FeenixServerProject/Phoenix_1.12_Bugtracker — Issue #556: Meeting Stone - Lore & how should work
Author: Aleksandru
Created: 2012-01-21 10:24:36+00:00
State: open

Patch 1.7.0 (2005-09-22):

You will no longer be kicked from the meeting stone queue when a player declines a group invite or when inviting someone that is already in a group.
You will now be informed that you have left the meeting stone queue when the group leader logs out.
Tanks and Healers will now be immediately added to the group by the meeting stone when they are the 5th member of the group.
You can now be added to a group by the meeting stone when that group contains characters that have disconnected.

Patch 1.6.0 (2005-07-12): Players now receive an error message if they try to join a meeting stone queue and are in a raid or are not the party leader.
Patch 1.5.0 (2005-06-07):

Innkeepers around the world now have a gossip option that lets you join a meeting stone directly from the innkeeper rather than going to the location of the meeting stone. Also these Innkeepers will now have background lore about each of the dungeons.
Levels Required for meeting stones have been increased. The intent is that a group will not receive party members from a meeting stone that don't really have a chance of completing the dungeon.
Meeting Stones have had their rules for what players are grouped with what other players relaxed. This means groups who use meeting stones (or innkeepers) should have their groups formed much more quickly than they were previously.

Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07): Meeting Stones added.

source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Meeting_Stone

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As a player who is relatively new to the dungeon-running scene, the Summoning Stones might be somewhat of a mystery.
The History Of The Meeting / Summoning Stone

Originally, there was no LFG channel and no LFG tool. Players signed themselves up as "looking for group" by stopping by a Meeting Stone located outside a dungeon instance portal, and that Meeting Stone would notify them when others were also looking for a group.

It was terribly inconvenient, and thus the system wasn't used very much.

At some point, the player population created the LFG channel themselves and proliferated the idea through the World of Warcraft Forums. Eventually Blizzard took the channel over as part of the LFG/LFM tool we know of today.
How The Meeting Stone / Summoning Stone Works

These days, the Meeting Stones are now Summoning Stones which can be used to gather your party together more quickly in order to enter an instance.

With two members of the party at the stone, the rest of the party can be summoned there, provided a few simple requirements are met:

* Player starting the summon is an appropriate level for this dungeon
* Player receiving the summon is an appropriate level for this dungeon
What These Requirements Mean

In short, if a player is too high level for the summoning stone, they cannot START nor RECEIVE a summon, but they can JOIN IN to assist someone else who has started a summon.

And also, if your character is a little on the low side, you might face the same restriction - you cannot start nor receive a summon, either!

This is important information to know if you are halfway across the world and don't want to hold up your group from starting.
What Determines "Too High/Low" Of Level?

Blizzard specifies appropriate usage ranges of the stones. Unfortunately, as game mechanics have been changed to make leveling through the lower levels faster, these summoning stone values have not been updated to match.

The stone values go roughly along the same lines as the LFG level requirements. Therefore, if you go into the /lfg tool and look at what Dungeons you can select in the drop-down, that should give you a list of stones you are within proper level range for.

Note, however - if you're at the very bottom or very top end of the range for that dungeon, you may be out of luck.

source: http://wowgrrl.com/2008/10/23/how-things-work-summoning-stones/