edit.UPDATE: THIS THREAD/DISCUSSION IS NOT ABOUT SUPPORTING SHARDING IN PRF. THOUGH NOT AN OFFICIAL RESPONSE FROM A DEV I FEEL CONFIDENT THIS IS CLOSE TO THEIR STANCE ON HOW SHARDING WILL BE USED IN PANTHEON ***IF*** SHARDING IS USED AT ALL. I COULD ALSO BE COMPLETELY WRONG AS WELL SO TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I am simply posting this to try and help clear up any confusion surrounding any possible use of sharding in PRF.
I keep coming across posts where people still seem to be confused with Pantheon's stance on instancing. And I guess that is understandable. Some of the devs are using the word shard in different senses of the word while others possibly have not explained them self with clarity. So I'm hoping to possibly clear things up because I feel like I understand what their stance is...I hope lol. I could very well be completely wrong.
Ok, so it seems people are still confused on what the devs mean by their use of the word 'shard' or 'sharding' or 'shards'. And a note to the devs, I think it would be beneficial to keep the words shard and server separate when discussing things on the forums. Simply because there are two definitions to shard that could be applied to PRF.
First, some people use the word 'shard' when describing a server. Servers as in when you create your character and then have to choose which SERVER you want to play on. Some people use the word shard when describing these servers. There is a post where I believe Kilsin states that the tech they are using allows them to open up new shards/servers once the shard/server over populates. What he was talking about was an entire server, NOT a single zone such as a BlackBurrow in EQ. He wasn't talking about how EQ1 will open up a new shard of BlackBurrow once too many people are in the first copy. He wasn't talking about once The Tower of the Reckless Magician becomes over populated a NEW Tower of the Reckless Magician 2 will open. He was talking about once an entire server reaches its capacity the tech they have makes it easy for them to open up entire new servers for people to start creating new characters on.
Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etc instance their dungeons will most likely NOT be found in PRF. This type of instancing protects your group by not allowing ANY OTHER PERSON OR GROUP into your instance or copy of the dungeon you are in.
What Kilsin and the devs HAVE said they are willing to use is the type of sharding that was found in Vanguard with the zone APW. Some may confuse this with how EQ1 opens up new shards for their zones once they become over populated and some will confuse this with how WoW instances their dungeons. The difference with how APW sharding worked and how EQ1 shards over populated zones is APW had 6 shards open at all times and 6 shards only, no more no less. No new shards will open if a copy becomes over populated. It wasn't their to protect from over population, it was their to give players some breathing room. Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of sharding in order to protect them from becoming over populated. Compare this with VG where APW was the ONLY zone to have sharding and I think you can get an ideal of where and/or how PRF will use this form of sharding.
The way it differs from how WoW/Rift instances their dungeons and raid zones is that ANYBODY can enter these shards at ANY time. You and your group can pick ANY of the 6 shards and enter at any time. Shard 1 could be completely empty and you could decide to go into shard 5. APWs shards do not protect your group from interference from outside groups. The content is still HIGHLY contested and gives players the sense that the world is bigger than just them and their group. In WoWs/Rifts instancing you and your group are the sole members of that copy of the dungeon where the content is NOT contested. Also, again, WoW has this instancing ALL over their world. Compare with VG and APW and you can get an ideal of how PRF will use this type of sharding. In VG like 99% of the world was shard free, only APW made use of shards.
I hope this helps some. Obviously things can change, it's still early in the game. Or, again, I could be completely way off base with myt understanding and interpretation. But from what I've gathered THIS is the devs stance on instancing and sharding for Pantheon. Cheers!
It might be better to not use the term shard. What is being referred to as a "shard" is duplicating a zone. Calling that a shard is not the definition that most old school gamers think of when using that term.
Seems like a simpler solution to not use the term than having to redefine the word shard everytime it is brought up.
