Cross Server Grouping (LFG) or Henchman

[adolf102]

<p>First Merry Christmas to all <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Now I was reading:<a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=465269" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=465269</a>Occurred to me that cross-server LFG channel (or cross-server LFG system) would be truly awesome idea.I know SOE plans to do cross-server PVP areas next year. Maybe it's worth looking into cross-server teaming as well.I'm not online very often though I play EQ2 for over 3 years with active subscription I greatly appreciate that it became far more solo friendly over years. Though I would love to run some instances once in a while as well.Finding a team or creating a team especially in lower levels (<80) is far too time consuming right now. Cross-server LFG and grouping would make it so much better.Side note.Seems that going away from idea of "servers" into direction of one big shared world is the way to go for future.My impression is MMOs Tiles are growing in numbers though population in each individual game is decreasing mainly due to many titles to choose from. Allowing interaction of all game players makes it much more friendly environment especially for casuals.EDIT:And while on topic being able to grab henchman to fill out this missing class in group would help with grouping and rise fun factor as well in my opinion <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[SisterTheresa]

<p>It's a copy of what WoW already has implemented.</p><p>Seems to work though if you are desperate for a group ...</p><p>As long as they don't implement the lockout in LFG if you don't have specific gear for an area.</p>

[erin]

<p><cite>SisterTheresa wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's a copy of what WoW already has implemented.</p><p>Seems to work though if you are desperate for a group ...</p><p>As long as they don't implement the lockout in LFG if you don't have specific gear for an area.</p></blockquote><p>How did WoW work out the economies?  Wouldn't cross server grouping also imply cross server trading?</p><p>And wouldn't this then cause changes to the existing economies?  Not saying that's a deal breaker, just curious.  You'd end up with one big cross server economy right?</p><p>And only "like" servers would be allowed, for example, Bazaar and PvP couldn't participate.</p>

[adolf102]

<p><cite>erin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SisterTheresa wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's a copy of what WoW already has implemented.</p><p>Seems to work though if you are desperate for a group ...</p><p>As long as they don't implement the lockout in LFG if you don't have specific gear for an area.</p></blockquote><p>How did WoW work out the economies?  Wouldn't cross server grouping also imply cross server trading?</p><p>And wouldn't this then cause changes to the existing economies?  Not saying that's a deal breaker, just curious.  You'd end up with one big cross server economy right?</p><p>And only "like" servers would be allowed, for example, Bazaar and PvP couldn't participate.</p></blockquote><p>Good and interesting question.</p><p>Maybe one idea would be to block between character trades while in those cross-server groups? (or at least block trades of non-consumable goods)</p><p>This way you can only bring loot you won back to home server.</p><p>PS</p><p>I haven played WoW for long time so don't know how issues are solved there.</p>

[Vonotar]

<p>I've said it before, I'll say it again.</p><p>Just merge all the servers, we can cope with multi-instances of Commonland, Antonica etc</p><p>The cities are quiet anyway, most people are in instanced guild halls when not out adventuring.</p><p>Then solve the lack of names issue by making your last name part of your entire character name, so you can have two (or more) people with the same first names as long as they have a different (non changable, except maybe via station cash) last name.</p>

[Sennyu]

I know quite a few people who play WoW and have been asking how this cross server instance que is working out for them and most of them are unimpressed with it at best with groups that end up making your average pug look good. There ends up being a lot of under geared people trying to go to places they dont need to be, generally rude people because you know you wont ever group with them again, and even with all of this put in place, sure you will find a level 80 group in no time but you will be in the que all day for lower level content. IMO grouping as is ISNT that bad, you just have to take a bit of inicitive and start a group, I have found that building lower level groups on a low/medium population server to be a joke at how easy it is, and level 80 groups its uncommon that I cant get the exact classes that I am looking for in a group within 10-15 minuets time. I suspect if something like this is implemented that for the first week or two everyone will go check it out, you might get a good group or two but the majority of what you get is going to suck. After the first few weeks, all the people that diddent have issues finding a group before will go back to building there own groups again and or joining people that guild groups and the cross server grouping thing will be filled with brand new 80s that all want to go to POF, good luck with that

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>Banedon@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've said it before, I'll say it again.</p><p>Just merge all the servers, we can cope with multi-instances of Commonland, Antonica etc</p><p>The cities are quiet anyway, most people are in instanced guild halls when not out adventuring.</p><p>Then solve the lack of names issue by making your last name part of your entire character name, so you can have two (or more) people with the same first names as long as they have a different (non changable, except maybe via station cash) last name.</p></blockquote><p>U are on AB and saying this?  I have one toon left on AB, a level 1 mystic because I got tired of all of the issues that the server pop caused.  Merge LdL's pop with AB...can u say daily server crash?</p><p>Some servers could well prove to "mergeable" but to suggest doing it game wide is BEGGING for more headaches than would be solved. </p>

