Is LockJaw still viable?

Translation: Me and Zaide rolled on Ragefire expecting to lose,with a plan to move to the losers server if we ended being right about losing. When that happened we did move to the loser's server and also already had a plan in place in case we lost there also (Rotations)

Thanks for your awesome translation. But, our plan for Lockjaw was rotations if we were the top guild. And, we were, and we did rotations. The guild not on top can't give rotations. Only the one on top.

You've never supported any rotations in Kunark, so.... sounds like your plan was a big fat lie.
Today Lockjaw has far fewer guilds (MM is gone) and they are all extremely easy to work with, but still no rotations. Stop trying to take credit for being a reasonable guild when you're not.

You guys can hate on Darth as much as you want. But what he said was pretty much spot on. I think some of you forget what EQ is and what it's about. People who actually understand this game know that majority of servers always played to what the top guild did. If they allowed rotations to exist, you had rotations. If they decided they would take down content until they were bored or moved on, that's what they did. There's no arguing. It's the way it is. As time went on SOE moved int he direction of instancing and it voided a lot of that.

So here we are years later with instancing technology and people who have played with it both in EQ and in WoW. These people come back and expect a TLP in old world content to have raid bosses handed to them at their convenience. I agree that would be nice, obviously they're moving in that direction with Phinny. But people have to realize this is the way it is. If the top guild on the server decides to setup a rotation, than that is on them to decide. If you do not like it or agree, than you must step up and take that away from them, or compete with them for the kill. You don't have to sock to beat them, you have to be prepared, have a plan, have people willing to step it up when the mob spawns in YOUR window.

I've said it before. FI has been much better about being fair to the guilds and players on this server than TL ever was on RF. Expecting a full on rotation in VP is a bit far fetched. Every mob on aside from VP spawns daily, VP is about 4 days. VP is the only thing we're not willing to just give away, and of course it includes Trak since Trak is the final piece needed to get in. Until our leadership feels we've gotten the gear we need for Velious, we'll continue to farm VP. If a guild wants to get in than they need to step up and compete for a Trak kill. To come here and complain about us not letting you have a free shot at Trak is pretty bad.

There's been a lot happen on these TLP's. it's been an up and down on about everything. To comment on Vaclav and his question for Darth; What would you do in their shoes?

As a person who's been an officer in an EQ guild for many years back in the day, and a guild leader of a high end raiding guild in WoW for 6 years, I'll give you my answer as well.

I'd understand my place. I'd go contest the spawn. Of course I'd be aggravated about it. Anyone would. But I would not ruin a good thing for everyone over my own greed. Even if I felt they were being greedy by removing it from the rotation. At the end of the day, FI did not say "It's ours!" they said it's FFA which means anyone can go after it. If they had flat out said, "It's ours and we're taking it, period" than there would be a 100% right to be upset. MM didn't like not being #1, they didn't like not being able to call the shots. So they twisted the situation and made it worse. Other guild leaders looked at it the same way most likely as I just stated.

It's not bullying, it's EQ. There is always a #1 and they always set the pace. Take it or leave it.

Amicorum wants 1 Trakanon when you've killed 86 and you say THEY are greedy and need to "know their place"? You let them kill 1 VS on christmas eve and say "See? we're much nicer than other guilds". How much of an entitled POS can you be?

Translation: "EQ has always been like this so you should just shut up and take it".

This attitude is why the game has lost so many subscribers, and lockjaw specifically is quickly dwindling into a ghost town.

Rotations aren't really needed anymore. Other guilds are getting more targets than FI and seem to be doing well.

That would be because DBG decided to cannibalize Lockjaw and Ragefire's populations by creating Phinny. However, I expect a fair amount of people to return once Velious opens. Or people will plain quit Phinny when they realize how long it will take them to reach 60.

Good news is that the slog to 60 actually covers two EXPACS as Vellious offers no new levels and AAs don't arrive til Luclin.

Please don't point this out to that type of playstyle player. It's more enjoyable watching them destroy their own hobby and blame everything else.

A) "Understanding their place?".... LOL... Note: Here's a direct quote from my PM's preserver from Darth (and Zaide made a similar one to me). "...our plan on Lockjaw is to set up fair rotations... should we do well enough to allow it." "Hopefully you can help lend us some support to do so" - definitely phrases you hear from those expecting people to "understand their place", eh? Especially to someone that is outspoken about the level of cutthroatness to these servers being a detriment to the overall longterm population.

