I started working on an OoW guide this week and when I started piecing things together I realized there is a bit of content that was very rarely touched. Did you know that, not counting the MPG trials, there are 30 group instances in the expansion?? For starters in Dranik's Scar there is a NPC that gives you an instance into Dranik Hollows, one of three possible zones (Watering Hole, Fire Pit, Murkglider Hive). People at the time realized if you were 68+ you got the version with the Anquish signet dropper, 67 or lower you didn't. But what most folks didn't realize is there were actually 4 different level ranges: 53-57, 58-62, 63-67, 68+. Each one had 2 unique rares, each with 2 unique drops, meaning 48 different items came out of Dranik Hollows (4 levels * 3 zones * 2 rares * 2 drops). Pretty much all of those drops are on Magelo and Alla (if not always paired with the correct instance). Over in Ruined City of Dranik there is another NPC which gives 3 versions of Catacombs and 3 versions of Sewers. There are 2 level ranges for Sewers (63-67, 68+) but there are 4 ranges for Catacombs. While all of the 68+ instance drops are known, only 4 of 12 in 53-57, 9 of 12 in 58-62, and 21 of 24 in 63-67 have been uploaded to either Lucy, Alla, or Magelo. So, if you are bored and want to find some stuff that has been buried for almost 15 years, do some clever shroud work and check out the Catacombs and Sewers.
Zones got used during the day. At least I know my group (actually group of 5-6 talking over Skype!) played in pretty much every instance zone. The reason most of the drops are not known is that the players who generally run Magelo/Lucy collectors and/or report back to Allakhazam were already 65 when the expansion launched. TSS also kind of killed the lower ranges for OoW, DoN and DoDh instance missions since you could just keep leveling without the need to zone so many times. The highest missions get used from time to time by folks trying to farm tradeskill components for the Artisan's Prize these days on Live (flipping for faster mob respawn).
Great info for new players - but believe me that content was not rarely touched. Those of us who played then spent most of our game time there. It takes about 3 months of non stop killing just to get your faction up to get the armor. Most of the chest pieces are still valid with great clickies. I just got my sk (85) and chanter (108) their chest pieces this last faction bonus time in May?. The reason not much shows in Lucy etc is because no one bothers to load this stuff up on older expansions. Any and every class and guild website at that time had write ups of the drops and best ways of doing them. Most of those are lost now. But like printing out maps back then I even printed out most of the OOW expansion info since it was so long (at that time) - has its own 3 ring binder. The bonus everyone liked on the Historians Hollows instances was that you could stay in them forever (unlike ldon) and the names would respawn. I remember when there would be a waiting list for someone to leave the group so you could get a spot. Plus the RCOD had signets that were necessary to advance for COA had us rotating the sewers when we were waiting for an opening in The Waterhole (the most popular one back then) But we no longer need the signets - another lost task line in the game. I still go to the instances on high level characters - you don't need to shroud. And I always make sure to level up my alts - great exp in those instances. I suggest this to people who always ask in chat about where to level and I point them to the Historian or Sewers but no one ever goes - they just want get to 110 (soon to be higher lol can you say carrot?) Thank you for the hard work your doing to help keep the older content alive. Wait till you hit GOD - the quest line there was very long also.
Yeah, the high level instances are well documented. But getting the 53-57 instance of Dranik Catacombs, you'd need to shroud down and invis your way into RCoD to get it. Also, Gates is done - http://www.raspersrealm.com/Everquest/GoD/ So is Planes of Power - http://www.raspersrealm.com/Everquest/PoP/ Even did a short one for revamped Plane of Hate - http://www.raspersrealm.com/Everquest/PoHate/
Do you have a page that links to all the expansions? I see a Rasper's Repository page that links to newer expansions (starting with Dragons of Norrath), but don't see the POP and Gates expansions on that list (yet).
http://www.raspersrealm.com/Everquest/ After I quit making guides comcast decided to remove the free webspace they were offering which is where I hosted them. To keep them from going away I zipped it all up and gave it to others to host (like samanna). I've recently gotten my own webspace, RaspersRealm.com, so I put my EQ guides there along with other things I've worked on over the years. I have a guide up for Algebra 1 too if anybody is interested lol.
Hi Rasper, didn't realize you'd returned. Thanks for the guides over the years, you were a big help getting through a couple expansions worth of content!
Let me put it this way. There are 20 instances, each with 2 rares, each with 2 drops. Here are the instances and number of known loots: 68+ Hollows - 12 of 12 63-67 Hollows - 12 of 12 58-62 Hollows - 12 of 12 53-57 Hollows - 12 of 12 68+ Sewers - 12 of 12 63-68 Sewers - 10 of 12 68+ Catacombs - 12 of 12 63-67 Catacombs - 10 of 12 58-62 Catacombs - 6 of 12 53-57 Catacombs - 4 of 12 So yeah people know and commonly did the Hollows instances out of Dranik's Scar. But very very few people used the lower level versions of Catacombs out of Ruined City of Dranik. In fact, of the 24 rares in the instances below 68, while 30 of the 48 drops are known, only *1* has the actual mob name attached (Dragorn Champion Silrom). That is what I meant by unused. Those lower level instances are so underutilized that even a decade later neither magelo nor alla have the drops.
