To well build a zone you need :
- good spawn points
- good spawn tables
- good pathing
- all the rare spawns
To obtain such qualities for your built zones, you'll need to use some tricks for the data collection with eqcollector and you'll have to use wisely eqbuilder options for each logs ...
Monsters have a spawn point, it's what we want to collect, the most precious
info for worldbuilders =)
But the monsters are not always at their spawn point, because some are roaming,
some are patrolling, some are wandering, and some are just disturbed by players
( like for example pulled monsters ) ...
So when you enter a zone, there is no way to know if a monster is at its spawn
point or not ...
QUICK METHOD :
by just zoning and zoning and collecting a lot of logs like this,
you'll populate
really
quickly your database, but won't have nor pathing info, nor spawn table info,
and maybe some spawn points won't be true ones, generally moving monsters won't
appear too, the positive point is at least you won't have dupes =)
- just load each log and compile it
- compile 1 log by zone
- let
all logs to default
type 'npctype'
that's all !
zones must be full respawned when you collect the logs to obtain better datas
( you can decide to create a database via this method, but you can really
do better with EQBuilder eheh )
ADVANCED METHOD :
for this method you'll need 3 different types of logs to compile together
:
Pathing Log : ( 1 log, needed if you want grids )
you'll need at first a pathing log to collect
good pathing info, so spawn points and grid waypoints are clearly identified
...
here some advice to collect a good pathing log :
- because roaming npcs and pulled npcs can't be differenciated, less players
are in the zone better pathing info you'll collect =) the best is if you are
alone in the zone
- the mean time for a monster to complete its patrol can really vary from
different zones, but I noticed 20-25 minutes give good results generally ... if
you want good pathing, you have to wait enough so monsters have completed their
patrol
- you'll understand a full respawned zone is better, keep your eqcollector
ready after a patch =) or choose to collect at hours when there is less players
Npctype Log : ( as many logs as needed )
if you turn the type of the log to 'npctype' grids won't be collected
from these logs
because some monsters are rare like boss monsters or named ones, it's difficult
to meet the pathing log quality requirements and to have these rare
monsters up at the same time
so you can use this type of log for those logs where pathing is bad ( because
there was a lot of players fighting in the zone for example )
but where rare monsters are up
here's some advice to collect a good npctype log :
- you don't need to wait that all monsters complete their patrol like
for pathing logs, you
just have to assure yourself that all moving monsters have at least moved one
time
=) so you won't collect false spawn points
of moving monsters, 10 to 20 minutes should be good
- try to collect a log if there is several rare spawns at the same time, so you
won't need 100 logs ! eqbuilder should crash anyway !
compile npctype logs after you have compiled the pathing log
- after a patch generally there is better chance to see rare spawns =)
Raid Log : ( 1 log max, not needed if you have good npctype logs )
in raids or if you stay long time in a hunting zone, a lot of monsters
are killed and a lot of monsters respawns, when a monster respawn you have
TRUE spawn points,
it's why raid logs can be usefull, and
because a lot of monsters respawn you can complete like this spawn tables like
if u used several npctype logs
if you turn logs type to 'raid', grids won't be collected again and just respawned
monsters will be collected
here's some advice for raid logs :
- stay longer than 30 minutes so there is at least 1 respawn
- don't compile big raid logs if you don't have a lot of memory in your computer
=( ( working hard on ways to reduce the memory requirements =( )
- kill a lot of monsters ! lol make them respawn !
( raid logs must be compiled at last )
After collecting and compiling these logs, you will certainly have spawn dupes
or false spawns, you can then change eqbuilder filters or modifiers to reprocess
the compiled data and to obtain better results
This method is a lot slower, but you can obtain really good moving and spawning db for each zone, so it will save you a lot of efforts to build a nice database =)