Zone Instancing

[Rocker8956]

This was probably already asked, if so can someone point me to the correct post?
When a dynamic zone is first loaded is everything loaded into memory? Or does the server need to reference the zone’s database entry for pathing, spawns, loot table, etc?

I am asking because I think I may have a way to deal with zone instancing, such as LDoNs. But it I think for it to work all of the zone info would need to be loaded into memory.

Here is a summary of my initial thoughts for LDoN zone instancing. Sorry if it is hard to follow.

Database setup
LDoN Table fields - AccessFlagNum, MapName, uniqueZoneName, Timer, GroupID, FlagCount
Group LDoN Table fields - GroupID, AccessFlagNum, Char1ID, Char2ID, Char3ID,
Char4ID, Char5ID, Char6ID
(could add adventure objective fields later)

Player Requests LDoN
Server checks if player is leader
If No, rejects request
If Yes, server checks if group has 3 or more members
If No, rejects request
If Yes, server checks if any group member already has an access flag
If Yes, rejects request
If No,LDoN is offered

Group Leader accepts LDoN
AccessFlagNum created
Search LDoN.AccessFlagNum for first available flag number
Start at 01,
If 01 exists move to 02, etc…
If 01 does not exist, create 01
Entry made in LDoN Table and Group LDoN Table
Server checks which zone map to load for that LDoN
Server loads unique zone from map and access flag number
Zone is named by map name plus access flag number (mmca23)
Access flag given to leader and group for that zone


Player tries to zone into instance
Server checks flag to determine which zone to place player in
If no access flag exists it boots player back to previous zone, or a defualt zone
If access flag exists player is sent to zone based on access flag #

Player successfully zones into instance
Start timer

Player completes LDoN objectives
Zone timer set to 115 minutes

Player leaves adventure
Remove one from FlagCount

Zone stays active until
It has been active for 130 minutes or greater

Zone deactivates
Remove access flag from any marked with it
Remove LDoN Table and Group LDoN Table entry
Reset/remove timer

[trevius]

That sounds pretty good for how LDoN should work. But, zone instancing still doesn't work and there would need to be a way to get that working first.

I think you would need a separate timers table just for LDoN zones since you would have multiple instances running and each would need separate respawn timers unique to the instance. So you would probably need a way to track each instance. Maybe something like "zonesn##" or something, so the first instance of mira would be "mira01" and the second instance of guka would be "guka02" etc and it would be entered in the table. This name could be used to track which groups are in which instance number and also which spawn timers are being used for which instance as well.

There would need to be a way to boot multiple instances, which might be nice if it could be done with a quest command. Maybe something like "quest::bootinstance(zonesn,charid,timer,timeout)" could be used and an exampe of it being used might be "quest::bootinstance(mira,$userid,7200,120)" which would boot mira for the user who initialized the quest and the timer for the zone would be set for 2 hours to complete it and the timeout is 2 minutes, which is how long they have to enter the zone before it shuts itself down. Then, as long as the the leader of the group is the one that started the instance, everyone else in his/her group/raid should gain access to the zone. I imagine that some of the new group and raid tables could probably be used to help keep track of group members.

Another option for instancing might be to just adjust the the zones table to add in another field that will check if a zone is instance-able or not. If the zone is set for instances, then when a group zones into it, an instance is created just for their group/raid ID.

I am sure people would love to see LDoN implemented. I know there are plenty of things in it that still need work. Maybe with enough ideas some work can be started. At least with a rough outline on how to make them work, it gives something to go by.

[ChaosSlayer]

i want to point out that LDON has NEVER been instanced

at no point in time the same LDON zone was running at the same time for 2 different groups. The groups were simply sent to diffirent ldon zones

the only true instancing are sewer trials added in GoD and from there on

if you want to implement ldon like feature all you need is to set aside few zones which cannot be entered wihout help of quest npc, and a npc outside the zone which will hold a timer and prevent others from entering

[MNWatchdog]

You sure about that ChaosSlayer? I dont remember people lining up outside to get into a LDON which is what would certainly happen on a server with 3k people rushing to new content if multiple copies of LDONs werent instanced.

If things were not instanced, only like 5 groups would be able to do any particular LDON at a time and with them taking up to an hour each, there would certainly have been HUGE lines of people waiting to get in.

[trevius]

Ya, I am almost 100% sure that LDoN was instanced. I did quite a few LDoNs after it first came out and I never remember having to wait even though tons of people were going in all of the time. I think they only had multiple versions of the zones so that there would be more variety so it didn't get quite as boring doing them over and over and over again.

