Quest Issue: Tarton's Wheel (Ice Comet) quest should not be active until [July1999] era

[OgrenShamwow]

The quest for the ice comet runes Tarton's Wheel is in game and seems to be functional he gave me the box to combine. Im pretty sure this wasnt in till at least sol temple patch but not sure. NPC named Sulgar, same loc as wiki everfrost 3032, neg 2395

[Dolalin]

Ice Comet quests should not be active until late July 1999:

- Added Ice Comet quests

https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_N...d_improvements

[skorge]

Was in on Red launch too, that's why the first 50 on the server was a wizard (wanna say his name was Lovely). Everyone was complaining about it. It didn't get fixed on Red launch.

[nilbog]

Fixed, pending update

-Sulgar will not spawn until July 1999.
-Rod ground spawns will not appear until July 1999.

Something I could use help with: Should all the Rod spawns have the same respawn timer? If so, what is it?

[Sunderfury]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Something I could use help with: Should all the Rod spawns have the same respawn timer? If so, what is it?

I will take a look hopefully in the coming days. I do recall seeing a patch note that the spawn time of the rods increased at some point in era.

[Sunderfury]

Patch note 9/13/1999:
https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_notes

The Rods for the Ice Comet quests will now pop much more often.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/i...8&p=2#comments

Jun 02 2001
Anyone know how long before thes rods respawn after someone else has picked them up?

Jun 07 2001
I believe it's a matter of seconds, but efen in the case that it's a bit longer, there aren't that many players with the mettle to bring a wizard up high enough to even do this quest.

Jul 12 2006
In the time it took me to kill 2 skeletons in the Everfrost house, the rod piece respawned. Less than a minute, not more than 2 for sure.

Thus far in reading the commentary haven't heard wizards say something to the effect of 'First verify that the rod has spawned!!', quite a few of the methods to obtain it involved a kamikaze run. Will post more info as I come across it.

Post here 9/14/99 after patch dropped, says he's done the quest a bunch and the rods 'typically aren't at their spawn points' which suggests they had a pretty long respawn time pre-patch

9/3/99 post here talking about 'very long' spawn time on rods pre-patch, maybe suggest setting to 1hr and evaluating as more evidence comes up? will continue digging.

I agree with what you said about DE's being KOS in most of the world, but as
a Necromancer, DE or otherwise you are KOS in many citys or near NPC. Part
of playing that class/race combo is your choice. I also play a Necromancer
so I know what its like.The other pieces of the quest are, in my option,
not anymore dangerous to a DE Necromancer or any other caster combo then the
next. As I send, all you need is skill and perhaps a small group to get to
some of the places, nothing out of the adventuring norm. Walking into a city
(and deep into it mind you) where you are KOS is not my idea of fun or
adventure. And with the spawn rate for those items being very long, camping
in the city is a death trap.

Found a note here about doing the quest together with an individual, due to the danger of getting some of these rods (see invis mobs during kamikaze run, etc), this suggests the rods all had the same respawn time:
9/27/00:

I don't think you can fail to make the staff of the wheel, another wizard
and i did the quest together and both of us got the Staff first time.

Actually, this is a fun wee quest *if* you have a Druid to help you. I had
a lot of fun getting my Star of Eyes for my Shaman plus the respawn is fast
enough that a couple of you can do it together.

9/22/99:
Suggests the rods are near instant respawn now post patch, but had previously found a scouting spot to look for the rod:

I was doing the Staff of the Wheel quest and created a dark elf to run around
and find the rod I needed for the quest. Quite by accident, I ran through a
waterfall on the second zone from Nek Forrest and found a cave that allowed me
to avoid most of the NPCs in Neriak while getting my rod. Since my wizard
is a High Elf wizard, I just went invis, ran past 3 or 4 NPCs to the secret
entrance in one of the shops, and ran down the tunnel. The tunnel allows you
to zone into the second part of Neriak (forget the zone name) and ends up in a
bar next to the water where I had to get my rod. At this point, I only had to
run past 1 NPC, jump in the water, grab my rod, and gate out. The rods are
almost an instant spawn now, so you shouldnt have to wait. Sorry if my answer
to your secret cave question turned into help for Staff of Wheel quest, but I
found it extremely useful.

