Greetings all,
I know that this topic has been discussed before and that the Dev. have pretty much made a decision on Instances, which the last I heard there will be no instances ingame, but I wanted to add my own opinion so the Dev have something they can think about in case the no-instance policy doesn't work out as expected.
I believe that End game zones should be instances.
I've come to this conclusion from my experiences playing EQ and other free-for-all mmorpg games that did not have instances. What will happen is that the first 2 or 3 guilds that make it to end game will (at first) play nice with each other. Sharing the end game zones with each other i.e. Guild A does Zone 1 this week and Guild B does Zone 2 and next week they switch zones. Once you have 4 or 5 guilds wanting to do the end zones then peoples greed or impatience will win out and it will become cut-thoart. Training a guiild right before they do the encounter to wipe them and stealing the kill or a more powerful guild just running over the other guild who was there first but is still learning the zone. Heaven help you if there is a bottle-neck in the progression like having a guild have to farm keys to enter an end zone. The server I was on in EQ had Conquest and Seven Dreams in constant conflict over this. They hated each other. It poisoned the community overall and ruined the enjoyment for everyone.
My understanding is that in Pantheon guilds will be 25 man. Which mean once you get 100 people at end game the fireworks will start. A server with only 100-200 active players isn't very profitable for a gaming company to keep around let alone charge $15 dollars to play. Play in a hard core guild cause lots of people to burn-out and the guild needs to keep replacing players. Having a low population isn't going to allow that causing the hard-core players to give up when their guild can't raid like they want.
Finally while EverQuest did have lots of quest to do no one ever did them because to do them when the reward was design for your level meant that you had to get a group together and most people did not want to waste their time doing quest since they never got any gear out of it and it didn't produce as much xp as just camping during that same amount of time. This problem I don't know if I have a viable solution to it but i would suggest something like being able to share the quest with the group and the reward being a choice of one items between 3 to 5 that is appropriate for the level and can cover most class roles (healing, melee, magic, armor, range etc)
Anyways thanks for listening to me I'm looking forward to this game as I really really enjoyed playing an Enchanter and have never found any other game with a class even remotely close to an Enchanter
Gruzzen
"I believe that End game zones should be instances."
I gotta disagree. Just my opinion/preference though.
As far as purposely training other guilds, I think GM's would step in at some point to address an issue like this. I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of code of conduct to help deter this.
Guilds intentionally preventing other guilds from experiencing content or progressing should be equivalent to exploiting a bug. IMO instances to balance fairness and/or eliminate healthy competition is not the solution.
Everyone is either for or against instances. Why not have combinations.
What about a combination of instance and non instanced play. I, personally, dislike instances as they make the game feel
less social to me. But I do understand that some people prefer certain content to be instanced to avoid griefing. So why not have no instances but rather
the ability to lock a zone. This could be handled however the devs feel it fits within their parameters. One of my favorite ideas was a pvp event where the reward was
one side could enter a dungeon that the other side would be locked out of for a certain period of time.
There are only so many GM's and millions of jerks that play MMO's. Having said that.... this is a veteran team of game makers. Some of these folks made and ran EQ 1. They totally understand the issue you bring up. Have faith that when it becomes an issue, someone will address it. Bad gaming experiences hurt the bottom line ($$$) and deter gamers from wanting to play your game. This team has been making games longer than some of you have been alive.
So I'm 100% against instancing, but not I'm 100% against an alternate to complete open world raid bosses. I liked the idea from the Stream of being locked in a room with the boss. I think some alternate ideas could be having bosses "summoned" of some sort. This was spitballing, so don't take it as I'm advocating this idea but its something to build on.
25 man raid. Raid boss is summoned at an alter. Atleast 20 of the people in the Raid must not have killed him with in 7 days. Think of it more as an event. I'd still want dragons wandering around the world but this would allow some alternative for people on a more rigid schedule. It would also prevent top tier guilds from completely blocking lower guilds from ever getting to raid. The event would still happen in the open world, maybe locked in a cave or such. This was my general idea.
Welcome to the forums Gruzzen :)
I wanted to give you some information which may (or may not) help alleviate your concerns.
First - Pantheon's "end game" has not yet been defined. The team has actually said many times that they don't want to take the same path as many other MMOs in this regard, where the paradigm is "level to cap and then go raiding". It's hard for us as players to view things any other way because it's what we've been taught by almost every game out there, including EQ, but it's entirely possible that Pantheon's "end game" will have us doing far different things than simply raiding.
