NPC Spawn Issue: What was Classic Variance!

[Rygar]

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

he apparently picks up anything on the ground that is near him, including player-dropped items.

I saw this mentioned in the Rogue epic wiki guide (which I assume was copied from a classic guide).

https://wiki.project1999.com/Rogue_Epic_Quest

To quote the Book of Souls section:
If the book spawns and no one picks it up, wandering creatures will

I think that definitely will slow down the Rogue epic quest

[Caiu]

I've been trying to pin down if anything other than a 20% variance was used. The easiest way to do that in theory was look at three day spawns like Trakanon or Venril Sathir(post April 17 2001 patch ). If there was a lot of confusion about them being a 2-4 day spawn that would indicate to me that 20% was used. However there was little confusion most sources were in agreement that he was a three day spawn. Now 10% of three days is 7 hours roughly so a 14 hour window would explain that.

https://www.sok.org/showthread.php?3...ll=1#post35136
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...98763652995497
(Out of Era) http://theconcerthall.yuku.com/topic/2399#.WO0mD9Lyu00
(Out of Era) http://thegcp.yuku.com/topic/1016/Ve...s#.WO0qpNLyu00

[Caiu]

Operating under the assumption that Zlandicar was a three day spawn I looked for evidence relating to him. What I found was that he was likely originally a three day spawn but changed to a longer spawn of unknown length but 5 days seems most in line with evidence.

http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10806
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/n...03735563052233


Edit: While researching I found what could possibly be quite informative
http://forums.hossguild.org/forumdis...17-IGB-Archive
this is the raid mob rotation forum of some in era server. Unfortunately the format the administrator chose to keep the info in is quite esoteric. Anyone able to parse this stuff better than I can?

[Caiu]

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post2424

L'Malla (7/30)

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post2871
08-03-2001, 07:02 AM

-Klandicar spawned at 4:15 am pacific (...I just know - don't ask...)

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...ull=1#post3171

Kland - Vind (8/8), Hoss (8/12)

Seems to share the same pattern as Zlandicar.

[Caiu]

http://forums.hossguild.org/showthre...nrotated-Ubers

Sont and Yelinak down 9/26.

Sont Down Sept 28 to L`Malla/Vindi

Sontalak deaded by ML 10/1

Evidence that Sontalak should have a pretty darn quick respawn as indicated by my earlier source haxx 1

[Rygar]

Found some relevant information on this, straight from the horse's mouth (Gordon Wrinn):
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc56.shtml

Deity Spawn Times

[Quote from original post: Diety Spawn Times. Can they be randomized?]

Aside from initial spawns that occur once the servers come back up, anything with a spawn time of over two hours receives a random modifier to the spawn time that could cause it to spawn sooner or later than when expected. The modifier is percentage-based, so that the average spawn time (based on large numbers) is roughly the same as when they were spawning after an exact interval.

https://web.archive.org/web/20011027...ve/arc44.shtml

Downtime Affecting Users Across World

After having addressed many times I wonder if I should keep trying or give up, but I'll give it another short:

EverQuest is played all over the world. ANY time that we take the servers down will be SOMEONE's primetime. We try to take them down when the fewest number of people will be affected, that will mean taking them down during off-peak time for the America's.

It's a matter of math. How can we affect the fewest number of people possible? If *peak* was at 4am my time and the low point were at 8pm, we'd take them down at 8pm even though it was primetime here.

I realize as an off-peak player you don't like this, any more than Americans who play during off-peak like it, but until peak time moves to a time other than the time it is, our scheduled patches will be in the general viscinity of when this one is taking place. I'm sorry, but there is really no other option that makes sense. I've seen people argue that we should stagger patch times so that it falls in someone elses peak every time, but that does not meet the goal of affecting the fewest number of people possible.

Now, that said, no spawn is "exactly 7 days", nor is it exactly "three days". Any spawn over two hours has a +/- modifier that adjusts its spawn time. That means that the seven day spawn could very well pop up anywhere from six to eight days after it was killed.
--
It's plus or minus a percentage of the total spawn delay. That means that a two-hour spawn would have a variation of minutes, whereas a 7 day spawn could very well have a variation of days days.

