NPC Spawn Issue: What was Classic Variance!

[Caiu]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...00952526663087

Dec 28 2001 at 2:41 AM
Anonymous
Put a druid at the safespot to track there, then stay there RIGHT after a patch for 3 days, you will see him when hes up.

He will spawn after serverdown in 1-3 days, after that, he spawns in 7-9 days untill next patch.

If you want him you need people who can mobolize fast to kill though [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Just out of era but the behavior he's describing matches up with all other evidence for 7 day spawns

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

snip

My original post with the customer service quote of 20% variance is what I've tried to tie everything else into. When looking at history it's important to study your sources just as much as the events they recount! http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/u...ml?char=172451
So here is the last update to that poster's magelo for "Jaka" on Sol Ro. More likely that not tracking and leading Naggy/Vox raids was the pinnacle of his EQ journey and meant a lot. For the day and the man I can easily imagine him spending a few hours on hold getting an answer from a company rep.

I think we can agree that there was variance of spawns over 12 hours. For seven days spawns we have from the developer that it was +/- 20 percent. Going forward from that there's a lot to suggest that what we have right now is vastly lower than classic times.

[Caiu]

I've been trying to pin down if anything other than a 20% variance was used. The easiest way to do that in theory was look at three day spawns like Trakanon or Venril Sathir(post April 17 2001 patch ). If there was a lot of confusion about them being a 2-4 day spawn that would indicate to me that 20% was used. However there was little confusion most sources were in agreement that he was a three day spawn. Now 10% of three days is 7 hours roughly so a 14 hour window would explain that.

https://www.sok.org/showthread.php?3...ll=1#post35136
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...98763652995497
(Out of Era) http://theconcerthall.yuku.com/topic/2399#.WO0mD9Lyu00
(Out of Era) http://thegcp.yuku.com/topic/1016/Ve...s#.WO0qpNLyu00

[Caiu]

Operating under the assumption that Zlandicar was a three day spawn I looked for evidence relating to him. What I found was that he was likely originally a three day spawn but changed to a longer spawn of unknown length but 5 days seems most in line with evidence.

http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10806
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...03735563052233


Edit: While researching I found what could possibly be quite informative
http://forums.hossguild.org/forumdis...17-IGB-Archive
this is the raid mob rotation forum of some in era server. Unfortunately the format the administrator chose to keep the info in is quite esoteric. Anyone able to parse this stuff better than I can?

[Caiu]

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post2424

L'Malla (7/30)

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post2871
08-03-2001, 07:02 AM

-Klandicar spawned at 4:15 am pacific (...I just know - don't ask...)

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post3171

Kland - Vind (8/8), Hoss (8/12)

Seems to share the same pattern as Zlandicar.

[Caiu]

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...nrotated-Ubers

Sont and Yelinak down 9/26.

Sont Down Sept 28 to L`Malla/Vindi

Sontalak deaded by ML 10/1

Evidence that Sontalak should have a pretty darn quick respawn as indicated by my earlier source haxx 1

[Rygar]

Found some relevant information on this, straight from the horse's mouth (Gordon Wrinn):
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc56.shtml

Deity Spawn Times

[Quote from original post: Diety Spawn Times. Can they be randomized?]

Aside from initial spawns that occur once the servers come back up, anything with a spawn time of over two hours receives a random modifier to the spawn time that could cause it to spawn sooner or later than when expected. The modifier is percentage-based, so that the average spawn time (based on large numbers) is roughly the same as when they were spawning after an exact interval.

https://web.archive.org/web/20011027...ve/arc44.shtml

Downtime Affecting Users Across World

After having addressed many times I wonder if I should keep trying or give up, but I'll give it another short:

EverQuest is played all over the world. ANY time that we take the servers down will be SOMEONE's primetime. We try to take them down when the fewest number of people will be affected, that will mean taking them down during off-peak time for the America's.

It's a matter of math. How can we affect the fewest number of people possible? If *peak* was at 4am my time and the low point were at 8pm, we'd take them down at 8pm even though it was primetime here.

I realize as an off-peak player you don't like this, any more than Americans who play during off-peak like it, but until peak time moves to a time other than the time it is, our scheduled patches will be in the general viscinity of when this one is taking place. I'm sorry, but there is really no other option that makes sense. I've seen people argue that we should stagger patch times so that it falls in someone elses peak every time, but that does not meet the goal of affecting the fewest number of people possible.

Now, that said, no spawn is "exactly 7 days", nor is it exactly "three days". Any spawn over two hours has a +/- modifier that adjusts its spawn time. That means that the seven day spawn could very well pop up anywhere from six to eight days after it was killed.
--
It's plus or minus a percentage of the total spawn delay. That means that a two-hour spawn would have a variation of minutes, whereas a 7 day spawn could very well have a variation of days days.

Whether or not you take the 6-8 days of variance for a 7 day spawn as gospel is another conversation, the other conversation being do spawns over a certain amount of time (2 hours per Gordon) have variance? Is very possible no one noticed the 2 hour timer due to miniscule repop variance.

If this were true, then one would expect the planes / NToV trash clears from back in the day to stagger on repopping. I'll see if I can dig anything up on that.