Here's a short list of what we'll likely be doing at the level cap based on what we have been told so far:
- Extremely challenging single-group adventuring content
- Epic quest lines for weapons, armor, or ability upgrades
- Seeking out artifacts to enable access to more areas
- Participating in dynamic events that take place across the game world
- Raiding
As you can see, that's a bit different from what we might be used to in other games - even EQ. And that's not even taking into account the potential for dynamic events, perception-driven storylines, or faction-related interactions with different NPC groups.
Second, the developers have said these things specfically about raiding in Pantheon:
1) They want raiding to be something players do throughout the game, not just at high levels
2) They are focused primarily on single-group content. Raid content will be relatively light compared to other games at launch.
3) Raid content will consist of a mix of standalone encounters out in the world and raid-specific zones. The raid-specific zones will probably be where many high-level raiding targets are found, but not all.
3) For testing, they are looking at potential raid sizes of 12 and 24 right now. These numbers may change before launch however - they are not set in stone.
Third, you may not have meant to come across like this, but I want to say very specifically that guilds are and should be about FAR more than just enabling raiding :)
Anyway, your concerns about the content being available to everyone are something that the community has discussed a lot - and the simple truth is we're all still waiting for the devs to tell us how that will work, or at least to see it in Alpha/Beta so we can provide feedback. So far, they've said they don't want to instance entire zones, and they only would think about using instances in very specific situations if at all. Based on that, I doubt that we will ever see full instances, even for raid zones. However, that doesn't mean there aren't other solutions the devs could try. We're all waiting to see which ones they attempt.
Nephele said:Welcome to the forums Gruzzen :)
I wanted to give you some information which may (or may not) help alleviate your concerns.
First - Pantheon's "end game" has not yet been defined. The team has actually said many times that they don't want to take the same path as many other MMOs in this regard, where the paradigm is "level to cap and then go raiding". It's hard for us as players to view things any other way because it's what we've been taught by almost every game out there, including EQ, but it's entirely possible that Pantheon's "end game" will have us doing far different things than simply raiding.
Here's a short list of what we'll likely be doing at the level cap based on what we have been told so far:
- Extremely challenging single-group adventuring content
- Epic quest lines for weapons, armor, or ability upgrades
- Seeking out artifacts to enable access to more areas
- Participating in dynamic events that take place across the game world
- Raiding
As you can see, that's a bit different from what we might be used to in other games - even EQ. And that's not even taking into account the potential for dynamic events, perception-driven storylines, or faction-related interactions with different NPC groups.
Second, the developers have said these things specfically about raiding in Pantheon:
1) They want raiding to be something players do throughout the game, not just at high levels
2) They are focused primarily on single-group content. Raid content will be relatively light compared to other games at launch.
3) Raid content will consist of a mix of standalone encounters out in the world and raid-specific zones. The raid-specific zones will probably be where many high-level raiding targets are found, but not all.
3) For testing, they are looking at potential raid sizes of 12 and 24 right now. These numbers may change before launch however - they are not set in stone.
Third, you may not have meant to come across like this, but I want to say very specifically that guilds are and should be about FAR more than just enabling raiding :)
Anyway, your concerns about the content being available to everyone are something that the community has discussed a lot - and the simple truth is we're all still waiting for the devs to tell us how that will work, or at least to see it in Alpha/Beta so we can provide feedback. So far, they've said they don't want to instance entire zones, and they only would think about using instances in very specific situations if at all. Based on that, I doubt that we will ever see full instances, even for raid zones. However, that doesn't mean there aren't other solutions the devs could try. We're all waiting to see which ones they attempt.
I need to take some time and research what they've put out regarding end game. Alot of what you bring up here intrigues me greatly. Would love a new approach, for some reason because so many OG EQ devs are here I assumed it was an end game raid strategy and philosophy.
Raid bosses without instancing is just a damn problem though. I hate instancing but I see a purpose for it in raid boss content. Would I like the dev's to be smarter than me and find a solution that slips into a gray area of compromise I cant see? Absolutely, but I do see its value in that context. Like I said I need to dig into what they've put out about this now. There intentions seem right on point, cant wait to hear how they plan to execute it. Id love to see a new approach implemented, and implemented well.
