Thazeran Revamp

As long as players can invest in SoD in ways that make it easier for future players to progress, the speed at which players progress through tiers and zones will increase. This is probably inevitable in MMOs, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

However, the #1 cause of game inflation isn't specific raid zones or the xp that can be gained in certain dungeons. It's the constant use and re-use of old accounts whose primary owners no longer play the game. Whether it be village bicycle buff-bots like Oeovoilo (me old guildy, /salute) or geared up ringers like Ringo, access to these toons makes game content trivial and will continue to do so.

Most people don't like the recycling of these old toons (at least, they don't like it when OTHER people do it), including the Devs, but instead of addressing the problem, we remove dungeons, nerf drop rates, nerf Codeces and nerf dungeon xp.

All this effort to reign in the trivialization of the game, while we continue to avoid the real issue.
 
My thoughts

I have no problem with them removing thaz, but also the only think I want out of thaz is alt loots. It was a nice zone to gear up on for sure. Used to be you could get 32+ loots in 6-8 hrs easy, yeah I can see how people could consider that a problem but why was it not fixed for YEARS? In my opinion since the revamp the zone was tough, you needed an hour and a half or more to clear a mini/boss in a wing compared to the previous 20 minutes. An hour and a half is about how long it takes to do a TOT wing so I do not see what the problem was in the first place. The problem I have is that it just isn't fair to all those up and coming guilds. If you are going to remove thaz, thats fine, a new raid zone should of been released in the same patch, maybe even 2 or 3. I honestly thought Slaar was just super drunk and thought it would be funny to remove thaz then wake up in the morning and wonder who was the dummy that removed thaz. People have asked me if I'd of been able to do zones like under city and TOT without thaz gear and honestly I don't know. I remember when I was doing the UC/TOT grind I think I was wearing like 4 TOT loots and 14 Thaz loots. Also the fact that Slaar overlooked simple things like how he was going to put quest pieces like eldritch steel/tot weapon quest stones back into the game shows an obvious lack of thought behind his actions. When Thaz was removed, like the first question asked by the playerbase was what has happened with the quest items? I would of thought that would be the first question slaar would of asked himself and a plan to incorporate them into the game when deciding to remove a zone. You would think GM/Admin/dev's would discuss this sorta stuff before they go make huge changes to the game. Really all this buisness of taking away thaz has accomplished is make the playerbase think the SOD staff is a bunch of fools. I do not think that personally, but it really did give that impression imo.
 
I have no problem with them removing thaz, but also the only think I want out of thaz is alt loots. It was a nice zone to gear up on for sure. Used to be you could get 32+ loots in 6-8 hrs easy, yeah I can see how people could consider that a problem but why was it not fixed for YEARS?

In my opinion since the revamp the zone was tough, you needed an hour and a half or more to clear a mini/boss in a wing compared to the previous 20 minutes. An hour and a half is about how long it takes to do a TOT wing so I do not see what the problem was in the first place.

The problem I have is that it just isn't fair to all those up and coming guilds. If you are going to remove thaz, thats fine, a new raid zone should of been released in the same patch, maybe even 2 or 3. I honestly thought Slaar was just super drunk and thought it would be funny to remove thaz then wake up in the morning and wonder who was the dummy that removed thaz.

People have asked me if I'd of been able to do zones like under city and TOT without thaz gear and honestly I don't know. I remember when I was doing the UC/TOT grind I think I was wearing like 4 TOT loots and 14 Thaz loots.

Also the fact that Slaar overlooked simple things like how he was going to put quest pieces like eldritch steel/tot weapon quest stones back into the game shows an obvious lack of thought behind his actions. When Thaz was removed, like the first question asked by the playerbase was what has happened with the quest items? I would of thought that would be the first question slaar would of asked himself and a plan to incorporate them into the game when deciding to remove a zone.

You would think GM/Admin/dev's would discuss this sorta stuff before they go make huge changes to the game. Really all this buisness of taking away thaz has accomplished is make the playerbase think the SOD staff is a bunch of fools. I do not think that personally, but it really did give that impression imo.

Made that somewhat more readable.

People have asked me if I'd of been able to do zones like under city and TOT without thaz gear and honestly I don't know. I remember when I was doing the UC/TOT grind I think I was wearing like 4 TOT loots and 14 Thaz loots.

Goon Squad did TOT and UC before really getting into Thaz. If guilds feel like they need to gear out in Thaz to break into UC then that's probably more of an argument for the removal of Thaz.

