MacroQuest64

Something to consider: Are you using the map functions? I know that I can get small freezes if I've got npc's enabled on the maps and there's a lot of npc's/pc's (if I turn on PC's in PoK, Baz, etc, I'll lock up for a second). My assumption was always that this delay is caused by MQ changing the map file to show spawns.

I'm not sure if MQ will still write to the map file if the map window is closed... but it may. Something to look at.

I do not load the map plugin at all.

The mq2map plugin is a standard one that is autocompiled when you compile MQ2 and runs automatically as well. Unless, you specifically removed it from the list of plugins to be loaded on startup.

even if it was loaded, it probably would have been turned off.

Nonetheless, an instant pop of 50 npc's is liable to cause a brainfart for anything trying to handle all of them. the normal EQ client would likely hide most of them (possibly ignore them altogether, until they needed to be displayed?), so it's possible that non-MQ people wouldn't be affected. That's just my theory... none of the MQ code is zone-specific... so there really isn't a reason for you to have a problem with just that zone. It's likely a side effect of something that not many other zones have (like 50 npc pops at once).

do you have any macros running? Anything that monitors zone spawns/incoming chat text? Hell, it may just be MQ trying to handle all the new mob pointers it has access to. Not sure how all that works.