Ice Comet Research Combine (Revisited)
 

As a wizard who recently reached the top level I became aware that the Ice Comet combine from droppable runes has been disabled on p99, the reason given that it was believed the droppable rune combine was not implemented until the tradeskill patch of 2002. ( http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9996 )

This is NOT the case. The droppable rune combine was most certainly in the game by the start of kunark, most likely in classic. June 02, 2000 archive of www.graffe.com's Research page:

http://web.archive.org/web/200006021...h/research.htm
The archive has a November 27, 1999 snapshot of the site, but only for the main page which does display the Research link on the sidebar, but they did not archive the deeper linked pages until a later date.

Can the Rune of Frost + Rune of the Astral combine for Ice Comet be re-enabled?

Actually if you look at the URL, that page is from June 2, 2000. That's one of the problems with using the web archive. It doesn't tell you when it's fastforwarding to a more recent page. It goes to the closest archived page when following links.

Yes, that's the date I posted. The argument from the original thread was that the droppable Rune of Frost + Rune of Astral combine for Ice Comet was not implemented until 2002, and that is why they disabled the research combine.

That is false, the combine was in game but the runes were exceptionally rare in early 1999 (Vox+Naggy only). They added in the quest for a no drop version, and by the time Kunark was coming out the runes were dropping "from scattered high level mobs" already. The combine should be re-enabled.

* March 16, 1999 - July 27, 1999 ( http://www.eqclassic.org/forums/view...hp?f=16&t=1571 )
July 27, 1999 ( http://web.archive.org/web/200009181...e/July30th.htm )
Sometime between July 27, 1999 - June 2, 2000 ( http://web.archive.org/web/200006021...h/research.htm )

More relevant posts I've found on the topic:

http://www.therelentless.com/boards/...d.php?t=129478
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/i...01344512887083
Jan 2000 would be pre-kunark and corroborates the graffe June 2000 information that the runes dropped off high level mobs (Vox adds and planar). The 2002 change had the actual spell scroll drop while it was previously available only through the staff quest or creature drops at the 182 trivial.

Bumping this for closure as I had the same question and found much of the same evidence for pre-Kunark droppable Ice Comet runes. Is this being re-implemented in a coming patch, or will the necessary components for Ice Comet (ie: the no drop, quested runes) stay as they are?

Rune of Frost would not exist if you were right, Uthgaard

Bump.

Only the NO TRADE runes are working for this combine still. Both Rune of the Astral and Rune of Frost have been dropping for some time now and should also work for the combine.

Added.

When does a change like this go live? I'm unfamiliar with the typical process/timeline.

When you see an announcement post with the patch notes.