arieste

That's a somewhat defeatist approach, no?

A constructive approach would be:

"Very few people raid contested, how do we make contested raids more popular so that more people enjoy them and we can justify creating more of them?"

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Kungao

to the poster above me:
Learn to understand sarcasm and go back to that crappy game and stop trollin the forums

there is no point, before more people can bother with contested epics they would have to implement huge overland CONTESTED zones, similar to what i hear the old god planes were like but with well not god related mobs :P

to the op your still a one minded retard stop posting already

to the rest of ya, the op is a retard and will never stop posting cause his single brain cell thinks his way of thinking is the only right one (where have i seen that before )

Manratten

This is what makes posting here so fun, chuckle. Heck, not only have I read the thread, I completely agree with everything the OP said. That dude makes a strong argument!!

Well, this response would imply that it is you that are one minded. I don't want to call you or anyone else a retard, because you might actually be a retard, and then Trumak would be in outrage that I called you one. So, I won't call you a retard. Heck, I don't want to seem confrontational. Let's just say I am agreeing with you in a totally unusual way.

That said, you made a "stop trolling comment", to Arieste. The comment was in response to:

I don't see how you could possibly have a problem with that. If you argue with that, you are saying you don't want contested mobs to be more popular. I can safely say, if you are a raider, and you have a problem with that statement....I can cease arguing...I don't get it.

Caswydian

The problem with contested encounters is that they represent a zero-sum game. If group or raid defeats the encounter, they are explicitly denying others access to that content. What is needed is non-zero-sum contested content, such that more participation in the contest creates more content. PvP is a good example of this - the more people participate in PvP play, the more enjoyable and competitive that play becomes.

Alesis

I agree.

It however seems that most high end game raiders arent interested in, or get off on, the competition so much as the denying the other guys a chance at ever having the opportunity. For evidence of that, read this whole thread, and see how many people get boners from "locking the server down."

If they where truly interested in contests of skill and tactics, they would be playing on Naggy.

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Im out bitches! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, your cool, fuck you, Im out!

/wings a cheesburger across the room, hitting someone you know and love in the face.....

/exit, stage left

Gage

PvP != raiding

If I wanted to play a PvP game, I'd play WoW because it does PvP better.

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Cleansing the internet of e-whores since 2003! Just saying!

Obsidian

if i want to take on humans i play UT3 CS source what i dont understand is if it takes no skill to lock down a contested why dont you just take them from us ? :D

hell PvP in this game is unbalanced shit anyway if i want some PVP ill have a game of pool down the pub with my m8,s

if u dont understand the fun involved in a race to be ready for and then kill a mob whilst under pressure from very serious competitor who are more than capable of first pulling it then your a moron

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Tholar

so another thread

solo players vs raiders (just to generalize it). only this one is now the casuals vs. hardcore. and this on eq2flames, very brave of you.

now get the fuck back to hello kitty online adventures, op.

Hidge

Alright, I cannot be bothered to read through this concentrated whine for longer than the first 7 pages or so. I've never killed a contested mob in my time on EQ2, and I'd certainly want to at some point - but I can't be bothered to do the footwork, find a guild that can use me who're able to do this etc, so that's not likely to happen.

I am however very happy that contested mobs are in the game. Why?
Because the alternative is to make the high end raid instances hard enough to last an entire expansion wihtout dropping much loot - or to see the server get flooded with "now we've done it all, let's go raid that anoying instance again, if we can even be bothered" guilds.
In this fashion I, being an instance raider at best, can continue on my merry way and play with the people who care for the same kind of content I do and not see an influx of players in my raidforce that are vastly more dedicated to the game - they'll move on to raid guilds, raid contested stuff, whatever. - That's the not-quite-as-sucky-alternative.

And it also means that the raid progression instancewise is manageable. In the worst case scenario, Imagine all of EoF raiding instances being upgraded so the top end guilds would only barely manage to clear it all at the release date of RoK? It'd have to be much, much harder than the avatars seeing how they'd always be around to get killed at your leisure.

