Talk:Hot Zone

offical post about it
Test Update Coming Soon and other Tasty Tidbits -- 02:45, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Easier to just link the official article in the front page. 71.234.215.133 03:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Actual List of Hot Zones
Let's start a list of the Hot Zones here so that we can find out if theres a repetative pattern just like there is for DD-zones.

List:

(Note: Cycle reset here due to a bug, ignore first 3 data points.) (Note: Some bugginess after a 12-hour session DB maintenance, so Sep10 was reset back to Scion) (Another hotfix, another reset) (End of one cycle. Next few days should see the cycle repeat)
 * Aug 29th - Miragul - Crucible
 * Aug 30th - Miragul - Scion
 * Aug 31st - Evernight
 * Sep 1st - Necrotic
 * Sep 2nd - Befallen Cavern
 * Sep 3rd - Befallen Halls
 * Sep 4th - Guk Lower Corridors (2)
 * Sep 5th - Guk Outer Stronghold (3)
 * Sep 6th - Guk Halls (1) (Surprise!)
 * Sep 7th - Miragul - Anathema
 * Sep 8th - Miragul - Crucible
 * Sep 9th - Miragul - Scion
 * Sep 10th - Miragul - Scion
 * Sep 11th -
 * Sep 12th - Abbey
 * Sep 13th - Mistmyr Manor
 * Sep 14th - Ravenscale Repository
 * Sep 15th - Miragul - Anathema
 * Sep 16th - Befallen Cavern
 * Sep 17th - Nu'Roga
 * Sep 18th - Mistmyr Manor
 * Sep 19th - Veksar: The Sunken Theater
 * Sep 20th - Guk 2
 * Sep 21st - Scion
 * Sep 22nd - Kor-Sha
 * Sep 23rd - Ferzhul (OB3)
 * Sep 24th - Necrotic
 * Sep 25th - Guk 3
 * Sep 26th - Ravenscale
 * Sep 27th - Obelisk
 * Sep 28th - Befallen Halls
 * Sep 29th - Guk 1
 * Sep 30th - Veksar: Invasion
 * Oct 1st - Crucible
 * Oct 2nd - Hollow Tower
 * Oct 3rd - Abbey
 * Oct 4th - AoB
 * Oct 5th - DF
 * Oct 6th - Anathema
 * Oct 7th - Befallen Cavern
 * Oct 8th - Nu'roga

--Zarbryn 10:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * and guess what...it's evernight... --Vraeth 07:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * But until we get repetition, there will be no proof that it's *just* DD zones. They could make Antonica a hot zone. Good god does anyone remember in EQ1 when Lake of Ill Manners or Train-it-All Caverns was a hot zone? *shudder*--Kodia 09:58, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * i just confirmed today's hot zone ;) --Vraeth 10:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well. If they really are just using a shifted DD rotation, that makes it downright trivial for me to update the DD-displayer to also show the hot zone. But I want to wait until we see it on the US servers and get at least the restart of the rotation on the EU. --lordebon 11:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep I agree, let's not rush things. --Zarbryn 11:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * and thats it guys, RNG fooled us, its necrotic for today --Vraeth 07:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Now only time will tell whether or not it's truly random or whether it repeats. We'll start to get a good indication of this Friday or Saturday when they turn Hot Zones on for the US. If it starts to follow the same pattern as the EU, then there's hope. But if it doesn't then it may be well and truly random (and just the RNG playing tricks with our minds at the start, hehe. --lordebon 12:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * my understanding is that it will be the same zone for all servers, just the rng picks which ones. dont think its different on runny and splitpaw or other non us servers --Vraeth 13:24, September 1, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's my understanding as well, but it'll be good to get confirmation, and by then we should have a little better sense of whether it is random or if it's following some new pattern. --lordebon 13:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Another in-a-row zone, if it is random then their RNG is playing tricks on our minds, hehe. --lordebon 13:27, September 2, 2009 (UTC)
 * and it still continues... /sigh --Vraeth 08:13, September 4, 2009 (UTC)
 * well uhm abbey was kind of out of order. im afraid the zone selection could really be random... or say... as random as it gets with sony's fubar'd RNG --Zarbryn 19:25, September 4, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, even the regular "daily double" is a little bit out of order -- the 3 Fens zone's aren't in order (You have Nu'roga and Veksar, then the two void zones, and only then Kor-Sha). As long as it turns out to be a pattern that repeats I can make a daily display out of it. My guess is it is a pattern... so many in order so far, and it's a lot simpler to generate which thing is each day just using the date than make it random... especially since it has to be synched over all the servers, meaning something "random" would likely have to be pre-generated and constantly updated, which is far more of a headache than a rotation. --lordebon 19:29, September 4, 2009 (UTC)