Gruzzen said:Greetings all,
I know that this topic has been discussed before and that the Dev. have pretty much made a decision on Instances, which the last I heard there will be no instances ingame, but I wanted to add my own opinion so the Dev have something they can think about in case the no-instance policy doesn't work out as expected.
I believe that End game zones should be instances.
I've come to this conclusion from my experiences playing EQ and other free-for-all mmorpg games that did not have instances. What will happen is that the first 2 or 3 guilds that make it to end game will (at first) play nice with each other. Sharing the end game zones with each other i.e. Guild A does Zone 1 this week and Guild B does Zone 2 and next week they switch zones. Once you have 4 or 5 guilds wanting to do the end zones then peoples greed or impatience will win out and it will become cut-thoart. Training a guiild right before they do the encounter to wipe them and stealing the kill or a more powerful guild just running over the other guild who was there first but is still learning the zone. Heaven help you if there is a bottle-neck in the progression like having a guild have to farm keys to enter an end zone. The server I was on in EQ had Conquest and Seven Dreams in constant conflict over this. They hated each other. It poisoned the community overall and ruined the enjoyment for everyone.
My understanding is that in Pantheon guilds will be 25 man. Which mean once you get 100 people at end game the fireworks will start. A server with only 100-200 active players isn't very profitable for a gaming company to keep around let alone charge $15 dollars to play. Play in a hard core guild cause lots of people to burn-out and the guild needs to keep replacing players. Having a low population isn't going to allow that causing the hard-core players to give up when their guild can't raid like they want.
Finally while EverQuest did have lots of quest to do no one ever did them because to do them when the reward was design for your level meant that you had to get a group together and most people did not want to waste their time doing quest since they never got any gear out of it and it didn't produce as much xp as just camping during that same amount of time. This problem I don't know if I have a viable solution to it but i would suggest something like being able to share the quest with the group and the reward being a choice of one items between 3 to 5 that is appropriate for the level and can cover most class roles (healing, melee, magic, armor, range etc)
Anyways thanks for listening to me I'm looking forward to this game as I really really enjoyed playing an Enchanter and have never found any other game with a class even remotely close to an Enchanter
Gruzzen
I think the biggest problem with games like this, WoW, MMORPGS in general are "raid" encounters, they do nothing but breed frustration, trolling, afking, griefing, exploiting, etc etc etc etc etc etc... In my opinion Vanilla WoW and EQ1 etc were at their best when the groups were small "10" or less and the encounters were small and challenging. The whole "raid" concept has just added quantity to group size without adding additional quality which is why I would prefer they do not exist in any MMORPG.
Competition for content provides a unique benefit in that it greatly slows the rate of gear into the game. Instances increase the rate of gear introduced (ie the consumption of content, or rather the reason to consume it).
If you have a open world boss mob on a 7 day timer, and that boss mob drops lets say 3 items every time. That is only 3 items being introduced to the game each 7 days. So, in the course of a year that is roughly 50 items ((356 days / 7 )*3) = 150 items a year ). If you put an instance in for that boss and put it on a 7 day timer. The number of items that are introduced varies based on the number of guilds that go to take on that content. So, lets say you have 10 guilds on the server who are able to take on that boss. That is 30 items every 7 days introduced to the game, coming to a total of ((356 days / 7 )*30) = 1500 items introduced to the game each year.
Now keep in mind the instanced number will go up as it is directly attached to the number of guilds that do that instance.
Tanix said:Competition for content provides a unique benefit in that it greatly slows the rate of gear into the game. Instances increase the rate of gear introduced (ie the consumption of content, or rather the reason to consume it).
If you have a open world boss mob on a 7 day timer, and that boss mob drops lets say 3 items every time. That is only 3 items being introduced to the game each 7 days. So, in the course of a year that is roughly 50 items ((356 days / 7 )*3) = 150 items a year ). If you put an instance in for that boss and put it on a 7 day timer. The number of items that are introduced varies based on the number of guilds that go to take on that content. So, lets say you have 10 guilds on the server who are able to take on that boss. That is 30 items every 7 days introduced to the game, coming to a total of ((356 days / 7 )*30) = 1500 items introduced to the game each year.
Now keep in mind the instanced number will go up as it is directly attached to the number of guilds that do that instance.
Agreed and good point. Also, I feel something (immersion, significance, importance?) is lost from the game when you are in an 'instance' knowing twenty other guilds are running the exact same content about to kill the exact same boss.
