NPC Spawn Issue: Project 1999 Would Be More Classic If It Removed the Plane of Hate Safe Spot

[loramin]

Let me start by saying, I don't know if there ever was a safe spot or not in Hate during classic. I've tried to look on the Wayback Machine at sites like Allakhazam and Caster's Realm, but there is no mention by anyone of such a safe spot. The closest I could find was:

Originally Posted by https://web.archive.org/web/20020113090152/http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zones.html?zstrat=68

The Organ Hall its self is fairly safe

... although I did find this gem:

Originally Posted by https://web.archive.org/web/20011228071222/http://allakhazam.com/zones/Planes/Hate.htm

It currently can only be reached through a wizard gate spell. Rumor also has it that you may someday be able to reach the plane through the spectre tower in the Middle of the Oasis of Marr.

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Anyhow, I assume the safe spot was added based on Al'Kabor data or some similar source.

But whether or not a safe spot existed on live, my argument is that it shouldn't exist on P99, for the same reason ToV dragons are rooted: having the safe spot leads to incredibly unclassic behavior.

In classic, guilds raided Hate. Period. No one ported up for a quick mini kill, because no one had trackers to know when minis were up .. and certainly, no one was soloing Hate!

All this unclassicness could be eliminated with one simple fix: adding a spawn near the pillar. No more unclassic Hate trackers, no (even more unclassic) solo hate farmers, just guilds clearing Hate ... and then doing it again three days later. Classic AF.

C'mon, Nilbog, you love classic EQ, right? Don't you want to see classic Hate raids, instead of Enchanters selling Earth staffs and guilds ignoring 95% of the zone? Literally one mob, that's all it would take.



P.S. And yes, as a Mage who has been tracking in Hate as much as I can for a year now (and is still epic-less), I fully understand this change would ultimately result in less earth staffs (and necro books) dropping. I certainly wouldn't complain if you upped the named spawn and/or drop rates a little to go along with change [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

However, even without such an increase, this change would be better for players like me, because the staves which do drop would go to the guilds that earned them by raiding Hate ... vs. now, where a lot (perhaps even the majority?) go to whoever buys them off soloing Enchanters.

Make Hate Classic Again!

[Dolalin]

Here's a very good PoH guide from 2000.

I don't have time to interpret all these maps with spawns etc but if someone else does it might have some clues.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017...des/ipren2.htm

[magnetaress]

Also proof mobs had different magic resists in there [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[loramin]

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

Here's a very good PoH guide from 2000.

I don't have time to interpret all these maps with spawns etc but if someone else does it might have some clues.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017...des/ipren2.htm

While it doesn't say so explicitly, it does seem to suggest the "safe spot" (the "pillar of faces with flames in their mouths") wasn't safe (as apparently mobs stopped by it in their pathing route):

They like to stop on the S wall beside houses 2, U, and T, near the NW corner of house C, near the opening between A and C, beside house 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2, and near the Totem (the black dot between house 3 and 5. In-game, is a pillar of faces with flames in their mouths).

[Dolalin]

Yeah I'd guess there's a good chance that at least the roamers on that path would end up in aggro range of the pillar. Maybe I'll do some more searching.

[Dolalin]

Lots of results for safe spot in PoH but they all refer to a spot on the (West?) Wall.

https://search.eqarchives.org/search...facet_limit=60

People would port up invis, run to wall, die, be dragged to this safe spot and then rezzed up.

This aligns with my memories of PoH raids in classic, heh.

[ricquire]

The well is not the only safe spot in zone. You have just not embraced Innoruuk fully.

[Rygar]

West wall was the only safe spot I was aware of in classic, but it was "semi safe". Meaning top floor mobs could agro and cause a camp out.

It was always a clusterfuck tho, unsure what idiot was too high or low on wall. So may have been perfectly safe if you were in the sweet spot.

Unsure if there were truly more safe spots or not, people just followed a tried and true formula of camping out at west wall, clearing nearby houses, moving to maestro chapel when clear, pull from 2nd floor, move up, etc.

In p99 with CSR corpse summons to EC there is no fear of your gear rotting, so folks bound to find more safe areas that probably did exist in classic.

Would be more classic to no longer restore corpses (i'm not aware of this being a process or even a command on live for guides). #BringBackRealDeath

[loramin]

I found another great/detailed classic Hate guide, https://thesafehouse.org/forums/foru...-plane-of-hate ... and again, no mention of a safe spot.

But again, whether there was one from the start, and just no one knew it during the classic era ... or there wasn't until later in the game ... the net effect was the same: no one playing classic EQ ever tracked hate, and certainly no one was soloing hate minis on their Enchanter.

Once, a long time ago, you promised:

The Plane of Fear will own you in the face,

Please, make the Plane of Hate do the same ... as it did in classic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[mycoolrausch]

The zone is huge and multi leveled. The chance there wasn't a single pixel of no aggro spot is nil imo.

Some random square-inch aggro-free spot would have been completely useless to anyone outside of p99's raid meta and they would have had zero motivation to find such spots.