Whether or not you take the 6-8 days of variance for a 7 day spawn as gospel is another conversation, the other conversation being do spawns over a certain amount of time (2 hours per Gordon) have variance? Is very possible no one noticed the 2 hour timer due to miniscule repop variance.

If this were true, then one would expect the planes / NToV trash clears from back in the day to stagger on repopping. I'll see if I can dig anything up on that.

[Pringles]

Cross posting

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21642

Lets update...

All spawns over 12 hours have a +/- 10-20% to their spawn time. This was added long ago, when the first guild were farming Naggy and casters were farming Hadden to the second.

Mob, Level, spawn time, respawn time, zone

Spawn time is how long after the server resets before the mob spawns.
Respawn time is how long after death before the mob respawns.

Old Norrath:
Lord Nagafen, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Solusek B
Lady Vox, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Permafrost
Phinigel Autropos, level 52, instant, 12 hrs respawn, Kedge Keep
Master Yael, ?, ?, ?, The Hole

Kunark:
Trakanon, level 63+, instant, 3 day respawn, Old Sebilis
Venril Sathir, level 55?, instant, 3 day respawn, Karnor's Castle
Talendor, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Skyfire
Faydedar, level 55, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Timorous Deep
Severilous, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawnEmerald Jungle
Gorenaire, level 60, 3 day spawn, 7 day respawnDreadlands
Chardok Royalty, levels 60-65, instant, 2 hrs, Chardok
Veeshan's Peak Dragons, levels 63+, instant, 7 day respawn, Veeshan's Peak

Velious:
Yelinak, level 70, instant, 7 day respawn, Skyshrine
King Tormax, level 70, instant, 7 day respawn, Kael Drakkel
Dain Frosthammer, level 70, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Icewall Keep
Velketor, level 65?, instant, 3 day respawn, Velketor's Labyrinth
Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar, level 63?, instant, 3 day respawn, Velketor's Labyrinth
Zlandicar, level 60, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Dragon Necropolis
Klandicar, level 63+, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Western Wastes
Sontatalak, level 63+, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawnWestern Wastes
Kelorek Dar, level 60, 1-3 day spawn, 7 day respawn, Cobalt Scar
Woushi, level 63, 1-3? day spawn, 7? day respawn, Wakening Lands
Darakor the Vindicator, level 63+, instant, 8 hour respawn, Kael Drakkel
Statue of Rallos Zek, level 59, instant, 7 day respawn, Kael Drakkel
Lodizal**, level 60, 18-54 spawn time, 18-54 hour respawn, Iceclad Ocean

Planes:
Tunare, level 63+, instant, 7 days?, Plane of Growth
Wandering Plane of Growth Mobs: 12 hrs
Protectors of Growth: 25 mins
Cazic Thule, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Innoruuk, level 55, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Maestro of Rancor, level 53, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Hate Mini Bosses, ?, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Hate
Hand of Maestro***, ?, 12 hours after Maestro, 12 hour respawn, Plane of Hate
Dracoliche****, level 53, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Fear Golems, ?, instant, 3 day respawn, Plane of Fear
Noble Dojorn, level 63, instant, 7 day respawn, Plane of Air

** - Lodi has a really weird spawn pattern. He tends to spawn every 16-20 hours, but he can skip spawns. But I've never heard of him skipping 3 spawns in a row.

*** - When you kill Maestro, a weak version of the Hand of Maestro will spawn where you killed Maestro. Then 12 hours after you kill that Hand of Maestro, another Hand of Maestro will respawn in the Maestos spot, and this one is as hard as normal Maestro. The Hand will continue to respawn until Maestro spawns again. Or something like that...

**** - I'm not sure if Draco respawns on his own, or only when CT respawns the zone when he spawns.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21650

All long spawns have a small amount of variation built in to them. This was added quite a while ago.Friends currently on EverQuest:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/monk...20.html#p21649

Veeshans Peak isn't 7 days either. Nearest we could figure out it's 7 days + or - 24 hours.

