As a player on the EverQuest Time Locked Progression Servers (servers which start off with no expansions, unlocking expansions slowly over time) one of the foremost complaints of the server community is its top-heavy player population. With many raid-capable guilds on the Fippy Darkpaw server and only five end bosses (a few more now that Kunark has unlocked) tensions have been running high for months as guilds race each other for the kills, often resorting to dirty play to get the kill over their competitors.


One of the suggestions brought up by the community at the Unofficial Fippy Darkpaw Server Forums was to create instances for these bosses so that guilds would be able to defeat the content without having to jump over other guilds or sit at the spawn point up to 24 hours before its expected spawn time (this activity is known as poopsocking).


I brought the suggestion up to Executive Producer, Dave Georgeson, who assured me that player satisfaction was always being examined by the team. Similarly, Community Manager Eric Cleaver was also interested in how the community has been enjoying its experience. However, there are no plans for instancing these encounters.


Cleaver continued that part of the classic experience is open world contested spawns, something not seen very often, if at all, in modern games. He stated that it may be rough for a while as guilds work things out between themselves but he believes they'll come out stronger for it.


It's hard to argue that with the trials the server faces inevitably there will need to be some sort of agreement worked out, and with that a building of community that would not have otherwise happened. But is it asking too much from the player base to work out the contesting on their own? We'll leave that for the community to decide.