Murfree

Don't count me in absolute change, you skipped where I know that there won't be any changes, I'm ok staying a lesser than

Only thing I read in Cimbad's post was to say the avenue for a meeting should be on TS, outside the leaders going to BL's house for drinks and sit at a round table to discuss raid options, TS seems to be the only logical solution.  I also think that Cimbad is keeping the peace on this thread nicely, positive reenforcment of suggestions, bring issue to closure and then lock the thread.  When sounds pretty clear to me.     If his point of "all hell breaks loose" comment is being read as he knows something that others dont, that is simply not true.  Obviously there is grumblings in TS, in advocate channel, raid channel and guild channels or this topic would never been started.  Again, he is pointing out the obvious.   I have thought during the time of all the posts, that my money bets that if the Devs released the Christmas content, this topic would fade some, but that hasnt happened either.  If there is a rebellion, I will not be a part of it, but I would be on the sidelines with Cimbad saying "I told you so...."

This has now come full circle for me.  My original post stated what I believed to be the root cause of the issue.  It is not the rotation, or even who is in the rotation.  It did open the “can of worms” that we are now stabbing at everything but the one issue that I was looking to get resolved.  The fact is, that the rotation day was moved to that “Guilds could have the weekend to do raids” which is fine, I can understand how the change day being in the middle of the weekend would make the rotation out of whack on a weekly basis.  The issue is well explained in this fashion though.  On a raid that is on a 48 timer, the exiting Guild kills the raid 30 minutes before the rotation timer goes off, EVERY SINGLE week, either means, they seriously only game on Mondays, or they seriously are just being jerks.   This is why I stated the initial resolution was to open it up at Noon on Saturday for a FFA.  This only compresses the amount of times a rotation can kill a spawn, and yes, they can still be spiteful if that was the intent and kill the spawn at 11:30am Saturday morning(BUT for the next week rotation, the Raid would stand a better chance of being up on Monday for the incoming rotation).  This doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings about who should be in rotation or even questioning Multiboxing, which we have determined more than once that triggers and boxing are just facts of life that cannot be done with the current server.  I know that when people see “FFA” they picture chaos and whatnot, but reality is, most of the raids will be down at 12 noon, and all of them would have at least one chance at being taken down over the weekend.  This could and would cause more people to log in on the weekends.  There are a lot of players, in rotation of the raids that only log in for a raid anymore, they have nothing else they really want to do, and they log out right afterwards.  This will spark interest.  We, as a community are older, even if we don’t want to believe it or not, but with the simple rule of “Don’t KS a raid if it started” is lived by, just like the gentleman’s agreement on current rotation, then there will be parties that form up, from TS convo’s and/or General Chat, to take these down on the weekends.   Like I said earlier, based on what I have seen in this thread, nothing will happen anyways.  Again I say, I don’t want chaos on the server.  There are limitations on what can change, and anything really more than what is listed above would appear to be calling one person or another, one guild or another, out as being less than, or questioned why and how they are where they are.  The system above would basically have no effect on any of the “Big Three” OR “Public) if they are taking their Raids down in a timely fashion anyway.  To argue this point would mean that you don’t take it down as often as it could, or are just plain greedy.

That is why I have basically given up on the topic as a whole.  We can debate all we want here, but the fact is, only a couple from the guilds that have a slot already and a few from public even been on this topic on the forums.  I am glad that there is a discussion, but reality is, nothing will be fixed due to a poll, or anything on this thread.  If there was, then I am sure everyone and their brother would come and have something to say.  The only action that has taken place on this thread so far was Syber stepping down from representing the public part of the rotation.   The Raids will not go to trigger and multiboxing cannot be monitored, so what bothers everyone else is dead conversation imho.   I am all about improvement, but seems like on here at least, Gunney, Holy, and myself are the only ones that seem to see an issue with the rotation.  We can and have brainstormed many ideas, met with "Leave it as it is", so I guess I am done trying.  Ironically, I raid less than most on the server, but I do see an issue with the raid system.  So it affects me less than most.   In ideal world, yes, a TS meeting of the masses would be AMAZING, but that is almost comical to think of as well as being a real option that would get any real results.       Just a side note to the whole thing....  An example of how the server should actually be....last night, only like 6 people in TS when I got on last night, IN OUR GUILD channel....yet, there were 3 of them from another "competing Guild", actually they were from one of the "BIG THREE"...you know what, we do that more often than not, we actually enjoy their company, and yes, they are very helpful as well for ingame things.  There have even been NUMEROUS GR and FB with them.  They understand us, we understand them....I really do wish that there were more interaction in this fashion, because, the reality is, our game is really small in the scope of it, we talk in percentages, and act like we are using big numbers, but anyone can look at Net-7 stats of how many are online at any given time.  Even if you dont look at the numbers knowing that those numbers cant tell how many are multiboxing, those numbers are really small.  We should be able to literally get meetings together, lobby opinions and find the best solutions for Community driven content that the Devs will not interact with.   Happy Hunting...