B) If one target is arbitrarily declared FFA by one party - why isn't it kosher for another party to arbitrarily declare one FFA? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

They literally did the same thing as you - to more targets that effected more players. The same negative action but less targeted is still the same negative action.

Killing one household or an entire village - you're still a murderer.

C) With rotations? I'd love to see the example of precedent. I'm not aware of a single case of a rotation having targets torpedoed and such from those at the top. They were generally set up in a very intelligent fashion and crafted so that there was no need for it.

Having foresight for the future was something most rotations had - in fact I spoke to Darth a good number of times nudging him (as an outsider) about how I felt you were SELLING YOURSELVES SHORT on the opening portion of expansions like you'd want and that it would be a real challenge to adjust back the later things got. And how the initial 50% FFA plan was terribly thought out for how Trak keying was initially anticipated (still rather bad with the upped rates, but more tolerable at least).

If there were "premium targets" that were always FFA from the getgo - there wouldn't have been the same stress that there was over things. Very few people like a set of rules that is constantly changing. Rules allow people to plan for the future accurately - be it to plan to get something or to plan not to.

(Again to flip to another "work analogy", as a hirer I worked with contracts all the time - I'd guesstimate about 1-2% would find something in their contract they were upset with, and usually it was something major that they've carelessly overlooked. On the other hand - any time a contract change happened it didn't matter how many, how minor or whatever - at least 60% of the people would find something to be upset about. It was a commonplace enough of an irritant that I expected to lose between 10-20% of the people I had to change their contracts on - because they'd get pissed enough to walk off, sometimes even with decades invested into the company. People do not like chaotic rules.)

Most people who have stuck through the XP rate on Phin aren't XP adverse - it's a conversation I've had often and most are planning that they might take multiple days per level and potentially close to a full month to get from 51-60.

They'll certainly be happier if they can level easier but few people are terrified of it. Assuming it doesn't get tweaked. (Which expansion launches would be the most sensible time to consider adjustments or the "prep patch" for expansion launches technically due to practicality of the nature of how these operate)

But I can quote some people that definitely would've been terrified by it... those people all quit before level 20 on Phin already over a month ago.

Do you ever tire of using analogies on every damn post you make? I mean seriously dude, give it a rest.

As far my comment "understanding your/their place". I said that, not Darth, not anyone FI, me, Zenju aka Zublak. Be made all you want, but you need to hate the game and not the player. In this case hate DBG. They ruined the rotations by enforcing them to begin with. They ruined LJ and RF by creating a 3rd TLP with what people were asking for.

So you can not like what I say, but it's the truth. Like it or not.

Entitled? How am I entitled? You're the one asking for us to sit back and give you a spawn. I'm pretty sure you have that backwards. If Amicorum wanted a Trak they should have contested it. Instead they did nothing. And here you are complaining at me that FI didn't just say "here's a freebie!". Don't be scared to put in effort. And yes, anytime we don't contest a target, we're being nice. It's already proven that we can kill targets round the clock. Instead we backed off and are letting others have at it. So yeah, you're welcome.

Essentially that's the way EQ works. Prove to me it wasn't. I'll be waiting. You might not like it, but that's what it is. There can't be 5 number 1's. You can't have 5 guilds rotating a 4 day spawn cycle.

And lastly... Us killing raid targets has nothing to do with LJ's population. DBG opening a 3rd TLP with everything people asked for (some are hit and miss on true boxing and 3 month times frames) is what hurt LJ's population. If they had implemented raid instancing here, you'd still have those guilds here.

So keep playing the blame game.

alot of bored at work people in this thread

"Every post"? Hardly.... Posts regarding drama though, I do quite often though - that's true. I was HR - a good 20% of my job was quashing or preventing drama - sorry if I see constant analogies.

He's said it before in the past as well, FYI. You may have been saying it today in the direct quote - he's said it (or a close paraphrase, too lazy to search it up ATM) in the past.

At no point did they dictate the rules other than "make them inclusive" - if you'd had the foresight to make it something you could tolerate longterm and/or the fortitude to stick by what you'd agreed to - this wouldn't be a discussion.

