ClassicQuest That Matters - The Case For a Smaller Vessel Drozlin Window

[Baylan295]

As previously established (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2686577&postcount=1), 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:


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.

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 (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2699263&postcount=31).

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/npc.html?id=5234&p=5#m99237211385912

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/npc.html?id=5234&p=4#m100927133564686

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

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=5234&p=4#m100131903275632

Vessel is not on a 48 hour spawn time anymore. I am currently timing him, I will get back to you when he spawns. :)

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=5234&p=4#m99638911064765

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.

September 29, 2000
Spawn on the SK is around 2 days, Tomb is around 3 days.
Link (http://web.archive.org/web/20010304005513/http://forums.castersrealm.com:80/eq/Forum127/HTML/000021-7.html)

"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]

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 (http://web.archive.org/web/20010304005513/http://forums.castersrealm.com:80/eq/Forum127/HTML/000021-7.html)

"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]

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

[Rygar]

Another tidbit here, mentions they only have 4 pieces left on the epic and implies VT / VD are '2 Day+' spawns. Obviously a bit open for interpretation, but I would think the + accounts for slight variance, big difference to say 2-4 day spawn.
10/20/2001:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5732&page=2
... just need 1st and 4th now for the epic. Now down to 4 pieces total left... 3 of which are 2+ day spawns and are rather contested as they're the three main bottlenecks (except probably the Essence in Hate - it wasn't when I got mine, but it's rather rarer now). The other is an 8 hour spawn, and is usually up, will need like a group and a half to two for him though. Might look into that this weekend when I'm not out and about. As for Verina and Vessel... I think I'll recruit the help of someone with an extra computer.

I'm assuming the 8hr mention is Targrin in FoB, but specifically mentions VD/VT in the 2 Day+ category.

[Bristlebaner]

Are we going to get VD window fixed?

[Baylan295]

Bump for classic.

[Diox]

Another bump for the ongoing weekly disasters on blue and the ones to come on green with this spawn.

[Jorgam]

What ever became of this? Camping VD now for several cycles and it's absolute garbage. Average 4-5 watchers and up to 9 people w/ 2 charmed pets standing on his spawn at times.

The thread has legit evidence to justify a change or a review at least.

Bumpity, bump, bump!

Thanks!

[Hisamori]

This window should be made shorter. Randomly popping in on lvl 1 Iksar, you'll often see this:
13352

[Dolalin]

Things shouldn't be made more common just because people want them. And I very much doubt they would be.

[Hisamori]

Things shouldn't be made more common just because people want them. And I very much doubt they would be.

That's not the argument being made here.

[scifo76]

Great research work. Bump for classic.

[gildor]

BUMP can we fix this shit instead of messing with a pointless ability to charm merchants

[Jorgam]

Bump!

We need help on this one. VD camp is ready for review.

[Hisamori]

It should be noted that the original source (https://enchanter-epic.bjornstar.com/modani.html) for determining the 2-7 day window for both VT and VD, which was successfully refuted for VT but not yet VD, states that neither respawn on server reset?

[Alrics]

It should be noted that the original source (https://enchanter-epic.bjornstar.com/modani.html) for determining the 2-7 day window for both VT and VD, which was successfully refuted for VT but not yet VD, states that neither respawn on server reset?
What is the difference between the refutation from the Verina one vs the Vessel one?

[Hisamori]

What is the difference between the refutation from the Verina one vs the Vessel one?

Read the OP for link to the VT thread for yourself to check me but basically, people wrote more definitively about the VT spawn window than VD which is spurious at best. Some classic posts even directly state VT being a 48 hour spawn which is overwhelmingly unlikely to have been true in-era and certainly not the case on P99.

To me, the most compelling argument is that the evidence used to establish a 2-7 day spawn in the first place has been shown to be out-of-era. There might exist less evidence for VD than for VT to affirm a 2-4 day spawn, but the evidence used the assert the current spawn window is almost certainly not accurate.

[labornurse]

This has got to be the most disheartening epic camp I have ever done, been almost a year now and since I have a job I can almost never get this mob. Please change it!!!!!

[Hisamori]

Bump - can we please review this?

Summary:

1. There exists no compelling classic evidence that the window should be more than 48 hours (48 to 96 hours after last death)

1a. The evidence that existed to originally establish the 120 hour window was from a site that reference post-era information. The staff also changed the VT window and this, in some sense, confirms that this evidence was invalid all along.