I have played eq1 and eq2 since inception. If end game isn't instanced, there needs to be a different mitigation method to prevent farming guilds or sign up calendars for an all-clear date to do it. Even if the gear is no-trade, guilds will compete to farm it 4 days a week until every member's alt has the drop. Is that fun? I don't think so. This is why I never play end game anymore, I got sick of all the raiding for something I didn't even want. Maybe there needs to be a fixed limit on how many times a guild can raid a zone, to make people plan carefully who should get the drops. Active-time raid tokens as an economy sink maybe?
Tanix said:Competition for content provides a unique benefit in that it greatly slows the rate of gear into the game. Instances increase the rate of gear introduced (ie the consumption of content, or rather the reason to consume it).
If you have a open world boss mob on a 7 day timer, and that boss mob drops lets say 3 items every time. That is only 3 items being introduced to the game each 7 days. So, in the course of a year that is roughly 50 items ((356 days / 7 )*3) = 150 items a year ). If you put an instance in for that boss and put it on a 7 day timer. The number of items that are introduced varies based on the number of guilds that go to take on that content. So, lets say you have 10 guilds on the server who are able to take on that boss. That is 30 items every 7 days introduced to the game, coming to a total of ((356 days / 7 )*30) = 1500 items introduced to the game each year.
Now keep in mind the instanced number will go up as it is directly attached to the number of guilds that do that instance.
If you create a raid zone where 10 different guilds are able to kill the monster every week for a year you have failed.
More likely, guild 1 will achieve 45 kills.
Guilds 2 and 3 will achieve 40
The remaining guilds will struggle until they farm enough single group content to over gear the raid and be able to complete it with subpar playing.some guilds might get 25 kills. Some might get 10. Either way, it's not as simple as what you said.
And in all honestly, this method is better for the game as a whole than having 1 guild achieve 45 kills and the remaining 7 being split between the rest of the server. Because that's more likely to happen.
The chances that you'll have multiple guilds on a single server able to compete at endgame is unlikely.
Berek said:
I think the biggest problem with games like this, WoW, MMORPGS in general are "raid" encounters, they do nothing but breed frustration, trolling, afking, griefing, exploiting, etc etc etc etc etc etc... In my opinion Vanilla WoW and EQ1 etc were at their best when the groups were small "10" or less and the encounters were small and challenging. The whole "raid" concept has just added quantity to group size without adding additional quality which is why I would prefer they do not exist in any MMORPG.
Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure I understand. How does a raid encounter breed frustration, trolling, afking, griefing, exploiting etc etc... any more than regular group content. If raiding didnt exist the group content would be the endgame snd people would have the same mentality towards it.
Porygon said:Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure I understand. How does a raid encounter breed frustration, trolling, afking, griefing, exploiting etc etc... any more than regular group content. If raiding didnt exist the group content would be the endgame snd people would have the same mentality towards it.
Look at P1999 and the raiding scene on there. It's absolutely disgusting.
bigdogchris said:Porygon said:Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure I understand. How does a raid encounter breed frustration, trolling, afking, griefing, exploiting etc etc... any more than regular group content. If raiding didnt exist the group content would be the endgame snd people would have the same mentality towards it.
Look at P1999 and the raiding scene on there. It's absolutely disgusting.
Ok, you do know P99 is a emulator, right?
Do not compare any MMO, run by a professional game company to anything on an emulator.
Does anyone remember Trakanon and how much of a clusterf**** that was, especially when tied to Undead Bard (for epic). Trains and KS'ing for days...Pantheon will not be any different if there is not a way to gate end-game content. Even for non-raid content, if you look at how EQ TLP servers are now, everyone flocks to the best spot/camp/named etc and its perma-camped until it's not relevant content anymore. I understand that there will be 'other' places to go or rares to camp - but everyone wants the best spot whether it's exp or money, period. For leveling, its less of a big deal - but at level cap when the gear will actually matter...all the 'casual' players will quit not long after hitting max level. Casual players leaving the game would be catostrophic to the ongoing success of Pantheon.
I am not onboard for turning dungeons into the WoW-model at all, as I like leveling and that sort of environment (pre-level cap) to be open world. At max level, however, I would definitely prefer to everyone have a (fair) shot at hard/high level content - regardless if it's single group, or multigroup (raid) content. Gone are the days of "playing nice" and sharing raid zones. It's dog eat dog world at the end game nowadays.
