Camping - Good/Bad?

[KunamitsuUK]

<p>Now Im new to the whole MMO scene, I was a FPS gamer up until last year so I missed EQ1 and the community that it has spawned and spread into EQ2. I was in a group in RoV waiting for the Books to pop and there was great banter amongst the 4 of us between each PH pop and it got me thinking about a story an ex EQ1 player told me about camping a named, dont know if it was 18 hours or 18 days for one Mob, but I thought two things:</p><p>1, Does that mean you guys stayed online for 18 hours waiting?</p><p>2, Should long camps be brought back for Uber Rare mobs with great drops and would you put up with it?</p><p>Not sure what the longest is in EQ2 anymore, I heard 10 hours for one mob but when I went he was up!</p><p>I do not mind camping personally, if in a group it gives you a chance to socialise etc, when solo you potter about the general area looking for shinies or taking out trash mobs, I'd draw the line at 10 hours though, maybe come back next day see if they were up, wait an hour or so. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Also do you see camping as a bad thing? Luckily when my friend and I ran into Lifes room the 2 players in there let us join their group to wait for the pop, but there have been times when WoW rejects have either a) ran in while I was killing a named and flamed me for being there, or b) have ran in and taken kill solo before group got ready, even when space in group.</p><p>Just putting it out for discussion.</p>

[Rijacki]

When someone says they camped, for example, 18 hours for something, it could a few hours one day, a few hours the next, over the span of a few days.  There are some, however, who do mean 18 hours contiguous, staying at or near their computer and logged in the entire time.  If there's a known timer for the placeholder/named, they might grab a nap or food or whatever in the intervening time while their character stays at the location. In EQ2, the long camps come later.  The longest camp I have had to deal with were one of the bouncers for the stein (3-4 hours each on 5 or 6 days).  A friend camped the named jailer in Sanctum of Scaleborn for over 8 hours contiguous on 2 different days.  Most others have been at most 2-3 hours. 1-2 hours on -one- day can be social and even fun (if you only have one such and not -every- encounter for that quest requiring that), 2-3 hours is stretching into painful, 3+ hours one one day is annoying and causes many to give up, 3+ hours on more than one day is downright debilitating and can cause someone to quit the game in disgust.  I nearly quit over the bouncer.  After the 3rd day of 3-4 hours waiting, I was so close to quitting the game I had to just shelve that quest for a while.  A few weeks later, the 4th camp (when everything except the placeholder was grey) also had me [Removed for Content] and ready to quit.  It was my boyfriend who encouraged me to stay with it and reminded me of the things I do enjoy in the game.  I nearly didn't stay for the last camp for the thing.  I was off doing other things in between most of his spawn cycles just so I wouldn't get too irate.  I was on the verge of quitting the camp (and logging out) when he finally showed up.

[Kellin]

<p>Usually, if someone says they camped something for less than 5 hours, they did it in one stretch.  Longer than that, it's usually in smaller stretches over several days (or weeks, or months...).  My personal worst is 60 hours in EQ1.  It was Raster in LGuk for the monk epic.  The longest stretch I did was 16 hours, and I was a drooling idiot by the end of that.  And that was about medium for reported camps for that mob.  (I think the record was well over 200 hours.)</p><p>You rarely see camps like that in EQ2.  Occasionally, a name will be stubborn and refuse to spawn, but I think you can /petition the encounter if you go more than a couple of hours without a name spawn.  Not certain of that, but I've heard you can.</p><p>I believe my longest camp in EQ2 was for Philosophers in PoA.  Took 3 or 4 days, each try being at least 3 hours.  Next is probably High Priest of Val'Marr in CL for the lightstone HQ.</p><p>As for your question 2, should they bring back these long camps?</p><p><span style="font-size: large">NO.  ABSOLUTELY NOT.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">Long camps are NOT fun.</span></p>

[Illmarr]