I think PoTimeB was instanced too, at least for a while. But then I think they changed PoTimeB to just work as an event that was reset after X amount of time.

[Flare83]

PoTimeB was semi instanced at first, meaning only 1 time raid per server at a time. I remember setting up rotations with other guilds so we could all get a chance to raid.

After DoN was released i think they changed it to be fully instanced.

[rojadruid]

I would have to agree witht he LDONs not being instanced on live in the beginning. Thats why they created all the copies of the ldons with a "a", "b" and so forth. I also remember not being able to get an adventure at times on the live server that I used to play on. I also think that the way that Rocker8956 is looking to implement it, as thats looking pretty much like the way that it was on live.

[Rocker8956]

If I recall correctly when LDoNs first came out there were lines to get into them. I think this had to do with Sony putting a cap on how many instanced zones could be running at the same time. This may be a good idea for us to implement after we get instance zones running. Since having 50 instance zones running at one time could really hinder what most of us are using for a server.

On a different note,

I must be blind, can someone point me to the section of code that deals with loading zones?

Hopefully after looking at it I can answer my question below.

Using the current code for loading zones and assuming we could get two instances of a zone running at once.

If PlayerA is in BoThunder and kills a mob a respawn timer starts?
So if PlayerB then zones into a different instance of BoThunder that mob would not be up?

Basically I am wondering if the server writes any information to the database when a mob is killed or is it all handled in memory? Mobs being up or down are my main concern here.

Hopefully that made sense.

[So_1337]

Check the spawn2 table. Respawntime and timeleft are the things you're looking for.

For any given spawn point, there can be different mobs that spawn at it, but only ever one at a time. When whichever is up is killed, a value is written to timeleft equal to the respawntime value. It'll look different, since it's in milliseconds. It'll count down until it reaches 0, at which point a new mob will spawn.

[ChaosSlayer]

yeah I am prety sure. note that its more like 10 groups per Theme rather than 5.
which means total of 300 peopel could be in ldon at same time, and whiel servers did had rathly 2k-3k people, you need consider hwo many were on line at the same time (no more than 1k), drop all under 20s, skip all who did not had the expansion ( i didn't until like 6 month later for exmaple), and how many were actualy inetersted in ldon, and you will see that 300 players is PLENTY of room, except very ocasinal times

[Congdar]

As I remember the LDON's it was set up with the Wayfarers such that there would be limited types of adventures you could choose from.

Collect 30 of these
Kill the Boss
Kill 30 of those
Rescue the victims

And they were level based and had timers as well. I remember waiting with my group until a Collection adventure was offered. This makes me think that they weren't instanced at all. Just that say the collection adventures would use say zone ruja, rujb, rujc and the victim adventure would use rujd, ruje etc.

[Rocker8956]

Hmm, it looks like the easiest way to handle zone instancing would be to have multiple database entries for the same zone. By easiest I mean least code and least server intensive.

Using the RajA zone as an example, we could do something like this in the database.
(I am at work so the table, field, and map names are made up)

ZoneName, MapName
RajA01, RajA
RajA02, RajA
RajA03, RajA

We would also need to setup the spawns, along with other things, for each zone - RajA01, RajA02, RajA03
The spawns would essentially be the same for each zone excluding uniqueIDs, respawntime, timeleft, etc.
This would take a lot of database entries but most of it would be copy and paste.
This method puts a cap on the number of times a zone can be instanced but I highly doubt any of our servers will hit that cap. If one ever does we would just need to add another database entry.
Any thoughts?

[Rocker8956]

The other method I can think of is for the server code to create database tables for each instance as needed. It would need to copy/paste static zone info, mainly spawn timers, into the newly created table. This seems overly complicated and probably not necessary for the population of most servers.

[Rocker8956]

Ok, now I feel stupid. I finally get what Trevius was saying in his first post. His method would require the least work to implement.

So if I understand, initially we need to
1. Add a table to track instance zones’ spawntimers
2. Add a field to track if a zone is instance enabled.
3. Add a table to track temporary access flags based on characterIDs
4. Write code so if a zone is instance enabled the server checks how many instances are open and uses the next available number to name the zone but still bases its information on the original zone’s information.
5. Write code that checks to see if a player has the required access flag to enter the zone. Then places the player in the correct zone based on that flag.
6. Implement a way for quest commands to boot an instance zone.

