Low population+mass zerging on thelanis,think of new server,whats yours like?

[Teh_Troll]

So it's not so much "treating like a job" as "treating it like a daily commute"? That sounds worse if anything, jobs can be good, bad, or neutral depending on the specifics, but commutes just suck.

I definitely see the OP's point. Most people run quests a few times, or maybe once every X period of time, and take a break or do something else when there's nothing interesting to run. Since DDO is an old game most people have gotten their fill of most of the quests. That means that at any given time most of the server is made up of two divergent groups: newish people who are still experiencing the game for the first few times, and hardcore people who are in it entirely (or almost entirely) to achieve a goal (i.e. "treating it like a job/commute"). Doesn't take a genius to realize those groups aren't going to mix well.

Those hardcore grinders can make the servers look a lot more active than they really are because they're on all the time and use the PUG system pretty regularly.

If you're a more causal player you just have to accept that there are not a lot of people playing this game right now in a causal way, and that it's going to take time to fill casual style groups. You're best bet is to try to make friends who want to play like you do and plan ahead, just like real life.

For myself I have enough of an obsessive streak that I can get into the hardcore zerg when I want to PUG, but I have weekly times set aside with friends for more fun maximizing play. I'd rather my friends were on all time and we always played in that causal way (we're vets at this point so it's still elite streaks or EE, but at a more relaxed pace), but that's just not practical.

Expecting people to slowdown to accommodate you puts you in the wrong.

[Kaytis]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Don't you remember being new, when you didn't know what byoh meant, when you dumped con, (or some other important stat) and got embarrassed when you failed miserably when everyone was counting on you?

I don't kick people like that. I generally try to diplomatically see if they need some help through tells. (It's never a good idea to attempt to give advice over group chat as that just adds to the humiliation) Some take the help gracefully, some are simply idiots or not very nice people. But a lot of those people I still see playing later on and want to join my groups months later with much better skills and builds. And I'm not talking spending all my time doing this, just 5 minutes and a sincere attempt to be welcoming and nice can go really far for someone who might end up being a good player someday. Heck, just last night I ran Tangleroot with a player that had two rogue levels and could never find traps. I spent 5 minutes with them in between chapters and discovered the problem. He was very discouraged that he had screwed his toon up, but didn't know about the enhancement pass coming. I explained that he would be able to fix his problems after the enhancement pass. He was a good player otherwise, he simply didn't understand how to multiclass rogue and keep trap skills viable. So instead of dropping group when he failed to find a trap and died in it possibly calling him a noob before I left, it took 5 minutes to diagnose his problem, and find a solution. I have no doubt he'll need help when the EH pass comes out (we all will!) so I offered to help when the time came to redo his toon.

I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but please recognize that publicly pointing out to people what they're doing wrong is rarely considered helpful, it's humiliating. And kicking people from groups is simply rude. (If they were rude, then go for it. But if they're trying and simply failing, it's like a slap in the face) And we all set the tone for future players... laughing at people, kicking them, demeaning them in front of other new players just promotes that sort of behaviour.

You have no responsibility to help people or be nice, but just remember that your actions have consequences and if you love the game and don't want to see it die, you will consider how your behaviour affects other people.

Or you can just blame Turbine.

Awesome and +1000000 for you. I was fortunate enough to run into people like you when I first started playing, and I do the same for people now. This notion that people that don't know what is going on are rude for not asking, and deserve to be kicked for failure is poisonous for the game. Lend a hand now and then. It will go a long way to building healthy server populations.

[Charononus]

Awesome and +1000000 for you. I was fortunate enough to run into people like you when I first started playing, and I do the same for people now. This notion that people that don't know what is going on are rude for not asking, and deserve to be kicked for failure is poisonous for the game. Lend a hand now and then. It will go a long way to building healthy server populations.