<p>I think the 18 hour camp they were talking about may have been Stormfeather in Iceclad Ocean (Velious Era). He dropped piece #2 of 4 of a map of Iceclad Ocean which when you gathered them all and finished the quest gave you a face item (I miss masks!) that had clickable 20% haste, which was a very nice bonus for the era. He was on a 19 hour spawn cycle, and as a bonus had a chance to randomly decide to skip a spawn. People used to sit on his spawn spot with the speakers turned up full and take naps in the room.</p><p>I have to say that I'm really glad EQ2 doesn't have any camps like this (At least none I have encountered). I will say that reasonable (YMMV) camps can be a lot of fun. On an alt had a great time role playing while camping the Books of Life and Death. It finally took a very serious female Barbarian Monk breaking down and doing the ridiculous dance a Wood Elf Mystic taught her to get the Book of Life to spawn after an hour. But I can also see the frustration some people have stated about running all over checking four placeholders over a densely populated area of jungle like Feerrott while level appropriate.</p><p>I think camps are a lot like most things in life, fine in moderation</p>

[sfarugger]

Since we are giving opinions here, I wish they would bring back the "camping" part of the game.  Ya, it sucked...  but it's part of the experience.  Hey, while we're at it, lets add corpse runs back in also.

[Kellin]

<p>I guess I'll never understand why people will say that they want something that "sucked" to be brought back into the game.</p><p>I get enough sucky stuff in RL.  I don't especially want to encounter it in a game.</p>

[Illmarr]

<cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I guess I'll never understand why people will say that they want something that "sucked" to be brought back into the game.</p><p>I get enough sucky stuff in RL.  I don't especially want to encounter it in a game.</p></blockquote> /sarcasam? But maybe not. I sometimes wish there was actually an inconvienence to dying instead of it being a way to get somewhere faster occasionally. Usually I snap out of it quick enough though

[thebunny]

<cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>You rarely see camps like that in EQ2.  Occasionally, a name will be stubborn and refuse to spawn, but I think you can /petition the encounter if you go more than a couple of hours without a name spawn.  Not certain of that, but I've heard you can.</p></blockquote><p>heh we tried to do that one time when the Tome of Life spawn in RoV was broken (literally broken, as in neither the named or the PH spawned after an hour of waiting).  Their response was "Unfortunately we cannot help you with a particular spawn, you will have to figure out the event for yourself".</p><p>In my opinion long camps are a lazy way to make something challenging.  It's not challenging because of skill level mind you, but rather because of the endurance and patience it takes.  But part of the problem with the existing long camps is that you often out-level the reward before completing the quest.  The ones I'm thinking of in particular are the Stein HQ, the Screaming Mace HQ (Agony spawn), and Lost Legend of Lavastorm - by the time I finished those on my toons, the rewards were no longer worthwhile.  Of course when the level cap was 50, you couldn't out-level the rewards, so they would still be worthwhile at max level.  But now that they're stepping stone quests instead of end game quests, I pretty much avoid them completely on my alts unless I'm just really bored.</p>

[DanaDark]

<p>Call me crazy, but I do like the idea of camping an area. Also miss how it'd take a while to get mana and health back up, good old "down time". Basically because thats when a lot of good conversation was made. Now, it seems groups dont get a chance to talk much because everyone is too busy.</p><p>But, it's also nice to have the running around experience and not staying in one place, really feeling like you're exploring somewhere rather than harvesting xp.</p><p>I have found several spots where you can indeed just sit back, relax, and camp the area though, so it's not all bad. Overall though, I LOVE talking while playing lol <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kellin]