[Vonotar]

<p><cite>Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banedon@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've said it before, I'll say it again.</p><p>Just merge all the servers, we can cope with multi-instances of Commonland, Antonica etc</p><p>The cities are quiet anyway, most people are in instanced guild halls when not out adventuring.</p><p>Then solve the lack of names issue by making your last name part of your entire character name, so you can have two (or more) people with the same first names as long as they have a different (non changable, except maybe via station cash) last name.</p></blockquote><p>U are on AB and saying this?  I have one toon left on AB, a level 1 mystic because I got tired of all of the issues that the server pop caused.  Merge LdL's pop with AB...can u say daily server crash?</p><p>Some servers could well prove to "mergeable" but to suggest doing it game wide is BEGGING for more headaches than would be solved. </p></blockquote><p>You're mis-diagnosing the issue.</p><p>The servers are virtually merged together anyway, each "server" isn't a single piece of kit, there isn't a box labelled "AB" or a box labelled "Nagafen" etc.</p><p>The "servers" as we know and love them are spread over multiple <em>actual </em>servers.  When you go from one zone to another you may actually pass from one piece of kit to another, hence the fact that zoning requires a validation with the login server.</p><p>So ask yourself this question, is a dozen-odd "Antonica" zones virtually empty on the low pop servers and a couple of busy, laggy, "Antonica" zones on AB, Crushbone etc really a good spread of resources.  The alternative is to scrap these arbitrary separate servers and instead just run as many instances of "Antonica" as is required to service the number of people who need it, somehow I imagine this will be less than the number of "Antonica"s we currently have running across all the US region servers.</p>

[Davngr1]

<p>yea i'm all for merging all the servers, this will allow for a much bigger and available player base.</p>

[TaleraRis]

<p><cite>adolf102 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Seems that going away from idea of "servers" into direction of one big shared world is the way to go for future.</p></blockquote><p>This is what Champions Online does. You're designated by Username@CharacterName but everyone is in one big, shared world. New instances of zones open up as old ones get full, and you can hop around to join whoever you want in whatever instance that isn't locked due to population.</p><p>I've really enjoyed it so far.</p><p>Another nice thing is that you don't have people bickering over names. Even if the character name is the same, the Username maintains uniqueness. So while I have an ice-based character named Absolute Zero, I've seen other Absolute Zero characters running around, too.</p>

[Birn]

<p><cite>Gwyneth@Najena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>adolf102 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Seems that going away from idea of "servers" into direction of one big shared world is the way to go for future.</p></blockquote><p>This is what Champions Online does. You're designated by Username@CharacterName but everyone is in one big, shared world. New instances of zones open up as old ones get full, and you can hop around to join whoever you want in whatever instance that isn't locked due to population.</p><p>I've really enjoyed it so far.</p><p>Another nice thing is that you don't have people bickering over names. Even if the character name is the same, the Username maintains uniqueness. So while I have an ice-based character named Absolute Zero, I've seen other Absolute Zero characters running around, too.</p></blockquote><p>I don't want to turn this into Champions online bashing but I did indeed play that game for a while but I had to give it up because of the terrible server lag, network latency and packet loss issues. If there would have been a server closer to where I live I belive I wouldn't suffer from those problems (maybe server lag tho ...).</p><p>Folks at SOE might be better of handling such things but I'm not sure you can create a relatively lagfree enviroment for everyone, some folks are really sensitive of combat art/spell lag.</p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Birn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Folks at SOE might be better of handling such things but I'm not sure you can create a relatively lagfree enviroment for everyone, some folks are really sensitive of combat art/spell lag.</p></blockquote><p>And there's never lag in EQ2 since we have all these different worlds! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I think the person who talked about making better use of the existing hardware by merging servers made a lot of sense, but of course we can't really be 100% certain how the servers actually work.  With that said, if you're wasting the hardware resources to support an "Antonica" for each server (for example), when most of the servers have hardly anyone in those zones, you're definitely not making very good use of resources.</p>

[Ragnaphore]

<p>Cross server LFG would surely be a mess with all the "blacklisted" going there but I wouldn't mind grouping again with friends gone to other servers.</p><p>As for merging everything, main problem I see is with anything contested (from the RoV's named needed for a low HQ to the Avatars)</p>

[t.j.]

