Node spawning

Disclaimers

Disclaimer 1: content. This post describes a model for explaining how nodes spawn. I don’t know this is how it’s implemented; this is just a model/theory. It’s a well trialled model, as I’ve farmed for years and haven’t seen anything to contradict this idea. Still, I’m writing this as if it was fact, because it makes the writing simpler.

Disclaimer 2: scope. This is how I think mineral nodes work. I actually expect herb nodes work similarly, but I haven’t tested it to the same level.

Disclaimer 3: purpose. I’m mainly writing it because it interests me, and I haven’t seen anything around written about it, but there possibly is heaps written already. It’s way too late in the history of WoW for this to be useful, but I’m writing it anyway. I enjoy analysing things and trying to explain them.

The model

Now that we have the disclaimers out of the way, here’s how nodes work in WoW. (See, writing as if it’s fact )

Three basic theories/principles, some definitions. Then examples, then ramifications of all of this.

Definition: A node is one instance of a mineral spawn. Some nodes have a variable type. [Some nodes always spawn as the same thing every time, some nodes have a chance to spawn as something else. This is pretty well known.]

Theory part 1. Each map has a finite number of fixed positions for nodes to spawn. [Everyone knows this, just adding it for completion sake and it's built on in the following theories.]

This next bit is the key to the model.

Theory part 2. Node spawns are controlled by their node group.

Definition: A node group consists of N nodes, where only n can exist at once.  These nodes are in fixed positions, as noted above. [Usually, N is between about 4 and 8. But theoretically N could be from 1 to whatever. Usually, n=1.  I’m going to assume for the rest of this the n=1 case, as it simplifies the writing, and it’s pretty much the norm.]

Node groups do not depend on location, nor node type. [Usually, but not always, they are in a similar location.]

Theory part 3.  Node groups respawn after a while*. [As above, this usually means that one random node from the group respawns.]

In summary: a zone is populated with node groups, each node group has one node active. Node groups usually have nodes that are roughly close together. Once a node is mined, a while later a random node in the group will respawn.

Example: Zul’Drak

Cobalt nodes in Zul'Drak

Let’s look at a real example. I’m choosing Zuk’Drak because mineral nodes there are fairly simple. Almost all of the nodes there are cobalt-only. There are a handful that spawn as saronite, but that doesn’t matter for the sake of discussion.

Every time I do a loop of the zone, there always seems to be exactly one node up in the purple circled area in the north. If one of those corner 4 nodes isn’t up, one of those south 2 always are. After a few more passes I begin to conclude that these nodes may form a node group.

In the red circled group in the south-east, there are always two nodes up. This could mean this is one node group with n=2, or two node groups in close proximity, each with n=1. Because I think that it’s implemented with n=1 pretty much all the time for minerals, I suspect it’s two node groups. Some testing could clarify this.

*Node group respawn time

So this is the bit that I’m still working on. I thought about not pushing ‘Publish’ because of this is still in progress, but here’s my current thoughts.

When testing to what controls when a node group respawns, I initially thought it would either be:

• after a set time (the time might vary for different node groups, or different zones) but would be easy to determine, or
• after a random time within a given range

But if you’re the only one farming in a given zone, you can test this by mining a node and then camping the node group. It’s possible to sit for an hour or more and not have it respawn. Then, you can zoom off, mine another group and zoom back and the first node has respawned. I’ve tested this behaviour a few times, and it’s fairly consistent. (It’s hard to test with 100% confidence, as it’s difficult to be sure you’re the only one mining in a given zone at any one time.)

There could be a few things at play here. It could be

• distance from the node group. Well to be honest, I find it difficult to imagine that it’s easy to code node groups that track player’s position. And anyway, I’ve tested that too. Flying out and back without mining anything in between makes no difference.
• mining one node group has an effect on other node groups. I think this is more likely.

Actually, what I THINK is going on is this:

• each zone has an total number of node groups
• each zone has a number of active node groups, which is less than the total number of node groups (ie: an active node group has a node currently spawned)
• each zone has an ‘ideal’ number of active node groups
• … and the zone attempts to keep the number of active groups around the ideal number.