Really all this buisness of taking away thaz has accomplished is make the playerbase think the SOD staff is a bunch of fools. I do not think that personally, but it really did give that impression imo.

Really just a few loud people. I haven't heard from anyone who's opinion I respect say this was a bad move. I doubt anyone who rage quits over this will be missed.
 
Has anyone killed that elemental thing in the Emerald Jungle? or the dragon in FoB?

Also FWF boxes eachothers toons for XP!!! There I'm right.
 
I offered 300-800pp per 1% tome exp and I think people boxed me for about 1 tome total. In FWF groups people could have easily made 4-8k an hour just boxing a wizard for some exp, yet they almost never did.

People in this guild really don't like boxing and are spoiled in rarely having to do it (except the couple of us who box when a key class is absent)
 
Shut up kedrin you weren't who I was talking to...

Anyways once Zorlon was boxing a healer or something for a citadel group I was in!
 
This was all kind of interesting to read. But anyway, here are my random personal thoughts about gaming in general.

NOTE: I am not a part of this discussion, I am not a part of this high tier raiding malarkey, nor do I care very much what happens with it. I just like gaming in general. Here are my thoughts anyway, some of which might be relevant and have some value, or maybe not, it's all just my opinion and I am a nobody:


1) Super no life hardcore players should not be catered to in MMORPG's. This is largely what destroyed EQ imo. Trying to cater to these kinds of people is fighting a losing battle. You can make more and more content and make it more and more time consuming, and these kinds of people are just going to devour it anyway. Developers can't win, and what often happens is that in the desire to beat these people or satisfy them, you end up alienating the other 95% of players who just want to have fun.

2) No game should last forever. It's just not possible to provide quantity AND quality at the same time. Most good single player games are completed in either a few days, or a few weeks for the bigger ones like Oblivion etc. MMORPG's are a strange kind of gaming that lasts a long time, and they only provide this because the content is weak, grind content. It can be enjoyable, especially if there is a good middle ground found, where it's grindy enough to keep people playing for a long time, but good enough quality that it's not too tedious. But it's a balance that has to be made, and again, catering to the people who churn through content, runs the risk of screwing all the other people. For every one person who thinks an acceptable way to spend their one life on earth is to be sat at their computer, grinding through several tomes of experience and countless raids for gear in a game like this, there are probably 20 people who find that to be a terrible idea, and would much rather just have fun, even if it has to end far sooner.

3) If you make a game that some people *complete* eventually and then quit, you hopefully can make it fun enough that word of mouth brings in more people to take their place. If the only people playing are the hardcore ones determined to do all that there is to do asap, and few players join the game, then it's always going to have an unhealthy population. Games like Rift took it to the other extreme where they have many very happy players but who are all done in a month or two. Ideally games should find a middle ground between that. A game with higher quality hand made content that keeps players happy for several months and then move on feeling satisfied after an enjoyable and memorable experience, is the ultimate game, imho.

4) Instancing can ease over crowded raid content. The only real downside of instancing is that it removes the waiting element and means everyone can progress a bit faster. But if you accept my point 1-3, then you should no longer see this as an issue anyway. As long as they are happy for a few months, then quitting after doing everything there is to do is actually preferable - it makes room for the next generation of players to work their way up and have the same experience.

5) Raid tiers could be set up to have items that every individual needs to progress to the next tier. In other words, there could be some kind of item or quest that means that each person has to personally succeed at all the tier 1 content at least once, before they can even enter a tier 2 raid area.

6) In the same way that adepts are unkillable by higher level players who would trivialise them, raid content could be made to work the same way. For example, tier 2 items could have some kind of flag on them which tier 1 raid mobs check for. If it's found, the mob despawns or becomes invincible or whatever. No more problems with "ringers".



SoD is a unique animal so perhaps this is all of no use to SoD. It is something I would try to bear in mind if I ever ran my own game though. Which is never going to happen.
 
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you forgot "I Never Run OOM Zurkka" =)
Our shaman was Zippie at the time, and then Naragako when Zip stopped playing.

Bango was a bench/rotation/"hey, we need three(3) t10 paladins for ratlord" tank.
 
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This was all kind of interesting to read. But anyway, here are my random personal thoughts about gaming in general.

NOTE: I am not a part of this discussion, I am not a part of this high tier raiding malarkey, nor do I care very much what happens with it. I just like gaming in general. Here are my thoughts anyway, some of which might be relevant and have some value, or maybe not, it's all just my opinion and I am a nobody:


1) Super no life hardcore players should not be catered to in MMORPG's. This is largely what destroyed EQ imo. Trying to cater to these kinds of people is fighting a losing battle. You can make more and more content and make it more and more time consuming, and these kinds of people are just going to devour it anyway. Developers can't win, and what often happens is that in the desire to beat these people or satisfy them, you end up alienating the other 95% of players who just want to have fun.

