EZ Server

Should we make the Fighter and Caster Guild Items no drop?

This would make it pointless from guilded players from farming the items for alts or trading, and then give new players a chance to camp the items.

Or make it all droppable to create an economy?

Help me decide. Instance for 100kpp hopefully helps already a bit since high end players can afford that easy giving the non-instance to the noobs.

I think they should stay droppable. They create an economy of items because plat doesnt matter as much here as it does on live. I think it is beneficial to new players starting out because they can offer something to higher end players for help getting epics. It is a pain in the ass sometimes to get all the items, especially in Lguk but thats what makes it worth something. If it were easy, new players would find it a lot more difficult to get help, except from some players who help just to be nice.

All lore

If you're still annoyed by the whining, make them Temporary

still annoyed? no-drop

Just throwing this out there.. what about adding some of them to the loot tables of lower populated zones like Kael or Karnor's. This would spread people out and give more options. I either get my SMR from Steamfont or LGuk depending on traffic. I know it doesn't follow the lore of the game.. but isn't that kind of derailed anyway?

Update~

I obviously don't understand the coding behind this quest but could you add an item counterpart to create a either/or scenario? That way I can either turn in a Fishbone Earring or a Manisi Herb to satisfy that requirement?

Either make them nodrop, or instance lguk.

Preferably the latter.  Economy is good, people farming these items 24/7 blocking legit progression is not.

edit; just noticed the lguk instance - problem with that is, 100k for 30 minutes is not going to fix the problem.  first of all, too expensive, it's supposed to benefit new players, the uber gods don't really need charity for gearing up their 5th ranger, etc..  secondly - 30 minutes?  Bosses there are 30 mins respawn, there's a very good chance 2 or more of them will have PH up when the zone is created - or it drops PH loot.  there's a very good chance you create a zone for 100k and don't even get 1 FG/CG item!

If you make it too expensive, people won't use it, they'll just keep camping the public zone, and we're right back in the same (lousy) situation.

Also, guild instance... WHY?  I brought this up before with ... BoThunder was it?  Not exactly raid zones, and guild-less people shouldn't be locked out. 

Make gukbottom 20k group instance lasts 2 hours, and 50k guild instance lasts 24.  Even at 2 hours you're asking people to group/box at least 3 characters to make sure the bosses (or PH) are killed as quickly as they spawn.  2 hours gives you only 4 shots at each boss, 5 if you're super-quick I guess and the timer gives you an extra couple minutes and doesn't boot you out at exactly 120:00 ...  Anyone who's camped these mobs will tell you that 4 spawns isn't guaranteed to get you the drop you need.   Again, if you make it too expenive/not worth it people won't use it..

I'd say just up the drop rate and it'd make things easier..

Hunter has already said in another thread that the instance will not port you out when the timer is up, you can stay until you get what you need. I believe you just can't leave and come back after the timer expires.

There is a 100k instance? Sweet now I can go get the items for alts wewt!

I think just making the spawn timers for all FG /CG items to 15 minutes.. not 30 minutes like most lguk is. It would make it alot easier for most and lowering the traffic at each camp provided they're lucky. not messing with the drop rate would be the counter to that.

Lguk isn't really THAT bad. . . It just seems bad b/c a lot of pieces come out of there so you spend a lot of time there.  I have 10 chars with FG/CG and i have never had bad luck with lguk.  Worst camp to get and then get boss to drop right piece of loot is KD!  Spent 8 hours there in line then another 3 hours for my KD,  in the time being i camped all of my LGuk stuff for CG and FG with an alt, worst is thats not the first time i spent that long at KD camp.

Not saying the guilding should be easy but you can get 1.5 in about 15 minutes with instances,  2.0 in about an hour if LDoN is clear, then 2-5 days for 2.5 b/c of the camping of garbage, and lastly 3.0 in about 1.5-2 hours if you are geared enough to do Qvic quickly.   Thats not uniform in my eyes a HUGE bottle neck right in the middle.  Once you get higher end its easier to start a char at level 1 and gear to T1 than it is to get FG/CG done.  These guilds are a huge hiccup and something needs to be done to make them easier.


I think making the items No Drop will open up camps but will make the quest as a whole take longer.  Making everything droppable will not change much at all since very few items are No Drop as it sits now.  Personally i think making all the spawns have NO PH! The boss needed is up every time (with or without item needed) will make it still a hassle to get to all the camps and gather all the items but will greatly reduce the time spend sitting in line or sitting and killing PHs for hours.

I vote to make it all droppable. It not only creates an economy but it also creates a link between upper tiered people and lower tiered people. I would not be surprised at all to now see people being able to sell the items for plat in addition to runs through qvic.

I think that as time goes on and the platinum is eaten up doing 100k instances will be hard.


Want to stop high levels from camping FG/CG items? Allow them to BUY FG/CG flags for like 500k plat.

I agree with no drop myself too.
Eventho i won't ever need it myself again.
It takes people out of boxing 5 chars all over the place day in day out for qvic runs or what not.
Make it so that you can purchase flags for a high price, so that the people that normally would camp all their
characters everywhere for quick flags, actually can buy them.
Purchasable items only able to be bought through lots of AA like charm upgrades or other things needed for progression.

Wouldn't it be easier to just make people that DO NOT need the items --- aka only there to sell the items -- give the spawn to the person that does NEED it until he/she gets the item they need for progression? To me this is kind of like loot whoring... Need before greed situations... Just tossing this out there... That way nothing has to be changed only a rule implemented. This allows further progressed players to continue to farm and us lower levels can still get what we need as well. Also making the items lore would work well too I'd think.

It's annoying going to a spot only to see someone camping it 24/7 to sell.

I'm new to server and I don't have pp to buy this stuff with. So camping it is the only way for me to progress.

Thanks :)

Nor does a new person have the resources to trade qvic runs.

I think no drop is a bad idea because the guild items are basically the only form of currency on this server from what I've seen; they trade for other guild items, for runs, for PLing, and maybe now even for cash since instancing requires plat.  Reminds me kinda of stones of jordan from diablo.  I'm not really sure what would happen if they became no drop, but my gut feeling is that removing all forms of currency on the server would lead to problems.  Plus, even if they are no drop, that doesn't stop someone from bringing in 6 toons and camping the spawn for just as long as they used to.  So the upsides seem slim and the downsides may be quite large.

