The Original Darkfall. I'm not sure which raid I was in that was the largest but some of the sieges I attended hand hundreds of players fighting each other. Was pretty crazy to see the arrows and magic from that many players flying back and forth. Was even crazier with the swords came out and you found yourself in the midst of an all out melee brawl.
I think however, the common misconception of "size doesn't matter" ( ) has an exception here to prove the rule... devs can build much better raids around a tighter group. My favourite raids are in AoC and LotRO, both games use 24-man raid groups.
Open world: if you count dancing and cheering and music as raid activity, then near 900 on Weatherstock two years ago Since the new hardware is nowhere near the state they promised it will be, most likely that number won't be beaten soon...
If you want combat only, and not on spreadheets like E(ve)xcel then somewhere on the lower hundreds, either in CoH or in LotRO back in the days, when dev spawned dragons onto Bree... (again, not likely to beat those numbers soon, last time when they did something like that, a balrog attack maybe 2 years ago, the cap was not lifted, so the layers were limited to 100 players at a time).
EQ again, bunch of Magicians decided to get together and raid PoS for their epic quests over a weekend. Numbers varied between 150 and 200 over the event.
DAoC had some well organised raids to take relic keeps with a number of guilds joining forces for the glory of Albion. 200+ probably, although it was a bit hard to tell, what with all the lag
Planetside. 300 players on a map all flying aircraft, driving tanks and storming bases. Awesome sauce!
These were MMO's, MASSIVELY multiplayer, not the weak sauce wanna be shite we mostly get today.
In terms of formal raids (as in, maximum group size) then 24
In terms of informal raids (people working together towards a formal goal) then a few hundred in both SWG and WAR. SWG was rare, but remember there was a server event hosted by an Empire guild (KDS) and the GMs spawned in some AT-ATs. Pretty much entire server turned up!
In WAR towards launch, large scale pvp was common. First fortress fight we killed the server, probs 400+ trying to take part.
Raids of 50+ people were pretty common in EQ. Even on p99 we saw raids that size. On the PvP server there were multiple guilds in an alliance that contested us and we'd often see 50 players on each side contesting raid mobs. Was pretty epic.
Yup our eq guild had full house of 72 in many raids. Then there were the special raids where several guilds got together. Like the 10th ring war where two not top guild teamed up and helped each other, or a server first Seru raid with almost 200 players. Also a gm event, back when that happened, something about thousands of skeletons invading) although I spent most of the time disconnecting due to zone could not handle the amount of players, that must have been over 500 in commonlands.
Oh I almost forgot (I did not attend only saw the screenshots, they seem to have disappeared from the web): Gnome stacking where 100s of gnomes build a tower of gnomes .. naked lvl 1 gnomes, I still have nightmares about this.
In Eve Online, I remember blockading a system for a whole week to catch Red Alliance ships iirc. At some point, one guy started singing. I vaguely remember this blockade was there just prior to a huge assault on their systems (with huge fleets).
Getting the Raid call, racing there and having minutes to set up because next guild in line is also doing it. Being trained by the other guild that is waiting and the euro guilds who want the spawn timer for their prime play time. Getting 50+ people to work together......Best times raiding evah.
If we're including world events then bump my number to 600 thanks to the wacky players of EVE that are capable of deciphering hidden messages inside of minutes and mobilizing in the hundreds on a moment's notice.
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Off hand, I can't think of any situation where I was ever in a group of more than 5 players for PVE. Between WoW, Champions Online, Neverwinter, and Guild Wars 2, I've been in hundreds of groups of exactly 5. If you count henchmen/heroes, it goes up to 8 for Guild Wars 1, though the most players I recall ever having in my group there is 3. There might be a situation that I'm forgetting, but it probably wasn't much larger than 5.
For PVP, when I played Infantry, the Mechanized Skirmish zone went as high as 50 players on each side. I didn't really think of that as raiding, though.
I don't think I've ever played a game with a raiding mechanic where I could just log on when I wanted and go raiding without having to schedule my life around the raiding times. And that's something I'm absolutely not willing to do, especially for a raiding mechanic that doesn't sound terribly interesting on paper.
My biggest raids were in Planetside which usually entailed 200-300 people. No NPC was ever harmed and I didn't have to remember any type of boss mechanic other than to make sure I wasn't ran over by a mag mower. Elite outfits always made for the best "boss" battles in my opinion.
My biggest raids were in Planetside which usually entailed 200-300 people. No NPC was ever harmed and I didn't have to remember any type of boss mechanic other than to make sure I wasn't ran over by a mag mower. Elite outfits always made for the best "boss" battles in my opinion.
There was a player limit of 650 on each continent, and no more than 350 for a single faction. On contested continents the goal was always to get over 325, because there was no stopping you if you did that!
And I was one of those Mag mowers!