Really Really?
/kobold impression

When I was new, if I was running a new quest I asked freaking questions, not asking and speaking up means you really don't care and are essentially wanting others to just do things for you rather than taking a miniscule amount of personal responsibility for learning things. It is rude of them not to speak up and I have always and will always avoid such people in any game that I play.

[SerPounce]

Expecting people to slowdown to accommodate you puts you in the wrong.

Are you sure you were responding to the right post?

Or do you think it's wrong to expect people to slow down even in a group that was specifically create to be a causal/no zerg group and clearly labeled as such on the LFM panel? I that case, yeah, I completely disagree. People should abide by the intended nature of the group, or defer to the leader in cases of ambiguity.

I certainly don't think people should expect other people's groups to slow down for them. I don't know how you'd get that impression.

[Kaytis]

Really Really?
/kobold impression

When I was new, if I was running a new quest I asked freaking questions, not asking and speaking up means you really don't care and are essentially wanting others to just do things for you rather than taking a miniscule amount of personal responsibility for learning things. It is rude of them not to speak up and I have always and will always avoid such people in any game that I play.

Yes really really. A lot of times people don't even know they are doing something wrong. After my first shroud the party leader kindly PMed me and asked if I knew about fortification. I had no idea what he was talking about...

[AzB]

I love how you insult every veteran by calling their builds cheating in this post very nice.

You're just sitting around waiting for someone to say something that can be construed as offensive so you can feign offense, aren't you? And yes, that's a rhetorical question, no need to answer.

I reread it, and I still don't see where I said all veterans were cheating.

I apologize if the phrasing was a little too vague. To be slightly clearer, what I meant was that newer players don't have the same tools that veterans do. (And for Dog's sake, I'm not saying they should) Whatever those tools may be, or what our personal definitions of them might be. Although I know you know what my point is, you don't want to address it, so you redirect your response to muddy the issue.

Ya gotta love the internet.

[Charononus]

You're just sitting around waiting for someone to say something that can be construed as offensive so you can feign offense, aren't you? And yes, that's a rhetorical question, no need to answer.

I reread it, and I still don't see where I said all veterans were cheating.

I apologize if the phrasing was a little too vague. To be slightly clearer, what I meant was that newer players don't have the same tools that veterans do. (And for Dog's sake, I'm not saying they should) Whatever those tools may be, or what our personal definitions of them might be. Although I know you know what my point is, you don't want to address it, so you redirect your response to muddy the issue.

Ya gotta love the internet.

You called vets builds exploits.

[Charononus]

Yes really really. A lot of times people don't even know they are doing something wrong. After my first shroud the party leader kindly PMed me and asked if I knew about fortification. I had no idea what he was talking about...

You never got an item with it till that point and read the description? Never played another game that had critical hit mitigation of some point? I don't believe it. What you just mentioned if it happened means that you were/are a bad player.

[AzB]

Really Really?
/kobold impression

When I was new, if I was running a new quest I asked freaking questions, not asking and speaking up means you really don't care and are essentially wanting others to just do things for you rather than taking a miniscule amount of personal responsibility for learning things. It is rude of them not to speak up and I have always and will always avoid such people in any game that I play.

This is a very narrow view. You do realize that people are different right? They're not all like you, and they're not all being quiet because they're rude and don't care. Some people are intimidated, some people are shy, and some people are really just taking everything in and have no idea how to even ask intelligent questions. And when they see other people demeaned or are demeaned themselves, it doesn't really promote the average person to ask a bunch of questions that might seem really stupid. Not to mention the fact that just keeping up sometimes requires so much of a newb's attention that they aren't able to formulate and type much of anything into the chat box.