Personally, I just think if the instance price came down some, it would solve most of the issues.  I'm relatively new (still working through ldon on my first set of chars) so I don't know how much 100k is to a long time player, but for me, I don't see this as really assisting me in getting guild items.  I guess if the intent is that the high end players go to the instance because they can afford it for their new alt, and the progression players go to the real zone, that might make it play out alright as well, only time will tell really. 

In sum, I think you should drop the price to maybe 50k, but other than that, just leave this implementation in for awhile and see what happens.  Give it a few weeks to sink in and maybe the problems will alleviate.

The real solution in my mind is to add another spawn or two for each guild item somewhere else in the world, kinda like how Quill and Terror are both 1.5 bosses.  That would do alot to spread out the camps.  But its also alot more work so I can see why it might wait awhile.

Make them drop able  lore, that way if someone is keeping a camp it at least makes it a bit more inconvenient for them.  

I vote no drop.  As someone who just started a week ago and has zero of my 7 toons in CG/FG simply because lGuk is so overcamped.  It's intimidating to want a to try and obtain the only thing everyone on the server is after (whether they need it or not!).   When I zone into lGuk and see 15 people in the zone, my usual response is "Screw this!" /click newbie trinket. 

For the people saying CG/FG camping to trade for Qvic runs is essential to progress... No it's not.  Paying someone to gear you up in gear you in stuff far ahead of what you would get by grouping/boxing your way up is BYPASSING progression. If the items became no-drop then you might actually have to GROUP or maybe even (OMG WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!?!) join a guild to get gear that's too difficult or time consuming to get solo/boxed.

I can understand wanting an economy on the server, but seriously at what cost? 

Surely there are other ways of getting tradeable valuable items introduced.   Maybe rare drops throughout progression zones that have some kind of benefit for leveling/roa?  Like the XP potions or something that they used to give you for buying a new expansion, except tradeable.   High level people doing ROA would find those much more valuable than FG/CG crap, especially now that they can just pay 100k and have an instance all to themselves...

I'd prefer the lore option, especially for knuckle dusters. One jerkoff could camp the spot for a whole day, whereas players would beg and cry just to get the door opened for them so they can just GET to the spawn.

This won't stop them from handing items away to guildmates or alts, but it'll discourage over-camping.

Making them no drop would kinda suck for the caster classes, like wizards. I mean, they go through much more to get to spawns. Melee are just one-man wrecking crews in comparison.

Maybe I'm just lucky.. but I never see this 'perma-camped' problem people speak of... I've done the Fg/Cg quest over 20times now and although guk is sometimes a little bit backed up, it's never stopped me from progressing... I just simply log in another toon to camp/wait in line,  and move on to another part of the quest, I mean it's guk... mobs are trivial to a lvl 50. The only place that I've ever had a backup at would be the king's cards, and there would be 10+ people in LDoN 5, but it was still doable, and if not... take a break until the zone clears out.

I also haven't encountered people holding spawns just to sell the items, although I have camped the KD for multiple items if nobody else was in the zone, and actually got 8 of them, then if people came to camp it I just gave them out for free and continued to camp it.

Just yesterday I created my chanter, and got her 2.5 within... 4 hours since making her, so honestly I just don't see what everyones problem is, I live on the West Coast, so I don't have any obscure play times... but anyways, point being, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way it is now, time consuming? yes, but I think it's perfect the way it is, maybe lower guk spawn times, but not needed, if anything, make all items lore... but not no drop, I traded 5 sets to get my first 5 3.0's until I was able to support myself, they are a great economy.

I'll post an idea here that I put in another thread:
I think making alternate drop points for the items  (for example what was done for the PGT) in rarely used zones is a start.

Maybe also make then no-drop, but be able to hand them into a NPC somewhere in Nexus that turns them into a droppable version.

So that people farming them for profit / QVIC runs can still do that, but not tie up a camp for hours on end, denying new players from progressing.

Not sure how difficult the coding for that would be, but is an idea.

Creating a high price instance isn't the answer.
Only people who have been here for a long time will have that sort of cash, and might not use the instance anyway...

I've seen / heard people camp the KD for hours and hours, farming them in order to sell / trade for QVIC runs.
And then, when finished, hand the camp to someone WHO WAS NOT EVEN IN THE CAMP at the time.

Camping an item is all well and good, but when it comes at the expense of newer players who do not have the money to buy said item and therefore blocks their progression (when the camps in LGuk suck to start with), it can drive new people away and thus creates an "elitist environment".

Or another solution is to implement the Tiki rule.
Once you have one item, move on.  Vacate the camp, so that the next person in line gets a chance.
Or go to the back of the current line.

Just three ideas I've had......

Making these no drop would just suck, the people camping lguk the most are the noobs NOT higher ends. How many of these noobs are even at the current part where they must do fg/cg for progression. True noobs dont even make it past 1.5's. People asking for the no drop items will only bite ya in the ass later on. What happens when you want to create an alt and your all uber. You will want to do qvic runs for the quick set. Don't make this epic quest a pain in the ass. Makes me sad these wow fuckers want to crap up eq.

Another thing, how are you noobs complaining about fg/cg being over camped before complaining about ldon being over camped? ldon comes before fg/cg in progression. Is it because the higher ends are farming points and you guys snagged the rot pages? In that case your not progressing at all, just leaching off people.

Lets look at it this way... ldon 6 = lguk because there's always people there. Ldon 5 = sebilis because at times you can find the zone open but good chances are its camped. Ldon 1-4 are like the other fg/cg camps in which you occasionaly see people (this is how it used to be). Except now ldon zones have 10+ people in each zone.

So please tell me why you guys are crying for fix for cg/fg before a fix for ldon? Remember cg/fg is half of the 2.5 quest!

With all that filth coming off of your tongue I'm surprised you can stand the taste of it.

What happens when I want an alt in the cg/fg? I camp the items, like you're supposed to.   What if I want qvic runs? I get friends to run it (with your attitude that might not be an option) or I box it myself.  The reason this camp is a pain is not because you have to wait on your own drop, but on everyone and their brother camping in front of you, not for their own items, but for items to trade.  No drop solves this problem.

