Congratulations... I think? I guess? Maybe?

That's all we need, more necro hate ! Sorry, we don't claim him! He a weeezard! Smash them!

For what the two raids are, I was pretty happy with them. You honestly cant ask for a lot more than what we got due to what the devs have to work with and whatnot.

GoD, UF, .... drama creators/guild breakers. Difficult to beat the first time and miserable to farm for 4-6 months.

PoTime, NToV, .... fun times/guild builders. Somewhat challenging. It might take you a whole couple of weeks to figure out how to beat an event but once you've got it figured out it's routine enough that RL's announce who's tanking and then sit back and just play the game.

The two new raids? Um - not super difficult to beat the first time, not fun raids, and I expect miserable and tedious to farm for the next 4-6 months. Unlike PoTime, etc. I won't point at either of these raids and say, "Check this out - isn't EQ cool?!!"

"Challenging content"? Um not so much fun. It's horrid when you first beat it and it's horrid ever after. Just because pulling a nail out of a board with your eyelid is difficult doesn't make it fun.

Ya know in retrospect - if the RoF raids had been tuned towards the middle of the pack and if lag, emote, and mobs penetrating wall issues hadn't existed IMO it would have been some of the best raid content in a long time.

But what can you honestly expect with the limited resources and time constraints that they have these days? You cant expect much from a raiding standpoint anymore. Its just not realistic to do so in today's EQ. They are doing the best that they can with what they have.

In my edited post I did credit devs with what could have been, had it been smoother, some great raid content in RoF. Some of it to my mind is memorable-Grelith for example. The difficulty of this raid is pretty immaterial - the idea is waaay cool and it plays out really well <- attributes of a great raid. It's just a shame that lag can make something awesome into something that makes you want to pitch your keyboard.

The two new raids? Well I suppose they had to toss us a bone but IMO this one is a little dry and dusty (the gladiator arena concept being pretty decent). Yep, it was whipped up on short notice. Please note that I avoided somewhat unfair criticism like pointing out that these two raids have little to do with the Save Rivervale backstory for this expansion.

I liked that PoShadow raid.

I liked 13th anniversary ToFS. I don't even care that it was easy as pie.

Ima disagree with Qest Silverclaw - "we" do ultimately look at what's fun and it's possible that over the years it changes for the individual as well as being different between individuals. One of SOE's jobs is to put the Massively in MMoRPG.

In the case of the two raids under discussion. I think I'll come to like the gladiator arena raid (I'll have to turn off environmental sounds though). The PoShadow raid - we beat it and I was completely devoid of any reaction other than I'm glad that's over. Different folks....

I wouldn't say the whole expansion was meant to save Rivervale, that is one zone and there is still a shard landing in or close to PoM for more Rivervale fun.

To me these raids are easily in the top 10 of EQ. Great job devs, I have no problem doing them for the next 4-6 months. Please give us more voiced over lore, a sexy snake voice would of been nice.

Main topic of this thread, if SoE wanted to make raids hard they would have only RoI test them to their fullest and then keep where we believe the raids should be. From my understanding another mid level guild went into Shadows and cried it was too hard and SoE went on to nerf it for them. So many of you guilds have to pet tank or gate out to avoid simple mechanics of events. Look at Xorbb 1 and how simple it has now become, look at Fumerak and RoI was the only guild that did that raid straight up from the beginning.

If SOE wanted to make raids hard someone like Absor would tune them without input from any guild suggesting how they believe they should be tuned, no one would get to preview them for a week on Beta, and if no guild could beat them once they were released then that would be just too bad. Abashi would post, "Learn2Play." and that'd be the end of it.

But they don't want to make them hard so they don't do those things. Now that we understand that SOE takes input from guilds to make raids easy, the only question is how easy and for whom.

While I respect RoI and I do have some friends in that guild, if SOE solely based their testing around your guild, it would be down a lot of subs within a few months. It would be bad business. Not every guild out there is like RoI....Not every guild is full of top shelf players like RoI is. The raids have to be made in the name of the top 20 guilds serverwide. Not the top 5 (or even top 10 for that matter) - You cant alienate what guilds are left like that. Not in today's condensed EQ.

So yeah, raids are likely going to always be tuned around guilds 6-20 instead of 1-5 from here on out because its better business. At least your catering to the majority then

If raids are tuned down so 1-5 guilds can handle them, why just be nice to those guilds? GoD wasn't - oh wait that expansion was a near disaster. (Worst mistake in EQ's first five years according to Mr. Smedley).

It took too long for SOE to acknowledge that highly exclusive content made the vast majority of those who were excluded feel excluded. Unfortunately it listened too long to players and guilds who favored overtuned content (remember UF??).

There's no particular credit due anyone who talked SOE into tuning content down so they could manage it while doing everything they could to insure as few others could manage it as possible. That kind of thing is detrimental to the game.

Underfoot was infinitely harder than GoD was.

As a whole, but MMM in SoF still has the worst progression blocking events.

Just want to post and say both these raids were amazing. They were both well scripted, and pretty much bug free. The beta testers did a outstanding job, as well as the designers. I had no banked AA's and have yet to do any partisan or merc quest. I will enjoy this continent for several weekends, as I work full time. I just wanted to say getting the new titles, and killing these raids was a ton of fun, and really enjoyable. Reminds me why I keep coming back to EQ, no matter my work load.

Yes, look at Xorbb1, a T2 raid although on the basis of Thule4/Alaris2 and Alaris4/RoF1 having similar stats it "should" be T3 Alaris difficulty.

Two Sides had been beaten by 31 guilds before April tune down patch, 2 guilds beat it immediately after patch and 47 guilds beat it before the new expansion.

Time and Tides had been beaten by 28 guilds before April tune down patch, 2 guilds beat it immediately after patch and 47 guilds beat it before the new expansion.

Xorbb1 had been beaten by 23 guilds before April tune down patch, 3 guilds beat it immediately after patch and ?? beat it before the new expansion.

If there is a pre-nerf Fumerak or Triune God in an upcoming content patch or not I don't know but Xorbb1 would be the "wrong" place for such an event.

This is only partially true though, as you haven't touched ANY content not designed for the end level since TSS. When people beat all the raids and quests and have nothing to do at the end level; then what? What do the returning players and new players come back to? Nothing. You've been venturing into the old worlds again, why not retune quests?

I am happy that you say you're no longer tuning just for the "1%", but you've still very much secluded it to the 2%.

I'm not sure I buy this arguement though; look at what indie teams do. The EQ team I would imagine still has more people working for it then RaiderZ, or even possibly it's little sisters that worked on Dragon's Prophet or Wizardry Online. There is so much that SoE can tap into code wise even from this game alone that could serve as a building guide, along with new mechanics worked in. Take for example the "new" voice overs by Luclin. I imagine this code will now serve as a guide for future stuff here and possibly came from a different project.

The game needs to go back to it's roots...

We have not defeated Chelsith yet, but are making progress on it- got Vhyzdra or whomever to like 66 before some AOE wiped us out. Having said that I do enjoy that event, it is a lot of fun, and kudos to whomever invented and created that!

We didn't get any at all. Any reason for this?

Shhh!! Don't speak of SOE's inner workings even if you are sympathetic to their plight. Elidroth will SMASH you! If he doesn't miss.