I play on the euro server and since returning to eq in 2012, all I have seen is a reduction fo active players and an ever increasing boxing and muti accoutns less and less active guilds unless yourt top end raiding guild Ab server is i recon over 60% boxed accounts , its fast becoming what i see on many counter strike servers and wolf et computer bots to paly agaisnt lol not real players most players i meet on AB can take a week to find a group - i know the arguments put by players who love boxing andmutli accounting, but manyt of us just want one account to enjot and develop 1 maybe 2 characters and mess about with other alts in spare time the addition of adding new hot zones hasnt helped some like grounds are now so packed with boxing players those who want to play the game and progress get better armor etc are left standing in the wings this makes me wonder why everquest even bothers with guilds you dont need one if you can box 6 accounts at the same tiem you have your on perm group. Then you have the arogant players who say well if you cant group or do much in any zone like rof make a MAGe , lol make a mage is the answer to all questions in being able to play eq and experiencing the game Please sony if you ever read these posts or care consider merging the euro server with another or offer ppls free transfer off euro server to find more active gaming
Sorry, but this is not true. Standing in GL "LFG" won't help you finding a group, no matter which server. I unfortunately know a lot of these players - logging in, yelling "LFG" for about 2 hours in general and then start to complain that server sucks and logging off frustrated. Show some self-initiative - move your butt out of GL, do some easy grinding somewhere, meet other players, invite them, play together, plan some missions, ask for more players..it definitely works, but it requires effort. And most boxers are willing to drop a twink for a real player - but ofc depends on how you approach them.
Barely ever read such a nonsense. Antonius Bayle server has a very healthy community, more than 6 big guilds with over 50 members and a lot of groups are going there, daily, and at nearly any time of the day except between 1 am and 9 am CET on work days. Alone in our guild we have several groups going every evening, allthough many of us dont need experience at all. Mind following: .) 20 players in general are LFG. And not one of them is interested in inviting some of the others to a group and do something together. If you decide to wait for someone to take the lead, then dont blame the whole server for being responsible that YOU get a group - this is ridiculous. .) Guess why some players prefer to box? Because they dotn weant to deal with complaining players anymore. In fact, if you have a good reputation and know how to play your toon, you will very quickly get an invite to a group or even guild. In guilds those player with the same habits and attitudes are forming a community to group and do stuff together, not only raids. This of course leaves out those who dont fit into all that on a nearly automatic methode. And it is not always the "mage class" who can do all and everything alone. Nearly every class can. I play often solo/molo, or with my wife (mage, hehe) or with full groups from my guild. Although i have a cleric "twink" i dont use it often at all. I prefer to do, what i want to do, when i want to do and how i want to do it at that very moment. I dont group often outside of guild because i have so many friends in my guild that i dont have time at all or any need to group outside. Try to fit into one of the many communities or guilds, instead of blaming the whole server being boxers and responsible, that especially you dont get a group.
please could you then point to me and friends guild that are recruiting and willing to group , from level 70 to 90 plus l;ol we all dont have level 100 toons but would like to get there I am always proactive do lfg, always asking ppls i travel to zones and ask groups there if they have spots but i just keep coming across players who talk about how inactive their guilds are how, they always box and never engage with each other please i would love to hear otherwise and see what is on offer to players like me which guilds worth applying to with mad levle and aa requirements
Most guilds are english speaking at AB, independent of where their members are from. Of course i cant speak for all guilds. But if you need hints which are good guilds, i can tell you some names of guilds - but as i dont know much about you it is better if you search for yourself. .) Most simple start up is in guild lobby at the recruitment boards. .) Next step would be to read the recruitment boards here in the forum of SOE. .) if all that doesnt help try to investigate at Magelo website, which guilds have toons in your range and check if you can see those online, have a chat with them and see where it brings you. From our guild "The Darkwind" there are only 3 official ways to become a member. 1.) Want to raid? Read on our website the recruitment status and the requirements to apply for a trial membership. Thats the way every raider has to go through. Raider means, that you belong the approc 65 raiders in our guild and have accomplish the base requirements every raider has to. 2.) Looking for a huge community for groups and such? Then our social member tag might be the right tag. This means that you have to be or become a good friend of one of our guild members. This means that you are part of our social community, but not a raider. 3.) A casual player tag is only available for those that have been members of Darkwind and return or are retiring raid members that still want to belong to our community and log in then and when. So all 3 possibilities require a certain attitude and social engagement with members of our guild - this might sound hard, but in fact, many of our members do more than just log on for a raid. Forgive me if i dont write down other guild names, but i cant speak for them and if they accept members i neither know. Simply check for players in PoK at the tradeskill bank or check the neighbourhoods for those guilds with many inhabitated plots and you have names off guilds with a lot of members quickly
Depends how you define healthy. Yes there are still groups going on, and if that's your requirement for healthy then every server in EQ is healthy. But if you recognise the amount of players who box on their own, if you recognise the amount of players who play on their own, or only within a specific guild or clique, the server is extremely unhealthy. Anyone can group if they want to jump through the hoops of joining guilds, joining cliques, trying to find strangers who might or might not be boxing and often aren't interested in grouping. But many people don't want to jump through the hoops (none of the boxers want to), so "healthy" is extremely relative. The mere fact boxing is so prevalent indicates an unhealthy server.
A guild is a community that is build to follow shared targets. I wouldnt say that i dont group with players outside of guild, but to be honest, i mostly dont do, because i help many in our guild and they also help me. Anyone who dont follows the rules of our community, or jump the hoops like you say, will not be able to join us and will not benefit of the community. It is clearly your decision to do so, so why blame players, that find in their communities all they need, that they dont look for the same opportunities outside of their community? Sounds a bit .. strange .. because that is what a guild is basically made for.