What's wrong with getting rotting pages if you have permission to do so??? Also you're comparing getting 1 item to getting multiple each at a different place/camp and waiting in line for each camp.  Maybe that's why people have an issue? Need before Greed. If your alt needs it... camp one... If you are just wanting to sell it then it's common courtesy to pass the camp to the person that needs it. When s/he is gone continue camping. That's all we're asking. Is it too much to ask for some courtesy?

Also, Have you TRIED getting a group for these thing atm with all the noobs??? Just getting a group is like pulling teeth. Then once you're there and you have your own group mates being retarded and training you, or like myself... agro'ing too many because I don't know the zone... so I can't solo there either... It's frustrating. I'm NOT crying, I'm just stating clearly there is a justifiable fix. Just make each item lore that way they can only be camped 1 x per toon thus making lines shorter for those progressing and still keeping items for the economy.

:) my 2 cents

I voted for No Drop.  Yes, I know that the FG/CG items are the server's only real economy.  The problem is, it is also progression.  People permacamping a progression item to use as currency is wrong.

All other progression items are timed spawn with a certain drop.  True, the CG/FG Quest would lose the quest feel if there were no randomness to the spawn/drop of the item.  But that change along with no drop would probably remove the bottleneck entirely.

There's lots of stuff beyond the 1.5 you have to work hard to get (armor in t2 and t4).  This one served it's purpose when the server was young and the population low.  Now that things are busier, I don't think you'll ruin the gameplay experience by making this phase of progression more like the rest.  Of course, I have no idea what's involved in coding that so it may be impractical...or at the very least WAY down on the list of things that need to be dealt with.   ;)

Oh yeah, that was some great drama.

During double drop weekend, Tinythorn camped KD for an entire day, while players complained in OOC about it. He didn't even respond, and after he was finally done with the camp, tried to hand it over to another guildmate who wasn't even there yet.

Oh, and while I stand by my suggestion of making all FG/CG items lore, I also suggest making the instances solo only! Reduce the cost of making the instance slightly to counter the fact that some players might not be in the instance for very long.

I'm all for making the items no drop.

Okay, let's examine the issues:

Facts:
- EZ Server has had a huge population increase of late
- The quests and drops were built around a smaller population
- Greater number of players means greater camping required
- Not everyone can (or has the desire to) multibox
- Not everyone wants to be run through their progression
- FG/CG items are pretty much the only currency the server values (whether for good or bad, that's how it is.)
- A large number of people see something is camped and find something else to do, so keep in mind any added feature to reduce camp time/length may not have a noticed effect at a micro level; it has to be examined in a global/general way.

Suggested Solutions and Potential Repercussions:
Make FG/CG No Drop
- Non-boxers will no longer be able to get help in Qvic/LDoN except by random chance from a helpful stranger/guildy. They will be stuck at 1.5 or 2.0 until people start focusing on grouping in the early tiers (in the meantime, we'll see a lot of people quit instead of wait for this shift.)
- Boxers farming for alts will just sit with their army of alts in the camps.
- People boxing multiple camps will continue to box multiple camps and just run the alt needing the drops to the camp when a needed item drops.
- What changes: Potentially fewer people camping multiple drops in a row, no people farming to trade for other items/runs, noobs/one-boxers lose something to "work for" to get help progressing since nobody groups pre-Tacvi, and lines become a bit shorter for the items.
- Keep in mind how many people go "It's camped? Screw this." Those people will now go camp it instead.

Make Them Lore
- One-boxers can only farm one at a time.
- Multi-boxers will camp an army of alts at the camps, logging them in and out to loot until they have enough.
- People will continue to farm for runs/trades.
- Will prevent SOME cases of camping multiple drop, but not all (see second point.)
- End Result: One-boxers camp less. Multi-boxers unchanged.

Make Them No Drop, But Tradeable After NPC Turnin
- Lots of work by the dev team
- Not seeing how this changes much, honestly.
- If you're thinking Lore + No Drop, see downsides to Lore above.

100k Guild Instances
- Benefits the rich folk most, who will be farming for alts/bots.
- Nearly insurmountable cost for the "little guy," who will continue to farm non-instance.
- People farming for greed over need won't be dropping 100k, and will continue to use non-instance.
- Larger guilds may organize "FG/CG days" for their members, but at 100k/24 hours it won't be an ongoing thing like the Epic instancing is.
- End Result: Potentially lower public camp lines for the rich multiboxing crowd. Still long lines for the people farming to trade or for their personal use.

Make Items Drop From More Mobs In Unused Zones
- Spreads the camping out to account for higher population
- Can give some population to currently empty zones
- Gives no specific advantage or disadvantage to any one section of the population
- Becomes a measurable and controllable increase in droprate so as not to trivialize or over-flood the server with supposed-to-be-semi-rare drops. Which is what instancing does.
- Does not disrupt trade/run farmers
- Is expandable to a 3rd or 4th mob if the need arises
- Doesn't require you to be rich or multibox or anything
- End Result: All players get equal global droprate improvement, no specific advantage to one- or multi-boxers without breaking rules (multi-boxers hold both camps with their characters,) no disruption to the "economy" of the server, apart from a measured increase in drops.

In case you couldn't tell, I prefer the latter option :P

That is exactly what happened to me the last time I needed a KD.

I get there around 2:00 PM and there is a toon named ****b camping it - I'll leave him nameless, but it's pretty easy to figure out who it is. I'm sure a lot of you have seen this tool camping various items for hours on end.

I ask him him "how many KD's you need? so I know when to check back?"

No reply.

Login 2 hours later ask the same thing and get no treply from ****b

Login 3 hours later, ****b is still there ignoring anyone who asks him a question yet killing every spawn.

Login another hour later, still no reply to says, tells, ooc. Nothing. But this guy is obviously there because everytime some zones in or opens the door he is turning around to look and see who it is.

Make these items lore so jackasses like ****b cant pull shit like this anymore.

I very much agree with the idea of making these items drop in other zones, maybe the key to this is not to make them drop off a specific named, but rare random drop in a zone, made lore so people dont accumulate masses of them.  This gives the option of camping a named mob (say lguk), or fighting random mobs in say fungus grove for the same item to drop?