Ilmaaaaah@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I guess I'll never understand why people will say that they want something that "sucked" to be brought back into the game.</p><p>I get enough sucky stuff in RL.  I don't especially want to encounter it in a game.</p></blockquote> /sarcasam? But maybe not. I sometimes wish there was actually an inconvienence to dying instead of it being a way to get somewhere faster occasionally. Usually I snap out of it quick enough though</blockquote><p>Nope, not sarcasm.  I honestly do not understand why people want things to be un-fun.</p><p>If people miss that so much, why do they play EQ2 instead of EQ1?  I went back to EQ1 for a little while, and sure, they've changed a lot of stuff, but they still have the corpse runs, camps, medding.  Corpse runs still take a lot of joy out of my day, medding is a timesink with nothing to recommend it, and camping is wasting a lot of time to sit in one spot and kill the same mobs over and over.  And thebunny is right, there's no challenge to doing this, all it requires is time.  Lots and lots of time that could be better spent actually playing the game (unless you were totally addicted to Gems).</p><p>I don't know about you, but my most cherished moments from EQ1 weren't "wow, I sat in a little room in LGuk killing mobs every 29 minutes for 60 hours total to get one little item for my epic," "oh, boy, I'm OOM and need to sit here for 5 minutes doing nothing so I can get my mana back," or "I died at the bottom of Kaesora, and wow, it was so much fun trying to find some people to help me get my corpse back."</p><p>My faves were surviving a 10 pull in Sol A.  My first Naggy kill.  Clearing the "hard" boat in Dulak's Harbor.  Stuff like that.  Not chasing down corpses and sitting staring at the wall. </p>

[Illmarr]

<cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ilmaaaaah@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I guess I'll never understand why people will say that they want something that "sucked" to be brought back into the game.</p><p>I get enough sucky stuff in RL.  I don't especially want to encounter it in a game.</p></blockquote> /sarcasam? But maybe not. I sometimes wish there was actually an inconvienence to dying instead of it being a way to get somewhere faster occasionally. Usually I snap out of it quick enough though</blockquote><p>Nope, not sarcasm.  I honestly do not understand why people want things to be un-fun.</p><p>If people miss that so much, why do they play EQ2 instead of EQ1?  I went back to EQ1 for a little while, and sure, they've changed a lot of stuff, but they still have the corpse runs, camps, medding.  Corpse runs still take a lot of joy out of my day, medding is a timesink with nothing to recommend it, and camping is wasting a lot of time to sit in one spot and kill the same mobs over and over.  And thebunny is right, there's no challenge to doing this, all it requires is time.  Lots and lots of time that could be better spent actually playing the game (unless you were totally addicted to Gems).</p><p>I don't know about you, but my most cherished moments from EQ1 weren't "wow, I sat in a little room in LGuk killing mobs every 29 minutes for 60 hours total to get one little item for my epic," "oh, boy, I'm OOM and need to sit here for 5 minutes doing nothing so I can get my mana back," or "I died at the bottom of Kaesora, and wow, it was so much fun trying to find some people to help me get my corpse back."</p><p>My faves were surviving a 10 pull in Sol A.  My first Naggy kill.  Clearing the "hard" boat in Dulak's Harbor.  Stuff like that.  Not chasing down corpses and sitting staring at the wall. </p></blockquote><p> I meant the guy that said it was being sarcastic, not you.</p><p>Different strokes for different folks. And actually I have great memories of EQ1 of a whole raids running back to GoD instances that were being held open my a single FD'd Necromancer, or everyone in our group running naked back through several DoDH zones to get back to our hard  difficulty instance before it timed out. Going over and refining your strat while you med. Heck, going to the bathroom on those long 5 hour raids. Or just stretching your legs. They didn't happen so often as to be somehting to get all worked up about in my experience, YMMV</p><p>In my Stormfeather example...I never did that camp for precicely the reason you cite. Long camps are not fun. I never disagreed with that. But they also are not mandatory. Nothing is in a game, with the possible exception of the Cleric Epic from EQ1 if you decided to join a raiding guild there. It may not have been fun the 60 hours you spend in Lower Guk, but obviously it was worth it to you or you would not have done it. Did you have any "fun" after you'd finished your Epic showing it off? Being seen with it? There was the fun from your camp. I hope you enjoyed it.</p><p>I wish you well</p>

[Kellin]

<p>Actually, I never completed my monk epic.  The Guk camp burned me out.  It got to the point that if there was any camping involved at all, I couldn't bring myself to do it.  My EQ1 monk has the Robe of the Lost Circle, which is about 1/3 of the way to getting the epic.  She got no pleasure out of completing that part.  I recall actually feeling sick once I killed Raster and got the idol I needed.</p><p>Now, when I think about it, I don't feel any kind of triumph for doing it.  I feel angry that I felt I had to do that.  That the epic was such a big deal to making my monk a viable character, I had to endure punishing camps in horrible zones in order to complete it.</p><p>I retired my monk for good not long after that, and changed to enchanter.</p><p>I'm still a little angry about that, really.  I loved my monk, but she couldn't hold her own in a group any more.</p>

