NPC Spawn Issue: Everfrost Mobs

[Seritaph]

NOTE: I had posted this in Server Chat, but it was suggested I repost here.

Hiya,

New to the server, and I must say it's great fun. Started out in Everfrost/Halas area with a shaman. The newbie area and outside BB, basically the whole western side of the zone, is great. Pretty much how I remember it. Nicely done team!

Problem is when I explore the middle of the zone, ravine and hill just beyond where Bandl sits, it seems a little empty. If I recall correctly that area used to have a lot more mobs in the way of snow leopards, spiders, orc snow troopers, etc. I remember camping spawns there looking for silks, bracers, pelts and tusks when I outgrew the newb area.

Is there any chance this area will eventually be more populated with these types of mobs in the future?

[mmiles8]

There were several posts stating that the area seemed devoid of mobs in most areas. As someone who levelled there roughly one month ago, I can say that Everfrost was living up to the classic experience, and am guessing mobs may be falling under the world/stuck running into walls high on the mountaintops.

[mgellan]

Bump. I logged into my Shammy last night to try to get some further data. My observation is that there are basically only four spawns observable (plus a single vengeful, whose pathing seems to be short, he passes by a LOT more than I remember) in the areas in front of the Halas ravine which look like random bears, spiders, skellies, and baby gnoll/gobbies. This from the PoK book area east of the ravine and the whole ravine south of the Halas entrance. This seems to be a LOT less than live, since there's no concern with social adds with so few mobs and with 5 newbies in zone they didn't live very long. They respawned right away when killed tho so they kept circulating, but the quantities are definitely much less. I didn't see any pathing issues on these mobs that are unusual (bears ALWAYS climbed the mountains on live for example) but quantities are making it really hard to level newbies in EF...

Regards,
Mg

[mmiles8]

Without being able to see the mobs in the zone, and manually doing a /goto in sequence to check if they're under the world

/goto a_wooly_spiderling01
/goto a_wooly_spiderling02
/goto a_wooly_spiderling03
etc

the average player doesn't have many means of verifying under the world short of track. The mobs are there, I've verified this much with track. They're just not... there.

It's sort of wierd. Mobs here seem to be immune to under the world. They always appear at the proper location on the ground once they're on flat terrain, but what they are doing, is walking directly through hills and uneven landscapes in certain areas as if they were flat ground, and getting lost. Dips in the ground don't seem to cause it, but hills and raised terrain do.

[Itchybottom]

Originally Posted by mmiles8 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's sort of wierd. Mobs here seem to be immune to under the world. They always appear at the proper location on the ground once they're on flat terrain, but what they are doing, is walking directly through hills and uneven landscapes in certain areas as if they were flat ground, and getting lost. Dips in the ground don't seem to cause it, but hills and raised terrain do.

derision's pathing code on an azone2 generated map is to thank for things staying above ground on EQEMU. I'm not sure of it's current state, but I tend to recall you could change the update rate and have it chew more CPU, and make mobs behave better on hills on a per-zone basis.

[mmiles8]

I went to Everfrost Peaks again to look into the newbie area again, which is currently devoid of mobs. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this wasn't the case last month. The mobs that I was able to see appear to be pathing correctly, and track shows an appropriate amount of mobs for the area, I suspect that the missing mobs are pathing through the mountains. Mobs in other areas are pathing through walls as if they weren't there (the pathing minotaurs in the Minotaur Cave in Steamfont Mountains is an excellent example of this, as it happens very often there - every few seconds some minotaur is walking through a wall).

Here you can see a wolf that has pathed part-way up the wall but is still visible and stopped short.

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I frapsed a three minute video overlooking the entrance to the newbie area, this is the area that seems the most affected, other areas are affected to varying degrees. I put some music in this one so it won't be like watching paint dry.

And in case you were wondering if the wolf at 2:01 was a respawn, and that maybe the mobs had all been killed: The wolf didn't spawn there, it warped to there. If it had spawned it would have been above me on the track list shown below. I was one of three people in the zone, one was a level 4 newbie who has been AFK on the ramp for hours, the other was a 27 shaman camping the glacier bear far far away.

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The Lich of Miragul is also currently chilling on the ramp to Halas. He's spawning and reverting to here, as after I engaged him and died, he went right back to this point again. Luckily, he cons indifferent.

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[Mon Aug 02 10:34:16 2010] You say, 'Hail, Lich of Miragul'
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:16 2010] Lich of Miragul says, 'Areeeeewwwww'
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:26 2010] Lich of Miragul regards you indifferently -- he appears to be quite formidable.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:29 2010] You have finished memorizing Drifting Death.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:36 2010] You begin casting Drifting Death.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:41 2010] Your target resisted the Drifting Death spell.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:42 2010] Lich of Miragul tries to crush YOU, but misses!
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:42 2010] Lich of Miragul crushes YOU for 98 points of damage.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:42 2010] Lich of Miragul was hit by non-melee for 5 points of damage.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:42 2010] Lich of Miragul was pierced by thorns.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:42 2010] Lich of Miragul tries to crush YOU, but misses!
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:45 2010] You begin casting Drifting Death.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] Lich of Miragul tries to crush YOU, but YOU dodge!
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] You feel a tugging at your soul.  You have taken 1500 points of damage.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] You have been knocked unconscious!
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] You have been slain by Lich of Miragul!
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] Your spell is interrupted.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] You have lost experience.
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] Returning to Everfrost, please wait...
[Mon Aug 02 10:34:46 2010] LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
[Mon Aug 02 10:35:05 2010] You have entered Everfrost.

He also procced Deadly Lifetap. His live version (Miragul) should proc this, but the Lich of Miragul should not.

[guineapig]

Great post man! Good work!

[Ektar]

heh yeah someone beat me to it I guess =p. Of course I went to look for the lich immediately. He wasn't in the caves so I gave up. Was told where he was earlier and just came to bug report.

Sooo yeah. I figure you guys know what it should be? No lifetap, skeleton with a pet in the underwater caves, and scowls? Just something went awry I assume. Also the oracle part doesn't work still, not sure if you meant for that or not =x

Also I'm not suuuuuure, but I tihnk that lifetap link is wrong. According to that, maestro procs a 1500 AE lifetap as well. Yeah maestro's been upgraded.. but I did some wayback machine stuff and saw people saying miragul only lifetaps for a few hundred or something, like our current maestro does. I think the "deadly lifetap" was updated in alla and never reverted for miragul (or miragul himself was buffed too)

[mgellan]

As of yesterday evening the mobs in the newbie area of EF are now at a much more appropriate level, problem solved. And boy, the Lich hits pretty hard for a lvl 3 Shaman to take him on )

Regards,
Mg

[mmiles8]

Hmm I just went and checked, it doesn't seem any different to me. Some areas are less affected than others, you may be looking at a different area.
I don't think they've pushed an update since the post.
Still no sign of any polar bear cubs, wooly spiderlings, or decaying skeletons near the entrance by the Halas ramp
The same two large wooly spiders and two white wolves are pathing on their circuit, but that's it.