Blizzard: Help solve a 15 year old WoW mystery

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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There is a mysterious quest in the game that has remained a mystery for over 15 years.

Picture this: you’re enjoying the pleasant air of Southshore when suddenly the Town Crier comes running towards you. He starts yelling about assassins and drops dead at your feet. You hear the distinctive sound of something stealthing near you and two Shadowy Assassin’s attack you from behind. Dispatching them with the help of the town guards, you find an Assassin’s Contract on one of their bodies, an item that begins a quest.

The mystery is how or why the Shadowy Assassins spawn in the first place. Thottbot, Allakhazam, Wowhead, and countless forums, both official and unofficial, have all discussed the mysterious quest and the NPCs that drop it for years upon years. But after exhaustive testing still nobody knows how or why the Shadowy Assassins spawn, and so getting the quest they drop is pure chance.

Some have speculated that turning in certain quests cause them to spawn. Others that they spawn at certain times of days. People have speculated that objects interacted with, or items looted, sometimes in different zones, are the things that trigger them to appear. But nothing is confirmed. One report contradicts another, and nobody knows what to believe.

People have camped Southshore for days, others used multiple accounts to experiment with potential cross-faction triggers, but none have determined how or why they spawn. There is even a theory that a Southshore NPC by the name of Farmer Kent has something to do with it, and many players have stalked him for hours, only to end up more confused than when they began.

So, after such a long time it’s clear that this mystery will never be solved by players. There’s just too many variables, too many conflicting accounts.

So I ask you Blizzard, please, could you kindly share with the community what in fact causes the Shadowy Assassins to spawn in Southshore?

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prolly some unfinished quest chain tbh lol

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They spawn at 7 AM.

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They spawn at 7 AM.

Lies!

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a quick search to the ole wowhead yielded this result,
Go north of southshore to Sofera’s Naze and get Foreboding Plans from the scrolls on the table at the syndicate camp. Turn it in to the Magistrate at Southshore. When you do this, Syndicate Assassins spawn all around the town. Kill some of them before the guards do so you can loot them and you’ll get this scroll. I killed about 4 before I got it.
I cannot confirm nor deny any of this but, it seems pretty plausible and at least something to go off of.

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a quick search to the ole wowhead yielded this result,
Go north of southshore to Sofera’s Naze and get Foreboding Plans from the scrolls on the table at the syndicate camp. Turn it in to the Magistrate at Southshore. When you do this, Syndicate Assassins spawn all around the town.
I cannot confirm nor deny any of this but, it seems pretty plausible and at least something to go off of.

Thanks, Pinar. Actually what you posted is why it’s so mysterious. Turning in the Foreboding Plans to the Magistrate is one of the very plausible sounding hypotheses for how and why they spawn, but if you actually try it in game you will find that it does not in fact cause them to spawn!

What has happened over the years is that people have had them spawn at the same time as various events and then made the connection between them, but when someone later tries to repeat it they don’t spawn. So in other words it appears that they just spawned by chance for that player when they did this and they incorrectly assumed a connection and posted a “solution” to the mystery on Wowhead.

There’s dozens of ideas about when they spawn, including but not limited to:

  • Looting certain objects like the Foreboding Plans
  • Killing certain Syndicate NPCs
  • Turning in certain quests such as Dark Council
  • When Horde turn in certain quests like WANTED: Syndicate Personnel and/or uniwttingly perform trigger events like Helcular
  • Set times of day and/or weather events
  • When certain NPCs reach a point of their patrol path
  • When certain items are fished up in Hillsbrad

And so on. But the thing is all of these things have been tested and nothing has been found to be repeatable. Google won’t turn up an answer because nobody actually has an answer, there is only conjecture and theorising.

Here’s another comment from ye olde Wowhead about a frustrated player trying to work it out:

