NPC Spawn Issue: ClassicQuest That Matters - The Case For a Smaller Vessel Drozlin Window

[Baylan295]

As previously established, the evidence used to establish the 2-7 day spawn window of Vessel Drozlin is based on out-of-era evidence. At the time of the last post, I had focused my research on Verina Tomb. I've now had the opportunity to research the Vessel Drozlin spawn more closely. There is admittedly less evidence available, but I think I can still make a compelling argument that Vessel Drozlin should also be a 48-96 hour spawn in era. This argument has a couple of components, which are summed up as follows:

1. Vessel Drozlin serves as the only epic bottleneck post-PoH/PoF revamp that is on a 4.5 day average spawn time. While Sony/Verant admittedly screwed up the balance on these (look at the rogue epic versus the mage epic), there is no evidence to suggest any mob you can get epic pieces from should average more than a 3-3.5 day spawn.
   
2. There is no known in-era evidence of anyone camping VD for more than 96 hours.

Argument #1

There were pieces of this discussion in the Verina Tomb thread, but the truth is, there is no other mob in-era that has as big of a window as VT/VD. In fact, as far as I can tell, no other epic mob has more than a 16 hour variance on P99 (and please do correct me if I am wrong). Even the famed Stormfeather camp, which can result in "skipped" spawns, does not go 100+ hours without a spawn. Now - I know what you are thinking ("but Vessel drops the rod *every time*!") - and the fact of the matter is, I would suggest that based on the other epic timelines out there, they just screwed up with some of them. Even the worst bottlenecks on an epic (child's tear, earth staff, dragon scales, slime blood, eye of inny) drop off mobs that spawn at least 2-3 times per week in era. While RNG may disfavor some because of the loot tables on some of those mobs, I think the design choices show there was an intent to allow approximately 2-3 epics to enter the server each week, and a 48-96 hour spawn time on VD/VT would be consistent with that intent.

Argument #2

I am going to lean heavily on the work of others here, and Rygar did a great job of compiling evidence in this post.

But in addition to that, there is still no evidence of anyone camping VD for anywhere close to as long as Verina, in-era. For example:

Has his spawn time changed? I can't seem to ever see him up. I originally saw that he is 48 hr spawn, but now I hear he may be a week?

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...99237211385912

I am currently camping Vessel with an Iksar alt, been three days since patch, and no Vessel. However, I have alot of Iksar friends that plan to help me on this mob. With the faction loss, what is it? Permanently KOS or is it just a small hit? Otherwise, may have to find some that are not Iksars to help. Thanks!

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...00927133564686

Spawntime is like Verina Tomb 48hours + 10% = 52.8 hours.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...00131903275632

Vessel is not on a 48 hour spawn time anymore. I am currently timing him, I will get back to you when he spawns. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...99638911064765

In summary - the above posts (all in-era, mostly 2001), indicate that there is again at least a 48 hour spawn time with variance. There is also evidence that at least early on (pre 7/29/2001), Vessel was a 48 hour spawn. Similar to Verina Tomb, there is again no evidence that I have found which indicates anyone has camped for greater than 50+ consecutive hours in the window, and as indicated in Rygar's post, at least one case where the spawn was in less than 48 hours.

For consistency's sake, I propose that VD and VT be put on the same timer - they will spawn 48-96 hours after the last time of death. This would be consistent with the apparent Verant/Sony intent to allow up to 2-3 epics into the system each week with an average respawn of 3 days. It would also be consistent with all evidence that I have seen which indicates the two spawns are similar, if not identical. Finally, it would be consistent with the *lack* of evidence of anything bigger than a 48 hour window. One would expect some enchanter to complain or ask questions when the mob is not up after the expected 48 hours. It is rare to see any references to that, and there is no evidence to suggest it should be as wide of a window as it currently is.

[Aaeriele]

As per my posts in the VT thread I also support the above reasoning for Vessel.

[P99Hazaa]

Good job on the efforts put into this by all.

[Baylan295]

Bump for viability for other enchanters to look for and obtain some research. I got my VD piece, but let’s make this better for all the enchanters who follow.

[Para99]

Was reading the old Enchanter epic threads and came across a "new" post. Rygar posted most of the other Vessel related posts from those threads but I didn't see a mention of this one.

Originally Posted by Qhue

September 29, 2000
Spawn on the SK is around 2 days, Tomb is around 3 days.

Link

"The SK" is in reference to Vessel Drozlin. Qhue was one of the key people in figuring out the Enchanter epic quest. There's still several threads I haven't had the time to read, but so far zero posts about it possibly being 2-7 days outside of Diku's Luclin era guide.


Not to go off topic, but it's a somewhat related note: Just noticed the 2001-2002 archives of Diku's guide have Staff of the Serpent as instant cast/instant recast. Anyone ever notice that?

[Baylan295]

Originally Posted by Para99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Was reading the old Enchanter epic threads and came across a "new" post. Rygar posted most of the other Vessel related posts from those threads but I didn't see a mention of this one.


Link

"The SK" is in reference to Vessel Drozlin. Qhue was one of the key people in figuring out the Enchanter epic quest. There's still several threads I haven't had the time to read, but so far zero posts about it possibly being 2-7 days outside of Diku's Luclin era guide.


Not to go off topic, but it's a somewhat related note: Just noticed the 2001-2002 archives of Diku's guide have Staff of the Serpent as instant cast/instant recast. Anyone ever notice that?

Some additional support for insta-click can be found at this link:

web.archive.org/web/20010609075152/http://forums.castersrealm.com:80/eq/Forum127/HTML/000048-3.html (dated 10/10/2000)

[Rygar]

Just thought I'd post a tiny bit of evidence, interesting is that it is post marked September 12th, 2001. There was a patch on all servers September 11th, 2001.

Maybe someone can figure out when the pop actually occurred. I think it was mentioned he isn't supposed to 'spawn' immediately after a patch, but 4AM on 9/12 would put his initial spawn from server reset at 24hrs or less (definitely less than the 3 days mentioned above). This would be different from respawn time of course, but is still important to know.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5574&page=2
9/12/2001 @ 1:32pm

Oh, and naturally, Vessel popped at about 4 AM. No one online to help me. The dude was up for literally EIGHT hours, but I couldn't find any help at all. =/ It's getting depressing now...

[Xaeophi]

Imo they should just make it every 7 hours like they did with Lucan. You dont even have to give us a 5 charge insta CH any race/class from inventory.

[Baylan295]

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

Imo they should just make it every 7 hours like they did with Lucan. You dont even have to give us a 5 charge insta CH any race/class from inventory.

I too will unnecessarily advocate for unclassic things that make no sense because I’m upset no one did the research to make a thoughtful argument to mitigate the impact of a stupid camp before I did it.

[Xaeophi]

uh.... same