Nine

Oh wait, you mean people will have to interact with one another and join together to accomplish what they could not do alone? What a concept!

Seriously I think the whole 'buy Qvic progression' system is a hobble around the neck of the community on this server. No one groups before Tacvi huh? GEE I WONDER WHY...


This could work maybe... If you add at least a couple camps per item. Or better yet make it a random drop of a specific mob type in the unused zones so that it becomes impossible to 'permacamp' anything.  If this is the route you go I'd suggest making them lore as well, chose mobs that aren't trainable or spawn mixed with a lot of other mobs to prevent mass killing for farming purposes. Uncommon but not rare mobs with a very rare drop would be perfect, something like the griffins in NK with a drop rate that will end up making it take about the same time as the average cap in lGuk as the item it's replacing... Making them lore would help this a little but since there's no limit to boxes it's still possible, just more of a hassle for the farmers, which in turn deters them from ruining it for the rest of us.  Of all the options available I think this one is the best, You've convinced me Razormaw.

I'd honestly like to see more people group up and tackle things together. There's a very fine line between encouraging and forcing it, though.

Sadly, until more people play clerics outside of multi-boxers that don't play with others (nothing against them, just saying) we aren't going to see much of it :(

I'm thinking of leveling a cleric up to play with others, and I try my best to help clerics I see. But there's not many out there!

Nuska, lots of people have asked for LDON instance, the problem is how instances work now - if you leave the zone and come back it repops.  This means 15 min boss spawns now become 1 minute, or as fast as you can camp out to the char-select screen and come back.  I'm sure you can see a problem with that - basically you'd have people getting ultimate charm(s) in 1 day, not really what was intended.

IF they can fix that issue, I'm sure LDON will be considered for instances.

Also like I said, the items in LDON (cards and tokens) are no-drop, so you don't see people camping items to sell, which is the main issue here.

IMO get the cost and time limits of instances worked out  (and ffs make GROUP instances, not everyone is in a guild or wants to be, lower guk isn't exactly a raid zone for level 70's with 40k hps..) and this issue will be solved.  All the other ideas about making new items/etc are good but I'm sure require a LOT more work - this is a good solution, at least for the short term.

Now that I've read a few replies I really like and would prefer the utilization of alternate zones/npcs for the drops.  There are hundreds of zones available and editing loot tables takes seconds.  Use zones tailored to similar levels to alleviate the issue of people swarming to the easier zones or intentionally use various level range zones to encourage the not-aa-capped people to farm a few aa's or level some alts while they camp fg/cg items.  With this change in place there should be no need to make the items lore/no-drop.

btw the thing with unused zones, most are not populated when you put them up. without packet collecting live you would have to make each mob, place them, make a loot table, etc.. lotta work to ask for just on the fly.

i know velious and before are all pre populated, would have to use zones like Great Divide or something if anything, but still alter loot tables for mobs. Akkadius is pretty pro with queries, but would still take a little bit of effort

****b has to be me (nuskb)! woohoo. These items were farmed for bots NOT for runs. Shame you would think a 6+ boxer with a 110k  unbuffed tank couldn't do these runs on own.

I'm just gonna stop arguing to keep these cg/fg items the way are atm. These go to no drop and the higher end people will start to camp these more. The problem will still be there if made no drop but my guess it would be worse. People have offered 100kp + to get qvic runs so i hope noobs start farming up the money.

I can do this for Hunter of course i would need a tool to extract everything thats necessary to an sql. I can't dump the ENTIRE table for him and writing the queries by hand would take ages X_X. There used to be a tool for this but it's a few years old, no longer compatible.

P.S. Packet collects are already stored on PEQ's site, easily sourced. Not all the zones and no loot tables, but it takes 1 day to do 1 zone from packet collect sourcing to clean up work, stat modifying and loot table making. maybe less if you're fast.

There are at least 100 zones that ARE populated and just need the loot tables swapped.  From classic to GoD/OoW I'm sure we can find 10-15 available zones.

Also of note, there are quite a few people in the community with server admin and/or sql knowledge who could help.

During the week i have nothing interesting to but camp and destroy stuff, would be the same bottleneck... just one caused by and irritated player instead of a farmer.

OoW is just beginning to be populated on PEQ, also remember how old this server is, due to the custom npcs the npc_types table hasn't been updated since it was made (it would over write custom mobs) so EZ's populated zones don't go as high as PEQ currently does, PoP or Ykesha at best.

Also there's something you guys are missing... you all notice the items used in the guild quests were popular items on Live way back in the old days and that they drop off the old mobs right? If SSoY starts dropping in freaking Wall of Slaughter it defeats the point of the quests.

Now Hunter could make an alternative quest, with popular items from Luclin-PoP or GoD-OoW... all he has to do is populate the zones (as i said...easy) and copy/paste the current guild quest and change out the item ids for the new items on a new quest npc in Nexus. Done. Not as hard as you would think.

Also: Packet Collects: http://www.projecteq.net/logs/ complete with variables that can be preset to ensure no over writing. Hello "2 minutes for new populated zone"

very nice show dany, great as ever

gonna bookmark the packet collector as well. never know when it could be needed

As a fair warning Reed none of those npcs in the zones have loot tables, they all have default stats (like 6k hp) so stats would need modified, and they don't do the full spawn rotations (PH's etc, it only collected what was up) nor is there any merchant ids or quests (obviously as quests are perl scripts not held in database). HOWEVER it does collect mob pathing, all currently spawned mobs and their sizes/textures/weapon graphics (of course said weapon graphic may just be an item that was equipped at time of packet collection) and all the doors/elevators/objects/ground spawns etc in zone. Thus each sql file isn't exactly a "zone in a box" but it does shave days off the population process, all you have to do is clean up the mess.

P.S. it also has a habit of collecting people's mounts, so...delete those after sourcing or you'll have "Herman's Mount" running around in the zone :P

Yeah i was on the phone with Akkadius last night, he was telling me about that kinda stuff lol.

He was telling me about queries and how they work. Would be easier to fix a specific zone with loots that way, granted its not the easiest thing in the world for everyone (as i havent messed with it yet, just he explained it pretty well and made it seems pretty "user friendly" heh)

like you said, mobs, pathing, buildings, doors, etc.. all included. just loots stats and all that would be needed.

