Is PoP flagging truly an intended bottleneck to the Artisan Aug?

RZ has bugged 2-3 times while I've been checking.

This is why you only do this for past expansions... 5+ expansions back... Heck I dont think its too unreasonable to have it only for classic POP or older expansions.. and only unlock new expansions every few years past it. To keep new content still the same requirements. I dont want to affect raids on live servers in a detrimental way.. but for progression servers.. the populations on those typically collapse because of the raid lock outs and the rampant box cheating and guilds that keep progression away from others. That is why there is no progression server that has survived past POP in any really big way.. Most will drop off and die and players will once again request a new server. If you can correct a fundamental flaw.. then do it.

If anyone knows of any chat channels currently active on your server for the purpose of monitoring these spawns, feel free to post them. Hopefully there is some sense of community on this step as it is mainly mere annoyance.

The General channel is where all the action is on Povar.

I've noticed a lot of accidental deaths doing these. The gnome for Behemoth and Askr for Agnarr plus a few PPs have been accidentally killed. I took out Thelin while doing the Hedge. They weren't tough mobs during PoP and they are positively fragile now, especially if you can drop Behemoth or Saryrn in under 3 seconds.

Thelin at least is changed on Test to be player friendly. I accidentally killed him last week (damn merc AE burn) then couldn't get my box accts back in the maze. Looks like both those issues are fixed on Test now.

Just to make things clearer Changing spawn times is not the only way to fix or at least better the situation. Changing the spawn times does cause problems so look past that. The problem is the wait, but not because of how long it takes rather because it is unknown how long you may have to wait. Look at the current end game. People wait longer then 3 1/2 days to raid stuff currently, but no one looks at it like a big deal. One reason people don't care is because they know when it will be back up ( lock out timers). I propose once again that allowing people to know when the mob will be up will solve this problem at least partly. This could be implemented by giving a lockout for entering the zone. The lock out should Be timed to go off shortly before the raid mob accociated with the timer runs up. (an hour or less). Another way around this would placing a NPC in the zone that could give players a pretty accurate time as to when the mob will spawn. Yet another way could be to place a NPC in PoT or PoK that would give info on any of god's progections will be up. The info could even be locked behind a quest or lv requirement. I'm sure there are others ways as well.

Spawn times adjustments would not cause problems on old content. Even having those spawn times on progression servers would not be harmful.. Lockout timers and instances all create undo amounts of work that should be focused elsewhere. Spawn times can be easily adjusted without affecting the game in a negative manner (again first 5-8expansions only).. You do that for a few weeks see how it affects all servers then decide if it will be a permanent fix. You go through ton of work retooling zones for instance or creating lock out timers and it doesnt do anything.. you just waited ton of man hours for nothing. At least spawn timers is something that can be implemented within couple days and be removed fast without precious man hours being wasted. And making it only for couple older expansions.. it should not hurt anything....

There are spare Thelins standing around. I saw 4 on track.

How about having Planar Projections stay up 8 hours?

Planar Projections only give flags to players who are in the group or raid of the entity (player, group or raid) who earned kill credit on the boss mob.

Meaning you'd need to get a group or raid invite from whomever killed the boss.

I don't think that's true

I'm backing up Daldaen. It was that way back in the PoP days, at least. Otherwise you'd have nine different guilds in Drunder waiting for one guild to kill RZ and have a mass rush to hail the planar projection.

This.

It was like this during PoP on live, it was like this on the Al'Kabor server (locked in PoP for 10 years) and it was like this last month on Quarm.

I believe there was a very brief time when this wasn't the case, however that was quickly adjusted after people were stealing flags from other guilds. But for 99% of EQ's life you must have been in the raid of the slayer to get the flag.

[Sun Aug 07 19:27:26 2016] You appear.
[Sun Aug 07 19:27:29 2016] You say, 'Hail, A Planar Projection'
[Sun Aug 07 19:27:29 2016] The Planar Projection's thoughts enter your own. 'You have done well, however you are not ready to understand the Knowledge gained for defeating Mithaniel Marr. Once you have learned more this knowledge will be revealed to you.'
[Sun Aug 07 19:27:29 2016] You have received a new checklist flag!
Bard on his own in the corner, ungrouped, no songs going, didn't touch MM at all.
[Sat Aug 13 22:27:34 2016] You say, 'unlock memories'
[Sat Aug 13 22:27:35 2016] Vallon fell before you with great ease, you seem to remember some strange pouches around his body, but... well it is probably nothing.
[Sat Aug 13 22:27:35 2016] Tallon fell before you with great ease, you seem to remember some strange pouches around his body, but... well it is probably nothing.
[Sat Aug 13 22:27:35 2016] An image of Mithaniel flashes before you. He looks up from a small book in his hands and smiles at you, 'You have not yet earned the Honor to see these words.'
[Sat Aug 13 22:27:35 2016] An Image of Mithaniel flashes before you, 'You have yet to earn a place of Honor. When you have, we will speak again.'\
Confirmed MM flagged via Seer.
Appears to me that folks not in the raid/group can receive the flag via hailing.

Depends on the target. You definitely have to be in group/raid for Rallos Zek's flag.

So, how long do the planar projections stay up?

10 mins

Got an RZ flag, not being in zone for the kill. Didn't get a TZ and VZ even though I got RI after the kill. It depends.

Strange. I was present for the RZ kill, assisted in killing him, but was not actually in the raid. The Planar Projection ignored me and gave me no character flags.

Sounds like you already had that flag