Tell me how it was grandpa...

Particulary, I'm interested in hearing about the old Hami raids and why people feel the new Hami is gimicky. I never had the chance to experience one as I was farm from level 50 when the changes were instated. From my understanding the new Hami is a bit easier and more forgiving on the AT's that can participate.

But what was it like back then... when you had to walk up hill both ways in the snow for a Hami-O?

Well... see, that's the thing. We didn't. We didn't have to slog through endless yellow deaths, tp, rez, repeat. There were deaths, certainly, and there was griefing... but...

I think what I miss most about the old Hami raids was that you could pretty much set yourself on autofire halfway through the event, and just chat like a maniac with 100+ of your closest server friends. The social aspect is what seems quite missing, at least when I've done it. With only 50 people in the zone, for one thing, you're all having to really run around doing that walking uphill both ways.

Everyone could get their shots in, and as long as everyone (or most everyone) paid attention to the raid leader and their team coordination people, everyone got their hamiO with reasonable ease and lack of debt.

Plus it was something that could pretty much be done at the drop of a hat - "HAMI RAID! COME GET IT!" and anyone with a 45+ on the server could show up. Now, with the limit... not so much.

I dunno, I think it's just a kind of disappointing replacement difficulty for something that was pretty much a hilarious social gathering.

The old Hamidon was a frikkin' mess. I know people always tout the social aspects, but for me it always sounded like a bunch of 12-year-old telling UR MOM jokes for four hours straight. I'd have turned off my Broadcast if it weren't important to hear the leaders' chat.

And the event itself was absurdly boring if you're not one of the designated few. I brought a Scrapper, so I spent half the time sitting on my hands and half the time lagging out. Literally sitting on my hands. "OK, everyone who doesn't have a hold, just stand back and wait." Yeah, great gaming there.

And with a bazillion people, the lag was epic. Not only did my system grind to a halt even with all the graphics turned down, but the server slowed down, as well. I couldn't see the Hamidon, I couldn't see our effects, I couldn't see more than 20 people (out of 200), powers on a 5-second recharge took a minute to recharge and I essentially spent the last quarter to half of the battle just staring at my combat tab, waiting to see system messages that a power had recharged so I could click it. If there's anything more boring, I don't know what it is.

And to top it all off, not only did people rush out to nuke as many Hamidon Buds as they could (good thing the Hamidon Enhancement were no longer given out by these) but as the raid people stood back in the now empty Hamidon crater, swapping their spoils, someone thought it was very funny to start dragging Monsters into the pit, thus preventing people from trading. And not just a monster or two, mind you. I left after we took down five and had five more coming. I left with most of the raid, in fact.

There was NOTHING about the old raid that I could describe as good. At all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

What I remember is:

Regen Scrappers ruled!

You could get 2 and sometimes 3 Hammi-Os per run.

That was all good stuff. I have 4 kids, so it not being organized didn't bother me any.

Old and new Hamidon are personal experiences so you can't really just "say". This is based on which server, factionside and time you run on. Anyone who plays odd hours, servers with little interest, or lower populations may not enjoy it as much if they have feel they are hitting a brick wall on succeeding with marginal deaths.

Though honestly, I have no idea what most servers do. Virtue runs it as often as three times a week for each factionside, sometimes back to back. It's usually around or under an hour. I've seen many current raids without deaths because experienced groups prepare teleporters. I've seen raids with massive wipes.. because we're just ******* around. Once, we had a nine minute raid from our departure at the rock to completion.

My personal opinion as someone who just attended the old raids and helped organize the new ones on my server.. I'm biased. I prefer the new ones. They're more engaging but we still have time to chat. I've see teams that take pride in their individual functions; many giving themselves team nicknames and bantering with the other teams in broadcast.

Wouldn't mind seeing something new one day. Maybe with an option for folks who enjoy different things or have different means at their disposal? Say you're on a low population, odd hour playschedule and can only ever rustle up 3 teams... versus a high population server that runs back to back to accomodate two sets of 50 each.. a "choose your own adventure" Hami. Same game but like a TF challenge window, you select your foe based off how many players you set the zone to. It would be an amended strategy, same-ish glob, for each group size. I'm rambling. At any rate, goshdarn that nuke raid was fun.

Think of all the work you put into your costumes, yeah? Now throw that all out the window, because if you're not wearing a Hamikini to a raid, you would be torn a new one. Hamikini's were the most stripped down costumes possible. NOTHING EXTRA. So picture a ton of people in leotards doing all the lame UR MOM jokes, and that is my update to the above. Since raids needed so many people, there was LESS of a chance for chatter or camaraderie in my opinion. I did it once for the sake of doing it.

