Rare spawn timers

[Maxxim]

I don't quite understand how longer spawn times for mobs work. For example, broken tooth in badlands, prince nazjak (sp?) in arathi, and other named rare mobs you see around. I always hear they are on a 2 hour timer, 8 hour timer, or whatever length of time, depending on the specific mob. But how can one tell when that time period is about to begin or end?

Say a mob spawns "every 4 hours." Would it be 4 hours after that mob is killed?

Or would the server look for the existence of that mob every 4 hours, and whenever the mob is not present, respawn it?

If it's the second option, one could figure out when the mob would spawn if you just knew what the zero hour was (i.e., the time at which the first 4-hour timer would start). If that was midnight, then you would know that this mob would spawn at midnight, 4 am, 8 am, and so on.

If it's the first option, it could be infinitely harder to figure out.

EDIT: I've also seen people talk about looking for these mobs right after the servers are reset. My server had to be reset last night, so I immediately went to the spot where my specific mob spawns in arathi, and it wasn't there (got there about 4 minutes after the reset, so it's unlikely someone got to him first).

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[rutty]

EDIT: I've also seen people talk about looking for these mobs right after the servers are reset. My server had to be reset last night, so I immediately went to the spot where my specific mob spawns in arathi, and it wasn't there (got there about 4 minutes after the reset, so it's unlikely someone got to him first).

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I did that when I was trying to tame Humar in the Barrens. I logged off the night before right by his tree then waited for the server to come back the next day. I logged straight in when the server came back up and he wasn't there.

I have a suspicion that the timers start from when they are killed as these mobs don't really seem to have a guaranteed spawn time. There are lots of frustrated hunters waiting for Broken Tooth

[Maxxim]

I think it might be counted from when they are killed/tamed too. I never went for BT, but now I'm looking for another 8-hour spawn and haven't been able to find him yet. I parked my hunter in the area for tracking (it's under water, so a bit harder) and I log him on every so often to see if he is there so I can run my alt over, but so far it's been a big failure.

[kevagron]

Not sure if this is how it happens in WoW but in Everquest the spawn timers for some mobs were +/- a certain time frame.

For example, if a mob was on an 8 hour spawn it would spawn every 8 hours BUT +/- 2 hours. So it could spawn anywhere between 6-10 hours from the last time it was killed. On a 3 day spawn timer the variance could be as much as +/- 12 hours. This was put in to stop people having a never-ending cycle of the same person/guild killing the mob because they could no longer predict to the minute when it would respawn.

Usually, most major bosses spawned on server reset but some spawned with that variance so you could end up waiting 12 hours from server reset for "your" favourite mob to spawn.

Maybe WoW has this feature implemented? Although its a pain in the a$$ it stops people/guilds monopolising mobs.

Another thing that might screw you up is if the mob has a "placeholder". This means that the mob will only spawn, say 10% of the time, and all the rest of the time you get standard mobs of that type for the area and until that placeholder is killed the "rare" will never spawn - again, not sure if this is how WoW handles these rare mobs, just floating possible answers :undecided:

[moopy]

Spawning is on fairly linear timers, but I am not sure if they are always/ever based on when the mob was last killed.

In the case of Azuregos, for instance, he first spawns a certain time after server reset... A longish time, 12 or 24 hours, I really can't remember the details (a bit crap I know, sorry).

It might be worthwhile working out if the beastie you're after always spawns a certain number of hours after a reset, so you can be camping for the first spawn.

The other complicating factor is that smaller mobs, like tameable beasts seem to have more than one spawn point in the same general area, as well as a patrol route.

Sorry this post is so vague and wishy-washy. If I could remember more details, I'd willingly bore you with them.

[Valas Azuviir]

From what I've been able to put together, it seems to be a mixture of both systems. Primary is, X hours after Mob has been killed. One chap managed to get semi-lucky and managed to snag BT, after some other fellow had killed the beastie (He came upon the critter, just as the other fellow was landing the killing blow). He did the X-hour waiting game, and the kitty did respawn in the relevant area, after which he proceeded to tame him/her.

This was prior to most folks being aware that BT had that 1.0 AS.

Having said that, the server also seems to check it's own timer to see, if the relevant beastie has been spawned. This seems to kick in, whenever a mob has been tamed. Chap tamed one of the named kitties in STV, 10 to 20 minutes later, the tamed kitty was helping kill the wild version of the same kitty.

So example: Say the server checks at every 20:30 PM, if a Mob is currently active. If, not then it gets spawned, unless it's been killed in which case the the +X hours game kicks in.

Taming a animal, allows for the respawn, because a wild version is no longer active in the DB, yet at the same time the has been killed flag hasn't been tripped.

Least, that's how it appears to be set up to me anyway. No clue, how on the mark I am.

[Gorny]

Maybe WoW has this feature implemented? Although its a pain in the a$$ it stops people/guilds monopolising mobs.




Please do not bypass the word filter, it is there for a reason.

[Thalassicus]

Most rare mobs of any level are on a slightly randomized timer from the last time they were killed. (X hours +/- Y hours) :smiley:

This also goes for other rare things, such as resources (rich thorium veins, black lotus, etc).

[Cadineal]

I was looking at my wow atlas and in the back they have a list of all the creatures and their spawn times. It depends on a) the level of the creature you are tracking down, and b) the "rareness" of the creature itself. It could be from death or from server reset. Death resets the timer and server resets all timers. So if you want you can send me a PM and I will check my atlas for you and give you the specific spawn times :wave: