For what it's worth, content is by no means trivial when you simply restrict yourself to the level / gear / spells / etc which were available during each expansion, like most progression guilds do (Are you even planning to do this? You made no mention of it.). A lot of your gripes are over quality-of-life improvements and eliminated timesinks, but when it comes down to it and you have to coordinate with dozens of others to take down raid bosses, all that fluff isn't going to go very far in helping you win.
I think if I wanted to do something like this, I'd start by impressing people. I'd make a guild called something like <Rewind>, and beat the end-game first. Get everyone together, show everyone what we can do, and then take those people, make level 1s, and go through one expansion at a time from the beginning. Now we've seen the end-game, so now let's see what we missed. I remember when our server was down in the old days, raid guilds would pop up on a server that was actually up, make level 1 characters, and raid Crushbone for laughs. Just watching top raiders naked, with no skills fizzling the Minor Heal chain, etc. was hilarious!
I think this is going to end up being your problem, getting it going. You've already said that you don't intend to lead the guild, so you're not devoted enough to your idea to make it happen yourself, and you're going to have a hard time finding someone who will want to lead a guild with your arbitrary ruleset in place. You clearly haven't thought it out very well, or you would have thought of a few things: *How do you plan on doing Shadows of Luclin without use of The Nexus? *How do you plan to do Planes of Power if you can't enter Plane of Tranquility? *Many Kunark quests that have Death Touch as a mechanic (lots of epics) are simply going to be unable to be completed with your "log off after death" rule. You're very quickly going to end up with an unplayable game and unsustainable guild that you're not dedicated enough to run.
on leading the guild: leading the guild requires subscription, and I'm not going to pay for the game until I know that I can play it w/o the hand-holding/coddling/spoon-feeding/w/e you want to call it. as soon as I started it, I would find out who has the most experience with the game and give them the responsibility anyway. I don't really think it's realistic for a noob like me to be leading a guild full of what would most likely be veterans. on the death penalty: we've pretty much already realized that it's way too strict. I figured since we couldn't set the xp penalty ourselves, something else would have to be done. I've since learned that I've gone way too far. obviously, if the nexus is required to get to a specific place, I'm sure it could be used for that purpose only. the ruleset isn't "arbitrary," I've given plenty of reason for it. in short, I don't want an easy game and I don't want to play alone. partying with ppl who don't use this ruleset makes it an easy game, so connect the dots. if I wasn't dedicated to playing this game even though I currently can't, I wouldn't spend a couple hours a day trying to figure out a way in which I can play it. Qest: even if you're right and that is my best chance (no point in even thinking about it, b/c, it would require a massive timesink in a game I don't want to play (easy mode eq). Ishkur: it isn't actually just the removal of timesinks. if it takes longer to kill a mob, that mob is more of a threat. if you don't have your stats capped with unreasonably powerful gear, you'll be taking a lot more damage. this means that aggroing additional mobs could be a death sentence, which requires you to walk around the mob you're focused on, making sure that no other mob is going to wander into you, which is a lot more interactive than: step 1) press the 1 key. 2) wait 3 seconds. 3) press the 2 key. 4) wait 3 seconds... I'm not interested in that. I had to do the whole "run around the enemy" in the burning woods to avoid the double red-conned dragon and it was a blast. back in easy mode though, all was boring as usual. collect as many mobs as we could handle given the party that we were in, and then go and collect more b/c those mobs were dead b4 I could blink. I would love a progression guild with some hardcore rules, but whether or not all of the content would be available from the start should probably be voted on. there's also the problem of attracting those who are only interested in a progression guild, a group of ppl who seem a lot more likely to me to be willing to break the rules. if all this guild offers is hardcore standards, it's less likely that anyone who would want to cheat would want to join. also, I'm still learning here. if I can find an initial ruleset that would make the majority of those interested happy, I'll be 1 step closer to getting this off of the ground. I'll post an updated ruleset here and when I finally get it right I'll make one in the guild recruitment forum.
updated rules, feedback appreciated: 1) no mercs (strengthens community, necessitates grouping) 2) no free aa's (this disables the ability to skip most of the content) 3) no "heroic" characters (see above) 4) no defiant gear or gear gifted through the completion of an achievement (quest rewards are fine, I'm talking mostly about gear given by advancing through the "hero's journey" achievements, for example, which are just as game-ruining as the stat-capping, unreasonably powerful defiant gear) 5) no zones may be used for the purpose of fast travel (includes soul-binding in POK, this makes the world seem much more vast and alive) 6) non-guildmembers can't be partied with (they don't follow these rules and therefore partying with them defeats the purpose of these rules) 7) no hacking 8) no bots (not even for selling things in the bazaar or doing something afk) 9) no boxing (same reason as no mercs, basically) 10) strict death penalty: bag your items until you walk back to your corpse if you aren't resurrected (for an additional challenge, a heightened sense of dread, and added meaning to staying alive) I'm not the first person to have a problem with any of these things, this guild's rules are the combination of what a lot of ppl would wish for in a special ruleset server. just b/c no one else on the server has to abide by these rules, doesn't mean they have to be acknowledged, nor does it trivialize the achievement of succeeding in this guild. some factors still undecided are who will end up running this guild and whether or not this will be a progression guild.