[Gladiia]

<p>I think shorter camp times on some things are reasonable (2-4 hours say).  Things like that help prevent everyone and there mother from getting every item available.  But in other games, I simply hated 18 hour spawn timers.  Especially when 18 hours meant i wasnt even around for every other spawn - and the ones I were around for - - well, odds were someone else fully twinked and ready was taking that kill (or a raid guild if it was a raid boss).  </p><p> Despite that, having to wait 18 hours between certain bosses is good to keep certain items from overflowing the game.  What I like here are the 18 hour lockouts instead.  You don't HAVE to be ready 18 hours after a boss has died, you just can't go back before then.  And you don't have to worry about someone beating you to the kill either.  Much nicer.</p>

[Ariste]

<cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ilmaaaaah@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><cite>Kellin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I guess I'll never understand why people will say that they want something that "sucked" to be brought back into the game.</p><p>I get enough sucky stuff in RL.  I don't especially want to encounter it in a game.</p></blockquote> /sarcasam? But maybe not. I sometimes wish there was actually an inconvienence to dying instead of it being a way to get somewhere faster occasionally. Usually I snap out of it quick enough though</blockquote><p>Nope, not sarcasm.  I honestly do not understand why people want things to be un-fun.</p><p>If people miss that so much, why do they play EQ2 instead of EQ1?  I went back to EQ1 for a little while, and sure, they've changed a lot of stuff, but they still have the corpse runs, camps, medding.  Corpse runs still take a lot of joy out of my day, medding is a timesink with nothing to recommend it, and camping is wasting a lot of time to sit in one spot and kill the same mobs over and over.  And thebunny is right, there's no challenge to doing this, all it requires is time.  Lots and lots of time that could be better spent actually playing the game (unless you were totally addicted to Gems).</p><p>I don't know about you, but my most cherished moments from EQ1 weren't "wow, I sat in a little room in LGuk killing mobs every 29 minutes for 60 hours total to get one little item for my epic," "oh, boy, I'm OOM and need to sit here for 5 minutes doing nothing so I can get my mana back," or "I died at the bottom of Kaesora, and wow, it was so much fun trying to find some people to help me get my corpse back."</p><p>My faves were surviving a 10 pull in Sol A.  My first Naggy kill.  Clearing the "hard" boat in Dulak's Harbor.  Stuff like that.  Not chasing down corpses and sitting staring at the wall. </p></blockquote><p>First of all, a lot of my most enjoyable and memorable times in EQ were indeed at camps. It's sometimes fun to just sit around and socialize and [Removed for Content] and moan about how terrible so and so camp is. But that's not what I really want to respond to.</p><p>What I want to respond to is the last part of your post. The part where you list all of your favorite activities.</p><p>I completely agree with you. All of these things were great fun. But <i>why </i>were they fun?</p><p>Here's something that a lot of people don't realize - challenging game mechanics create fun. Why is winning a football game so satisfying? Would it be as memorable an experience if it took no effort? If you could just walk out onto the field and win every time without any effort, would there be any point? The analogy holds true for MMOs. Camping, as a stand-alone entity, is not all that much fun. I don't think anybody is saying that sitting on your [Removed for Content] for 10 hours is memorable or gratifying. What is fun - what <i>is </i>satisfying - is handing in a quest item after that 10 hours of camping and receiving an item that few others have because few others posessed the commitment to grind it out. This kind of satisfaction and gratification can <i>only</i> be gained through time-intensive game mechanics.</p><p>To be clear, I'm not saying the entire game should revolve around camping. I'm not saying that players should be required to camp for 10+ hours to acquire anything meaningful. I'm saying that camping should not be stricken completely from any game as a viable mechanic. People seem to avoid camping like the plague, yet it allows for some of the most gratifying experiences an MMO can offer. Why was it so awesome to get an epic in EQ? Because those things took for-[Removed for Content]-ever to get. Few people ever got them. It made actually having one that much more special. The same is true in any game that utilizes camping. If it's totally optional and fairly interspersed within other types of content, I see no problem at all with camping and would heavily support it. </p>

