Summoning.
The process by which more "powerful" mobs instantly warp a player to them if the player is too far away for the mob to engage at melee range.
If you play EQ beyond about level 30 or so, you experience this mob ability and soon find yourself having to be able to cope with it.
Sony devs use summoning somewhat judiciously. (Somewhat!) Not all mobs can summon. Most bosses and mini-bosses, do, but not all. So-called "trash" mobs do and do not summon.. "depending." To allow kiting classes to do their thang, some kite-able mobs, especially animals, do not summon.
Usually a mob has to be damaged before they can summon, thus allowing pullers to practice their craft. There are very rare mobs that "summon at 100%", a design intended obviously to deny the puller the ability to get the mob away from his spawn point. This is used instead of rooting or leashing the mob, other options for devs to ensure that mobs are fought where they live.
It's interesting that mobs capable of summoning will do it even if they're grey to the player. Which means that if a high-level player has a damage shield on and gets hit by a mob while just running thru a zone he could find himself getting repeatedly summoned by trash. This can get real annoying if a pack of summon-capable mobs is aggro'd onto a high-level since despite the pack's total incapacity to hurt the player one whit the constant "chain summoning" can lead to the need to wipe out the pack just to get where you're going!
There is a timing to summoning, meaning that a mob only summons once every "x" seconds. Not sure if this is hard-coded or varies mob to mob, I've never tested it. This means that in the above-described scenario, or even when being summoned by an XP-level mob, it's possible to "run away" from a series of summons and actually make your way to a zone-out, if you can survive the hits that follow being summoned.
I'm not sure if summoning goes back to the beginning of EQ. Anyone remember? Certainly in the classic game nothing summoned short of raid encounters. Dragons also were designed as "belly casters", meaning you could not land a spell on them unless you were within melee range---of their belly, I guess. I guess this was instituted to avoid having to have dragons summon each attacking caster in raid force every time they got to the top of the hate list. Basically, that IS the way summoning works. If you're fighting solo it makes no difference. If you're in a group, then that's why it's critical for a tank to be good at "holding agro" since the moment a different group member tops the hate list, if he's not in melee range of the mob, he shall be summoned.
An elite kyv hunter says 'You will not evade me Sippin!'
You have been summoned!
It's jarring that every damn mob in the game that can summon uses this same refrain. C'mon, they ALL say the same thing, even animals?
In Omens of War summoning really became over-used with every trash mob in these zones not only running routinely at sow+ speeds but being able to summon. Clearly this was the low point in EQ history for kiting classes. I think the devs realized afterwards that kiters need love too and nowadays you can find trash mobs as high as 102 that don't summon. (I should know, I've killed them in mobs of 18 in one kite, lol.)
AFAIK summoning is exclusive to EQ. (If I'm wrong here, once again enlighten me.) WoW coped with this issue basically by not allowing players to outrun mobs, and if a player does manage to get far away the mob just loses interest and runs away itself. Plus there is no long-term snare spell in WoW, at least not the last time I played, making it all the more impossible to mass-kite.
Bottom line, while summoning has its annoying side, I'd vote to retain it since the only way to dispense with summoning would be to make changes that in my mind would hurt the game a lot. Such as eliminating, or greatly reducing, abilities at running fast, snaring, rooting, casting-at-a-distance, etc.
When I sat down to write this post I Googled a bit to see if I could discover if summoning goes back to "Day One" in EQ. I didn't find anything there but I did stumble on a post by Delbaeth from June 2nd on the Sony EQ forums where he nominates Summoning for the "Worst of Everquest Award", in terms of how it's jarring and "immersion-breaking." I guess it could be called that. But I think we've had it so long that it doesn't break my immersion into the game... what about you guys?
He mentions FEIGN DEATH as another "nominee". Many's the time during a long in-game camp in a group with a monk, necro or SK (nowadays add bard, beastlord and the rare shaman---or, heck, nowadays any class using that pricey new potion!) I've made the same argument offered by Delbaeth, that how come every mob in the game, no matter how smart or cunning, will fall for the "clever" ploy of falling down and pretending to be dead? And how come they don't take another swing with their axe to make sure of the job? Or, in the case of mob animals, start feeding on the "corpse"? LOL
Ironically, there are animals in nature who feign death successfully. IMO feign death isn't close to as contrived as summoning. But that's a separate discussion that I'd be happy to engage in!
Edited, Jun 11th 2014 9:21am by Sippin