Instancing raids could cost them the same. Who played EQ back then to have no competition? This isn't wow. EQ isn't wow, and perhaps thats why this server and the progression before were so popular. Instancing the first few expansions ruins what EQ was. I know once I started doing instanced raids in the later expansions on Fippy things got a bit boring, when we would rush for open raid bosses it got exciting but the scheduled guaranteed raids every x day at x time gets boring, did that in wow and cool cool man yeah i got this badass item, but hey so do you cause you have your own instance. The only fun part about instanced raids were the new ones (in wow for me, but im sure same in eq) where people raced to be the first to complete the boss, before the others.
After everything is trivial, then whats the excitement in farming a trivial boss in your instance where other people can do the same? EQ was about competition and racing, getting those leet items over other people. Everyone having their own instance ruins that.
I know you guys probably sit on lockjaw (zzz) but for those on ragefire, you might notice that lguk is starting to get jam packed earlier now, not just at primetime. Wait and see how prices of items are going to plummet. We want the same for raids? CoF everywhere, BCGs everywhere, soon enough raid items will cost jack shit, they wont mean anything, everyone will have them. Every character iwll be decked out in BIS raid gear farming lguk, your effort will mean null when it comes to standing out against the "others." there wont be "others" everyone will have the same gear. EQ back then to me was, that gap, between raiders and non raiders. You know that gap, when the difference between a non planar char trying to farm something and a planar char farming it 10x easier.. might not be as obvious until later expansions but that was always the cool thing to me.
WOW ruined that to me, every expansion we'd race to get the best in slot items, just to see the next expansion offer items equivalent, in 5 man instanced groups, completely devaluing the time i invested weeks before. In EQ it wasnt instant depriciation, some items still had value and there was tsill noticable difference between top tier raider from previous eq expansion and a char geared solely from grouping in the current expansion.
thats my POV on everything, might be different for others. Racing for VS, trak, VP, TOV, SSRA, VT all that will be completely ruined. Granted now we do that shit faster and its not as challenging but theres still that "got there first feeling"
