Luciferish

I think it's consensus among those already in the rotation.. I know they are talking about it, though things are looking positive and progress is being made.  Imagine what the problems would be if the big 3 don't find a way to allow another guild into the rotation having proved their desire and capability.  That would surely turn into something nasty. Fortunately these guilds aren't run by adolescent minds and I am sure they will find a way to accommodate EG's situation, just to keep the peace.  My entire point here is that it's a new situation since Live of the EMU and the guilds concerned are doing their best to figure out a solution without a bunch of name calling, raid jumping and other nasty ways this could go.

Well whatever you think of individual players, the fact there IS a rotation makes my point.  The fact that another guild can develop enough to be placed IN that rotation without a major war breaking out also proves the point.  Our little community can rise above the actions of any individuals.  Whatever GoodHumorBoy did to make your 'naughty list' it serves no one to run around talking like the entire server is doomed to infantile conflicts. 

Well aren't you Mr. Positive.    As small as our community is in the EMU I don't think it will degrade into the uncivilized mess you see in other MMOs. At least I certainly hope it wont.

I think it's good that EG is getting some guidance and help while they get their feet wet.. It is also good to know that EG is not being met with hostility but rather with support as they grow into these challenges.  This is what makes this game and its community unique and special.... Best of luck EG and thanks go out to all of the Big 3 for helping these guys spread their wings.. I hope to hear more successful learning experiences from this... And hey.. EG peeps... Even if you fall flat on your face for a raid, learn from it.. failure is often the greatest teacher of success.

I can understand the effort involved and I love the new looks... It would just be nice to see all of the other tiles other than the ones currently used for turn ins to get some purpose.. "Junk Loot" is great, but useful loot is better, especially when it looks like (actually is) part of a grouping of loot that has a  purpose.    Thanks for the clarification, at any rate.. :) keep the changes coming, these little details mean a lot for the feel of the game...

I was looking at the Mahjong tile sets that are in game and how they are arranged.  It seems a bit haphazard in the way they were implemented.  Are we going to see this done in a more sensible way in the future? Complete set? All tiles having turn-in value?  Same would apply to the animal figurines, lovely artwork with little use.. Perhaps have the animals be faction turn in items as well? Perhaps for Chavez v.s. RD?   Also the white dragon tile is.. blank?   EDIT: I see what the dragon tile is now, I forgot that the white dragon was essentially a blank tile with a boarder on it as it is in most sets, I actually went and pulled out my set to look at the ones I have so I could see it.. :)

Go to the Net 7 site, click on the avatar's name to the left.. Then click the "Signature" tab at the top.. pick the one you like, paste the link in your sig setting here..   Though mine does not seem to want to update.. :(

I would say it is uncalled for to rip into anyone for such questions.  The client/server connection is kind of touchy and there are any number of reasons people can have issues.    Kudos to Zack for narrowing this down to ISP, that is an ugly troubleshoot to get that far.  You essentially have to eliminate everything else since it is not a common thing for ISP issues like this.

Sounds like fun, but I wonder how many people would actually use the content that are not in guilds... Seeing as how it requires a group to be assembled quickly the non-guild/small guild population has not shown well at this ability.

As far as I know the raid timers are not effected by shutdowns now, so the timer will execute based on when the last raid was run, no matter if there was a patch or crash.

The reactor and shield buffs from JS/TT are both very short durations, which is a detriment to the skill.  I have all but given up using it because the upper limit of TT's shields and JS's reactors when when solo are enough to get by most of the time.  JS has to uncloak to activate this skill and it takes a very long time so I have to warp out of the combat area to use it.  I have found it is just better to conserve energy as much as possible and MH more often if I am having reactor issues.

I tried both and found the MH to be better for what I do.. The timing is fairly good... About the time reactor is low the MH delay timer expires and fills reactor to nearly 100% depending on the cap.  if you aren't taking damage and proper use of cloak you barely touch your shield to get that.  My JD also rarely uses Psi shield, because the mobs she fights drops it in one hit, so I would be sitting there exposed while I re-establish the shield.  Also leech is very dangerous because I can be exposed long enough to take heavy damage to my shields doing a leech, if enough damage is taken I can't cloak and it spirals into xp debt very quickly.    Cloak/Find Target Chim/Fire/cloak Fire/cloak x3 MH/cloak x1 Fire/cloak x4 rinse/repeat mob dies. MH/cloak x1 find a target   I can go this way for hours and never run out of power, never be exposed long enough to get hit significantly and kill indefinitely as long as I don't make a mistake in the process or hit a lag spike at a bad moment.   With Shield leech it was flipping a coin.. Do I lose 50% shield and risk an incap to leech it or MH it and not risk anything.. SEC burns more shield per use, feeds less reactor and timer is shorter... you can actually hurt your chances of survival using that thing.   As for Terrell I found that lack of a shield leech on my JS is not as much of a problem as JD/JE in most cases, MH is very useful however if you are burning massive amounts of reactor healing someone else or if you need to feed someone else some reactor power in your group... MH/Charge Shield..  They are 100% in both in about 2 seconds. Use can be the same if you are griding XP with the JS as they burn a lot of juice if you are acting like a JD... Under cloak and during firing you lose power, not gain it.. so rapid consecutive firing will drain your reactor no matter how many buffs you have...

