The side effects of mob camping

strangiato2112

Its story time, and this is a story that many MMORPGers, especially EQ players will identify with.  Except its not from an old school MMORPG, and in fact is from WoW of all games.

 

I have a rl friend that runs a small WoW guild.  I play a few times a month, sometimes more.  I logged in a couple months ago and my friend was asking me to help with a new mount dropping mob.

This mob is called Zandalari Warbringer.   There are 5 or 6 total spawn points around Pandaria for them, their respawn is roughly 45 minutes at each point.  These mobs have huge appeal because not only do they drop mounts, they drop bind on account reputation items to drastically reduce rep grind for you or an alt.  They are group mobs (though some skilled members of a few specs can solo them, but this is very rare)

So I joined this group for a while.  They would kill one of these mobs, fly around to the next available spawn point (some are camped) and then wait there.  The wait times are generally not too long, as you can tell if it was a fresh kill (corpse on ground) and move to the next spot if you dont want a long wait.  throughout the course of the camp, other campers joined the group.  During the downtime people joked around, showed off their other mounts, swapped some war stories, etc.

The following week I logged in, and I saw some of these campers were now guild members.  In fact they were in a dungeon group of all guild members, which was fairly rare for this small guild.  My friend tells me they are a great fit for the guild and activity has picked up considerably.

And if not for these mobs that required grouping and had some downtime associated with them, it never would have happened.  That wait time gave time for people to interact with each other and say 'hey, I like these folks in this guild, we get along well and have similar interests'.  

Downtime has to be done in moderation of course, but todays games are go go go all the time and its much tougher to make the connections to the right people/guild that way.

birdycephon

Thats what one of the great things about FFXI was. You spend a few hours with a grup of people, you end up friends with.

Waterlily

Downtime + mob camping + death penalties + slow gameplay and you have your recipe for FFXI and EQ.

Quirhid

Eye strain, lowered heartrate, built-up rage... extended exposure may lead to loss of higher brain functions and/or sleep apnea. You may also cause damage to yourself and those around you.

Fortunately Alt-tabbing, acquiring a secondary monitor or watching TV on the side has been found to create enough stimulus to relieve some symptoms.

nariusseldon

Gosh .. sound very boring to me. I am glad i have quit WOW since last Dec.