From SOE Kiara, just in case no one had read it, "The way this works: The code goes through and randomly picks a different dungeon each day.  That dungeon will have increased drop rates.  The welcome screen will display which zone is the hot zone for the day" (emphasis mine).--Kodia 21:40, September 6, 2009 (UTC)
 * well no offense to kiara, but thats some shallow information from her and does not reflect the real mechanic of the system, and by just looking at the zones so far does not seem to be very random, but as previously said, lets wait some more before we really judge it --Vraeth 21:58, September 6, 2009 (UTC)


 * I saw that post, but it doesn't mean that it is truly random. As many in-order zones as we've seen makes me believe it's not "random." It may have just been her understanding of it that it was random, since she is a community relations person and didn't quote a developer. (Usually when she gets an answer from a Dev, it's relatively clear that she went to get the answer, this case didn't seem like that.) --lordebon 22:25, September 6, 2009 (UTC)


 * And, confirmation from Rothgar: link. It IS a rotation. --lordebon 00:25, September 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * AH! Excellent! I was just talking to someone at the BBQ I went to tonight and they said they'd read this post, but I hadn't seen it. Thanks for the link!--Kodia 01:36, September 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * ah, there you go, we knew it couldnt be random :) --Vraeth 06:18, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

hm, crucible again. either we should discount the first 3, because they are out of order, or maybe they really put something random in. that being that they randomly choose a zone on the first day of every month and then it continues the pattern from there. just a guess... --Vraeth 06:16, September 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hm indeed. I wasn't expecting a repeat so soon, especially with Rothgar saying it's a rotation. If it does start over on a certain date (ie if the rotation goes by day # of the month rather than rolling over) then tomorrow should be Scion -- which would at least lump the 3 EF zones together. I'll try to ask Rothgar on the official forums, see if I can get some info from him. --lordebon 11:04, September 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * yea most likely it will be scion tomorrow. btw rothgar made a post about this, so lets wait what the programmer of the hot zone list says --Vraeth 11:15, September 8, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, that thread is what I'm talking about. And if the hot zone is based on day number of the month... then it just seems odd. Zones that are farther down the list (below the 15 day mark) will appear as hot zones less often if that is the case. --lordebon 12:35, September 8, 2009 (UTC)

And, looks like it was an 'oops' that it went back to the "beginning" when the month reset: Rothgar. Given that, it should go Scion, Evernight, and then get back to doing new ones -- which I might add, puts it pretty much back in an order (the 3 zones grouped together). --lordebon 19:10, September 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * this too changes at different times for us and eu servers. today it changed at midnight pst for us, but was already changed sometime before 23:00 pst / 7am uk time for eu. my guess is that for eu it changes around midnight uk time, but havent been able to confirm it yet. --Vraeth 07:13, September 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * i always got to see the new HZ directly after midnight (germany, daylight saving time, so we're GMT+2 currently) --Zarbryn 12:11, September 9, 2009 (UTC)


 * same timezone, but doesnt work for me, heh :/ --Vraeth 12:45, September 9, 2009 (UTC)