2. All the evidence that exists in-era seems to indicate a 48 hour window.

Probably good to get this fixed before green launches epics to save on some headaches with petitions. Please review for classic if possible.

[yyrkoon]

jump camp the mob like all the epic encs did

why do u ppl always cry to get the game changed to make it easier for you

camp the mob, mobilize ur friends, get epic. if u want ez game try another server thx

[Croco]

jump camp the mob like all the epic encs did

why do u ppl always cry to get the game changed to make it easier for you

camp the mob, mobilize ur friends, get epic. if u want ez game try another server thx

Server is supposed to be classic but you don't want classic? Sounds like you need to try a different server.

[Hisamori]

jump camp the mob like all the epic encs did

why do u ppl always cry to get the game changed to make it easier for you

camp the mob, mobilize ur friends, get epic. if u want ez game try another server thx

Sorry friend, not quite sure what you're trying to say?

[Hisamori]

Bumping this to try to see if we can get it reviewed. Have everything done for mine, but still needs to be corrected to be classic.

[yyrkoon]

Sorry friend, not quite sure what you're trying to say?

quit trying to change the game to suit your needs

get your epics like everyone did, camp it , sock it etc

VD spawn is perfectly normal



if the devs listened to u whiners we'd just have an npc to hail (in nexus!) to get your class epic and a full set of raid gear and lvl 80

"cuz eq is too hard"

[Hisamori]

quit trying to change the game to suit your needs

get your epics like everyone did, camp it , sock it etc

VD spawn is perfectly normal



if the devs listened to u whiners we'd just have an npc to hail (in nexus!) to get your class epic and a full set of raid gear and lvl 80

"cuz eq is too hard"

I am done with the quest. I am not trying to change the quest to "make it easier". The OP is brought attention to this spawn because the information used to establish the current window is inaccurate. There is even implicit agreement that the information is invalid because that same information established a 2-7 day spawn time for Verina Tomb and Verina Tomb was changed. It is being requested for review because it doesn't match the information about classic mechanics.

You clearly have not read the information being presented here nor do you have anything credible to establish your claim that the spawn is "perfectly normal". So please, quit adding clutter to this thread unless you have something informational or objective to contribute.

By the way, you also seem to be a hypocrite. Here in this post (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3120727#post3120727), you champion the idea changing the Earth Staff drop rate to suit YOUR needs.

[LazyHydras]

This has got to be the most disheartening epic camp I have ever done, been almost a year now and since I have a job I can almost never get this mob. Please change it!!!!!

It's even worse now. The tracker Mayycab belongs to a group of plat farmers who use retired toons (and probably triple box) to farm the camp and sell loot rights for 100k. This spawn time sucks and I'm not surprised that many enchanters choose to skip the epic altogether.

You either need to risk it camping by yourself maintaining a charm pet, or have people help you camp this god awful spawn which is never easy. The plat farm crew has an average response time of about 2 minutes, so you need to be really quick if you want to get them - leaving to get a charm pet and come back will probably be too late.

[LazyHydras]

However - VT was fixed within 1 month of the thread being started. It has been over 2 years, now, and no word. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the same era used to flush out VT's spawn time is deemed insufficient for VD because there's simply less information regarding VD's spawn.


One thing is clear, though, the initial evidence is credibly out-of-era. We do know that up until some point in 2001, players on allakhazam were repoting a 48 hour window with minor variance (~10%). For the sake of authenticity, and everyone's sanity, I feel that we should opt to go with that versus sticking with out-of-era evidence as the basis for VD.

[Dustyslippers]

bump a dump

[Plumpys]

Fix stuff that matters. Glad we can’t charm merchants or see in the dark.

[LazyHydras]

Fix stuff that matters. Glad we can’t charm merchants or see in the dark.

I can't, offhand, recall the last time we had a large content patch. Sometime last year?

[Hisamori]

Bump, 2-7 is unclassic.

[Tunabros]

so how much plat should I save for a lr?

[aztec42321]

Bump. The evidence does seem to suggest 48 hour spawn with some variance but certainly not 5 days worth of variance.

[Hisamori]

2-7 not classic.

[Hisamori]

Request to consider this change to increase P99 classic levels.

[Tewaz]

Make it classic!

[Tewaz]

Bump.

[aakatz]

bump

[Tewaz]

Bump

[Rysva]

Request to consider this change to increase P99 classic levels.

[zipzapzop]

Vessel was even more common on live than 2-4 day respawn. This is because the server came down at a predictable interval every week and he was always up following it.