I think, being relatively casual raidwise, that EoF raiding was enough of a pain as it was. You had to - ohmygosh - think, use strats, couldn't fall asleep at the keyboard during the raid and expect to survive... But as it was, casuals had a chance to get through some of it. Without contested, to cater to as much of the population as possible, that would not be the case.

Alesis

Cause were at work, asleep, out to dinner with the kids, at a meeting with a kids teacher, helping them do homework, mowing the lawn, washing the wifes car etc.

Why dont they get taken away from you? Time, pure and simple. Contesteds are for the dude who can be online, 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. (I know, I know, you can clear them all in 15 minutes a day, and most of you play on your lunch breaks or while driving to and from work.) Gotcha...

Heres 10 minutes worth of research I just did:

Revelations-Unrest
Raiding Schedule:

o Monday thru Friday raids start at 5:30PM PST, that doesn’t mean you are on the way, repairing, or buying potions. That means you are in place and ready to zone in at 5:30PM PST. Raids generally end by 9 or 10 PM PST, but there will be nights where we are done early and some where we might end a bit late.
o Sunday raids start at 3PM PST and the above applies to being on time and ready to go. Again they end at approximately the same time.

Second Dawn- Najena

Raid Times; Our current Official Raid times are Monday to Friday 8pm EST to approximatly 12/1am EST. Weekends are given off for summer fun and may return in the future. Contested Raids may happen at anytime outside of Official raid times.

Defiant- Runnyeye

Brief snipets from guild rules:
Recruits and memebers alike should maintain at least 75% raid attendance, raiding 6-7 days a week. If you fall below this time, you will not be allowed to bid on loot, and we might have to recruit another player to replace you.

If you attend less than 75% you will be given a warning. If your attendance does not approve, we will ask you to disband so that you can find a more casual guild.

Saints of Norrath

Raid Times and Attendance
Our members are required to maintain a minimum of a 70% attendance (3/4 raids per week). Once reaching this mark, the member is no longer allowed to recieve any loot. And if no effort is seen to bring that attendance back up, the member will be kicked from the guild. However, we still expect our members to stay as close to the 100% mark as possible. But of course, we are pretty reasonable, and we do understand that sometimes people have RL issues to deal with, or want go on vacations to hawaii, or have to fly to NYC to watch Conan O'Brian cuz they won a free ticket off the radio. If this is the case with you, please inform an officer about it so that we may plan accordingly.

Our scheduled raid times are as follows (EST):

• Tuesday: 9pm - 1am
• Wednesday: 9pm - 1am
• Thursday: 9pm - 1am
• Sunday: 4pm - 12am

We may still call for raids on off-days and on off-times to take down contesteds or to make up for lost time if we can't raid on a scheduled day (like on holidays). Contesteds do not count towards attendance.

-----------------------------

Pretty hard to even get a chance to take them from you, when I cant live online isnt it?

This is just the set raiding schedules too, not the extra stuff, doesnt count towards the time online you do your own thing like leveling, farming, crafting etc.

If each one of these guilds requires 12-30 hours a week playtime or you get booted, and then you say, add in 10-15 hours playtime a week to handle your other buisness, well thats how much time a week I spend at my full time job, which pays me a salary.

With these raid times, I dont see how some of you claim to be HC raiders who only spend 3 hours a night 3 nights a week to do what takes the rest of us 40 hours a week to accomplish.

Maybe its not your play skills that make you uber, but your ability to manipulate the space/time continum to fit your 5 hour 4-7 day a week raids plus your crafting, leveling, farming and questing times into 3 4 hour sessions.

I wanna be like Hiro Nakamoto too, but every time I blink, the clocks still ticking, the wife still needs attention, and my boss still has another project to put on my desk that needs 4 hours of my life. Where do I sign up for that super powered shit, Im tired of this mortal bullshit, and its retarded insistance to be bound by logic and physics.

__________________
Im out bitches! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, your cool, fuck you, Im out!

/wings a cheesburger across the room, hitting someone you know and love in the face.....

/exit, stage left