Aggro ranges

[Geld]

Does anyone remember this the same as I do.

Was the aggro range a lot larger for those low level creatures especially ones like black bears and black wolves in East commonlands on classic servers

I just started trying out the red99 pvp server, I've made it to level 6 now and I am pretty impressed so far. It's pretty accurate to how I remember it and Pvp seems pretty good so far. But I noticed that when I ventured out of the freeport city and into the forest that bears and wolves don’t seem to attack me unless I go really close to them. I basically have to run up to a black wolf and ride on it's back before it will attack me even though they were conning blue to me.

I vaguely remember from years back when I played on Rallos and Vallon zek that it was scary venturing out into the forests or deserts during the low levels. You were risking your life because of all the wild life out there. But now I can walk into the forest and if I see any creatures I can walk right up to them and then decide if I want to attack them or not.

I think this makes those first few levels seem like a chore rather than a challenge

I remember this one time when I played a dark elf enchanter on Rallos zek and a zombie or mummy I cant quite remember had gotten loose in the dark elf newbie area in Nektulas forest. It was killing low level dark elves left right and center and there was mayhem. Every time it killed someone it would turn around and run into another group of newbies and start killing. This would be because everyone that was in it's aggro range even for a second would be added to it's aggro list and it would remember it needed to kill them next. Of course every time it ran into a group of newbies they would all run off in different directions so it would go all over the place hunting them down one by one. I was a bit higher level about 11 I think and decided I would do the honourable thing and help out my fellow dark elves. So I took this thing on. It was a very close fight but I just managed to kill it and I got a lot of praise from some of the newbie dark elves. Weird situations like that were a lot of fun

Now it's hard to find proof that Aggro ranges were larger back then. But I think I found something to back it up. It's a post from somebody back in 2001

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zones.html?zstrat=24
post from Jan 02 2001
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Derv Camp 1 is a dangerous place to camp, becuase as you probably have found out Dorn spawns there. But this also means that it usually isn't camped unless it's by higher lvl PC's. Or they run like hell when Dorn spawns if there lower lvl. And if you like soloing this is a good thing. There is a spawn in the Camp, right by the flag pole. If you pull them with either a bow and arrow or DD spell it will not pull Dorn. It looks risky espiacially since it's right next to the tent Dorn spawns in, but if you do it from the rear of the tent (the side facing the ocean). You can pull that one spawn all day long and not ever pull Dorn. It takes about 6 to 7 min to respawn witch gives you plenty of time to med, heal, and go sell your loot. And it's an excellent place to get exp. I've been camping there for the last 4 lvl's and only got killed my Dorn once, and only because some genius decided to train Dorn to me and then Fieghned Death (or somthing like that) so I'd be the lucky one to face Dorn. ( How nice of them, huh ) Well, Good hunting!
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So I logged into Red99 and had a look at this Derv Camp 1 and I can see that this guy by the flag pole is a good distance away from Dorn and all the other Dervish Cutthroats. So I would say back in 2001 the Aggro range would have been just a bit less than the distance between dorn and the guy at the flag pole. From what the guy is saying it sounds like if you attacked anyone else in the camp you would end up having a whole bunch of Dervish Cutthroats running at you and Dorn as well. I couldn't test this myself because I'm too low level but I got someone else in the zone who was a couple of levels higher than me and KOS to the dervish cut throats to try it out. They were able to pull other dervish cutthroats from the camp without any other dervish cut throats joining in the fight. So this seems to show that the aggro ranges used to be bigger back then

Anyway let me know what you think. It was a long time ago that I played on EQ live so I could be wrong about it

PS: I found another post that makes it seem like aggro ranges were bigger back then

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.everquest/browse_thread/thread/893bdddf1d5f55f6/25656f415afb347

[quido]

This can be at least partially explained by the specifics of p99's aggro mechanic. Proximity aggro is checked every few seconds or something, so depending on how your proximity intersects these check ticks, the mob might remain unaggroed for an unnatural amount of time. I've straight up darted between two mobs guarding a doorway without aggroing either.

I think I remember Uthgaard explaining to me once that before he had changed something that zones checked for aggro way too often and that this was a reason we had nasty zone lag with lots of players in a single zone.

[Geld]

Thanks quido that's good to know.
But I assume what you're talking about is only for when you run at or past mobs. What I'm pretty sure the guy that helped me did was cast a spell at one of the dervish cut throats. I assume the code would do the aggro check as soon as the spell lands. But he was still able to pull a single dervish cut throat from the camp without pulling any others