How do these people not know?

[Knaw]

Sigh, this sounds just too familiar, Xuthaz. I love the people who come up to me and tell me they are knowledged players because they started EQ six months ago  :shock:
Overall i prefer playing with the old farts from my guild - from pre-Kunark era. Most of them still play the some character they had back then, like i played my chanter untill Luclin (for ubvious reasons  :P )

[gelia]

We have a 60+ paladin in our guild that I coined a phrase, "Pop-n00b".  Cause she is.  

Her son got her playing EQ.  Her son told her what he thought she needed to know, she's never looked up anything, she has no grasp of anything outside of LDON.

We were gearing up for our first guild only try at HoT the other night.  Raid leader designates her SA.  She says in raid chat, "What does SA mean?"  *bang head on keyboard*

Then the plate bp drops in HoT.  She wins.  She complains in guildchat and that it isn't any good, cause "I wrote down my stats and put it on, and none of my stats went up."  *bang head on keyboard again*  My wonderful husband takes an *hour* out of his play time to patiently explain faction, Velious faction quests, etc, to her.

*sighs* she's a *nice* lady, always trying, but doesn't *know* anything about eq.

[quinalla]

See... that is something I didn't know! All the SOE sites and the Prima Guides they sell say that INT is the sole factor for skill-ups and that WIS or INT is for Mana only. That is the problem that the documentation is rife with errors! I was always looking for INT items for my BST to get skill-ups at lower levels!  :(

Yup, lots of misinformation out there to be sure.  I found out about the wis thing from eqtraders soon after I started playing.  Most of the message boards (recent posts of course) are the best places to get good information, but even they have some errors.  Another problem is SoE and Verant before them does not release much information on any game mechanics and what they do release is sometimes incorrect/misleading or outdated information is still around.

As for calling slows, depends on the mob and the group.  Sometimes it is important for the healer to know the mob is slowed, but I don't think it is something you have to call out all the time, every time.

[mac173]

We were gearing up for our first guild only try at HoT the other night. Raid leader designates her SA. She says in raid chat, "What does SA mean?" *bang head on keyboard*

Then the plate bp drops in HoT. She wins. She complains in guildchat and that it isn't any good, cause "I wrote down my stats and put it on, and none of my stats went up." *bang head on keyboard again* My wonderful husband takes an *hour* out of his play time to patiently explain faction, Velious faction quests, etc, to her.

*sighs* she's a *nice* lady, always trying, but doesn't *know* anything about eq.

Perhaps you should consider the fact that to that point, she had never been on a Raid before (What's SA) and noone had taken the time to explain faction to her. There is a lot to be said about learning the game IN GAME. I have an aversion to learning everything about how to play from guides and websites. Thats part of the problem. People spend time reading guides, and lurking the boards, and then think they know everything about playing the game.
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR EXPERIENCE!
Part of that experience is learning from other players IN GAME. I salute your husband for taking the massive *hour* out of his time to teach her, but thats what needs to be done to get players who know how to play.

There are so many changes that have made learning the game trivial,

I think the proliferation of written guides and class boards like ours has made us too dependent on them. I see a lot of posts griping about having to teach someone how to play their char. So, tell me something. When EQ first hit the shelves, how did anyone learn how to play? How did anyone in the first 2 years learn how to play their chars, or what to do, or how to do it? We learned by "/ooc Hey, how do I get to Freeport from here?", and getting 12 or 15 people answering and giving directions. Thats how I learned.
I will risk the IRE of many of you, but I have no idea what SA means. I've never been on a raid, and groups consist of people about my level who also have never been on a raid. I don't play enough, or consistantly enough to be in a raiding guild, so I may NEVER go on a raid. I've been playing since just after Kunark came out, and Kunnar was born on Feburary 28, 2002. Some of you will recognize me as a frequent poster here. I read, research, and play. I still have a lot to learn.
Instead of berating those who need to learn more, teach. If not, then you are part of the problem.

