How are respawning NPCs explained through lore?

[Bittersauce]

Open question, I'm genuinely curious if it was ever explained how NPCs keep respawning in the EQ lore.

Does a benevolent god resurrect them every 30 minutes?

Spontaneous regeneration, where if there's even 1 cell left the NPC can regrow on a timer?

Is it a long family line, with one of the sons taking over the father's guard post on a timer?

Am I just knocking them out humanely, and little gremlins move them to a recovery chamber before they pop back out ready to rumble?

[Baler]

I don't think there is any lore for respawns,.. it's an mmorpg. The idea being that creatures exist in this world and they have a home/ natural environment.

There may be lore for magical being such as constructs.. for example elementals and how they come into being in the world.

It would be a far different game if creatures had to reproduce naturally because players are basically psychopathic murder hobos who kill everything they see for it's loots.

[Rygar]

I always thought this was a problem from a roleplaying aspect... saying, "so and so killed my husband, get me revenge and I'll reward you". Ummm... why didn't you pay for a rez?

I prefer to think of it as Veeshan reincarnates folks, and we are pawns in her game.

[Baler]

I always thought this was a problem from a roleplaying aspect... saying, "so and so killed my husband, get me revenge and I'll reward you". Ummm... why didn't you pay for a rez?

That's a funny thing because from a D&D point of view getting rez'd in a low magic world could be insanely difficult requiring something like a perfect diamond that costs thousands of gold. But in a high magic/fantasy world where people flip their fingers and rez each other immortality can actually be fairly common. Just requiring stronger and stronger magic to keep the being alive, Unless they go lich. I'd say the elves king/queens in LOTR are liches.

long story short,. getting a rez in say erudin may be easier than getting a rez in freeport. In this hypothetical roleplay sense.

[skarlorn]

na hhh dude elf king/queens in LOTR are immortal because they are the First Born of Iluvatar. To be a lich you have to store your soul in a phylactery and they are fully undead beings. if ur Galadriel in LOTR you were getting laid under the Trees of Valinor whose blessed essence would destroy creatures of darkness such as liches, although it did not drive back Melkor when he turned finally to Corruption, nor did it stop Ungoliant from piercing the trees and killing them with her venomous fangs, and so possibly a greater lich such as Miragul would be able to stand under the Light of the Trees though it would bathe him in accursed agony, for it is well known that any evil being who holds a Silmaril, containing the light of the last fruits of the Twin Trees of Valinor, feels an excruciating burning sensation from the Most Holy Silmaril. Therefore, the allegation that Galadriel and Celeborn, or even Thandruil or Elrond Half-Elf could be liches is laughable, even more ridiculous than claiming that Feanor the Smith himself was a Lich. It is true that Feanor led his people to the first elvish Kinslaying at Alqualondë, which as we all know forced the Valar to banish the Noldor who followed Feanor and his Brothers from Valinor forever and this is the great meaning of Galadriel's speech when she says "I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West..." That's right, Galadriel is the only elf who lived in Valinor who survived the exile and would return to Aman. This is why the elves in LOTR are not liches.

[Baler]

This is why the elves in LOTR are not liches.
Not going to lie I read the whole thing and learned a lot. Felt like an episode of LOREMASTERS. :)
Thanks for setting me straight.

[Muggens]

na hhh dude elf king/queens in LOTR are immortal because they are the First Born of Iluvatar. To be a lich you have to store your soul in a phylactery and they are fully undead beings. if ur Galadriel in LOTR you were getting laid under the Trees of Valinor whose blessed essence would destroy creatures of darkness such as liches, although it did not drive back Melkor when he turned finally to Corruption, nor did it stop Ungoliant from piercing the trees and killing them with her venomous fangs, and so possibly a greater lich such as Miragul would be able to stand under the Light of the Trees though it would bathe him in accursed agony, for it is well known that any evil being who holds a Silmaril, containing the light of the last fruits of the Twin Trees of Valinor, feels an excruciating burning sensation from the Most Holy Silmaril. Therefore, the allegation that Galadriel and Celeborn, or even Thandruil or Elrond Half-Elf could be liches is laughable, even more ridiculous than claiming that Feanor the Smith himself was a Lich. It is true that Feanor led his people to the first elvish Kinslaying at Alqualondë, which as we all know forced the Valar to banish the Noldor who followed Feanor and his Brothers from Valinor forever and this is the great meaning of Galadriel's speech when she says "I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West..." That's right, Galadriel is the only elf who lived in Valinor who survived the exile and would return to Aman. This is why the elves in LOTR are not liches.

