Game Mechanics: It appears NPC's in hate should pickup Book of Souls

[Ennewi]

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

I gave links

One link that had already been provided and another from these forums, which was a pretty good find actually. Beyond that though, a lot of conjecture. More evidence one way or the other brings the debate closer to an end and puts a more classic server before the playerbase.

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

they snuck past hate mobs to get their book, exactly as one would predict the quest to work, since it makes no sense to make a ground spawn for a rogue to pick up if they have to clear every mob in the zone to get it, they could have just made it a drop off a named mob.

As with many experiences in classic, what's accurate during any given patch/expansion may not be accurate during another. What was described by Rog(u)ean from memory could have been possible, even the norm, at one point and then all but impossible later in the timeline (then reverted back to being possible again, as you suggest). Those details need to be figured out though. And while worth considering, player memory is not as reliable as testing and providing links with screenshots, firsthand descriptions, or logs from twenty plus years ago.

[mycoolrausch]

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

As with many experiences in classic, what's accurate during any given patch/expansion may not be accurate during another. What was described by Rog(u)ean from memory could have been possible, even the norm, at one point and then all but impossible later in the timeline (then reverted back to being possible again, as you suggest). Those details need to be figured out though. And while worth considering, player memory is not as reliable as testing and providing links with screenshots, firsthand descriptions, or logs from twenty plus years ago.

I agree. And I think it's very possible the following could have happened through velious:

1. the devs implemented a mechanic that had a (probably) unintentional effect on the book of souls quest
2. the devs either didn't notice, or didn't care, for entire expansions that the nature of the quest had fundamentally changed
3. the players were shrouded in enough fog of war/ignorance at the time that none of them noticed the book was never up every time they ported up to get it or cleared hate, and they had to sit there and wait hours for it every time.


but I think we would need some pretty convincing and consistent evidence to support this.

there is also the discussion of the spirit of classic vs actual classic, as we have seen with lots of mechanics on this server. clearly in the thousands of books collected on this server, not once in the past 10 years has anyone ever said "hey, this book shouldn't be here...on live npcs just grabbed it..." because even if thats how the quest worked through velious on live, clearly very few if any people perceived it that way, and instead experienced the quest as a book sitting up in hate they had to go collect.

contrast that with p99, where mechanics are immediately metagamed and min-maxed on contact, and we are talking about fundamentally changing the nature of the quest. it will now be about taking a raid force up to clear maestro room and installing a rogue to stare at the book waiting on its specific respawn, probably recording it to a discord bot, and then the next rogue or flopped monk can prepare to snag it at the exact moment it respawns before the respawning trash can pick it up. so in emulating a classic mechanic, we've done absolutely nothing to emulate a classic experience, and have probably just given more work for the guides to do with people clickfesting the respawn in a cleared zone, and increased its value to MQ resellers. is that worth it?

If we just read the actual quest text we are immersed in the rogue class and the clearly intended quest experience:

"You say, 'What book of souls?'

Yendar Starpyre says 'The Book of Souls chronicles all the lives Innoruuk has tainted over the years. It is in the care of the Maestro of Rancor. I can use this tome as a basis for my translation, if you return it and the note to me. An experienced practitioner in the art of non-detection should be able to snatch it from its resting place, don't you think, _____? (grin)' "

I'm sorry if I'm shitting up the thread with opinion and subjectivity but I think if we're talking about changing something as fundamental as a classic epic quest we should be taking a wide view context and a very demanding burden of proof.

[mycoolrausch]

Here's another post by an oldschool and established community figure who remembers sneaking by hate mobs to grab a book in 2001:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...41&postcount=2

[darkreap]

I can confirm this was possible as I did this on live during Velious era. I removed all my gear and banked it, got a thurg potion and ported up. I did hide/sneak to book, hide/sneak to port in and gated out. Most terrifying experience in my EQ life. I have no evidence to support this claim…

This also makes me assume the NPCs did not pick up the book during this era as it was up with a full spawn.

[Jimjam]

Are all the classic posters being entirely honest in their reports of “book not up”?

Could it not be someone swiped the item and blamed it on a mob?

Could team up with a necromancer using voicegraft to make the swindle extra convincing?

It seems a good smoke screen for rogue shenanigans, especially if it was a real thing for a short while.

[Elroz]

Speaking to the rogue book specifically. If PoHate was like PoFear, only 1 type of NPC did item pickups. It sounds like it was the cleric of innoruuk. So that would mean a cleric of innoruuk had to be within a certain distance of the book to pick it up, and if it was a roamer, it would have to have done the scan/pickup within the time it pathed by. I'm not sure how many exact spawns would qualify as to being culprits. Could have been a rare occurrence. I don't believe they added it as a way to make the rogue epic harder, I think they added the item pickups to hate/fear because of mod rods and the book pickup was a side effect. Phoboplasms still pick up items to this day, I didn't test PoHate because the zone has been re-done a few times and just assumed all the old mechanics were removed.

[Rygar]

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

Speaking to the rogue book specifically. If PoHate was like PoFear, only 1 type of NPC did item pickups. It sounds like it was the cleric of innoruuk. So that would mean a cleric of innoruuk had to be within a certain distance of the book to pick it up, and if it was a roamer, it would have to have done the scan/pickup within the time it pathed by. I'm not sure how many exact spawns would qualify as to being culprits. Could have been a rare occurrence. I don't believe they added it as a way to make the rogue epic harder, I think they added the item pickups to hate/fear because of mod rods and the book pickup was a side effect. Phoboplasms still pick up items to this day, I didn't test PoHate because the zone has been re-done a few times and just assumed all the old mechanics were removed.

I'm sure in old world there are cases of no-drop ground spawns showing up, isn't there a wizard wheel quest where you pickup items? Are they no-drop? Quite simply if the zone is not really updated and there are no-drop ground spawns there, just drag over a mob that you know picks up items and see if they pick it up.

Would be wise to drop a control item near the no-drop item and validate they pick that up but not the no-drop item.

If someone can list off some items I can test myself, can't recall no-drop ground items off the top of my head. I think there is a scroll in Dalnir for enchanter epic?

[Elroz]

NPC's still pick up no-drop items, Hansl Bigroon is the good example for that. The list he drops and picks back up is no-drop. I just meant each plane only had 1 npc type that seemed to pick items up, fear was phoboplasms and hate was cleric of innoruuk. I was more curious how often the clerics of innoruuk actually went near the book of souls, where they might have picked it up. If there was only 1 roamer that pathed near enough to pick it up, and that roamer had a chance of being multiple npc types, then it might have been a really rare occurrence.

[Jimjam]

Did mobs drop items if killed after picking them up?

[Rygar]

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

NPC's still pick up no-drop items, Hansl Bigroon is the good example for that. The list he drops and picks back up is no-drop. I just meant each plane only had 1 npc type that seemed to pick items up, fear was phoboplasms and hate was cleric of innoruuk. I was more curious how often the clerics of innoruuk actually went near the book of souls, where they might have picked it up. If there was only 1 roamer that pathed near enough to pick it up, and that roamer had a chance of being multiple npc types, then it might have been a really rare occurrence.

I would still test with a random ground spawn in the off chance npcs could only pick up designated / certain quest items but not others