This lines up with the 20% on 7 day mobs as variance at that rate would be +/- 33 hours roughly.

We have confirmation from Verant CS that a Naggy had +/- 20% from earlier in this thread plus the VP quote above.
I think we can deduce that the shorter the respawn time the lower variance was.
We also now have simulated server down times and it would be cool to get long respawn mobs just as it was in era.

[Dolalin]

It looks like as of October 1999, classic raid mobs were still not repopping instantly when a server came up from a patch, rather with a spawn variance of 6 to 10 days. At least according to this guy:

28/10/1999

Comments:

There's a small problem with the way monsters like Dragons and Gods (Cazic
Thule) spawn in the game world. Their spawn times is apparently set, from 6
to 10 days. Although servers going down is not always Verant's fault, they
do go down, and when that happens, the spawn time is reset. If adventurers
were to wait 10 days after a server goes down, for a god to spawn, yet it
goes down again on the 9th day, then the spawn time will be reset yet again.
Actually, that's the case with the people I'm adventuring with. Cazic thule
, whom we've not yet killed on our server yet, we'd plan on going up against
Friday. He should spawn today (Thursday), but there's an update, which is
going to cause us to wait another week, hoping there isn't another update in
between that time. We've talked to the guides and GMs on our server, and
they told us that they can't spawn them, so why not have the unique
monsters..(Cazic Thule, Dracoliche, Vox, Nagafen) spawn when the servers are
brought back up, instead of having the 10 day timer.

When PoF is brought up, it will be empty of course, but perhaps you could
set Cazic to spawn within the first 16 hours, and then have the timer set to
10 days. Something similar can be done with the Dragons.

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/WKBfygDgwYQJ

[Passenger]

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

So from my experience on Al'Kabor, here are a few other inconsistencies with spawn times and Variance between P99 and AK. I suspect most of these are correct in era, not some 2002 change:

HoT Symbol Drakes - 7 day respawn with 24 hour Variance
Dozekar - 5.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I imagine this coincided with the patch that changed his graphic from blue dragon to baby Sontalak)
Kunark Dragons - 3.5 day respawn with 24 hour Variance (I would guess this was a change from one of the many Velious epic updates)

The number one issue that P99 has though, is there is no "uptime" Variance. Meaning when the server initially pops, there is some Variance window on when that mob will spawn. Some like the classic Nagafen/Vox had 0 Variance and were up instantly. But much of Velious and Kunark had a 0-24 hour Variance window where they could spawn after a server reset.

Granted... Sim Repops are basically the only time P99 Raiding is pleasant for anyone and this flies in the face of a full server Repops but, it is what it is.

I think the % thing is off to be honest. They're much more likely just applying 24 hour Variance to damn near everything. Which was fine on servers with very few top end guild and a bunch of casuals. But going from 16-24 hour Variance on this server just further will push casuals out of a raid scene they barely participate in to start with.

It appears the named drakes in Halls of Testing should be on a ~7 day respawn timer.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20011227...cID=2144.topic

Creadance
(6/18/01 5:51:12 pm)
Re: ToV Quests

The regular drops where do they drop from??? our guild was there for 2 days in a row for a total of 18 hours and we did not see any drops but armor? not even any rare gems. Is this typical or was there something wrong with this.

Hastur
(6/19/01 2:52:05 am)
Re: ToV Quests

The gems (beside the tears) drops from 8 named drake in th HoT.
Each drop one gem only (some being very very common others being rare) and they have a respawn time of around 1 week i think.

Apparently someone had them killed not too long before you spent some time there.