A good example is a sorc that joined a group I was in the other day. Two people in the group immediately started slamming this person for not having enough hps. Nothing constructive, just stuff like "stay in the back, you're gonna die" and "you need more hps". She was actually a very good player, and after the first quest in the chain, I took a few minutes to ask if she wanted help, and that I might have some ideas about hp. She told me that she appreciated me not kicking her as she had been kicked from 4 parties earlier that day as soon as she joined, and she didn't know why. Her con was low, but not unworkable and after giving her a con item and some taps to go get a minos, she was in much better shape. She has turned out to be a great player that I would let into a group anytime. But what if I had kicked her too? (Several of the other people in the PUG told me to) Maybe she would have disconnected and never come back.

I'm not saying everyone should drop what they're doing and hand over everything a newb needs to be uber. I'm just saying try to be constructive and considerate. It's not that hard.

[Nahiz]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Don't you remember being new, when you didn't know what byoh meant, when you dumped con, (or some other important stat) and got embarrassed when you failed miserably when everyone was counting on you?

I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but please recognize that publicly pointing out to people what they're doing wrong is rarely considered helpful, it's humiliating. And kicking people from groups is simply rude. (If they were rude, then go for it. But if they're trying and simply failing, it's like a slap in the face) And we all set the tone for future players... laughing at people, kicking them, demeaning them in front of other new players just promotes that sort of behaviour.

You have no responsibility to help people or be nice, but just remember that your actions have consequences and if you love the game and don't want to see it die, you will consider how your behaviour affects other people.

Or you can just blame Turbine.

I totally agree. But I also think it´s useless to teach social responsability to egotistic powergamers. In fact, I don´t think it´s their fault. I think it´s mainly Turbine´s fault: bad design, bugs, etc. have decreased DDO population but for the min/maxers that can´t quit the grind runs and seem to be the only ones posting BYOH/know it LFMs as a very last resort. I haven´t seen/played a friendly vet pug in a long, long time. PLUS all the incentives to solo or decrease social gaming (BB, dungeon scaling, etc.). The irony is that without BB and dungeon scaling even less people would be playing and DDO would be closer to extinction.

[AzB]

You called vets builds exploits.

And that's all you saw, and your thought process stopped there.

Never even considered that maybe I misspoke, or you misread or misunderstood and went on with the point of the discussion. No, it's much more constructive to pick out one point that you have determined is wrong and just stick with that. Even when I reply that you misunderstood and apologized for my lack of verbal precision in that sentence and asked what that one thing had to do with the point, you still come back with "You called vets builds exploits".

I don't know what else to say. I offered an apology, clarified my meaning, and restated that the point of the message was really more important.

But you still come back with that.

At this point I can only assume that you really don't care about what anyone has to say and that there is no point in continuing a rational, adult conversation.

[Charononus]

And that's all you saw, and your thought process stopped there.

Never even considered that maybe I misspoke, or you misread or misunderstood and went on with the point of the discussion. No, it's much more constructive to pick out one point that you have determined is wrong and just stick with that. Even when I reply that you misunderstood and apologized for my lack of verbal precision in that sentence and asked what that one thing had to do with the point, you still come back with "You called vets builds exploits".

I don't know what else to say. I offered an apology, clarified my meaning, and restated that the point of the message was really more important.

But you still come back with that.

At this point I can only assume that you really don't care about what anyone has to say and that there is no point in continuing a rational, adult conversation.

Should have trimmed my quote, I was trying to respond to and explain

I reread it, and I still don't see where I said all veterans were cheating.

So now we've both done it.

[DakotanSky]

At this point, anyone who puts up an LFM, or joins an LFM, is taking the risk of ending up in a group with people they arent compatible with. It has been clearly demonstrated over the majority of years this game has been out now that no amount of description in the LFM panel is going to deter people who are the exact opposite of what the leader is looking for from joining. Ill even go as far as saying that in some cases, it encourages the poor behavior.