Did I miss anything?

If this is already our method for zones please let me know as it will probably be this weekend before I have a chance to look into the emu code since I crashed my server at lunch time. By crashed I mean BSOD.

[MNWatchdog]

Im sure LDONs were instanced. Werent limited to 5 or 10. The suffix of A, B, C, etc reflected the map layout of the dungeon you were running. You could start in several spots in each of the various layouts.

Reason people were standng around waiting for a instance was you were limited on how fast you could do the next instance, but it had nothing to do with people waiting for an instance to be available after successfully doing an instance. If you failed, you could start right back in.

[AndMetal]

Spawn conditions (http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=EQEmuDBSchemaspawnconditions) would take care of what LDoN dungeons do, which is to spawn a certain set of mobs (levels) based on certain conditions. The only real hard part is creating copies of all the mobs needed, including different levels, stats, etc, then interconnecting all of it. I think that's the main reason there isn't much happening with them. However, once you have the spawn conditions configured, you can trigger them using quest::spawn_condition() (http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=SampleQuests). Example:


sub EVENT_SAY {
if ($text~=/Hail/i) {
quest::say("Do you want to start a [task]?");
}
elsif ($text~=/task/i) {
quest::spawn_condition("raja", 1, $Group->GetHighestLevel()); # spawn condition id of 1 equals whatever the highest member's level is in the group, which is what level range everything should be tuned for
quest::say("Have fun!");
quest::zone("raja");
}
}


One of the nice things about the spawn2 (http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=EQEmuDBSchemaspawn2) table is that the respawn timers use the spawn conditions. For example, the max level character in the group is level 50 and every mob in the instance (minus some roamers?) have a respawn time of 2 hours (how long the instance stays opened?). If you enter the zone with a max level of 49, all of the mobs spawned for 49 would spawn on their own timers. If you rezoned with max level of 50, they would still be carrying the respawn timers (the remainder of the 2 hours).

I have a feeling that zone instancing can be done using something like spawn conditions. I know for a fact you can run 2 of the same zone by zoning into a dynamic version, then booting up a static version without zoning. The problem then becomes determining what should or shouldn't be done in an instance vs a regular version, how do you create entry to an instanced zone, and what is the best way to make any zone instanced if you want to (for custom servers).

Kinda rambling & thinking out loud, I would think that instances could be based on groups, raids, and guilds. The type could then be defined in the zone table as an additional column, possibly inst_type (0 = normal, 1 = group instance, 2 = raid instance, 3 = guild instance). Then, if someone attempts to zone into one of those zones, and they meet the requirements (are in a group/raid/guild, have X amount of people in the group/raid), they zone successfully. If not, return false.

Anyway, just some thoughts...

[trevius]

Just to make a note about it, since it was mentioned; the reason that people had to wait to get the kind of adventure type they wanted was because SOE set a minimum time between how often you could request adventures. This is so people would either have to do the random adventure they gave them, or they would be forced to wait until they were lucky enough to get the one that they wanted. Otherwise, people would all just be doing the same ones over and over again. Having a minimum time to wait meant that each type they had created would be used instead of just the favorite or easiest/quickest ones.

Those are the only times I ever remember waiting at all for LDoNs. Of course, for the emulator, I think that we could potentially set it up to be done without any instancing and not have to worry much about running out of room for players. If we did that, then all we would need to do is get the adventure system working and set it to chose the first available zone in the zone list for that particular theme. We wouldn't need to worry about spawn timers or anything, because everything would still work like normal zones.

I think the progress towards getting the task system done could probably have most of it applied towards getting LDoN adventures working.

[Rocker8956]

Well I think I have a starting point for the code portion
Zone\zone.cpp
Zone\zonedb.cpp

and maybe

Zone\zoning.cpp

I am still trying to understand alot of the code in here but it is late so I am headed to bed.
Just thought I would post the code location incase someone else was looking for it.

If I am off on where the code needs editing please let me know.

[Rocker8956]

Well after looking through the code this is definitely out of my league. Though here is what I think needs to occur for zone instancing to work.

Add a UniqueID to field to the zone table that increments for every zone, including ones that are added.

Add a InstanceZoneType field to the zone table.
0 = Not a instance capable of being instanced
1 = A zone capable of being instanced that is for only one player
2 = A zone capable of being instanced that is for a group
3 = A zone capable of being instanced that is for a raid

Add a InstanceZoneFlag field to the character_ table

When the players InstanceZoneFlag field is set the server will need to create a new entry in the Zone table by copying all of the information from the zone’s entry that matches the short_name.