[Etchii]

<p>Good for one reason.... Legendary set drop chest piece...  There is only one chance that the chest can drop, only a chance that it will be the one my class will use, and this is after a 4-5 hour zone(unrest).</p><p>At least in castle mistmoore our group can sit in the corner and wait for a respawn (aka...camp!)</p><p>Camping good, placing the CHANCE at the drop at the end of a 5 hour instance(no repops)...bad!</p>

[Siogai]

<blockquote>What is fun - what <i>is </i>satisfying - is handing in a quest item after that 10 hours of camping and receiving an item that few others have because few others posessed the commitment to grind it out</blockquote> Excepting that, unless the item is tradeable, you  have no idea how many people have completed that quest and have had the same turn in.  EQ1 especially, every cleric and her alt had the click-stick, every necro had that duck staff, every monk kvetched about the Raster camp... but, eventually, these items were outdone by later Epics and even simple drops from other zones (the Cleric epic, especially, was useful only for its click effect, its stats sucked). Is the 40 hour camp as fun if 500 people have done it before you?

[Valdaglerion]

<p>I wouldnt mind the camps if the percentage of useful drops was modified to the campers class. Camping isnt really all that fun but it does take some determination and patience to accomplish. The suck factor is exponentially increased however when you are a caster and camp repeatedly only to get drops for every class but yours. That changes determination and patience to +10000 Lunacy, +10000 Frustration with +25% chance to cast Quit Game on player as Frustration level mounts.</p><p>Everyone wants a challenge but doing the same thing over and over and over without a sense of progression is mind numbing and boring.</p>

[Thantoes]

<p>I agree with all on the resounding NO!!!!! part <img src="/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>       Yes camps suck- X EQ1 Mage here -- try spending ungodly hours in South Karana hoping that you can find Quillmain only to have some wise A-- tracker come along and snag it.  Or spend weekends with 4 to 5 hour breaks to sleep and eat in Plane of Air just HOPING & PRAYING the raid went well so MAYBE they would progress pass (what was it for Healer island 5?) and get to the LAST island for your epic piece.. Every raid I went on would stop after that island because the warrior epic was on the island just before that and enchanter before that -- so that was as far as they needed/wanted to go-- Screw mages whos only REAL purpose was MOD ROD PLEASE......<img src="/smilies/2e207fad049d4d292f60607f80f05768.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>        I could go ON and ON - corpse runs were UGH -- I don't know HOW many times I told my wife -- just a sec --I just have to log - only to have a train or some other stupidity kill me -- Then OOOOPSS 45+ minute corpse run. While my wife sits there fumming hating the computer- MORE And MORE..   </p><p>edit: HEY who turned off my SMiles <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   </p>

[Cakassis]

<p>In EQ1 I was lucky enough to play a Beastlord.  Our epic didn't involve any of the redunkulously stupid-long camps that many others did, but waiting six hours to see if a particular scout would pop for my epic was a source of much frustration.</p><p>Any time someone starts longing for "corpse runs" or the like, all I can think of is the Plane of Fear.  Dear God that was a stupidly hard place.</p><p>I was glad to see I wasn't the only one who had a terrible time getting the Priest of Val'Marr to spawn.</p>

[KunamitsuUK]

<p>I forgot about Stein of Moggok! How can I forget thet, it was the Bouncer that runs the path that gave me the most grief! I think I left that HQ till everything ws grey and finished it then. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>As for Val'Mar I have never had trouble with him, the Lion gives me more hassle than him. Clearing the top of the South East tower once or twice then he pops, no need to run around killing what everyone claims are PHs as more often than not, they arent <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[MrWolfie]

<p>If I find myself doing something else, while supposedly playing a game, then that game has FAILED.</p><p>I do pick up the odd comicbook while waiting for other groupmembers or raids to get going, but in EQ1 I used to read novels!!</p><p>Ridiculous!</p>

[Melod]

I play in a great guild and we love the camping quests.  We do our research ahead of time and plan on when we will all do it.  We had a great group of six players doing the Stein of Moggok quest this weekend.  During the 2 hours or so it took to camp all four bouncers we had a great time of haning out (maybe the beer helped).  All in all I look foreward to these events the most.