Holy #$%^, alright so. After going thru literally every page that has to do with this quest, (the item itself, the NPCs, ect) Both classic and retail versions to see all comments (can’t see comments past BC on classic version and can’t see classic/other website comments on retail versions of the pages) I can, with 100% confidence, say that we, as a community, even after 16+ years, have 0 info on this item other than the fact that it EXISTS and what mob it drops from. The shear amount of time and effort I have put into this is nuts. I spent over 6 hours in hillsbrad/alterac mountains hoping to find it, some times riding around to the spots they have been confirmed to be at when they spawn and using my true sight racial (human) I even marked the farmer everyone agreed to follow with a blue box so I always knew where he was at all times. I managed to get my fishing skill up from 270 something to 290 while here just fishing in pools I had come across, as well as max out most of my weapon skills (paladin) on turtles, murlocs, naga and critters around town. I filled my bags with so much leather I had to vendor some just to loot this thing when they DID spawn.
I regularly kept track of how many people were in the zone with /who for hillsbrad, at the time they did spawn, there were 4 total alliance in the zone, one being me, who had done all other quests in the zone prior. There was a 60 warrior in town as well as a 38 palli, and a druid somewhere in the zone according to my /who at the time. I had gone AFK in the town center between the inn and the town hall to read memes on discord, but left my sound on, shortly after that I heard the sound of a male human die and instantly tabbed back to see the Crier was dead at my feet. I lept to my mount and spammed my target macro and instantly found assassins, they spawn out of stealth, in their set spawn points then enter stealth. The guards did not seem to attack them UNTIL they attacked others. I managed to get the tag on my first kill and helped the 38 palli get his in a group. In total I ‘think’ 6 died while I was there, 4 of which were from me. The drop rate is 100%, me and him both got our drops first kill. It says 80 something % on their page because you can’t loot it after completing the quest.
I have no idea if it was that druid out and about that was questing that spawned the event, if it was a HORDE quest that does it, (they already have a quest to spawn an elite in our GY) Or if it really is just on a timer. But seeing as how it times are not anywhere near something that would seem… uhh, based on time, (mine spawned at 6:10 AM. My chat logs say the Crier had said “Hear ye hear ye!” at exactly 6:10:33. The times I seen from other comments also seem to be completely random. I assume it has something to do with a quest but not in town, perhaps when someone picks up the stack of papers in alterac by the syndicate on their table it starts the event? But the player whom actually did would not be in town at the time. Or maybe it is something the horde did. There were people on both factions questing during the 6 hours I was there, I saw a 25 troll priest by the farms, a 33 troll hunter farming turtles up stream, and many alliance. But I still could not tell you what made the event spawn. The only way I think we will truly find out is if you get together several accounts/players and test it yourself, testing quests and other such things from both factions in a controlled experiment to see what may be the cause, or it might just have a random spawn early morning/afternoon. Or ask the devs directly.
TLDR Still no idea how or why the event happened but after 6 hours of camping I have it. GL to you all trying for this thing.

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It is a random event triggered by sampling of atmospheric weather data.

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Might it simply be random? If there’s nothing that can repeatably spawn the event, it might just be a low-chance random check every 10 minutes or something.

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I love Castlevania!!! and the series on netflix is AWESOME!!!

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Could it be tied to the quest turn in with a minimum time before possible spawns? So player 1 turns it in and spawns assassins, player 2 turns it in 59 minutes later and doesn’t spawn assassins, then player 3 turns it in 1 minute later and spawns assassins.
If it’s triggered by something the player does, some failsafe would be required to prevent the spawn event happening several times within a minute for example.
I assume spawning Stitches at the end of the Duskwood questline would have this exact sort of protection - you don’t see 5 Stitches when a party turns in the quest at the same time.

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This thread alone is more interesting than every quest in shadowlands combined

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Might it simply be random?

Might be.

I love Castlevania!!!

I love you too, Noobshot. :upside_down_face:

Could it be tied to the quest turn in with a minimum time before possible spawns?

Could be.

It could be tied to more than one thing as well. It’s simply impossible for players to know for sure.

Throw us a bone, Blizzard!

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Wait, you’re just begging Blizzard for answers instead of furthering our forefathers’ research? This was a bad thread disguised as a good thread all along!

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Correct, and correct, Farnese.

I’ve performed a comprehensive study on our forefather’s research, and literally hours of done my own research independently, and I do have a two theories about how to trigger the event, but unfortunately it’s impossible to prove without Blizzard confirmation.

So, theory one is that it is triggered is that at server launch a random number between 0 and 59 is generated, that we will call x. A modulo 4 operation is performed on x to generate y. Every y hours + x minutes the Assassin’s spawn.

Theory two is a spawn trigger that a player can activate themselves. You must be an Alliance players on the quest A King’s Tribute. When you are in the Darrow Hill cave in Hillsbrad, if you loot a particular Alterac Granite object at the far end of the passage with the brazier, it opens the Room of the Three Gargoyles. Push in the right tongue and a door might lead you down a staircase into the Wall Climb. Here you must choose your next path. You could race up to the Observatory, spin the sundial, and pass into the Room of the Golden Idols. Once there, push down on their bases to release the doors that may take you below or lead you into the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Assemble the statue there and you maybe headed for the Torch Room. If the elevator is up, you could jump into the elevator and descend into the Mine Shaft. You might climb up the ladder or plow through the stone wall. Find the key and it may unlock the Tombs of the Ancient Kings, allowing you to climb into the Spider’s Lair. If you escape, you may have a chance to sit upon the Throne of the Pretender. If the correct door is unlocked, you’ll be able to crawl into the Pit of Despair and finally make your way through the Cave of Sighs back to the Temple Gate and the Assassins will spawn in Southshore. The choices are yours and yours alone. Good luck.

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I seem to remember it triggering when you do that quest to find the grave in graveyard and click it as part of some quest. Or at least it was coincidental to everytime i did that quest.

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This is one of the last quests I need in all of classic. I’ve wasted a hours trying to find the answer to the trigger. I’d love it if Blizzard could help out here, determining the cause of the spawn is almost impossible from a player perspective.

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It’s possible that the spawn trigger bugs out. It could very well be related to the turning in of the Alliance Syndicate quests, but the trigger bugs and causes them to stop spawning after the initial spawn. Only way to verify that would be to experiment immediately after a server reset though.

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I just visited Southshore and they attacked me 3 times in like 10 minutes. Is this normal? I couldn’t tag them before the guards though so I’ve yet to get the drop.

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Yo, blizzard, you see this, add more stuff like this. Thanjs

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The people deserve to know.