MMO Trading, Loot Systems, and Economy

[Tweed]

I betcha my guild did the raid mobs with a heck of a lot less people than you did, and why? Because we didn't zerg to the spawns to insure we could take them down before another got there. We didn't have other guilds pulling in mobs to wipe our raid or sending in Tanks to grab agro to mess up hate lists, etc...)

Wow...

► Show Spoiler

What a badass...

You are the one claiming cheating... I point out that I did the raid mobs with less people, which is more difficult... but because I paid more money (ie higher sub for a calendar raids) to be able to select the time to do them because I worked... its cheating...

Do you use logic or are you just mad that you weren't old enough and couldn't get your mommy to pay for your EQ?

Were you even alive when EQ released? Maybe you were still walking around pissing in your diapers?

Do you even know what stormhammer was?

It was the rich kid server where people paid 40 bucks a month to cut in line and get special treatment from personal GMs. Good thing it didn't last very long or become a regular thing, that kind of **** would have killed off EQ even faster than the ***** ***** did.

[Xenich]

Wow...

► Show Spoiler

What a badass...

You are the one claiming cheating... I point out that I did the raid mobs with less people, which is more difficult... but because I paid more money (ie higher sub for a calendar raids) to be able to select the time to do them because I worked... its cheating...

Do you use logic or are you just mad that you weren't old enough and couldn't get your mommy to pay for your EQ?

Were you even alive when EQ released? Maybe you were still walking around pissing in your diapers?

Do you even know what stormhammer was?

It was the rich kid server where people paid 40 bucks a month to cut in line and get special treatment from personal GMs. Good thing it didn't last very long or become a regular thing, that kind of **** would have killed off EQ even faster than the ***** ***** did.

Odd I didn't know a lot of "kids" there, but a lot of older guys on there (ie professionals) who loved EQ, but didn't have the time to raid contested like that.

Storhammer had extra GM support for various things (bugs, resets, etc...), special events, rare mobs, world events, zone events, etc... I think a guild web management page, and some specialized things like loot that could be named after people for major achievements.

Aside from that, there was the guild raid calendar as I mentioned which each guild had to qualify for the tier they wanted to raid (ie they had to beat the mob for no loot first before they could even be allowed to raid it normally and were put into a rotation with other guilds.

That was the extent of it.

There was no special treatment outside of that. No GMs cheating for people, giving them loot, wins, etc... In fact, the server was very close to how the normal servers were on release where the GMs were very active, did events, etc... Maybe you weren't around for release EQ?


It is funny how you claim it would have "killed off EQ", when in fact it is exactly the opposite. Catering to the **** blocking raider guilds IS what killed off EQ (remember the GoD being released before Omens because Furor/Tigole and the other ******* threatened to leave with all thier zerg guild members if they didn't get their way?) You know, that expansion where there was a ton of content that most of the server couldn't do and an entire gated zone all for the top raiders to group in while everyone else sat on their *** waiting for the group based content of that expansion to be released (Omens of War).

And then... what happend? That's right... WoW and people left in droves to do what? Oh thats right... cheat right? You know, because they had instanced zones where they could you know, schedule their raids and do them at a time they wanted without having to get into a cluster **** race with a bunch of kiddies who had no jobs?

What's that? You mean Furor and Tigole left EQ for WoW anyway?

In fact, if EQ would have implemented a model like Stormhammer (ie scheduled raids), I think a lot of people might have continued playing. You know, that thing where you can actually experience the content rather than being a **** boy for a bunch of no job kids who sat on the game 24/7.

Hate to break it to you, but it wasn't the working adults who were raiding all the time, it was the kiddies still in school, living off mommy and daddy, or in college skipping classes again, living off mommy and daddy.

By all means though, please tell me I am the kid because I paid my own ******* bills, worked full time and paid for a server that actually allowed me to play the content in the game.

Yeah, you were the ******* kid and you are just whining because you think somehow living your life in the ******* game is somehow... "playing it without cheating".

Now run off and get another achievement in your games you ******* furry ******.

[Tweed]

You are the one claiming cheating... I point out that I did the raid mobs with less people, which is more difficult... but because I paid more money (ie higher sub for a calendar raids) to be able to select the time to do them because I worked... its cheating...

