Remember camping the Ancient Cyclops in the Ocean of Tears for the ring of the ancients for your JBoots quest? When I finally had the guts to take him on, I remember camping that Cyclops for hours upon hours to get him to spawn, killing his placeholders all the while in anticipation that he will be the next spawn. To me, I loved the fact that THE mob that you were looking for wasnt always up and always available whenever you needed it to be. Even better, was running through a zone that you have run through hundreds of times before but this time you see a named mob that you have NEVER seen before. I loved this, and I hope that they keep this in PRF.
I'm not sure if Placeholder Mobs should really be the name of this thread but I think you all get what I'm talking about. Make it a mystery when mobs are going to appear. Make it a competition for that camp. Yeah, it was annoying when I ran all the way to OoT only to find someone else camping him, but it was that much more awesome when I showed up and noone was there and I could claim it.
Thoughts?
I agree, i want this too. It brings back so many old school memories. I wish i could be in my 20's again. But if we can rekindle the old feeling in a new world, i am on board.
Jboots was the most important part of EQ. I wondered who made this quest up?
Brad do you remember?
Sneaks
I think the difficulties of corpse recovery and camps made the community what it was in EQ1. It forced players to interact and either work together or KS, and reputations were built and ruined over these issues. You knew who you could trust by their guild tag or name recognition.
Without question, one of my favorite parts about EQ was the chance for rare spawns or rare items. This is the one thing that made the world feel incredibly dynamic and alive. I remember spending a lot of my time just roaming around seeing what was up at the time.
The only thing is, I would like rare mobs to encounter more of an area rather than a single spot to spawn. I want to eliminate single camp claiming as much as possible... To me that just seems to feed to grinding or boring game play.
Camping can suck but at it's best it's one of the core dynamics that leads directly to an emotional connection to the game world which creates lasting memories.
Krixus said:Camping can suck but at it's best it's one of the core dynamics that leads direclty to an emotional connection to the game world which creates lasting memories.
Agreed. As frustrating as placeholders can be, not having them would be a greater disappointement. Placeholders regulate the speed at which item enter the game, making what does drop all the more valuable to the person who finally got what they were looking for.
In all my adventures in EQ1 not once did I ever see Pyzjin spawn. I never did get a Glowing Black Stone though I knew dozens upon dozens of people who did see her, killed her and got the GBS.
Not going to lie....I always go for the named mob achievement. So absoutely.
I remember in Rift when I only had the Aelfwar Emissary left to kill. Finally got that stupid thing and the server crashed not 10sec after but before a server autosave...petitioned a GM and showed the screenshots.
ALWAYS take screenshots!!!
Please make one of the rare achievement rewards a pack of squirrels. Preferably a companion, but Rift's limited summon attack squirrels were fun too.
Pyye said:Without question, one of my favorite parts about EQ was the chance for rare spawns or rare items. This is the one thing that made the world feel incredibly dynamic and alive. I remember spending a lot of my time just roaming around seeing what was up at the time.
The only thing is, I would like rare mobs to encounter more of an area rather than a single spot to spawn. I want to eliminate single camp claiming as much as possible... To me that just seems to feed to grinding or boring game play.
I agree, I like the idea of rare or named spawns being able to spawn at any set number of spawn spots, from more than one place holder. But then would that bring about situations like a high level slaughtering a lower tier zone for one rare spawn? Hrmmm.
I would rather not see PH's make all the named in a area able to spawn from all the mobs in an area. and for high levels killing everything in an area to get the spawn, if they are interfering in players being able to level then that is a matter for a GM to intervene. if they are at least trying to respect the camps of others or if they started when the zone was empty then more power to em.
I'd like there to be named that can spawn in several areas of a zone - as long as there can only be 1 of that named up. If I see 2 of the same named up, that would be lame.
I think you need all kinds of nameds in Pantheon - ones that can spawn in several areas, random spawns with no placeholders, random spawns with placeholders, campable placeholders...everything. All ov the above strategy. I hope it has everything.
Echoing what most are saying here. I really think the placeholder and named spawn system plays into the gambling addiction. Maybe it will spawn in the next round was always a big motivation for staying just a little longer then I planned to because maybe just after you leave is the time the named spawns.
I can get behind the idea of increasing where a mob can spawn but you really want to make sure it makes sense. The named guard can spawn where other guards spawn increasing the possible spawn location from one spot to a dozen. In EQ it would always spawn at the exact spot in the same room. In Pantheon it could be a guard on the wall, in a tower, guarding the front gate, the jail room or any spot typically a guard is at. As long as it’s a guard spawn point. Don’t be super random with the named guard spawning in the kitchen or in a stable or something non-related. This way maybe three or four diffrent "camps" might see the named guard in one night.
I agree placeholder mobs were awesome and made the game so much more enjoyable. They added a bit of excitement when you thought a named mob might spawn with some really nice loot on them.
I'd like to go one step further in Pantheon and make placeholder mobs even more complex. In EQ once you knew what the placeholder mobs were it was just a matter of time before you spawned the named mob. I'd like to see a bit of randomisation added into the equation or maybe placeholder mobs that change based on various things. That would make it even more exciting because you would never be quite sure if you were killing the right mobs making the whole spawning process far more involved and interesting.
This thread is giving me the warm fuzzies.
Absolutely yes to placeholder mobs, and rare spawns of any kind, really. And if they're rare, make them actually *rare*. As in seeing them is pretty much always a "whoah.. they're up!" moment. Not as in "well someone killed it, but I know it'll respawn again in about 10 minutes anyway".
FFXI got the idea of rare spawns right, I think. In FFXIV 1.0 they trivialized it greatly (rare mobs would respawn ~10 minutes after being killed). In FFXIV 2.0 they turned everything into either an instance or an announced world-event, so... effectively, nothing is really rare at all in that game anymore.