I have been pugging through the LFM panel since I have started playing. I can count on one hand the bad PUGs I have joined which I regretted even joining. Most of the time, even when no one is talking, the PUG group makes the quest more enjoyable. Anywhere from the flower sniffers to the zergers, it is always something new to be experienced. It is that random element that makes this game a lot of fun for me at least, even if the quest ends in failure. As someone mentioned above, for some people the journey itself is the greatest reward. I have a great guild but between being a single dad and work, I rarely get to run with them. So with that being said it would be fun to see a server merger to boost the population a little.

[IronClan]

This is all the byproduct of the "its not my responsibility to teach"

folks who invest their time teaching others how to run specific raids and quests.

This is the real problem with DDO, and most MMO's. That there's anything to "teach" or "learn"... RPG's are supposed to be about exploration o fthe unknown, discovery, danger and tension... None of those exist in a game where the first person through "teaches" everyone ... and many people follow the leader, never knowing why they're pulling a lever or feeling any sense of exploration... DDO is one big "guided dungeon tour, don't step outside the ropes, or you might get a -10%!"

Meta gaming, gaming the game, knowledge of where everything is, and how to best get to it in the shortest time.

Vint used a commuting analogy, interesting for two reasons: one it shows off how much like "work" a game based on rote repetition of memorized content really becomes. Two: it shows how utterly "meta gamed" our "route" is... like a daily commute that we don't even pay attention to... We're "going through the motions" getting from point A to point B.

I'm guessing that DDO's engine just can't handle procedural content well, back when Cove was first released the Dev's talked about how Cove was somewhat of a proof of concept for random generated or procedural pathing and locating, as well as scaling monsters to a wider level range. Apparently the challenges were the extent of what they could get out of that technology as we've seen no actual quests with significant randomness... The Demon web is just a few "enter and if the right path isn't open, leave and reset" variations.

Sadly DDO's "hard core" are not people who WANT to play a Dungeon crawler with tension, exploration, discovery or challenge. DDO's player base are by in large interested in a D&D themed Farmville... they want to know what the rewards are EXACTLY, they want to know where EXACTLY they are, and they want to quickly (before they are even published on live) know how to do the "quest" quickly and efficiently.

In short the player base of DDO for the most part are "time attack" gamers... Or "done quick" gamers. they get their challenge from doing it faster and more efficiently like racing games with time attack mode where you try to better your best lap time.

In this respect DDO isn't actually an RPG in the slightest sense of the word. It's much more like a combination of Farmville (a collection through repetition game) and a racing game.

[Nahiz]

There is a simple explanation for this dichotomy. Zergers are typically veterans. Many times slower players are new or casual players who don't have the quests memorized and don't have exploiter builds that compensate for poor play.

Veterans can go fast. Or they can go slow. Newer and more casual players may not be able to keep up.

Veterans have the capability to adjust speed up or down. Newer players have only slow.

I have no problem with zergers. I only have problems with zergers who get in a group with new people and act like it's the end of the world that they have to slow down. Be considerate if you expect the same from others.

Well said, but I already know the argument will be: "Zergers don´t join a no zerger pug". The problem is that the game has come to 2 groups: vets that go fast (maybe zergin, maybe not) and newbies/casuals that go slow or medium paced. Most of this vets are powergamers with no desire to teach/help. Some of them are egotistics and competitive to the core and simply despise gaming with weak players. It´s human nature. You can´t change human nature.

[Teh_Troll]

Are you sure you were responding to the right post?

Or do you think it's wrong to expect people to slow down even in a group that was specifically create to be a causal/no zerg group and clearly labeled as such on the LFM panel? I that case, yeah, I completely disagree. People should abide by the intended nature of the group, or defer to the leader in cases of ambiguity.

I certainly don't think people should expect other people's groups to slow down for them. I don't know how you'd get that impression.

let me clarify that . . .

If you join MY group it is wrong of you to expect me to slow down.

If I join YOUR group it is wrong of me to zerg and ruin your fun.

But if I'm brought in as a "ringer" nobody has a right to complain about anything.

