Dolalin
05-04-2020, 08:10 AM
So, a few months ago I dug up a very cool spreadsheet from January 2000 with mob counts and levels/hp in each vanilla zone. I suspected at the time this may prove very handy for determining what the relative population of each area's newbie zones should be.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348523
https://web.archive.org/web/20010614090653/http://www.eqic.net:80/downloads/Zone-NPC-List-Level.zip
The sheet was released here on January 15th 2000:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000621024120/http://www.k2.org/main.htm
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In summary, Nek forest has way too many decaying skeletons. There must be dozens roaming around. It also probably has too few regular skeletons, it does not seem like there are 20 of them up at a time, but I also don't have ShowEQ running so I can't be sure :)
The spreadsheet's newbie mob counts are the following for nektulos (count is 0-based):
Zone NPC # hp- hp+ lvl- lvl+
nektulos a_black_wolf 8 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_decaying_skeleton 6 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_moss_snake 12 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_spiderling 27 20 52 1 3
nektulos a_large_spider 10 28 68 2 4
nektulos a_fire_beetle 19 32 32 2 2
nektulos a_black_bear 8 50 90 3 5
nektulos a_shadow_wolf 12 50 90 3 5
nektulos a_skeleton 19 80 120 4 6
nektulos a_tree_snake 17 80 120 4 6
nektulos Neophyte_Edel 0 85 85 4 4
nektulos Neophyte_Hazel 0 85 85 4 4
nektulos Initiate_Rambel 0 115 115 5 5
nektulos Bink 0 195 195 6 6
nektulos Himmel 0 170 235 7 8
nektulos Initiate_Umbra 0 187 189 7 7
nektulos Snitch 0 146 146 8 8
nektulos Initiate_Pool 0 209 209 8 8
nektulos Quester_Dunden 0 162 162 9 9
nektulos Initiate_Guanin 0 229 229 9 9
nektulos Klimmer 0 208 208 10 10
nektulos Gollee 0 230 275 10 10
nektulos a_will_o_wisp 0 240 240 10 10
nektulos a_young_kodiak 1 240 240 10 10
It shows there were only 7 decaying skeletons up when the ShowEQ dump was taken.
Now I don't want to rely too much on this spreadsheet to prove this, and fortunately I don't have to. We also have this extract from EQAtlas as of November 1999:
The last problem with this area, which isn't really a danger, is that this is, in my opinion, one of the worst designed areas in the game. I've started a character in every newbie area of the game and got to 5th level or so everywhere, and this area is by far the worst. The reasons are plenty, but basically the newbie area is very small, and wandering outside of it is very dangerous as 4th level wolves will attack and kill you. Therefore, if there are a large number of newbies there is very little to kill in this area. Also, once you reach 4th or 5th and start wandering a little bit further, Guardians are around you all the time. It's very frustrating to almost die in a battle with a skeleton, feel that you're going to win, and then have some stupid Guardian come up and kill it. Tada, no experience, no loot, 5 minutes of resting to recover. Another problem is that the creatures in this area don't give any significant loot. Unlike many other areas, it is difficult to find bags or boxes, rusty weapons, cash, bits of armor, etc on any of the monsters that you can hunt. Instead you get spiderling silks, ruined pelts, and fire beetle eyes. Note that none of these stack, so you'll be running back into town (and be zoning at least twice to get the best prices) about every 5 minutes. Needless to say, when I hit 4th level, I packed my bags and relocated to the swamps of the ogres and trolls. At least there I could get cash, maybe a cracked staff, and some netted armor for my enchanter...
http://web.archive.org/web/20000510014045/http://www.eqatlas.com/nektulosforest.html
Now if you've been to Nek on P99 you can safely say there are no problems getting such items because there seem to be dozens of decaying skeletons up at any given time.
Given the evidence I don't think the current decaying skeleton population can be supported. Perhaps the numbers of other newbie mobs are equally out of balance and there just need to be some adjustment to the spawn tables to vary the likelihoods.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348523
https://web.archive.org/web/20010614090653/http://www.eqic.net:80/downloads/Zone-NPC-List-Level.zip
The sheet was released here on January 15th 2000:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000621024120/http://www.k2.org/main.htm
---
In summary, Nek forest has way too many decaying skeletons. There must be dozens roaming around. It also probably has too few regular skeletons, it does not seem like there are 20 of them up at a time, but I also don't have ShowEQ running so I can't be sure :)
The spreadsheet's newbie mob counts are the following for nektulos (count is 0-based):
Zone NPC # hp- hp+ lvl- lvl+
nektulos a_black_wolf 8 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_decaying_skeleton 6 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_moss_snake 12 16 16 1 1
nektulos a_spiderling 27 20 52 1 3
nektulos a_large_spider 10 28 68 2 4
nektulos a_fire_beetle 19 32 32 2 2
nektulos a_black_bear 8 50 90 3 5
nektulos a_shadow_wolf 12 50 90 3 5
nektulos a_skeleton 19 80 120 4 6
nektulos a_tree_snake 17 80 120 4 6
nektulos Neophyte_Edel 0 85 85 4 4
nektulos Neophyte_Hazel 0 85 85 4 4
nektulos Initiate_Rambel 0 115 115 5 5
nektulos Bink 0 195 195 6 6
nektulos Himmel 0 170 235 7 8
nektulos Initiate_Umbra 0 187 189 7 7
nektulos Snitch 0 146 146 8 8
nektulos Initiate_Pool 0 209 209 8 8
nektulos Quester_Dunden 0 162 162 9 9
nektulos Initiate_Guanin 0 229 229 9 9
nektulos Klimmer 0 208 208 10 10
nektulos Gollee 0 230 275 10 10
nektulos a_will_o_wisp 0 240 240 10 10
nektulos a_young_kodiak 1 240 240 10 10
It shows there were only 7 decaying skeletons up when the ShowEQ dump was taken.
Now I don't want to rely too much on this spreadsheet to prove this, and fortunately I don't have to. We also have this extract from EQAtlas as of November 1999:
The last problem with this area, which isn't really a danger, is that this is, in my opinion, one of the worst designed areas in the game. I've started a character in every newbie area of the game and got to 5th level or so everywhere, and this area is by far the worst. The reasons are plenty, but basically the newbie area is very small, and wandering outside of it is very dangerous as 4th level wolves will attack and kill you. Therefore, if there are a large number of newbies there is very little to kill in this area. Also, once you reach 4th or 5th and start wandering a little bit further, Guardians are around you all the time. It's very frustrating to almost die in a battle with a skeleton, feel that you're going to win, and then have some stupid Guardian come up and kill it. Tada, no experience, no loot, 5 minutes of resting to recover. Another problem is that the creatures in this area don't give any significant loot. Unlike many other areas, it is difficult to find bags or boxes, rusty weapons, cash, bits of armor, etc on any of the monsters that you can hunt. Instead you get spiderling silks, ruined pelts, and fire beetle eyes. Note that none of these stack, so you'll be running back into town (and be zoning at least twice to get the best prices) about every 5 minutes. Needless to say, when I hit 4th level, I packed my bags and relocated to the swamps of the ogres and trolls. At least there I could get cash, maybe a cracked staff, and some netted armor for my enchanter...
http://web.archive.org/web/20000510014045/http://www.eqatlas.com/nektulosforest.html
Now if you've been to Nek on P99 you can safely say there are no problems getting such items because there seem to be dozens of decaying skeletons up at any given time.
Given the evidence I don't think the current decaying skeleton population can be supported. Perhaps the numbers of other newbie mobs are equally out of balance and there just need to be some adjustment to the spawn tables to vary the likelihoods.