When a zone is started the server checks to see if that zone’s InstanceZoneType is greater then zero
If not the server goes about the zone loading as normal
If it is the server gets the zoning players character_.InstanceZoneFlag
The server then checks to see if a Zone.UniqueID matches that player’s InstanceZoneFlag
If it does then the zone is loaded and the player is sent to that zone based on the Zone.UniqueID

Sorry, if this post makes no sense. I was up all night looking through the source code trying to figure it out.

[Rocker8956]

Forgot to mention the new zone entry would need to be given a unique zoneidnumber. Since the source code seems to track most things through the zoneidnumber.

It is possible the instanced zone could then be loaded based on that ZoneIdNumber instead of the Zone.UniqueID.

[Kagatob]

I don't know if this is the correct thread to post this in, but the question I've been asking myself as of late, is do you really want to add any kind of instancing to EQ EMU at all? Even the largest servers only have around 150 people on them at peak times, and their communities, while thriving now, are certainly fragile with such a small (when compared to live) player base.
Instancing is certainly not good for those types of communities as not being in normal zones helping and interacting with each other you would start to get the WoW effect on the community.
If you've never played WoW ask someone who does, this question.
"Besides in the auction hall, when was the last time you've talked to someone outside of your guild?"

Just my 2 cp.

[ChaosSlayer]

even on 50 men server instancign has its uses.
for exmaple i like to have Time B to be only doable once a week. (to enforce item rarity), but this means that only 1 raid total can ever do it. and if server has say 5 guilds - you not gona see your turn in in less than a month.

if i increse Time repop rate by once a day - which ever guild plays at earlier hours- can do Time EVERY DAY, and then you never gona get a chance to raid it, until every single twink and their dog in their guild has every single drop

thats where instancing comes in friendly. each guild can have their own once a week run

WHile i myself prefer to keep loot zones contested, when it comes to doign quest/progression raids -repop timers suck when you have to wait a week to do a progression flagging

[Kagatob]

even on 50 men server instancign has its uses.
for exmaple i like to have Time B to be only doable once a week. (to enforce item rarity), but this means that only 1 raid total can ever do it. and if server has say 5 guilds - you not gona see your turn in in less than a month.

if i increse Time repop rate by once a day - which ever guild plays at earlier hours- can do Time EVERY DAY, and then you never gona get a chance to raid it, until every single twink and their dog in their guild has every single drop

thats where instancing comes in friendly. each guild can have their own once a week run

WHile i myself prefer to keep loot zones contested, when it comes to doign quest/progression raids -repop timers suck when you have to wait a week to do a progression flagging

I can understand that for progression and big events like PoTime, I was talking more about people grinding their AAs, Leveling and spending 90% of their time in said instances to do such things. When LDoN released on live, the decrease in community was palpable.
Besides, who says you can't simply inforce that everyone who is able to go to Time gets a chance just by saying, ok you had your shot, next guild please.

[ChaosSlayer]

I can understand that for progression and big events like PoTime, I was talking more about people grinding their AAs, Leveling and spending 90% of their time in said instances to do such things. When LDoN released on live, the decrease in community was palpable.
Besides, who says you can't simply inforce that everyone who is able to go to Time gets a chance just by saying, ok you had your shot, next guild please.

actualy LDON when first released brought more people togther than any other EQ feature =)
simple cuase it given people tool to easily find group to XP and get garanteed rewards via time invested=points earned system (since eq before that UTERLY sucked on loot specialy for non raiders)

Important point to note that myself I don't see a need for instancing at low levels. Instancing would be used for most group quest/raid purposes, where you woudl do the dungeon, get to the end, kill the boss, and get an option to try an ultra-hard sub-level. Now this kind of thing should be instanced

As far as raid rotation go - that don't realy works very well on small servers.
Did not worked very well on live either. When my guild was coming up on elementals and VT we faced a situation where 5 upper guilds who were at that level for a while (over a year) looked at us and said "who said you can come and raid here? Yeah we a rotation but that does not mean we let you into it". And there simply nothing you could do about it, but pick up a scraps

When Time B was on rotation it was a nightmare, europian guilds would on regular bases storm in early in the morning, wipe it clean, and there is nothign you can do to stop them since in US no one raids till 6-9pm
And same thing would repeat every week

[Kagatob]

actualy LDON when first released brought more people togther than any other EQ feature =)
simple cuase it given people tool to easily find group to XP and get garanteed rewards via time invested=points earned system (since eq before that UTERLY sucked on loot specialy for non raiders)

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.