[Ivan_Milic]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Don't you remember being new, when you didn't know what byoh meant, when you dumped con, (or some other important stat) and got embarrassed when you failed miserably when everyone was counting on you?

I don't kick people like that. I generally try to diplomatically see if they need some help through tells. (It's never a good idea to attempt to give advice over group chat as that just adds to the humiliation) Some take the help gracefully, some are simply idiots or not very nice people. But a lot of those people I still see playing later on and want to join my groups months later with much better skills and builds. And I'm not talking spending all my time doing this, just 5 minutes and a sincere attempt to be welcoming and nice can go really far for someone who might end up being a good player someday. Heck, just last night I ran Tangleroot with a player that had two rogue levels and could never find traps. I spent 5 minutes with them in between chapters and discovered the problem. He was very discouraged that he had screwed his toon up, but didn't know about the enhancement pass coming. I explained that he would be able to fix his problems after the enhancement pass. He was a good player otherwise, he simply didn't understand how to multiclass rogue and keep trap skills viable. So instead of dropping group when he failed to find a trap and died in it possibly calling him a noob before I left, it took 5 minutes to diagnose his problem, and find a solution. I have no doubt he'll need help when the EH pass comes out (we all will!) so I offered to help when the time came to redo his toon.

I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but please recognize that publicly pointing out to people what they're doing wrong is rarely considered helpful, it's humiliating. And kicking people from groups is simply rude. (If they were rude, then go for it. But if they're trying and simply failing, it's like a slap in the face) And we all set the tone for future players... laughing at people, kicking them, demeaning them in front of other new players just promotes that sort of behaviour.

You have no responsibility to help people or be nice, but just remember that your actions have consequences and if you love the game and don't want to see it die, you will consider how your behaviour affects other people.

Or you can just blame Turbine.

When I was new I didnt do quests on elite first time, I did them normal, hard and then elite.
I didnt join byoh groups because I couldnt heal myself and I actually read what some things mean before joining groups, or I would ask in tell what byoh means if I didnt know, not join pt and then die because I cant heal.
When I died I didnt log off or release and leave party.
Also he didnt write anything till I wrote him what byoh means and after quest was finished, and after I kicked him.

^^

I would also like to add, what is the penalty for a death or 20 in a quest? 10%...come on really?

Personally I am a bit of a zerger, but there is a reason in most cases....mana is not finite...round them up and drops a firewall or acid storm. I wouldn't say I am into the run to the end and let everyone else die because they get harried type although. I am on my 19th life on my main and I went from soloing to throwing up LFMs and being social because we want new players in the game. I hate seeing the big guilds/channels destroying the game because it has become a closed social community. I am an officer of a small guild (15 active accts) and have turned down many invites to larger guilds because I do not want to be pigeon-holed into run with us type mentality.

If you share these feelings, send me a PM or in-game tell on Fizzymadizzy or Shizzymadizy for a guild invite. We are a level 67 PUG guild, but offer quality advice to players too. Also as a bonus we have the mid-sized Stormglory Typhoon with all the +2s and 30 resists and 3% XP shrine. Hope it doesn't look like I am advertising, but I would like more people on Thelanis to not feel as if they need to be in a big "exclusive" guild to play DDO. So if that means starting your own, or joining one that gives you all the tools to still be socially active with no-strings attached...please do so.

I dont really care if people die, what I do care is if they join byoh lfm and cant even heal them self or if they dont know what that means why dont they ask?

You never got an item with it till that point and read the description? Never played another game that had critical hit mitigation of some point? I don't believe it. What you just mentioned if it happened means that you were/are a bad player.

No other game that I played has something like fortification, for some people this is the first time they play something based on d&d.
Before I started playing ddo I never heard about d&d.

