3.8 - Strange problems with loot, merchants etc.

[Drawde]

After installing 3.8 and the latest EQ patch, I can get EQEmu to run OK, using
my latest world data - however I'm experiencing a number of rather odd bugs/problems.

Firstly, loot from creatures seems to be rather messed up - they always drop 2 examples of the first
item in their loot table, however many items are in their table and whatever their probabilities are.
For example, orc pawns always drop 2 cloth caps, and decaying skeletons always 2 rusty axes.
The random cash dropped seems to work OK though.

Secondly, merchants seem to be a bit erratic whether they work or not. Some work OK, others do not show
any items for sale (even though they have an item list specified, and that list's data appears to be OK).
In 3.6 they didn't seem to work at all (I assume this is why the changelog for 3.8 says "Merchants fixed".

Thirdly, is "levelling" broken? Or do you just get less XP now? The experience bar doesn't seem to work (always
full) and I killed quite a few orc pawns, skeletons etc with a level-1 Wizard without levelling.

Anyway, good work with the emulator, it's certainly improved a lot despite the few new bugs.

By the way, I really like the new EQ GUI! It looks far neater and crisper than the old one,
and at high resolutions you can have a huge amount of info on-screen without obscuring the world view too much.
The only minor problem I have is that the 3D character view in the inventory window (at least I assume there's meant to be
one in the central box!) doesn't appear.

Also, I'll have to tone down the regeneration rate for monsters/NPCs in my next DB release, it seems very fast at the minute -
I set the regen ratio ages ago before the feature actually worked!
On the subject of regeneration, player mana seems to regenerate -very- fast, so fast that you can cast spells like Shock of Frost
virtually non-stop even at level 1. However it's been like this for a while, since at least 3.0 I think (and much better than mana
not regenerating at all..)