NoobieDoo said:Second, Kilsin and the other devs have stated that there will be NO instancing accept on rare occasions. Meaning the traditional type of instancing being used in modern MMOs today such as how WoW and Rift and etcthe problem is, when i read "there will be NO instancing except on rare occasions" i thought that there would be no instancing except on rare occasions. this did not seem a far off guess or possible missinterpretation! i assume most others thought the same. i did not expect it to mean "there will be no instancing in the traditional type as being used in modern MMOs".
as i have said in another thread, i'm not totally opposed to zone copying, but i think it would hurt more than help. if there's a fixed number of copies (like, 1), that would mitigate the issue, but it's still not the same. in EQ, when i've been in a dungeon for a while, i used to know the people. sometimes you had the camp that you wanted and sometimes you didn't, and took whatever you could get. if all dungeons exist in sufficent copies to make everyone happy, that means i could spend weeks in the "same" dungeon as someone else and never even hear of him. and most of the dungeon will be empty most of the time, except for the most desired camps. i consider that boring, and that's the tradeoff you get for trying to make everyone happy. also, zone copying is really just a workaround to substitute for a lack of content. EQ did fine after velious release.
VR state repeatedly in their FAQ (9.0, 10.1., 20.2) that their way to counter crowding was a large world and a sufficient amount of servers. so this is what i expect to be the solution. not cheap zone copies. as easier it is to get your desired equipment, the less of an achievement it is. i don't remember where, but their philosphy was that getting the right items should be challenging and rewarding.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of shardingoriginal EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
Let's not cherry pick the FAQ here:
Overcrowding and too much competition are indeed problems that have plagued both MMOs with and without instancing. If there are not enough players around, it can be hard to group and socialize. But if there are too many people around, the world feels crowded and people have to wait for encounters or spawns, or even compete for them. Our answer to this issue is twofold: first, primarily during the later phases of beta, we will determine how many people online at one time in our game world feels right -- neither under-crowded nor overcrowded. Second, if and when a server’s/shard’s population grows too large, we will launch a new shard with incentives for players to spread out. And with our harnessing of cloud hosted servers/shards, this is actually something we can do dynamically, easily, and quickly.
Just because they might have shards doesn't mean they will be rampant or even common. We simply don't know yet, but having the ability and code ready to go if/when needed is a good thing. Especially if they design shards while keeping in mind item drops and ways to keep players from force spawning additional ones.
Iksar said:Just because they might have shards doesn't mean they will be rampant or even common. We simply don't know yet, but having the ability and code ready to go if/when needed is a good thing.yes i'm sure everyone agrees on that.
Iksar said:Especially if they design shards while keeping in mind item drops and ways to keep players from force spawning additional ones.it's probably quite hard to estimate how much crowding will be a problem and how people are going to abuse any given system. my preferred solution would be to do without any zone copying at start. if the demand arises later on, ask the community (vote?) if there should be a 2nd copy of a given zone. if crowding is a problem it's quite safe to assume people will want a copy. from that moment on, have a 2nd copy available (all the time). that way no one has to worry now, and when it matters, most will still be happy with it.
letsdance said:it's probably quite hard to estimate how much crowding will be a problem and how people are going to abuse any given system. my preferred solution would be to do without any zone copying at start. if the demand arises later on, ask the community (vote?) if there should be a 2nd copy of a given zone. if crowding is a problem it's quite safe to assume people will want a copy. from that moment on, have a 2nd copy available (all the time). that way no one has to worry now, and when it matters, most will still be happy with it.
It was my impression that this is what they intend. They may use sharding of zones if it becomes apparent that server populations or player behavior necessitate it. But otherwise they wont.
letsdance said:Iksar said:Just because they might have shards doesn't mean they will be rampant or even common. We simply don't know yet, but having the ability and code ready to go if/when needed is a good thing.yes i'm sure everyone agrees on that.
Iksar said:Especially if they design shards while keeping in mind item drops and ways to keep players from force spawning additional ones.it's probably quite hard to estimate how much crowding will be a problem and how people are going to abuse any given system. my preferred solution would be to do without any zone copying at start. if the demand arises later on, ask the community (vote?) if there should be a 2nd copy of a given zone. if crowding is a problem it's quite safe to assume people will want a copy. from that moment on, have a 2nd copy available (all the time). that way no one has to worry now, and when it matters, most will still be happy with it.
There should never be multiple copies of a zone/mob. If it gets to that point, they need to spin up a new SERVER and maintain the integrity of all servers.
NoobieDoo said: Also, in EQ1 iirc every zone throughout the entire game has this type of sharding
Honest question, did you even play EQ? There was no sharding in EQ for YEARS after launch. This is a horrible argument to make in support of sharding.
