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style="font-style: italic;">FFXI Devs : The only ones crazy
enough to take a once a day common raid spawn, and give it a random
chance of spawning one of the most coveted bosses in the
game. Not pictured : the other 200 people who were camping
and trying to claim it.
In the world of MMORPGs these days,
we have so many things
we take for granted. Multiple
newbie
zones, instances, raid lockout timers, weak death penalties
and yet
some of
you continue to beg for a return to the old days.
The old days of pain and suffering to get your
corpse and experience back, for instance.
But no, now were talking about something far more
frustrating for even
current MMORPGs, and a legacy of the past that may never die.
Im talking about Camping.
style="">
The word is basically synonymous with wasting your time.
style=""> For those of you that live
under a rock in
Blackrock Spire, the fine art of Camping is more or less pitching a
tent in an
area waiting for a monster to spawn.
Whenever this is referred to, its most certainly because
the target is
a rare spawn, or so highly valued for drops or quests that its
immediately
killed on sight. If
the enemy has a high
respawn time, this leads to a whole lot of drama and wasted effort.
Those of you that miss camping
probably miss rotary phones
too. Its time to
move on.
Experience
Parties :
You might take root.
Possibly the most boring part about
controlling a good camp
is the fact you never move. At
all. Your puller
would literally run off, bring a
mob back to you, and If you so much as jumped forward on accident, you
agroed
the whole zone and probably created a train that would wipe your party,
the zone,
and the Republican agenda for the month.
There are a lot of cool zones in the
older games, when more
thought when into the architecture and design beyond simple corridors.
style=""> You know who saw them?
style=""> The pullers and no one
else did. This
leads to a lot of embarrassing stories
of trying to bypass a zone on the way to another and getting
trainwrecked
because you dont know the patrol routes, what causes them to agro, and
similar
excuses that everyone refuses to believe.
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We have Raid Lockout timers now,
for guaranteed spawns for our own personal use and slaying.
This guy? Five days. Five days if you're
lucky and he doesn't feel like taking a vacation for another 10 hours..
Boss
Monsters, Rare
Spawns, and You : The only reason you set an alarm in high school.
So while were sitting in one spot to
hit max level, surely
we can start to roam for adventure at max level right?
Sorry pal.
Its time to farm the rare spawns of the game for the best
drops, so you
can fuel your addiction to progression.
While the recent gold standard of WoW is not exempt from
these, with
world spawns like Doom Lord Kazzak still existing, it certainly is a
downward
spiral.
This is a good thing.
Lets look back at a few things that people with nostalgia
goggles might
be forgetting.
These
spawned in a
tight window, every few days, and Murphys Law says that if you need to
sleep,
it will spawn while you sleep.
This is fairly self-explanatory.
style=""> Most of these are on 12,
20, or above one day
timers. Unless
youre setting your clock
to FFXI Vanadiel time, youre going to miss several of these and as a
result,
probably get placed lower on your guilds priority list for grouping,
get
frustrated, and probably delete your toon, never to be seen again until
a gold
seller somehow gets a hold of it beyond the grave.
You arent
the only
guild waiting for him. There
are 3-20
more, and they hate you.
People have nostalgia goggles on when
they talk about old
communities, and how people were closer and friendlier back in the
older games
and around the turn of the millennium.
This
is bullshit. Even
the most antisocial
retard will eventually grow on you when youre sitting around a spawn
point
that has a 3 hour window, with checks every 30 seconds for a spawn.
style=""> Whats more, if you claim
the spawn, you
probably just got added on 5 blacklists, minimum.
In the end, the loot is what matters, and
even after you claim it, they will stop at nothing to get you killed.
Theyll attempt to steal it and draw
it away so it changes
targets to them with provokes and taunts.
Theyll grab nearby monsters, train them to the area, and
feign death to
dump them on your back lines. Hell,
if
the game allows for healing of enemies, they will do it.
style=""> If your party falls, the
monster is up for
grabs once more, and that leads to some of the worst griefing
imaginable.
Some of the
spawning
requirements and resources needed are just plain silly.
I
dont have to really say much here, but heres a quote
from an old favorite from FFXI, taken from
href="http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/King_Vinegarroon">http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/King_Vinegarroon
21+ hour spawn from time of death or depop.
It can pop even 10+ hours after the original 21+ hour window. Will only
spawn at the beginning of Single Earth or Double Earth weather. If
Single Earth weather is present, King Vinegarroon will have a very slim
(10%~) chance of spawning. If Double Earth weather is present, King
Vinegarroon will spawn.
Who comes up with this shit?
style="">
More importantly, who thinks its fun?
But
something good DID come of this sillly system.
Back
then you would have 100 people camped out in an area the size of an
Inn, and you might be there a while. None of these monsters
were dedicated or locked to a single person or raid, so everyone would
be tense and preparing for battle at any moment, even if that moment is
actually 3 hours away thanks to the random variance of these
spawns. Some of the best conversations and friendships, and
perhaps more importantly, rivalries and communities sprang up around
this system.
Guilds would 'claim' certain spawns,
and pass them on once everyone had the gear they needed from the
boss. Of course, that's the civil way to do it., and that
didn't always happen. The original MMO flame wars would come
of someone, or some group that broke the unwritten law.
They'd be branded as renegades, traitors, or even worse depending on
how tight knit the server was. FFXI even turned into various
cliques forming in the end game, far beyond guilds. Your job
and class, and even your gear didn't matter. There was no
gearscore back then to rate people immediately, rather, FFXI was about
who you knew and who you were with. If you were
involved with the wrong people, or Real Money Traders (RMTs) as they
were called, you would be shunned by virtually the whole active end
game community fairly quickly. That sounds nasty and
terrible, but in my opinion, is proof of a really strong player base
that many new MMORPGs lack.
Socializing in WoW today is limited to your guild and that's basically
it. When you queue for a random 5 man dungeon, half
of the time no one will say a word the entire dungeon, and the other
half is probably one or two lines for the complete instance.
Battlegroups are limited in the same fashion, and make for incredibly
difficult teamwork. Since you can only raid with one group
and be in one guild, you never have a reason to party with anyone else
once you've complete the content you want to with your guild, and
that's painful for some of us veteran players to see. We long
for the days of old, stupid as they may be. Most of us
already are old at this point. So as our hair grays, we'll
sit and talk about the glory days of Norrath, Vana'diel, and other
games before a million expansions, while we sip drinks.
Because there isn't anything else do
until this damn King Behemoth spawns.
