Actually I believe 2-5 to be 1 in 666 and lvl 6 is "supposed to be" 1 in 250. This is due to the fact that you can't sell back the illusion cards for points and bosses only have a 5% chance to drop the 50 points tokens.

That's my understanding too.


I have to agree with the OP here - the drop rates appear to be grossly out of wack.  It used to be that for every 90 mins (at the most) you would see a charm upgrade.  I've been able to go 4 hours without seeing one.  Could be incredibly bad luck - but this seems to be the case for the last couple of weeks at least.

Also if i have attack on (melee) and turn on /autofire I get spammed with messages like "attack timer not up 1234234(bunch of numbers)"...

I'm getting that same spam about the attack timer with my ranger.  It wouldn't bother me but it seems that the ranger does nothing until the spam cycle has finished thus reducing (slightly) his dps.  Has anyone got a work around on this?

Also - I was hunting with another ranger recently (geared fairly similar to my ranger) and he seemed to be scoring massive crit hits (like 14,000) way more than I've ever seen my ranger do.  I use Trueshot on mine and that seems to help a little - but I'm getting nothing like those stats with him.  He has his 3.0 bow and all his AAs.  Anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

How about some Code to turn that ninja looted item in to a lump of Coal and the looter gets flaged KOS, a new title that displays "Ninja Looter" then turns them in to a guttess chicken that a lvl 1 player could touch and kill them but the chicken buff stays on for a few days. I think the "Warhammer" folks did something like this for their game. Well the turning into a guttless chicken part only but still it's a cool concept.

It would probably happen once but then news would spread don't touch stuff that don't belong to you.

Draw back is that if someone killed the mob for someone else then the other person should have to be on group with them to not get branded and chickenized.

That's fantastic.  I had flashbacks to Heretic 2 where you could turn people into chickens... only on occasion you got a chicken with 999HPs and then you were running from the chicken cause one peck and you were dead!!!


Well said Ponzi - couldn't agree more!

You could exchange 3 pieces of dropped set gear (like cobalt) for 1 piece of your choice (same slot).

+1  
-- In addition, drop the charging out of the model as it would be clear that players have played the zone extensively enough to have just had “extreme bad luck”.  There appears to be no point in charging players for this.

For the record I want to point out in your non-edited post what was in place of this text was something to the tune of:

If we put a rot bot in Qvic then think of the precedent that it will set of the other zones.

Ignoring that.

You’re funny.

To be clear – I didn’t really enter this discussion as an opponent to your idea.  My post addressed to you was simply a courtesy to separate the issue of my posts with Strix’s.  It was also to clarify where the last discussion point was before it got hijacked by people trying to bully a new member off the server.  I used mainly Strix’s words in the wording – adding my own thoughts to his post (as they occurred to me) to provide you with the opportunity to address him.

My position on your issue is stated above.

Rystan

If you add a rot drop bot you're going to simply promote people plat farming and buying the equipment as opposed to actually playing the zone as it was intended.    

Mayo - We really need to separate the issue.  Personal sentiment aside - the issue is NOT "alienating single box players".  Not sure how you got that idea.

As I see it - the issue is that the rot bot will support single box play OVER grouping and playing the zone (see Strix's quote above).  Perhaps its the 20k price tag per item that's the issue?  Really - there would be nothing stopping a single box player from farming FG/CG items to gain enough plat to simply skip that zone (or any other zone that you put a bot up in).  I've been able to sell full sets of that stuff for 400k and it only took me 6 hours to farm.  Do we really want to put more pressure on those items?  

I actually like the idea of the rot bot in PoD - that concept could work really nicely.
Rystan

Hi Sohami - Thanks for the frank reply.  Really, your answers to those questions actually mirror my own experiences with the reality of this server.  With that said – I think we can both agree that this is NOT a solo server (Solo by definition means alone).  Groups of 2 – 10 players working together on content (regardless of boxing) make this a social game (and a social sever).  We use the chat feature to allow us to make those connections (and for other purposes).  Please correct me if I’m wrong here but I suspect you actually met those players (that you play with regularly) in lower levels of the game by grouping with them (and being social).   

Where am I going with this?

To clarify, Stix's original point (as quoted by Sohami) was this:
“I prefer game play with real live people as opposed to a boxed army”

To which Sohami responded:
 “sorry to say this man, but this server is not for you. I tried the single char route and it's just not going to happen. You can get someone to group with you every here and there-but when it is its like someone just running you through something.”

The corollary of all this is that I'm confused about the following:
Why is Sohami telling a new player that they are not suited to this sever when suggesting that they prefer to play with humans - especially when he appears to clearly agree that:
a.    it's not a solo sever, and;
b.   is (presumably) in a guild where he groups with 2- 10 other boxers to do higher end content every time he plays? 
Strix states in his post that he ended up boxing to get through QVIC with another person.  Given Sohami's responses above – I fail to see how the two are actually any different. 

Perhaps the only difference is that Strix appears to be calling for people in OOC whilst Sohami only helps guild members?

It seems like a slippery slope to me when established (well-connected) players on the server start suggesting to newer players that they play elsewhere and try to justify it with ill-considered gobbledegook.  If Sohami actually had a point to make to Strix its lost in the apparent nastiness of the sentiment. 


