November 14, 2018 12:04 PM PST
After reading the most recent newsletter I wonder if perhaps there could be some accommodation to having length mob spawn timers. Having an NPC spawn not necessarily based on the flags listed of race, class, faction, level. But tied to a respawn timer as you would see in EQ with really rare mobs. This might flip the dynamic of camping a mob and having potentially only 1 person or 1 group able to receive the reward at a time.
An example would be perhaps having a black and white bear who is on this lengthy/random respawn timer and when it's up the creature will roam the desert. This probably draws you into investigate the thing(Is this a Panda in the desert?). Upon getting closer you see a Panda unless your perception is the appropriate requirement. Investigating it you would notice it is a man bloated, hunched over walking on all fours coated in patchy black and white fur, and he isn't thrilled with his situation. After talking with him you find out he was cursed by two giants trying to practice some sort of witchery and they're not very good at it from what you can tell. The Panda Man wants you to exact revenge for him by killing these giants.
Now a lot of this is fluff to say you can put that lengthy respawn timer on something that more than 1 group or 1 person can interact with before it's gone. It might also add some variation to the zone maybe breaking up that grind you've been doing on one camp for however long you've been there by this random Panda walking by. Kind of like an event occurring.
So to play off this idea more you could have it end quickly,. The Giants are in a camp to the west. You've seen them before you know who he is talking about you kill them and bring their heads to the Panda Man, he is thankful gives you that super rare item that would typically have just dropped from the giant itself every 2 days.
OR you could indulge me play off the system even more and have the next part interact more with the perception system. You're talking to this Panda Man he is telling you this story of how these Giants have cursed him, but you've been in this zone for a while now you've seen as many Giants in this zone as actual Pandas you tell him. He suggests they must have some trickery to hide.
So now this lends itself both to what you know of the zone and your insight skill. You may reflect on your time spent in the zone and go, man, this place is pretty open save the sparse foliage, hills, and caravan. But I did get that prompt when I was near that random Corn Stalk to the northwest by the mountain wall. Perhaps earlier in your exploration of the zone you did run by a Corn Stalk thinking nothing more of it other than the prompt you got saying "Is someone really growing a single Corn Stalk in the desert?" so you go there your Insight is the appropriate level for whatever it's set at and you discover it's the illusionary wall to a cave next to the Corn Stalk. Obviously, the Giants were using the Corn Stalk as a marker so they could remember. Maybe you can investigate the Corn Stalk and peel back the Husk and find it's actually a banana inside the husk...
So you go in to find the Giants there is just the weirdest stuff going on inside this cave. You see a dead Halfling with pies coming from the wound on its belly, you have a snake staring at a book called "How to Kick", and you find your Giants pouring over a book title "Perfektly Deceptive". After a battle with them casting just the weirdest things you leave victorious with the book and their heads wondering if at some point you lost yours upon revisiting the spectacles inside the cave.
Now you go collect your reward from the weird Panda Man hopefully he is still up.
