Epic Madness Medley
Disclaimer: guilds/players/groups henceforth included in this rant will be nameless, but you KNOW who you are. Exclusions are the very kind and thoughtful people who maintain the EpicBattles chat channel on Chaos shard, who try to avert what I am about to launch into. This is something that has been bugging the hell out of me for ages; threefold, the fact that successfully arranging a group has become barely viable unless you are in the right social circles (a different argument entirely, but one that applies here nonetheless), the growing problem of guilds becoming introverted, and the continuing problem of camping epic mobs.
Point in fact is that there are only a few guilds with the strength to take epic mobs, although there are a good few players capable and willing of such hunts rattling around other less fortunate guilds. If you are not a member of these uber-guilds you are lucky to even hear if a hunt is on, and even if there is your chances of getting an invite are slim to nil when asking as people will cite 'guild hunt'. Not many people are willing to change guild just to hunt epics, and trying to put together a group from the chat channels is fishing an empty sea. If you are not one of the more 'well known' players you will be lucky to even get a response on MP half the time, and the other 99% of the time it will be something along the lines of “not right now, sorry�.
This is a major embuggerance. People lucky enough to belong to such a guild ask for groups in guild rather than publicise a hunt. This is because publicising a hunt gives you less chance of looting the very rare and devastating weapons and items that some mobs drop, and some circles at least go out of their way to keep an active hunt a secret to avoid competition. People who can solo mobs solo them. People who can guild mobs, guild them. Only a very few people are considerate enough to ever publicise epic hunts and offer to invite others who otherwise never get a chance to tackle these rare and challenging creatures because they are wrapped up in their own selfish desire to make better their chances of scoring a hit on the random for dropped items. It is a monopoly that they are not willing to break because they have it all their own way, and it is exactly that; their OWN way.
But then someone cries "but put together a group of your own!"... Easier said than done. It’s not even a question of concerted effort because no matter how much pleading and hand wringing (and a third phrase also comes to mind) you still can’t get a top-notch group unless you already have the contacts or are invited to one. Anyone with a mind to have a spot of harmless fun hunting epics with a few friends (socialising, role-play, any of a dozen different reasons) had better just turn around and recall because epics are not so much about cooperation as they are an inter group arms-race to see who can get it and kill it first, which for the leisure seekers is hardly ever. You can’t have just a bit of harmless fun when the militants arrive with bayonets fixed, kick down the door and steal the show. I have seen people patiently wait out spawns for days at a time only to have someone else with a bigger/better group of hardcore epic hunters arrive at the spawn, steal it, ninja kill it in 30 seconds before you can even get buffs up and then skip away with the loot. Whilst I acknowledge that epics are mostly hunted for their items, this by no means takes precedence, and by NO MEANS gives anyone the god-given right to kill epics forever until they get what they are looking for- denying anyone else with a less able group a chance in the process. The only way to prevent this is to claim precedence of your own by camping the mob, which I will now deal with.
On the point of mob camping, it is still happening; less so now that the spawn time has been jacked up, but it’s still prevalent. Some people find it acceptable, others do not. The point is that it shouldn’t be a NECESSARY asset of game-play because some selfish people will cyclically kill every epic as soon as they spawn, and if you don’t get there before them you have no chance at all, and when you do more often than not someone will start a flame war, both groups report each other for kill stealing, and the world ends in a short sharp shower of Sh*t.
Camping is an issue twofold; first off is that a lot of players regard camping as cheating because camping a spawn(s) essentially prevents anyone else get a look in, so by the methods you employ to avoid the dreaded ninjas you are pierced from your own hypocritical quiver. Rather than an element of friendly competition as some claim, the entire idea of camping is to stop anyone else getting the spawn. If you are a fair minded person playing by these dirty tricks isn’t an option, and to be frank, having to stoop to that level just to be able to hunt an epic (which is everyone’s right, not just said ninjas) is not palatable. There is a "nyah nyah I was here first!" attitude that hardly encourages cooperation and brotherly love. Second is that not everyone has time available to sit out a spawn all night or day trying to get the drop on these epic-ninja groups/guilds. People have jobs, people have to sleep, people have to PEE for crying out loud, and if you blink some other selfish git jumps in and nicks it! Where’s that caffeine!? I need to stay up all night trying to get the mob before THEY do!
Solution? Take turns. Yet again not as easy as said. No matter how often you suggest this these groups will say 'get the spawn before us'... and then immediately camp every spawn site, thus preventing anyone getting the spawn first unless you have reactions like a Jedi and can type faster than J.K Rowling on amphetamines. As said before, this is not such an issue today, but is still happening and is still immensely frustrating.
Conclusion: The little guy doesn’t get a look in; epics are the ball parks of the big players with big guilds stuffed with high level players and who can put together a group at the snap of their fingers. If you are an epic-capable player outside of said guilds/social circles your time is better spent smashing your head off a wall unless the relevant chat channel has been prodded into activity and you have the fortune to be on at the right time. That basically means there are now only a very small percentage of players who actually meet the requirements to hunt epics, and more importantly who can successfully get together a group that is outfitted to deal with them before someone else jumps in. If you are lucky and know the right people you might get an invite, but generally asking anywhere is a wasted effort. The vast majority of people wanting to hunt epics will not get the chance any time soon.
Originally Posted by Kumu Honua
Otherwise, I've only seen bunches of groups in different guilds do hunts, and I've only participated in such hunts.
