An Angry Goblin - Agnarr

It seems a lot of NPCs have had their repop timers altered on TLP servers to be less than that of original live. As an example ZAM states a shady goblin is 24hrs yet its repop time seemed less even taking some form of variance into account. As for "An Angry Goblin" ZAM states that it is a 72hr repop with 10% variance. However, I saw the previous turn-in and arrived before the 10% variance and stayed 10% after the 72hr mark as well with no pop. Is this NPC still a 72hr spawn on TLP or altered?

Many spawns have changed over the years and no longer are accurate on ZAM.

The "3 days" on Angry goblin appears to be based on a comment someone made back in 2003, and very few people actually got timers correct back then, the quest itself hasn't been edited since 2010 so there's no telling what other changes have occured between then and now.

Sorry that didn't really answer your question, when we did it on Phinny we just had the guild pile into FM after raids and pop picks to get angry goblins.

Yea, it sucks. I saw previous spawn happen and came back right before it was gonna be in window and never saw it spawn. really dont want to have to stay active for 48+ hours to determine the timer =P

Bobbybick is spot on.

There's also the factor that there has been some acknowledgement that super-long spawn timers were somewhat evil design as originally intended.

Take larger population on a single server, and a shorter in-era timeframe than original (with player knowledge very high and far more high level players) it is pretty easy to make the case that just about any spawn timer should be radically reduced... In the name of fun and playability.

And then you remember that we are dealing with people who take out newbie spawn mobs right before a new server launches. We can have daily open world raid mobs spawn for 1 or 2 guilds to kill, but nope, no way can we reduce mob spawn times for regular people trying to quest or exp.

I find it funny the things they put their foot down on. It's like they've never played the game before or something. They don't understand the correct things to say yes or no to. Changing epics like sk/chanter for example. They are very very very out of touch with the customers.

If there was a way for them to sell faster respawns in the store, you bet that would be in there already. Has nothing to do with them wanting things to remain how they were back then.

Actually, they could just sell the required items in the store. But they don't. So I'm going with "not knowing any better". A lot of aspects of the game could be made better if they just sold some of these contentious items in the store that other people pay for anyway. I personally would rather pay my sub and wait for the spawn, but the masses would go buy it. It's fine, it relieves pressure on that mob.

But yeah, on TLP they really need to radically reduce rare-spawn mob timers to be roughly 1/4th what they were, given that Kunark will last about 3 months, but back in the day was 1-year.

Just do what bobbybick said. Get your guild to spawn a pick. All of a sudden the respawn time is instant. That good enough for you guys?

Should also be aware that ALL spawn timers were reduced by about 25% back in 2010 or 2011. So even if the comments were accurate in 2003, they would no longer be accurate today.

It's not good enough when you have to do it 45+ times for all the people in your guild trying to complete the quest just to circumvent game design. You're also competing with other guilds to get the pick spawned first as the picks don't collapse for hours. WW 2nd pick stayed up for 6 hours last night.

During Kunark on Phinny, we used to gather at WW zoneline in OT before every Talendor raid. We would have the people ready for turn in positioned at the spawn point in main pick of WW. Guild would zone into WW at the same time (during this time you could glitch 2 picks to spawn if you forced enough people into a zone at once). Members in position would /pick over and kill goblins in both new picks.

It takes a while to do it this way, and from my experience, the only people who should be worried about his quest are those who will not replace the item in Velious, which is far fewer than the 45+ you mentioned who want it in your guild.

I promise you that all the loot from Kunark is going to be obsolete very soon. I wouldnt stress that much over a single 100 HP item when you will have more 100 HP items than you know what to do with once Velious comes out, and they wont be NEARLY as hard to obtain.

I don't disagree with anything you said just pointing out that the pick spawning method is ridiculous and not even always possible. The threshold for spawning a pick in WW could be cut in half and make this camp more viable and acceptable.

The 45 people claim was me being dramatic. I'll eventually get a pick spawned for me and get it regardless. It's just very comical to go to the WW spawn right now and see 12-15 people sitting there, staring at a corner, for 12 hours straight at a time. You slip up and look away at the wrong second and you are screwed.

Wish there was some way to know the timer. Because even if someone saw 2 back to back spawns and said they were 46hrs from each other, we don't know what the timer and variance is.

Just go do it after every night of raiding. If you want to get all 45 done in 1 day then you are just being greedy.

Since you seemed to gloss over the post I'll say it again. Popping a pick is rarely a possibility during most guilds raid time. There are at least 5-6 guilds trying to do the same thing every night. Once this pick is popped it doesn't collapse for basically the rest of the night stopping any future picks. Relying on pick spawning manipulation for 2 pieces of an already long quest is just asinine.

No where did I say 45 people should be done in 1 day. This quest's reward is BIS for many for a while. I understand it shouldn't be handed out like candy. At the same time, it shouldn't be blocked by a hand in portion that is currently being monopolized by people using triggered macros.

Having helped my guildmates at Chardok royals enough to bottom out my faction, I found myself having to grind faction for days in Nurga and Droga from trivial mobs in order to reach the faction required for this quest. Various guides indicate a net swing of 4000 or so faction points - that is, around 1,000 goblins killed, assuming each one drops a skin or salts needed for the Herald Telcha hand-ins.

