thaz is gone and im done
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.
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.
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.
Also FWF boxes eachothers toons for XP!!! There I'm right.
Our shaman was Zippie at the time, and then Naragako when Zip stopped playing.you forgot "I Never Run OOM Zurkka" =)
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".
just for the sake of completion here are the t10 mobs that are up:
Enchanter Apprentice Klikil