BlakKat

I would like to suggest a command which would allow one to go to the last posted coordinates (on the same map). I see various situations where it could be convenient. For instance, you could post in local your position and then use it to always come back to that position. This could be useful when doing Haidirs, multiple harvesting runs, etc. Similarly, other players might post their coordinates asking for help. You could then use the command to be faster there. Typing a few letters is probably much faster and less frustrating for most ppl than going to the tab-map, figuring out which is the first and which the second coordinate, then moving your cursor till the numbers match the numbers you hopefully still remember. At least I usually have to switch back and forth a couple of times between chat and map till I am going really to the right place. I would imagine the chat could be parsed for phrases like "You are in Portland [288,129]" and then use the coordinates to figure out what to do.

In a normal inflation all prices go up and things do not change too much. I know it is a dangerous know to turn, but how about adjusting NPC prices to reflect the increased gc-amount? This might also make it more profitable to manu/craft/alch things again.

I think this kind of farming problem could be avoided by not allowing somebody with instance rank >=2 to go below his/her level. Proposal: instancer rank 0 characters could go to instances 0 to 2 levels below, rank 1 could go to instances 0 to 1 below his/her range. By the time you have rank 2 you probably have enough experience to survive an instance in your range. I would even venture to claim that many of the non-fighters would then be able to tank the instance provided they would be willing to use here and there a couple of emps and risk a rosto or two. Oh, yes, and one will want to have human 5 to wear a steel set and CoL. Whether non-fighters would enjoy tanking one is of course another matter. As a general remark: I think that being successful in an instance is first a matter of experience and team-work, then one of the built. If you have one player who has enough experience to form a team, you very likely will win the instance even if the whole team (including that experienced player) has not a very strong fighting/tanking built.

I am sorry that you take it that way. I used the quotes around "normal" because I did not like the expression, probably because of the very problem you seem to have with it. With respect to your second point: In my experience, a major concern players have when they asked to go for their first instance is whether they can be "useful". I simply do not think that there is any useful task in any game besides having fun, feeling satisfaction or whatever you might want to call it.

Maybe, the instancer rank together with a/d could be used to determine the level of mobs? For instance, a/d determines what kind of mob will spawn and the average of the instancer ranks of all characters present at the (re)spawn determines how many non-bosses? One consequence would be that beginners would be actually welcome to join teams. The combat level as currently implemented is probably not well suited to replace a/d as a guide to decide for levels. I know plenty characters with combat level ~220 who (can) melee the invasion dragon ... One way to involve more normal players is to offer an incentive to go with more people. This would encourage the experienced instancers to recruit players who feel not so comfortable to instance. Having mobs around the bosses could provide that incentive: you simply might want to have one/two or more extra fighters/rangers around to distract the mob while fighting that scary tough boss. Another way to encourage normal players to go would be to find a larger variety of "useful" tasks. Some of those could be scouting (you might no idea when the new wave is coming, especially if #ii gives you no information), finding the next boss, managing resources, keeping a room free of mob by pinning a mob in a choke point, mixing HEs and SRs with things harvested in the instance , etc..

I like the idea a lot. Such an instance would call for more advanced tactical elements than the usually tank/hitter or tank/ranger arrangements. I also like that it promises to be much less predictable than normal instances/invances with serious chances for at least partial failures. The maps should be on the small side so that it is not too easy to separate the bosses from the main mob. Somewhat random bosses with random spawn points would be also good, so that one would need to do some scouting through the mob. One also might consider wiping hyperbags regularly so that resources could become a more effective bottleneck.

This morning our casty-team got deprived of their loot by Talon and Starkie. Nothing to make a big fuss over by itself. However, I went to a lot of instances/invasions with Talon's owner and vouched for his integrity. I was wrong to do so. What makes me write this post is that I learned now that it was not Talon himself, but that there seems to be quite some unannounced character sharing going on with the result that those people owning the characters dismiss any responsibility for the deeds of their characters and those who actually did it stay anonymous. I find that rather lame.

If you read my post somewhat carefully you might have recognized that I learned only later that it was not Talon's owner. When I discussed it at night, Talon's owner refused to give out the name. Why this is I can only speculate, but I heard that this is not the first time. The only reasonable conclusion from that is that they did not want to be revealed. Why I find it lame: Don_Jack, DuBro, stivy and Newhope (sorry guys if I missed any of you evil ones) have the stamina to do whatever they do in their name. Those guys above used somebody else's reputation and so far only finja came forth.

You knew well that we would not suspect Talon of stealing our drop. My intend was to warn everybody that one can not rely on character names any longer as a guide who is trustworthy, at least not as far as WGT is involved.

I think the 120-140 is simply more fun and that is mainly why I prefer it much over the 120+. The fun in the 120-140 comes mainly from the requirement to make decisions all the time how to proceed. I know at least 3 different interesting ways how to do the 1st wave. Also in the first two waves the team has to make good decisions whether to retreat or to advance, and sometimes checking in too adventurous players. Many of the bricks poof because somebody is running ahead, thus drawing the team into a dangerous situation, especially in the 2nd wave. Avoiding this requires good and sometimes complex team work, that is challenging and fun! This element is pretty much much absent in the 120++. I think the main reason for this is that the map in the 120++ is too wide. The mob spreads out and there is no problem taking them on one by one. Compare for instance the nasp wave in 120-140 and 120++. In the 120-140 the nasp are crammed into a small space. We usually have to lure them out a bit, switch tanks, often on the fly, or get mobbed in and have to hastily retreat etc..This makes it much more interesting than when the nasp are running all over the map like in the 120+ ... well apart from finding the last nasp, but for that sort of entertainment you can do also the skunk daily from Haidir.

I like solar's idea a lot. After all much of the fun of EL derives from team work and why not having the mob do some team work, which in turn might require us to do more complex team work. Here are some simple ideas: In instances/invances: 1) The server could decide from time to time to have a certain portion of the mob walk towards a specific point. The gate in instances would be an obvious target. This could mean that in instances it might be beneficial to have a strong group near the gate, while having scouts to report if bad mob makes their way towards the gate. 2) Boss-mob (or all mob) could call nearby mob for help. This could happen for instance when they get attacked or just on a random basis. This way, one might want to approach certain mob more carefully, or in teams. In normal game: 1) I always wondered why all those feros were standing around while I was busy killing one of their friends. So if a character is engaged in a fight, monsters could have a higher ignore threshold and thus attack characters who are above the ignore level by a certain amount. This of course would open new training strategies, especially for tanks. So I am not so sure whether this is a good idea, but imho it would make the mob behave more "natural". Obviously I do not know the code, so I have no idea whether something like this is feasible to implement, but I think it is worthwhile trying to make the mob more clever.