The hoops to jump through are many more hoops and much more difficult hoops to jump through, especially for people who come back to the game or are new to a game, which make the game inaccessible for many. The fact boxing exists, and is so prevalent, means that grouping is not so straightforward and some are saying it is. If grouping was never an issue, there would be no boxers, simple as that. You box to circumvent the grouping. As far as guilds go. Are guilds actually a good thing in MMO? They form a clique within a game. World events should group people, not artificiallly made groups. Rift's events in the early days of the game is a good example of people coming together, based on world events, not based on cliques.
This is an interesting question. For a bit more recent example, GW2 put a heavy emphasis on world events. I would say that both elements (self-selection as part of a group and proximity) can create good social content. "Cliques" aren't necessarily bad, although that particular term has some negative connotations. In the end, I'm much happier adventuring with a group of people who've chosen to come together to work with eachother and make an organization stronger than I am adventuring with a group of people who are working together out of convenience and proximity. "Hey, we're both killing this stuff, wanna group up?" is a great dynamic to have, doubly so if the "grouping" is automatic, but that doesn't mean "Hey, we're a team, what do you want to go do?" should be thrown by the wayside. A large part of the social aspect of the MMO is made up of exclusivity and connections between players, not just that there are a bunch of other people running around.
I doubt that without guilds it would be possible to raid in the actual expansion the very last raids. It requires that you have a good weam working together and it requires a certain skill. I dont want raids to be more easy than they are now, any kind of wow-ification of content is strongly disagreed from my side. I prefer to have Everquest as the last MMO requiring skill. This also involves that guilds need to be competitive and exactly this competition, who is the first on beating the encounters is what requires guilds to be very selective and picky on who ´becomes member, and who doesnt fit into (loops to jump through). But there are also many guilds that dont raid. Or players organizing open raids. Or several guilds work together to beat the encounters. Id say that everyone should do like he wants to. Im not trying to convince you, that my point of view is the right one, at least it is the right one for me as it is, while yours wouldnt be the one id fit into. In general i dont have an opinion about if guilds are bad or good. In Everquest, with the content the game offers for groups, you dont need to be member of a guild. Regarding raids it is necessary to be in one to raid the actual content. Else it is very hard, because you dont have the required number of certain classes to have fixed days on which you meet up and raid. That is one of the loops you dislike, but for us as guild they are necessary, andf it is hard work to keep all the possibilities and benefits up for our members: our officers have a lot of work to do for that.
I like boxing. I prefer playing EQ single player. I only need other people around to populate the FV bazaar for me.
I disagree. Plenty of people just don't like grouping in EQ, but do like to take on content that is beyond the reach of soloing/moloing, so they will box, no matter what. Removing boxing won't magically make more people join groups, it will just get some of the boxers to leave the game outright, and the others to continue soloing, but with far less enjoyment. Boxing is just a tool for soloers to use, and the number of boxes has little to no correlation with the difficulty or insularity of EQ players.
Because of many of the reasons I gave you. Which is why they box. What you're arguing is that they don't like grouping at all, no matter what the circumstances. And I don't believe that for a minute, you don't join a game like EQ if you hate grouping.
I don't box because I hate grouping with people.. i box because I don't want to sit for hours waiting for enough of my friends to log in to do something. I could form a group of people who I don't know. then spend 30 minutes getting somewhere, then another 20 dying and figuring out how they play/pick up aggro/etc.... and sometimes I do that.. other times I don't want to waste my time teaching/training/learning to group with someone else.. I just load up my mage/wizard combo and go kill stuff.
I think, that you see something wrong. There are many reasons why ppl box, to list some of them: .) dont like to wait for others cause of limited playtime .) prefer single player character gameplay .) dont want to lose the ultimate rare drop to some slacker because of /random .) playing style different: faster & more skilled vs. slower & more relaxed .) language barriers? .) menthal illlness (phobia, borderline ..) .) achievement "i did that alone!" .) dont want to group with especially this/these player(s) for any reason and there are many more reasons. You cant force players to play like a minority wants it to have. And btw: every player in EQ has to go through the same issues all the time, had to look for groups, had to jump certain loops to join a community or decided not to join a community/clique and has to live with the consequences (which is the loop in this case). Refusing to accept the consequences while demanding that others should also give up their habits and benefits (which they have worked hard for, and very long time) to make the whole more accessible for you, is not only strange, it is simply wrong.
People box because they are unwilling to play the game with single account ownership disadvantage. SOE could reduce single account ownership disadvantage, make boxing more inconvenient and erode it's advantages. However if people are willing to Pay Not To Lo$e (a variant of Pay to Win) and single account owners aren't leaving in droves for games that are friendlier to the play one toon at a time crowd then SOE apparently isn't going to turn down the money. (SOE could theoretically make us all boxers by allowing us to play more than one toon at a time on an account. But running bot armies is not what they sold us and its not what we bought 14 years ago.) With FtP I suppose we could all hydra (after those of us who haven't leveled an alt do so). Then those who pay for multiple accounts would only be paying for not having the FtP restrictions on their bots and the privilege of gearing them up with raid rots. Its a blot on the reputation of the product, but it isn't a show stopper. Its only a hundred or a couple of hundred extra dollars a year paying for power.
It goes back to something I was talking about in another thread: People defining their enjoyment not by what they themselves are doing, but by what other people are doing. Not even what other people are doing to them, but by what other people are doing on their own time. Removing boxing will not make more, better, or happier groups, all it will do is stop some people from enjoying the game in their own ways just because others don't think it is 'proper'. It's the epitome of spite and vindictiveness.