If you create a raid zone where 10 different guilds are able to kill the monster every week for a year you have failed.
More likely, guild 1 will achieve 45 kills.
Guilds 2 and 3 will achieve 40
The remaining guilds will struggle until they farm enough single group content to over gear the raid and be able to complete it with subpar playing.some guilds might get 25 kills. Some might get 10. Either way, it's not as simple as what you said.
And in all honestly, this method is better for the game as a whole than having 1 guild achieve 45 kills and the remaining 7 being split between the rest of the server. Because that's more likely to happen.
This is very accurate, and I agree with Porygon here.
Fragile said:Does anyone remember Trakanon and how much of a clusterf**** that was, especially when tied to Undead Bard (for epic). Trains and KS'ing for days...Pantheon will not be any different if there is not a way to gate end-game content. Even for non-raid content, if you look at how EQ TLP servers are now, everyone flocks to the best spot/camp/named etc and its perma-camped until it's not relevant content anymore. I understand that there will be 'other' places to go or rares to camp - but everyone wants the best spot whether it's exp or money, period. For leveling, its less of a big deal - but at level cap when the gear will actually matter...all the 'casual' players will quit not long after hitting max level. Casual players leaving the game would be catostrophic to the ongoing success of Pantheon.
I am not onboard for turning dungeons into the WoW-model at all, as I like leveling and that sort of environment (pre-level cap) to be open world. At max level, however, I would definitely prefer to everyone have a (fair) shot at hard/high level content - regardless if it's single group, or multigroup (raid) content. Gone are the days of "playing nice" and sharing raid zones. It's dog eat dog world at the end game nowadays.
If you create a raid zone where 10 different guilds are able to kill the monster every week for a year you have failed.
More likely, guild 1 will achieve 45 kills.
Guilds 2 and 3 will achieve 40
The remaining guilds will struggle until they farm enough single group content to over gear the raid and be able to complete it with subpar playing.some guilds might get 25 kills. Some might get 10. Either way, it's not as simple as what you said.
And in all honestly, this method is better for the game as a whole than having 1 guild achieve 45 kills and the remaining 7 being split between the rest of the server. Because that's more likely to happen.
This is very accurate, and I agree with Porygon here.
Your correct "Casual players leaving the game would be catostrophic" they are the bread and butter of an MMO, better than 75% of the player base. The flaw in your logic is "casual" players like myself aren't going to be up there fighting for the end game bosses with the rush to end game high end guilds. We're going to be casually leveling at lvl 25, 35, or 45 rolling our eyes at the handful of people fighting like children over there toys.
This time instead of sitting on the sidelines shaking my head (most casual players don't pre fund games or spend time on the game web sites) i'm going to come to the Web site and say it. Grow up and play nice or go to your rooms without your supper! Do NOT ask that they compromise my gaming experience because you all can't share your toys.
Porygon said:Tanix said:Competition for content provides a unique benefit in that it greatly slows the rate of gear into the game. Instances increase the rate of gear introduced (ie the consumption of content, or rather the reason to consume it).
If you have a open world boss mob on a 7 day timer, and that boss mob drops lets say 3 items every time. That is only 3 items being introduced to the game each 7 days. So, in the course of a year that is roughly 50 items ((356 days / 7 )*3) = 150 items a year ). If you put an instance in for that boss and put it on a 7 day timer. The number of items that are introduced varies based on the number of guilds that go to take on that content. So, lets say you have 10 guilds on the server who are able to take on that boss. That is 30 items every 7 days introduced to the game, coming to a total of ((356 days / 7 )*30) = 1500 items introduced to the game each year.
Now keep in mind the instanced number will go up as it is directly attached to the number of guilds that do that instance.
If you create a raid zone where 10 different guilds are able to kill the monster every week for a year you have failed.
More likely, guild 1 will achieve 45 kills.
Guilds 2 and 3 will achieve 40
The remaining guilds will struggle until they farm enough single group content to over gear the raid and be able to complete it with subpar playing.some guilds might get 25 kills. Some might get 10. Either way, it's not as simple as what you said.
And in all honestly, this method is better for the game as a whole than having 1 guild achieve 45 kills and the remaining 7 being split between the rest of the server. Because that's more likely to happen.
The chances that you'll have multiple guilds on a single server able to compete at endgame is unlikely.