Do you use logic or are you just mad that you weren't old enough and couldn't get your mommy to pay for your EQ?

Were you even alive when EQ released? Maybe you were still walking around pissing in your diapers?

Do you even know what stormhammer was?

It was the rich kid server where people paid 40 bucks a month to cut in line and get special treatment from personal GMs. Good thing it didn't last very long or become a regular thing, that kind of **** would have killed off EQ even faster than the ***** ***** did.

Odd I didn't know a lot of "kids" there, but a lot of older guys on there (ie professionals) who loved EQ, but didn't have the time to raid contested like that.

Storhammer had extra GM support for various things (bugs, resets, etc...), special events, rare mobs, world events, zone events, etc... I think a guild web management page, and some specialized things like loot that could be named after people for major achievements.

Aside from that, there was the guild raid calendar as I mentioned which each guild had to qualify for the tier they wanted to raid (ie they had to beat the mob for no loot first before they could even be allowed to raid it normally and were put into a rotation with other guilds.

That was the extent of it.

There was no special treatment outside of that. No GMs cheating for people, giving them loot, wins, etc... In fact, the server was very close to how the normal servers were on release where the GMs were very active, did events, etc... Maybe you weren't around for release EQ?


It is funny how you claim it would have "killed off EQ", when in fact it is exactly the opposite. Catering to the **** blocking raider guilds IS what killed off EQ (remember the GoD being released before Omens because Furor/Tigole and the other ******* threatened to leave with all thier zerg guild members if they didn't get their way?) You know, that expansion where there was a ton of content that most of the server couldn't do and an entire gated zone all for the top raiders to group in while everyone else sat on their *** waiting for the group based content of that expansion to be released (Omens of War).

And then... what happend? That's right... WoW and people left in droves to do what? Oh thats right... cheat right? You know, because they had instanced zones where they could you know, schedule their raids and do them at a time they wanted without having to get into a cluster **** race with a bunch of kiddies who had no jobs?

What's that? You mean Furor and Tigole left EQ for WoW anyway?

In fact, if EQ would have implemented a model like Stormhammer (ie scheduled raids), I think a lot of people might have continued playing. You know, that thing where you can actually experience the content rather than being a **** boy for a bunch of no job kids who sat on the game 24/7.

Hate to break it to you, but it wasn't the working adults who were raiding all the time, it was the kiddies still in school, living off mommy and daddy, or in college skipping classes again, living off mommy and daddy.

By all means though, please tell me I am the kid because I paid my own ******* bills, worked full time and paid for a server that actually allowed me to play the content in the game.

Yeah, you were the ******* kid and you are just whining because you think somehow living your life in the ******* game is somehow... "playing it without cheating".

Now run off and get another achievement in your games you ******* furry ******.

You sound upset.

[Xenich]

It was the rich kid server where people paid 40 bucks a month to cut in line and get special treatment from personal GMs. Good thing it didn't last very long or become a regular thing, that kind of **** would have killed off EQ even faster than the ***** ***** did.

Odd I didn't know a lot of "kids" there, but a lot of older guys on there (ie professionals) who loved EQ, but didn't have the time to raid contested like that.

Storhammer had extra GM support for various things (bugs, resets, etc...), special events, rare mobs, world events, zone events, etc... I think a guild web management page, and some specialized things like loot that could be named after people for major achievements.

Aside from that, there was the guild raid calendar as I mentioned which each guild had to qualify for the tier they wanted to raid (ie they had to beat the mob for no loot first before they could even be allowed to raid it normally and were put into a rotation with other guilds.

That was the extent of it.

There was no special treatment outside of that. No GMs cheating for people, giving them loot, wins, etc... In fact, the server was very close to how the normal servers were on release where the GMs were very active, did events, etc... Maybe you weren't around for release EQ?


It is funny how you claim it would have "killed off EQ", when in fact it is exactly the opposite. Catering to the **** blocking raider guilds IS what killed off EQ (remember the GoD being released before Omens because Furor/Tigole and the other ******* threatened to leave with all thier zerg guild members if they didn't get their way?) You know, that expansion where there was a ton of content that most of the server couldn't do and an entire gated zone all for the top raiders to group in while everyone else sat on their *** waiting for the group based content of that expansion to be released (Omens of War).