It was an average 3 day respawn and a free one every 7th day due to server maintenance. Spawn rate on P99 is ridiculously low.

[Rysva]

Vessel was even more common on live than 2-4 day respawn. This is because the server came down at a predictable interval every week and he was always up following it.

It was an average 3 day respawn and a free one every 7th day due to server maintenance. Spawn rate on P99 is ridiculously low.
That’s a very good point. Basing VD’s spawntime for p99 on Bjornstar‘s info (kudos for all his research on the chanter epic) is not reasonable, as I witnessed yesterday that both VT & VD spawned after a quake, whereas he claims they do not. His info on this matter is not accurate, which was already proved for VT in the past.

Playing on live I remember the chanter epic to be one of the easier attainable ones, not relying on rare contested drops like other epics, just two bottlenecks (VD & VT), easy kills you just needed to wait for. And, like Zipzapzop wrote, due to weekly server resets you could just camp out your team at the spawnpoint and gank him. This was done regularly, all the chanters in my guild (Weltenbrand - Druzzil Ro) at the time (99-03) got VD that way.

Taking some stress out of VD would also help the current competition between lootright sellers and the players who either don‘t have the affordable amounts and/or are not willing to pay for their epic and would want to earn their epic by investing the time needed for a poopsock camp. Seeing what happened at VD after the quake yesterday speaks for itself. We need a fix to this, so please, change the spawntime so we can have the classic game experience.

[Tewaz]

Bump

[Tunabros]

remember that devs do not like it when you bump threads endlessly without anything new

to add

[Tewaz]

I’m going to bump this daily until it changes.

There hasn’t been a single developer reply to this in two years.

Last quake a rogue clearly hot swapped or boxed a rogue to FTE VD then refused to kill him while selling LR on discord and by private message. He took over 13 minutes to kill the mob while getting a buyer lined up.

VD window is too long. Easy dev fix.

Or you can go along thinking a single player burning multiple stacks of wort pots to solo a mob for 20 minutes while taunting 12 other players logged in watching as they advertise loot rights to run a player out and loot an item is classic and not against a play nice policy.

If that’s so, fuck this server. Ogres in doorways, healing and memblurring, or straight clickfesting to ninja loot are also classic in this vein.

Change the shit devs.

[aakatz]

2-7 not classic. please review

[Hideousclaw]

Bump

remember that devs do not like it when you bump threads endlessly without anything new

to add

Thanks for your bump. Lots of great evidence here. Make that change

[Tewaz]

bump

[Tewaz]

Bump

[tranceminus]

Can we please get a comment from an admin/dev on whether they're aware of this, disagree with this, agree with this, etc?

[loramin]

Can we please get a comment from an admin/dev on whether they're aware of this, disagree with this, agree with this, etc?

No, you can't. Or at least, it's incredibly unlikely.

Look, maybe this wasn't obvious from:

There hasn’t been a single developer reply to this in two years.

... but clearly Nilbog has made a choice here. That choice is either to not fix this issue, or to fix it someday in the future. As others have tried to explain, Nilbog's actions will not be influenced by posts here.

Now, Nilbog doesn't strike me as an aggressive guy, so I wouldn't expect that he'd come tell you that you are idiots for posting. But he's also not going to let a few players dictate how he builds the server that he's spent over ten years of his life building.

So y'all can keep bumping all you want, but again, it's not going to do anything. And to be clear, I don't speak for Nilbog, and I have no special insight: you too can know exactly what I just explained yourself ... simply read past bug posts and see.

[loramin]

Or, to sum it up with Nilbog's own words:

I'll keep making classic changes when I can, regardless if people threaten to quit. I'm here to recreate classic eq; not to make people happy.

[Croco]

No, you can't. Or at least, it's incredibly unlikely.

Look, maybe this wasn't obvious from:



... but clearly Nilbog has made a choice here. That choice is either to not fix this issue, or to fix it someday in the future. As others have tried to explain, Nilbog's actions will not be influenced by posts here.

Now, Nilbog doesn't strike me as an aggressive guy, so I wouldn't expect that he'd come tell you that you are idiots for posting. But he's also not going to let a few players dictate how he builds the server that he's spent over ten years of his life building.

So y'all can keep bumping all you want, but again, it's not going to do anything. And to be clear, I don't speak for Nilbog, and I have no special insight: you too can know exactly what I just explained yourself ... simply read past bug posts and see.

Can you even imagine how amazing it would be if there was even a little bit of transparency and communication from the devs about what's being worked on?

