Bug: Cockatrices are not flagged as animals. Cockatrices are clearly birds which are considered animals. They are not humanoids, undead, summoned, or otherwise. Location: Cockatrices are found in The Overthere, Trakanon's Teeth, Emerald Jungle, Dreadlans, the Lyceanium, etc.
While wikipedia is not a proper source, it is a great source of sources... You can always scroll down to the bottom of the articles and find the real sources if you like.
Thanks for all the awesome comments. I did some further research into cockatrice and confirmed that it is indeed a mythological creature. However, so is the Griffon. The Griffon which appears through Norrath and Velious is considered an animal and can be charmed by druids. The Griffon while mythological is animal in its nature, as it is a combination of an eagle and a lion. When I locked at the Cockatrice I thought it was a bird. Likewise to the Griffon, although it's not a real animal found on Planet Earth, is an animal its nature as well. I hope the devs will reconsider and flag the Cockatrice as an animal. Thanks!
Wouldn't it be more consistent if they flagged Griffons as magical creatures then? Of course, they might be common animals on norrath rather than the legendary beings they are on earth... There doesn't have to be a rule that says: If not exist on earth -> magical being... Its up to the devs what they feel is correct for EQ1. I do somewhat agree with you, that Cockatrices in EQ1 looks a bit too much like a common rooster. Maybe reptilian scales would have looked bad with the low-resolution textures from back then? One argument for categorizing Cockatrices in EQ1 as magical, is that they have magical abilities, like their stunning gaze...Animals in EQ1, at most have a mundane poison attack...and not anything supernatural... Otoh EQ1 itself categorizes Cockatrices as birds here...https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=11000041 While Griffins are legendary and magical creatures...https://achievements.eqresource.com/achievements.php?id=11000020
I always thought they were oversized roosters. I had no idea they were mythical creatures until someone posted this on this thread. I sure hope they don't nerf Griffons and make them uncharmable. From my experience, Griffons have unusually high magic resistance and break charm a lot making them unreliable pets anyways. I don't want to be the guy responsible for getting Griffons nerfed.
Many animals summon at higher levels. Animals should not have any magical abilities so it would be good to remove the summoning ability. (In all honesty mobs that summon is a sacred cow that should have been removed long ago.) Then there other animals that have crazy abilities like the basilisks. But wait, there's more! The Basilisk is also a mythological creature (who knew!) but is currently classified as an animal. Basilkis are super risky to charm as they can have a long stun that can stun lock and kill the charmer.
Since it is Norrath and not Earth, the fact that a creature is mythological on Earth does not mean it is so on Norrath. In my opinion, the line between animal and non-animal should be based more on intelligence and behavior than Earth mythological status. As well as appearance. Creatures with language and reasoning skills = not animals. So a talking, reasoning lion, despite lions being real Earth animals, should not be tagged as an animal on Norrath. The opposite should also be true. This also fits the spells. Charm and effecting animals should fail on creatures with intelligence and reasoning skills. They should succeed on those with 'animal' intelligence.
I think that the current charm system that uses a NPCs magic resist stats should still be a component. Obviously, it should be easier to charm an ogre (low intelligence) than it is to charm a high elf (high intelligence) as they have different intelligence stats. However, too often the magic resistance system is unfairly used by the developers to give most NPC guards and other NPCs insanely high levels of magic resistance to make them impossible to charm or if they are charmable, they have such high MR that they are unreliable to be used routinely by the charmer. The EQ Cockatrice should be considered an animal just like the EQ Griffon and the EQ Basilisk. Animals in EQ are few and far between as as it is. We have wolves, bears, frogs, rats, and now spiders but that's about it.