[Kellin]

<p>Ah, but you see, in EQ1, 2 hours wouldn't even qualify as a camp.  Especially when you got all 4 bouncers in that time, an average of 30 mins per.  At the repop rate in Feerrott, you're talking 2-3 spawns each.</p><p>Not to mention the fact that you can also harvest, work on other quests, etc. while doing it.</p><p>I rarely see EQ1 style camping in EQ2.  Usually it's for timed spawns (EoF is becoming notorious here; butler in MMC and the ring event in Kaladim, for example) or whole areas being razed by plat farmers.</p>

[Raveller]

Camping sucks. Mob camping is what you have to do because the game designers had their imaginations surgically removed. Or, maybe they were born without imaginations. Either way, camping sucks.

[AntLi]

 I see the whole game mechanic of having to camp for a mob to spawn as one of the worst things in any MMO for ruining fun and wasting players time. It's an outdated game mechanic that the sooner developers wake up and realize it adds nothing to the game (except a few deluded morons who think its some form of challenge) what so ever. All quest mobs should be triggered by those with the quest and not able to be attacked by those who don't have the quest in their log or if they’re not grouped with those with the quest. Come Sept you’ll be ditching MMO’s to play Quake Wars and TF2 come Oct. No MMO out there can beat a solid online fps game for fun and entertainment.

[erin]

What I hated most about camping in EQ1:  can't remember the zone, came out with POP, but once you had access, I (cleric) would literally end up sitting in a corner, healing the group for hours on end, never really moving from that spot.  Once we were in the spot, that was it.  Heal.  Heal.  Sit.  Heal.  Sit.  In order to get good gear, you did this for weeks.  Every night, grab a group, go to zone, fight to spot, sit in corner.  What a blast!  Yay, lets bring that back! /sarcasm off

[Rijacki]

Erin@Blackburrow wrote: <blockquote>What I hated most about camping in EQ1:  can't remember the zone, came out with POP, but once you had access, I (cleric) would literally end up sitting in a corner, healing the group for hours on end, never really moving from that spot.  Once we were in the spot, that was it.  Heal.  Heal.  Sit.  Heal.  Sit.  In order to get good gear, you did this for weeks.  Every night, grab a group, go to zone, fight to spot, sit in corner.  What a blast!  Yay, lets bring that back! /sarcasm off </blockquote>That was just about every zone in EQ1.  You always had pullers and a spot to park the rest of the party.  Outside, the puller might be a ranger or a monk.  Inside, it was nearly always a monk.  I like the dungeon crawl atmosphere of EQ2 -sooooo- much better.  I hate getting into grind groups that, as former EQ1 players, want to stay in one spot and have a puller.

[MysidiaDrakkenbane]

<p>Long camps, corpse runs, slow personal progression, quests that were irrelevant to your level when you actually finished them...these were the core reasons why I left EQ1. </p><p>I would camp things for 8 hours straight. I remember I pulled an all nighter trying to get that book that dropped in High Pass...never dropped... Started camping at 7pm EST. Camped it straight through until 7am. </p><p>Bring this back and I'll quit the game. This is about as much fun as getting your teeth drilled without novicane. </p><p>If you enjoy these aspects, go back to EQ1.</p>

[The_Cheeseman]