Iksar said:
Just because they might have shards doesn't mean they will be rampant or even common. We simply don't know yet, but having the ability and code ready to go if/when needed is a good thing. Especially if they design shards while keeping in mind item drops and ways to keep players from force spawning additional ones.
How much time should they be spending on this? We're talking about what is now becoming both a logically and infrastructurally complicated system. What are they going to do, write custom logic that detects if the server population is intentionally breaching a zone population to create a shard? Then what? They're going to collapse the shard people spawned over into? THat's not good for immersion, that's not good for gameplay. What if their anti abuse measures counter legitimate sharding? This is a can o worms.
Here's how it has worked in the past: People are smart and play the game like crazy. They figure out exactly how to tip a zone over and then they do it over and over. Instead of having 84 people in lower guk, which sucks, now you have 12 people each in 7 different shards. The "emergent gameplay" becomes abuse. "Hey guys, Trogdor says there are only 8 people in his shard. Let's zone out and back in and go there".
Reht said:letsdance said:original EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
It does now, it was added to assist with the overpopulation on the newer TLP servers.
Using something they added to the game FIFTEEN YEARS after launch, to support the argument, is not sound logic.
Reht said:letsdance said:original EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
It does now, it was added to assist with the overpopulation on the newer TLP servers.
Well, over time EQ has added innumerable things that many find to be repulsive. :)
vjek said:You can either have sharding, or you can have zones with so many people in them that there are camps every 6 mobs and a naked level 1 wood elf bard could walk anywhere in the zone without fear.
Personally, I'll take sharding. :)
Straight up untrue. It's not binary. And if people CHOOSE to overcrowd a zone, then the devs need to adjust the quality of loot/gameplay in other zones to draw people out. OR peope just live with their decision. The answer to overcrowding is a new distinct server, not sharding or instancing. Everything you do in the game is devalued the moment there is a duplicate of a zone. You might not care, but to me it is tremendously important that there only be one Ghoul King. The sense of accomplishment falls apart when there are 10 other groups doing the exact same thing you're doing. "GUYS I broke the King camp and he has a Yak! Awesome!" becomes nobody cares, there are a bunch of people doing that exact same content on your server at the exact same time which makes what each of those people are doing matter that much less.
There is one persistent world, not a world with branches of extra dimensions that merge and shard apart. That's fake, it ruins item integrity and leads to inflation/damages the economy.
The contention for a spawn or item is part of what made EQ great, because things MATTERED and weren't just handed to you. Watering all that down might help with kill stealing or overcrowding, but now you have a game that doesn't matter. I know which I'd rather have, in a heartbeat.
Krixus said:Reht said:letsdance said:original EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
It does now, it was added to assist with the overpopulation on the newer TLP servers.
Using something they added to the game FIFTEEN YEARS after launch, to support the argument, is not sound logic.
I am not supporting any argument, just stating a fact - EQ has that functionality. It's something that some people may not be aware of.
Reht said:I am not supporting any argument, just stating a fact - EQ has that functionality. It's something that some people may not be aware of.
but no one cares what EQ has NOW... if we would, we'd play EQ. people want something that's more like the original EQ, which did not have it. so your information is missleading.
Reht said:Krixus said:Reht said:letsdance said:original EQ, which many here are hoping to see some sort of remake of, did not have any type of instancing, zone copying or sharding.
It does now, it was added to assist with the overpopulation on the newer TLP servers.
Using something they added to the game FIFTEEN YEARS after launch, to support the argument, is not sound logic.
I am not supporting any argument, just stating a fact - EQ has that functionality. It's something that some people may not be aware of.
I stand by what I said. It seems like a disengenuous thing to say. EQ in 2014 is a COMPLETELY different game than EQ in, say, 2002.
Krixus said:There should never be multiple copies of a zone/mob. If it gets to that point, they need to spin up a new SERVER and maintain the integrity of all servers.
Iksar said:
Just because they might have shards doesn't mean they will be rampant or even common. We simply don't know yet, but having the ability and code ready to go if/when needed is a good thing. Especially if they design shards while keeping in mind item drops and ways to keep players from force spawning additional ones.