2) No game should last forever. It's just not possible to provide quantity AND quality at the same time. Most good single player games are completed in either a few days, or a few weeks for the bigger ones like Oblivion etc. MMORPG's are a strange kind of gaming that lasts a long time, and they only provide this because the content is weak, grind content. It can be enjoyable, especially if there is a good middle ground found, where it's grindy enough to keep people playing for a long time, but good enough quality that it's not too tedious. But it's a balance that has to be made, and again, catering to the people who churn through content, runs the risk of screwing all the other people. For every one person who thinks an acceptable way to spend their one life on earth is to be sat at their computer, grinding through several tomes of experience and countless raids for gear in a game like this, there are probably 20 people who find that to be a terrible idea, and would much rather just have fun, even if it has to end far sooner.

3) If you make a game that some people *complete* eventually and then quit, you hopefully can make it fun enough that word of mouth brings in more people to take their place. If the only people playing are the hardcore ones determined to do all that there is to do asap, and few players join the game, then it's always going to have an unhealthy population. Games like Rift took it to the other extreme where they have many very happy players but who are all done in a month or two. Ideally games should find a middle ground between that. A game with higher quality hand made content that keeps players happy for several months and then move on feeling satisfied after an enjoyable and memorable experience, is the ultimate game, imho.

I don't quite understand why a MMORPG has to have an end in sight in order to be fun. I think SoD does a great job of catering to both styles of players, moreso than any MMORPG that I have ever played (and I have tried a majority of them including The Realm, EQ, DAoC, WoW, Rift etc.).

4) Instancing can ease over crowded raid content. The only real downside of instancing is that it removes the waiting element and means everyone can progress a bit faster. But if you accept my point 1-3, then you should no longer see this as an issue anyway. As long as they are happy for a few months, then quitting after doing everything there is to do is actually preferable - it makes room for the next generation of players to work their way up and have the same experience.

I think one of the best elements of any MMORPG is competition, it is a dynamic that you will find in any game that has a solid community. Good games will accentuate that competition element.

5) Raid tiers could be set up to have items that every individual needs to progress to the next tier. In other words, there could be some kind of item or quest that means that each person has to personally succeed at all the tier 1 content at least once, before they can even enter a tier 2 raid area.

This is actually a pretty cool idea. However, for some guilds that choose to 'recruit from within' this would make it harder to level up/gear/progress a newly rolled cleric/enchanter/warrior/whathaveyou that could eventually contribute at your current tier. But I think the upside of something like this might outweigh the downsides.

6) In the same way that adepts are unkillable by higher level players who would trivialise them, raid content could be made to work the same way. For example, tier 2 items could have some kind of flag on them which tier 1 raid mobs check for. If it's found, the mob despawns or becomes invincible or whatever. No more problems with "ringers".

Ringers are definitely a hot topic. However there are so many elements to consider I don't think it would ever be as simple as: a toon with X tier gear above the content being attempted will not be able to engage. For example: there are two quests specifically that come to mind that transcend 6-7 tiers meaning you would have to start them at the very beginning which essentially never happens. Also for guilds that need relics (not unusual for some tier 6-7 guilds to not quite be fully relic'd yet) there are tier 3 targets that have very high relic drop rates.
 
"Super no life hardcore players should not be catered to in MMORPG's"

I don't disagree, but it seems irrelevant to me. There are fairly casual people at the ultra endgame of SoD. They have just been playing long enough to have awesome characters, and enjoy logging on a few nights a week to slay dragons. There are also ultra hardcore no life players who make alts and do adepts, or just quest, or roleplay, or raid throughout all the tiers. Associating the ultra hardcore players with the endgame works for some games, but SoD has been around long enough that it's not as accurate here. The #1 guild by a huge margin raids less often than many of the #2-10 guilds. (and its not lack of content, we just have awesome committed players who want to do some things with their week other than SoD.)

"No game should last forever."

I can't predict forever, but I have thoroughly enjoyed SoD for years now, and foresee continuing to play it. If you like a game, have good friends there, and don't have the time to learn/progress/socialize into a new one, wouldn't you want it to last? Also if you are blowing through most MMOs in a couple months, you are either skipping tons of content, or particularly hardcore yourself.
 
