off of anecdotal evidence (the weakest form of evidence, mind you) that's likely colored by your own biases.

I'm not sure how you can speak of logic and reason when you're pretending that you have the mind reading super power and you know what everyone is thinking. You're right, this isn't rocket science, you don't actually know what others are thinking.

I'm willing to bet a lot of money that you haven't even bothered to ask anyone you feel is a "hyper" why they might be against instancing raids.

Of course there is a reason one MMO is doing better than another, but you haven't provided any evidence that its the reason you're describing.

Even moving past you not defining your terms properly at all, you haven't actually brought up any poll numbers, and the fact that you cannot read minds like you believe you can, you're creating a strawman here.

The "hypers" which I am assuming since you've been so rigid in your argument here is someone who against instancing raids (or whatever issue comes up next week) have actually made some great arguments against it. You likely didn't understand them or didn't bother to ask/read what they have to say on the matter.

Even if you are granted what you want, what's to stop some of the larger guilds from killing the bosses in one instance, and jump to the one you're on and dps race that boss down once you clear and set up an engagement? I know, you haven't thought that far ahead.

You're going to see a mass exodus anyways. Even sticking to your crudely drawn crayon artwork why pander to the "casuals"? They're usually the first to leave and if you've run off the "hypers" because you've ignored what they wanted what do you have left?

Personally I'm on the fence about the issue. What's to stop someone from doing what's happening right this second? I've seen groups multi camp the same camps in LGuk. They clear it, know the repop timer, /pickzone out to another, do the same, and rotate through 2-3 instances. Considering raid bosses have such long timers what's to stop the same thing from happening? Nothing.

Moreover, I understand that what keeps a player coming back is to place carrots at the right distance. Too close and its easy and people get bored, too far and its too much of a grind and people get bored. Is instancing raids placing the carrot too close? I may not know, but I certainly won't pretend to know. I can't read minds and I don't pretend the dozen or so threads I've read is a good representation of the entire player base after all.

You do realize your entire post is full of false information; you can not do math and prove a point based on assumptions. Literally, every single point you made is invalid. You know you would be closer to lvl 50 if you didn't spend all that time here whining and complaining about how the game isn't how you like it?

These discussions remind me of this just with out the talent...

Literally no one on this thread agrees with you here Tarew. Casual, hardcores and everyone in between seems to agree you're way off the mark here. I think it's time to give it a rest. If you have suggestions go for it, but you are just sitting there trying to bash on people who play the game more than you, and it's getting you no where.

Yeah because such a divide doesn't already exist. I am such a bad OP for creating this divide. How will I sleep at night knowing I single-handedly fragmented the Everquest community?!?

</sarcasm>

That is kind of the whole point, is it not? The divide is natural, it will always exist, because humans are bad animals who look out for #1. So level the playing field. It's the Obama way! ;-P

Threads like these need to exist so that DBG has it at the forefront of their minds so that the can provide proper service that targets what the majority of their customer base wants, so as to retain maximum subscriber levels / Krono sales.

Obviously the forums don't represent the majority of the players, but I know for a fact they (DBG, not the forums) have their finger on the pulse of the majority of their players, and to date I agree with almost all of their decisions because I feel they were the proper business decision that would tick off the least amount of players. In each of these cases in the past week, myself and others have cited evidence as to why we feel it would bet he proper business decision to go down that path, and while I don't agree with every detail of each decision (I think LJ should have been a 3 month progression), I do feel that they have listened to the logical arguments, agreed they would help their business, and thus have gone that way.

The divide between these two generalizations (and yes, I agree it is a generalization, but that doesn't make it less necessary) DOES exist, and it WILL become a major problem for DBG in short-order if they don't continue to address the problem. EQ-driven revenue has probably doubled in the last month. I'm sure they would like to hold onto a good chunk of that. Guess what? I am convinced that the decisions they have made so far will help do that, and are things that most casual players would agree with.

However, these decisions have only delayed the inevitable if raids are not instanced. If we we were on a 3 months progression, perhaps it would squeak by. But not with 6 months. The wall of players will hit raids soon, and instancing is going to be needed, or it is going to be 5 months of hell. 5 months where many players are going to bail out of frustration.

The point of threads like these is that:

1) In these forums, many people have presented very good reasons as to why a second server was good (or at least a necessary evil), as to why instancing needed to be expanded, and now as to why raid instancing is imperative. In the first two cases, DBG agreed. I predict they will agree on raid instances as well, because it is the right business decision for them to make.

