Combine killstealing, ninjalooting, leapfrogging and NO CS response

[Kreugen]

By popular request of those involved I bring you this report. It might be an eye opener for Mr Smedly anyway.

EQ Progression is the wild west of EQ. It makes Sullon Zek look like the kiddy pool. You can quite literally get away with anything as long as you don't say it out loud. By that I mean, after four incidents the GM response every time has been "well, unless you /report the play saying his intentions, we can't do anything." In other words, you must make the player confess like Lt Cafee getting THE TRUTH out of Col. Nathan Jessip. It's a damn joke. I have seen things in the last two weeks that we would have never gotten away with in any of the years we played this game. A guild flat out leapfrogged us at nagafen, waiting while we kiled every single giant, and nobody showed up to port them out of the zone and give them a stern lecture and a threat of disbanding like what happened to us the one and only time we did such a thing. Contrary to popular belief we did NOT ever get to pull any shit like this.

Here's the latest example. Last night, we did Phinigel. My XP group was in the zone for 9 or 10 hours or so when he spawned. Another guild zones in and calls phini camped from the zone. This gives us a few chuckles, and we go to the zone and bring in another group. By the time our groups got there, there has still been no pull of Phinny. I ask in say if they plan on letting him drown or if they are just going to jump him when we pull. I believe at least one of them confirms that they will. At any rate, we pull him first, the pull is terrible and with all the confusion and attempted KSing we're not exactly about to split our force to drag the clerics away, so most eat it or zone. We took the worst of it and have some problems CRing due to having a total of two clerics (one unguilded) and not much EB to go around. Anyway, Reign pulls phin twice while we recover and both times they get a bad pull and zone out. We do NOT engage phin either of these times even though they tried to outright steal our first pull.

After this, they've had two shots in a row, so we make our pull and kill him. I'm not sure if they engage or not (if so it was only a couple of them,) but we get the kill and proceed to finish off adds. Now, me being a moron that hasn't seen EQ in a while, I forget how quickly corpses unlock in this game. Phinigel is promptly ninja looted of his robe and quest stone.

So now the fun begins. One of their officers is feeling a bit embarrassed about the whole thing, but he refuses to tell me who did the act or even what his guildleaders name is becase he's "been commanded not to speak." one of there members (Zerotol) does say in say "you didn't loot it so it wasn't a ninja" As if we had time while still fighting. I finally get to their guildleader, Mithoros. Knowing the new CS rule of I WANT THE TRUTH, I attempt to engage him in conversation. He just writes back anything I saw to him. So I /report his nonsense along with a detailed account of the incident and eagerly await the useless CS response.

This morning, this is what I see:

Thank you for contacting sony online entertainment in-game customer service.
This is GM-Pancul at your service. I understand that you faced an ninja-looting issue by one player in game. I am sorry to hear about the incident. I have checked for the reports but there are no reports filed by you regarding the issue and hence at the moment we would not be able to take any action against that player as there are no proof against the player. I understand that it is very hard to report such issues but without reports or without verifying the issue on our own we cannot take any action against any player in game. Once again I would remind you that Incase you encounter similar issues; I suggest that you report any conversations which show intent to disrupt your game play on the part of the offender. This can include them admitting to disrutpion/offence or showing attitude when you request them to sotp such actions. Also submit a ticket on this matter so that we can review the report and take the approriate steps to address this issue. Please note that you can report other players by using the /report command. However, you need to make sure that the text you awant to send us in your rpoert is visible in your chat window as it only 15-20 visible lines of your chat window to us.
If there is anything else we can do for you, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Sincerely,
Gme Master Pancul
In-Game CSR Everquest
Sonly oinline Entertainment

First of all, I did report the guildleader being a smartass to me. Secondly, what does he mean, " or without verifying the issue on our own?" If you can do that, then frigging DO it. This crap is OUT OF CONTROL. If this was the first incident I woulden't have bothered. The very previous Phinigel that we killed hours before we KS'd and looted by a frigging XP group. We were leapfrogged so blatantly at Nagafen that any GM with two brain cells should have at least given the guild in question a damn talking to, but no, nothing.

Now I know it should be no surprise that SoE's customer service has gone downhill in light of fading subscriptions. But this is downright shameful. They have two servers with probably 80% of their customer base packed into a tiny corner of the game world. They know damn well there are going to be issues. They should be cracking down on these things to weed out the bad seeds. Instead they are literally getting away with anything.

Part 2: The leapfrogging incident.

We got straight up owned at Nagafen. It was embarassing. I hate to even bring it up. But it has merit here for one reason: It's something that you would not get away with in the days of server GM's. Hell we never did it. There's not much to the story: FoH is clearing fire giants up to Nagafen. Realm of Insanity shows up, and does absolutely nothing. Just watches us clear fire giants. At this point, I'm thinking if they try what I think they are going to try, at least they'll get some sort of a slap on the wrist. Because they know damn well that ANY mob in the game can be stolen through blatant leapfrogging. There is no defense from it, it's the oldest trick in Everquest. They even took the time to write up a big list of rules that cover it. So naturally when we reach the five pull, our monk drags them out and feigns them down the hall to split. Somehow, miraculously, the giants come running around the corner to engage us as well, and off goes ROI to engage nagafen. As we fight, at least one more FG from all the way over at Nag engage us. Nagafen dies before we even finish killing off the FG's. Embarassing, but what the hell were we supposed to do? The only defense against leapfrogging, is to sit there and do nothing. Or /petition like pansies, wait for GM's to show up and tell you the only thing they can do is make you /random for the spawn. Oh boy.

