Lockjaw Rotation Updated - 8/15/15

No I get it and am not advocating for any of that to be done away with.We all make the choices we need to based on our game play. Since I do not want to be in the rotation I do not see a need to ask anybody anything pertaining to group content, which the planes clearly are and has been stated as much by members of the rotation.

If I want to attempt yael, I will do my best to be there when he spawns and in position to be first to engage. I might even poop sock him because to me it is part of the game. There would be no repercussions for me here.

Yet if I want to gear up in Sky and can...

Every plane has a split of group/raid content, sky should be no different. The more people clearing the content, the more key rots there will be provided the community comes together w/ dgb behind them to combat mage armies.

Nothing really, I didn't particularly care - only added information valid to someone making the "people started selling Sky stuff on LJ" statement who was stating it as an implication that the guilds were doing it. (And implying they were clearly just blocking content from non-guilds to sell stuff rather than moving once they were done...)

Thanks to RNG there's always going to be some excess IMO.

Have a bit of transparency please, post the question and reply from roshen.

Well Roshen now what? You started this garbage by encouraging people like Zhutuak and Croak. Now you are letting 2 people ruin the experience for others. Start enforcing the rules for all including on this forum and the APPROVED rotation.

Stop letting this garbagefest continue

Roshen, I'd like a clear answer to the question I posed in the thread you locked. Are you allowing the select few people that make up these rotations to now block entire zones of groupable content?

Plane of Sky is not meant to be groupable, especially in classic. It wasn't groupable back then. It is meant to raid only, which is why the rotation has it being rotated and not PoFear or PoHate. Sky is meant to be raided in succession from Isle 1-7(Or 8, however you want to put it), the other zones are not.

Are you going to cry next because you can't zone into VP because its locked? You pay, you should get to play right? No more keyed zones!

From what i understand, there has been no *clarification* on sky being FFA for trash up untill the 4th island.

So please, stop posting hearsay & misleading information that could and will, get other banned because of your downfall and assumptions.

At least the content would actually be killed but it would be no different from how you treat people now.

So, are you going to actually answer the question or cry some more?

You will find most of my posts in the private Lockjaw Guild Council Chatter have been about the fair, even application of the rules and mediating in good faith, which isn't currently happening.

Maybe your guild leader is misrepresenting what I have been saying?

To be totally fair, should I ask Roshen to give us a real percentage of the server population represented by the current rotation guilds' active player base and for rotation slots to be based upon that?

I get the feeling there would be a ton of crying if that happened, from people not negotiating in good faith or willing to compromise.

Zhutuak get a group of like minded individuals together and get in the rotation, then go beyond Isle 4. Otherwise on your current track you kinda seem like a petulant, merely doing grief for the sake of doing grief. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I learned that in Kindergarten. Just saying.

A: I have formally spoken with one guild, requested and obtained access to PoSky for the first three islands in a time frame that will not interfere with their raid time schedule.

In summary it is possible to obtain access to attempt to clear some of the early islands without busting the rotation while not formally having a rotation spot.

I am unclear on what I can clear, if anything, with a single group non-mage army. My guess is very little, but I will attempt anyways if for no other reason than to learn what I can about the encounters. I've only been to PoSky twice in my life with a raid and I spent most of it as a cleric not paying attention to anything but healing and staying awake farming epic drops through death touches.

I can also see how it may become a logistical nightmare and aggravation to have to deal with constant requests to farm in non-primetime hours during a guild's turn in the rotation. Particularly if all guilds will not entertain those requests.

B: In addition, I have in the early stages, the building blocks established for a Raid Alliance. The intent of the alliance will be to formalize a structured raid environment to secure a rotation spot for all members of the server that do not wish to actively participate in a guild focused on raiding, but on occasion wish to experience raid content. I am currently seeking individuals interested in serving in an officer and raid leader capacity before I announce and provide details of the Raid Alliance to the rest of the server. Please PM me for an application. Guild Leaders of non-rotation guilds are encouraged to apply on behalf of their guild.

I believe the Rotation's problem can be solved by an individual and/or group of people taking ownership of the issue and establishing a formal organization that provides the more casual players with an opportunity to experience content without having to sacrifice their friendships, guild tags or compromise their RL schedules to achieve it.

A Raid Alliance for "open raids" to all non-rotation members, their alts or alt guilds can provide that conduit without compromising the rotation, but earning a spot among them.

I will help lead your alliance, if you need, and take no loot at all. I would like to think other guild leaders would also volunteer their time to such a noble effort.

Also you're welcome to the lower islands as we discussed. I can schedule my raids around you not an issue.

Let me know how I can help you get this alliance off the ground and working.

BTW, THIS is how you work with the system, other players, and the rotation. So good on you man!