Aye, very useful. They even got some Underfoot zones up there already O.O

And it really does save a lot of time. To give an example it took me ONE day to fully populate Wall of Slaughter and Fortress Mechanotus both. Just modified the stats, then created the missing named, added them to the spawngroups they were supposed to be a part of (using the mob that was already there as a PH) added PH's for named that were already up, and made loot tables. Bam, 2 zones, 1 day, fully made and ready to go.

The variables you gotta be careful with though. For example you gotta add +1 to whatever the last id in the table is, for example if the last id in npc_types was 12345 make the variable in the sql read 12346 so it doesn't delete anything. Also @StartingSpawnGroupID and @StartingSpawnEntryID should be the exact same id or it won't spawn properly (i messed that up first time and had steamworks spawning in WoS and Ukuns in Fort Mech @_@)

Anyway back on topic lol.

Now where did I say that?

Making these items no-drop does not address the lack of items where the bottlenecks are happening.
Every toon camping these items has another toon capable of camping them.

There needs to be more than just one kd camp.
Even the guild instances for guk dont help the newcomers and might even turn them away.

No drop/lore tag would not settle anything. It would just mean a bunch of mages down there camping stuff and cothing a toon as needed.

if the KD drop rate was increased and with lguk already instanced i think no drop would work fine.

when people progress by getting run though a zone they dont really learn anything, they sit back and follow the uber person killing anything. if you cant do the zone yourself the first thing that comes to mind is hey lets get a group, not let see who i can pay to do this for me.

imo progression should be get to 70, get a guild work on progression. problem is all the established guilds had requirements of T1 ect. the good news in lots of new , newb friendly guilds have started up and with guild instances, guilds should be encourage more for new players. players in guilds make friends and ask friends and guild mates questions instead of server wide ooc. i am sure everyone would love a reduction of in that.

No-drop is a sledgehammer solution that causes other problems.  That's the kind of thing SOE would do!  ;D

Instances are a much much better solution, but you need to get the costs and time limits balanced.  100k is too much IMO, and I don't know why you want to limit it to guilds only.  Hushed Banquet (2.5) has a group option, lguk and anything leading up to that should also.

People can do what they please with the mobs they kill. For the full 30min corpse timer, it is theirs. Just because someone kills the mob and does not need the item, does not mean it's the next person in line turn. I would be careful, people are fraps happy and would have no problem turning in the ninja/ks evidence.


amen

Just had a cool idea.

Use the bazaar zone to be a place to buy items you can't usually get, making an economy.

And allow people to set up trader, to put FG/CG items up for sale.  That and im sure there will be quite a market for ROA items people can ALSO farm.

/shrug. Kinda a cool idea. might be hard to implement. That coupled with 3 places to get FG/CG items might do wonders.

My play-style is to NOT buy anything from other players I can get myself.  To me, playing the game, ie.. going and getting the items I need, is what it is all about.  Whatever solution you come up with, don't make it so the preferred way of getting the items is to buy from someone else.

If you have to make them lore or no-trade, so be it.  Also, make it against the Rules of Conduct to sell no-drop items.  That way those of us who want to PLAY THE GAME can have fun going down and getting our items.  The CG/FG items in particular are part of almost a required progression on this server, so it is very lucrative for those people who are camping them 24/7.  That in itself should be your answer as to why these need to be no-drop.

I would imagine that a majority of the people who have selected the "no" option are those people who like to camp and sell REQUIRED items to other people, mostly new people, who do not even have the option to be able to play properly because of the way things are now.

Thanks

I originally thought they should stay tradeable and voted no because of economy and the fact that you can still camp them with alts, but since then I have thought about it some more and think that maybe they should become no drop.  Here's my thought: if they were no drop, even if you could camp them with an army of alts, why would you?  If you are already past the guild stage in progression, wouldn't you just completely forget about camping the items?  Would anyone actually level up a box that they didn't intent to play for the sole purpose of having it pick up guild items?

If anyone has a good answer to that, I think it may be the crux of the argument.

I voted no, and have never sold or traded a single CG/FG item. In fact, I gave away a few extras I obtained during double drop days.

I voted no because I believe there are better options. That, and I am better able to farm items for my alts on my monk than I would on a caster. I can zerg down to a camp and kill the train on my monk. Casters would require a slow crawl down to camp.

Make each Guild step requirement drop from multiple zones/camps. Be it different items, or the same item added to another mob's loot table. The answer to overpopulation causing huge backlogs is not solved by the no drop flag.

It is solved by making it drop more often and/or from more camps.

Making it nodrop just solves people selling to trade, and not all of those people are as greedy as you obviously think they are.

Dont want to interact with people, be a part of the economy, etc...  go play a single player RPG. Seriously, wtf is the point in even playing here if you dont want the feeling of competition and accomplishment? You work hard for gear, it shows... not only that you are "uber" but also better than the ones who complain about why things are so hard and its "such a bottle neck to actually compete for items". Give me a break, quit EQ and go play something easy mode.



Against the rules to camp an item? Dude, stop talking. You sound like a stupid noob. If i can make money selling loot rights to something I CAMPED MYSELF then who's to say i shouldn't? just because you'd get butt hurt that im taking advantage what i am camping, making a profit on top of it all, I should stop.... Right....


Actually this is usually reversed. New people camp this stuff to sell to high end folks. This is done so they can skip the work of actually doing Qvic on their own, and have someone else do it for them. No shame in it, look at big name businesses now a days.... Think Bill Gates actually does half as much as his many many workers? No. He lets other people do the work, present it to him, takes the credit for the work, and pays the worker for his good job. Same thing here. The worker (new person) camps the FG/CG items, presents to high end player , worker gets the Qvic flags, and High End Player gets the set without camping it all himself. Nice sense of economy to me. Good and Service exchange.



You camp these with an army because you do need them. If you have an army of characters, it normally means you can do Qvic with ease, so no need to camp these unless you need them. You just camp them to add to your army. Flag all chars both FG and CG, or make a new DPS class, etc...