Could it be that more than 3 guilds are added to a guild rotation within raid rotation.  For the first quarter of the year, the current guilds in rotation keep their slots and 2nd quarter of the year, they are replaced with 3 guilds that have their own rotation and the original 3 guilds move to the Public rotation....or maybe even monthly, one full raid cycle?  This could ease the current 3 guilds into understanding that the public option would include other players and foster new friendships for them?

I am pretty sure the hard coding keeps us from being able to do triggers for raids, and any attempt to monitor multi boxing is impossible as well.  Even if the Devs could do this, they wouldn't.  Id love to know if they could supply Raid data though, IE How often raids are taken down, by how many toons, and make it historical.  I would believe that they would have some sort of logs for this request.  It would answer how many times Raids are simply taken with one full group and would show how often Raids are wasted each week.  We could figure out which group had those raids based on the dates, and understand if they are able to take full advantage of their rightful raids.  I understand that its "none of my business" what the guild does with their raid, to do it or not, but is it because they choose to not do them when they are up or because they cant?

I have an idea that is not intended to cause strife and conflict.  It is apparent that the true root cause to the issue at this point would be when a guild kills a raid at 11:30 on Monday that in turn causes a delay to the next guild in rotation.     My idea is keep the rotation as is, with the current guilds that are in rotation, but to add a timer to the gentlemen agreement that we have.  at 12 noon on Saturday, if the raid is up and not being taken down by noon on Saturday, then that raid and all the other raids in the same condition become FFA until Monday at noon when the weekly rotation come back into affect.    This will still keep the current rotation and each guild in rotation(or public) will retain their slot, but will allow the next rotation the guilds being able to Raid on their incoming raid that monday.   If you bring parties to raid something that is there still and the current guild has not started, yet another group, you were not included with has started, we will still be gentlemen and not KS a raid.   This works for all groups in rotation, if you take yours down, at noon on Saturday, you can also go and look to take any other Raids that are up and are now considered FFA.  Its a win win for all.   I also believe that this increase in action would bring more players into the game more, with the anticipation of possibly getting an "extra" raid per week if one is not taken down yet.   Thoughts?

I will defend Phorlaug on the bidding of items.  I was on Peggie server on live as well and this worked amazingly.  Gunney is saying that only those with credits get the loot.....but the system worked that all that raided profited from the raid, even if you didnt win an item.  Once all items were bid on and paid for, the pool of money was then split equally to all the raiders, so you at least got something for at least showing up and raiding.  I dont think this would work so much on the Emu as credits are pretty easy to obtain and do not hold any real value.