<p><cite>Ragnaphore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Cross server LFG would surely be a mess with all the "blacklisted" going there but I wouldn't mind grouping again with friends gone to other servers.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">As for merging everything, main problem I see is with anything contested (from the RoV's named needed for a low HQ to the Avatars)</span></p></blockquote><p>Actually this could be quite interesting.  Quest mobs respawn rates have been improved, so no issue there.  I think it could be fun to watch all the Epeeners fighting over the Avatars, the chat channels will be a flaming.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>All low pop server peeps move to Bazaar for free. . . problem solved.</p>

[Davngr1]

<p><cite>Birn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gwyneth@Najena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>adolf102 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Seems that going away from idea of "servers" into direction of one big shared world is the way to go for future.</p></blockquote><p>This is what Champions Online does. You're designated by Username@CharacterName but everyone is in one big, shared world. New instances of zones open up as old ones get full, and you can hop around to join whoever you want in whatever instance that isn't locked due to population.</p><p>I've really enjoyed it so far.</p><p>Another nice thing is that you don't have people bickering over names. Even if the character name is the same, the Username maintains uniqueness. So while I have an ice-based character named Absolute Zero, I've seen other Absolute Zero characters running around, too.</p></blockquote><p>I don't want to turn this into Champions online bashing but I did indeed play that game for a while but I had to give it up because of the terrible server lag, network latency and packet loss issues. If there would have been a server closer to where I live I belive I wouldn't suffer from those problems (maybe server lag tho ...).</p><p>Folks at SOE might be better of handling such things but I'm not sure you can create a relatively lagfree enviroment for everyone, some folks are really sensitive of combat art/spell lag.</p></blockquote><p> i don't know how it works but instead of having each server create one of  15? noraths, complete worlds with raid zones and everything.  have each server create certain parts of norath?    like one server creates insatances 1-50 another creates high level raid zones another citys/low population areas/anything that does not make "lag" a critical issue.      leave the best servers with the best maintance for current raid/instance content? </p><p>  sounds, sound to me <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />    but yea i don't have an f'ing clue [Removed for Content] that would mean to actualy accomplish   lol</p><p>  edit. sigh.. brain lag</p>

[JEM-EQ]

<p>Its a good idea and has worked great for WoW in more ways than one and a big one is breathing life back into the low level game with players making alts and just leveling by doing dungeons. Of course its a mixed bag as far as groups go as PUGs usually are. AFAIK there is no cross server trading unless you do it inside the instance.</p><p>I would enjoy it and make full use of it as I rarely get to do any dungeons.</p><p>Henchmen would be nice but I am not sure if EQ2 is at that stage yet.</p>

[kanludar]

<p>What do others think of allowing solo or paritial party queue's for dugeons?  It would be nice to see who and what numbers are queued for X dugeon.  You could queue for multiple dugeons at once and when the party was full or everyone was 'ready' it would zone you in.  It wouldnt have to be a dedicated instance to the party unless the queueing was across servers.  Man it would be nice to get groups for a change!!!  I am all for cross server groups!</p><p>The LFG tool they have now is awful in the sense that it does not encourage grouping.  Just click a button and wait and hope that someone has enough engery to do a who all lfg and see your name and happen to need your level AND class.  Trying to put a group together using this tool is not any easier.</p>

[Ashtar]

<p>In WoW, actually, it works in a few ways, from my own experience in trying out the system.</p><p>1 Gear in WoW is "scored", and generally the pugs you get are geared about the same as you. 2 In order to queue up for an instance, you have to have a gear score above some point to be able to queue for it3 Trading in the instance is permitted, but given the general similarities in the economies of the various realms, and the total randomness, it would be very difficult to set up a cross realm trade.4 The group can vote a member out if they are either not carrying their weight, spamming selling something, or the majority of your group simply doesn't like them.</p><p>Overall its been a very fast and effective way IMHO, to get into content and get gear and other rewards. Would be awesome to see a similar situation here.</p><p>Vak</p>

[Eritius]

<p>With way cross realm trading works in WoW's dungeons works like this. You can only trade conjured items (mage food, health stones, ect.). And you can trade items that dropped in the dungeon above a certain quality (the stuff off bosses or 'named'<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />. And to do that you have 60 minutes to do so and must be done in the dungeon. Primary use is so that if you accidently need on something you can hand it off to someone.</p><p>Also another restriction is you can't roll Need on things not for your role. To roll on healing plate for example you have to be the healer (your role is chosen before you queue, and you can't choose a role your class can't fulfill, no bandaging rogues going in as healers for example) of the group and able to wear plate.</p><p>The system has some kinks to work out (haven't seen many bugs, most are social concerns that can be fixed by the player base if they choose to). But overall the Pros are outweighing any possible Cons by a large margain. I would love to see it come to EQ2 if its possible. The community in EQ2 would be a better match for it then WoW's by far.</p>

[Rijacki]

<p>Personally I would rather see cross server grouping with restricted trading (only temp items and possibly those which drop in the zone) and no late joins (i.e. no way to sell the loot to anyone outside of the group) than any henchmen.</p>

[adolf102]

<p>Cross server grouping would be awesome (and as EU player I would like to be able to group with US players too! )</p><p>Simlar thread about cross-server grouping:</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=465567" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=465567</a></p>