In addition to this, yes you would still make a class to farm this kinda stuff in case it were for some reason made no-drop. Mages would be great for this. See a previous post by me to see what i mean. 6 mages, 1 at each camp, then have char who needs pieces in zone. CotH him around to get everything required

Hello Reed, you need to calm down for one thing, and perhaps re-read my post, I said nothing about not interacting with other players or suppressing an economy, you are rather harsh with your reply.  Let me phrase my statement in another way,  I like to adventure to get my gear and items, not buy my gear and items from other players.  It is just a play-style.  Your reply does not even look like you read what I actually said.

I also did not say to make it against the rules to camp an item.   I was simply putting out my ideas to alleviate the problem.

 Perhaps you need a nap or something, you are very cranky (and rude).

Your post came off as antisocial imo, and also noob sighted in that you didn't seem to view things from mid game and end game. All those things considered made your post quite naive and that is prolly why Reed jumped your case. And trying to make Reed look like a jerk by getting technical with your words was kind of a douche move. Not something you really want to be doing in the beginning of your time here. To be clear, I am referring to where you said you didn't say it was against the rules to camp an item. You did say "make it against the Rules of Conduct to sell no-drop items". It is very obvious to see that is what he was referring to.

i dont think he had to try to make reed look like a jerk.

Agreed.  Reed went off the deep end with the name calling.

Looks like you're trying to say "Hey lets make it against the rules to camp an item unless that character camping it is the one who needs it" to me. Just saying.

QQ I joined the EASY SERVER and shits not easy enough for me so I should impose on the rest of the server a new rule that would only cause harm in the long run.

-
Hey props if you want to camp items on your own. I did it for my first 6 or 8 sets of guild items. After that the server population went from 150s to 400s and it just sucks. It is a better use of my time to offer to run you through qvic (20min for me) and kill TT for you.
You the new player that is not able to get 3.0 at this point in time just got 3.0 flagged and a 3.0 book while I got my set of guild items for my newest alt.
Anyone that thinks this is bad is a few fries short of a happy meal.

I prefer apple slices   ;D

I think FG/CG items should all be Lore but Notrade would make them  to hard to aquire .. i have spent 8 hours camping 1 item be4 .. as it is now  u can simply buy a item that ur missing  for 20-40k or run someone thru Qvic or tacvi. Making them all Lore will prevent people form stock piling them (like what people do to KD's)  if they where temporary, You would HAVE to get ALL of the items in 1 day be4 u logged off or they would Poof. that would be incredibly hard for alot of the beginners. And for the economy side of them,  If they all could be bought   even if they are Lore  there would be alot of plat swapping hands (even more so if the spawn rates and drop rates where faster/more often)
 
So my vote would be to making them all tradable/lore

Im Sure alot of this has been said already.

I Ran/Run a guild Called Mist Soulkeepers. and be4 my short LOA, ALL i would do every day is run Qvic and Tacvi for my members we went from just my brother and I to 200 members in  2 short weeks  and stayed there till  i was unable to login.  i get what your saying about how People think they need CG/FG items to pay for Qvic and tacvi what they really need is a guild who will HELP them and inspire them to advance.  MS is not Full time Recruiting BUT if anyone needs a Qvic/tacvi run .. Send Celli/Akora/Cronec a tell when i am online and if i am free i will run you thru.

Reed jumping Longdarkhair was the douche move, not LDH's comments.  He's just stating his opinion.  Sure, Reed (or anyone else) has the right to rebutal.  Putting words in LDH's mouth, telling him he's anti-social and to go play another game because his prefered method of play doesn't match Reed's = douchebag.

And yes, if the items are made No Drop it would be for the intent of stopping the endless camps for personal gain.  So saying you should not be able to then sell the loot rights to them only follows.  If they're No Drop but you can sell loot rights, very little has been accomplished.

CG/FG items are needed for progression.  You cannot get your 2.5 without them.  They're the ONLY progression items in the game that are not No Drop.  Does anyone think we should be able to camp Qvic bosses to sell the tokens?  Pages in LDoN or Time?  Rights to the Tikis in T1 and T2?

Hunter's rules include:  Play Nice, Use Common Sense, Don't Grief.  He recently had to institute a rule in PoD that you get the Tiki one time and then let anyone else camping it have a shot because people were locking them down.  His intention is pretty clear.  Don't Lockdown spawn to inhibit progression.  While I don't think people are locking down the CG/FG items simply to prevent others from moving forward, the result is the same.  People can't progress if someone sits at the same spot farming a progression item all day.  Hunter shouldn't have to make it a rule to allow others a chance to progress.  It falls under the Play Nice and Use common sense parts.  

Yes, I realize this will ruin the only real economy this server has.  Progression isn't supposed to be part of the economy.  If Hunter want's a true economy, he can institute something tradeable that is cool, fun, and helpful to progression that's tradeable.  But not something that's necessary.

Ok, lets look at this. Really, how much sense does it make for there to be a rule banning selling loot rights? What other even remotely mainstream game has a rule like this? There are none. And to say that progression should not be part of the economy is incredibly naive. They are both an intricate part of any mmorpg and therefore are inherently part of one another. People use the economy in any mmorpg to progress, people progress to better use the economy. The reason why those items are so valuable in the economy is because they are required to progress.

Furthermore I would like to add the fg/cg items help to link new players to more experienced players. It gives new players a bargaining chip to not only get help getting gear/quests done but also knowledge experience that they get from grouping with someone who has the benefit of more server experience than they have. Making these items no drop would only make the gap between ldon and qvic and then tacvi to PoD even larger. Although it would be an irritation for people who have been here longer and have the resources to camp several mobs it would have an even larger negative impact on new characters. When someone comes along and makes an obviously shortsighted post it is pretty distressing.

Incidentally, Reed did not put any words in anyone's mouth or even twist anyone's words. He simply stated what his suggestion amounted to. Failure to see that means you are either incredibly simple or you were just looking for a reason to call someone names.

Or it means we don't agree on this issue.  I'm ok with that.  That's why Hunter wants the debate.  In my opinion, based on his posts and rules in the past, Hunter doesn't want people camping progression items to sell the loot rights.  I don't think they should either.  It's not naive to think progression shouldn't be for sale.  It's a different point of view.  It will solve some problems and create others.  You're absolutely right, it will widen the LDoN/Qvic gap considerably.  In fact, it will put it back to where it was when the server was young, except the spawn is quicker now.  But progression being for sale leads to other abuses and problems that Hunter doesn't want and frankly, shouldn't have to deal with.  Since he can't be on all the time to police us, and we obviously won't police ourselves, hard choices have to be made.

