Encounter Locking in 2024

I'm confused what point was being made here. Krono sales are strong because there's a strong player base on the FTE server, meaning FTE isn't that bad since people are playing it?

It demonstrates that the arguments that oakwynd is low population are incorrect.

And you do play on Oakwynd right - because you seem to be quite decisive surely based on first hand knowledge?

My char is Meleegibson (Shaman) - I am time flagged, and almost max AAs, I played on prime time AND off peak hours a lot, and Oakwynd's population does not hold a candle to most previous TLPs during PoP . What is your main?

I do hope you don't pull a Waring on us and look at server status during primetime, please !

So how do you explain 'strong krono sales'?

There are a thousand factors that go into a servers economy. A lot of times its 20 or 30 people who command 90% of the Krono floating around so a huge population is not necessarily proof. None of us can really pinpoint what makes the server economy good or bad we can just notice trends and prices.

I agree population is down now....it was not down prior to Luclin release. When Luclin came out on Nov 9th and Legacy XP was not working for AA during a huge XP bonus period. PEOPLE left in droves...then a week later a massive exploit hit....people who had traders logged in got bought out of everything and returned to a economy blown up and little plat because their inventory was marked at standard pp figures not post exploit pp. People sold loads of krono at 75K each to log in and see people getting over 1 million per krono the following morning...People sold 1000's of spiderling silks for 3p only to see the new prices was now 500p and even more people left.

The population is down on Oakwynd but it is not because of FTE.

You can't say its not because of FTE because at least partly it is. I personally dont like playing on Oakwynd specifically because of it. So what % of the issue is FTE I have no idea, but its not zero. Like everything in life it was probably a combination of lots of things.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Oakwynd was incredibly strong before the dupe.
FTE is the ideal way to combat toxicity in EQ.

People didn't group up or play during pop after levelling up on previous TLPs, you seem to have fond memories of events which never took place.

FTE is whatever to me, if I have to be first so be it, if I have to out dps others that's fine too.

Overall tho FTE is better for the average player as if gives them a better chance against people running through zones for named, so better to go that route.

There are a lot of zones where groups will come and go and couldn't care less about you parking 1 mage or necro somewhere trying to camp or "steal" a named. The other 99% of the mobs are up for them, you aren't even a speedbump on their radar. Encounter Locking is a big change for these groups, boxed or not, let's not pretend otherwise.

As for contesting named/quest mobs, you got me there. It is still a 'contest', but it is a different kind of contest that is fair, more fair to the single player or less than optimal/full groups. Of course you can argue that there are ways to beat the mechanic or group by training some mobs over their bard or enchanter pet, use heals and buffs to steal mobs, or whatever you want to argue... but this is pretty rare unless you're talking a few specific mobs that are highly contested no matter what server you're on, FTE or not.

You're not wrong about that, but most players don't intentionally drop mobs on you just to watch you die. If you engage them in conversation and ask them for help, more often then not they will not only help you with the mob, but they will heal you and even rez you if anyone died.

Otherwise, hope you have FD if solo, or that you have evac in your group! I guess now there's a real reason to bring Wizards and Druids in your EXP groups? Yay FTE! haha

And for the rare occassion someone tries to troll your group with this mechanic, shame on them. Yes, I have had it happen once. But they moved on shortly after a polite conversation with me.

I don't think anyone is claiming that it solves all issues. It's not a perfect system. But by far the majority of players on Oakwynd who have experienced it, feel it is a better system than the old ways.

We get it, your opinion of FTE is that it doesn't solve or change anything.

Pot meet Kettle.

No one said it was. You are one of the few here, with your all or nothing approach

Edited for grammar.

See the point is I think reasonable people like you seem to be could meet in the middle on the FTE thing. The couple things that I have been asking for would affect all of what you just said exactly zero %. I think its cool that people that have been affected by trains and toxicity have a place to play on Oakwynd and have more in the future. I also think that a lot of us dont like it, and we could not have it on every TLP moving forward. OR we could remove a couple things from it that would make everyone happy. Exempt OW raid mobs, and exempt friends list.

