Classic Research Walkthrough

Originally based on a post from Nilbog

Classic Research Tools

Google

While Google is a powerful tool, remember that most of what you want no longer exists on Google.

Let's say I remember a "body guard" NPC in "highhold keep": I know it used to exist, but can't prove it. I want to find not just proof, but also the details needed to implement it: race, class, hp, locs, and unique characteristics.

Most people's first instinct would be to google:

   body guard highkeep

Keyword Operators

But we could focus on the phrase "body guard" specifically by adding quotes:

   "body guard" highkeep

Also, we could use the "+" to require that both phrases be present:

   +"body guard" +highkeep

Unfortunately, that turns up ... nothing. When using the "+" symbol Google gets very specific.

Keyword Variations

We can try replacing +"high keep" with other variations, such as "highkeep", "high hold keep", "highhold keep", or "highpass keep". Remember: even if something had an official name, that doesn't mean everyone writing about it used that official name, and so sometimes incorrect variations turn up useful results.

In this example however it's the correct zone name, with spaces, that works:

   +"body guard" +"high keep"

Editor: Google may have changed its operator behavior: it seems to treat quoted text the same, with or without the "+".

Viewing Results

The first link is for Allakhazam's (aka Illia's Bestiary), a popular and long-lived EQ fan site. Let's look at their body guard entry.

The oldest comments have been removed (Ed: for spamming "dick"), with newer conversations continuing into 2005. This shows the bodyguard existed at some point, but not much else.

Site-Specific Searches

It's possible that there is other info about our body guard listed on some other page of Allakhazam. For instance, maybe a player mentions fighting him in a guide page.

We can use a Google site-specific search, with the prefix "site:", to search all of Allakahazam:

   site:allakhazam.com +"body guard" +"high keep"

That turns up a few other pages, but they aren't very helpful. Even with variations and site-specific searches, Google just doesn't have a lot of classic info.

Next stop: the Way Back Machine!

The Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive has collected saved websites (eg. from Alexa) and made them accessible via a tool called the Way Back Machine. Since 1996, if a website was public and archived, this is the place to find it.

If you like Allakhazams, then you can do a search for an archive of [1]. After entering it in Wayback, we'll be taken to this link, which shows archives between May 11, 2000 and and August 22, 2008.

Some of these archives were taken when the site was unavailable or down however, so what Wayback gathers can be hit-and-miss. Let's try the first entry, May, 11, 2000.

Viewing a Wayback Archive Page

Clicking on the link, if I then try the archived Bestiary and scroll down to Highpass Keep, choosing it results in an error that it wasn't saved in the archive. Ok, that's fine. Moving on. If I return to the original archived allakhazam's page, if I were to choose.. Antonica, under Zones, then choose Highpass Keep, then Highkeep bestiary list, it displays properly.

After that effort, there was still no valuable information on the page. This is the hit-and-miss I referred to earlier. Moving on ...

ShowEQ Logs

Back in classic, some players used a (banned "cheat") program called ShowEQ to record information invisible to players (eg. the exact positions of every mob in the zone and what they were wielding). There are saved Show EQ spawn logs on various places on the internet.

(Editor: Nilbog's original tutorial referenced a [now invalid link] to a [German site.)

A bit of googling turns up this thread on the EQ Emulator forum, which links to this archived log site.

That site has a list of links to zones, and when we check the one for High Keep, we can see that it provides basic information about our bodyguard NPC:

body guard, a 45 4540 Human Rogue (-89,-305)

Okay, now we have the correct name, "a body guard", its level (45), its hitpoints (4540), class (rogue), and a Y/X loc in highkeep.

Lets take 1 more trip.. over to Everlore.com. It used to be great for information... prior to 2002 or so? Don't remember exactly, but now its just adspace.

waybackmachine search for. http://everlore.com

Let's try.. August 15th, 2000.

Using the same methods we used to find the old allakhazam page, let's search for the body guard. :P

Bestiary, High Hold Keep. And there we go, a body guard, with comments and general loot information

There is plenty of information available online; you just have to find it. Using those methods for the common npc research is generally fruitful.