And then... what happend? That's right... WoW and people left in droves to do what? Oh thats right... cheat right? You know, because they had instanced zones where they could you know, schedule their raids and do them at a time they wanted without having to get into a cluster **** race with a bunch of kiddies who had no jobs?

What's that? You mean Furor and Tigole left EQ for WoW anyway?

In fact, if EQ would have implemented a model like Stormhammer (ie scheduled raids), I think a lot of people might have continued playing. You know, that thing where you can actually experience the content rather than being a **** boy for a bunch of no job kids who sat on the game 24/7.

Hate to break it to you, but it wasn't the working adults who were raiding all the time, it was the kiddies still in school, living off mommy and daddy, or in college skipping classes again, living off mommy and daddy.

By all means though, please tell me I am the kid because I paid my own ******* bills, worked full time and paid for a server that actually allowed me to play the content in the game.

Yeah, you were the ******* kid and you are just whining because you think somehow living your life in the ******* game is somehow... "playing it without cheating".

Now run off and get another achievement in your games you ******* furry ******.

You sound upset.

Actually, not at all. Thanks for asking though.

[Oyster Sauce]

I betcha my guild did the raid mobs with a heck of a lot less people than you did, and why? Because we didn't zerg to the spawns to insure we could take them down before another got there. We didn't have other guilds pulling in mobs to wipe our raid or sending in Tanks to grab agro to mess up hate lists, etc...)

Wow...

► Show Spoiler

What a badass...

You are the one claiming cheating... I point out that I did the raid mobs with less people, which is more difficult... but because I paid more money (ie higher sub for a calendar raids) to be able to select the time to do them because I worked... its cheating...

Do you use logic or are you just mad that you weren't old enough and couldn't get your mommy to pay for your EQ?

Were you even alive when EQ released? Maybe you were still walking around pissing in your diapers?

Do you even know what stormhammer was?

I'm confused. You paid to have people leave mobs alone for you? Or you paid the GM to keep the area clear of other players?

[Tweed]

I'm confused. You paid to have people leave mobs alone for you? Or you paid the GM to keep the area clear of other players?

Here: https://afkgamer.com/archives/2005/12/12/legends/ this gives a few insights into what it was and some of the stuff that went on. It was a candyland for people with too much money. RMT started taking off as well and SoE mostly turned a blind eye to it much like the ****** of today with current EQ and then they pulled the plug and that was the end of the great experiment. All the eloi had to rejoin the filthy, unwashed morlocks or find something else to do. Anyhow this guy wants to tell you that player trading shouldn't be allowed in MMOs never mind that he blew 40 dollars out of his ******* every month for special treatment on a server where loot rained down from the sky.

[Xenich]

Wow...

► Show Spoiler

What a badass...

You are the one claiming cheating... I point out that I did the raid mobs with less people, which is more difficult... but because I paid more money (ie higher sub for a calendar raids) to be able to select the time to do them because I worked... its cheating...

Do you use logic or are you just mad that you weren't old enough and couldn't get your mommy to pay for your EQ?

Were you even alive when EQ released? Maybe you were still walking around pissing in your diapers?

Do you even know what stormhammer was?

I'm confused. You paid to have people leave mobs alone for you? Or you paid the GM to keep the area clear of other players?

Did you pay WoW to instance all of your raids for you?

[Xenich]

I'm confused. You paid to have people leave mobs alone for you? Or you paid the GM to keep the area clear of other players?

Here: https://afkgamer.com/archives/2005/12/12/legends/ this gives a few insights into what it was and some of the stuff that went on. It was a candyland for people with too much money. RMT started taking off as well and SoE mostly turned a blind eye to it much like the ****** of today with current EQ and then they pulled the plug and that was the end of the great experiment. All the eloi had to rejoin the filthy, unwashed morlocks or find something else to do. Anyhow this guy wants to tell you that player trading shouldn't be allowed in MMOs never mind that he blew 40 dollars out of his ******* every month for special treatment on a server where loot rained down from the sky.

I left before it was shut down mainly due to the fact that PoP killed the game and it was continuing down hill with its ******** designs.

"loot rained down from the sky"? Lol

Explain how? Lets do the math. If Server A kills all the raid mobs each week and Sever B does, how much loot has dropped? Think carefully.


Like I said, the only difference was that people were put on schedules and raid target steals, griefing, etc... was not allowed (you were banned).

edit:
Got rid of some of the rants and points nobody cares about anyway.

One thing though... too much money? See, when you say **** like this it makes me think you were a child at the time. For an adult, working a professional job, 40 bucks wasn't a big deal if it was a hobby, especially if you were into computers as various video cards, processors, memory, etc... were FAR more expensive. I spent over 8k building my rack mount systems back then, but you think I had "too much money" for a sub?

Lets see, have no job or work at the local coffee shop making peanuts so I can "have the appropriate amount of money" and play a video game at the correct level of 10 bucks (rather than 40) a month sub so I can think myself legitimate and respectful as I sit 16-24 hours a day waiting on a raid target to pop so I can get a bunch of other "legit" players online immediately to go and get a shiny digital item to drop.

I think it is amusing as if I were to evaluate your spending habits, I am sure I could find a lot of crap you spend on that is ******** and wasteful.

[Xenich]

@Tweed

So far, you have sat back and made judgements on me... what about you though?

1. Did you play EQ at release? What era?

2. Did you raid to any extent or just occasionally catch some scrap raid targets?

3. Were you a kid or an adult? Did you have a full time job?

4. Did you play on a PvE server or PvP?


What I find interesting though... is on one hand you give me crap for playing on a server that didn't allow contested raid targets so guilds had the time to schedule, plan, and take on a target in their rotation, but...

On the other hand you argue for player trade so players can purchase raid items from other players who did the content themselves and these people who "bought" their items in the player markets could literally deck out complete raid gear without being present at a single raid.

Yet because I actually earned every gear drop myself by going through the process of learning and beating the raids, I am the "cheater".

So apparently people who farm mundane coin for months, or play the trade game to amass money to "purchase" their rewards, they are "legit", but because I paid a higher sub to actually be able to play the game myself, I am... cheating.

That is modern mainstream kiddie logic.

At least I can respect the PvP players, they had to earn everything in complete contested content. We had several who transferred to Stormhammer because it was fun they said, but you couldn't raid anything because every raid was a gank fest and nobody could down the content very often because of it. At least, they put their money where their mouth is.

But hey, give me **** though for wanting to actually play the game. I should have just bought all my **** like the other purists.

[Xenich]

Anyway, as for the trading system. Over the decades, I have kind of went back and forth on some concepts.

For instance, I remember actually talking about a token system implementation when I was doing EQ. It sounded good, but really as many found out, it kills the game.

Contested content.

I have to say, it works... but... it depends.

The entire system of timed spawns with rare spawns and rare loot is actually very good I think. Camping I thought was a good mechanic, but it was contingent on things.

For instance, dungeons needed to be packed with mobs, death had to be severe and require "time" to recover (ie corpse runs, exp loss, etc..). You needed groups to take time to get to each location where a named might pop and it needed to be difficult to hold that camp point as well.

Naturally, with contested content there needed to also be A LOT of content. EQ did pretty well with a lot of its large dungeons with numerous choke points, rare named with place holders, etc...

Group content worked well for this...

Raid content... well... not saying there shouldn't be "some" contested raid targets, but the problems that were acceptable with contested group content become impractical on raid targets.

This is where player trade becomes an issue. I think that if EQ had no player trade of raid/group rares, but allowed common/uncommons, combined with absolute banning of bots/boxing, it would work well. Between GMs, AI evaluation of players, etc.. you could limit it I think.

This way, players could still trade crafted, common/uncommon items, but could never "buy" achievement in the game. In group content, even working full time, you can still achieve everything (I played up until SoL on normal servers and had no issues obtaining group items, it just took longer).

Raid content... I think instancing is good... Add in no drop gear and it gates the people who "buy" their progression (outside of ******* paying guilds real money to down targets for them). You can still have various contested raid content like WoW did, but it shouldn't be the "drive" for the game.

Success in a game shouldn't be based on being without a job, and the problem with EQ raiding wasn't "time spent", rather it was availability at any given moment. So the only difference between those who raided and those who did not very often was being available without a job to be able to play the game. Note, this is not the same as people who whine about not having a lot of play time. I worked 60+ hours a week and with scheduled raids was still able to play.

With group content, I also had time, I just had to plan and schedule with friends on times we could play. So "time" isn't the issue as I said, it is being available like you are on call and you can't do that with a real job (well most jobs, knew some network admins who would sit all day playing from their desk, but that is not a reasonable expectation, besides, they were worthless anyway).

So there is no reason for full trade and I can't see how anyone thinks "buying" their item rather than obtaining it themselves is not circumventing play, aka cheating it.

I think the problems full instancing cause can be fixed by a hybrid of EQ's systems combined with a couple of features and mechanics of more modern ones, but as long as the goal is allowing people to actually "play" the content, not circumvent it which is what player trade often does.

I don't care what anyone says, being a master trader in the game where you can amass millions of coin to buy everything isn't playing the game, it is playing a economy game to circumvent the overall basic design of an gaming system. There are much better games out there entirely centered around trading, politicking, etc... all they do when implemented into a system like EQ is allow for cheating the actual game play.

[Tweed]

I left before it was shut down mainly due to the fact that PoP killed the game and it was continuing down hill with its ******** designs.

"loot rained down from the sky"? Lol

Explain how? Lets do the math. If Server A kills all the raid mobs each week and Sever B does, how much loot has dropped? Think carefully.


Like I said, the only difference was that people were put on schedules and raid target steals, griefing, etc... was not allowed (you were banned).

edit:
Got rid of some of the rants and points nobody cares about anyway.

One thing though... too much money? See, when you say **** like this it makes me think you were a child at the time. For an adult, working a professional job, 40 bucks wasn't a big deal if it was a hobby, especially if you were into computers as various video cards, processors, memory, etc... were FAR more expensive. I spent over 8k building my rack mount systems back then, but you think I had "too much money" for a sub?

Lets see, have no job or work at the local coffee shop making peanuts so I can "have the appropriate amount of money" and play a video game at the correct level of 10 bucks (rather than 40) a month sub so I can think myself legitimate and respectful as I sit 16-24 hours a day waiting on a raid target to pop so I can get a bunch of other "legit" players online immediately to go and get a shiny digital item to drop.

I think it is amusing as if I were to evaluate your spending habits, I am sure I could find a lot of crap you spend on that is ******** and wasteful.

So far, you have sat back and made judgements on me... what about you though?

1. Did you play EQ at release? What era?

2. Did you raid to any extent or just occasionally catch some scrap raid targets?

3. Were you a kid or an adult? Did you have a full time job?

4. Did you play on a PvE server or PvP?


What I find interesting though... is on one hand you give me crap for playing on a server that didn't allow contested raid targets so guilds had the time to schedule, plan, and take on a target in their rotation, but...

On the other hand you argue for player trade so players can purchase raid items from other players who did the content themselves and these people who "bought" their items in the player markets could literally deck out complete raid gear without being present at a single raid.

Yet because I actually earned every gear drop myself by going through the process of learning and beating the raids, I am the "cheater".

So apparently people who farm mundane coin for months, or play the trade game to amass money to "purchase" their rewards, they are "legit", but because I paid a higher sub to actually be able to play the game myself, I am... cheating.

That is modern mainstream kiddie logic.

At least I can respect the PvP players, they had to earn everything in complete contested content. We had several who transferred to Stormhammer because it was fun they said, but you couldn't raid anything because every raid was a gank fest and nobody could down the content very often because of it. At least, they put their money where their mouth is.

But hey, give me **** though for wanting to actually play the game. I should have just bought all my **** like the other purists.

Anyway, as for the trading system. Over the decades, I have kind of went back and forth on some concepts.

For instance, I remember actually talking about a token system implementation when I was doing EQ. It sounded good, but really as many found out, it kills the game.

Contested content.

I have to say, it works... but... it depends.

The entire system of timed spawns with rare spawns and rare loot is actually very good I think. Camping I thought was a good mechanic, but it was contingent on things.

For instance, dungeons needed to be packed with mobs, death had to be severe and require "time" to recover (ie corpse runs, exp loss, etc..). You needed groups to take time to get to each location where a named might pop and it needed to be difficult to hold that camp point as well.

Naturally, with contested content there needed to also be A LOT of content. EQ did pretty well with a lot of its large dungeons with numerous choke points, rare named with place holders, etc...