Creadance
(6/19/01 6:21:44 pm)
Re: ToV Quests

would be nice if they increased the named drakes spawns to 3 days and leave the big mobs at once a week.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020210...ndex_6_30.html

Dreadlock Rasta. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 30, 2001 -- Tigole Bitties
...
Anyway, Pro-Dragon people want THINGS TO KEEEL. I don't care about the goddamned loot. The ToV quest loot is going to be so rare, it doesn't matter anyway. We're lucky to complete 3 quests out of 4 Dozekar kills right now (4 doze spawns = 1 month). What happens a few months from now when other guilds are Doze-capable? It's a fucking joke -- and even Pro-Giant people know it is.

Here are the solutions I feel would best address this gross imbalance:

A) Dozekar drops LOOT in addition to tears. And please, give us old Doze back. Likewise, the named drakes drop 4-8 symbols each time. These should spawn every 3 days AT LEAST, including Doze.
...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20011225...cID=3131.topic

Flapjax
(10/23/01 12:05:11 pm)
ToV/HoT quest items... common, rare, or non-existent?

I'd like to gather a concensus on the rarity of the quest items from ToV.

I am a level 60 rogue in a fundamentally level 58+ guild. We are dragon allied and have spent approximately three months in HoT equipping our people in SS armor. Aside of our casters and the relatively rare silk drops, our chain and plate classes are content (more so for the plate wearers).

Anyway my concern with HoT drops is centered on symbols and orbs from the named dragons. In just over 12 weeks we have YET to complete one ToV quest item. We are a small tight guild and work hard for these drops. The rarity of some of these symbols and tears is absurd. And these reason is it absurd is in those 13 weeks the entrance rate for items from NToV to Tarew Marr's player base has dwarfed the ZERO items from HoT quests. Yes the items from ToV quests are good, heh, but so are the items from NToV. In fact, many items from NToV are superior to HoT quest items but there seems to be no rate limiting step to power guilds (i.e., high number of members) simply farming NToV. Yeah those guidls will say, "Oh man NToV is so much harder than HoT." Fine, I agree it is harder but the fact is Tarew Marr has fundamentally ZERO ToV quest items (I know of at least two, the earring and the cloak). BUT whenever I inspect members of the Tarew Marr power guild (ahemmm, ED), some og them have not one but two NToV items. So, our "small, tight" guild spends ungodly weeks in HoT with nothing to show for it while power guilds int he same time are all decked out. I find this disturbing. I mean it won't be long before our guild is ready to move out of CoV/HoT... almost everyone in the guild has started a HoT quest but nearly noone has finished theirs.

I recommend that if anyone reading this has "connections" to people at Verant about zone item balance and drop rates should look over the HoT quest item situation.

My remedy to this wing imbalance is pretty straightforward and based on three months of doing HoT nameds every week.

One, up the repawn rate on HoT nameds to that of Dozekar... every three and a half days. This would increase drop rates but more importantly allow multiple guilds the opportunity to share the HoT nameds.

Two, make the drop rate of a given piece off HoT nameds equal for any given named. In my honest opinion, the decision to include common and rare drops (e.g., dragon orbs are common while silver symbols are rare) is very poor. The time sink do complete HoT quests is already big enough. Simplify the quests and make symbol, orb, tear drop rates a equal across the board for all nameds.

I will gather a list from my guild as to what exactly we have obtained from HoT nameds just to make sure I'm not makign a mountain out of a molehill.

Before I close, how are other guilds fairing with HoT quests? Is our guild just having bad luck?

P.S. I do hope that the Serrated Dragon Tooth I've spent the past two to three months trying to obtain gets a face lift like alot of the NToV "farmer Brown" rogue weapons have recently received.

Trike
(10/23/01 12:43:15 pm)
Re: ToV/HoT quest items... common, rare, or non-existent?

Well first thing.. are you killing Dozekar? It may seem silly to ask, but killing only named will get you no where, as will just killing Dozekar.. you need both or your just wasting your time, and probably others.

We have been killing the named for quite some time now, and been killing dozekar since right before he got changed.. have completed roughly 15 or so quests, and have another 12-5 waiting.

