NPC Spawn Issue: What was Classic Variance!

[nilbog]

Be careful what you wish for.

Seriously though, find all the best information you can.

[Sorn]

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

Be careful what you wish for.

Seriously though, find all the best information you can.

Ohohoho, what an ominous warning!

Here's Nillipuss: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=57
(Speaking of him, he apparently picks up anything on the ground that is near him, including player-dropped items. On p99 when I followed him, he did not pick up the jum jum stalk sitting in the middle of the field by the druid guild.)

Dec 2001

Depending on whom you talk to, Nillipus is either on a three-hour or two-hour spawn. I have never had the time to sit in Rivervale and time it, but it at least appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of three hours.

Several people on the last page here say that they have timed his spawn time and that it is definitely two hours.

Mar 2001

Killed him 3 times so far, spawn time seems to be around 3 1/2 hours, and time seems to vary slightly.

Dec 2000

I would have to agree that he is a 2 hour spawn. I would camp in the feilds by druid guild and log back every hour and a half after killing him and he would appear shortly. Just make sure that you talk to Reebo each time, I think it makes him spawn in the 2 hour time frame.

* Others confirm that talking to Reebo does not really spawn him, just another one of those early EQ rumors [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-------

And here's Zahal the Vile in a thread about Regis for the Cleric bracer quest in Sol Ro: http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107

June 2000

From my experience. Regis does NOT have a spawn cycle. It's purely dependant on Zahal's spawn cycle. Zahal is on an 8-10hr spawn cycle. Regis spawns a few seconds after Zahal dies. Regis will stay in the zone at his spawn point untill he is killed. That is why some people have reported killing Regis twice in under 8hrs.

[Oleris]

someone email Brad McQuaid

[Caiu]

http://www.monkly-business.net/forum...ll=1#post98566

10-10-2001, 11:26 AM #20 JakaSolRo
I'd like to add that the spawn times for Vox/Nagafen have been altered. We killed Nagafen at 12:18am one Saturday, the next Saturday, we sat there till 3:00am waiting for him to spawn. A call to CS got us this info: They now have a +/- 20% variation in their spawn times.

bump.

[Caiu]

http://legacyofsteel.net/#/archives
Thursday, April 5, 2001 Cazic Thule killed
Thursday, April 12, 2001 Cazic Thule killed
Wednesday, April 18, 2001 Cazic Thule killed
Tuesday, June 5, 2001 Cazic Thule killed
Wednesday, June 13, 2001 Cazic Thule killed

So anywhere from 6-8 days when looking at more in era evidence. Which lines up with a 20% variance on 7 days +/- 33 hours

[Caiu]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/i...98713443552713

Apr 12 2001 at 11:00
Anonymous

Yeah, it's real, an awesome necro item, still pretty good as a magician and wizard item. Although, im sure an enchanter would take one of these and make up for the charisma in another slot any day. The regeneration makes my necromancer regenerate at 12hp per tick (not bad) and the stats.... well they are incredible. Zlandicar always drops the heart, so it isn't too uncommon, it has the appearance of a velium falchion (odd i know) and Zlandicar's spawn time is about 3 days, give or take 8 hours. He's deep in the Dragon Necropolis past alot of ratmen and across a river behind a water fall. To access the necropolis you must past through Siren's Grotto (not fun w/o succor) and then continue through the Western wastes (also very dangerous) then you will come upon 4 pillars with arched lightning. Just click on a pillar and you will zone in, after zoning in it's the same to get back out. At entrance you are "relatively" safe with only a few big 46+ phase spiders spawned around (about 100ft away). The real danger however is that traps are in this dungeon that will spawn like 10 level 40 beetles or a Dragon construct (about level 55, not too rough though) among other various creatures. well.... Goodluck! =P

Pet theory is that 3 day spawns operated on 10% variance. While 5 and 7 day spawns used 20%.

[Caiu]

http://www.monkly-business.net/forum...ll=1#post98576

10-26-2001, 05:15 AM #30
Haxx7
Guest
Default Re: Uber Mob Spawn Time Tables
Firstly... Dain/Tormax are 7-10 days for sure... dain is like never 7, so the randomness doesn't apply, I've seen him spawn once at 11 days even.



Zland/Kland are *def* not 7 days after kill... maybe possibly 7 (though I've never seen it) but usually 3-5.



Sont is like 28 hours.



Statue like 4-7 (NEVER 7 though ;p)



-Haxx

So this was fairly incomprehensible at first glance but live had a different mechanic for server restarts. He's factoring in the 1-3 day spawn time on top of the respawn time. Now what's interesting is that Statue didn't have a spawn time and would repop instantly. So his range of 4-7 days but NEVER 7 kinda implies that statue operated on a 15% variance.

Three day spawns seem to have had 10% variance, statue(unsure if there were other 5 dayers?) at 15%, and any seven day spawn at 20% variance.

