Pre-discussion for declaration of intent with regard to seizing content by DPS or other means

"dps racing" has nothing to do with gear, and very little to do with skill. its all about class makeup and getting lucky on resists.

Maybe you should wait and level up more mages.

edit*

Very high actually - we exist and have done quite well with the theorem.

Actually, with the raiding behind era... That may end up being no less crowded than in-era raiding.

Hmmm

I do not like the idea of training, I don't believe it is a workable solution.

A better solution would be for the more casual guilds to pool their best dps classes into 1 raid, that would given them more chance of winning rather than multiple guilds all trying to beat the hard core raiding guilds from different raids.

My first character I created in 1999, but I couldn't actually play much til 2000. So I was behind on getting to raiding, and I always found that there was crowding on Classic and Kunark mobs even during Velious, even Luclin IIRC. It wasn't catastrophic crowding, but note 2 things: I was on Rallos, which had at least somewhat lesser population than normal, and we are all 10 times more aggressive and competent than we were back then. So yeah, that's not going to alleviate much unless at least Velious starts out, but it won't be til the instanced expansions that it calms down.

Thing is, that means the casuals will have to mobilize at times that they weren't expecting to. Can that work? Would DHS contribute, for example?

But also, let's just say, as an example, we have 4 hardcore guilds and 5 casual but raid capable guilds. It's entirely possible that only 1 or 2 of the hardcore guilds are monopolizers; so the other 3-4 might actually help out against the 1-2.

I would ask if anyone is prepared to admit that they will be the monopolizing guild, but somehow I think we'll have to wait until launch to find out.

Yes and no - it's very rare that people get involved in poop socking for old stuff. It's still competed for or rotated between multiple guilds, but generally speaking it's much more civil the further back from cutting edge you get.

On Fippy, there were at minimum three behind-era guilds for any definition of "classic" eras (Midnight Pyre, Qabal, and Austerity being the longest-tenured, through PoP, and then MP and Proficio into TSS era). PoP was when there was enough room for us to all be doing "current"-ish stuff, but even during Luclin, we'd step on each others' toes a bit on a lot of stuff. (Generally meaning that one of us had killed it so it wasn't available for the others. MP never got in a foot race, but Austerity and Qabal might have a few times)

But yeah, it all depends on how well the behind-era guilds play together, or it could get just as toxic as the top end.

i think a large number of people are in for a culture shock if this servers raid scene is anything at all like it was on Fippy, which i believe it will be, only worse.

early era raiding on Fippy was nothing remotely like it was on the vast majority of servers back in the original time frame.

I and a few others from DHS have been known to help out other guilds (or v.v.) when they need a bit of extra numbers to get something knocked out that has proven itself available that would otherwise be lost.

If it comes to poop socking and stuff like that though, not so much.

DHS is weird though, we're more "mellow hardcore" than truly "casual" - once stuff is instanced you'll see us on a 3-4 day raiding schedule no doubt, and we very well might have that early days too although with much more flexible timing on it early on. Lots of 10+ hr a day players, highly motivated when something is available - just don't like drama, tomfoolery and rule breaking.

Hmmm

Why do you need guilds to admit their intentions? There will be hard core raiding guilds, they will use the same tactics that were used on Fippy / Vulak, because they saw those tactics worked. There will be even less GM presence than there was on Fippy/Vulak, which again increases the desirability of using those tactics.

See, in order to for a DPS enforcement group to deny every mob to an offending guild, you would have to sock right there alongside them, and I know people don't want to do that.

However, to deny some mobs, don't we have a better understanding of spawn times than we did before and could get some of them with a much smaller sock time?

Point being - surely it's not necessary to deny every mob, wouldn't it be enough to get most of them?

+/- 6 hours still means a potential 12-hour sock. The +/-1 2 hour stuff is 24-hours. That's not a small time by any stretch.

Is this accurate? http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Respawn_Timers

Hmmm

There is a variance for every raid target. You could coordinate so that the alliance of guilds only competed for spawns that occurred during certain time zones. I believe on Fippy, Rosengard during the early eras, only went for raid targets that aligned with their designated raid times, which were during European prime time hours on certain days of the week.

No.

How about for the sake of expediency, we refer to aggregate of all the guilds and players who are willing to submit to a rotation the "Free Folk of Norrath" (or suggest your own name if it's better)

That said, what if the Free Folk of Norrath, well, let's say there's 5 guilds and 250 players. What if the Free Folk of Norrath divided those 250 players into 3-4 raids, and basically, created a sort of player field city? That is - one raid will sit on Naggy's spawn, one on Vox, and the other 2 on wherever makes sense. This would all be on a permanent basis, and in fact, Sol B and Permafrost could become the new trader zones instead of EC (sadly).

These raids would instantly kill the dragons when they spawn and then distribute to the community NBG, without preference to any member guild.

I'm talking literally, you know how people hang out in guild lobby now? Everyone who is capable of doing so would hang out on Naggy or Vox's spawn when they are online but not doing anything else.

Edit: Yes, I can reasonably foresee the problem of people dying while AFK if they get caught off guard. Not sure how to solve that problem -

Hmmm

Due to the variance, it does not take long for the raid targets to get out of sync, so during the classic era it would be rare for more than 2 raids to be required at the same time. It also has to be said that is a lot of people, I think you are over estimating how many people would be willing to take part in long socks.

That's just it - it wouldn't technically be a sock; it's just where you go when you are not doing anything else. When Nexus came out, some people went there (but not as much as they did in Guild Lobby later), when PoK came out people stayed there, when guild lobby came out, people congregated there and have since. On this server, people will likely just hang out in who knows what random places; I'm suggesting that when they are online but doing nothing else, shoot on over to Naggy/Vox and hang out. Make them community assets by building the community right on their heads.