The point is that a lot more gear will enter the game than if it is contested and the idea that it will be too hard for most is silly. With todays "how to raid "videos detailing every aspect of the fight, yes... many people will more quickly beat the content.
In my example, the amount of gear let into the world is not contingent on the number of guilds that try, it is a consistent to the spawn and drop rate which is completely controlled.
This is why it meant something to have raid gear in EQ and why in WoW the gear was common. The math speaks for itself regardless as there can only be 3 items per 7 days released into the game while in your example, it is a variable to which you can only speculate.
Fragile said:Does anyone remember Trakanon and how much of a clusterf**** that was, especially when tied to Undead Bard (for epic). Trains and KS'ing for days...Pantheon will not be any different if there is not a way to gate end-game content. Even for non-raid content, if you look at how EQ TLP servers are now, everyone flocks to the best spot/camp/named etc and its perma-camped until it's not relevant content anymore. I understand that there will be 'other' places to go or rares to camp - but everyone wants the best spot whether it's exp or money, period. For leveling, its less of a big deal - but at level cap when the gear will actually matter...all the 'casual' players will quit not long after hitting max level. Casual players leaving the game would be catostrophic to the ongoing success of Pantheon.
I am not onboard for turning dungeons into the WoW-model at all, as I like leveling and that sort of environment (pre-level cap) to be open world. At max level, however, I would definitely prefer to everyone have a (fair) shot at hard/high level content - regardless if it's single group, or multigroup (raid) content. Gone are the days of "playing nice" and sharing raid zones. It's dog eat dog world at the end game nowadays.
If you create a raid zone where 10 different guilds are able to kill the monster every week for a year you have failed.
More likely, guild 1 will achieve 45 kills.
Guilds 2 and 3 will achieve 40
The remaining guilds will struggle until they farm enough single group content to over gear the raid and be able to complete it with subpar playing.some guilds might get 25 kills. Some might get 10. Either way, it's not as simple as what you said.
And in all honestly, this method is better for the game as a whole than having 1 guild achieve 45 kills and the remaining 7 being split between the rest of the server. Because that's more likely to happen.
This is very accurate, and I agree with Porygon here.
You could always put in a raid schedule where guilds sign up and go into a rotation. EQ's Stormhammer did this, as well as some of the production servers did this as well where guilds setup rotation schedules and everyone abided by them.
On Stormhammer, the GMs would setup testing events for the guilds where they had to defeat a top raid mob in each teir of content. If they beat that mob, they got put into a rotation each week. It actually worked very well, but at that time EQ had been out a while and there was quite a bit of raid content out of multiple tiers.
Past that, putting in instances will only greatly increase the loot into the game which then defeats the concept and feel of rare and worthy gear to which early EQ had.
Tanix said:
You could always put in a raid schedule where guilds sign up and go into a rotation. EQ's Stormhammer did this, as well as some of the production servers did this as well where guilds setup rotation schedules and everyone abided by them.
On Stormhammer, the GMs would setup testing events for the guilds where they had to defeat a top raid mob in each teir of content. If they beat that mob, they got put into a rotation each week. It actually worked very well, but at that time EQ had been out a while and there was quite a bit of raid content out of multiple tiers.
Past that, putting in instances will only greatly increase the loot into the game which then defeats the concept and feel of rare and worthy gear to which early EQ had.
Bertox did this too. We had a calendar and you signed up for which day you wanted a Plane, but it was only for planes. World bosses were a first come first serve. It worked well because people actually cared about their reputation because the community could actually do something about it, via black listing. Yeah the top guild on a server could sneak in and kill something, but atleast on ours they typically didn't. If a guild had the Plane reserved that night and couldn't kill a God, most guilds couldn't, the top 1 or 2 guilds would come in afterwards and kill it.
I still think a better solution for raid content is to have most the bosses "summoned" via a trigger and it checks the raid to ensure a certain percent of the raid hasn't killed that boss in 7, 14, 30 days whatever. Not every boss, but say "gods" or some events. This would allow guilds that aren't in that 1% to get some raid content while other raid content that is on a normal kill timer is random and free for all.
Something else to consider is that MMOs over the last 10 years has turned even casual gamers into part time raiders. I don't know if you can recondition them to accept never being able to encounter raid content. I think there should be different tiers of content so that these people still have something to work for. You have to consider how gaming has changed and even with making a more... old school... style MMO I think you need to consider some alterations.