Thanks, was about to read Silmarillion again but you saved me the work - tell a story about Huan please :)

[Boyblunder]

It's a game, if you haven't figured this out go outside and look at the sun for a minute.

[jackd104]

It's a game, if you haven't figured this out go outside and look at the sun for a minute.

+1. I’ve also long suspected that the designers didn’t actually expect players to camp spawns (“who in their right mind would sit in one place doing nothing for an hour just to kill one mob again? Maybe one crazy guy,..”). And if they DID purposely design the game for camping, I’d say that is the dumbest design direction in all of history. So players would be less likely to see mobs pop in front of them if they were crawling around as the designers intended. Now, we all know that intention failed terribly, thus later advances in EQ and WOW such as instanced dungeons and loot that can drop off any mob. WOW did many things overall to end the camp dynamic.

[Wfrench1234]

They didn’t intend for players to kill mobs over and over? Then they made killing mobs the only way to get exp, and made the amount of experience needed so large that you had to kill thousands (and thousands) of mobs to hit max level?

I agree, the devs of EQ didn’t expect a lot of he “emergent” behavior we came up with to work around problems. They patched a lot of the behavior that caused problems, but they never patched in the dreaded “anti-camp radius”.

[Wfrench1234]

And also remember, WOW also did a lot of things that sent this genre down the wrong path, which is why we are playing his game 20 years later, and why so many of us are looking forward to Pantheon and hoping desperately for its success.

[rollin5k]

The real question is why dont people in "Earth" respawn? There are many disparities between these alternate dimensions.

[jackd104]

1. Yes we were meant to kill lots of mobs. I just said I doubt we were meant to sit in one place killing one mob over and over (and if we were - that is dumb)

2. I only said wow designed out the sit in one place and camp dynamic. I didn’t say wow is better than eq.

[Ivory]

Open question, I'm genuinely curious if it was ever explained how NPCs keep respawning in the EQ lore.

The same way contradictions in the bible are...."the gods work in mysterious ways".

[mickmoranis]

I like the veeshan is trying to make this little model world and we keep breaking it and shes like "dammit" and puts the little toy soldier figures back in the spot she wants them everytime we kill one.

[Muggens]

The real question is why dont people in "Earth" respawn? There are many disparities between these alternate dimensions.

You might be suprised..

[Rygar]

+1. I’ve also long suspected that the designers didn’t actually expect players to camp spawns (“who in their right mind would sit in one place doing nothing for an hour just to kill one mob again? Maybe one crazy guy,..”). And if they DID purposely design the game for camping, I’d say that is the dumbest design direction in all of history. So players would be less likely to see mobs pop in front of them if they were crawling around as the designers intended. Now, we all know that intention failed terribly, thus later advances in EQ and WOW such as instanced dungeons and loot that can drop off any mob. WOW did many things overall to end the camp dynamic.

Yes, in fact original EQ devs did not want camping to be a thing. They hated that FD was used to pull singles to a group as well, intending for FD to be just an escape mechanic (save you from needing a rez).

Brad had envisioned EQ dungeons to be progressive, meaning start at front and work your way through. You can see this was emphasized when kunark hit as there were a lot of dungeons without a zone line out after zoning in (chardok, droga/nurga, the hole, os, hs, VP, etc).

They didn't intend on single pulling either, wanted groups to have to deal with pockets of mobs at a time. It's actually a lot more fun to fight this way.

The hole is a great zone for progressive advancement. Rares pop with any placeholder so no need to stick in one spot, and you can fight to teleporters to get out. It is a massive zone with probably nearly 400 mob spawn points.

[Supaskillz]

Yes, in fact original EQ devs did not want camping to be a thing. They hated that FD was used to pull singles to a group as well, intending for FD to be just an escape mechanic (save you from needing a rez).