Group content worked well for this...

Raid content... well... not saying there shouldn't be "some" contested raid targets, but the problems that were acceptable with contested group content become impractical on raid targets.

This is where player trade becomes an issue. I think that if EQ had no player trade of raid/group rares, but allowed common/uncommons, combined with absolute banning of bots/boxing, it would work well. Between GMs, AI evaluation of players, etc.. you could limit it I think.

This way, players could still trade crafted, common/uncommon items, but could never "buy" achievement in the game. In group content, even working full time, you can still achieve everything (I played up until SoL on normal servers and had no issues obtaining group items, it just took longer).

Raid content... I think instancing is good... Add in no drop gear and it gates the people who "buy" their progression (outside of ******* paying guilds real money to down targets for them). You can still have various contested raid content like WoW did, but it shouldn't be the "drive" for the game.

Success in a game shouldn't be based on being without a job, and the problem with EQ raiding wasn't "time spent", rather it was availability at any given moment. So the only difference between those who raided and those who did not very often was being available without a job to be able to play the game. Note, this is not the same as people who whine about not having a lot of play time. I worked 60+ hours a week and with scheduled raids was still able to play.

With group content, I also had time, I just had to plan and schedule with friends on times we could play. So "time" isn't the issue as I said, it is being available like you are on call and you can't do that with a real job (well most jobs, knew some network admins who would sit all day playing from their desk, but that is not a reasonable expectation, besides, they were worthless anyway).

So there is no reason for full trade and I can't see how anyone thinks "buying" their item rather than obtaining it themselves is not circumventing play, aka cheating it.

I think the problems full instancing cause can be fixed by a hybrid of EQ's systems combined with a couple of features and mechanics of more modern ones, but as long as the goal is allowing people to actually "play" the content, not circumvent it which is what player trade often does.

I don't care what anyone says, being a master trader in the game where you can amass millions of coin to buy everything isn't playing the game, it is playing a economy game to circumvent the overall basic design of an gaming system. There are much better games out there entirely centered around trading, politicking, etc... all they do when implemented into a system like EQ is allow for cheating the actual game play.

[Xenich]

Figured as much...

You walk in mouthing off making insults and claims you have no clue about...

Then, when I press for details or ask you to validate the conflict in your position...

You insult some more.

I am right, you were a kid during EQ (or likely never played it anywhere near release and so have no ******* clue what it was like).

Typical mainstream ******* blow hard. You go on about "cheating", but then claim player trade is good because you buy all your gear rather than actually playing the game for it.


Dipshit logic:

Paying a higher sub to be able to actually play the game = cheating.

Buying gear rather than earning it in play = Legit.

You are ********.

[Oyster Sauce]

Figured as much...

You walk in mouthing off making insults and claims you have no clue about...

Then, when I press for details or ask you to validate the conflict in your position...

You insult some more.

I am right, you were a kid during EQ (or likely never played it anywhere near release and so have no ******* clue what it was like).

Typical mainstream ******* blow hard. You go on about "cheating", but then claim player trade is good because you buy all your gear rather than actually playing the game for it.


Dipshit logic:

Paying a higher sub to be able to actually play the game = cheating.

Buying gear rather than earning it in play = Legit.

You are ********.

You did cheat btw

[Stack of Turtles]

You did cheat btw

Worse: paid to cheat. How sad is that?

[Xenich]

So far you claim, but none of you explain.

What about it is cheating?


BTW, buying your gear from another player who actually picked up in a dungeon is the definition of cheating.

I earned my gear by beating the encounters. You went to an AH and gave gold, no fight, no encounter, no learning, no skill... just paid your way.

Edit:

Also, the only difference between a raid on stormhammer and that of a normal was that it was scheduled for that guild. You still had to beat it, nothing was given to you.

If your argument is that the "game" was all about sitting around poop socking to rush to get the raid mob because you were online all the time...

Fine... I will accept that, but then that is a game designed for ******* jobless losers and I take no shame in being an adult at the time who had to work and pay bills. There is nothing notable or worthy of bragging about how you sat on your useless *** all day waiting to raid a mob. It is ******* pathetic.

[Xenich]

Oh, just noticed something... About this...

