Tarutao
Staff Emeritus
As Shards of Dalaya approaches it's 10th birthday, it's an interesting exercise to look back and appreciate the changes that the game has gone through as far as design, capacity, community, structure, and much more.
The Staff has recognized this and evolved with the game as well. Design vision, rule, and policy changes reflect this recognition and evolution, and the Ikisith Phase 1 expansion and removal of the ban on all references to Chuck Norris are semi-recent examples.
Over the last year or so, the raiding paradigm of the SoD community has evolved increasingly fast. This is a remarkable result of a number of unrelated factors including the 2011 Account Drive and increased use of the [The Vah] quest tree, and it has required the staff to respond in ways not seen since Fall 2006 when the raid game moved from 36 character raids to 18 character raids. The most successful of the staff responses was the Raid MOTD and related policy, introduced to protect pickup raid members and leaders from predatory loot distribution challenges.
Even at the time of the Raid MOTD introduction, the staff recognized that this was a solution to only one part of a much larger needed change: the removal of guilds as the primary raid entities. Years ago, guilds could be considered as entities unto themselves with reasonable concreteness, and this concreteness lent itself to raid policy that recognized a significance in the completion of raid content "by a guild". However, as time has progressed, many older guilds consist of members that aren't the same as when the guild was young, many players have characters in multiple guilds, and many players enjoy inter-guild activity like joint guild raids, pickup raids, and even participating in guild raids using one of their characters outside of that guild.
Today's raid rule/policy changes reflect the beginning of the awaited large adjustment of the Staff's response to meet this most recent change in the needs of the evolving SoD game and community. Without further ado, I present the changes to the raid rules:
Now, let's notice what these changes mean. First, the concept of a raid having done prerequisite content or a pickup raid having 2/3 flags has been abandoned. The "unpuggable zone" concept has also been abandoned (as was always the intention once these changes were ready). These concepts have historical significance and were appropriate for their times, but those times have passed. The concept of "prerequisite content" is now one that is handled in content design and primarily on a per-character basis. The burning spirits in Tower of Tarhyl and the 1-1 keying into Outer Sanctum in Prison of Amyrrza are just the first testaments to this.
Second, the concept of a "Joint Guild Raid" is now formally recognized for the purposes of loot distribution. The need for Joint Guild Raids for prerequisite content no longer exists, but for the purposes of having a raid that is treated as a guild raid (and thus, a GM Team "we don't interfere with guild loot issues" protection), this is now an option. We're open to discussion of changing the specifics of this rule, but the concern of Pick-Up Raids branding themselves as Joint Guild Raids to circumvent the intended protections of the Raid MOTD loot claiming system is a concern that any changes must address.
Third, the social aspect of being able to raid with your friends is achieved as much as possible and with as few unintended roadblocks as possible without the removal of specific instances of intended "do this in order" raid content.
These changes have not come without a lot of forethought and collaboration amongst the Staff. Please take the time to consider these new rule and policy changes fully. We are excited about these changes, and we expect that the vast majority of the SoD playerbase will be excited about them as well. So... Happy 2012 and Happy Raiding!
The Staff has recognized this and evolved with the game as well. Design vision, rule, and policy changes reflect this recognition and evolution, and the Ikisith Phase 1 expansion and removal of the ban on all references to Chuck Norris are semi-recent examples.
Over the last year or so, the raiding paradigm of the SoD community has evolved increasingly fast. This is a remarkable result of a number of unrelated factors including the 2011 Account Drive and increased use of the [The Vah] quest tree, and it has required the staff to respond in ways not seen since Fall 2006 when the raid game moved from 36 character raids to 18 character raids. The most successful of the staff responses was the Raid MOTD and related policy, introduced to protect pickup raid members and leaders from predatory loot distribution challenges.
Even at the time of the Raid MOTD introduction, the staff recognized that this was a solution to only one part of a much larger needed change: the removal of guilds as the primary raid entities. Years ago, guilds could be considered as entities unto themselves with reasonable concreteness, and this concreteness lent itself to raid policy that recognized a significance in the completion of raid content "by a guild". However, as time has progressed, many older guilds consist of members that aren't the same as when the guild was young, many players have characters in multiple guilds, and many players enjoy inter-guild activity like joint guild raids, pickup raids, and even participating in guild raids using one of their characters outside of that guild.
Today's raid rule/policy changes reflect the beginning of the awaited large adjustment of the Staff's response to meet this most recent change in the needs of the evolving SoD game and community. Without further ado, I present the changes to the raid rules:
Now, let's notice what these changes mean. First, the concept of a raid having done prerequisite content or a pickup raid having 2/3 flags has been abandoned. The "unpuggable zone" concept has also been abandoned (as was always the intention once these changes were ready). These concepts have historical significance and were appropriate for their times, but those times have passed. The concept of "prerequisite content" is now one that is handled in content design and primarily on a per-character basis. The burning spirits in Tower of Tarhyl and the 1-1 keying into Outer Sanctum in Prison of Amyrrza are just the first testaments to this.
Second, the concept of a "Joint Guild Raid" is now formally recognized for the purposes of loot distribution. The need for Joint Guild Raids for prerequisite content no longer exists, but for the purposes of having a raid that is treated as a guild raid (and thus, a GM Team "we don't interfere with guild loot issues" protection), this is now an option. We're open to discussion of changing the specifics of this rule, but the concern of Pick-Up Raids branding themselves as Joint Guild Raids to circumvent the intended protections of the Raid MOTD loot claiming system is a concern that any changes must address.
Third, the social aspect of being able to raid with your friends is achieved as much as possible and with as few unintended roadblocks as possible without the removal of specific instances of intended "do this in order" raid content.
These changes have not come without a lot of forethought and collaboration amongst the Staff. Please take the time to consider these new rule and policy changes fully. We are excited about these changes, and we expect that the vast majority of the SoD playerbase will be excited about them as well. So... Happy 2012 and Happy Raiding!