Dozekar, at least on our server is a 7ish day spawn, just like the named. I agree, it sucks.. I myself think the named should be changed to a 3-5 day spawn, it seems to be the biggest blocking point. Mostly, because of the insane amount of glowing drake orbs.. and also because of the rarity of certain symbols.. /wave Ruby/Poison

Anyways, hope this is at least some help

Flapjax
(10/24/01 9:52:39 am)
RE: Hey Booker!

Yep you hit the nail right on the head... the reason you have not done much of the nameds is our guild has fundamentally 'owned' the nameds for three months. This is exactly my point... Tarew Marr has fundamentally zero HoT/ToV quest items and we farm it every seven days. It saddens me to think that our guild has had a monopoly on the spawns for so long with nothing to show for it. If your guild intends to start working the nameds then there is going to be even slower entrance of HoT quest items into the game.

VeRant needs to up the spawn rate on nameds. Or drop their fascination with common vs. rare symbols. its obvious there is an imbalance of high end CoV vs giant items. Look in the Back Alley and you can see dozens of posts about how "sucky" the NToV loot is by all the farmer Browns. Eegads its so sucky they have to use the daggers as situation loot or bank items. NToV farmers are complaining about their crappy daggers when they don't stop to realize that in three months of farming they've gotten one, two, three, maybe four uber items from NToV. While three months in HoT (all level 58+ in SS armor) have left us with no bank dust-collectors.

/bonk VeRant

See you in game.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020424...art=21&stop=40

Vincecross
(11/10/01 10:05:30 pm)
Re: Could we all be wrong?

The point of the Doz killing and SOT is this, to complete a quest from doz you need 1-3 different Tears for each item, then 1-4 symbols off 1 week spawning mobs that drop 1 tear.
Now lets say SOT wanted 10 specific quests to help thier Dragon allied members. This would require probably 30 kills of named to get the required symbols and any number of kills of Doz for the Tears required.
I can tell you I am on the list for the Test of the Emerald tear wich is a very nice Caster/priest shield, problem being after 6 months of killing Doz we havent gotten 1 emerald tear to complete one.

As far as Telk/Goz goes everytime a Statue or a Vindi has been taken down by a Giant allied guild and all our uber mobs are dead what else are we supposed to kill?

IF the Mobs that were Enemies to our faction (Dragon) we would have little reason to kill Telk/Goz, We would be happy with Vindi/Tormax and Statue, with maybe an attempt on the AOW every once in a while, but at this point we cant most of the time because they are dead.

Now as I hear it there are plans in the works to resolve some of these issues, but I can garuntee you wont see me at a telk or Goz killing if Statue or Tormax are up for us to kill.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20020527...icID=293.topic

Eumin Enchantiflyer
(11/16/01 4:41:51 am)
Re: Lazreth

No one owns any mob. Tindi and NB do not own Dozekar, we all know that. But the problem *I* had with SoT trying to kill dozekar was this: In order to complete ONE Dozekar quest, and a 1 tear quest, at that, A person(s) would have to Kill dozekar, who can drop 2-4 tears. There are 10 tears, Silver being the most common. The chances of a person getting the one tear for thier quest is low. But say you got the tear you wanted on 2 kills. thats 2 weeks right there. NOW, you get to go deep into the halls of testing and kill named, to get the other 3 symbols. 8named mobs, 10 tears, 1 orb, 1 week spawn time. Orb is common, and again, the chances of the person getting the 3 symbols needed is low.

IF you were extreemly lucky, you could finish 1 dozekar quest
in 2 weeks. So think if you were in TL or NB. You are in a guild of 70+ active members, all working on a dozekar quest. knowing that 1 dozekar kill brings 2-4 people 1 step closer to finishing a great quest. Then a giant guild comes in, a guild that can kill in ToV-N for items similar/better than dozekar quests. a guild that can walk right up to vindi's door and kill him, then statue, then walk to tormax and wax him, and walk away, with ease. It just wasn't fair to us, and lot of us got pissed.

Your right, though, we all picked our factions, and that doesn't mean we have to stop killing certian mobs. But common curtosy would be to leave dozekar as the exception. Of corse, no giant guilds made any attempts on dozekar after the last one, so it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore, but i wanted to post *MY* thoughts on the subject.

