It is funny that my character “Talya” is over 7 yrs old and only has a million SP. If anyone sees my character’s age they might think she is highly skilled, but instead she is a complete newbie. Heck it took me a week to figure out how to quit the corp. I was in with co-workers back at launch. *laugh*

Right now I have been operating solo as I run through tutorials. Then my next step is to join up with a RL friend of mine and together set some goals and figure out a plan. Building a list of people I can trust is probably a good start, and adding you you to my friends list (which also feels a bit more complex than other MMOs) sounds like a great place to start.

Stabs (http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/) is one of many people writing about EVE right now. Thank god I have someone knowledgeable I can ask newb questions of. The sad thing is, my oldest char was created in 2004 — she’s only got something like 1.2 mill skill points, but looking at her info you might think she’s old and powerful instead of just, well… old.

Find me (if you like) as Ysharros Eilat. I’ll be the one too chicken to fight anything.

Second. I also understand their intent on limiting raid progression and the rewards from such progression, and within the bounds of the game’s design I agree with that intent.

Third. I understand the first reaction people will have as soon as I start talking about giving each individual their own raid save state, is that its going to be complex, and hard to manage. It could be, but I believe it could also be presented in a such way that where the complexity could be mitigated.

One way would be making characters raid save information visible to raid organizers. Set it up so it is easy information to see, for example as I am sending invites out via the calender, let me see the character’s raid state.

Another tactic is to ensure players are prompted about their decision before committing to one. Example: “You are entering a raid which is has advanced more than your current raid state, if you do so your save state will be updated to match this raid. Are you sure you want to do this?”

And finally, the idea of the “trusted few”. I want to like that idea, except I would rather not be anchored to anyone for raiding. Example: If I raid with my guild on day one of a lock out period, and we do well killing 4/5 bosses. They run on day 2 without me, for whatever reason, and get the last boss down. I would like the option to later start my own raid with other people that have not yet beaten that boss during the lockout period.

The crux of my issues is that the current system saves raid states to a single RAID ID for all members of a raid, and not to individual IDs for each character. If a single person advances the raid state, then its advanced for everyone else with that RAID ID, and I am not a fan of that.

I hope you don’t mind me posting a reply here.

You raise a good point regarding the theft of an instance. While I finally have a good guild now, I actually encountered just this thing in the pre WoTLK days in Karazhan. Obviously its going to be more prone to happening in 25 man PuGs.

In my mind, clearly the locks are to regulate the rate of progression. While I originally didn’t like the mechanic, I agree with the intent.

A concern I have though is that coordinating 25 man pugs with people saved at different stages of a raid could create a deal of complex coordination that would be hard enough to manage in a guild let alone with random people.

What if you could ‘entrust’ a set number of players with the raid lock? Not saying it would be mandatory but optional. A raid leader could designate maybe up to 5 other players who can reform under the same raid ID. Once designated all other players would be locked out from forming a raid which could enter that instance unless they joined one of the ‘trusted’ player’s raids?