Important point to note that myself I don't see a need for instancing at low levels. Instancing would be used for most group quest/raid purposes, where you woudl do the dungeon, get to the end, kill the boss, and get an option to try an ultra-hard sub-level. Now this kind of thing should be instanced

As far as raid rotation go - that don't realy works very well on small servers.
Did not worked very well on live either. When my guild was coming up on elementals and VT we faced a situation where 5 upper guilds who were at that level for a while (over a year) looked at us and said "who said you can come and raid here? Yeah we a rotation but that does not mean we let you into it". And there simply nothing you could do about it, but pick up a scraps

When Time B was on rotation it was a nightmare, europian guilds would on regular bases storm in early in the morning, wipe it clean, and there is nothign you can do to stop them since in US no one raids till 6-9pm
And same thing would repeat every week

When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.

[ChaosSlayer]

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.
.

umm i totaly disagree. LDOn is when casual player gaming was on its climax. It was easiest time in my 5 years with eq to find a casual XP/loot group in under 15 min wihout having to run across the world just to get soemwhere and have group fall appart 15 min later.
People started leaving after Eq2/WoW was realesed year later. Eq1 droped 50% in population during October/November 2004


When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.

well thats up to a server gm, but I would hate to the one to continusly have to listen to 1 guild accusing another of rotation violation, traning, ks, leap froging, etc on dayly bases. There gona be 2 dozens people saying one thing and 2 dozens people saying the opposite.

I much rather stick them into instance than to sit and enforce play nice policy 24/7

[MNWatchdog]

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.



When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.
They left not because of LDON, they left because of the constant needing to key up to access parts of the server you payed for, but couldn't get into UNLESS you were in a uber guild and happened to be on at the right time(s) to get keyed.

You miss a night and everyone progresses without you for days or weeks without you.

Sure, you could slip a FEW unkeyed people in the keyed zones, but if you happen to not get there early enough or a needed class shows, you sat around on your ass.

Then there's the 72 person raid/zone limits. You gotta have large guild sizes to be have reliable numbers to raid, but then there's nights when everyone logs on and again, you sit on your ass excluded.

It's one of the reasons I quit. I got tired of sitting out while the rest of my guild raided.

[Andrew80k]

They left not because of LDON, they left because of the constant needing to key up to access parts of the server you payed for, but couldn't get into UNLESS you were in a uber guild and happened to be on at the right time(s) to get keyed.

You miss a night and everyone progresses without you for days or weeks without you.

Sure, you could slip a FEW unkeyed people in the keyed zones, but if you happen to not get there early enough or a needed class shows, you sat around on your ass.

Then there's the 72 person raid/zone limits. You gotta have large guild sizes to be have reliable numbers to raid, but then there's nights when everyone logs on and again, you sit on your ass excluded.

It's one of the reasons I quit. I got tired of sitting out while the rest of my guild raided.
Totally agree. LDoN was great and I spent lots of time there. And most folks that I played with liked it as well. Problem was GoD. It was TERRIBLE. Poorly implemented and the zones were so much more difficult and the itemization was awful. It took me forever to get a good enough group together to get Qvic access because you had to have the right group it seemed like. It wasn't much fun. Of course EQ2 and WoW came out that was sort of the perfect storm and people left in droves.

[ChaosSlayer]

Totally agree. LDoN was great and I spent lots of time there. And most folks that I played with liked it as well. Problem was GoD. It was TERRIBLE. Poorly implemented and the zones were so much more difficult and the itemization was awful. It took me forever to get a good enough group together to get Qvic access because you had to have the right group it seemed like. It wasn't much fun. Of course EQ2 and WoW came out that was sort of the perfect storm and people left in droves.