If a mediator sits some groups down and says "Work something out" - and the groups come to a deal - you don't blame the mediator... you blame the heads of the discussion. Darth was upset at the decisions that were made in a discussion he was part of the leading parties of. It might have been challenging to get what he wanted - but it's certainly doable, negotiation can be challenging but almost everything can be negotiated if you care to make trade offs. (i.e. I'd suggested to Darth back then to offer keeping low tier targets 100% rotation from the get-go. And then get more and more FFA for higher tier targets. In a few different methods - easiest being "a X slot rotation" for everything with each guild getting 1 slot and the rest being FFA. So in a 12 slot rotation if only 3 guilds have earned their way on - by whatever REASONABLE terms - 9 would be FFA)

Right, because they weren't ruined already... I end up speaking to people on their TLP experience often, and the number of people that left LJ/RF to go to Phin that were still playing not long before they switched over is a minority. Most either never played there in the first place - or quit around the same time I did, between a month into the enforced rotations and their end.

The number I've spoken to that rode through on RF/LJ to the end are overwhelmingly SA/OGC people - outside of SA/OGC, I could likely count the total on two hands.

Truth generally has less bias to it. In fact that's an important part of using the analogies - is to demonstrate the same in an outside perspective where it's easier to see the "neutral answer". It's challenging to be unbiased while it the midst of something but looking at something analogous that you're unattached to, it's easier to come to an answer without poisoning it with emotion.

I feel like I should apologize for asking the question. lol

i havent sorted through the whole thread, but i think the TLDR answer to your question is this:

if you plan to raid, id strongly suggest phinny. the instances are just that good, its a literal game changer. you dont have to worry about people clinging to the tired "eq has always been this way, so we are gonna be dicks" despite the fact that the open world raid scene on progression servers has very little in common with "back in the day" raiding

if you mostly want to group, lockjaw has faster exp. phinny has slower exp, but at least in my experience, a *much* easier time finding actual groups.

and that really wasnt a short answer, so heres the TLDR of the TLDR: yes its viable. see the "long" part for qualifiers!

Probably not as much "cannibalization" as you think. I saw all the TLP servers before, and each time I thought "hmm, this means the 'top dog' guild competition fest for content as a top guild emerges and holds court over 'their' server. No thanks" and never even blinked an eye at those TLP servers. It's why I haven't touched P99 either. Same issue. It's just not for me.

Phinny was announced, and the fact that the server wouldn't be held ransom by a guild is what made be subscribe (bringing a new player who never played EQ before with me) exclusively to join up on Phinigel for that reason. I imagine that my story is not all that unique.

I don't think anybody is arguing that it's what it was. Even in my response to Fiyero, I'm not arguing that that guild-run-server situation wasn't a huge thing back in 99/early 2000s. But what we're all pointing out, is that you're basically screaming "THIS IS HOW IT WAS/IS. DEAL WITH IT." while simultaneously questioning "WHY IS EVERYBODY LEAVING?" and we're just shaking our heads at you.

I think you mistake the "big guild running the server" as some sort of feature that we all loved and what made us enjoy this game. It was more a product of there being no other MMORPG in existence to show us otherwise. None of us knew it could be any different. Those that fondly remember the guild-run-server feature were those who were/are a part of it, which as you can imagine, is quite the minority in EQ History.

You'll hold onto your smug opinion of "They'll be back. You'll see. The XP grind... they'll be upset. They'll nestle up and suckle on the teat of our rotation again. Just you wait.", but it won't ever come. I'm not saying Lockjaw/Ragefire will never see an upswing in attendance, but it won't be to come under the wing of a top dog guild. If for any reason I decide Phinigel is not for me anymore, you better believe I'm not going to Ragefire/Lockjaw. I'd simply stop playing EverQuest. You're in absolute denial that players have a choice now besides being under the top guild's thumb, and it's eating you alive.

Look at AoS on Phinny. They are more or less uncontested in the open world and by any measurable amount "top guild" on the server. How many of the other guilds care that virtually all open world spawns are on lock down? None. We're all here because we can instance and have a grand old time. Maybe some day someone will want to rub elbows with them and fight for top guild slot, but it's definitely not happening now. We don't want that part of the game back, and that's why (among other reasons) we're on Phinigel.

Enjoy LJ/RF.

p99 is a worse raid scene than any tlp or live server, including Vulak today.

I'd argue an absence of raid scene (Vulak) is the one case that ISN'T better than P99... but besides the Vulak comment I'd agree 100%, P99 is awesome.... until you raid.