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Tuscarin Glacier raids in DAoC , early on when we would clear it to kill the king and queen, we often had 60-100 people . Those raids often took 6-8 hours . I don't have the time to raid these days though.
Kerafyrm the Sleeper, 200 strong raid incorporating three guilds. Unfortunately SOE pull the plug when he was down to 30ish (can't remember exactly) because they thought it was an exploit.
Anyway he was bought down the next day but i couldn't get online because of my dial up lol.
I think my biggest raids were in EQ, but I wasn't counting. I recall tagging along for a Velious dungeon called Crystal Cavers. There were these icy circular ramps leading up to an icy bridge. They were all slippery and easy to fall off of. The bridge had a gap that everyone had to jump over and if someone miss jumped they would fall to their death. It was a pretty nasty raid in terms of just getting to the monster you wanted to fight.
I think my biggest raids were in EQ, but I wasn't counting. I recall tagging along for a Velious dungeon called Crystal Cavers. There were these icy circular ramps leading up to an icy bridge. They were all slippery and easy to fall off of. The bridge had a gap that everyone had to jump over and if someone miss jumped they would fall to their death. It was a pretty nasty raid in terms of just getting to the monster you wanted to fight.
You mean Crystal Caverns, i spent many days in that zone and Dragon Necropolis. I think you are getting mixed up Crystal Caverns with Velketor Labybrinth which had the icy floor.
I think my biggest raids were in EQ, but I wasn't counting. I recall tagging along for a Velious dungeon called Crystal Cavers. There were these icy circular ramps leading up to an icy bridge. They were all slippery and easy to fall off of. The bridge had a gap that everyone had to jump over and if someone miss jumped they would fall to their death. It was a pretty nasty raid in terms of just getting to the monster you wanted to fight.
You mean Crystal Caverns, i spent many days in that zone and Dragon Necropolis. I think you are getting mixed up Crystal Caverns with Velketor Labybrinth which had the icy floor.
I think you may be right, but I remember it had spiders like Crystal Caverns. I guess both of those areas had spiders in them. Most of the time I stayed near the entrance. For some reason I remember Crystal Caverns. Maybe I just liked the name better so it stuck with me.
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Was part of this. Total lagfest though. Alliance lost the shore.
I think however, the common misconception of "size doesn't matter" (
Open world: if you count dancing and cheering and music as raid activity, then near 900 on Weatherstock two years ago
If you want combat only, and not on spreadheets like E(ve)xcel
DAoC had some well organised raids to take relic keeps with a number of guilds joining forces for the glory of Albion. 200+ probably, although it was a bit hard to tell, what with all the lag
Planetside. 300 players on a map all flying aircraft, driving tanks and storming bases. Awesome sauce!
These were MMO's, MASSIVELY multiplayer, not the weak sauce wanna be shite we mostly get today.
In terms of informal raids (people working together towards a formal goal) then a few hundred in both SWG and WAR. SWG was rare, but remember there was a server event hosted by an Empire guild (KDS) and the GMs spawned in some AT-ATs. Pretty much entire server turned up!
In WAR towards launch, large scale pvp was common. First fortress fight we killed the server, probs 400+ trying to take part.
Then there were the special raids where several guilds got together. Like the 10th ring war where two not top guild teamed up and helped each other, or a server first Seru raid with almost 200 players.
Also a gm event, back when that happened, something about thousands of skeletons invading) although I spent most of the time disconnecting due to zone could not handle the amount of players, that must have been over 500 in commonlands.
Oh I almost forgot (I did not attend only saw the screenshots, they seem to have disappeared from the web): Gnome stacking where 100s of gnomes build a tower of gnomes .. naked lvl 1 gnomes, I still have nightmares about this.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
This is clip of my biggest raid that i have joined
In Eve Online, I remember blockading a system for a whole week to catch Red Alliance ships iirc. At some point, one guy started singing. I vaguely remember this blockade was there just prior to a huge assault on their systems (with huge fleets).
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
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World Event - Quest thingy - Ring War (Giants v. Dwarves), 200+ in original EQ
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
For PVP, when I played Infantry, the Mechanized Skirmish zone went as high as 50 players on each side. I didn't really think of that as raiding, though.
I don't think I've ever played a game with a raiding mechanic where I could just log on when I wanted and go raiding without having to schedule my life around the raiding times. And that's something I'm absolutely not willing to do, especially for a raiding mechanic that doesn't sound terribly interesting on paper.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
And I was one of those Mag mowers!
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Most people turned off nameplates - but there's always one :-)
Anyway he was bought down the next day but i couldn't get online because of my dial up lol.
It was not good at all.
This have been a good conversation
You mean Crystal Caverns, i spent many days in that zone and Dragon Necropolis. I think you are getting mixed up Crystal Caverns with Velketor Labybrinth which had the icy floor.
Thanks