Here's a rumour I heard from a friend who actually doesnt play EQ2 as he is saving for a new PC but spends most of his time in 'work' browing the EQ forums! He mentioned that there was a hidden 'stat' that each chaarcter had called Vitality. This stat refreshed itself hourly and over the next hour decreased until the next refresh. The effect of vitality was that it altered the amount of xp you gained ever so slightly. So if you were gaining xp just after a refresh you would actually gain more xp from the same mob than if just before a refresh.
Now this sounds like a bit of nonsense to me as I have havent seen it mentioned anywhere (though I have been awol from the forums for a few weeks with illness), but it might explain the xp differences some people are seeing when they are hunting the same things and doing the same quests. These differences have prompted many a player to wonder if it was class/quest related, but that was never really proved. It would make sense though if one player logged on, and ten minutes later the other player did and then they went about their business. A kill 55 minutes later would see both players on either side of the refresh and thus an Xp difference is born!
Digest and discuss!
Cheers
Minky