Growler

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While I agree the distrubtion system is abusable, I honestly don't think the nature of the encounter is a problem.

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The nature of the encounter excludes people with poor connections, or people with computers unable to handle the number of people around them in a Hamidon raid, or people with non-standard playtimes, or people who, simply, find large scale PvE raids unfun. Since nothing else in the game currently has value (influence is essentially worthless), those will be left without any in-game mean of obtaining Hamidon enhancement.

Furthermore, pointing out to the low number of Hamidon raids that have happened recently or the number of people currently needed for one is beside the point in the long run. Since Hami raids have been proven to be feasible, the number of raids organized has exploded. That number will continue to grow for a while. Meanwhile, tactics will get refined, and the number of people needed will drop. I probably won't drop much below 50 or so people however, which still will exclude a lot of players.

In other, unrelated news (yeah, right), the first offers of sale of Hamidon enhancements for real world money have appeared. I wonder how long it will take for the professional farmers to show up.

CoH up till now had avoided a lot of the unpleasantness of other mmog by being essentially loot free. Introducing "must have" loot at this point is a very bad idea on a lot of levels. PvP is one, but only one, of the aspects of the game that will be negatively affected by it.

The fact that said loot is awarded in only one encounter in the game, and that its method of distribution is ridiculously easy to abuse makes things even worse.