This got me the first ring, and to the Shady Goblin hurdle that is killing the fun in the game for many players as I write this. At any given moment, I can go to this spawn point and see anywhere from one to ten PCs waiting for the hand-in. I read comments like "I hate myself" and "Why am I bothering?"

The players here are clearly not enjoying themselves.

This bottleneck pits players against each other by its very design. A number of players from the independent Red99 server probably enjoy the competition. Everyone else, though, suffers from it.

Back when EQ started, I played with a very diverse group of men and women, including a couple who were recent retirees. This couple were surrogate parents or grandparents for the rest of us. They played the game capably enough, but they could never deal with this situation -- reflexes and coordination suffer as we age, and using third party software to "win" on a hand-in is a violation of both the rules and the spirit of play. Any player with a fine motor-affecting condition is likewise excluded from this.

There are other options - specifically spawning picks. Warsliks Woods has a peak population of around 20 as of the time I write this. Spawning a pick requires bringing 40 more people into the zone - a big challenge for all but the largest of guilds. Do you play in a small family-style or casual guild? If so, you're out of luck. The faction work, the dungeon delving for Drusella Sathir (and the good fortune to get an urn) don't matter unless you can muster 40 additional people into a newbie zone and slip into the new pick before one of the other desperate campers here notices.

These waits, as designed, do not allow PCs time to chat and socialize as we did when waiting for boats. Everyone at this camp is focused only on getting that goblin hand-in done. Everyone there knows they're taking it at everyone else's expense, and all the better players are hating themselves because of this.

EverQuest's philosophy from day one is to separate the haves from the have-nots based on their ability to coordinate together toward mutual goals. Raiding planes, killing dragons and gods - all of these things are enormously fun when undertaken by people cultivating friendships in Norrath. There are potential rewards and challenges for everyone in the best content of this game. The long spawns of the Shady Goblin and Angry Goblin are far from this, though.

Please change both mobs to 2 hour spawns, period. Do not waste precious programmer hours that can be used for other content. Give some relief to the dozens of players who do not get to enjoy your virtual world because they're staring at a spawn point for hours. Allow players who are older or otherwise not very steady-handed to complete the quest they started. Support play in small to mid-sized guilds. Reward your players who have braved the death-trap of Howling Stones and the depths of Sebilis to get the rare quest items needed for the Spiritwracked Cord.

Thank you for your attention to this, and for your recent efforts to improve the game.

-Krezzy, 60 Grandmaster of Agnarr

Luckily for you, there are other ways of attaining spirit wracked cords without dealing with the two goblins.

1) The Regal Band is part of the package, which you do not address at all.
2) A 1% drop from a mob with a 10% spawn rate is not a solution.

If it's just the cords you want, this is really easy for an entire guild to do.

Step 1: Have ONE person get a regal band of bathezid.
Step 3: Everyone in the guild collects a sinew from sebilis.
Step 2: Everyone in the guild gets their faction up. This is easy, it's just time consuming, or you can also warp-speed it and just buy a bunch of green goblin skins at 20p each.
Step 3: Everyone in the guild collects a spirit wracked urn from Drusella Sathir. This is the hard part, as she only spawns about once a day, and the instance for her has a long refresh. To further complicate the matter, she doesn't always drop the urn.
Step 4: Post a schedule that SWC turn-ins will be done sometime in the near future. Bring everyone to chardok, waltz on down to the queen.
Step 5: Person #1 hands in their ring to the queen, person #2 hands in their sinew and spirit wracked urn. The queen hands them SWC and a regal band of bathezid.
Step 6: Person #2 hands in the ring to queen.
Step 7: Person #3 hands in their sinew and spirit wracked wurn. The queen hands them SWC and a regal band of bathezid.
Step 8: Cycle down the list as often as needed. When everyone except person #1 has their SWC, the last person to get their cords hands the regal band of bathezid to the queen. Person #1 hands in their urn and sinew, they get their ring back, and SWC.

Yep -- that's right. My guild is planning on doing this next week as people have been collecting the ingredients. Drusella is also something that can easily be done with 1 group. You don't even need OW, just use an instance cuz she's up in instances. So basically if your guild has 45 people, let's say you can run 7 instances per week... you could be killing Drus 7x/week, and if you had done this for even half of Kunark you would have had ~42-45 Drusella kills, and maybe you aren't getting an urn every time, but at that time you theoretically would have had enough kills to get all of your 45 person raid force an urn. Dragon sinew is actually a relatively common drop, and you can get it from a random PUG juggs group.

Technically, by the end of Kunark your entire raidforce could be equipped with a SWC if you had done this process. Obviously it's the last week of Kunark so too late... but some guilds have been doing this (I know mine has been running about 3-4 HS instances per week for this purpose). Not everyone will get the bathezid ring- but everyone can get a SWC quite easily.

The issue is getting to Step 1 in the first place. A crowd of ten players from eight different guilds still has to get eight rings -- assuming for a moment that the added players are willing to settle for a cord in the first place. In a large guild, this can help many players. The situation is not a spawn point being held down by a single guild.