As to Reed didn't put words into anyones mouth, Reed wrote "Against the rules to camp an item?  Dude stop talking."  Nowhere in LDH's post did he say there should be a rule against camping items.  He said if you do have to make the items Lore/No Drop make sure people can't sell the loot rights to them.  So yeah, Reed did put words in his mouth.

Reed later clarified when he said "Looks like you're trying to say "Hey lets make it against the rules to camp an item unless that character camping it is the one who needs it" to me. Just saying." 

But that is not how he put it in his original reply.  And that too is similar to how I read that statement, except I don't think it precludes camping with one toon and looting with another (ie Mage CotH as has been already discussed).  Which, based on the problem we're trying to solve, is correct.

The current system was built around a certain population.  The population since then has doubled/tripled so a new system (an alternate progression path in the form of the same or alternate drops in alternate zones) needs to be added or the current system needs to be adjusted. 

Another set or sets of zones where we can camp CG/FG items would be ideal.  I dislike instances but understand their uses.

These are the two quotes that we are talking about. You see, this is what is called pulling a technical. Because Reed did not mirror his words word for word what ldh said you are accusing him of putting words into ldh's mouth. It is reasonable to assume that he is referring to his suggestion of no camping for profit. I think most reasonable people would get that from Reeds statement. As I already said, the only reason to not make that reasonable assumption is if your simple or if your just plain looking for an excuse to call someone names.

The reason I said that thinking that progression should not be for sale was incredibly naive is because it is a part of every remotely mainstream game out there. To try to take it out is frankly impossible. Sure you can put a no trade tag on those, but in some form or another progression will be for sale.

As far as inserting Hunters name into your post to give your ideas credence, I am not even going to touch that. You prolly shouldn't either.

I don't see a technical at all.  You're taking the first quote out of context, as did Reed.  You have to use the preceding sentence "If you have to make the items Lore/No Drop, so be it."  In that context, the next sentence makes perfect sense.  If A must happen, you will need to do B or nothing will have been gained.  He's absolutely correct in that.  So saying he said "Against the rules to camp an item?" was certainly putting words in his mouth.  And you were the one who said ldh was trying to make Reed look bad and it was a 'douche move.'  ldh was fairly defending himself, not being technical.  So let's be careful with who's simple or looking for an excuse to name call.

As to bringing Hunter's name into it...it's Hunter's post.  He put up the poll and asked for the opinions.  I'm not attemping to legitimize my posts by using his name.  And you'll note I was very careful not to speak for him.  It's still absolutely all my opinion.

You made assumptions about what Hunter does or does not want and then linked his name to your own opinions. Call it whatever you want to, but that is exactly what you did. But because I reworded what you did, I am sure I will be accused of putting words in your mouth.

As for the rest of the post, I stand by what I said. I'm done.

That's cool.  I stand by mine as well.

Sorry to interrupt the argument  :P

My opinion is that the items should all be Lore but remain tradeable. I don't think them being tused in trade is a bad thing because it helps provide some sort of economy, which adds to the game, and it allows newer users a way of getting assistance other than pure begging/leaching.

I would like to see them Lore because it might disuade people from stockpiling one type of item just to sell it exclusively.  While I can see it within a person's rights for being at a camp either way I look at it very differently getting items for multiple toons you have present versus just cornering a resource to sell.  One is kind of a necessity with the other being a lazy and somewhat inconsiderate way of progressing.

This is a very good statement.

I am also tempted to agree that lore and tradable is the way to go. Of course also this would be explodable (log in an alt and drop off the loot and go on camping the item etc)...

Not sure there is a best solution for this problem...

Play nice, use common sense, and dont grief are two way streets. I put play nice as repsect peoples camp. Common sense would be if ya see a camp taken, go somewhere else and dont grief goes with dont complain about the camps being held down. People are camping these items for a reason, no one is camping em to be a dick. Guess this is something i learned from playing live.

You must be unaware of some of the people that play on this server.

Ask this question:
In the last month how many people that could not otherwise do qvic, paid for a full qvic run with a set of FG or CG items?

Take away the ability to use it like a currency and you take away the ability for some players to progress.

In the last 6 months the population jumped a ton, people got sick of the douchebag's leeching and stealing and crashing zones.
Now we have instances.
Not many people bother with the public zones, sure it happens from time to time but if there is the ability to get an instance most go there.
This also hurts the low end in that to avoid all the problems and drama the "open" zone is largely unused and those newer people are hurting.

(RE: Qvic, I hate the zone but I'll do a qvic run for anyone that pays me 250kpp)

Whats the current FG bottleneck? KD from seb? If I ever decided to make more alts I would do them all at the same time and get KD camp and sit there for as many days as it would take to get all of them the item.
Now others have to go days without a chance to progress because a short sighted individual or collection of fools thought it was a good idea to get these items tagged NO DROP.

NO DROP = Bad

Going to reiterate what I said in a previous post on another thread:

Open up a couple more zones were everything in the zone has a chance to drop pieces from either the CG or FG quests. Keep the pieces lore and no drop to prevent people from pulling the entire zone and killing everything for themselves just to sell looting rights. I'm sure people will still do it but they will be limited to the number of alts they have instead of stockpiling their bags. Droprate should be reasonable in which it won't take days to complete, maybe 1-2 random pieces can drop off trash and named mobs can drop up to 4 pieces; with this idea it could also open up another exp zone or two like poearth, potactics or even another expansion zone where the mobs will yield some exp but also be reasonable for new players to kill.

The other option I was thinking was make it a quest, not a long quest but challenging where player has to do it solo without outside buffs (or the complete opposite). Similar to a trial or a mini epic quest - beat it and be rewarded.

So instead, we end up with FG/CG becoming trivial. People will mass slaughter the zone and those nodrop lore FG/CG items they have for all their bots/alts will sit there rotting for anyone to come along and loot.

No thanks.

Make specific rare mobs in other zones (that used to be camped for items, as is the theme with these quests) drop the Guild items, or make their drop item into an optional second choice for the quest.