[Bryc]

When EQ first hit the shelves, how did anyone learn how to play?

By making mistakes :). I remember by first time in a CH rot, on Ixblat.  My hands were shaking. The tank caught a bad spike, but I was SO BUSY COUNTING that the cleric after me had to cast early.

Raidleader shouts, "Clerics PAY ATTENTION"  :oops:  I'm still embarassed, years later.

[mac173]

Raidleader shouts, "Clerics PAY ATTENTION"  I'm still embarassed, years later.

EXACTLY! You learned IN GAME, not from a book or webpage, and it made you a better player.

[Hrann]

SA = Secondary Assist (as opposed to Main Assist)

I like when people ask questions, and I don't mind teaching people.  As long as they pay attention to the answers and are interested in learning (some people will just ignore you and just keeping doingthe wrong thing, no matter what everyone says).

[mac173]

SA = Secondary Assist (as opposed to Main Assist)

Thanks, Hrann.
I don't think I've ever been in a group big enough to need to designate a SA. The closest I ever came was a 6BL group in OT. No MA, no SA, one guy pulled, and we all just jumped in and killed whatever showed up.

WOOT!

[gelia]

Before I went on my first raid, I *looked it up* on the net.   I actually contacted the raid leader a day ahead of time, and asked for a name of a person who I could ask questions.  When I got assigned a group, I told my group leader it was my first raid.  This isn't just a random person, guys, this is a *guildie*.  A very very sweet lady who has managed to ding 62 without gaining a shred of knowledge of EQ beyond what can be learned in LDON.

And as far as my husband taking an whole hour out of his time to explain the quests:
"You have to go to kael and kill giants in order to get your faction up to do the quest."
"But I've been to Kael"
"Yes, I know, but one trip to Kael won't be enough to get your faction up enough."
"We went to Kael last week."
"Yes, I know, but you need to kill giants for faction."
"Oh, we killed lots of giants last week!"

[Whiptail_Warclaw]

Did a LDoN pickup group last night with my 38 Cleric and what a pleasure it was...
I was group leader (doing LS points) and I designated the Berz as Main Assist and the other two melee actually listened to me and assist the Berz during the entire Dungeon. I rarely had to heal anyone but the Berz. And the other two didn't attack anything, that the Berz didn't have targetted.
The Enc did a great job at mezzing and crowd control and the Berz was a great puller.
We collected 27/28 items with 55 minutes to go, so we held off and cleared the entire dungeon, before collecting the 28th item and winning.
Was great to group with experienced players who knew the basics of grouping and were willing to follow simple orders/requests from the group leader.

[Xuthaz]

I've been in every kind of guild from small fam to high end uber and nobody on my server uses the terms MA or SA.  We have Main tanks (MT) and Secondary Tanks(ST), and sometimes 3rd and 4th and 5th tanks hehe, but we never delegate anyone as the Main Assist.  assist is always the MT or if trash needs to be cleared while the MT is tanking something, the ST.

[Knaw]

Well, terms and abbreviations differ from server to server and from guild to guild. We use both MA/SA and MT/ST, it's just the same thing.

[kegulik]

the game is increasingly being tuned directly to the diablo style players, log in, slaughter stuff, dont think too much, dont have all that hard of a time getting to and from where you wanna go, dont waste alot of time when you die, kill stuff chain pulling singles with little or no risk,

Hah, you didn't pull singles in Diablo.

log out having accomplished alot and having fun..

Heaven forbid :roll:

[Hrann]

We use both MT and MA, sometimes interchangeably, but they really are different jobs.  On a very rare occasion those two jobs might even belong to different people.

[Bryc]

We use both MT and MA, sometimes interchangeably, but they really are different jobs.

Aye. When the chanter has 6 mobs mezzed, and he's saying "bloodbone next", he's effectively the Main Assist. A Main Tank can take the hits, a Main Assist knows to kill Valourous Spirits (partially slowable) before Valorium Guardians (fully slowable).