I guess Brad gave into the mechanic of fd pulling. In the pantheon previews I saw they explicitly asked the monk to fd split

[skarlorn]

The hole is a great zone for progressive advancement. Rares pop with any placeholder so no need to stick in one spot, and you can fight to teleporters to get out. It is a massive zone with probably nearly 400 mob spawn points.

definitely. HS is really good about this too.

It's really a pity that they didn't do a better job randomizing the named spawns to encourage crawling. My most fun EQ experiences are all active crawls in dangerous dungeons with muh pals.

[Lulz~Sect]

Not going to lie I read the whole thing and learned a lot. Felt like an episode of LOREMASTERS. :)
Thanks for setting me straight.

As a fellow LOTR nerd

+9000

[Brut]

Lendiniara the Keeper says 'Enter into the halls of testing to complete these tasks. Seek out the ancient ones inside and see if your might is as great as theirs and fear not, those who you slay will be returned to the temple by the gift of Veeshan's great power. I have three tasks, which any may complete, as well as a request of both the arcane and the strong.'

Lendiniara the Keeper says 'Those who believe they are strong may be surprised after such a task. Seek out the cursed one and slay him, return to me when you have gathered a Silver Tear, a Poison Tear, a Flame Kissed Tear and a Serrated Tear. End the cursed ones torment for a short time, before the high priest raises him to continue his suffering for eternity.

Confirmed all Vee's doing.

[Videri]

There is a difference between literal game events and story-versions of those events. I think every named mob and many lore items actually appear only once, and every quest is completed only once (except for muffins and bounties). In the game, we all kill the same named mobs and do the same quests and get the same lore items, but in the story-version of game events, those parts are not included. It is explained in other ways. Sure, you and I both killed Lord Looney and turned in his head for a Ouiji Board of Spookies, but only one of us actually has it and the other has some other item or ability that allows the storyline of our SolB exp group to occur. For a more sensible example, the Ring 10 war only happens once, but we get to relive it over and over and each of us gets to play the role of hero. It's like re-reading part of a book. It is not actually written down twice; you just read it again.

[Lulz~Sect]

https://i.imgur.com/YM3k2GJ.jpg

[demonith]

I think it is more relevant to believe that we are the sole protagonist in the game. ie each person is the main character in their adventure. So when we kill some mob and accomplish that task, in "our" timeline we are the only one that have accomplished this.

Sorta like some parallel universe where we can all see each other but the NPCs are un-able to do so, and when we help others accomplish their lore tasks we are temporarily joining them in their timeline.

(readies another acid trip)

Least that is my thought on it

[Lulz~Sect]

You’re killing real players souls trapped in NPCs that are born into this digital world
The birth life marriage is edited out of the game and hidden from real life players
So they don’t learn the real truth of this reality for the poor digitally trapped souls
Each spawn is a different part of their existence at a different point in time and space of their digital lives

https://i.imgur.com/49z4BQC.gif

[Evia]

You’re killing real players souls trapped in NPCs that are born into this digital world
The birth life marriage is edited out of the game and hidden from real life players
So they don’t learn the real truth of this reality for the poor digitally trapped souls
Each spawn is a different part of their existence at a different point in time and space of their digital lives

https://i.imgur.com/49z4BQC.gif


Is this black mirror season 5 episode 1?

[Voland]

They didn't intend on single pulling either, wanted groups to have to deal with pockets of mobs at a time. It's actually a lot more fun to fight this way.


If this was their intention, why would they add Pacify and Harmony spells?

[Voland]

I always thought that respawn mechanic in MMOs is extremely immersion-breaking. I remember it was especially bad in Vanguard newbie zone, when a monster would respawn seconds after being killed.

I also seem to remember there was some game where repop would only happen when nobody is looking:)

[Muggens]

You’re killing real players souls trapped in NPCs that are born into this digital world
The birth life marriage is edited out of the game and hidden from real life players
So they don’t learn the real truth of this reality for the poor digitally trapped souls
Each spawn is a different part of their existence at a different point in time and space of their digital lives

https://i.imgur.com/49z4BQC.gif

! The truth is stranger than fiction

[Jimjam]

Is this black mirror season 5 episode 1?

It has already been established Lulz is forum quest's Charlie Brooker (or whoever it is that does that Black Mirror thang).

[Whirled]

https://youtu.be/D9tAKLTktY0?t=106

[SunDrake]

A+ thread, here.