I have thought about this for the last few days before saying anything.  In the past, I was totally against anything that caused wars and arguments, and turns out, my opinion on this matter is same as in the past, but for totally different reasons as in the past.  I am fine with the rotation as it stands right now and here is why.  It keeps order, and for the most part everyone sticks to the rotation pretty well.  The reason my reasons are different as in the past was because I was dogged with the term "Big Three" in the past and felt like I had no say so in the matter, since the majority of the server would be part of these Big Three and obviously they know better than I and I should just listen to what is happening and just not have an opinion on the matter.     All that said, I am not in a Guild that is considered in the Big Three and I am ok with that.  Being part of the Guild I am in, I know when the spawn comes up for the Public raids, that more of the team members in that Raid are from the guild I am in.  I am not saying that we "own" the public raid, what I am saying is, I am very encouraged in the cross guild friendships I see during these public raids.  This mirrors what the OP stated, that the older we all get, the more we all seem to get along.  It is very evident in TS when these are going on.   Another post here stated that the Public couldnt get enough players to Raid all the time, and I would beg to differ, that usually there are more than plenty that show up and more often than not, there is no multi boxing going on.  Maybe the looter is multi box or something, but for the most part, there is plenty of participation from multiple guilds.  There are some times, the second something spawns, later at night, that a few public people try to get a raid together and shout in General and in the end never raid until the next day, but that is not the Norm and could give the perception that the public still sucks at raiding   I do agree with Syber, that timezone issue for some players is rough, but honestly, with any MMO, this issue will exist.  If you want to raid and roughly the raids happen at the same time of day, either make it or dont.  I dont make every one of them, not even alot of them, but I do enjoy them when I do them.   All that said, I used to feel "lesser than" being only a "Public" raider, but based on server populations and flying around the server and seeing guild tags, it is pretty apparent that the "public" or even "the guild I am in" is no longer the "lesser than". I think I prefer being the Public catagory and have made friends with other guilds that that I have than being in the "Big Three"....I honestly think we are bigger in size than most of the Big Three even if the stats on Net 7 say that those guilds are huge based on character counts.   Here is something that I wonder though.  In the Public raids, like I said, our guild seems to start up the raids more frequently than most, we dont even think about hording it, we immediately make sure the whole server knows its happening and anyone qualified can come.  But if the end result the OP is looking for is for the whole server to get along open up more Raiding for everyone, that why doesnt the Big Three invite people in for their weekly raids more often like the Public does? They get to retain the raids, they control when they go down, no hurt feelings.  So what if there are 6 more players in their raids.  I get that is less likely to get loot from the raid, if they allow the outsiders to roll on them, but how many people really fight over Raid loot anymore?  

I would say to the "new players gone quickly", being a person that went on vacation for a good long while and have now returned, I would point out that the quicker that a new player discovers TS and the help they can get thru this the better.  Not only specific items are helped thru, but new strong friendships have been formed.

Purchase Faction?

That worked, Thank you so much.  I set the rules up for EnB and that worked.  Can not for the life of me understand why I forgot that

First, I have been playing for a few months.  I been thru the fun of loading the game before and have had small issue and what not.  I read and reread the technical issues alot.     I got a new computer   Windows 7(64 bit)....I have fresh installed everything(even uninstalled and reinstalled fresh as well).  Checked firewall for access.  Went the the 9 step cert class that has been talked about recently.  I have "X" all on the left side of the launcher.  I have tried with and wihout  local cert box checked.  I assured that the downloaded cert was loaded in correctly.   I am still having issues logging in.  I can custom size the screens.  I have checked all the "run as admin" items as well.  So I know it is prob only something small that I am missing, I just cannot seem to figure it out on this machine.     I get to Megan and when login is done, it gives me IN 300   I have seen some people talk about pinging the server, but I havent done that or understand how to.     I am running out of ideas on what to try next, well, I have ran out of ideas to be honest

I have 2 boxes, both are wireless to the router.(have no choice on wireless option)  Laptop works like a charm.  Rarely drops, gates for hours and doesnt have issues.  The desktop on the other hand, I can gate sometimes for like 10 gates and it crashes...other times, it crashes on same gate, or the next 3 in a row and then goes back into a 10 gates or so before  a crash.  The "packets" are checked on both boxes.  I have tried one without the other and both at the same time and that does not seem to matter.  So, at least I know that the network works, at least for the laptop.  Anything I need to look at for the desktop specifically, or just deal with it? Another thing is, as long as I dont gate/dock on the desktop, I can play for hours with no issues.

Cold weather did bring me back into the game.  That is a valid concept.  I game alot more when its cold out and I took a minute to see where the Emulator was compared to the last time I looked.  It is amazing change from last time.  The current players that have been here awhile probably do not see the improvement.  I know in the last week that my good experience with the servers and communicating with old friends that were on live have come back as well.  So, me and 4 others, does not sound like alot, but I think it should be known that players are coming back.   I also want to say that I have gone thru the game enough before posting to be 150 on at least one character and have have pleasant interactions with the player base.  So, my opinions are not simply based on a being able to play.  It has a good feeling to it, if that makes sense.   I think that most of the server population is what others said above, multiboxes and whatnot, but we are a older community as well, I answer questions daily to my oldest son who games online as well.  I am hoping to get him involved and maybe even bring some of his friends that game as well.  I would think that would be an obvious solution to start the "word of mouth" method to bring new players.  It is a good product and you cant beat the cost of it to play.