2) Nobody has made what I consider compelling counter-reasons. Sure, many reasons were given, but none were compelling. Most were transparent selfishness, or wishful thinking of playing a 1999 game in 2016. Neither affect the business reality of running a for-profit game service *today*.

DBG, I trust you to do the right thing for the majority of your players.

I think it’s useful to remind some people in this thread what is actually be discussed.

As far as raid-zone instancing goes. I haven’t really seen anyone argue for a straight expansion of overflow instancing to raid zones without any other adjustments. The issue of one guild being able to /pick between different zones and block other guilds in different overflows is pretty obvious.

Instead, what people have been asking for is overflow instancing of zones like solb with an expedition NPC for lock-out enabled raid encounters. Obviously this works in zones like Perma and Solb, where you only have one raid target kind of off by themselves, but it gets more complicated in zones like Kael where you have multiple raid targets spread out over the zone. Fortunately, this can be addressed later, because we’re at least a year away from Velious.

I think the consensus from the pro-instancing crowd is as follows:

Solb+Perma: Overflow treatment for the entire zone, Lord Nagafen either does or does not spawn in his place (I say let him spawn, keep the hardcores happy), and an expedition is available (dropping either droppable or no-drop loot) for Nagafen. Same treatment in Perma for Lady Vox.

Planes are more complicated and I hope this is where some more attention is being focused. I don’t think there’s any reason at all for these no to be handled the same way as Naggy/Vox. Have the normal zone spawn normally. Overflows enabled (because people farm these zones), with expeditions for raid targets. Maybe have the expedition NPC standing outside of fear (or at the IZ of hate). Expeditions either can or can no respawn, trash, we can argue over that too. That’s a less important poin.

Kedge: Overflow it. We can really see if Phinny on his 12 hour spawn needs to be instanced. My only concern with Phinny is he’s such a popular raid target for Epics. I feel he’s a lower priority though and can be left till later if necessary.

I’ve seen a lot of objections to the above plans from people saying that this would just give hardcores more loot. People say that TL will just get tons more loot by breaking up into 20 different raids. There are two solutions to this. The first, and my favorite, is, “Who cares?” I don’t care even a little bit about what TL does with their time. I don’t care how much loot they have. I don’t care if they raid at the cyclic rate. More power to them. The second solution, if you agree this is a problem which I don’t, is to set a minimum number of players on raid expeditions, say 24. Must have 24 people to spawn a naggy expedition. Not really an important distinction, I plan on raiding with my friends. If there are 24 of us or 40 of us, we’ll probably all raid together.

Hopefully this helps us avoid the straw-man arguments that I keep seeing around here.

Also. While I think Tarew did so rather inelegantly and I don’t approve of the ad hominems, strip that away and I pretty much agree with what he’s saying.

To many words!

The negative terms arent selling your argument and in fact cheapen it

As for raid instancing i think dynamic zones that have no loot dropping repops is the only way to go. Have loot mobs in it spawn once and have a 7 day lockout that persits through server crash.

Should be a high(ish) number like 24. Can be tweaked down a bit if the few late-night/early-morning raiders really have a problem gathering enough force. The point of adding the instanced raids is to encourage the community to get together to experience the content. It also provides control over the % chance of individuals getting no-drop loot from expeditions each week. I really am trying to help build/retain the end game community with these suggestions, not just hand out loot like some still think.

If there's still argument that people can just zerg this - and you're really that worried that it shouldn't be "hand-out" - buff the HP/resist/atk of the instanced bosses a bit. I know DBG probably won't want to babysit the content and tweak it a lot, but if that's one of the closing arguments, maybe making the content closer to difficulty of the original 99 content will even give top tier guilds something to wet their lips on. Just a final suggestion, by no means something to get held up on.

Hrm.. one game is populated by players who have played for 10+ years....

One strives to retain players for an entire expansion....

If you call that success then sure.

Being the gateway MMO of the teens first discovering the internet does not a successful game make. A successful product sure but in that regard ESO and SW: TOR were probably pretty successful for their run. Bet they sold a ton of copies.

EQ has kept players playing for over a decade. Almost every player has at least 6-7 years on their account with many having 12+. If that isn't success I dunno what is.