I've had pretty negative experiences on subsequent raids, too, so I'm pretty much done with them.

Old Hami I could just show up and be a part of the raid.

New one needs planning...planning that I usually miss so I never get to go.


I understand why they changed it, but I am in the camp of missing the old raid, if for nothing else than the social aspect.


You don't get nearly as much chatter on the Ship raids.

The old Hami raids allowed for more people in the zone, but not everyone has a supercomputer able to handle that many without lag.

The new one allows for less, if no griefing at all. Back when I was on Champion, there were three individuals (they worked separately AFAIK), who would grief the raids of old. There were many ways to do it. Taunting near the empaths, luring giant monsters, et al

I went to several of the old hami raids. If I was playing and one was announced, I was there. Sure, it was a mess. But it was a FUN mess.

The new one? I think I've been to one - maybe two - since the new version went live.

The old raids were tedious, mindless crap. At least the new ones require some measure of organization and thinking to execute. I couldn't stand the old ones even though they gave out the only real shiny in the game back then.

The new ones are a heck of a lot better.

I had forgotten about the Hami buds. These were the things that used to drop the HamiOs. So you'd get, like, Assault/Traps blasters or whatever stacking piles of mines and queuing up their Novas before Hami died. So there would be a brief lull as people prepared to ninja the loot, and then this huge lag spike just as Hami went down.

And you would have NOTHING.

And some blaster, or otherwise, elsewhere would have a half-tray of HamiOs.

Now that I think about it, I think I did several raids before tiring. Mental block and all.

I miss the old Hami Raids. It was alot easier to have a Hamidon Raid for your super group since you do not need as many specific power sets. You could have one tanker, a few empaths and a team of Illusion controllers and you were good to go. The old Hamidon Raids were something an entire SG could do as a group and in my honest opinion the game needs more of that.

As for the new Hamidon Raids, there have their place as well. It takes a greater amount of strategy, which can be a good thing. They are alot quicker than the old Hamidon Raids.

If I remember correctly, when they announced the new Hamidon Raid set up, there was talk that the encounter was intended to be fluid and would change so that players would have to come up with a new strategy.

I gotta say, my first Hami Raid (old style) is easily one of my top 3 CoX moments. Scores and scores of us gathered in the round plaza in FF (where Infernal is) and the leaders started organizing into teams. Then they gave the GO command, and everyone headed out. Superjumping through Eden, I looked down and saw dozens of speedsters tearing trails across the landscape. Fellow SJers rose and fell, bounding through the sky, and overhead where flocks and flocks of flyers. It was SO DAMN EPIC and it really did have the nervous, excited vibe like we were headed off to war.

The new raids are still fun- not quite so epic- but not quite so laggy either. Still, squatting a spot in Hive 1 is a hassle and a half.

I'll give you a bit of background on it.

The old Hami event had problems, we all knew that. Most of us didn't participate in Hami raids, though, so we only knew about it via bug reports, datamining and second hand observation. One day, I wandered into Pohsyb's office while he was on one of these events. I talked with him and watched for half an hour, all the while he floated up near the zone ceiling dropping Phantom Army down onto Hami, along side 2 or 3 other Illusion controllers. That was his job...it was boring.

After that, I started paying more attention to the Hami event and how it was run and I realized the entire event was like that -- aberrant playstyle atop aberrant playstyle. I decided that, at some point, we should really do something about it.

Nothing happened, though. I never got a clear idea of what *should* be done to improve it, and it sort of languished in that state...until BABs was hired.

He was a veteran Hami-raider, and had definite ideas of how to make a better raid. He campaigned for production to put time in the schedule to revise the event, and eventually got it. Then he, myself, Ghost Falcon and a few others (I don't actually recall who all was involved at the time, Posi may have been, Pohsyb, too, maybe even geko...but I don't remember) sat down in a series of meetings and hashed out BABs design. The end result was the new event.

I can certainly understand the feelings of the folks who miss the social aspect of the old raid. It's similar to me missing the social aspect of EQ's camp a spot gameplay. It wasn't fun, but it gave you plenty of time to meet new people and to socialize, and in many ways, that's what these games are for.

Is this still the basic strategy for the New Hami Raid?

Step 1. Wipe out all the mitos!
Step 2. Attack Hami! At 75% health, the mitos respawn.

Step 3. Wipe out all the mitos again!
Step 4. Attack Hami! At 50% health, the mitos respawn.

Step 5. Wipe out all the mitos again!
Step 6. Attack Hami! At 25% health, the mitos respawn.

Step 7. Wipe out all the mitos AGAIN!
Step 8. Attack Hami! Win! 52 merits or a random Hami-O. Whee.

...am I the only one who's had fun with both the old and new style Hami raids...?