[Pringles]

Cross posting

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21642

Lets update...

All spawns over 12 hours have a +/- 10-20% to their spawn time. This was added long ago, when the first guild were farming Naggy and casters were farming Hadden to the second.

Mob, Level, spawn time, respawn time, zone

Spawn time is how long after the server resets before the mob spawns.
Respawn time is how long after death before the mob respawns.

Old Norrath:
Lord Nagafen, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Solusek B
Lady Vox, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Permafrost
Phinigel Autropos, level 52, instant, 12 hrs respawn, Kedge Keep
Master Yael, ?, ?, ?, The Hole

Kunark:
Trakanon, level 63+, instant, 3 day respawn, Old Sebilis
Venril Sathir, level 55?, instant, 3 day respawn, Karnor's Castle
Talendor, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Skyfire
Faydedar, level 55, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Timorous Deep
Severilous, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawnEmerald Jungle
Gorenaire, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawnDreadlands
Chardok Royalty, levels 60-65, instant, 2 hrs, Chardok
Veeshan's Peak Dragons, levels 63+, instant, 7 day respawn, Veeshan's Peak

Velious:
Yelinak, level 70, instant, 7 day respawn, Skyshrine
King Tormax, level 70, instant, 7 day respawn, Kael Drakkel
Dain Frosthammer, level 70, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Icewall Keep
Velketor, level 65?, instant, 3 day respawn, Velketor's Labyrinth
Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar, level 63?, instant, 3 day respawn, Velketor's Labyrinth
Zlandicar, level 60, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Dragon Necropolis
Klandicar, level 63+, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Western Wastes
Sontatalak, level 63+, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawnWestern Wastes
Kelorek Dar, level 60, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Cobalt Scar
Woushi, level 63, 1-3? day spawn, 7? day respawn, Wakening Lands
Darakor the Vindicator, level 63+, instant, 8 hour respawn, Kael Drakkel
Statue of Rallos Zek, level 59, instant, 7 day respawn, Kael Drakkel
Lodizal**, level 60, 18-54 spawn time, 18-54 hour respawn, Iceclad Ocean

Planes:
Tunare, level 63+, instant, 7 days?, Plane of Growth
Wandering Plane of Growth Mobs: 12 hrs
Protectors of Growth: 25 mins
Cazic Thule, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Innoruuk, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Maestro of Rancor, level 53, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Hate Mini Bosses, ?, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Hand of Maestro***, ?, 12 hours after Maestro, 12 hour respawn, Plane of Hate
Dracoliche****, level 53, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Fear Golems, ?, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Noble Dojorn, level 63, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Air

** - Lodi has a really weird spawn pattern. He tends to spawn every 16-20 hours, but he can skip spawns. But I've never heard of him skipping 3 spawns in a row.

*** - When you kill Maestro, a weak version of the Hand of Maestro will spawn where you killed Maestro. Then 12 hours after you kill that Hand of Maestro, another Hand of Maestro will respawn in the Maestos spot, and this one is as hard as normal Maestro. The Hand will continue to respawn until Maestro spawns again. Or something like that...

**** - I'm not sure if Draco respawns on his own, or only when CT respawns the zone when he spawns.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21650

All long spawns have a small amount of variation built in to them. This was added quite a while ago.Friends currently on EverQuest:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21649

Veeshans Peak isn't 7 days either. Nearest we could figure out it's 7 days + or - 24 hours.

This lines up with the 20% on 7 day mobs as variance at that rate would be +/- 33 hours roughly.

We have confirmation from Verant CS that a Naggy had +/- 20% from earlier in this thread plus the VP quote above.
I think we can deduce that the shorter the respawn time the lower variance was.
We also now have simulated server down times and it would be cool to get long respawn mobs just as it was in era.

[Dolalin]

It looks like as of October 1999, classic raid mobs were still not repopping instantly when a server came up from a patch, rather with a spawn variance of 6 to 10 days. At least according to this guy:

28/10/1999

Comments:

There's a small problem with the way monsters like Dragons and Gods (Cazic
Thule) spawn in the game world. Their spawn times is apparently set, from 6
to 10 days. Although servers going down is not always Verant's fault, they
do go down, and when that happens, the spawn time is reset. If adventurers
were to wait 10 days after a server goes down, for a god to spawn, yet it
goes down again on the 9th day, then the spawn time will be reset yet again.
Actually, that's the case with the people I'm adventuring with. Cazic thule
, whom we've not yet killed on our server yet, we'd plan on going up against
Friday. He should spawn today (Thursday), but there's an update, which is
going to cause us to wait another week, hoping there isn't another update in
between that time. We've talked to the guides and GMs on our server, and
they told us that they can't spawn them, so why not have the unique
monsters..(Cazic Thule, Dracoliche, Vox, Nagafen) spawn when the servers are
brought back up, instead of having the 10 day timer.

When PoF is brought up, it will be empty of course, but perhaps you could
set Cazic to spawn within the first 16 hours, and then have the timer set to
10 days. Something similar can be done with the Dragons.

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/WKBfygDgwYQJ