Changing Spawn Times (Cazic, Vox etc)
 

Anyone know how to change a spawn, such as Cazic thule, so he pops instantly, rather than with some sort of delay? I looked @ Spawn2, spawngroup, etc, and am rather confused! Any advice would be appreciated.

As far as I know, the time it takes for a mob to initially spawn is defined in the spawn2 table under the respawntime column. The "best" thing to do is decrease it to something a little more desirable for the named mobs.

So hear me out here. My understanding is, I look @ npc_types, find the NPC im looking for. Let's say Cazic thule:

mysql> select * from npc_types where name LIKE "%Cazic%"
-> ;
+--------+------------------+----------+-------+------+-------+----------+--------+--------+---------+-------------+------+---------------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+----------------+--------+--------+-----------------+-------------+------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+------------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+------------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+------------------+---------+------+-----------+-------------+--------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+----------+-------------------+-----------+-------+---------+-----+----------+
| id | name | lastname | level | race | class | bodytype | hp | gender | texture | helmtexture | size | hp_regen_rate | mana_regen_rate | loottable_id | merchant_id | npc_spells_id | npc_faction_id | mindmg | maxdmg | npcspecialattks | aggroradius | face | luclin_hairstyle | luclin_haircolor | luclin_eyecolor | luclin_eyecolor2 | luclin_beardcolor | luclin_beard | d_meele_texture1 | d_meele_texture2 | runspeed | MR | CR | DR | FR | PR | see_invis | see_invis_undead | qglobal | AC | npc_aggro | spawn_limit | attack_speed | findable | STR | STA | DEX | AGI | _INT | WIS | CHA | see_hide | see_improved_hide | trackable | isbot | exclude | ATK | Accuracy |
+--------+------------------+----------+-------+------+-------+----------+--------+--------+---------+-------------+------+---------------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+----------------+--------+--------+-----------------+-------------+------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+------------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+------------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+------------------+---------+------+-----------+-------------+--------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+----------+-------------------+-----------+-------+---------+-----+----------+
| 72003 | Cazic_Thule | | 70 | 95 | 1 | 7 | 277000 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 1000 | 0 | 291 | 0 | 116 | 18 | 375 | 850 | SERQUMCNIDW | 115 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.25 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3400 | 0 | 0 | -30 | 0 | 474 | 474 | 474 | 474 | 474 | 474 | 474 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |


So Cazic is ID 72003. Now i look @ spawn 2:


| spawn2 | CREATE TABLE `spawn2` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`spawngroupID` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`zone` varchar(16) NOT NULL default '',
`x` float(14,6) NOT NULL default '0.000000',
`y` float(14,6) NOT NULL default '0.000000',
`z` float(14,6) NOT NULL default '0.000000',
`heading` float(14,6) NOT NULL default '0.000000',
`respawntime` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`variance` smallint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
`pathgrid` int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
`timeleft` bigint(16) NOT NULL default '0',
`_condition` mediumint(8) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
`cond_value` mediumint(9) NOT NULL default '1',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `ZoneGroup` (`zone`,`spawngroupID`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 |


There is no id 72003! What am I missing?

I always have a tough time remembering how each of the spawn tables interconnect, so I always use this page in the Wiki as a reference.

You basically need to find the NPC's ID in the spawnentry table, under the npcID column. That will give you the Spawn Group ID. You can then cross reference the Spawn Group ID with the spawngroupID column in the spawn2 table.

This query can help to relate the tables together:
And the result:
Hopefully that makes a little more sense.

If you install GeorgeS' tools (you can find the link to his page in his signature in the dev>tools section where he posts often), the spawn editor tool makes this extremely easy. One thing you have to consider is even if you change the spawn time to 0 or whatever, you will still need to remove the "timeleft" on the spawn if you already killed it when it was on the original long timer. You can change "timeleft" to 0 and it will spawn on a #repop. Don't forget you have to restart the zone to get spawn time changes to start taking effect. You can normally just zone out and back in if you use dynamic zones or you can use the #zoneshutdown pofear command.

GeorgeS' tools make managing the database MUCH easier in almost anything you would do. You can change the spawn time, variance and the timeleft all just by pulling it up in his spawn editor tool. You have to "save" the changes for them to be written to the database.

I changed the timeleft to 0...and repop...Sucess. I reboot, and no-go. Any suggestions?

change respawntime to 0 and it will instantly repop after its killed. timeleft is how much time left between what is set for respawntime and 0.

Reboot should put in the changes to spawn timers if you changed those. You have to change the respawn time field to have it spawn quicker after it is killed. If you killed it after setting timeleft to 0 and repoping the zone, then it would set timeleft back up depending on what you had your respawn time set to. Just set both respawn and timeleft and restart the zone or the whole server. THEN you can kill it and the new times will take effect. If it something isn't popping, it is either spawn chance percent, timeleft, respawn time, or the NPC spawning is part of a quest. You might want to check your quest files to see if they have anything related to that spawn.