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Raid History

I would like to express to you, a problem that is affecting players in EQ in a negative way. I have been playing Everquest for almost exactly one year now, and subsequently have grown a Shaman character to level 55. During that time, I have earned the right to attend some high level raids with my guild, and others, according to the rules set forth by Verant Interactive.

Every raid that I have attended has been well organized and scheduled in a timely manner, due to a system of scheduling centered around a forum called The Tribunal Board, which allows guilds to sign up for planar raids in a timely manner, so as few problems with mob spawns will be encountered.

In the past week, this scheduling board was closed by some of the larger guilds, and deemed unnecessary. Their reasoning being, (from what I gather is), that they did not like having to schedule a raid to the planes, and would rather be able to just pop in whenever they wanted to, and essentially, make the planes a “First Come, First Serve” zone.

For one thing, my guild, and many other smaller guilds, (guilds with less than 100 members), did not even have a say in this decision, and I can’t even measure the amount of dismay and problems this has caused us.

Due to the nature of the spawns in the planes, (12 hour respawn, from what I understand), a scheduling system of some sort is required for raids to run smoothly and efficiently. Let’s face it, it’s often difficult to get 18 to 36 people together for a joint venture in a uniform manner, and keep them concentrated on a common goal.

Please read the following excerpt from a raid to the plane of Fear, which took place on Tuesday, June 5th.

Plane of Fear

Ever since the Tribunal Board was closed, nobody really knows when is a good time to enter the planes now. Total confusion runs amok.

Thirty-six well-balanced, high-level players gathered at the portal to the plane of Fear at 5pm PST, to attempt a raid. When everyone was buffed and ready to enter the plane, we ported in.

To our surprise, there were no mobs to greet us at the portal. Matter of fact, there were only 10 mobs in the whole zone. (Cazic Thule, and 9 “Amy Warriors”) It took us about an hour to hunt down and successfully kill the 9 warriors, and then we decided to wait for the repop of the zone. (Traditionally 12 hours from the time they were last killed.)

We contacted the last guild that was known to raid the plane of Fear (Legendary) and found out that they broke in at around 10AM PST, so we concluded that at 10PM PST, the mobs should start to respawn. We waited for 5 more hours, until 11pm PST, until the majority of the raiding party was out of patience, and considered this raid a complete waste of time. A GM was contacted to assure that nothing was wrong with the zone, who stated, “It will be many more hours till the mobs respawn”. On that note... groups proceeded to port out.

As the last group was porting out, a druid noticed that mobs were starting to appear on his track list. By then, it was too late to get everyone back into Fear to continue the raid. A few of us decided to gather our friends, and recruit some strangers to attempt the zone.

By the time we got organized, and rebuffed, the zone had a full pop, making it extremely difficult, and dangerous to break in. It was now 1am PST.

The 18 people in the raid party quickly died upon entering the zone, due to slow zoning times for some, and others going link dead, which resulted in about 10 people to fight the 8 mobs waiting for us on the other side of the portal.

When those of us who went link dead logged back on, they too met with a quick death. Now we were faced with a very hostile zone, and 18 naked raiders to resurrect. The odds were not in our favor, so we decided to bite the bullet and call in some support from a larger guild.

Two full groups of very high-level players eventually arrived at the portal in Ferrott, and developed a plan to not only break into Fear, but to also “rez” those of us who had died.

Very confident, and well buffed, the 12 players from the rescue party entered the zone. Half of them returned naked in a matter of 60 seconds. The other half had evacuated to safety, and were on their way back to the portal, to make another attempt; slightly tattered from the experience.

The 12 people in the rescue party attempted the break in one more time, to rescue some of their more important gear, such as epic weapons, and stat buffing armor, which would be very helpful in strengthening these players, in further attempts. This mini-raid was successful and the rescue party returned with some of their items. By now, 2 hours had gone by since we initially died, leaving only one hour left to resurrect the dead, and to recover countless hours (even days) of experience lost by this misfortune.

The rescue party developed a new plan, and decided that they were going to need more assistance to get past the nasty mobs who were waiting for them just on the other side of the portal.

Two more groups of high-level players were called in, and some of the naked players offered to help with the break in.

Four groups entered the plane and fought their way to safety, unfortunately, by this time, four hours had gone by, rendering the corpses unrezzable.

We moved in a very organized manner sweeping the zone of its offenders, making sure that it was safe for the dead to enter the zone and finally loot their corpses. After a long, hard-fought battle, the 24 raiders on the rescue party dwindled down to 2 on an unfortunate, and deadly, premature move to the Golden Tower, on the south wall of the plane of Fear. The two who were left had camped out safely, proving to be a very smart move by those clerics, allowing them to log back in, and attempt to quickly resurrect the dead.

Once the corpses were dragged to safety and 20+ resurrections were complete, the rescue team made a final sweep of the surrounding area, in an attempt to recover some of the corpses belonging to the players who had been at this raid since 5PM PST. It was now 8:30AM PST.

At 3AM PST I had petitioned to a GM because my corpse was bugged and could not be dragged to safety, further ruining my night, and ebbing any hopes for an experienced resurrection. There were no GM's logged on for the next 5 hours.

Remember, at the beginning of this event, there were 36, well-balanced, high-level players just sitting in the zone waiting for something to fight. But instead of following our instincts, we listened to a GM who told us that it would be “many hours until respawn”, causing us to leave the zone, which was a huge, and deadly mistake.

This unfortunate incident, caused mainly by the lack of any raid scheduling board, (new system developed by uber guilds), and also by a GM who was uninformed, ended up in several players calling in sick to work; others being reprimanded by their loved ones; and at the least, others losing sleep, (not to mention countless hours of lost experience), over this great new system we call “First Come, First Serve”.

A few corpses are still rotting in the plane of Fear, because those players were forced to log off during the corpse retrieval. We will have to work on getting their corpses back, which will involve breaking into Fear again. Joy!

If that GM had only told us the truth, that there is, in fact, a definite 12 hour respawn time in Fear, we would have stayed with our original party, who was poised and ready to fight, but instead, we heeded his word, and promptly left, only to find out that he was dead wrong, (only we did the dying because of it).

I certainly wish things had turned out different. I, for one, lost two, nine-hour days of experience because of this mistake, and I’m not the least bit pleased. After 16+ unsuccessful attempts by other people trying to drag my corpse, I finally decided that I was going to run up and loot it, which was successful.

I would like to sincerely thank the rescue team, (you know who you are), for their brave efforts in the attempt to recover our corpses, on a whim. Unfortunately the time had expired on our “rezability”, but we are surely grateful for all your effort, as we could not have done it without your help. Give yourselves a big round of applause, (/applaud rescue team), on a job well done!

In conclusion, this is only one scenario of what can happen due to the lack of a scheduling system for raids. I hope the guilds in charge of this new system, take a step back and see what problems it has caused, and what problems are capable of happening in the future.

Please reconsider your decision, and bring back the Tribunal Raid Scheduling Forums, so raiders know exactly what to expect when they step foot in these dangerous zones. That was 14 hours of my time, which I sincerely do NOT want to relive ever again, not to mention the time that it will take for me to recover the experience I, and others, have lost due to this new system.

By the way, a GM finally contacted me at 9AM PST, and asked how he could be of assistance. I bit my tongue, and told him/her that I had everything under control now. Where was he/she five hours ago? Nobody will ever know...



Zabooboo Navigator
Ranger of the 63rd Tree
Officer - SoD!