[IronClan]

Lets compare an RPG to DDO (how it's actually played) from a base fundamental game design (motivational) standpoint:

In an RPG the basic underlying game play is exploration, discovering things, dealing with unknowns (surprises, traps, betrayals, being lost, being tricked) figuring out clues to riddles, puzzles, and mysteries, finding things (where you often don't discover their function until much later). The basic gameplay is one of using your wits and also "playing your role" (moral and ethical branching choices in CRPG's, and in PnP using your imagination to solve problems). You have only clues (without cheating) about what you're SUPPOSED to do, which way you're supposed to go, nor what items are in the game that will help you (or hinder you: see cursed items which work in non meta gamed games, but in a game like DDO are just pointless wastes of Dev time because everyone knows whats cursed)

In DDO the basic gameplay is running memorized obstacle courses with obstacles locations known, and best pathways to success (paths of least resistence: ie. no optionals). The motivation to do this is collecting known goals (XP and favor) with exact quantities known (makes it easier to pick the best XP farms at each level range and the best favor rewards), or exact gear with low percentage drop chances (basically an obstacle course with a lotto ticket reward).

As you can see, the two games are literally nothing alike. The ONLY commonality they share is at the higher abstraction levels of cosmetic and story (Fantasy theme) and rules mechanisms (character advancement, to hit, hit points, classes, ability scores etc.) people who want an RPG-like experience are not going to get it unless they play by themselves, or run groups/guilds "no spoilers, team work, no rush". Which someone is sure to point out: "if you want that you can just do that"... of course this is wishful thinking, as effectively the vast majority who still play the game have adapted to how the majority plays it... So it is a fake choice, one which is doomed to long boring LFM's that don't fill, because the people who play DDO are by in large no longer the type of player who wants to do that. By in large those who seek a "dungeon crawl" experience leave DDO by the time they get to 10th level and realize that zerging is "what the romans are doing" and they can "do as the romans" or find some other game to play. The bulk of them obviously move on to other things... Which is the reason that DDO is such a niche product... compared to most other D&D games... Never Winter Nights, Baldurs Gate, etc. which enjoyed commercial, and critical success.

Obviously this is the basic repetition mechanic of most MMO's, spawned by EQ. It has other problems. In an RPG you might spend a whole night exploring a difficult Dungeon,.... in PnP you might spend a couple sessions in the same linear footage of Dungeon... In an MMO you will blaze through that same distance in 30 minutes. This makes it incredibly hard for Mappers, quest designers; to make FUN and challenging quests. We DESTROY their content in a few THOUSANDTHS of the time it takes them to create it, because we pay no attention to the details or the atmosphere and we fear none of the traps because we know where they are and we can heal through them. The encounters are not a surprise, and the dead ends are simply never traveled down, the puzzles are wiki'd and solvered, and the "moral choices are reduced to "hey are you Lawful? Okay go talk to him and choose #1 #4 #1 #2 #2 and #3". The most intricate quests in this game are hardly appreciated... in fact they are OFTEN the least liked quests according to forum posts, and they often end up "nerfed" or ahem: Crucibled... to name one of the most detailed and D&D like quests in the game that is also a poster boy for the "anything but rote hack and slash is too hard" mentality in this game.

As a PnP DM and a frustrated game designer; I can't tell you how much it sucks to have the module you just bought, obviated by some dude who's already memorized the whole thing and is not even trying to hide it. "watch out here's where the Bullette comes out of the ground", "hey search for a false bottom on this chest it has a Ring of Wishes"... Of course as someone is sure to point out: as PnP DM and designer I can and almost always did ruin that a$$hats meta-knowledge by changing things to suit my campaign, and if that wasn't enough, changing it on the Fly, that Bullette never came out of the ground causing the other players to glance over at Mr. Munchkin dubiously until a hour later when it fell out of the ceiling and on his head (Reflex save vs. crushing blow, oh whats that you min maxed your Dex? ouch. ... that False bottomed chest turned out to be a Mimic. Can't do that in DDO... Once Meta'd quests can never be un-meta'd I can never gather a group of 5 newer players and run Delera's and enjoy myself going slow... because I know it, because I've adapted to how the roman's do it.