I wasn't impressed with the SEC device, the cost v.s. return in comparison to the MH was very poor. But yes it is similar.  There are also reactors that are not Jenquai friendly (Warrior's Heart) that other races can use, but again they are poor second choices.

Fish makes many good points... Skunky had a desire to raid and get raids going for "the rest of us", he and others, some experienced at raiding, tried and met with some disappointment.  Now with some persistence that could be fixed, but the primary problem was when it came time to execute the raid, either people didn't want to or couldn't due to lack of development of their toons.   Most of the rewards in these raids are for high level toon, 135-150 range. Lacking enough people, leadership and coordination is what caused issues here.  There are ways to overcome those issues, but all of those solutions are normally roles of a guild.  Helping people level up, guiding skill development and helping equip the people that are going to be raiding via suggestion or direct assistance.  Guilds KNOW what needs to be happening so it is easy for them to tell a new TT in the ranks how to setup their toon to be more effective.  An inexperienced raider without guidance has to learn by trial and error, which will cause XP debt.    Personally I think it's fine to be non-guild oriented, but one has to set the expectation of their end-game content to be limited to trading for the really high end gear that is available via trade, non-trade items that require direct looting from a raid will be problematic if not impossible to obtain.  But I think a toon that reaches 150 and has gotten all the toys they can in that scenario is just not going to get played very much except to assist in a multi-box situation.  Some people will actively over-ding their toon until it is completely maxed but it is more likely they will start a new one from a different class. A solo player can keep themselves occupied doing this for months.    Raid content is not required to have a satisfactory setup for most classes, I think that people want the "Best of the best" for their beloved ship and this makes them want something that is out of reach for their circumstances, causing irritation that they can't get that ultimate-bad-mean-super weapon/reactor/shield/engine. But do you really need it?  Can your ship perform well in the content you are playing with? I have found that most cases the answer should be yes.  Tactics, careful research of the traded or player built equipment will render more than adequate equipment for any class.  Raid EQ is not required for any of the normally "Solo" content.

I imagine that scaling raids to the level of whoever started the raid or whoever is activating stages of a raid would be very very hard to do and avoid abuse.  Smaller raids are a great idea, but again it isn't about individual skills of the player.  It comes down to teamwork.. which is not inherent to solo play.  Since most of the population that is not in a guild plays very much solo they do not develop the needed piloting skills and tactics needed to be successful in a raid.  how to watch reactors with your JE to know when/who needs charges.. How to diffuse agro when you are a healer.. best sequence to summon a group of mobs with your JD and avoid getting beaten down until the agro shifts to tank in the group, etc.  All of this comes with experience and practice.     My advice would be, if you are intent on raiding a lot, consider a guild, they raid constantly... maybe after you've gotten when you need as far as experience and technique you could sponsor raids and help teach others how to do them, but that is part of what has been going on.  Attempts to do this so far have met with a very low success rate unless the raiding guilds get involved at some level to ensure success.    After a few weeks in a major guild and a little bit of a learning curve you will learn how to operate your toon in a raid well enough you can support in your role.  In order to adequately organize raids from general public (read people who have not raided before) you will have to know the roles of everyone involved and how to explain the techniques and tactics to people who have never done it before.  Small raids are more forgiving, such as Mordana raids.  Gate and FB to a lesser degree, failure can be quick and catastrophic if certain things happen in those raids.  Major raids (GoBB, RD and Controller) would be met with a quick and certain death for all.  Those raids require a specific coordinated effort across 2 or 3 groups and even guilds that have run the raids dozens of times can "Oops" it and find themselves in trouble.  They, however, will recover themselves and continue. Inexperienced groups will end up with lots of XP debt and little to show for the effort.   That being said I would still love to see a way for non-guild/small guild players to "get it together" but from what I've seen that challenge is going to be hard to meet without tremendous effort of several people and a process to which people can "train up" for them.    My recommended process would be to organize Mordana raids first.. and do them for a period of days or weeks until groups can form, successfully execute complete all 4 raids in KV with minimal deaths.  Once that is happening at a reasonable level, then start organizing Tada-O gate raids.  Do many of them, to both upgrade the equipment on routine raiders and get the spawns, loot and tactics down.  A well seasoned group of 6 well armed toons of the right classes can execute a gate raid and not even have a single death.  But initially 2 groups is best for this.  Enough firepower and backup to get it done in a reasonable amount of time... and then more forward... Getting this kind of long-term project going with players that play solo, at their own pace and without obligations to a guild is going to be extremely hard.   The best course, if you want to raid regularly, get into the raiding guilds, Epic, Static, VGE or Builders.  You will probably be surprised at the level of cooperation and coordination they have because some of these players have been raiding together since the EMU was in early development.  They love the game and are usually very helpful people. 