Rystan

I prefer game play with real live people as opposed to a boxed army

sorry to say this man, but this server is not for you. I tried the single char route and it's just not going to happen. You can get someone to group with you every here and there-but when it is its like someone just running you through something.

So you're effectively saying that EZ Server is a solo server?  Hmm.  That raises a whole bunch of questions around the game content.  Specifically:
1.  Why bother with guilds if it's a solo server? 
2.  Why allow a chat feature for players to interact?
3.  Why does Hunter have welcoming text in zones like QVIC telling you to group with multiple players to survive?  Should he just tell you start boxing?
4.  Why isn't scripting allowed for boxing on this server (if as you suggest - this is a solo server).

Actually - if it's going to be a solo server why not just start putting rot bots up in every zone? 

Sohami - you're right about a LOT of people having this attitude on the server.  That doesn't mean that there isn't room for the social player.  Perhaps in the early days of the server (when the numbers were smaller) it was mandatory to box and play solo.  In recent times, I've seen a lot more groups forming with newer players and people becoming a lot more soical in this game.  Really - it's not like most of us haven't already seen end content when we played on the live.  I personally didn't come back to this game because of it's great ability to captivate as a solo style game (you're quite nuts if you think the narrative is actually that engaging). 

Seriously - Do you really want to be the little boy sitting alone in the dark playing with himself?

Rystan

Mein Laben!!

I'm still on - but I'm thinking all the exp I'm getting is going to be reset when the server reboots

Each level (except levels 1 and 6) drop armor cards. Collect 4 of the same armor card and turn them into the card collector in Nexus for your LDON gear. Each level has specific armor cards that drop. For example I believe boots and gloves drop from level 2. I do not remember every levels gear drop off the top of my head perhaps someone else could fill this bit in.
 

This seems to be the list:

lvl 2 = Boots and Gloves
lvl 3 = Bracer and Helm
lvl 4 = Legs and Arms
lvl 5 = Chest

Hi there Hunter

First time post on here - fairly new to the sever.  Great job by the way!

I thought I'd add my perspective to this debate and hopefully give some pause for thought.  I encountered iHug the other night for the first time when I was in the Nexus looking for help on a LDON run.  A character called "Steriods" was advertising in ooc that he was doing 1.5, 2.0 and 3.0 runs for a price.  I negotiated with Steriods and then was promptly invited into a group by iHug.  At the time, I figured that Steriods was a boxed minor character for iHug.  We got all the way to lvl 6 and were short 3 pages before iHug dropped out.  I then got a message from Steriods saying that iHug had crashed and did I want my money back.  I said no - but that I would like some help getting the other three pages at some point in the next day or two.  Steriods agreed to this and then logged.

Last night I logged on and iHug was in the Fighters Guild Glade.  I messaged him and asked when he thought we might be able to do the other three pages.  At this point the conversation became strange.  The person operating iHug had no memory of me from the previous night - nor of doing a LDON run with me.  It clicked at this point that iHug is being handled by a number of people (all with the login details of that account).   

Then, ironically, I saw Paladinsteve's ooc (about trains and crashing zones) and I came and read this thread.

From my perspective, EZ server is a strange beast in the EQ world.  iHug is simply a product of a culture that has developed on this server.  Right or wrong - we all need to take resposibility for where that culture leads.  When we box multiple toons with the intention of power leveling ourselves - we take a little piece of the heart out of the game.  It is a small piece albiet - but a piece nonetheless.  EQ was always designed with a multi-player model in mind.  While I love the idea of a soloable EQ - this fact still remains true.  Verant had always seen boxing as a form of cheating on the live.  It promotes self greed over comradary and in the end we all suffer from self absorbed players who are so focused on this concpet they sacrifice all else to achieve it.  In the end, isn't iHug just a product of this culture that has developed on the server?  To some degree, isn't there a little of iHug's narcisism in every person who focuses on boxing toons over making friends?   

I played EQ on the live for many years and made friends all over the world (some of which I have visited and have had stay at my house).  When I stopped playing EQ it was mainly because my friends stopped playing and I was off time to the rest of the server (being an Aussie player on a US server made being a member of a guild very hard).  The loss of those friends in game eventually ended my subscription and the ultimate deletion of my account.  Finding this server has been one of the greatest finds for me personally in a number of years post EQ.  I enjoy the idea of logging on and playing casually - helping people out when I can - and generally expoloring parts of EQ I was never able to see on the live.  If there is anythinig that disappoints me about the server it is, perhaps, the absence of people looking for groups.  Most are boxing alts - to the point where you zone into PoFire and see 15 - 20 alts stationary on the hill leeching xp while the main trains the zone.  It depersonalises the server to some degree - and it creates players like iHug.  It creates the idea that the toon isn't really the extension of anything and that it's just simply a means to an end.  That there aren't other people playing who perhaps see the game differently.

So should iHug be banned?

To ban him in a culture that has promoted his way of thinking is a little extreme.  Certainly a human conversation is needed in this situation.  In my dealings with the operator of the iHug toon - I found the person on the other end affabol and approachable.  To execute summary bannings on players such as iHug, to my way of thinking, would only serve as further promoition of a dehumanising culture on the server.  Surely the way forward has to be with real conversations with individuals?

Peace
Rystan