The Obelisk of Lost Souls AKA - The Obelisk of Farmer's Souls.

[Grimlux]

<DIV>I'm almost sure that this isnt the first post concerning the immense problems of being able to enjoy this zone due to the farming problems.  The layout of this zone (1st floor) make it completely easy to rotate the names easily and pull out some nice loot along with master spell drops, not to mention the amazing experience if your between 40-45. (1st floor)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The access quest in this zone requires you to kill each of the names on the top floor. Sounds easy enough? No. You have to compete to get the names with farmers who seem to always be 1 step ahead of you on spawns. The only way I was able to complete this quest was after day 2, and I had  to sit and wait for the spawns in each room. If I moved, then i'd lose my spawn. What should have taken my group maybe 2-3 hours of working on an access quest actually took us 2 days. We lucked out due to the farmer new year or they were on their lunch break. or something... and we finally got access to the lower levels.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG><U>My suggestion to Sony Developers - Please make the Nightblood patrols see invisible</U></STRONG>. The farmers keep a group invis'r in their group to move about to the named easily. By making the Nightblood patrols see invisible it would give farmers a timesink and allow groups who want to experience the dungeon as well a fair shot at Loot/AA/ and completing quests.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I shouldnt be bothered to much but it is really frustrating when you are trying to finish a quest and a group named Lwcwof, Vwociiiii, Ucioac, and Lkjcoiwefwe are running around just killing named. (Especially when your frustrated and you get one of those random tells trying to sell you plat.....GAH!) </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Windowlicker]

I've seen this as well.  They just wander around in fully invis groups and take all named.Please add a ton of see invis mobs to this zone.<div></div>

[Turb]

Agree.... this is a big problem on Splitpaw... zone full of anon farmers who don't speak English. If you work the word GM into a tell, they disappear for a short while at least.

[Hoppytehubah]

I too have come across this. Actually I was there the other day and had to laugh to myself because I wondered how badly the guy must have messed up. He was running one of those macro programs and it screwed up and ended up flitering his commands into /say by mistake.. 5762576357434535346 or some such nonsense. I actually got clobbered about this point so I didn't get the joy of seeing whether or not he got creamed from this mistake. I guess this guy isn't exactly the same as what you were saying since he just had his toon camped in one spot. BUt funny nonetheless.<div></div>

[Severed Ha]

<DIV>I think the easiest thing to do to fix it would to make the mobs a Triggered Spawn that automatically locks onto the player/players group.  This way if the farmers want to farm this area then they will need to do the quest.  Make it so you can not Delete this quest also so that they dont just delete it and restart it when they want to.  Players that are down there doing the Access quest then would be able to go to each area and "Spawn" the encounter and have no worry about the mob being stolen by another group also.  Theres not many times that I have been down there but I do agree with the fact that farming does get out of hand.  It took me more then 2 days to finish this access quest and all the mobs to me where Grey. </DIV>

[Grimlux]

<P>Yah. last night I got carried away and shouldnt have. I asked him/her what farm they were from. They responded "speak chinese?" After that I got automated messages sent to me. I got "Hi Friend!" twice. and "Im busy at the moment. I'll talk to you soon!" once. </P> <P>Lame. I sincerely wish that Sony would put as much effort as to banning these accounts as Blizzard does in WoW. Atleast Blizzard makes it known that farming is unnacceptable and against their ULA to trade offline. </P>

[KukawKukaw]

Ya i have seen this too in PoF. I didnt know it was prolly one person at the time tho. I just thought it was a guild being obnoxious, but when I saw those goofy names you posted then i bet thats what i saw too. I was trying to finish up a couple of quests there and they would come and swoop in on their carpets and just mow them down and take the names <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Over and over and over. I  eneded up going back there after the EoF came out and finished them. Zone was empty almost hehe.<div></div>

[Jardon]

Just take the loot off the quest mobs and no more farmers. Simple solution

[Sokolov]