I think there should be different levels of rarity. Some will spawn 1-2 hours after being killed, others might not spawn for another 8-12 hours, and some won't be open to spawn 'til at least 24 hours after they were killed, and then could spawn any time after that, but say no longer than 72 hours after its spawn window opened. And have them spawn at random possible locations throughout a given zone, not always in the same spot.
Rare spawns is one of the things that gave those old worlds a sense of mystery. You could be on a trail you've traveled 100 times before, and suddenly on the 101st time, there's this large, rare creature crossing it in front of you.
I also think you should not be able to gauge their difficulty. From a lore sense, they're really rare, which would mean people hadn't seen or dealt with them enough to get a feel of exactly how challenging they are. Of course, in a meta sense, people will figure it out rather quickly and the info will be on some wiki somewhere anyway. But, at least in an in-game sense, it'll keep that sense of mystique.
My two copper.
It needs to be done right (not too easy/predictable but not too crazy/random either). I know not everyone will get the reference but in FFXI, King Arthro (24 hrs after ToD and all place holders killed) was too predictable but Charybdis (8 hours to 20rs, i have heard even longer? after ToD) was a bit too random. But essentially my anser is YES!
Gossamer said:Pyye said:Without question, one of my favorite parts about EQ was the chance for rare spawns or rare items. This is the one thing that made the world feel incredibly dynamic and alive. I remember spending a lot of my time just roaming around seeing what was up at the time.
The only thing is, I would like rare mobs to encounter more of an area rather than a single spot to spawn. I want to eliminate single camp claiming as much as possible... To me that just seems to feed to grinding or boring game play.
I agree, I like the idea of rare or named spawns being able to spawn at any set number of spawn spots, from more than one place holder. But then would that bring about situations like a high level slaughtering a lower tier zone for one rare spawn? Hrmmm.
As far as high level players slaughtering everything in zone, this could happen in a single PH camp too. At least with a larger spawn area, anyone can get over there and have a chance at killing the rare. Tracking classes have an advantage but this is okay with me, it is a stand out feature they have.
Since we are still talking about this, I like the idea of the rare mob being able to spawn with different AI or skill abilities. It would have the same drop table, but would be a different type of fight depending on which skill set spawns. The name would be the same, but you would have to rely on your skills or experience to pick up on what attacks or features the creature will bring to the fight. I think this would be more exciting and offer something more unique than always knowing what to expect once a rare spawns.
Yes *PLEASE*!
This dynamic is one of the most compelling things from EQ and the thing I loved the best.
The only thing I would ask is that you make the named mobs harder (or immune) to tracking.
As a Druid, I got very (very!) good at farming name mobs. I would two box my druid+mage and in minutes I could pop around 10-20 zones checking for named mobs. I made a ton of loot and plat doing this and it was, frankly unfarily too easy this way.
Haha, the Ancient Cyclops was the way Varant/Sony made it EASIER to get jboots! Back when I got them, I was forced to camp a high-20s witch in the dungeon Najena, if memory serves me. The boots were such a rare drop (compared to the cyclopse), that you'd get them maybe once or twice a day. That being said, I look back on the experience with fondness, but now as a full-time worker with a family, I don't know if I have it in me to camp for potentially days for a rare drop.
I truly have a love and hate relationship with the PH mobs, mostly because camping for the monk epic in EQ1 was a quite long journey (and bad luck). But honestly this is a feature I'd like to see in Pantheon, the sense of accomplishment after camping and killing PH's for 1-2 weeks to finally see Raster spawn is so satisfying, nothing can beat that feeling! I don't remember how much time I really spent on the epic 1.0, but it was MANY hours, but in the end it was pure joy.
But camping for rare spawns in Lower Guk! Oh my I loved every second of it, that zone was so scary when the trains hit you. It was always a bit of a gamble knowing whether or not you would be able to get to your corpse on your own again, FD failed *BLAM* dead again.
DynamiteFizzlebum said:Haha, the Ancient Cyclops was the way Varant/Sony made it EASIER to get jboots! Back when I got them, I was forced to camp a high-20s witch in the dungeon Najena, if memory serves me. The boots were such a rare drop (compared to the cyclopse), that you'd get them maybe once or twice a day. That being said, I look back on the experience with fondness, but now as a full-time worker with a family, I don't know if I have it in me to camp for potentially days for a rare drop.
Drelzna.
Koras said:I truly have a love and hate relationship with the PH mobs, mostly because camping for the monk epic in EQ1 was a quite long journey (and bad luck). But honestly this is a feature I'd like to see in Pantheon, the sense of accomplishment after camping and killing PH's for 1-2 weeks to finally see Raster spawn is so satisfying, nothing can beat that feeling! I don't remember how much time I really spent on the epic 1.0, but it was MANY hours, but in the end it was pure joy.
But camping for rare spawns in Lower Guk! Oh my I loved every second of it, that zone was so scary when the trains hit you. It was always a bit of a gamble knowing whether or not you would be able to get to your corpse on your own again, FD failed *BLAM* dead again.
Yeah Raster was just terrible camp. I think I spent months on that guy. The day I finally got him went like this...
I made my way back down to the camp spot in LGuk after FD flopping thru the zone like I normally do when I come back to camp him.
Another monk was there, so I just stayed and helped him clear mobs.
Then...Raster spawns...I'm like crap, I finally see this guy but he is for another guy. Instead of trying to steal the kill I let the other guy go ahead. He left giving me the camp lol.
So there I was waiting on the next PH to spawn after seeing this other lucky guy just drop Raster.
The NEXT spawn Raster spawns again, back to back. I literally was stunned. I droped him post haste got my drop then sent a tell to the previous monk saying you will never believe what just happened....