IDOC Madness

DOC - In danger of collapsing. Every now and then, a deserted house in Britannia would collapse. The house sign would display the state of the home, and usually these "IDOC" events would end up to be a gigantic run for items. I always wondered where people would store all that loot, and especially what they'd do with it. I personally tried to get rid of stuff, rather then accumulate more of the dead freight.
Out of curiosity, I decided to participate in two popular IDOC events. The first one was quite rare, as it concerned a house in Luna. Luna houses were the object of everyone's desire, as being able to place vendors in Luna would yield many times the profit as placing vendors someplace else. The reason was simple: Somebody regularly parsed all vendors in Luna and displayed all items that were for sale on a website. This made shopping quite efficient. Everybody was able to find the wares he desired. Thus, item prices in Luna vendors were much higher than anywhere else.

A lot of people had gathered at the collapsing house, waiting patiently for it to fall. When suddenly the house collapsed and all the items inside dropped to the ground for anybody to pick up, hundreds of players, pack horses and blue beetles rushed towards it. I tried my luck, but despite of the large number of items falling to the ground I wasn't able to pick up anything. Others were much faster. After the last chest and the last item was cleared from the ground, the next phase of the event started: The attempt to place a new house there. It would take a random amount of time (up to 2 hours) before a new house could be placed in that spot. So people waited and camped, trying their luck on one of the most desirable real estates in Britannia. A house in this location would be worth several 100 million gold coins...

A few days later, a guild had organized the so-called "Blunt Logic Giveaway". A keep, filled to the rim with items and checks, would be taken down in a big event. Hundreds of people had gathered, waiting for the signal, waiting for those treasures to hit the ground. When the clock stroke 10, the keep was demolished. Due to the insane amount of items and players, everybody froze to the ground for around 30 seconds before they could move again. Then the madness began!

A wiggling, whirling, twisting mass of bodies and animals crawled in a large bulk across the ground, and literally within seconds every item had been picked up and stored into backpacks and beasts of burden. I only managed to pick up a Melisande's Corroded Hatchet and a check of 100,000 gold coins. However, I wasn't here for the items anyway, but more out of curiosity and to study the behavior of people.

02/2009

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