Something not mentioned here.. The use of Martyr's Heart in solo combat for JD is life changing.  You should consider this device when you reach a level that enabled you to hunt it down and loot it.  The device cannot be traded and IMHO is life changing for any class other than JE which has the Antlia to serve the same purpose.  It is more than worth the time it takes to camp for the device and get it.

Given the slope of decline in population, in a very short time the big guilds will be all that is left. Either people will join them because there is no where else to go, including smaller guilds merging with larger ones or because there isn't enough solo/non guild people left in the "General" population, driving people into the arms of the big three.  Since Static and VGE are not in active recruiting as far as I know this explains why BI is growing like a weed even though server pop is declining.

Very well then.. :) Ulyy was just echoing a sentiment that is held by a large number of people in the player base, so it wasn't a surprise to me to see it posted.  I can think of two dozen threads that have similar statements by various people.  The way I see it, if his angst v.s. guilds motivates him to focus content at solo/small guild players, I'll let him have his rant.. :) I don't agree with it, but I don't have to. I just want the ideas he's posted about to materialize... So, by all means give him a hard time too, I just thought it was odd that the first post you ever make is to put the whammy on a Dev you probably don't know very much about.

There are a few rough edges, but in general, being a volunteer effort by the devs and the relatively small player base has made the community very different from that of Live and many of the loose ends left by Westwood and EA are being cleaned up.  You should load up a client and make a toon! Come bounce around and have some fun!

I agree about the Bile ammo... It is a bit of a pain that the ammo comps are not available on non-raid Ten-gu in Cooper... Perhaps some discussion with the Devs is needed there.. :) As for beams, EoD beams and the Devastating Gaze beams are items you can trade for, but your playing parameters will make that a serious challenge... For your JD Defender's Pride (Dropped in Mordana raids) is an excellent beam for Plasma, I am not sure where the Made to Live beam drops I'll have to check on that, but it is not hard to get one made on Market, getting the print is a challenge though.  EoD beam and DG require parts that are from the raids GoD beam is loot only from Fishbowl.  All of these beams I believe are tied to raids as is the Emerald Disruptor (another JD coveted beam)  Your "All self-built" challenge will be hard to cope with once you get to L8 and 9 equipment, most of that comes out of raids.

  That self imposed limitation is not shared by many.. I know there are many who have developed to 150 or near to it and are at the end of content for that avatar.  Raids are the obvious step but the problem is access to that content.  I can trade for the parts for a Bile launcher for my TE but it would be really nice to get the Fury that drops in the FB that uses the same ammo to compliment the set, for example.    Triggers are complicated to build and sometimes a camping nightmare, but if you can produce the trigger then the only thing "help" needs to bring is firepower and teamwork to complete the raid.. Asking Jamoos, Savic, Fish, Magoo or any one of the Builder's Inc regulars will probably result in a raid for you and your avatars if you have the trigger ready to go... Even the big 3 guilds can't do FB or gate because their own guilds are limited at certain times/days, but they have a better chance than the general non-guild/small guild population.  Members of VGE, Static or Epic are also frequent raiders, if you can nail down anyone in those guilds and discuss it you will be likely to get FB or Gate going.    Also, a number of these guilds do these raids and have stored up components and items that drop from these raids that other players can't get their hands on.  Some of their members trade them to the general population, raid trigger parts, such as Feathers or BOO shields, even full up triggers can be used as trade materials.  Players that want to get their hands on Bile weapons or Bile Components to feed those weapons as well as ammo samples for printing could be wrenched from the hoarding fingers of those that have them for a feather or two.  I would also encourage these guilds to look in their vaults and spread some of these items around some. Once there is a suggested price for an item, people will come up with it.. Credits being a null trade currency it is likely that feathers, carapaces and triggers/parts are the best player accessible trade materials.  It would do us very good to come together and decide what the trade currency should be, how it is valued toward other items based on how rare the item is. But that may not be very easy to do. 

  A dev is asking for ideas, wants to be more inclusive of players not in guilds, makes a couple comments to that effect and you smack him down for it... You expect this dev to produce for you?  Did you create this account simply to post this rather... odd bit of logic?