How many posts would've never happened if there was a list that everyone could see of all the things the devs are aware of and being worked on or that are working as intended and will remain as they are?

None of the devs/staff have any obligation to say anything or respond to any post but the staggering amount of trouble they would save and frustration that would be alleviated is immeasurable if they did decide to communicate more.

The lack of communication between the staff and the player base and crazy long amount of time between patches is really sad.

[loramin]

Can you even imagine how amazing it would be if there was even a little bit of transparency and communication from the devs about what's being worked on?

How many posts would've never happened if there was a list that everyone could see of all the things the devs are aware of and being worked on or that are working as intended and will remain as they are?

None of the devs/staff have any obligation to say anything or respond to any post but the staggering amount of trouble they would save and frustration that would be alleviated is immeasurable if they did decide to communicate more.

The lack of communication between the staff and the player base and crazy long amount of time between patches is really sad.

I absolutely agree: more communication from the staff would be lovely!

Also, while I don't know the details of this bug, I'm very much against making the Enchanter epic unclassically hard. I'm against anything unclassic, but it cuts both ways: Enchanters on P99 have charming unclassicaly easy. I'd like to see less charm soloing Enchanters AND more Enchanters with snake sticks ... which is to say, I want the classic Enchanter in all their classic glory :)

But aside from all all that, I'm also a developer myself, and most days I can't even be arsed to put an hour of work into my side project. Nilbog has put in far, far more than that ... for 10+ years! I can't even begin to explain how incredible that is.

If him ignoring all us asshole players, and refusing to communicate with us, is what it takes to keep him sane and still cranking out these classic fixes after all these years ... I think we can all make due with a lack of communication.

[Tewaz]

Nilbog, can we get an update on this? Info not enough?

[funry]

I think we need to focus on removing spell fade text and making sure level 10 npcs now drop the correct cloth tunics.

[LazyHydras]

However - VT was fixed within 1 month of the thread being started. It has been over 2 years, now, and no word. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the same era used to flush out VT's spawn time is deemed insufficient for VD because there's simply less information regarding VD's spawn.


One thing is clear, though, the initial evidence is credibly out-of-era. We do know that up until some point in 2001, players on allakhazam were repoting a 48 hour window with minor variance (~10%). For the sake of authenticity, and everyone's sanity, I feel that we should opt to go with that versus sticking with out-of-era evidence as the basis for VD.

quoting myself because it really is ridiculous.

[Tewaz]

quoting myself because it really is ridiculous.

This one.

[nilbog]

Generally, evidence is what is needed for content changes. Followed by ability, and lastly, time to implement.

I'll try to help with the evidence portion.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010709183850/http://forums.castersrealm.com/cgi-bin/eq/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=17&t=000509
posted June 20, 2001 09:02 AM I believe his spawn time is 72 hours, much like the spawn times of the other chanter epic mobs (vessel drozlin, verina tomb)If you are on an older server, chances are people are taking him down as soon as he spawns https://web.archive.org/web/20010709183850im_/http://forums.castersrealm.com/eq/frown.gif
https://web.archive.org/web/20010530171010/http://forums.castersrealm.com/cgi-bin/eq/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=next_topic&f=17&t=000454&go=older
posted May 09, 2001 03:03 AM To post my experience with Vessel...., which may explain some of your problems. I play on Erollisi Marr. Patch day happened. Waited 48 hours, Logged on my level 1 iksar shaman who was camped at the Vessel loc. Nada there, waited four hours, didn't show, had to go to work. Logged back in the next day, about 70 or so hours after patch, he popped somewhere during that period.
There is a missing spawn mechanic of delayed spawn variance after a server up/down. It will need to be developed, but I have seen it mentioned repeatedly while researching. This is likely the case here, where people were trying to catch it at exact 12 hour intervals, and failing; there were a lot of references for 2-7 days as well.

I think we need to focus on removing spell fade text and making sure level 10 npcs now drop the correct cloth tunics.

If it helps, detrimental spell text and level 10 npcs dropping cloth tunics is exactly as important to me as this issue.

[SwordNboard]

Bump.

This issue has led to a certain group of people allying against loot rights sellers for FTE. It is such a disgusting, unsolved, and demoralizing problem.

There are some nasty things going on down in that sewer..

[Solist]

You mean the dudes permanantly boxing/VM a character on 24/7?

Sounds like casuals in sewer club need some bans.

[GruulPonza]

Windows aren't in Era, period. Just timers.