Yep, just when you think it isn't possible for it to suck anymore, it goes
and surprises you :p

James Hicks <jhicks@nospam.please> wrote in news:4376b842$0$10002$5a62ac22
@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au:

I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately, in the meantime and for me,
anyway, as Al Pacino said, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me
back in". :P

Playing....AGAIN....merely for lack of anything better, pretty much.

I also eagerly await Vanguard.

CIHYS?

<jhicks@nospam.please> wrote:

I'm having as much fun in EQ as I've had in a long time.  The past three
expansions have all been top notch releases in my opinion.  Ironically, I'm
actually enjoying the non-raiding game more than I have for a *long* time,
actually playing a few twinks these days.

If the grouping game is trivial, you're grouping in the wrong places.
Knowing where you were in progression, and seeing how many AAs you have, I
can pretty much guarantee that I, as a monk, have more hp, ac, etc.  I could
easily tank for any group that you would tank for.  Yet there is plenty of
single-group content that I wouldn't even dream of trying to tank, which
means that there is a whole helluva lot of the grouping game that would be
far from trivial for you.

Being a good player means tons.  DKP, however, is almost universally set up
in such a way as to reward attendance over everything else.  For a guild,
attendance is key, and not surprisingly attendance is rewarded to encourage
it.

I'm not the best equipped monk in my guild.  I don't have the most dkp.  I
don't have the best attendance.  When there is a tough pull to be made, I'm
the one they look at.  Being a good player is far from meaningless.   =)

In a known-strategy encounter, there is little place for creativity.

It's probably good you left now before you got to fights like OMM and Vish
where "obedience" is the key to success.  A lot of people find those to be
the most challenging fights, though they require no individual creativity
whatsoever.

Monotony is what you judge it to be.  I myself find many parts of the
raiding game monotonous.  Buffing in particular I find exceedingly
monotonous (probably mostly because as a monk I have absolutely zero to do
during buffing).  It could never compare to the monotony of most
grouping/grinding.

One of the things that is making me enjoy the current non-raiding game more
than ever before is the monster missions and single-group missions in
DoN/DoD.  There is some actual creativity, and with the monster missions
especially there is actually a lot of intermingling of the different tiers
of players.  As a level 70, 10k+ unbuffed hp monk I've recently found myself
grouped with everything from my peers to a random level 30 non-twink
enchanter.  I've taken advantage of this in reverse, leveling a
long-neglected ranger (my actual original character from May 1999) from 54
to 62 with 35AAs in monster missions.

Nektulos seems like a pretty "slapped together" zone, I agree.  They needed
a couple extra zone lines, understandable, but I don't think they put much
thought into the new Nektulos.

AAs have always operated that way though.  Just ask a few wizards who have
watched their crit rate drop before an expansion and then find out they can
buy AAs to bump them back up.

Vanguard may be great.  I wouldn't bet on it.  But then I've actually talked
one-to-one with Brad way back in the day and so have a well formed personal
opinion of the man "behind the game".  To put it another way, one of my
biggest complaints about EQ for the first couple years was Brad himself.

I'm sure I'll give Vanguard a try.  It's not that Brad McQuaid was in any
way a "bad" game developer, before the game came out, he was just completely
inflexible in the face of *overwhelming* and unanimous complaint from the
userbase.