My responses here are to address things that people have said in other posts.... There seems to be a couple of factions of players and a few of them are vocal against the guild situation we currently have...   This has created a few different points of view that seem to fit most people.   Big guilds get all the content and anyone not in a big guild is left out.  (Often followed by a big guilds are evil rant.) Big guilds are dominating all of the content out of some desire to control the game (Again followed by a rant or something) Raids are not accessible to the non-guild or small guild population of the server because of point 1 and 2. Raids are not accessible because they are too hard or complex to be solo-played, thereby making them inaccessible to many people. (If you can multi-box a raid, go for it, it won't be a lot of fun) Raids and end-game content is only being developed for the big guilds. (How much of the server population is IN those guilds v.s. everyone else?) The entire point of the Skunky raid was to try and organize and execute a raid outside of the foundation of a large guild, at least that is how I understood what was going on.  In effect the "Skunky" raids proved that the non-guild/small guild player base is not able to organize on this level.  Only thanks to BI jumping in to help and effectively ensuring success did it happen at all.    My points to the entire endeavor are this.   Big guilds have the firepower, resources and knowledge base to do these raids nearly at will, sometimes multiple times a day. About 1/3 of the server has no access to any of that, or the content that these raids contain in the form of equipment and experience.  Mind you I am only addressing the Tada-O gate and the "Fishbowl" raids in this statement.  The GoBB, RD Base and Controller raids are an entirely different matter.  Suffice it to say that if the 1/3 "rest of us" cannot get a Gate raid to fly without all the big guilds, you can entirely forget the big raids in BBW/Paramis and AP ever being in reach. That content is effectively locked down by the guilds currently in rotation to do them.  That is not to say that they intentionally locked anyone out, I don't think BI, VGE or Static intended to prevent people from accessing certain content, It is simply a fact that the 1/3 of the server that is not in one of these guilds is not going to be able to jump to and make it work.. period...   My statements about what this means is simple reasoning... Not being motivated by any animosity toward any guilds or their membership, simply this:   If you want to be able to raid and have access to that content.. VGE, Static and BI are the only viable solution at this point.  Any member of those guilds that says, "Well if you want to raid, get some people together fand do it, you don't need a big guild to do that" is now an invalid argument.  We just can't say that anymore, because frankly, IWantToRaid player can't just throw a message out on General and organize one of these with any degree of routine success without members of these guilds being involved, if not running the show.   If we had a larger player base, with more than 1/3 of the server in a pile and a half dozen experienced raiders in that population that could organize, coordinate and execute these the story would be different.  But please understand the common player just isn't going to make one of these happen without a guild involved that knows how they work, able to make it happen and operate as a team.   As for the bit about "Providing" triggers.  Who said the guilds had to provide triggers?  No one did. Any player that is willing to build one can ask BI, VGE, Static or Epic to put together a raid, I am sure these guilds can help facilitate that raid and would be happy to do so. But the public (1/3 of the population that is not in the big 3) needs to know the guilds can and will do this. There are players that know how to make the triggers, ask around get tips and advice, just like any mission.  Put together the gate trigger and then ask around, Fish is a good example, Jamoos or others can grab that an run with it.    I think it would be nice of the larger guilds to be more open to facilitate this if a player comes forward, I know Builders would do it if asked. Since JohnQPlayer can't do it on his own and has elected not to guild should not lock him out of the content, those who can help out should. Our community is too small not to..

From what I've gathered about this whole mess it seems that the players that are non-guild or small guild lack leadership... That failing is why they are unable to organize and conduct raids without the help of large guilds like BI or VGE helping out in various ways.    From that I can draw the conclusion that all of the posts "Big guilds ruin everything for the little guy" are off base because the guilds don't effect the little guy, it is simply a lack of organization that is the problem...   Secondly it is possible to say that the routine answer by many members of big guilds to non-guilds/small guild players that people should "Organize and do the raids" on their own is a bad argument when the first complaint is raised.  We must come to accept that non-guild/small guild players without proper guidance are not going to be capable to engage that content.  The player base is too small to just muster up a dozen people even with several weeks of preparation, let alone lack of leadership, knowledge and confidence needed to make a raid go well.  Guild like Builders, VGE, Static and Epic should consider hosting raids and offering more of these to help the non-guildies get some experience.    With the size of the big 3 guilds they comprise nearly 80% of the server at any given time, though that is hard to judge since there is no way to know how many members of those guilds are ALTs.  But there are enough seasoned players that are raid savvy that they can do what the general populace cannot... Coordinate a dozen toons to a focused goal...   The matter isn't that of access to the raids or the ability to activate the content, the failing is with the people themselves just not knowing how to or not being able to experience the content due to the chaotic nature of the "Rabble" involved. Efforts by Builders Inc, VGE and its members to help out is the only reason any "Public" raiding is even possible at this point.. We just have to accept that.

IF you have a hard time getting 2 groups formed and doing the gate raid you may want to hold off on the FB until you can get more people organized.