[Daldaen]

So from my experience on Al'Kabor, here are a few other inconsistencies with spawn times and Variance between P99 and AK. I suspect most of these are correct in era, not some 2002 change:

HoT Symbol Drakes - 7 day respawn with 24 hour Variance
Dozekar - 5.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I imagine this coincided with the patch that changed his graphic from blue dragon to baby Sontalak)
Kunark Dragons - 3.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I would guess this was a change from one of the many Velious epic updates)

The number one issue that P99 has though, is there is no "uptime" Variance. Meaning when the server initially pops, there is some Variance window on when that mob will spawn. Some like the classic Nagafen/Vox had 0 Variance and were up instantly. But much of Velious and Kunark had a 0-24 hour Variance window where they could spawn after a server reset.

Granted... Sim Repops are basically the only time P99 Raiding is pleasant for anyone and this flies in the face of a full server Repops but, it is what it is.

I think the % thing is off to be honest. They're much more likely just applying 24 hour Variance to damn near everything. Which was fine on servers with very few top end guild and a bunch of casuals. But going from 16-24 hour Variance on this server just further will push casuals out of a raid scene they barely participate in to start with.

[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]

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

Dozekar - 5.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I imagine this coincided with the patch that changed his graphic from blue dragon to baby Sontalak)

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...02071326764047

May 06 2002 at 2:35 Karocotton
Dozekar respawns after 7 days. He is also up immediately on server reset.

Nov 11 2001 at 5:36 AM
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...00547499666081

Yup, you pretty much hit the nail on the head strategy wise. Really the most important things needed for Dozer are teamwork, levels and keeping your Main Assists alive. I can't stress that enough. When your dealing with a MOB that AE's the way he does you can't afford to lose your main tank and have agro bounce around reaming casters till the next tank has agro. Agro management is by far one of the most important aspects of this and many fights like these. 60 warriors with Epics or Primal are pretty much a must for him. His damage output is pretty high although other tank classes can keep him agro its not recommended. Defensive disc is a must, in fact we often find ourselves rotating 60 warriors that tank him in order to preserve mana by keeping a defensive tank on him at all times. This fight can be as short as 10 minutes or as long as 25 depending on your damage output and mana needs to be saved anyway possible. Although, we've had a 60 Epic Pally in Full SS tank him for over 8 minutes of a fight before but it was not by choice. Our two Main Warriors died early, the pally managed to get agro and our clerics found him with heals in time to keep the fight going. We kept him tanking while we buffed up our Warriors to finish the fight and re-establish agro. The pally ate up a ton of cleric mana and it was one our closest encounters with Dozer to date.

He's a pretty tough dragon and if your taking your first crack at him you will most likely lose a few times trying. Especially, if this is your first type of encounter like this. It takes a pretty good guild teamwork wise thats played together for a while to do a dragon like Dozer on a regular basis and effectively.

Suggested classes are:
Bards
Wizards (dragonsbane works)
Necros -clerics and wizards need twitches often this fight. They can also liftap him effectively and might even be able to disease him. I don't play a necro so I don't know for sure but I think I recall our Warlock saying he did land effectively on him. Necros are often overlooked on mobs like this but speaking from experience if your necros are good they can make the difference for you on fights like these.

20+ melee consisting of 2-4 level 60 Warriors min and focus on damage dealers for the rest.

Clerics out the ***
Shammys for buffs//debuffs

Pretty much every class is useful but these stand out a bit with this fight.


Attacks =
AE is 400 ice based Lure which debuffs one slot.
(I've never resisted it with resists well over 250 and bard in group)

High output melee, I don't recall his max off the top of my head and it might actually be higher than 600s.

I would not attempt him for the first time with anything less than 30 and even that is cutting it a bit low. It depends on the levels of your given group and what classes it consists of. Once you kill em a few times you will have a better idea of what exactly is best for your group.

We usually average around 35 per kill but have done it with less and more. All depends on turnouts and classes.

Drops: Tears required for ToV quests.
Usually 3 or 4 tears will drop off each kill.

These quests are a royal pain in the **** but they do produce some nice items. We've completed a few bracers of speed quests, shields, cloaks, neck pieces and I forget what else. The rewards are nice but they take lots of effort not just by an individual but an entire guild which involves many kills over time. His spawn time does produce somewhat of a bottleneck for these quests on servers as well. Hopefully verant will one day realize this and increase his respawn along with named mobs required for symbols.


Best of Luck,

www.thunderwalkers.net
Morell-Thule Server

This one is pretty long and detailed. At the end he complains about the bottleneck which indicated a standard 7 day spawn. That coupled with the first quote leads me to believe there was some change to his spawn in luclin/pop era. Infact the very post below it is evidence for that.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...10332427376924
Sep 28 2002 at 3:08 PM
dejaycupx

Not up immediately. Verified. He spawned 24 hr after yesterday's patch.