How much time should they be spending on this? We're talking about what is now becoming both a logically and infrastructurally complicated system. What are they going to do, write custom logic that detects if the server population is intentionally breaching a zone population to create a shard? Then what? They're going to collapse the shard people spawned over into? THat's not good for immersion, that's not good for gameplay. What if their anti abuse measures counter legitimate sharding? This is a can o worms.
Here's how it has worked in the past: People are smart and play the game like crazy. They figure out exactly how to tip a zone over and then they do it over and over. Instead of having 84 people in lower guk, which sucks, now you have 12 people each in 7 different shards. The "emergent gameplay" becomes abuse. "Hey guys, Trogdor says there are only 8 people in his shard. Let's zone out and back in and go there".
...
Straight up untrue. It's not binary. And if people CHOOSE to overcrowd a zone, then the devs need to adjust the quality of loot/gameplay in other zones to draw people out. OR peope just live with their decision. The answer to overcrowding is a new distinct server, not sharding or instancing. Everything you do in the game is devalued the moment there is a duplicate of a zone. You might not care, but to me it is tremendously important that there only be one Ghoul King. The sense of accomplishment falls apart when there are 10 other groups doing the exact same thing you're doing. "GUYS I broke the King camp and he has a Yak! Awesome!" becomes nobody cares, there are a bunch of people doing that exact same content on your server at the exact same time which makes what each of those people are doing matter that much less.
There is one persistent world, not a world with branches of extra dimensions that merge and shard apart. That's fake, it ruins item integrity and leads to inflation/damages the economy.
The contention for a spawn or item is part of what made EQ great, because things MATTERED and weren't just handed to you. Watering all that down might help with kill stealing or overcrowding, but now you have a game that doesn't matter. I know which I'd rather have, in a heartbeat.
A) A few overcrowded zones doesn't mean the server itself is overcrowded. On top of that the answer to an actually overcrowded server isn't splitting up a community and pushing people onto a new server, most people aren't too keen on that.
B1) Just because you haven't seen a way that satisfies you, doesn't mean there can't be a system that works well. Maybe they can spawn one extra instance if the zone is near the tipping point but that's it. Let's say a zone is determined to hold at most 89 players before tipping into a new shard; if you make the shard spawning be determined by the combined total players in all active shards then you can't have one group, even if they are 89 strong, spawn multiple shards. The second they leave one and try to spawn another the game knows that in total there aren't enough unique players for it.
B2) In addition to the above, you can combat the item inflation by lowering rare drop rates by a % per each active instance or increase time between spawns so that it averages out to the same rough drop rate in total.
C) Personal accomplishment should be personal, not rely on input from others nor detract from them. Pretty much no one else cares you are killing the ghoul king, hundreds of others have likely already killed him. It never took away from my feeling of joy and accomplishment when I finally was able to camp the frenzied ghoul and eventually get an FBSS. It wouldn't even matter if others were doing it in a parallel zone at the same time. Again, nobody else cares. Even server firsts only get a small handful of people that care.
I know we won't ever see eye to eye here, and that's okay. But there are always ways to make things work, even if you haven't seen a version that you liked in the past.
letsdance said:but no one cares what EQ has NOW... if we would, we'd play EQ. people want something that's more like the original EQ, which did not have it. so your information is missleading.
Actually some people do care but i am not going to make blanket statements like your "no one cares" because, like you, i would be wrong. Whether or not you like it, it was added to address a specific need which has worked better than spinning up a ton of new servers to handle the initial mad rush of players of joining those servers because once attrition begins, it doesn't require the studio to consider consolidating and shutting down ghost town servers. There are pros and cons for both sides. I hope that if you are going to purist about how this game should be like classical EQ (which you haven't even qualified as to what you consider classical EQ) that you are equally purist on the things that YOU don't like, maybe spell book covering your entire screen when you med because i am sure someone somewhere will want that....
Iksar said:A) A few overcrowded zones doesn't mean the server itself is overcrowded.it actually does, if the high-end zones are overcrowded.
Iksar said:On top of that the answer to an actually overcrowded server isn't splitting up a community and pushing people onto a new server, most people aren't too keen on that.it's not like people are forced to change server. they may get a chance to move there, and mostly new servers are for fresh starts and new players, so they can play on a server that's not crowded.
