I don't have a problem with my Warrior who participated in an event being locked out. I have a problem with my Paladin on the same account who didn't participate in the event (and maybe hasn't been logged on in months) being locked out of something my Warrior did.
Do you want to get information from a bunch of people who don't know or from people who have been using AOCs for over 5 years? It's not a tough call.
All DZs are the same. Raid DZs lock out the account too, no? Everyone seems to forget that AoCs have been on TLPs for years. AoCs on Live weren't created for people to go back and nostalgically smash old raid mobs. They were created for TLPs to ease the constant fighting on Ragefire/Lockjaw over rotations, etc. AoCs already have rules. Some of the rules are dumb (the 6 toon minimum, for example). Maybe putting AoCs on Live will bring some of these to light and changes will be made.
That's they pay off - what's the point of being able to use AoC 6 times with the same group - that's a bit exploitable and that's what they're trying to avoid by requiring all 6 people to get the lockout
I'm not trying to justify the lockout rules. I'm just trying to explain that all of EQ does DZs the same way.
Test has had AOC's since they were a thing. Test also considers everyone all access for purposes of that server only. TLP's are by their nature all access. AOC's have ONLY been available to all access members. Probably so people arent firing up one instance for every zone for every character they have that can solo it. Thats how AOC's work on TLP's and Test. Thats how theyre going to work on live. I swear people that are complaining the loudest havent actually used the stupid feature before despite it being a thing for years.
I don't think the behavior described above is true for non-AoC DZ's. Or at least it wasn't before today because I know I've run multiple alts through unique instances of raids to try to get a specific drop. Admittedly, I haven't tested the AoC's for the account-wide lockout issue yet however.
I have done this with gribbles missions. Ran into the hills with all the toons I could on my accounts to get blood drinkers potion...or whatever that life steal on hit item is called. I know this is kinda comparing apples to oranges, but the concept is the same. like a nerd said above: "Probably so people aren't firing up one instance for every character they have that can solo it." people are already doing this with gribbles to get an item they want, why cant we do it with 15 YEAR OLD CONTENT? With all the abusive things being done in game and on TLPs this is the LEAST of concerns. I mean there is BLATENT and OPEN botting completely AFK yet nothing is done to stop it...and people are pissed that a few...that MOST of us want to run through old seb with 6 different toons to complete the slayer achieve, or get an item that virtually has no value to 99.999% of the playerbase. Be honest, how many people you think are in the market to twink out their latest alt?
I've used AoC's countless times on prog, never had I even thought to try a same-account alt to run them twice during lockout because the alts would have been way too low to contribute. To be fair, group tasks usually have a lockout of a few hours while raid DZs last for days.
Heroic adventures are not DZs so don't try to compare them. I agree with you. We might not like it, but it's the way it is and has been for over 5 years.
I would accept lockouts of a few days if they changed it so that they can be run with a merc. or even solo. really on live who cares.
The server software should be designed so that if the number of instanced zones starts to get close to a maximum, the game should prevent more instance zones until the number drops, and alert the EQ team. The reality? I have no idea.
Surely enough, I ran some DZ's on an 87 paladin. 74 Druid on the same account shares the lockouts. (Druid was not used for instance headcount) I'm sure I'll run an Anguish instance at some point this week to confirm, but 99.9% sure that other characters on the same account don't get this lockout behavior for normal raid DZ's.
I posted elsewhere, but I'll put it here too. I used 2 online & in zone toons, 2 mercs, 2 offline toons. I was able to pick up instances and zone in. Kael gave me some issues as it said I wasn't flagged. It booted me to EW zone several times, and going through the dialog completely let me in. I was able to bring mercs along for the ride inside, no issue. I'm level 95 on Ragefire (we didn't have AoC's before)
AoC instances give an account lockout because its designed to effectively be as if you killed the open world version of the content, which would then not be up for an alt on your account. Normal instanced zones dont do it, because normal instanced zones are already instanced.
Tested this in Seb, Kael, Tov, and ST. Not one of them let me bring mercs, not one of them let me even do them without having 6 separate all-access real people in group and online. 3 in zone, and 3 out. I tried 3 real, and 3 mercs first, no go, tried 3 real 3 real but offline toons, no go, tried 3 real, and 3 real out of zone, worked. but SK and Shaman got booted to ZL and locked out. Kael booted my SK and Shaman to ZL, but let my mage go in. No manner of logging in and out fixed it, I could NOT join the instance with my Sk or Shaman. The accounts are virtually identical and neither sk or sham had been in kael...like ever. not once since their creation. Either way I couldn't use mercs at all. They had to be real people for every AoC i interacted with.
