NPC Spawn Issue: Magi P'Tasa Staff of Elementary Mastery Earth drop rate

[gwideon]

I mentioned in the post above that Matt Waggner's site is in era and that it is a copy and paste from his in era website here is evidence:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...00677907676693

Maginess
Nov 26 2001 at 7:51 AM
Anonymous
Magi, like all mini bosses, is a semi-rare spawn with a placeholder on a 72 hour timer + or - 12 hours (60-84 hour spawn). He spawns in 10 different spots:

2 in rev house
2 on top floor in maestro's house
2 with ashenbone drakes on first floor
2 in inny's old lair
2 on second floor of second floor church.

This is direct paste from http://matt.waggoner.com/orbofmastery.html

The link in the post is no longer active after nearly 20 years but as you can see in the above post the text is identical the information copied above, same abbreviations and format placing this affirmatively within our era. I also believe this was used as evidence in a prior P99 adjustment to reduce the spawn rate to 72 hours from 8 hours.

Here is a Magician Epic walk through post from a Korean website that is dated 12/25/02 but again there is no mention of it dropping from revenants of the later Hate change. Also please keep in mind that information lagged on many sites as players slowly discovered content and found old sources for their own write ups. Reference uses google translate but you can see the original if it will help.

https://translate.google.com/transla...00&prev=search

Tiblner Milnik says' Combining the following items can bring the Element of Earth together. Obtain the Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth, held by the minions of the Prince of Hate, The Dirt of Underfoot found on Slix something or the other, and of course, I shall need the Broom of Trilon and the Shovel of Ponz. Bring all these things, and I shall show you what a true Master of Earth can do, and gift you with the Element of Earth.

Now ... there is no free. You also need to get 4 more (Shovel of Ponz, Broom of Trilon, Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth, Dirt of Underfoot)

1] Shovel of Ponz
; You have to get these.

In 1} najena you have to get Shovel from Wizards or Crocs of Khajittuul.
2} Hill Giant's Toe
3} Gargoyle's Eye (Mist Moore or OOT)
4} Ruby

With these you can go to Temple of Solusek Ro and get it through Vira.
When you go to Temple of Solusek Ro, it's good to go with Temple of Solusek Ro and people with good factions.
The best way to raise the faction of Temple of Solusek Ro is to kill shadowed men.

2] Broom of Trilon
; You have to get these.

In 1} najena, you have to get a broom from wizards or eggs from Kazictool.
2} Cyclops toes
3} Griffon feather (may be sold by vendors of North Karana)
4} Sell Star Ruby (not Star Ruby !!). -_-

3] Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth
; Magi P'tasa (Level: 55, Energy: 32000)
You live in a place called Plane of Hate. 30% drop on a huge rare spawn (60-84 hour spawn) ..

4] Dirt of Underfoot
; Slixin Klex (Class: Warrior, Level: 50, Energy: 11000, Damage: 137, Antic Skel)
You say you live in Burning Wood in KUNARK (-500, -1100).

Now ~~ If you collected 4, give Tiblner Milnik living in Firiona Vie in KUNARK, and you will give Element of Earth, right?
Another squad ends. -_- It's shorter than the big one, but -_- It's a door that can be seen for a longer time. -_-

Here we see the 30% drop rate from the other post rather than 1 in 4 in other posts I found but again it is close to the estimate of other players from the same period. Google doesn’t do a great job with pronouns, but the essence of the post shows the drop rate.
----

The following post shows a copyright of 2002 at the bottom of the page, but again no mention of revenants dropping the staff. The date could be due to revisions in his walk through from the original rather the original write up date. The text again matches closely the text from the prior post.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/eq...cian/epic.html

Staff of Earth drops off Magi P'Tasa in Hate. He is on a rare pop out of several (12) places, so there can be multiples of him up, although I have never seen more than 2. The drop rate is about 1 in 4. One uber group can do him, although you probably need an all out raid.

In my research I did not find anything that supports my guess at the current P99 drop rate of 5 – 10%. All of the sources close to the period seem to point to a 25% - 30% drop rate for the staff. This makes sense from a Sony perspective as they made adjustments to many of the class epics around the same time to give players an opportunity to complete them. They would not be likely to leave one class’s epic extremely difficult and endure the rants of Sony hates the Magician class. (However, they were already saying it because of the Pegasus Cloak) The magician’s epic is already fairly involved with several raid level encounters and more numerous steps than some of the other epics. It is arguably the most difficult on P99.

I know there will be some who will say that they had to go through the rarity of the drop, so others should too. I can understand that because it was also the argument used on EQLive and class boards at the time for all of the revised epic quests. However if the goal of the server is to recreate the game as it was in the peak of the game in period, the drop rate should reflect the rate at the time. To subject others to the same P99 rarity just because you had to may be a classic argument, but hopefully it is not the opinion of the P99 staff.

Some have pointed out that an epic magician was uncommon. Magicians as a class were uncommon. Mages did not like their role in the raid environment as modrod producers because people at the time often did not allow pets for boss mobs because of pathing and warping, etc. In my recollection on our server INT casters in general were less valued during the Velious era which was dominated by melee due to the higher HP boss mobs and mana regen limitations. Wizards were much more common due to the Lure line of spells on resistant bosses, and later the Bane set of spells. However, the rarity of the class does not prove that their epic was unusually rare.

Lastly, there is a group I have little sympathy for, the farmers. Not that I am against farming in general, most people do it to earn plat for other things. It is part of the game. But, because this item is so rare, there is a select few who are breaking the rules by camping out in zone so they can snatch it up before people get it for their own epics. They do it with 2 unguilded accounts (avoiding a raid ban) and have a head start on people who have to gather and port up and break into the entrance of the zone with a larger force. You can see an example of the problem this causes in this RNF post from last year:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=322988
This is still happening. I thought with the launch of the green server the crew would move onto other projects. That they are not, leads me to wonder if there is not RMT motives involved. I cannot prove this is their intent, it may be just another mage desperate to obtain their epic and willing to break the rules to get it. I have had people tell me to get FRAPS which is easier said than done for reasons I won’t go into here as it may lead to them using that information. One other tracker claims to have gotten video and reported them, I hope they are banned considering they are unguilded and trying to skirt the raiding rules. As you can see from prior posts, some would encourage others to do the same. Not healthy (IMO)

I do not bring the last item up to invite RNF; please start your own thread there. I bring it up because there are some who will argue against the change so that they or their friends can continue to do this. Please take this into consideration.

Thank ye kindly!