Exactly. Bewts has the right approach here.

I was at this stage a couple of weeks ago. It turned out though that when it was mentioned to the rotation council what me and some friends were likely to do, they started making up rules on the fly, or at least that is what Darth told me.


They will hit you with "no cross-over" - so if someone helps your raid qualify, and then is asked to help someone else, or joins a guild and helps them, they are going to wriggle out of it in some way.
They effectively want you to have a fixed roster... unheard of as far as I am concerned in my 15 years of EQ.

I have stated in a number of places I have never heard of open raids that have some kind on lock-in, so when you go along on a raid with one, you are then not allowed to go along on a different raid.

I planned to do it a number of times with different open raids to cover different timezones. I had a specific timeline I really needed to work within (time is of the essence), because at least some of my "force" had other prior commitments which would prevent them helping later.

In addition to that be aware that the Rotation council are actively working to get some encounters made harder, nerf mage pets more, and change Sky gatekeepers.

I envisioned each "open raid" openly sharing their time slot with all non-rotation guilds, and negotiating with the rotation guilds for access to harder content, in some way allowing them the kills if "open raid" players could experience the kills, and a share of the loot.

I expected over time enough open raids would qualify to consume half the cake.

I have tried to explain to the rotation council that forcing non-rotation players to qualify for their own slots is not in their best interest, or necessarily best for the server population as a whole. The faster they have FFA days in Sky for non-rotation guild members, the less need for the cake to be sliced so thinly, as having your own "day" in Sky every 20 days is just idiotic if you are not a real huge guild with hundreds of mouths to feed.

More "guilds" in the rotation just adds to the already bloated system.

Make sure you qualify your "guild" before the next council meeting on the 15th September.

NO croak, we told you, you could qualify the same mass of unguilded people for multiple raid spots.

I quit reading after you failed to explain this.

A single unguilded alliance having 1 rotation day is fine. But, not multiple days to move back and forth.

The point is the LawyerQuesting is happening

There is no defined cooling off period between moving from 1 guild to another and from what I have seen even in large guilds alliances with many of the large boxers is quite transitory.

I freely admit that it could be easily abused. I have even said that I am quite happy if the bar to qualify as a guild to be considered for a rotation slot is raised to 72.
In this way a flexible force could be used for good, establishing a limited number of raid slots, whilst preventing them multiplying out of control. That then provides a framework so EoV, Efreeti etc are not wasted.

Even more LawyerQuesting

There are no rules stating that Faceless can't share their early morning with one of the oceananic/asian guilds on a permanent basis, and for the oceanic/asian guild to give Faceless permanent access to their evenings.

So, other than to key for access to raid targets and to kill the raid targets, a group would never have reason to set foot there?

I was under the impression that there were drops and quests in the planes that were obtainable by a solid group. If everyone has lied to me and this isn't the case, please disregard all of my requests to keep the planes open to groups.

I get that the planes weren't commonly grouped years back, but times and the game have changed a lot since then. Where it may not have been feasible before, it clearly is now. So long as drops and quests exist that a group (or solo) can obtain, a small handful of raiders shouldn't be allowed to block access to these things.

It's weak design that these zones aren't instanced and we see these kinds of problems because of this. It's also weak design that a small group of players can block access to hundreds of other players, either way. It's either a small group of "dirty casual" players blocking access to hundreds of raiders or it's a small handful of raiders blocking access to hundreds of "dirty casuals." There's nothing fair about it, either way, yet DBG shirks the responsibility of providing content to players and puts the burden upon its players. As it is now, the players on Lockjaw with this responsibility have abused their trust and they are tying to block groupable content to an open zone.

Personally, my wife and I have characters in a guild in Lockjaw's rotation. We joined it because it was pretty laid back and didn't require raiding of its members. We've been away for a bit, but I don't think things have changed here. However, my wife and I aren't really represented by anyone, as we rarely raid. I guess we are blessed to have a chance to do groupable content in the Plane of Sky once every ten days or so. If we miss out on that window, we would just get with another guild and work something out there, but it's due to weak design and a weak rotation policy that we'd even have to do this.

@Detheb: I love that VP is locked actually. I'm hoping to key for it and other locked zones as they come. But you'd better believe that if anything within any of them are groupable, I'll be there trying to group it. Are you going to the one crying that a group of players can group the content?

@bewts

We had analliance called Planar Campaign on FV server. The website is still up at theplanarcampaign.yuku.com This will allow you to see the format etc that was used. There are no actual entries to read. I hadn't been on the site in a few years but my password still works. It would be a great framework to model an alliance website after.

If you have any questions see me in game usually evenings after 6pm cst.

actually the pop checklists are still available in a sub forum. also checklists for quite a few checklist following this.