/em scratches his head confused. /em walks away muttering something about "I guess you don't want to play the game in its entirety." /laugh and he's afraid of massive timesinks!
Looks marginally more sustainable, one thing you may want to consider in a progression guild is 100% aaxp at level 51 if you haven't moved into Kunark zones by that point since everyone forgets vanilla was capped at level 50. On the other hand, that might have an adverse effect and make the free aa pointless, since you'll have a stock built up by the time you get to Shadows of Luclin, if you disallow aa purchase until you move into SoL.
To Kolani's point, these do seem like a bit more realistic (though #1,2,3,4,5 are already part of most progression guilds already in existance and #7 is traditionally expected as well). The only ones I see potential issues with is #6 and #10. #6 because that is going to limit how long someone will end up staying with the guild because there's never exact numbers on to fill groups. 6 people come on and group up, 7th logs in minutes later and has to solo/sit around until more come on so a new group can be formed? #10 is only a minor issue but until you have someone high enough in tailoring to make backpacks, you won't have enough bag slots to hold your gear.
Just a suggestion about the bagging of the gear: I'd recommend stopping it with the Seeds of Destruction expansion, since that's the point that mobs started being tuned assuming that freshly rezzed players already had gear equipped.
I think that "we" right there is the funniest thing that's appeared in this thread. Got a silent chuckle, anyhow, instead of headshaking bewilderment.
It has been one week since the initial post. How many have you had sign up for this new guild? Curious minds want to know
no... as I said I want to play through every expansion. that isn't possible elsewhere and there isn't a big enough community anywhere except here. yeah, that "we" is just so dumb it's laughable, nvm the support already here. what? and the rest of the thread is just unbelievable, right? so unreal, how could ANYONE have anything against mercs, or their gear capping all of their stats b4 they finish 3 zones?! there are tens of thousands of eq players on unofficial forums that post about why they left SOE, usually b/c of these things. I'd have thought you'd have heard of them b4, my complaints aren't uncommon.
How about Fellowships? Will those be banned as well? I knew a Warrior who absolutely hated Fellowships with the same passion that some reserve for boxing. Of course he hated boxing as well but not nearly as badly as he hated Fellowships
actually I'd like to go through the game with a fellowship at all times, that'd be fun. we'd obviously have to pick a schedule and stick to it every night, but it'd be worth it. to everyone posting in here who isn't interested: I don't care if you're not interested. you know who else isn't interested in any of this? over 99.99% of the population of the earth. what's the point in posting here if you don't want to do this? congrats on wasting your time.
Just because I am not joining this venture does not mean I do not care. Everquest has become pretty routine, and stuff like this is really thinking outside the box. My interest is in the process, not the personal participation. My EQ time is not like it used to be. Raids two nights a week, the rest of the week is planning for a wedding and doing other fun activities. I no longer have the time to spend on my main character with the group game, let alone my two alts and a venture like this. I am just curious how many have signed up for this, to see if there are that many who have similar thoughts and the time to do this...
I'm curious on how this is working out as well. I agree eq has gotten repetitive and vanilla. It sounds very interesting but there is no way I can just throw away all that I have accomplished on the toons I have spent years on. Not only that I probably won't be able talk my long time eq friends into venturing into checking this "hard core" guild out either.
It takes me 10 mins to make a character on a new free account, with most of that time spent thinking of a name. It won't take long to log in and find either: A. A vibrant, fun guild of similarly minded folks having fun. B. Not enough people to make it worth while. Total time invested: less than reading and posting in this thread. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear when, and where. So far, nobody's contacted me, despite my expressed interest.
I'm really not sure how much time I should give this b4 making it official though, I'm in no rush. I don't know how many ppl we'd need to make it worth while.... there seems to be so many possibilities. "enough ppl" is a lot more with no set schedule for play time. if we could just find 5 others who could all agree to get on every day between the hours of X and Y, that'd probably be plenty, but that doesn't seem like enough ppl for a guild - where everyone will likely be on at different times. this is why I don't want to set anything in stone yet, not even the rules. what hours would you want to play if we were to restrict them? the more I think about the smaller fellowship instead of a whole guild, the better it seems. a fellowship with just 1 of each class sounds exciting. but aren't fellowships 12 ppl max, and there are 16 classes? w/e, a fellowship plus four then. I could play a few hours a day with that. actually, that sounds fun enough to play even w/o any special rules, although it'd be much more fun as a progression fellowship (plus 4). with 16 ppl though, I wonder how many nights we'd have to take off b/c not everyone could make it.... seems like a lot of ppl to get 100% of, every day/night....