Iksar said:B2) In addition to the above, you can combat the item inflation by lowering rare drop rates by a % per each active instance or increase time between spawns so that it averages out to the same rough drop rate in total.so those playing outside peak times have a better drop chance? *lol* any "solution" that changes drop rates is going to kill the game.
Krixus said:I stand by what I said. It seems like a disengenuous thing to say. EQ in 2014 is a COMPLETELY different game than EQ in, say, 2002.
I get that, but just to be clear, your definition of "classic" eq is PoP era (assumption since you threw out 2002)? Because EQ in PoP was significantly different in the PoP era than what i could consider classic EQ: which is through Velious. Because if that's the case, you had the raid tool, mounts, the beginning of instanced raids, Alternate advancement, the bazaar, quick travel in plane of knowledge, no more corpse runs, no more spell book when medding, etc. which makes it a VERY different game than EQ in, say 2000.
Iksar said:
A) A few overcrowded zones doesn't mean the server itself is overcrowded. On top of that the answer to an actually overcrowded server isn't splitting up a community and pushing people onto a new server, most people aren't too keen on that.
B1) Just because you haven't seen a way that satisfies you, doesn't mean there can't be a system that works well. Maybe they can spawn one extra instance if the zone is near the tipping point but that's it. Let's say a zone is determined to hold at most 89 players before tipping into a new shard; if you make the shard spawning be determined by the combined total players in all active shards then you can't have one group, even if they are 89 strong, spawn multiple shards. The second they leave one and try to spawn another the game knows that in total there aren't enough unique players for it.
B2) In addition to the above, you can combat the item inflation by lowering rare drop rates by a % per each active instance or increase time between spawns so that it averages out to the same rough drop rate in total.
C) Personal accomplishment should be personal, not rely on input from others nor detract from them. Pretty much no one else cares you are killing the ghoul king, hundreds of others have likely already killed him. It never took away from my feeling of joy and accomplishment when I finally was able to camp the frenzied ghoul and eventually get an FBSS. It wouldn't even matter if others were doing it in a parallel zone at the same time. Again, nobody else cares. Even server firsts only get a small handful of people that care.
I know we won't ever see eye to eye here, and that's okay. But there are always ways to make things work, even if you haven't seen a version that you liked in the past.
A) And I addressed this. It is incumbent upon the creative crew to make going to other places as valuable as the overcrowded zone. And if people choose to overcrowd a zone because it's easy to get to or has lower risk, then that is the choice they make and can deal with the consequences without crying about wanting multiple instances of the zone. If the game is designed properly, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. And if it isn't, then we have bigger problems that sharding will not fix.
B) This just doesn't work. Adjusting spawn or drop rates? How is that fair when there are 70 people in one shard and 20 in another? The 20 will just rampge the entire zone, circumventing any drop rate modifier. Duplicating content RUINS the content. This solution is worse than the problem!! It should be a last resort! Players should be incitivized to go out into the world and adventure without these kinds of bottlenecks. And, if, like you said, it's only a problem in a couple zones THEN ITS ONLY A PROBLEM IN A COUPLE ZONES! lol. Why implement such a drastic measure if the problem is isolated to a couple of areas?
C) How in the world can you say that? This is a social game. That is a huge part of the dynamic. You didn't play EQ did you? You missed out. Because you are horribly wrong, people cared TREMENDOUSLY about exactly this thing. Shrugging it off as "nobody cares, you do you" shows a lack of understanding of what made a game like EQ great, and that makes me sad. It is exactly what helped create the magic of EQ, caring about what other people were doing and what they had. I feel bad for people who have "grown up" in the WOW and NWN/GW2 MMO era, they have no idea. And while I understand that this isn't EQ, I hope they make a game where people can capture what it means to play a game where what you do MATTERS. Items had status, accomplishments had status, guilds and players had status. Having done something rare and hard to get MEANT SOMETHING. Sharding destroys that.
Reht said:I hope that if you are going to purist about how this game should be like classical EQwell, i don't. i never said it should be like classic EQ, but classic EQ is kinda the reference for this project (and yes i hope it will be similar in many aspects, but there's also things that i hope will be different).
Krixus said:Honest question, did you even play EQ? There was no sharding in EQ for YEARS after launch. This is a horrible argument to make in support of sharding.