Thanks! I will persevere.

They already had the solution on day one of vallon zek in 1999. You got trained? We don't care. The problem isn't the game or the rules the developers made. It's the players. You died to a train, what are you going to do?
A) Recover
B) Open a CS ticket.
People need to stop being babies and constantly getting coddled. If opening a ticket had no effect, then people wouldnt be opening tickets expecting some type of response. It's a breakdown in people's character that they need to run to the customer support staff because they got trained and lost 3% exp or they stood in front of a named mob for 16 minutes that they felt they had claim to only to have some one else show up and blast it. I find it disgusting that players are even opening tickets over that stuff, grow up it's a game. If I was the developer you'd get a red hot ban for opening a cs ticket. I don't care if your quest broke, do it again.

How I read this is. I showed up, the mob I wanted to camp was already camped and thanks to FTE I was able to kill steal a clearly already camped mob. FTE is Great because not only was I able to steal just one, but several mobs from another player already camping it before I arrived.

absolutely, 100% and without shame. That's the server rule-set, "first to engage" and it's very clear. The alternative is "most DPS." There is no "these are my frogs in this camp, i raised them from tadpoles" rule, that died like 7 TLPs ago and isn't enforceable anyways.

I basically always respect "camps" but in the case of any conflict, it defaults to the server rules, which are either FTE or most DPS. If i lose the tag, i don't go open a CS ticket, i move on.

and I don't train the other group like the anti-FTE crowd wishes they could. Its also completely irrelevant that the group in question is 7 scripted mages online 24/7, we just play by the server rules. whats the issue?

small edit: i believe the elf also openly invites competition in public channels while calling you names, so absolutely no one was hurt in the making of this "kill steal"

huh? I grouped up and played in Oakwynd till 2 weeks or so ago. Of course, no one is grouping like it is 2001, if that is what your convoluted post is about?

How I read this is: my bot group is camping 24x7 and I cry camp stealer if an actual player comes and takes the camp because I lose the RL Krono $$ from selling the named loot in the first 3 expansions - ignoring that there are no camps in EQ!

See how you can very badly read someone's post if you wish?

Wait for people who (1) Don't play on Oakwynd but strongly believe it is huge population all the time and/or (2) Don't play on Oakwynd but believe FTE is sunshine and puppies and blindly advocate it and/or (3) not knowing who you are talking about (Again on Oakwynd) and their bots, and still have something to tell you that you are wrong!

There is one poster who meets all the above 3 criteria, hope they don't post haha!

I respect player camps, not bot camps.

P.S: Elf taunted everyone in zone stating GMs cant touch them, and announced they are going AFK For 20 hours heh - after taunting people in zone with some inane insults.

It is understandable, in my opinion, if some players feel that FTE is too much change for them to enjoy the game the way they wish. I believe I know the feeling because of Mischief's random loot. THAT was too much of a change for me to wrap my head around after I had experienced it.

At first thought, I was thinking "who doesn't like pinatas full of loot?!" It was, admittedly, very convenient to gear up. But by the time PoP ended, I really disliked the server because it just didn't feel like the EQ I knew and loved over the years. It was just too different for me. And I KNOW that I am in the minority in not liking Mischiefs ruleset. Logically, it sounds awesome even to me. It just doesn't 'feel' enjoyable or rewarding to me.

So when players say that their experience of FTE is just too much change for them to enjoy the game, I believe I can relate.

Perhaps Oakwynd will end up being one of the few FTE servers that exist. And once it reaches live, FTE TLP's that follow after it can have players transferred to Oakwynd once they catch up with 'live' servers.

We already launch TLP's in pairs typically, so it would be an opportunity to see which system is more popular with the present playerbase overall, moving forward.