Given this, it seems like the EU servers are definitely on different times, and may even be different times depending on which EU server you play?. I think we should just keep the main page display to be for the US server rollover. If you folks want, I can modify the second template (the one not used on the main page but basically a copy of it) to use on an other page where we could display the changeover time and which zone it currently is in the US and for the various servers, we'll have to work out the time for them then. --lordebon 12:49, September 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * There are plans to possibly "randomize" the list of zones. Rothgar writes: "I'll check with the designer that built the list to find out if there was a reasoning behind the current order. If not I'm sure we can randomize it a bit." I'm not sure if this means a) creating a new rotation where the zones are in a new random order, or b) actually making an RNG pick the zones whenever it changes. Either way I'd say it might make sense to wait a while before listing the hawtzone rotation anywhere. link. --Chalmo 13:42, September 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * That post was originally in reference to someone asking about making the hot zones not in close proximity to the DD (some where literally a day apart). That post supports the idea of not making it random, since he said he's not sure if they could randomize it.If the hotzone rotation is not the exact same length as the DD rotation (and I hope it is not, since I think Kurns and C:EA should be on there) then you are going to have zones that are hot one day and DD the next (or vice versa) or even hot and DD on the same day, unless they specifically code an exception to skip forward in the rotation. Which would be most annoying for us.
 * But once we have a full rotation, it makes sense to put up a display for it. If SOE changes the rotation or makes it random after that, we'll know easily enough and can act appropriately after that, but no sense holding off on something that might be useful just because they have the possibility of changing it in the future. --lordebon 13:59, September 9, 2009 (UTC)


 * Reset time was only a bug as Zoltaroth clarified here --Zarbryn 19:12, September 9, 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think they will randomize it as it would get too much fuss from people who will be fussy about how frequently zones will be hot zones. You will get noobs wanting Scion as much as possible and raiders wanting Guk:Outer. --Faemous 13:58, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, plus there are other technical issues with randomizing it rather than just running a rotation. Also, if you want to sign as a user, log in to that account and do so, as we have no way of knowing whether you are actually that user unless you are signed in with that user's credentials. --lordebon 14:01, September 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * i could swear it was evernight when i checked it at midnight finally, and now it says crucible again. maybe they restarted it after some change in the code? --Vraeth 14:35, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * From what I'm reading on the official forums, it was Scion for a time, then Anathema for a time, and then finally it got reset to Crucible again. So seems like something was buggy so they reset the rotation back to Crucible. --lordebon 14:42, September 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * yea found that. well now lets wait another response from the devs :) wonder how long it will take before we'll see the full cycle :) --Vraeth 15:03, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * At this rate, it might be a while ;). They probably should have tested the HZ code on Test for a few days, instead of pushing it right to Live for the EU servers. --lordebon 15:06, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

And at least we now know the (current) size of the hot zone rotation: 21 zones, which is all TSO shard instances plus old Veksar. No love for C:EA and KT yet. Kander. --lordebon 17:24, September 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * changed today's to scion which was what he said and it is actually right now ingame. from now on then if nothing goes wrong we'll be able to collect the order. 20 days left.. :) --Vraeth 17:33, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well... it's now 03:42am german time on September 11th and HZ still says Scion.... *sigh* I guess either the change time is broken again or theres something horribly wrong.
 * /welcome_info lists the correct Bef3 as DD for Sep 11th tho... weird--Zarbryn 01:43, September 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * same for me /cry... on another note, Rothgar said they will mix up the list with the next hotfix (dunno when it comes) /cry more... --Vraeth 06:47, September 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * Lol this is sooo FUBAR. I've seen people ask for groups to Scion (hot zone) at around 17.00 local time. now its 21.00 and people ask for groups to abbey (hot zone). This means they changed the HZ in the evening hours. --Zarbryn 19:37, September 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * Confirming my previous statement. HZ currently changes 17:00 local time on Valor (german server, GMT+2 / PDT+9).--Zarbryn 19:52, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