I'm confused. You paid to have people leave mobs alone for you? Or you paid the GM to keep the area clear of other players?

Here: https://afkgamer.com/archives/2005/12/12/legends/ this gives a few insights into what it was and some of the stuff that went on. It was a candyland for people with too much money. RMT started taking off as well and SoE mostly turned a blind eye to it much like the ****** of today with current EQ and then they pulled the plug and that was the end of the great experiment. All the eloi had to rejoin the filthy, unwashed morlocks or find something else to do. Anyhow this guy wants to tell you that player trading shouldn't be allowed in MMOs never mind that he blew 40 dollars out of his ******* every month for special treatment on a server where loot rained down from the sky.

Loot flowed like candy claim. (from your link)

Marauders was later shuttered because it was a gravy train. Seriously, I think that was the reason: loot flowed like gravy. Heh, the real reason was that the named spawns repopped like regular mobs, ergo gravy train, and they never got around to fixing it. I, personally, wasn’t broken up about it because I had to pull the **** zone over and over and over, but those that got to sit on their *** back at camp mourned its passing.

Oh, didn’t I mention that I moved to Stormhammer when it opened? Ya. Two accounts, $40 a month per for almost two years = ALOT.

I don't remember it, might have been after I left. In fact, I think it was... this was part of that little sub expansion they put out before GoD. I had left Stormhammer back to my old server and I only continued to play up to GoD before I quit EQ completely.

Interesting though, if you read the comments there you would see... the "gravy train" was a bug in the zone that they were lazy about fixing. By the way, this was an issue at times on normal servers with new raid content. The top raiding guilds would farm the broken content (not reporting it so they could max out) until it got patched and it was also what caused the famous test wipe fiasco with a bug that caused SoL A to drop all raid loot off random mobs.

So your whole claim is yet again, ignorance and accusation from a time you didn't experience. That wasn't a "feature" of the server, and it was a common problem across all servers with cheating bastards not reporting bugs and devs taking too long to deal with it.

edit:

ok, I remember now... this bug was on more than the legends server by the way. I was already back on my original server when this was happening. It was a big deal because one of the **** blocking guilds was perma camping the zone 24/7 farming the loot because they didn't want smaller guilds to gain in power to be able to do content.

Yeah, that it what EQ turned into, one or two guilds with 100's of members poop socking, **** blocking, and zerg raiding content 24/7 (they had no jobs). They were "legit" though! /derp /derp

[rusty_shackleford]

paying to cheat is one of the worst things I've ever read, we need a badge for this

[Xenich]

paying to cheat is one of the worst things I've ever read, we need a badge for this

There was no cheating going on though and not a single person has been able to define what the cheating was.

so.. what is cheating about it? Please, explain...

(in fact some normal servers started scheduling raids themselves. Basically, several power guilds got together, scheduled who could get what and then **** blocked the rest).

Good times! /derp

[rusty_shackleford]

paying to cheat is one of the worst things I've ever read, we need a badge for this

There was no cheating going on though and not a single person has been able to define what the cheating was.

so.. what is cheating about it? Please, explain...

(in fact some normal servers started scheduling raids themselves. Basically, several power guilds got together, scheduled who could get what and then **** blocked the rest).

Good times! /derp

I'm not even upset that you cheated because cheating and not getting caught is the highest tier of sportsmanship.
I'm upset that you paid to cheat.

[Xenich]

paying to cheat is one of the worst things I've ever read, we need a badge for this

There was no cheating going on though and not a single person has been able to define what the cheating was.

so.. what is cheating about it? Please, explain...

(in fact some normal servers started scheduling raids themselves. Basically, several power guilds got together, scheduled who could get what and then **** blocked the rest).

Good times! /derp

I'm not even upset that you cheated because cheating and not getting caught is the highest tier of sportsmanship.
I'm upset that you paid to cheat.

You guys are trolling me.

Seriously, what other alternative did I have if I wanted to raid?

It wasn't like I was given loot, or handed anything. Still had to beat the mobs (and in fact the first time you beat the boss, you got nothing in loot). That kind of sucked spending all the time and effort to down the AoW and all you got was "ok, you can now be put into the rotating schedule for this tier to raid this mob when it pops".

