Group Hug, Anyone? : GW2, FFXIV

In the zeitgeisty way of these things, a flurry of seemingly-related posts turned up in my Feedly over the last few days, echoing some recent personal experiences.

Ravious at KTR detailed how his GW2 server, Sanctum of Rall, is dealing with the issue of AFKers at the Tequatl event by finessing the Overflow system. Jeromai at Why I Game had a powerful response to that, which he rolled up with a series of observations on the impatience, elitism and downright bad manners so often seen in modern groups.

Jeromai counterpointed his bad PUG example with a good one but Stargrace at MMOQuests and Stabs at Stabbed Up were singing the praises of going into tough fights with people you really know, people you can trust to stick with the job 'til the job gets done.

Meanwhile, Mrs Bhagpuss has put FFXIV on the back burner in favor of building castles in Rift and I have drifted back to GW2 and other worlds, both our choices guided at least in part by the inevitable, unavoidable tyranny of the Duty Finder. A certain malaise is in the air.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just getting too old for all this. I had to rewrite my original comment to Ravious's post because my initial reaction seemed unreasonable even to me.  I know all this server-hopping, guesting and guilds pimping themselves out as mercs-for-hire isn't technically cheating or exploiting but it sure feels like it to me. In a way that's worse because it suggests that activities that would once have been deemed unacceptable either by game developers or players or both are now seen not just as tolerable but almost praiseworthy. 

Just the four of us? Are you sure that's right?

I remember very clearly the days when Pick Up Groups had etiquette and rules of behavior that were largely understood and usually followed. One that was particularly closely adhered to was your responsibility to find a replacement if you had to leave. I can remember many times searching LFG and sending tells or calling out in /shout to get another healer or tank to come replace me before I left. I'd begin doing it well before I actually needed to leave to make sure the group suffered the least possible inconvenience.

Of course, there never really was a Golden Age of Grouping. There were good groups and bad groups then just like there are now. The big difference was that then you had some hope of meeting people more than once, of building relationships through repeated, shared endeavour, of turning PUGmates into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends. There was a payoff to not behaving like an arse that went well beyond the simple satisfaction of not behaving like an arse. Although that should never be under-rated.

A combination of closed, instanced dungeons and automated, cross-server group-finding mechanisms put paid to all that. Now your arseness or lack thereof is of the most transitory value or concern, at least outside of your own sense of self-respect. If you behave like a spoilt toddler and play like one too, the moment the group dissolves it's as though it had never been. On the other hand, even if your PUG gels into the greatest group of adventurers ever, short of all changing servers there's no way you can repeat the experience. What happens in DF stays in DF, with all that entails. It's a very high price to pay for fast instance pops and you don't always even get those.

Hmm. If I could tame whatever made this print I'd never need to group again.

Not surprisingly playing with people you already know really well is increasingly seen as the only way to have not just an optimal time but any kind of good time at all. Bad behavior is expected of PUGs, players who could set examples choose to absent themselves, the prophecy self-fulfills. With the heaviest of ironies players, who only a year or two back were demanding more and better open grouping and wider social access, are now devising cunning schemes to subvert or avoid the very mechanics that were put in place to give them the gameplay they said they wanted. 

I would still like to down Tequatl and I'd be lying if I said the time will never come when I'll take whatever kill I can get. If I end up knocking that dragon back into the ocean anywhere other than Yak's Bend, though, the victory will be hollow, the achievement tarnished.

There's nothing new about all this, that's the sad thing, or perhaps it the saving grace. It was ever thus. Clearly right now the wind is in favor of harsher mechanics, sterner rules, less patience among players and a work ethic that borders on obsession. The all-too-brief sunrise of MMO as light-hearted entertainment is disappearing behind the thunderclouds of serious commitment. Buckle down, learn your class, pay your dues. Anyone that doesn't comply to the new orthodoxy must be a moron, a slacker, an afker. Leave them, they're not worth it.

As usual, Wilhelm at TAGN has the middle path that works. Have fun with friends and a different kind of fun with strangers. If necessary, to stay sane turn the whole thing into a meta-game. Have your fun with them while they're having theirs with you but never let your standards slip.

A time will come when you'll need those standards again. Buff them til they shine.

Magic Items Sold By Weight: EQ2

Two of my ratongas were in the West Freeport branch of the Norrathian Universal Bank this afternoon, about three hours into an intense session of inventory spring cleaning (so about 5% done then) when the server came down for a patch. Chief among the small changes was this:

All single group instances now have a lockout of 90 minutes.

Sounds so innocent at first glance, doesn't it?  Who'd complain about fewer restrictions and easier access? The standard lockout for heroic instances in EQ2 is 18 hours. Now we can do the same instance sixteen times a day. Someone will, too.

I'm in favor of the change myself. There have been a few times when I've wanted to do the same instance back to back, to get some drop that didn't or finish some quest while I still remember I have it. It'll be a boon for collects, too. But there's a downside. Loot.

If only we'd had pandas in the EC Tunnel

I have a clear, if hazy, memory of something that happened the first week I played Dark Age of Camelot, back in 2000. I was in Albion, in some starter area the name of which I've long forgotten. Some imps or demons were near a river and one of them had a name. My mercenary fought and killed it and it dropped a magic item.

I have no idea now what the item was or if I could use it. I just remember the sheer astonishment. A Named! A Magic Item! And I killed it on my own! Who knew such a thing was even possible?

Last year, when EQ2 had The Great Item Revamp, I took my Berserker on a tour of Kunark hunting overland named mobs. At first I thought I was having a great run of luck. Every named, and there are lot in Kunark, dropped a Legendary item. No treasured items at all. Sometimes, for variety, they'd drop a Fabled. Eventually it became obvious that that was all they had and they had one every time. Like the good ex-Tester I am I sent a bug report.

It wasn't a bug. Just the latest stop on the ever-ascending Loot Elevator. I should have known. I actually quit playing EQ2 the second time partly because of the changes to loot that came with the Rise of Kunark expansion, when treasured weapons, armor and jewellery started dropping more often than rat whiskers in the Qeynos newbie yard.

You get it. You have wings!

It's not so much that I mind magic items not seeming special anymore, although I do mind that. It's the storage! Every named always drops something and there are so many nameds. Where once I would return to town with my bags oozing with monster body parts for which small-town merchants, presumably backed by some secretive necromantic sect with unlimited financial resources, would shower me with gold and silver, now I come back weighed down with amazing sparkling magic weapons, gleaming enchanted armor and jewellery fit for a Djinn prince.

I can't just sell the stuff! It looks too good to vendor. I blow a lot of it up for the raw materials for Adornments. At least those stack. But lot of it looks too good even for that. So I have to store it. It might come in useful. One day I might have a level 79 Warden and this would be perfect for him. Or a level 90 Assassin, she'd love that! Of course every character I ever level will acquire his own warehouse of "useful" stuff and won't thank me for someone else's cast-offs but let's not think about that.

I really don't want to go all the way back to the "good" old days, when a whole Sunday afternoon could pass while I watched WTS messages streaming up my chat window in the East Commons Tunnel, hoping to see something I both needed and could afford, but a slight frisson of scarcity in the Magic Item market might be nice, just for a change.

Or I could just stop being a packrat.

Nah, not going to happen.