So yeah, I petition just for chuckles, and get the "you must report them saying their intention to disrupt your gameplay." Ha ha. DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED!? Uh, did you? Uh oh, looks like its court marshal time for Lt Caffey!

So I suppose our last hope in this matter is Smedly. Smed, here's what needs to go down. You need to find someone in there with a clue to crack down on these incidents. I'm talking tossing out suspensions left and right. Warn every guild involved to play nice together or EVERYBODY gets the boot. FoH and RoI are both equally capable of KS'ing one another at any given moment. That crap is not going to work. But nothing will done about it unless we're forced to. And Reign of Devestation - these kids are friggin cancers. A guildleader that won't even converse after someone in his guild ninja loots. The very fact that they would not cooperate should have gotten the guild in hot water with an competent GM. I mean, did the GM even attempt to talk to these guys? I'm betting not. This kind of CS is worthless. People can get away with anything. It's a griefers paradise right now. I want to see some action.

And I want my damn Kedge Robe back. You guys need to get rid of these damn ninja looters, not completely friggin ignore that it ever happened.

Allright, done wasting my time.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Did you try deleting your wtf and interface folders?

LOL holy shit I'm clever.

Anyways.

Short of Smed actually taking care of these issues himself, you can try petitioning over and over again, even to the point of calling up and complaining over the phone.

SoE GM's being retarded is nothing new. Had XTC despawned on us once because an xp group claimed we pull stealed. Never quite figured out how you pull steal a rooted mob, but you get the point.

GM's claiming they couldn't track who you traded items to and then 5 minutes later another GM tells you exactly what the previous one told you was impossible. Had a GM once give our entire guild a warning because we had our MT fire arrows at Yelinak to build agro before engaging.

When someone went LD and killed the coldain dude you need to escort for the 8th shawl quest, took me 8 GM's to finally get one to reimburse the items I needed to trigger him. Had another GM try to give me a warning for 'exploiting' because I one-shotted Venril Sathir with mana burn.

As dismissive as Blizzard GM's can be, I doubt anybody can match the sheer stupidity and ignorance of how the game they police works as SoE GM's.

[Digo]

That really sucks. If anyone thinks instancing is bad for a game and harms community, Kreugen's post is a perfect example of why you would be wrong.

[Arbitrary]

So if someone ninja's your kill they'll get to keep the items as long as they don't say anything that you can /report?

Awesome.

[Ultramax]

It greatly amuses me leapfrogging wasn't allowed in orignal EQ and the GMs don't give a fuck in WoW.

[ntangent]

so much for those supposed GMs in FoH.. /eyeroll. general chat is hilarious some nights.

[Janx]

Time to stop outsourcing the GMs to save a buck Smed.

Does the training Gms recieve breed out common sense?

[LikeWow!]

I feel for you guys. I can imagine how many on the server want a piece of you guys, because you're "FoH".

From the looks of it, SOE needs a complete overhaul of their (EQ) CS system.

Originally Posted by Digo

That really sucks. If anyone thinks instancing is bad for a game and harms community, Kreugen's post is a perfect example of why you would be wrong.

Digo's mind, meet the concept of an overcrowded server and poor support. THE-SERVER-IS-OVERCROWDED. THE-CUSTOMER-SERVICE-IS-OH-SO-VERY-BORKEN.

[Angrier]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Had a GM once give our entire guild a warning because we had our MT fire arrows at Yelinak to build agro before engaging.

Wow.

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

As dismissive as Blizzard GM's can be, I doubt anybody can match the sheer stupidity and ignorance of how the game they police works as SoE GM's.

I agree. It's not even that they are being assholes, just clueless.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by LikeWow!

Digo's mind, meet the concept of an overcrowded server and poor support. THE-SERVER-IS-OVERCROWDED. THE-CUSTOMER-SERVICE-IS-OH-SO-VERY-BORKEN.

Ah, but you forgot SOE-IS-GOING-TO-BE-RUNNING-THE-VANGUARD-SERVERS

[Kreugen]

Unfortunately our own recruited membership thinks the FoH tag entitles them to be assholes at every waking moment.

To get by in this game you have to be an asshole some of the time, but not to every fucking person you come across.

We've already done plenty of shit that would have gotten us suspended before. We've also booted a dozen people. Shrug. Please don't in any way think I'm saying our shit doesn't stink. I'm just reporting on two incidents where I actually made a real effort to get some CS response and got dick.

[kcxiv]

I have always heard about bad CS in EQ, i never have experienced it myself.They always been pretty quick to fix whatever went wrong. Once i gave my pet my elemental legs on accident i petitioned and and woke up and my legs were back in my bags.

I hope they do fix it. probalby will soon as smed see's this post.

[Quineloe]

Oh look, another thread about shitty Progression CS and this time Smed won't even post a bland oneliner!

Want to jump on me again for calling him out, you cockjockeys?

[Ham n Cheese]

The server is a mess now. FoH wasn't innocent as far as this goes either, infact no guild was. People went in with the I dont give a shit policy and it's still going strong to this day. Shit like the title happened in almost daily occurances when I was on Combine. I might go back in a month of two if things have changed, no way am I going to pay to be griefed on a daily basis though.

[LikeWow!]

Itzena - Sigil has stated they will use their own CS reps. A policy with common sense in mind from the up-high's makes CS is easy. Enterprise grade datacenters for hundreds of thousands of players is more complicated, and SOE has done a pretty good job of keeping the EQ servers up.