The system worked fine the way it was with lower population. Now that there's greater population, more camps = more campers = less lineups = less frustrations.

You will NEVER do away with people that overcamp and item. All you're doing by making something Lore and/or No Drop is ripping the economy in half and not even remotely preventing people from camping multiple drops in a row for their bots/alts. Logging in and out while holding a camp with 3 characters is oh-so difficult, after all.

Y'all need to read more than the OP and last page before posting an idea.

Giving everything in a zone a chance to drop the fg/cg items would simply mean one someone needs one they would just rape the entire zone and loot what the need and then gating. It would not solve anything but would create more problems than what their currently is. Besides, making eq a diablo clone never sounds good to me.

I see all these people saying that the items are used like currency.  So first I have to buy all my items that are camped always to get myself in the CG/FG.  Then if I want Qvic I have to buy more sets for someone else to kill Qvic for me.  I really don't understand this system.  What if you are new to the server and are not rich in-game and just want to be able to go get your items to join CG/FG?

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, just asking a serious question.  What do normal newbies do to progress normally?

You do not have to buy the items. If someone else can camp it, so can you. I have camped them several times myself. I have never had to wait days and days to get a camp. I walk up, there is usually 1 or 2 people in front of me so I wait.

You asked how a normal person progresses through the server? You camp the items. It's going to take time. Everquest has always been about time sinks. To say that the items are unattainable because someone is always camping them is a redundant statement in itself.

Ok, thanks Xiggie.  I guess I was picturing a super long wait for the camps because people camping the items to sell.  It doesn't sound too bad to me if you don't have to wait a long time.

Honestly, I have never had to wait as long as I feared I might have to. Yeah, sometimes it can be a few hours, but other times it is less than an hour. Hell sometimes I get in and no one is even there. It can be frustrating at times, at other times the thought of it being frustrating is more frustrating than the camp itself.

I know I have come off as pretty sharp on a couple of posts on here and may have even come off pretty sharp in answering you. Honestly, a lot of times I come off as being sharp and I don't even mean to, though other times I do. I'd like to apologies though if I did come off that way. Hit me up sometime in game, you can usually find me on, Xiggie or Stone.

You attempt to camp them, just means waiting for your turn at the items. I feel your pain as I did not just spawn one today with gear.

I just did both the CG and FG this weekend.  The huge bottlenecks for me were LGuk (even with a guild instance it took me 33 hours to get an exe axe and 11 to get my first ssoy), Begurgle (5 people in line, 2 who left, and still waited 15 hours), and Knuckle Duster (3 people in line, and waited for 12 hours).

There were two people ahead of me at Hadden but his camp went pretty quick (4 hours or so).


I'm pretty sure I see where the huge bottlenecks are.

I am not calling you a liar or anything like that but you example is an extreme example. I have been playing on this server for over a year, I have about 15 toons, of which all of them I have camped their fg and/or cg stuff except for 2 of them. I have never spent anywhere near 33 hours for an exe axe. I have also never spent 11 hours to get my ssoy. Furthermore I have never seen 5 people in line for LB Crown. I have seen as many people as 4 with me being the 4th in line at KD camp, but that was only once and I spent about 5 hours there. I have to say that me and the other people at KD got lucky that day but still, that was only once. Most of the time there is 1 or 2 persons there when I arrive. Your example is extreme. As for how recent my last camping of these items? I camped 2 fg sets last week, and 1 cg set about 3 weeks ago.

I am not going to come in here and say, 'hey, there is nothing wrong with the kd camp, I walked in there and no one was there' even though I have at times. That's not the norm though, neither are your examples.

I must admit, I haven't done the CG or FG run in quite a while, but 33 hours on an Exe axe in a guild instance?  Wow.  I gotta say that sounds way outside the norm to me too.  That musta sucked bro.

The thing I find most intersting though is this one...


That kinda bears out what the majority are saying, that making things No Drop probably isn't going to help the issue much.  Bergurgle's Crown is No Drop and there's still that kinda line for it?   :o

At this point it looks academic.  The vote is nearly 2:1 against making them No Drop, and that's with a pretty good voter turn out.

I'll reiterate my suggestion of removing the PH's and the RNG from the loot tables.  The bottlenecks seem to form around the uncommon spawn, uncommon drop guys.  Make them a certain pop/certain drop and those lines should go down.

Ya that definitely is an instance of very very very very bad luck. I did my own guild instance this weekend and only used it for about 14 hours. In this time i got the following

8 - SSOY (got 4 in a row)
5 - FBSS
6 - Exec Axe
5 - Mith 2 hander (stooped camping these because i hated running back to the camp)
7 - SMRs
7 - LBS

If we really want a way to prevent those long lines, how about a way to turn in ldon points for individual items for each quest. I know for a fact that I'd be willing to pay 1000 ldon points for 1 pair of KDs, I have horrible luck with that camp + I have limited play time, so camping them for 4+ hours is out of the question.

Make everything nodrop, farming will inhibit others progression, I cannot afford an instance myself, the farmers probably can and it would be worthit for them to farm an instance there.   

people who dont need it shouldnt be looting it.

I just love blanket statements.

100k isn't that hard to come by.  Many of the cg/fg items are very easy to get and either sell or trade to get the cash for an instance or the items you need.

From one instance I got all the items I needed for 4 toons plus some extra for the ones we could turn in or give to alts to hold.  It wasn't a bad deal at all considering that buying the items for just one toon is well over 100k.

Some things should be hard to get, it give these items value.

I'm all for the lore option but I vote no on the no-drop items.

no drop means no trading kits. it would ruin the market lo

I haven't read all the pages on this topic yet, but sounds like I might need to add the Public 1k/2k instances to some of the FG/CG camp zones. And if those zones also get full with line of people, then would just have to suck it up and pay 100kpp which is easy to get. This FG/CG quest line was created when our population peeked at 100-175 players. Already did some adjusting, and will probably do a bit more. Things should stay tradeable now, for the market to trade with each other, farming for alt toons, etc.

The only thing I'd say, since nobody uses knuckle dusters as weapons and they don't need two of them, is to make those lore.  I think everything else that's potentially a long camp already is.  No real need to have jade reavers or fighting batons lore, they are so easy to get.