This has been happening since before DoF launched.I can only assumed this is sanctioned behavior.What sucks the most about this zone is that the named are quest mobs required for access to the 3rd floor.  The zone itself is designed really well, but farmers ruin it for everyone else =/<div></div>

[Troubor]

<P>Been over a month since I last took a guildmate down to Obelisk, but yes...same thing on my server, Lucan D'Lere.  Camp of farmers just wandering invisible over and over again.  Very obnoxious indeed.</P> <P>One thing I did do, that oddly seemed to work.  I was mentoring down a couple guildmates for the Speak like a Dragon runes..I had never done the access quest myself, so was doing it both to get their runes and to finally get access to the lower floors for myself.  Anyway...they of course were doing their obnoxious loop, so I unmentored for a bit, and thus could see them despite being invisible.  I then started pointing to them, doing random emotes, until they did stop.  One of them could kind of understand English, so after three or four tries of telling him "Look..we just need the nameds for the access quest, after that we're gone and you can farm all you want", he apparently understood, and had his bot/farm team call out.</P> <P>One other time, when I could see the invis botters in another zone, did the same thing..pointed to them, and the guy stopped, as if amazed someone could see him, then kind of sort of tried to talk to me.</P> <P>So...have found in at least two cases that they don't like the idea of being seen by another player.  And in one case, actually did let me have the zone for a bit so I could finish the quest and get my people their runes.</P> <P>Having said that..most of the time it is a lost cause, and often they are rude, and just don't care.  But..doesn't hurt to try to talk to them.  Would rather they didn't farm at all and SOE actually DO something about them other then send back canned replies if they are reported..but it does occasionally work to talk to them.</P> <P> </P> <P>Oh, forgot to add..I like the OP's suggestion.  Make some or all the Nightbloods wandering the halls on the top floor see invis and stealth.  At least make it so the botters/plat farmers have to fight their way to each spawn point.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P><p>Message Edited by Arvig on <span class=date_text>12-03-2006</span> <span class=time_text>01:15 PM</span>

[Traxor789]

    keep this post alive!!Seriously this is a good zone. It also fits in perfectly to the Zerker or Gurdian the botter actually plays , and his 2 wizard or 1 wizard , 1 warlock , AND fury group invisibility caster and healer group set up. A zone with nameds that drop loot that sells for 8-14 gold each that you can invis past that are for an access quest that let you get to 7 more nameds that drop even more loot that as long as you have invisiblility you can get to in a pattern where once you finish killing the last named on your list. you can just go back to the first part of the zone and wait maybe 10 seconds for the next named to pop. I understand  SoE when they upgraded loot tables of T5 and other old world zones this zone was altered because not many people went to it. Well people still do not go to this zone that much. Because botters are stealing all the named mobs and the botters will actually try to train you but when it doesnt work they just have their poorly equiped mages nuke the heck out of what ever the tank is targeting.Some farmer actually has the set up to where he hits taunts , both of his mages hit their single target nukes and the fury casts a reactive, or the tank ae taunts , the mages ae, and the fury casts a group reactive. This has been going on for like 8 months. Please fix it. I know if you fix where mobs see invis it will only slow farmers but change is better then no change . Thanks<div></div>

[LokiHellsson]

Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm.

[LokiHellsson]

<DIV>BTW, sometimes, it's fun to race the farmers for the mobs in OOLS.  I can beat them about half the time on the outside and first floor.  They don't go to the 46^^^'s past the Keeper, so if you don't like to contest go there.  Oh, and have you figured out the instance?  It seems poorly designed and the ring events are also tough to get to work properly on the 3rd floor.</DIV>

[Sokolov]

<div><blockquote><hr>LokiHellsson wrote:<div></div>Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm.<hr></blockquote>Is this kind of like.. don't blame the shooter, if the victim hadn't been born, they wouldn't have been shot?</div>

[wayward]

<DIV>yup just make alot of the mobs see invis devs.</DIV>

[Kali]