As an EQ1 monk who camped Raster of Guk for 23 hours straight, then lost his gear to a bug and had to camp him AGAIN for 18 hours to get his epic back, I can answer with a resounding NO! Other notable camps in EQ1: The infamous dragon, Ragefire, for the cleric epic, who only spawned when Lord Nagafen was dead. Nobody of the appropriate level to do the cleric epic could even attack Nagafen (if you were over level 52, he ported you out of the zone when you aggroed him). So you not only had to compete for a raid MOB with a 7-day spawn timer, you also had to organize 20-36 person raids of lowbies against a MOB you couldn't even directly interact with just to make it spawn. The nearly mythical Faydedar, for the druid epic. A dragon that spawned once per week in the middle of the ocean, wandered for about 2 hours, then promptly got himself killed by aggroing a monk guildmaster NPC who beat the crap out of him. In order for the poor druids to get this MOB, they had to park an alt near his spawn point (in the middle of the ocean) and wait until Fay spawned and killed the alt. Then they had to run out into the ocean before Fay committed suicide, aggro him, and kite him in circles for as long as it took to organize the 36-man raid needed to kill him. Of course, if Fay caught the unfortunate druid during this time, he was toast. The oft-debated Ancient Cyclops of South Ro for the Journeyman's Boots quest. There are more speculations regarding the means to spawn this MOB then there are about the Kennedy assassination. I have heard things as strange as killing ONLY pumas, then killing a particular skeleton in a tower at exactly 8:00am, game time, but only if somebody had actually talked to Hasten Bootstrutter (the quest giver) in Rathe Mountains since the last time it spawned. In reality, it turns out it was a simple placeholder spawn, with about 4 spawn points around the zone. However, each spawn point could spawn up to 4 of a given random MOB type, which then proceeded to wander off individually all around the zone. Unless all 4 MOBs from a given spawn point were killed, that point would not respawn. This lead to many unfortunate campers spending untold hours killing whatever they saw, but possibly only clearing each specific spawn point once or twice per hour. I will be quite happy to never see things like that again.

[Illmarr]

Incorrect on Druid Faydedar. It was a triggered spawn inside the hidden resort area down near the Firepot room. Maybe that was a change from it's original Kunark release, much like Ragefire for the Cleric epic was also changed.

[Illmarr]

Erin@Blackburrow wrote: <blockquote>What I hated most about camping in EQ1:  can't remember the zone, came out with POP, but once you had access, I (cleric) would literally end up sitting in a corner, healing the group for hours on end, never really moving from that spot.  Once we were in the spot, that was it.  Heal.  Heal.  Sit.  Heal.  Sit.  In order to get good gear, you did this for weeks.  Every night, grab a group, go to zone, fight to spot, sit in corner.  What a blast!  Yay, lets bring that back! /sarcasm off </blockquote><p> You know, blame that on the lazy players who only wanted to go to Bastion of Thunder and grind that easy experience. There were places in PoP to go on crawls, the players didn't want to. They wanted to sit in their little spots and soak up mindless, skill-numbing experience. </p>

[MysidiaDrakkenbane]

<p>I did the first Druid Epic. NEVER AGAIN. It ticked me off that I could buy something from the Bazaar that was better than my epic a few weeks later. </p><p>This is why when they announced Epic Weapons in the new RoK release, my insides screamed and I cringed.</p>

[erin]

Ilmaaaaah@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>Erin@Blackburrow wrote: <blockquote>What I hated most about camping in EQ1:  can't remember the zone, came out with POP, but once you had access, I (cleric) would literally end up sitting in a corner, healing the group for hours on end, never really moving from that spot.  Once we were in the spot, that was it.  Heal.  Heal.  Sit.  Heal.  Sit.  In order to get good gear, you did this for weeks.  Every night, grab a group, go to zone, fight to spot, sit in corner.  What a blast!  Yay, lets bring that back! /sarcasm off </blockquote><p> You know, blame that on the lazy players who only wanted to go to Bastion of Thunder and grind that easy experience. There were places in PoP to go on crawls, the players didn't want to. They wanted to sit in their little spots and soak up mindless, skill-numbing experience. </p></blockquote>Aye that's the one, BoT.  Wow been a long time, couldn't even remember the name lol.  The problem was that the gear that dropped was almost required in order to proceed, in terms of POP+ raiding, so you had to camp the place early on to get the gear to move on.  But booooring.