Dunno why you are getting so much flak for pointing this out, there's a few spots in EQ where there is just very little documentation on some content because of how top-heavy in levels the playerbase is. You'll find basically the same thing in PoR group instances where there is some scaling applied based on group level and a lot of the named/drops aren't listed except if they were datamined to lucy. Easy example: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemlist.html?searchtext=of the avaricious If you go through those items maybe half of them have a listed drop location. The others? I'm sure SOMEONE saw one at some point but because it was such a medicore drop at that level of content they didn't bother to report it, or it was in some backwater scaled down instance that nobody outside of some crazy on a TLP server would waste time on.
Rasper ... you have always consistently, in my opinion, created the best, easiest to follow and most complete guides for this game. I never have had a time when I went to your guide and had to look at some other site for the rest of the info. It was a real bummer when you stopped doing them, and I am very glad for everything you have and will add since then, even if its just a little here and there. Just wanted you to know that.
Lost tribal knowledge is lost knowledge if you won't share what you know with those that remain that weren't in your old crowd. Some of the best info on really old places is locked behind defunct guild websites (i.e., did some updating of Sleeper's Tomb info @ Allakhazam's a few years back and there were huge gaps --but I recall being in a guild that had amazing walk thrus on their own website). Recent/modern reporting is useful to any site --even just to verify that it hasn't been changed. Kudos to Rasper. I respect the effort and appreciate the return of this community contributor. Don't forget about Allakhazam, EQresource, Fanra, Samanna, eqtraders, etc. --understand that users posting even tiny bits of confirmation is not only helpful, but a pat on the back that this work (running said websites) is still worth it --consider most of these sites stay up as a volunteer labor of love whether they are connected to some corporate behemoth or not.
I did not mean to come off as giving any one flak ( I think Rasper has many great guides) but having been in those zones for over 5 months solid made me cringe when it was said no one knew about them. This is just one of the many many sites from back then that list items that drop: http://www.guildseofon.com/dranikshollows.html
That site only lists the two highest levels of the instances. The content I was talking about were the low level versions. For example: Catacombs of Dranik A Rare 1 (53-57) Drops - Unknown, Unknown Rare 2 (53-57) Drops - Unknown Unknown Rare 1 (58-62) Drops - Unknown, Unknown Rare 2 (58-62) Drops - Scalemesh Bracer, Eshen Blade Those are the rare mobs in the lower level instances for Catacombs. Of the 8 drops, only 1 is on magelo, one I know the name from lucy, and no data on the actual names of the rare mobs.
478 unique item drops in Omens of War from group content (not counting 35 quest drops to make 112 quested armor pieces) http://www.raspersrealm.com/Everquest/OoW/gearGroup.html
One of the undead named near the entrance in Plane of Valor drops Mediator's Staff, which doesn't have a named listed for it on the various sites. I'd be curious if any of the others there are undocumented, as they seem to have some extremely rare drops. Most of the named in Valor appear to drop two items according to Raster's page, but some have one or none listed. Of course, it's possible they do drop nothing... The old dragon raid drops that moved to the named in the revamped Veeshan's Peak were mostly unlinked up until a few years ago, but that's probably mostly filled in now. All those weird PoR Freeport missions... I didn't even realize they existed until I did the optional traveler achievements there. The Drachnid Spies mission is probably still broken too.
Are you sure that these actually worked that way at launch? I am fairly sure that these were changed in the lead up to the release of Heroic Adventures. There was only one instance, the level of the mobs simply scaled to the average level of the group at the start. They simply did not allow lower level version of the signet droppers, so that you needed to have a specific average level to get them. I do not believe that the individual named were added until they were working towards Heroic Adventures. I remember a number of older instances getting treatments in those very level ranges (LDoN, OoW, DoN, and others), and in the testing you would get level specific named and drops which were not done previously. This would also explain why there is not a complete set of the drops listed anywhere.
They always worked this way, the item ID numbering scheme is very consistent from instance to instance. 70001-70030 - Dranik Scar 70035-70077 - Spire 70080-70112 - Bloodfields 70115-70147 - Causeway 70151-70192 - RCoD 70195-70237 - WoS 70240-70282 - MPG 70285-70327 - RSS 70350-70361 - Instances 48-52 70380-70403 - Instances 53-57 70405-70428 - Instances 58-62 70430-70465 - Instances 63-67 70470-70505 - Instances 67+