UO Second Age

Dagon wrote:it was changed to random timers so the economy would not be flooded with rares, or something to that affect.

my rl friend who didn't even start playing until after uo:r, was one of the people who would log on right at server up to get his daily rares. which suggests matron's theory is in era.

i didn't even realise we didn't have "daily spawning rares" at server up, they're surely accurate

It's sort of a myth that a person can put rare spawn times in a spreadsheet and know precisely when one is going to spawn, the spawn times can vary by 300% or more.

One of the reasons we have this system is so that he items aren't horded by a few elite who happen to know where they are, which would certainly be more the case if they spawned at a specific time. The chance of accidental happening across one under this system would be pretty minimal, especially those many rare spawns which are unique to Second Age.

Another reason that we elected for a random spawn instead of a specific time is that unlike OSI, UOSA it's not a regional server, we serve the whole world with many players in time zones that places 7am ET at a very unusual local time. Even our Pacific players would attest to this.

MatronDeWinter wrote:I dont collect rares, nor do I really care to much about trying to collect them, knowing where they spawn, or what timers they are on. I do know one thing though, on OSI the big time for "rares hunters" was right at server up. Shortly before the server went down you would often see people crowded in one spot or another hoping to be the one to grab the rare spawning "book, that looks slightly different than normal books".

Why is it that rares spawn on some bizarre timer here? To the best of my knowledge, they spawned at server-up, and I can see no reason for them to continue spawning in this manner.

Partially true- I might be wrong but there were monthlies, dailies, semi-hourlies, etc. I know I used to cruise around looking for dried herbs every few hours on retail. I also recalled to all my daily restart spots as well.

So it may have been a change that came later, but I remember rares having servere differences in order of magnitude when it came to rarity. i.e Fruit basket vs. Empty basket.

fox_phyre wrote:I have researched this as well and all information I saw about the times was that they spawned right at server up. ( http://www.uorares.com/Database/SpawningRares/index.php being one example)

edit: forgot to mention how this would making rare hunting more fun and competitive, and give others a chance to get rares who don't have their spawn times on a handy spread sheet

This is the exact opposite of what rare hunting was like for server start rares. Back in the old days latency was so bad at times that it was whomever had the best connection that got the rare. I grabbed the basket in Nu'jelm many times because of this during the morning rares rush. Fruit basket? Forget that- there were always 10-20 people in the room when I logged on, and I'd be spamming the log in button as soon as the server came up. First come first serve on items such as this create a crappy rare distribution. I mean, do you want a particular guild controlling almost every rare because 7 AM est falls during their afternoon hours?

You claim to call it "Rare hunting" but I think the more appropriate term for it with only startup rares is "Rare harvesting."


Lets also not forget that putting rares on random timers also increases travel to odd out of the way areas at random times of the day.

Ollie wrote: This is the exact opposite of what rare hunting was like for server start rares. Back in the old days latency was so bad at times that it was whomever had the best connection that got the rare. I grabbed the basket in Nu'jelm many times because of this during the morning rares rush. Fruit basket? Forget that- there were always 10-20 people in the room when I logged on, and I'd be spamming the log in button as soon as the server came up. First come first serve on items such as this create a crappy rare distribution. I mean, do you want a particular guild controlling almost every rare because 7 AM est falls during their afternoon hours?

You claim to call it "Rare hunting" but I think the more appropriate term for it with only startup rares is "Rare harvesting."


Lets also not forget that putting rares on random timers also increases travel to odd out of the way areas at random times of the day.

I think you are very wrong here Ollie. As is, there are a smaller number of people that have the general time frame and exact day down for several rares, so at this point THEY are doing what you call rare harvesting. The only way for anyone who has never done it to get their foot in the door is to camp a spot for an item and wait for it to spawn, then wait for it again in order to have a chance to stop others from being able to hoard. Just because server up time isn't convenient for everyone to hop on now, it doesn't mean it was convenient for people trying to get rares back on production, if people miss out because it isn't convenient for them one day it doesn't mean they can't do it on a different day. Now that people are on a more even playing field with regards to connections and such the playing field would be leveled by making rares spawn at server up since people would be able to log in at relatively the same time if they wanted to badly enough.

fox_phyre wrote:

Ollie wrote: This is the exact opposite of what rare hunting was like for server start rares. Back in the old days latency was so bad at times that it was whomever had the best connection that got the rare. I grabbed the basket in Nu'jelm many times because of this during the morning rares rush. Fruit basket? Forget that- there were always 10-20 people in the room when I logged on, and I'd be spamming the log in button as soon as the server came up. First come first serve on items such as this create a crappy rare distribution. I mean, do you want a particular guild controlling almost every rare because 7 AM est falls during their afternoon hours?

You claim to call it "Rare hunting" but I think the more appropriate term for it with only startup rares is "Rare harvesting."


Lets also not forget that putting rares on random timers also increases travel to odd out of the way areas at random times of the day.

I think you are very wrong here Ollie. As is, there are a smaller number of people that have the general time frame and exact day down for several rares, so at this point THEY are doing what you call rare harvesting. The only way for anyone who has never done it to get their foot in the door is to camp a spot for an item and wait for it to spawn, then wait for it again in order to have a chance to stop others from being able to hoard. Just because server up time isn't convenient for everyone to hop on now, it doesn't mean it was convenient for people trying to get rares back on production, if people miss out because it isn't convenient for them one day it doesn't mean they can't do it on a different day. Now that people are on a more even playing field with regards to connections and such the playing field would be leveled by making rares spawn at server up since people would be able to log in at relatively the same time if they wanted to badly enough.

A good argument against what I said, though its not that I am making an argument so much as I am saying what I personally witnessed on atlantic when I was a rare hunter. Keep in mind- people on this shard also run gatherer macros and multiple accounts. I'd be hard pressed to believe you couldn't exploit these for rare hunting. Its a little harder when macroing is bannable and accounts cost 15 dollars a month.

like der said, we only have 1 server to play, so you cant pick the server that bests suits your time zone here.

Server up rare spawns would be perfect for me timezone wise so have at er!

Derrick wrote:One of the reasons we have this system is so that he items aren't horded by a few elite who happen to know where they are, which would certainly be more the case if they spawned at a specific time

ROFL, yeah we wouldn't want just a small percentage of people getting all the rares, thank goodness that's not the case here

Lowering the cost of entry to getting rare spawns - i.e. by making them on a fixed timer, at server-up - would probably democratize them more, in my estimation. I'd certainly go for one of them if I knew they were spawning at server-up... but then again, I'm in the USA and the server start time is quite convenient for me.

Another benefit of the universal spawn time, besides accuracy, is that presumably you'd kind of have to make a choice as to what you went for, rather than being able to hop from one to the next as the timers approach, and having a shot at all of them.

thread shoudl get locked and peopel can continue the already existing thread.
Everything here has been said in there a few times

BlackFoot wrote:thread shoudl get locked and peopel can continue the already existing thread.
Everything here has been said in there a few times

What existing thread? I searched the forums and couldn't find any other thread.

its linked above