Blackmercenary

I don't think there is a "big" guild on the entire server by any modern day MMO standards. I have observed Damage Inc and Epic together barely coming up with 5 unique players for RD base and then conceding to multi-boxing. I know Static and VGE are barely around anymore and often times have to do the raid at the last second before change over. Builders Inc usually has at least 5 unique people on for the raids it cares about. This past weekend we had 10 unique guildies for the GoBB raid. I think Aceonfire hit the nail on the head, there are probably 30 unique players on average at any time on the server. The raid rotation does a couple of things: It blocks out the public from participating in the "Big 3" raids unless invited. It blocks out the "Big 3" from participating in the public week by excluding them from being able to loot. This is due to the fact that there is no single public guild owning that week and no one can officially allow a "Big 3" guild to loot because they have their own week already. I am not the leader of my guild, so I cannot speak for the guild. But, I wouldn't mind opening up our entire raiding week to the public if that would allow me to be eligible for public raid loot and would introduce more raid leaders. I would love to sit on the controller spawn for at least 2 weeks of the month since I haven't been lucky with skull shield drops. Heck if the raid rotation dissapeared, I would sit only on the controller spawn. I have seen members from Damage Inc and Epic with multiple skull shields between their toons. So the rotation is not stopping them from getting loot. The best option is for farmable triggers by the devs, so that you can do whatever the hell you want when you want. Modern MMOs have "many" instanced raids/dungeons for this reason. (They also have PVP) It sucks having already killed your one raid that you have been assigned for the week and trying to come up with content. Or doing shitty raids, when you want to be doing GoBB or Controller. It leads to lots of market chats and overall boredom. I think the guild leaders should get together and talk about this, but I doubt it will happen. Personally, I would love to see the Devs to respond to the trigger idea. Or the last option, start a war...let's see how it ends. I don't mind sitting on the controller spawn every 2 days for the entire month. Might make the game interesting.

Yeah that sounds very reasonable. I would love to see something like this implemented. This would also help with those only interested in particular raids as well, it would give them something to work towards.

Funny...I saw this after I posted in the raid rotation forums. I threw out the idea of tokens as well, definitely not as complete of an idea as yours. I really like your suggestions, but I would maybe make them slightly less difficult so that casual players have the opportunity to experience some of this content. I definitely don't want to spend my evenings away from the family farming constantly. But, I am an older player now...I am not that same 17 year old who played many years ago. You see all of the new major MMOs heading towards more casual style while offering more difficult options to the hardcore players. Perhaps more difficult items to acquire afford you a higher chance at an item dropping such as the core?

I will probably get kicked from the guild for commenting on this thread, but I don't want this game to die and I really do believe that we need to come together. I wasn't here when the big three had their first dispute. But, I am in one of the big three now, and I can tell you honestly that the big three are no longer the "big three", in fact all guilds on this server are pretty dead at this point. I have a few good friends in Damage Inc and the reason for their success in growth is due to the fact that they are on the public rotation, it allows them the perfect opportunity to recruit without constantly spamming the General/Market channel. But still, the reality is that not many people are playing the game anymore. This entire week, I have only been seeing numbers of 60ish people online and that's counting my 4 multi-boxed toons. Suricata69 brought up the point that a lot of these raids triggers are not being touched, I can tell you that this is happening because a lot of raid leaders are burned out running the raids week in and week out. I can also tell you that this is occurring because the loot from RD base and DT aren't that desirable for the amount of effort required or the faction loss. (Or the DCs) I have talked about including the public on these rotation weeks in our guild chats, but when I have posted in public that we are hosting a raid...only a few people show up and they are multi-boxing. So it really makes you question what is the point? Where is the real interest in raiding from the public? I don't think public has the numbers, nor do most of the guilds without multi-boxing at this point. It usually takes the public 3 hours to get enough people for raids. I don't know about you guys personally, but with a wife and kid, that only leaves a pissed off wife. Also, nothing generates more interest/participation than a controller raid followed by the GoBB raid. The idea of guilds as they are now is silliness. We all need to band together, drop the power trips, and bring back enjoyment to the game. A trigger based system is the best idea, but I don't think the Devs can implement a trigger based system with the limited resources that they have in enough time to prevent diminishing numbers. Not all triggers have to be difficult to obtain...perhaps you are allotted a few weekly tokens as a guild, which could replicate what other games have in instanced dungeons. Without a good action plan though, there will be war amongst the guilds. Which is what the rotation hoped to avoid and will definitely kill the game. If guilds attempt to horde particular raids, it will only hurt the server more. We need to start a discussion about how we can all work together. Perhaps the devs can make those weekly triggers. If not, how can we help each other?

It's been a few weeks since I have done the hull upgrade mission. But, I accidentally left my PW sitting at the Tiberius shipyards and came back to find him dead. I noticed that there is a high level group of CL40+ hovering around the area. From my experience the shipyard visit has to be very quick. Upon returning, I didn't bother reading the mission dialogue. I kept an open eye for Vrix and moved on quickly afterwards.

Thank you Plateau for all of your help in this situation and restoring Hawat's items. Have a great weekend.

Good morning Arthurdent, Thank you for taking the time to respond to this thread and I definitely understand the necessity of coffee before taking on the day. I am sorry that you didn't get to play the game last night. In real life, I am Tier 3 support in IT, so I share your unique perspective when it comes to a ticket's priority, the timeliness of the response, and the type of response given by the support. I don't want to debate Plateau's response and handling of the ticket because it is a volunteer situation and he is dedicating his valuable time to help everyone out. He isn't paid to provide professional support and there is obviously a disparity between the size of the support staff and the volume of support tickets requiring response. I am on this thread because I believe that a higher tier of support needs to step into this situation and help. I am appealing to you because I don't want to see a friend go. I think most people would feel defeated in this situation and want to take a extended break or not play all together. I don't think the feeling is unusual to just Hawat and I think his response is from a source of helplessness. He needs help from a higher level support at this point and any help in this situation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time, Brandon

Dear Support Staff, We could really use your help here. Your time is valuable along with our time, the community is small and we all need to work together to keep it thriving. Hawat has always been the type of guy to help anyone out with no questions asked. When something like this happens, it sucks for everyone involved. Especially the guy who lost hours worth of work. There have been plenty of studies that have shown how the intrinsic value of an object is tied to the effort put in to get it. When people have watched that object destroyed right before their eyes, it is extremely demoralizing and disheartening. Some extra empathy is required here. Hawat has been playing the game for awhile and has accumulated a lot of things through hard work and to tell him that he just needs to spend more time re-accumulating them because of a database error is equally demoralizing. Without looking at the database, it seems like the table's keys that tie his character inventory table and item table together got mixed up. Why else would he have two NOS items? I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt and the items that he is missing should be restored as a gesture of good faith. It's not like he is asking for a skull shield here. Let's try to keep this community striving. Please help the man out. I would hate to see him leave the game because of this event. Blackmercenary

Anyone know what is going on with the server? -Blackmercenary

I have been experiencing this issue along with alot of my friends in the game. You will be playing one minute and then you can no longer select anything or use your abilities. You aren't able to see any mobs spawn and cannot loot corpses. Everything becomes frozen essentially.

Merlin you exploration tip is great, ty for sharing that. Could you share what you do for trade XP as well from 0 to 50? So far your material has proven to be the best, I wish you had a guide lol.