Side Note:
What is up with the combine for this spell? It seems even early out of era people were doing this quest as a necessity to get Ice Comet, yet I believe the components drop off trash mobs on P99? I am fairly certain I've sold the research components on P99 to wizards, but seems they should not so easily be obtainable?

Update here:
Perhaps I'm not Mr. Current Affairs, thinking the Rune of the Astral and Frost I found were working for ice comet, but this mentions specifically that those runes won't work for Ice Comet, only the no drop versions from quest (and I assume the drop from Vox):

Although you should note that the rune of astral and rune of frost you get
from this quest are No Drop and can only be used to research Ice Comet -
unless they've been changed, you can't use that rune of astral to research
Supernova as well.

but you can only use this particular (no drop) rune of astral for the Ice
Comet spell, as it can only be combined with the (no drop) rune of frost
that
you get from the same quest.
the no drop rune of astral cannot be combined with any non no drop runes,
therefore, it cannot be used for Super Nova.

the rune of Astral does also drop, and that is the one you need for super
nova, along with the rune of impetus that drops.

[Dolalin]

In vanilla, there were only going to be a select few mobs 45+ that would drop ice comet runes, especially before PoF / PoH opened. They were probably just rare.

Here's a newsgroup post from July 1999 talking about ice comet, and Sam Schlansky's reply (I've browsed these groups enough to know some of these guys by name, that's scary):

7/23/99

jjp...@NOSPAM.ibm.net (Dolm) wrote in <37988711...@ibm.net>:
>Although I don't play a Wizard (I play a Warrior, Paladin, and Mage), I
>have been giving some thought to the "Ice Comet Problem."
>
>I think I may have a solution. You don't have to kill the dragons.
>
>Its the Bilbo Baggins method. Burglars.
>
>So, a party at 35+ engages the dragon. This party must have 2 or 3 good
>tanks and a Cleric that had divine aura, and at least one high-level
>ROGUE. Tanks attack dragon and the rogue repeatedly trys to steal from
>the thing.
>
>When the tanks are below 50%, cleric casts divine aura and everyone runs
>for the zone.
>
>If you didn't get the rune, rinse, lather, and repeat.
>
>Any thoughts from rogues or anyone else with dragon-battle experience?
Dragons can "summon" players for that very reason. You can't run up, hit it
once, then run away... as soon as you get out of its sight, it teleports you
right back.

Besides, I doubt a party of 35's would last long enough to get one pickpocket
attempt off... you'd need 45+'s at least... and the entire party would still
die.

And, finally, LVL 49 RUNES INCLUDING ICE COMET ARE _NOT_ ONLY FOUND ON DRAGONS!
One of the Verant people said this SPECIFICALLY. So, you can just kill a bunch
of the lvl 53 fire giants in the area and get the rune of frost that way... a
lot less dangerous.

Sam

--

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https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....o/t1RxPPgWj8oJ

This was before PoF opened.

So it's not like they only dropped off dragons. There were just limited places to kill mobs that would drop the runes.

Edit: Another newsgroup post talking about Verant saying you could get the runes other than from dragons:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....k/RiqMlQqC1ckJ

Edit2: Ah of course, it was GZ.

7/20/99

To calm your fears its not true. Go to www.notcrazy.com there Geoffrey
Z. talks about the rune and such. He says its found randomly on level
49+ MOBS. Its just more common on Nafgen. So with some work you can
have it before the big fight. If your research is high enough...
Although, from what I've heard Nafgen resists all magics and is
bascially a buffed tank fight.

Good luck
-JimR

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....k/8jXki36y8k4J

[Dolalin]

Sunderfury: the runes you get from this quest are no drop. They work to research ice comet. The idea was that you couldn't farm the quest to sell the runes, you had to do the research yourself.

[Dolalin]

@Nilbog: The spawn times of the rods was originally longer and then made quicker in a patch. I'll see if I can hunt down the times tonight.

[Sunderfury]

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

@Nilbog: The spawn times of the rods was originally longer and then made quicker in a patch. I'll see if I can hunt down the times tonight.

Did you read my post?