Yes, I have played EQ. Back in 2000 as well as recently on the new Phinny server. My post was not to "support" sharding, only to try and explain what it most likely will be like in Pantheon and hopefully clear up some of the confusion others are having. I used EQ1 as a comparison to explain what Pantheon will NOT be like.
Reht said:Krixus said:I stand by what I said. It seems like a disengenuous thing to say. EQ in 2014 is a COMPLETELY different game than EQ in, say, 2002.
I get that, but just to be clear, your definition of "classic" eq is PoP era (assumption since you threw out 2002)? Because EQ in PoP was significantly different in the PoP era than what i could consider classic EQ: which is through Velious. Because if that's the case, you had the raid tool, mounts, the beginning of instanced raids, Alternate advancement, the bazaar, quick travel in plane of knowledge, no more corpse runs, no more spell book when medding, etc. which makes it a VERY different game than EQ in, say 2000.
Exactly. EQ is a number of different games. That's the point. Saying that "oh you guys, EQ has sharding!" is disengenous. How many years did the game exist before that was true, 10? 15?
Krixus said:Exactly. EQ is a number of different games. That's the point. Saying that "oh you guys, EQ has sharding!" is disengenous. How many years did the game exist before that was true, 10? 15?
It's not disengenous at all, i was stating an indisputable fact. There was nothing that wasn't candid or sencere; i wasn't pretending to know less about something that i really do (definition of disengenous) to make a point. I was not even advancing an opinion at that point - i hadn't even offered any opinion at all on the matter, i was just making sure that people were aware that it was now present in EQ. Clearly EQ has changed, but you're right, we shouldn't consider anything that you don't like or agree with.
Krixus said:A) And I addressed this. It is incumbent upon the creative crew to make going to other places as valuable as the overcrowded zone. And if people choose to overcrowd a zone because it's easy to get to or has lower risk, then that is the choice they make and can deal with the consequences without crying about wanting multiple instances of the zone. If the game is designed properly, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. And if it isn't, then we have bigger problems that sharding will not fix.
B) This just doesn't work. Adjusting spawn or drop rates? How is that fair when there are 70 people in one shard and 20 in another? The 20 will just rampge the entire zone, circumventing any drop rate modifier. Duplicating content RUINS the content. This solution is worse than the problem!! It should be a last resort! Players should be incitivized to go out into the world and adventure without these kinds of bottlenecks. And, if, like you said, it's only a problem in a couple zones THEN ITS ONLY A PROBLEM IN A COUPLE ZONES! lol. Why implement such a drastic measure if the problem is isolated to a couple of areas?
C) How in the world can you say that? This is a social game. That is a huge part of the dynamic. You didn't play EQ did you? You missed out. Because you are horribly wrong, people cared TREMENDOUSLY about exactly this thing. Shrugging it off as "nobody cares, you do you" shows a lack of understanding of what made a game like EQ great, and that makes me sad. It is exactly what helped create the magic of EQ, caring about what other people were doing and what they had. I feel bad for people who have "grown up" in the WOW and NWN/GW2 MMO era, they have no idea. And while I understand that this isn't EQ, I hope they make a game where people can capture what it means to play a game where what you do MATTERS. Items had status, accomplishments had status, guilds and players had status. Having done something rare and hard to get MEANT SOMETHING. Sharding destroys that.
I did play EQ, release into Luclin. No one cared what you did. It was cool seeing some higher level drops and being in awe of some of the items but in my experience no one really cared that you killed Vox or the frenzied ghoul or efreeti lord. They were in awe of the items not the feat, especially since for all they knew you bought the item. Even with epics and planes gear people at best were like "Cool!" but they weren't in awe because you did it while no one else was. No one ever cared that I killed frenzied or quested JBoots or killed Nagafen as they had been killed hundreds/thousands of times, but they liked to look at the drops from time to time to set goals for themselves.
And you can't just say "then go to a different zone." Unless items are mostly cloned across zones, then every player will run into the situation that they don't have anywhere but one place to get the pieces they need. Something like FBSS is going to be something most every physical dps needs. Going to another dungeon does them zero good. They could buy it, but then your sense of accomplishment arguement goes out the window.