Instance Raids..Please

Have fun with that, will be even easier to win the races when there is nobody to run against

It's going to be so funny to see people whine about it.

They were promoted as "like 1999" which isn't accurate on many fronts, many of which you seem to have no problem with the tweaks (and possibly even prefer them if we prod) - like the difficulty adjustments...

Fact is these were never meant as a pure 1999 experience, thus why P99 now gets official support since its close. These have always been intended as a custom server hodgepodge - no person is going to be happy with every tweak - much like no one is happy with every item their tax dollars support. But most sane people accept it in part because it doesn't ruin things, its just not preferable.

I'm a little late to the batphone debate I think (reading page 6 out of 10), but I have to agree with Esper and Ed.

At first I was against batphones. Back in the day before social media and even texting was a big thing you would actually get phone calls, or if you had a beeper (yeah a beeper!) that's how you knew a raid was going down. Getting a phone call during the night was a bit much. Since I've been using a batphone this time around, it is very pleasant. Being 50 and bored waiting on Kunark I don't have much to log in for outside of alts. Not all of them are in my guild as I have a few in a friends guild. So if I'm on an alt, playing another game, outside doing yardwork, working on my car or what have you and my batphone goes off I know when to log in and raid. Not all of us stare at our screens like zombies waiting on a mob to spawn.

Now keep in mind, I was work 7:30am-5pm M-F and I have a family. I can't raid from work, so I miss those 100% of the time. When it comes to middle of the night batphones I have to make a choice and keep my wife in mind... If I feel like I'm well rested and have the motivation to get up in the middle of the night o answer a batphone, I'll set vibrate on my phone, put it under my pillow to not wake up my wife. If I don't wanna mess with it, or even change my mind after it goes off, I turn it off and go back to sleep.

At the end of the day it's super convenient and I was skeptical as well, but if you stop being narrow minded long enough to give it a chance you'll understand it's actually a great tool and give you MORE free time to do things outside of playing EQ. I can tell you now, as Esper mentioned I believe, FI also has a lot of members that have jobs and families, we also have some members that don't. Not everyone has no life, but I'd be lieing if I said there aren't a few. Some people are disabled and can't do much else, or they don't have to work and enjoy spending their free time gaming, and that's their choice.

Lastly, I'll agree with Dima on one thing he brought up. You don't have to have a raid force of 72 to contest a spawn. Even if you have 20 people, gather them up, bring boxes if you have the ability to do so, and give it your best shot. There's no sense in throwing a pity party.

Who is actually putting in the work to notify others about a spawn? I'm present for camping. When we mobilize for targets, we can get the majority of the guild to contest the target as well. In fact, our opposition can do the same thing.

Very good point. Just glancing at my attendance I am usually between 40-50%. I make every raid that's available outside of work and rarely get out of bed in the middle of the night and I've made almost 80/186 raids. There are probably less than 20 people that have an 80%+ attendance. I raid pretty much every day 1-3 times daily depending on how many targets we would get. Most of the raids take 10-20 mins so it goes by quick. The only raid really that takes much time is CT if Fear is full spawned, everything else is super quick as you can mobilize to any target really quickly outside of Vox, but even then, using your bind and EF potions it doesn't take more than 5-10 mins to mobile there either. Casters bind in perma, melee bind at wayfarer camp (or use an EF pot). I personally bind at camp, /duel my box or a guildie, pop up at camp and run to perma, takes a whole 3-5 mins. So again, most raids are super quick and are <15 mins to do.

Heh, the good ole days of being able to fragment my sleep. If I'd do that now, I almost definitely have an ocular migraine the next day, and a reasonable chance at some petit mal seizures.

Wife sleeps like a rock though. So at least spousewise that wouldn't have been a concern.

But again, sleep to some people is precious and sancrosanct - usually for comfort rather than health in my case, being willing to put your body through stress like a fire alarm nightly is somewhat telling of how personality types with pro and anti folks on this topic diverge.

To most people saying "Hey, I'm gonna wake up and play a game for 20 min then go back to sleep" would sound like an insane notion.

We have officers in place that track mobs like any other competitive guild. First thing you consider when tracking a spawn is knowing when it's in window. If you kill naggy and he won't respawn for 24 hours and then has a 20 hour window, you know in that 24 hours he won't spawn there's no point in tracking him. At this point you track that target(s) that are in window. Classic has 4-5 targets, keeping up with those isn't difficult by any means. There are targets like Eye of Veeshan that spawn every 5 hours or so, typically those are the "if we feel like it" spawns. Not everyone wants to port to sky every 5 hours and kill EoV. It depends on if there's anything else in window and if you're bored. People still need plenty of drops from Eye, but it's such a short spawn rate that plenty more will be had before Kunark.

What you need to do Lee is question your officers/raid leader as to why they don't monitor spawn times/windows and have a tracker prepared when a mob is in window.

My wife sleeps like a feather. I can barely move and she wakes up. That's why I pre-warn her if I feel like I may answer a batphone that night. But those nights aren't often. She works part time so if she's off work and can sleep in than she doesn't mind. Then if I do get it and I don't feel like getting up, I cancel and roll over

Four major changes have been put into end-game to accommodate more players.

*Load Balancing* (instances in major zones)
*Accelerated respawn* on dragons gods etc
*mitigation of the mighty* creating a better engagement for raids.
*mage pet nerf* this is making progress but I still get word of box mages burning down naggy and vox.

Being that daybreak put in these changes after releasing the TLP gives me and idea that they want to make classic and end game content available to players... they just don't have the "ideal" solution. Once the solution is in place whether it be a new server with instancing, or whatever... either way the DPS race will probably be more of a tumbleweed race. As current end game mechanics are enjoyable by few. Discouraging to many.

It was a rhetorical question. I'm just referring to a more competitive environment. I also played on Fippy Darkpaw where spawns were weekly. We would camp for days. I put my time in just to help out.

All those changes and people are still crying. I guess, just maybe, they just should have instanced everything up front, what a novel concept.

If you give a mouse a cookie....

Instancing raids won't solve anything, they will want more and more changes, then quit once the game is sufficiently ruined.

Something more has to be done though for end-game. Even if it's "limited instancing" of just Trakanon-VP, TOV, Ssra-Vex Thal... EverQuest is so much about end game. The current platform simply isn't designed for long term sustainability. Population is already taking a hit...which is to be expected. But once you spread out the population among 3 TLP servers, one with instancing for sure...

When the world gets bigger, community gets smaller. I.m.o. would be better to have a sustainable end game solution for one maybe two mega servers... and keep the community so people can still share and adore each other's pixels. Relive content. Than having two "classic competition nothing else really classic" servers.

Or you have the current end game which is a nightmare for thousands of players... who don't come to forums to express concerns... they just stop playing.

Vs. Catering to people that already are commited to quitting in 1-2 years once everything is instanced.

Make a change to keep a 1 yr player or a 4 yr one - which is a better business proposal?

Yes! We must fight back before they change this game into an iOS/Android app that lets you click names on a touch screen for heals, dps, and tanking! Only the Gods know where things will end if Daybreak implements instancing! Doom! Doom!! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My guild plans to dominate classic and a few xpacs. This server isn't going to last long anyways.

Instancing opens up endless potential. PUGs are a big factor, maybe "heroic" instances with even harder versions of current raid encounters?

How long will the Lee81 meltdown last? Taking bets now.

I don't think dominating accelerated content is much of a competitive win anyways. It's already as it is the most broken concept. Kill Trakanon 30 times in 35 days. Just grinding away winning that "classic not so classic" experience.

At this point it's not even offensive, or merits any jealousy. It's just like--- mmm K well this is completely broken.