<P>I still like a previous suggestion to deal with all botters.</P> <P><STRONG>Simply remove /follow from the game.</STRONG> Would solve so much with a mild 'nothing' of a change to real players.</P> <P>As for solo farmers...see invis is not a bad idea in some areas like this - but professions that can train and FD will still get to where they want. </P>

[ReviloTX]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Kaliak wrote:<BR> <P>I still like a previous suggestion to deal with all botters.</P> <P><STRONG>Simply remove /follow from the game.</STRONG> Would solve so much with a mild 'nothing' of a change to real players.</P> <P>As for solo farmers...see invis is not a bad idea in some areas like this - but professions that can train and FD will still get to where they want. </P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Removing /follow would cost them at least 1 account for sure, maybe 2 if I decide I don't want to play if I can't two-box.

[Windowlicker]

<DIV>This is such a simple fix.  See invis!</DIV>

[Sokolov]

Farming activity began long before you could grey the mobs outs.  You can slow them down with see invis, but it won't stop them.<div></div>

[rattlebonz]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Sokolov wrote:<div><blockquote><hr>LokiHellsson wrote:<div></div>Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm.<hr></blockquote>Is this kind of like.. don't blame the shooter, if the victim hadn't been born, they wouldn't have been shot?</div><hr></blockquote>It isn't even close to the same thing. When people use extreme examples like you did to try and express some thought or opinion it kind of negates everything else you have said. There are far better correlations you could have used. Maybe bartender/drunk driver, or drug dealer/junkie.<div></div><p>Message Edited by rattlebonz on <span class=date_text>12-06-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:59 PM</span>

[Noaani]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sokolov wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> LokiHellsson wrote:<BR> Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Is this kind of like.. don't blame the shooter, if the victim hadn't been born, they wouldn't have been shot?<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Actually, Loki is exactly right. If no one in EQ2 ever bought plat from a website, do you honestly think those farmers will stay around?</P> <P>All they are doing is fullfilling a market demand. If that market demand did not exist, they would simply uproot themselves and move on to another market (WoW with a little luck). Sure, blame the farmers themselves, but blame the people buying plat even more. If you know someone is buying plat, /report them. Even if they are friends of yours, in your guild, whatever. If they are buying plat from a website, they are contributing to the problem, and if you know about it, and are not doing anything about it, you are also contributing to the problem, and thus have no recourse to complain about it.</P> <P>That said, I have never had any trouble beating farmers on my server to the names i need for OoLS access, on any of the toons i have it on. Once I have those 2 quests done, I am actually quite glad that the farmers are staying down in OoLS, and out of my way...<BR></P><p>Message Edited by Noaani on <span class=date_text>12-06-2006</span> <span class=time_text>11:24 PM</span>

[wesblueeyes]

I actually have to say that on Kithicor there is no such problem as this. I have recently been doing this zone on my 39 fae warlock and the only farmers were us haha. Since we were the only ones in the zone it was easy to run around in a group or duo and just kill the zone.

[admiralsn]

<P>~SORRY guys the developers LOVE FARMERS.  Who's  more likely to pay 3 more months for this game or any mmo for that matter than someone who just bought  a ton of platnum to twink out thier 4 level 30's. I've bought gold for WOW in the past and sure i feel really dumb for doing it and i understand what terrible things its does for the games economy, but its a buisness for SOE  to keep people playing thier game and paying that monthy fee, they are not going to help stop anything that makes people excited about playing thier games, no matter how it angers thier loyal costomers. I get at least 3 spams a day to buy gold from theese parasites so its obviously a big buisness and of sony didint want it in thier game it wouldnt be here, they designed it , they can change or fix anything, particularly in a dungeon where its really unfair, but they wont because gold farming keeps overweight nerds addicted to their Evercrack. I think its  complete crap that my level 28 is wearing all  level 16 armor-- </P> <P>but whats SOE's answer to my disapointment??   -> spend more money on the game,  becasue there are more people who obviously do than people who dont and complain about it, and who cares becasue they have enough money to make a whole new game to get us all hooked on</P> <P>the whole industry relies on eachother, how much has Nvidia made on graphics cards  from people upgrading to play this game better,  its a big industry and they all support eachother. </P>