I honestly liked GoD =)
I liked the theme and the thrill
The problem was that content and DIFICULY was designed with lev 70 in mind
The dev group that was handling content was not aware till very last moment that there is no level cap increase planed

As result GoD monsters (past Qumini) were all dumped down 5 level to become 62-70 instead of 67-75, but they all retained their insane hp and insane dps, so taking 5 levels off wasn't much of a fix at all

Raiding there of course was out of the quetsion for my guild - to go past Qumini you need to be allready WELL Elementaly geared, and we were rigth about stack at Ralos Zek =)

OoW tried to fix the gaps in GoD essentialy and win peopel back with epics 1.5 and 2.0, but then Eq2/WoW hit liek a truck and thats prety much where fun has ended

[trevius]

I think the thing that is being overlooked is that instancing in the emulator is just 1 more feature that can be used by admins to make cool new things. Anything that adds more options and variety to the emulator is a good thing. Sure, instancing every zone isn't really a good idea in the emulator, but having the option to do so is nice. I can already imagine a couple of great reasons to have instancing in the emu. One would be for end zones that are overpopulated. On custom servers, quality content takes a while to create, so some zones may be too over-saturated with players. Not only does this cause way too much competition between players, but it can also cause performance issues. At least on my server, if there are more than 20 players all raiding a zone at once, it risks a zone crash. I have seen as many as 30 in a zone, but it crashed after a short time. With instancing, you could set a cap on the zones for how many people can be in them (in the zones table) and then create new instances where needed. Another use for instancing would be for zones that are designed for a max number of 1 to 6 players or so. If a raid would trivialize the content, then you might use this type of limiting. With instancing, you could potentially still allow others to play in that zone without having to wait in line for the people currently in there to leave.

I am actually working on a new player limited and time limited zone access script for a zone on my server. I will post it in the custom section when it is all done. I don't plan to use instancing for it just yet, but it is really cool to know that the option is there. I don't think instancing should be used as widely as it was in EQ2 or anything, but I do think it will be a nice option to the emulator. And, I love having options :D

Oh, and I quit live around that same era. Though, my reason for quiting was due to almost all of the best guildies I had played with for years were gone. Also, I didn't like the fact that I had to work my ass off for like 10 hours every day for maybe 2 or 3 pieces of loot per month. Progression that slow is just ridiculous. And just when you start to get caught up to where you feel uber again, they release another expansion and make all of your hard earned gear obsolete.

[Andrew80k]

Another use for instancing would be for zones that are designed for a max number of 1 to 6 players or so. If a raid would trivialize the content, then you might use this type of limiting. With instancing, you could potentially still allow others to play in that zone without having to wait in line for the people currently in there to leave.


This is the feature that I'm interested in for instancing. Scripted content, coupled with the task system is very interesting to me, along with limiting the number of people so the content remains difficult. Being able to adjust the content on the fly for levels would be really cool too.


Oh, and I quit live around that same era. Though, my reason for quiting was due to almost all of the best guildies I had played with for years were gone. Also, I didn't like the fact that I had to work my ass off for like 10 hours every day for maybe 2 or 3 pieces of loot per month. Progression that slow is just ridiculous. And just when you start to get caught up to where you feel uber again, they release another expansion and make all of your hard earned gear obsolete.

This has always been my complaint with EQ. Casual players just can't keep up.

[trevius]

LOL, 10 hours every day is casual? :P

Actually my reason for not being at the top all of the time was because I loved my guild and it was considered a family raiding guild. We still raided every day, but it wasn't really mandatory like some hardcore guilds. We also didn't use DKP. I could have joined the top guild at any time, but they were mostly just asses. Though, my guild was 2nd or 3rd on the server for most of the time we were there. We were also one of the longest lasting guilds (just recently broke up), mainly due to the awesome people in it.

Sorry to derail the thread a bit. I am excited to try out this instancing code when I get some time. Hopefully in the next few days I will try adding and compiling it and I will report back on my findings :)

[Kagatob]

All I can say is that after LDON the community outside of each individual guild and the bazaar practically ceased to exist and EverQuest didn't feel like EverQuest to me anymore. And I blame it on the instancing.

[ChaosSlayer]

All I can say is that after LDON the community outside of each individual guild and the bazaar practically ceased to exist and EverQuest didn't feel like EverQuest to me anymore. And I blame it on the instancing.

thats because all smart people went to LDON =P
cuase thats where XP and loot were.
Rather than to shout for 45 min in the middle of Dreadland /45 ranger lfg, and then log out due to frustration
I had 100 times more good groups during my 6 month of LDON, than all 4 previous years before that.

[Kagatob]

thats because all smart people went to LDON =P
cuase thats where XP and loot were.
Rather than to shout for 45 min in the middle of Dreadland /45 ranger lfg, and then log out due to frustration
I had 100 times more good groups during my 6 month of LDON, than all 4 previous years before that.

Because people are forced to do something to keep up doesn't mean that it's good.
I work my ass off because I have to pay the bills, that doesn't mean I have a good job.