So if the number of node groups with an active node falls below the ‘ideal’ number, some time after this a new node group is marked as active and told to respawn a node.

This respawn isn’t always immediate, so I suspect there can be a time delay to this. Heaven knows that if there are 20 people farming minerals in Deepholm, I can’t find any. If the respawn was immediate, it wouldn’t matter how many people were farming, there’s be nodes everywhere, and you could basically farm one group and watch it constantly repop.

What it does mean is that it’s not much faster farming a zone alone compared to one or two other people farming there as well. It also means that If you’re farming a zone alone, it’s more worth doing ‘big laps’ that cover the whole zone… whereas if you’re farming with others around it might be more worth doing small laps, or at least laps that have more node groups per distance.

Anyway as I said, this layer of the theory is the layer I understand least. Node groups I’m pretty sure about. Conditions for node groups spawning… I’m still playing with. But that’s where I’m currently at.

Ramifications

For the following scenarios/discussion, I’m assuming that for a given zone, the node groups are known, and once again that they are all n=1 groups.

Learning the node groups in a zone

Any nodes that are up simultaneously are part of different node groups (assuming as we have above, that all node groups are of the n=1 type). This is a good starting point for working out what the groups are – you will already know one member for each. You could print out a zone map like the Wowhead ones and enumerate and/or colour code your nodes to track which ones are up.

[I haven’t done that on paper, I’ve just paid attention to what’s up when and built up a mental map of the groups like in the Zul’Drak example above. In any case, it will take more than a few circuits to map out the node groups but it’s worth paying a little attention to how they’re spawning and you’ll start to get the node group picture once you’re in a zone for a while.]

Saving time

If one node in a group is spawned, you don’t need to circuit the rest of the group to check for nodes. For wide-scattered node groups this can save you time on your farming track.

In the Zul’Drak example above, if the southern most node of the north ‘purple group’ is up, I know I don’t need to keep going north and check the whole area.

Bugged/inaccessible/unknown nodes

Because the node spawns are controlled by the group, if one node in the group is not mined, the rest of the group will never respawn. So if there is a node that is bugged, inaccessible, hidden – or just somewhere you don’t know about, the rest of the group is doomed. DOOMED!

Basically, the whole group is locked out until that one node is mined, or there’s a server restart. This is my way of telling you to report broken nodes if you come across one.

Also – if you notice that a node group is failing to respawn, it might mean it has a node that you don’t know about. If you’re staring at the zone map with all of its Wowhead pinmarks and saying ‘that’s impossible! I’m looking at them all right here!’ it could be that the missing node from the group isn’t co-located with the other nodes – it could even be in another zone. Especially if the group is on a border of the zone, and the neighboring zone has similar node types. Remember that nodes in a node group are usually loosely grouped by location, but Blizzard doesn’t have to code them that way.

As a related aside: Again, node groups don’t HAVE to be controlled by location, but they usually ARE. The node group model being location-linked makes an easy way for Blizzard to scatter the nodes across a zone in a seemingly random way, without there ever being ten nodes up in one little place and none anywhere else.

Cherry-picking

Another WotLK example of what I mean: “If I’m only after titanium can I skip over saronite, will that just keep the titanium respawning?”

No. A random member of the node group your titanium was in will respawn. In any case, depending on the node types, the group may spawn a node as titanium or saronite.

“I really really really don’t want to mine everything! Is cherry-picking worth trying anyway?” Yes and no.

If you’re only planning to do one pass of the zone, then it’s worth just mining what you want, and ignoring the rest. That part’s obvious. If you’re the only one farming and you plan on doing more than one or two laps, then based on the unmined-nodes point described above, you’re locking out the whole node group from respawning when you ignore any given node, so long-term you aren’t doing yourself any favours. Cherry-picking does not work long term if you’re farming alone.

If you’re competing with someone else in the zone then cherry-picking might work if the other person is mining everything. You can sweep along a little while after them and hope to get the sweet cherries. Or you can take the approach I’ve outlined above, and mine a smaller part of the zone that sweeps given node groups but mines everything.

Summary

The node group model is how I plan my own farming routes. It takes a while to nut out where all the groups are, but it can save time in the long term. And time is money, friend.