swirly,Apr 8 2004, 06:19 AM Wrote:This makes me wonder if there is a way to adjust spawn rates based on the number of people currently having accepted a quest or the number of people in a certain area or some such like this.A simpler solution may be making the repopulation rate of an area based on the speed of it's de-population. The game must already have some idea of how many of X monster have been spawned, as it doesn't spawn monsters indefinitely in an attempt to repopulate an area. (IE stop after 20 gnolls are in this area.) So simply track how many monsters die per time, and scale the respawn rate to match this somewhat.
On the other hand, the respawn system might be set up on an individual basis; 1 monster spawns, is tracked when it dies, and then respawns at it's initial location. This would make implementing such a system somewhat more difficult, as there are no real area delimiters, but not impossible. For example one might count monster deaths within a certain radius to adjust respawn rates within a larger radius.
As much of a problem as WoW camping is, right now it means something very different from EQ camping. EQ camping means "high level characters camping a few monsters who are the only ones that can drop rare X item", hence it's something *everyone* wants, all the time, but only a few may have. On the other hand, so far, camps are for quests that are only within a character's interest for a relatively short while. (You succeed in the quest once, you won't be returning to do it again with that character.)