I am going to start spawning all the npc's in antonica you can check them out in my server clan crushbone. If you like the job i do ill upload the sql.

I am writing a parser right now that will grab spawns directly from live packet logs. Of course you are free to continue to do them manually, but it will be alot of work when we can automate the process.

Following the PEQ philosophy, it is best to not spawn anything "from memory", unless you simply cannot wait. I personally will wait for a log parser to ensure the most accurate emulation.

Ah. Thats very nice. Ill wait for that also then.
I am just going to add some npc's to the antonica starting zone so people can actually see something.

Ahh yes, for just seeing some life in the otherwise empty lands... that would be cool. I saw there was 1 NPC, but when I spawned him, he was either invisible, inside a box, or very small.
I need something to kill. Fast.

Chrrox we still recruting for DB team, you can postulate in pm to Riven

I've tried to talk to him for some days now. He pm me his/her hotmail address, but isn't answering me
Please move that post to DB development whoever can.

John Adams wrote:Following the PEQ philosophy, it is best to not spawn anything "from memory", unless you simply cannot wait. I personally will wait for a log parser to ensure the most accurate emulation.

It doesn't really matter if someone fleshes out an area by hand actually, and it is probably better to have people with content testing and reporting bugs than waiting for someone to 'packet-up' to live. I would rather have a well stocked game being constantly updated than an empty game stalemated to a couple 'official' zones. Mangos contributors do this very well, and they are always tweaking the zone content as people play through.
The nature of a database is that you can always update the zone data with corrected content later easily. Plus the more people spawning things generates more AI, spell, pathing, aggro, drop, harvesting, quest scripting, sever load and other various issues which are more important earlier in development. Also, EMU's by nature can never be 100% live like.
Going forward, you'll have something larger for people to enjoy to get them in the door and explore, and eventually contribute to.
So, chrrox go for it, if your're still around. I am going to get good use out of the /spawn command as well. ^.-

Crabby, you know I am a fan of your work.
But I think this is a bad idea. Lots of work will be done manually to "create the illusion of progress" that will be completely erradicated by collected data.
Just my opinion.

LE make tools for us, so I don't understand why we should do "at hand" when it can do by an application, for sure some data (like AI) must do manually but we are not at this point atm and if someone really want to contribute for now the best way is command /log in game (it log all quest text, loot, damage and it can be parse (when time as come) for get all quest text loot stat of an item...
This is my think

I forgot to add that. Maybe I should put it in my sig... "Collecting is the most important thing any community member could be doing to help right now"

Want to help the project?
Collect data from live game using the EQ2 Collector, not your good memory.
I Love ^^ specialy not your good memory
Because you have right most thing have change on live new extension and old content change (like new soluzek, stupid add of grass in commonland "have not the same color than the old"...)

No prob! It's just a matter of preference and definition of what progress is. I am not to concerned if several slimes, kilcknik mites, or rats are askew or absent, they tended to change the monster mix/con so much on live from patch to patch during my two years it never really mattered.
One patch they re-conned (^^ vs ^^^, vs ^, the Giants/Gnolls in northern TS come to mind) whole zones, one time they re-spawned other zones(Peat Bog, Ruins, and others), the Commonlands was always being tweaked with the orc lumber camps going from a mix of ^^^'s with 5-orc groups to a more solo friendly ^ and ^^'s.
Unlike EQ, they always shuffled the maps from time to time based on the Dev's whims of making the game more solo-tastic versus group friendly from major patch to major patch. (one of the reasons I left , not to mention the quests they 'thinned' out. )
Once you pack-cap a zone it's only a snapshot in time. The only thing I worry about is having to wait months and months (years?) for an official zone releases like PeQ, if a guy gets inspired and pre-does A Decrepit Crypt, A Buried Hideout, The Darkened Den, A Pirates Hidden Stash, Firemyst Gully or some zone no one wants to go to halfway decent and releases the SQL I'm ok with that until someone replaces it with a 'final' version. Most EQ2 zones have a lot less individual spawns than EQ1 for sure.
Some of these zones are like 20 or less spawns, like A Pirates Hidden Stash:
http://maps.eq2interface.com/map.php?zone_id=209
But for my own purposes, I'll probably Lan-duo with my friend and re-make some of the zones in their classic, more dangerous layout. I will play on the main servers to help with bug finding though. Plus I don't want to have to re-up both of my ol'$tation accounts if I have to just to swipe data. EMU's are a casual hobby and labor of love to me, not MMO's.
Although, I can see and respect why people would want 'book standard' zone data though, so no problem. I'll probably try to submit/test what I can, and see if anyone wants it, like I always do. I guess it's a matter of how perfect the data is you would be comfortable with. Coming from Mangos it was never ~100% live-like but the ~general completeness,and functional features/powers was more important.

Well of course, anyone is encouraged to whip up any mixture of zone content they like on their server. That wasn't really the point, I don't think. For the 'official DB team' and 'official EQ2Emu database' (coin it PEQ2 lol), it needs to be standard, and as exact as the data collected. For example, we started collecting the hell out of data around Halloween in the US. But that does not mean the official DB will have pumpkins and evil pitchforks spawned throughout the villages. They will be in the database, as "spawnable", because they are valid entries.
Which is why I repeat, constant collection until we consider this a done-deal is imperative. Look at PEQ, and EQ1 - do you think PEQ's database matches live >today<? Maybe most of it does. But if you ran through Antonica with a collector today, you'd definitely find differences. That does not mean PEQ will up and change their entire database to match.
If I were King for a Day, EQ2 Emulator would start with original content only. Focus on that. Make it solid and fun like we remember it to be... unfortunately as you said, SOE changed everything. So that's not gonna happen. That's where compromise comes in. Standards vs What We Have To Live With. It's all good, no matter how you slice it. But as long as I am on the DB team, I will fight tooth and nail that manual /spawn entries not be permitted over a captured entry of the same type. Stuff we miss in capture, yes. We should manually spawn. PH/named, things that were dead when we ran through, or zones the collector doesn't have access to.
Is that a clearer view of where I stand? But honestly, it's all dynamic until we get the DB structure we want and seriously start pumping it with actual, permanent data.

Yes I agree, an official DB effort should be at least give a good effort to get what raw data they can. But at least leave open for placeholder data for spawn you can only guess at.
But it's all a database anyways even Mangos's UDB or Ascent's NCDB continually updates and cleans up zones as they go, even today (I run both). I just want to leave open an avenue for someone to do out a trivial zone such as some of the mini-instances like the Qeynos lighthouse, the Tomb in the Commonlands, CoD, Fippy's hideout, or pirate stash in TS and release it for people to add to their own private data. But an official release would trump it anyways. EQ2 zones are way smaller and have less individual spawns than EQ mostly though.