Eumin Enchantiflyer
Walking Corpse
Beguiler ~ The Rathe
email Tindi'Losi profile

Falconus Dawnlight
(11/16/01 12:01:50 pm)
Re: Lazreth

Actually Umbali we went into HoT knowing fully what was required. We even drew up tables for Quests and people signed up before hand for the items they wanted. We also knew that VI messed around with Doz a few times adjusting the tear drop ratio, before he was killed on The Rathe he could drop upto 8 Tears (LoS was one of few people killing him) then they changed him to dropping just 2 tears, then they adjusted his tears to what we have today, any number between 2 and 4. Before we killed Doz we killed the other HoT named many times (Who incidently only drop quest symbols / Orbs). In that time we gathered enough quest items to make 2 or 3 HoT Quest rewards ONLY if Doz dropped the tears.

Since killing Doz we have completed what? 12 or so quests maybe?? Not sure on actual numbers but its not alot, we have put in months of work killing Doz and the named (Who are ALL on a 7day spawn btw) and as you can see the rewards are very drawn out. HoT stuff is comparable to NToV i would say, but theres alot of NTOV stuff that beats HoT gear.

The main problem we have is knowing how hard it is to complete a Doz quest and how much effort it takes, and seeing an NToV capable guild walking over us in yet another zone to get what they want, when there is comparable and better stuff to be had elsewhere. Sure i didnt pick your faction for you, i dont make the rules, but atleast have the decency to ask for a rotation and not simply try to Take by force as thats going to piss off many many people.

Falconus
Knight of The Rathe
Noble Blade

- https://web.archive.org/web/20021018...icID=122.topic

Borick
(9/16/02 4:48:07 am)
Re: Come on folks !!!

As a note:

Dozekar and the drakes are all on seperate RANDOM spawn timers. If you see a named drake up when Doze isn't up, it's because A) Doze hasn't spawned yet and the named has or B) The named hadn't spawned when the rotation mob killed Doze.

That's WHY those drakes stay up. We have to wait for a full spawn to clear them. Now if a guild leaves a full spawn up, then it passes to the next guild in the rotation.

This is simple. This is how it has worked. For months when it was just NB and Tindi doing Doze, NEITHER guild EVER took a named drake from the other. It never happened, and we did a lot of armor farming in those days.

Yes, Noble Blade and Tindi Losi both killed named drakes before we could kill Dozekar, but at that time there wasn't anyone else killing Dozekar. If BOTS had been killing Doze then, we would have respected the drake spawns.

Guys, there are levels of competition, and rules do get broken and sometimes guilds get nasty, but for the most part we do manage to fairly distribute the mobs on the server. THe 'big three' do not exist to put other guilds down, and as time passes and all of the guilds mature, the rotation guidelines have become less competitive and more open and friendly.

Just respect it. If you're a non-doze guild, you don't kill drakes. If you are a Doze guild, you get one full spawn of drakes for every doze kill. That's the only fair way to distribute the quests.

Borick Ascid
High Priest of Brell
Noble Blade
The Rathe

Stylina
(9/16/02 7:00:10 am)
Re: Come on folks !!!

My 2cp. Disclamer: I am not in any official position in either the RTA or in NB.
...

I don't think you have an accurate idea of what being on the Doze rotation means. You and all your guildies will not finish Doze quests. NB has been killing Doze for about a year and a half now with 2 and a half guilds on the rotation (bots passed it more often than not) and has gotten 39 quests completed. There are now 3 times as many guilds on the rotation. With that math, your guild will complete a Doze quest every month and a half. If you do Doze diligently for the next 2 years, you will finish 18-20 quest items, and having guilds KS the named drakes out of turn will slow you down signifigantly. Doing a doze quest is basically like doing the Ragefire part of the cleric epic 2 or 3 times. (pre-spawned Rage) Named are a once a week spawn, usually drop less than useful symbols, and have 6+ guilds waiting in line for them.
...