'Classic' Splitpaw
 

tl;dr - I tried to remake original Splitpaw on my personal emu server, and here's a short video of mediocre quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J58H...ature=youtu.be

For reasons that remain obscure to me, I've developed an unhealthy fascination with the original version of Lair of the Splitpaw, i.e., the low-level version from EQ's launch. As you may know, Paw was originally populated with the white-furred Splitpaw gnolls and designed for players roughly level 6-25. Some of the trash mobs were later moved out to Lake Rathetear, while the original bosses included Ghanex Drah, the gnoll shamans that figure in the Qeynos monk quests, and Kurrpok Splitpaw, who would later be repeatedly beheaded by his brown-furred conquerors in the mid-level revamped version of the zone.

Somewhat predictably, a newb dungeon situated in the middle of South Karana didn't see much traffic in the early days. Apparently, the promise of such phat lewtz as the https://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Totem_Staff wasn't quite enough to lure groups of level 8-10s halfway across Antonica. For this reason, it was revamped before much specific information found its way onto everlore.com, leaving would-be reconstructionists little to work with.

But just for fun, I took a stab at reverting the zone on my personal emu server. Take a gander if you want, let me know what you think, what you remember from the very old days, etc.

/salute

Cool stuff!

I never spent much time in there but the video was a nice insight :)

When P99 was new, I seem to recollect the project admins saying they didn't revert splitpaw to its original form because they lacked sufficient information to accurately rebuild it, as the original poster postulates might be a problem. Considering he was around back then too, given his join date, perhaps he recalls those types of comments.

Danth

I take it it's more problematic than grabbing a copy of the original "EverQuest" CD and getting the files off the disc?

I remember bringing a group out there back in the day. We were level 12-14, went and bound in Arena. It took an hour just to set up and definitely wasn't worth it. It's how I found the Aviak camp outside Arena though and I ended up doing that for a level or two before running back to Qeynos

It's a database issue. The actual zone hasn't changed layout-wise. EQ doesn't keep its spawn information on the disk.

Yep, this is the problem. In several hours of research, I only found about 4 old web pages with reliable info on classic Splitpaw spawns. That info was mostly in agreement about the placement and identity of bosses and the types and level ranges of trash mobs, but there was also mention of some spawn mechanics that remain obscure. Specifically, several named mobs seem to have (very buggily) spawned now-defunct NPCs on death. For instance, Kurrpok Splitpaw apparently spawned a DE named Zixx Nenix, who then wandered the zone slaughtering unfactioned newbs and demanding an item used in the Skull of Torture quest (?). These kinds of details were hard to nail down from the existing data, but I gave it a shot. I might post another video or two of these spawn/quest mechanics when I get some more time.

I have a bug thread in Bugs about the gnoll shamans with links to old splitpaw newsgroup posts that might be of interest to you. IDK.

I remember going there. As I recall one of the original monk belt quests required something from there. My regular group would make the trek out because it was usually empty, but if you died, it was a long run! Definitely a weird spot for a lower level dungeon.