[Sokolov]

<div><blockquote><hr>Noaani wrote:<div></div> <div></div> <blockquote> <hr> Sokolov wrote: <div> <blockquote> <hr> LokiHellsson wrote: <div></div>Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm. <hr> </blockquote>Is this kind of like.. don't blame the shooter, if the victim hadn't been born, they wouldn't have been shot?</div> <hr> </blockquote> <p>Actually, Loki is exactly right. If no one in EQ2 ever bought plat from a website, do you honestly think those farmers will stay around?</p> <p>All they are doing is fullfilling a market demand. If that market demand did not exist, they would simply uproot themselves and move on to another market (WoW with a little luck). Sure, blame the farmers themselves, but blame the people buying plat even more. If you know someone is buying plat, /report them. Even if they are friends of yours, in your guild, whatever. If they are buying plat from a website, they are contributing to the problem, and if you know about it, and are not doing anything about it, you are also contributing to the problem, and thus have no recourse to complain about it.</p> <p>That said, I have never had any trouble beating farmers on my server to the names i need for OoLS access, on any of the toons i have it on. Once I have those 2 quests done, I am actually quite glad that the farmers are staying down in OoLS, and out of my way...</p><p>Message Edited by Noaani on <span class="date_text">12-06-2006</span> <span class="time_text">11:24 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Oh, I know, I was just trying to be funny.But I feel it is also a bit silly to say "blame the buyer" when aggregate demand is what drives the market, not individual need.  If you managed to stop your personal friends from buying, assuming they were, it would affect the market in a neglible manner.  At the same time, the fact that plat buying is shunned and illegal actually helps to drive prices up, ensuring a healthy supply.Most anyone involved is "part of the problem."  You could even argue that you are playing a game which has farming, thus, by playing, you are supporting it.  If no one played EQ2, do you honestly think those farmers will stay around?   Your suggestion that we should be policing our friends/guildies/neighbours and deciding what they should, or should not, be doing is rather high-handed, in my opinion.From a historical standpoint, it would be interesting to find out if someone offered to buy first, or someone offered to sell first =D  Not that that has any bearing on the ability to place "blame."In either case tho, the zone's design is definitely contributing to the problem: is there any reason any zone should have a circuit of loot dropping named which are also used for access quests for a signiature quest lines, and where these named can all be dispatched easily with one group in succession, knowing full well that these types of games typically have farming problems?  (And it doesn't even have to be plat farmers, could be anybody doing it - the plat farmers are just more diligent!)</div>

[electricninjasex]

<div><blockquote><hr>LokiHellsson wrote:<div></div>Don't blame the farmer, blame the guy who buys the plat.  If nobody bought the plat, they wouldn't farm.<hr></blockquote>If nobody were farming the plat, nobody would be selling, and nobody would consider buying plat a viable option.</div>

[electricninjasex]

<div><blockquote><hr>Noaani wrote:<div></div> <div></div><p>All they are doing is fullfilling a market demand. If that market demand did not exist, they would simply uproot themselves and move on to another market (WoW with a little luck). Sure, blame the farmers themselves, but blame the people buying plat even more.</p><hr></blockquote>Just a glimpse of how stupid that sounds... in the illegal drug trade, who do we blame more, the people who buy drugs, or the drug dealers and cartels?There are plenty of bad markets that deserve not to be fulfilled, whether it's plat farmed against the EULA rules, drugs, or child pornography.  Lump those together?  Absolutely!  They all have a purely negative impact!</div>