Was Sept. 12 really Mistmyr Manor, seeing as that is today's (the 13th)?. --lordebon 20:10, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm. Could you try to find out WHEN the HZ on your server changes? Because HZ says Ravenscale to me (01:00 Sep 14th local time). I guess our server is somewhat ahead of things concerning the HZ. Lets hope they get to fix this so its not totally messed up across all servers :/ --Zarbryn 23:09, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * Going to add: Please mind me saying the HZ currently changes at 17:00 local time and thus the regular players playing in the evening hours had RSR as their hot zone on Sep. 13th. I Agree this is somewhat messed up currently and if you prefer I could list our hotzone one day ahead... because in the end we just want to get the rotation :)
 * When I add it to the front page, it'll go based on the US rollover time, since that is the majority of the EQ2 playerbase (and the majority of the EQ2i readerbase). For now it doesn't really matter since we know the rotation is going to be scrambled a bit (so that you don't get all the zones of the same location in a row). But based off what you just said... it's Ravenscale on Sept. 14th (server date). Yours may be rolling over too early (ie turning to the next day before the calendar day does so), as Ravenscale is likely what the US will see tomorrow (the 14th), but you added it to the list as the 3th, which is what has me somewhat confused, since you said your rollover is 5pm local time. So I would consider the DD that is after the 5pm rollover (for Valor) to be the next day's DD, since that matches what the US is seeing. --lordebon 23:33, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * I hope they're gonna fix the messed up rollover time. Since we're now clear, that we are "ahead" of the rotation I changed the list above, no idea what happened on the 11th but whatever, doesnt matter i guess.--Zarbryn 02:10, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

According to the fragment of rotation at the very beginning, Scion came before Abbey, which seems to match my memory. Scion was there several days, so the 11th could have been it. But yeah, it doesn't matter since they will be mixing the rotation up a bit anyway. As for the time being off, I'd send in a /bug and maybe make a post about it on the official forums saying that its changing over 7 hours earlier than it should be on Valor. --lordebon 02:24, September 14, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thinking about the rollover time, I there are canadians AND English people on my server, so for some people the changeover time should be 'not midnight'. So far as I can see, I'm English on Runnyeye server and the change is at midnight GMT. Our DD also changes at 6am iirc. I personally think that the hot zones should change worldwide all at same time, so that we can keep a universal note on the front page. All I wanna do is know when the HZ is Crucible, Necrotic or JW:EA (if it's in the rotation) so that i can run then 3 times when it is lol.--Faemous 13:19, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
 * p.s. i guess Deep Forge tomorrow, this will be why they are going to mix up the rotation, rightly so!... --Faemous 13:29, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

And looks like the odd rotation time should be getting fixed soon: Zoltaroth. --lordebon 23:17, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
 * I forgot to add... it's not just valor. AB just swapped over to DF sometime ago, so all the servers rollover time for the hot zone seems to be bugged and will be fixed in the hotfix. --lordebon 02:22, September 15, 2009 (UTC)

Looks like today's hotfix mixed things up a bit, but did not fix the rollover time: it changed at exactly 5pm pacfic on AB. --lordebon 00:07, September 16, 2009 (UTC)
 * after 5pm uk time the HZ is still guk3 so it's promising so far :) --Vraeth 16:25, September 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * i checked it at midnight uk time but still didnt change... :/ --Vraeth 09:01, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
 * small coincidence that both the dd and hz is ooa --Vraeth 10:13, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

Given that the rotations are of different size, there will be times when both are the same zone. --lordebon 13:50, September 27, 2009 (UTC)
 * now only df and aob missing from the rotation --Vraeth 06:30, October 3, 2009 (UTC)
 * and the rotation is complete, though we could wait a couple days to make sure it repeats as expected --Vraeth 07:09, October 5, 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I'd like to see at least a couple days of overlap to be sure. After that I'll work it into the main page display. --lordebon 12:54, October 5, 2009 (UTC)
 * i've been playing around with it and made a subtemplate too to be used by the daily templates --Vraeth 13:33, October 5, 2009 (UTC)

oops, hot zone today: none! --Vraeth 08:17, October 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * A bug maybe. Hot zone is as-expected (lower Guk) on AB. --lordebon 14:19, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Emperor's Athenaeum & Kurns
maybe they scre...ermm..shuffled it again? yesterday it was befallen caverns, and today it was supposed to be nuroga (check main page), but it is najena tower --Vraeth 09:14, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
 * it seems they are adding EAjw and KT to the list,info here
 * I am aware of that post. My guess is the change has gone live and that has got our list out of phase (assuming the basic list is the same and that they only inserted JWEA/KT:BtV). Lets keep track in the subsection below. --lordebon 14:47, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

Keeping Track

 * Nov 19: NHT