[erin]

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>As an EQ1 monk who camped Raster of Guk for 23 hours straight, then lost his gear to a bug and had to camp him AGAIN for 18 hours to get his epic back, I can answer with a resounding NO! Other notable camps in EQ1: The infamous dragon, Ragefire, for the cleric epic, who only spawned when Lord Nagafen was dead. Nobody of the appropriate level to do the cleric epic could even attack Nagafen (if you were over level 52, he ported you out of the zone when you aggroed him). So you not only had to compete for a raid MOB with a 7-day spawn timer, you also had to organize 20-36 person raids of lowbies against a MOB you couldn't even directly interact with just to make it spawn. The nearly mythical Faydedar, for the druid epic. A dragon that spawned once per week in the middle of the ocean, wandered for about 2 hours, then promptly got himself killed by aggroing a monk guildmaster NPC who beat the crap out of him. In order for the poor druids to get this MOB, they had to park an alt near his spawn point (in the middle of the ocean) and wait until Fay spawned and killed the alt. Then they had to run out into the ocean before Fay committed suicide, aggro him, and kite him in circles for as long as it took to organize the 36-man raid needed to kill him. Of course, if Fay caught the unfortunate druid during this time, he was toast. The oft-debated Ancient Cyclops of South Ro for the Journeyman's Boots quest. There are more speculations regarding the means to spawn this MOB then there are about the Kennedy assassination. I have heard things as strange as killing ONLY pumas, then killing a particular skeleton in a tower at exactly 8:00am, game time, but only if somebody had actually talked to Hasten Bootstrutter (the quest giver) in Rathe Mountains since the last time it spawned. In reality, it turns out it was a simple placeholder spawn, with about 4 spawn points around the zone. However, each spawn point could spawn up to 4 of a given random MOB type, which then proceeded to wander off individually all around the zone. Unless all 4 MOBs from a given spawn point were killed, that point would not respawn. This lead to many unfortunate campers spending untold hours killing whatever they saw, but possibly only clearing each specific spawn point once or twice per hour. I will be quite happy to never see things like that again. </blockquote>We took a look at what it took to do the cleric epic, laughed and moved on.  Nobody in their right mind would camp for 7 days on the off chance they could get the guild together at the right moment, and compete with dozens of other high level guilds. Once they changed it, it was a reasonable quest, although there was still camps.  The one underwater, that was about 3 sessions of 5 hours or more, and I did it 3 times (for myself and other guildies).  Its easier if someone keeps you company.  The monk epic was ridiculous.  I shudder to remember how many times I camped raster, and I never even made a monk!  We took turns, with the monk player camped out for a few hours sometimes, to sleep and such.  Ridiculous. No, I don't think camping is fun or good. Right now I'm camping the cenobite in Cazic Thule.  15 minute(?) spawn time, and I'm an hour into it.  Fun?  Woo boy, yeah this is some excitement.

[FlamingDuck]

<p>Camping is the worst part of MMOs..leave it in the past with EQ1, EQ2 already has enough stupid camping quests anyway, especially the notorious Stein of Moggok HQ...gawd I swear I will never do that one again no matter how bad I want status points that one plays on your sanity. Worst quest ever, killing bouncer PHs over and over again for hours to get a rare named bouncer to pop up. Doesn't even bloody make sense mobs pop outta nowhere cause you killed a certain other mob. A dull, artifical time-sink to the max. I can't wait for the day where MMOs do not rely on crap mob camping to lengthen quests. </p>

[Lakaah]

IMO, 30 minutes is the upper limit of a reasonable camp time when waiting for a quest related mob. If it is going to be longer than that, there'd better be a darn good reason, that is to say that it needs to be part of the story ("Joe the evil arch-mage must be stopped, however he only returns to this plane of existence every few days...&quot<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Otherwise, if I need to go kill Joe, Joe needs to be around for me to kill. I understand that this is not always possible, as another player may have just killed Joe, and Joe cannot respawn immediately. It needs to be relatively quick though, and the placeholder system is generally idiotic. If I want to sit around and socialize, I'll go to RP night at the tavern, or hang out in the crafting channel, I don't need nor appreciate the game forcing me to do it.