I've held off posting on this because it truly does effect my guild. As a casual raiding guild, we still need to gear up people to take on Generals, Well, etc. But yes, we do raid other stuff, so it's not the end of the world to me. Yes, we'd raid LT when we had low forces, strictly due to convenience. It was a hell of a lot easier when the clear was a couple hours or so per wing as opposed to a 4-5 hour clear in UC to get through 3 nameds or so. Again, my people have lives, work, jobs, etc., so our raids usually only last 3-4 hours.

Personally, this is what I hate about the loss of Thaz.

1 - No prior planning of doing the quest drops, essences, armor drops, etc., in other zones. The drops should have been coded into other zones (dropped them onto trash in ToT, UC, Frost, hell, even Hmal) prior to just kicking people in the ass who were saving up for this armor. I have *very* few essences, and a list from hell of people needing upgrades that already have the armor & gem drop (or aug & gem drop). Personally, sitting on 3 items myself. Fix it so the drops are in the zones that you want us to move to (that we've already been doing), and I'm a happy camper.

2 - Not only did you take out LT, you took out UT. I realize there was no flagging in LT, I really wish there had been. UT = something that shouldn't be PURaided (yes, I hate PuG acronym), but was a good zone, you had to have decent resists, HP, mana, etc., to survive there (unless it was the PuRaid that was the 12 people who are gimping along the other 6). Any chance that it could be re-added? Probably just lose it again to the PuRaiders, but on the off chance..

I honestly have nothing against PuRaids, although I rarely do them. They give people with a hell of a lot more playtime than myself in my guild an opportunity to upgrade. Do they chap my ass from time to time? Yep. Nothing like logging on an hour before a raid & tracking, seeing what is up, and then a PuRaid going in there 30 mins before our raid start time (please don't say, "Well, you should start earlier!" Half my folks are PST. I don't want to carry a roster of 36 to have 18 on at all prime raid hours, nor tell people to put this game before life.).

TLDR; Yes, Thaz will be missed. Please put back in what quest drops, essences, etc., were removed (not pointing out the actual "loot" outside of the Thaz armor drops). And consider putting UT back in with some sort of flagging system? possibly.
 
The problem I see with this change, is Thaz added alot of items to fit the needs for certain classes/foci at that tier. They were put into thaz because they didn't exist anywhere else, and we forgot about their scarcity elsewhere because Thaz was accessible and easy enough.

I think thaz needed to go also, i do wish there was a solution farther along to fill it's place, but I do agree with it's removal. The trash here was god awful boring anyways, i can't imagine anyone actually missing the place, most people just developed a heroin-esque dependency to it for progression purposes and they can't manage to satiate it anywhere else.
 
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What I see as the major and defining issue here is the enforcement of flagging. ToT already has a small flag check system but it is easily bypassed. LThaz had no flag needs because it was technically the start of a new zone. You picked a wing and went in.

UThaz was an issue though. To get a key for UT you HAD to kill all 4 LT mini's. This whole Thaz removal is crippling. It lower's the t8/t9 target field by what? A third? A fourth? I can name 2 guild's that will be hurt by this change. I can name 2 more that will be forced out of a comfort zone and into new content. Thats roughly 75+ people hurt/discouraged/angry just from one decision.

What about the clickers that came from Thaz? The hammer off LT water? The ring off LT earth? The dps ring off LT fire? Future toons will never see these? Future healers/tanks/dps miss out on these? Earthen ward clicker drops in Spires sure..........but thats Spires. High end t10 content. I know of nothing that mimic's the LT water hammer clicker.

What about the great rank 7 focus affects for toons? Mana con 7 for a cleric is not easy. Heal 7 besides Vah shield? Not easy either.

I still think the staff should look at a way to implement a ToT style flag system for Thaz. You havn't killed all 4 LT bosses? Well you can't zone into a UT wing(portals knock you back maybe?). Would limit UT pugs to people who have killed ALL LT Mini's. Same could be done for Thaz 1. Portal to Thaz1 encounter refuses to let the raid in if people aren't flagged from UT bosses? Would also be a self governing system that would require 0 GM attention. People would know very quickly if they could raid UT. New guild recruits for guilds already flagged for UT? You got some back gearing to do in LT if these new people want UT loot.

I am fully against the Thaz removal. I don't need any loot from Thaz besides Thaz2 drops. I am not against it for selfish reason's. I am against it for the server. Thaz was a huge part of T8/T9 and IMO should remain so. I understand the desire for new content. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it?

My 2 cents. Rip it apart at your leisure.
 
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