As I said, on my normal server we had 2 power guilds who had most of the raid content on perma farm for the last 3 expansions. And even if you did get there, get setup, they would rush in and zerg kill it, or they would wipe your raid training it and then take it. Add in the fact that you had even more problems with Euro guilds pushing in because they could set the spawns on their time zone and you really had no means of raiding at all other than the occasional straggler that fell through the cracks.

The legends server actually allowed all guilds to raid without these antics. You got to focus on the game, not PvPers hiding behind the protection of PvE.

I always thought that funny that these guys thought they were clever and skilled, but they weren't on a PvP server. "they were l33t"

Besides, they were some of the most unskilled whiny little people I had ever known and they had to zerg everything because they lacked any tactical ability and coordination. You didn't need 72 people to raid in EQ, FFS that was ********. People did it because if they didn't, another guild would zerg in and take it.

I hated EQ's raid game, but I was ok with it until all the content started to be designed around it. EQ was better when it was mostly group content with the occasional raid target. Raiding screwed everything up.

[Xenich]

Another interesting thing though on the legends server was because you didn't have to fight for raid fights, you had the time to do them with less people which in turn meant a lot more strategy in class use, tactics, etc...

For instance, the AoW, quaded around 1500 a hit and enraged at (certain percent, can't remember). As opposed to the idol, it couldn't be slowed and... after you killed the idol the AoW would pop and was on a timer before engage before it depopped.

Anyway, zerg raids had plenty of people to just approach it as a basic fight, tank and spank for the most part...


With less people though, tactics had to be applied. You had to have a heal chain and a replenish chain, but you were limited on people so you didn't have a a large heal pool and you didn't have the DPS to just down it quick without worrying about it.

Then you had the tanking, which had to be done with various tools (certain items that gave the warrior immediate agro). This could be done with some weapons if I remember right, but the key was the AoE taunt ability of the warrior as it immediately would jump the warrior to the top of the list gaining all the hate accrued by the raid.

This had to be done carefully as if the raid continued to DPS, they would easily over take the warrior. So, you had a tank chain, with a primary having the most agro, then a secondary who would build behind the primary, and so on...

Each tank chain had to moderate their agro building and avoid gaining agro, but keeping a healthy amount on the progression of the list. I can't remember all the details *been decades since I did this), but when enraged (ie every hit you make is reflected back at you) began, this is where it got tricky because a single turn to the raid (who was at its back) during enrage and it would instant kill the raid.

The warrior chain had to time special abilities that grabbed agro and hold it, but also they had to be careful as the enrage would spam kill them (this is the stress point with the healers if the warrior wasn't managing agro and attacks). I think the AoE taunt ability was on... a 30 min timer? Also, the warrior popped their defensive ability (again, can't remember exactly, but it allowed them to continue fighting, holding agro without being destroyed by the enrage).

So, you had several warriors who would alternate these abilities in a chain with the healers complete healing (druids spot healing), and rezing the warriors after thier cycle was done all while being replenished by other necros, mod sticks, etc...

The entire raid had to be careful or it was a instant wipe and they focused on DPS and waiting for calls for stop attack and start again.

With a small group, this is a very long fight (can't remember, but it was in the hour or two maybe more because I remember having a 6 warrior chain and it getting hairy at the end, AoW had a crap load of HP), but the real hard part was during the last 10% (?) when he enraged. The tank switch was the hardest, and most chance for error.

Anyway, this approach was not possible on a normal server. Any guild could walk in and screw up this tactic easily which is why everyone zerged (especially the AoW and why "server firsts" by those zerg guilds was such a joke).

Same was with Dane, you could do him with a very small group and you could pull him to the zone. worked out a monk pull chain timing the banish to get him to the raid at the zone line where we had a summon group at the well and at the zone which would invite banished people and summon them back to the raid). Basically, what used to be a long and horrible raid dealing with the dungeon trash while trying to fight him down the well, was a simple easy fight which avoided all the trash mobs and was done in very little time.

Again, this could not be done on normal servers because a guild could come in and screw up the timing, encounters, etc... So... people zerged down the well with mass amounts of people rather than playing tactically.

You can call the legends server "cheating" all you like, but being able to schedule raids without interference of other people allowed for more tactical play, not simply zerg fests of people with no jobs poop socking spawns.

Raids were actually fun back then.