Now if it had 90% procedural pathing, and mobs with procedural affixes, random lethal traps, and random secrets that have to be actively searched for that hide unknown but cool loot ....

[SerPounce]

let me clarify that . . .

If you join MY group it is wrong of you to expect me to slow down.

If I join YOUR group it is wrong of me to zerg and ruin your fun.

But if I'm brought in as a "ringer" nobody has a right to complain about anything.

Indeed... not sure where the disagreement was then either with me or the OP. He appears to be looking for people who share his play style, not expecting anyone to change.

[Chai]

This is the real problem with DDO, and most MMO's. That there's anything to "teach" or "learn"... RPG's are supposed to be about exploration o fthe unknown, discovery, danger and tension... None of those exist in a game where the first person through "teaches" everyone ... and many people follow the leader, never knowing why they're pulling a lever or feeling any sense of exploration... DDO is one big "guided dungeon tour, don't step outside the ropes, or you might get a -10%!"

Meta gaming, gaming the game, knowledge of where everything is, and how to best get to it in the shortest time.

Vint used a commuting analogy, interesting for two reasons: one it shows off how much like "work" a game based on rote repetition of memorized content really becomes. Two: it shows how utterly "meta gamed" our "route" is... like a daily commute that we don't even pay attention to... We're "going through the motions" getting from point A to point B.

I'm guessing that DDO's engine just can't handle procedural content well, back when Cove was first released the Dev's talked about how Cove was somewhat of a proof of concept for random generated or procedural pathing and locating, as well as scaling monsters to a wider level range. Apparently the challenges were the extent of what they could get out of that technology as we've seen no actual quests with significant randomness... The Demon web is just a few "enter and if the right path isn't open, leave and reset" variations.

Sadly DDO's "hard core" are not people who WANT to play a Dungeon crawler with tension, exploration, discovery or challenge. DDO's player base are by in large interested in a D&D themed Farmville... they want to know what the rewards are EXACTLY, they want to know where EXACTLY they are, and they want to quickly (before they are even published on live) know how to do the "quest" quickly and efficiently.

In short the player base of DDO for the most part are "time attack" gamers... Or "done quick" gamers. they get their challenge from doing it faster and more efficiently like racing games with time attack mode where you try to better your best lap time.

In this respect DDO isn't actually an RPG in the slightest sense of the word. It's much more like a combination of Farmville (a collection through repetition game) and a racing game.

Theres plenty to learn in an MMO. Raids for instance are literally excersises in metagaming. When learning them people play through until they die, recognize the game mechanic for what it is, compensate through it the next time around, then play through the unexpected til they die again, rinse repeat. Eventually they will be able to lead the entire raid.

Abbot is a prime example of a "know it or dont join" raid in DDO. Its been out for 5 (almost 6) years now, and only a minority fraction of the populace knows how to run it. This is something that should be taught, but instead people are wiling to wait longer in LFMs because less people know it, than teach, which allows them to wait far less time in LFMs later on because theres alot more people who know it on their particular server.

This used to not be as much of an issue, because there were alot more hard core players around to the point where they could be exclusionary and not een appear on other players radar. Those days are coming to a close however. The irony is when they begin using the LFM system, because theres not enough of them left to fill groups in a reasonable amount of time. This is something I predicted a few years ago, was denied furiously this would ever happen, and now I grin knowingly when it has started happening. There are but a few packets of extreme metagamers left, and they are now needing to rely on the PUG scene to fill a few spots here and there, and they are beginning to realize exactly how bad that PUG scene is - all due to lack of investment in that very PUG scene.

There are a few servers who have channels dedicated to teaching, an their PUG scenes are far better quality. The conglomerate was a great idea on Thelanis and it solved this issue for a long time, but it too has attrited to the point where its getting tougher to find groups in a reasonable amount of time unless its basically rush hour.