[Noaani]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> electricninjasex wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Noaani wrote:<BR> <P>All they are doing is fullfilling a market demand. If that market demand did not exist, they would simply uproot themselves and move on to another market (WoW with a little luck). Sure, blame the farmers themselves, but blame the people buying plat even more.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Just a glimpse of how stupid that sounds... in the illegal drug trade, who do we blame more, the people who buy drugs, or the drug dealers and cartels?<BR><BR>There are plenty of bad markets that deserve not to be fulfilled, whether it's plat farmed against the EULA rules, drugs, or child pornography.  Lump those together?  Absolutely!  They all have a purely negative impact!<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I totally agree that it sounds stupid. But think about it for a minute. Using your example of illegal drugs, if you go out and catch the drug dealer, another will be on the street in his place within a day. If you get all the buyers in a given area (as unlikely as it would be for a lot of areas), that dealer will move on.</P> <P>With plat farmers, if you ban one account (or group of accounts), there will be another group there in a few days, farming it all over again. If you ban the accounts of everyone on a server that buys plat (also unlikely), those farmers will do the same as the dealer, and just move on.</P> <P>As far as I am concerned myself, however, all I am able to do is report those people i am aware of as buying plat, as well as report any zone disruption that any plat sellers may be causeing, in hopes of slowing them down a little (which is all that will do).</P> <P>In both cases the only REAL way to make a differance is to target the people that oversee the whole operation, in our case that would be the websites themselves. Personally, I do not have the resourses to attack a plat selling website, and so I will stick to what little I am able to do.</P>

[carlspackler]

<DIV>Making all mobs in there see invis is fine, but a better solution is to remove the loot these named mobs drop. I haven't been XPing in there since before DoF, so I don't recall if any of them drop master chests. But I remember even back then we had a bunch of plat farming/selling groups in there. If SoE removes all drops from these mobs, they will go somewhere else.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Or just do what I saw other posters mention. Go in with a level 70 character, lock your encounters, engage everything, then go afk.</DIV>

[Kali]

<i>With plat farmers, if you ban one account (or group of accounts), there will be another group there in a few days, farming it all over again. -----</i>I agree. This is why the ability to farm should be greatly reduced. I'm sorry if it impacts the game of a small percentage of "hydras" but I'd be willing to lose them if we could remove bot groups - which would happen if the /follow command were removed. Hydras say they play for the challenge - not for the loot anyway. Well try doing it without /follow - that would be a real challenge and you would not have bot groups to contend with. <span>:smileyhappy:</span><i></i>One single command removed would hamstring all bot groups - and it would be easy to implement.<i></i><div></div>

[carlspackler]

Removing /follow command would instantly stop all of these groups........ until they make another program that will allow them to follow the group leader. I think if they did remove the /follow command, they should make it so that just one or two people in the group are allowed to do it, not 4-5 toons.

[Bannor The Bloodguard]

<DIV>I got really hacked off with the Chinese Bot/Farmers on RE</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Apart from name stealing, or waiting till I fd'd after killing adds - then pulling named... On the 1st occassion I actually got to kill a mob b4 them, they decided to try and train alot of mobs onto me <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Stupid mistake trying to do that against a Bruiser <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Spent the next week goin in there every once in a while and doing the same to them - Their tank didn't seem to realise that AE'ing in this situation was a bad idea...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Left them alone when I got sick of wiping them - but was most fun I have had in past year in this game</DIV>

[kenm]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Kaliak wrote:<i></i>I agree. This is why the ability to farm should be greatly reduced. <i></i><div></div><hr></blockquote>Yay, let's [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] the economy up by preventing virtually any money from entering while people like myself live like kings as prices drop and we stay obscenely rich.And the amount of angry of people from removing /follow would surely be more than any mere combat revamps that break the entire game every few months. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />SOE, do this, do this, do this.But seriously, people that farm like so fuel the economy with money.  Like it or not, they're pretty vital.<span class="time_text"></span></div><p>Message Edited by kenman on <span class=date_text>12-09-2006</span> <span class=time_text>06:17 AM</span>