.....................................................................
------------------------------
July 10, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Bug Fixes **
- The "NPC unerringly sticks on pet" AI bug implemented in the last
patch has been fixed. This resolves a bug that occurred a short while
ago that would cause pets to be the focus for most attacks by NPCs.
- Fixed the animation problem where an animation played on the upper
body would get stuck. This could be seen by starting to cast a spell
and then walking forward while it was playing the casting animation.
- Fixed a bug that wouldn't allow a player to target an invisible PC or
NPC with the F7 or F8 keys even if they had See Invisible up.
- Stacking issues with 'change form' type spells have been corrected.
Lich and Clarity will no longer stack, nor will Spirit of Wolf and Wolf
Form.
- The bug with screenshots that some people experienced when using 32-
bit color mode should be fixed.
** Item and Vendor Adjustments **
- Changed the forged Antonian Javelins to be stackable.
- Gnome Skin Sleeves are now droppable and rentable.
- Spiderling and Spider Silks are now stackable
- Spider Legs are now stackable.
- Tarnished weapons worth slightly more to the vendors than the rusty
ones.
- Reduced the weight of the monk only Black Pantherskin armor.
- All Sheets of metal and Folded Sheets of metal are now stackable.
- Rangers will now be able to wear Girdle of Reflection
- There is now a vendor in Felwithe that sells the Enchant Ores series
of enchanter spells.
** Zone and Quest Changes **
- The Crazed Ghouls should be less of a problem in Unrest.
- The Monk red headband quest should now be available again.
- We've added a few more Yew Leaf spawns.
- Reevaluated the values of the various fish fillets. All fish vendors
should return to normal, but they won't be paying as well for certain
fishy items. This resolves a problem that was created with the
increased value of player made food items all over Norrath. Some of
food items were made too valuable, and merchants were complaining to
their union leaders...
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
July 24, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Item Changes **
- Silver Chitin Hand Wraps' haste effect has been repaired.
- The Smite scroll no longer lists Enchanters as a class that can use
it.
- The Augment Death scroll no longer lists Shadowknights as a class
that can use it.
- Many pelts have been made stackable. Those that are not stackable now
are quest items that will not be made stackable.
** Spell Changes **
- Focus of Spirit will now stack with Voice of the Berserker.
- Barrier of Force will now stack with Protection of the Glades.
- Manaskin and Protection of the Glades will now stack.
** Trade Skill Changes **
- Repaired some class/deity combinations on two of the deity specific
pottery Idols.
** Changes to Sullon Zek **
- There are no faction hits for killing half-elves in any city.
- If an Erudite of Paineel is killed in Paineel the killer takes a
faction hit (existing rule).
- If an Erudite of Erudin is killed in Erudin the killer takes a
faction hit (new rule).
- Bards can't cast harmful spells on boats.
- If a character kills a higher level character, the higher level
character will always lose experience. This is in addition to the fact
that any player killed within the + or - 5 level range will lose
experience.
- Goods and Neutrals will now be able to turn in Greater Insignias for
a Magician only summon corpse potion usable only at levels over 45th.
- Characters under level 6 will no longer be immune to PvP in many
adventure zones. Players will be notified when they enter such zones.
** Misc. Changes **
- /target playername will now work on invisible targets as long as the
character doing the targeting has the ability to see invisible.
** NOTE **
Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles,
latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
August 15, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Spell Changes **
- Celestial Tranquility and Call of Earth will now stack
- Some stacking issues with Torpor have been corrected.
- Celestial Cleansing will fizzle less now
- Cannibalize should fizzle slightly less often now
** Zone Changes **
- Updated some pathing in Runnyeye, Paineel, Siren's Grotto and Kedge.
- The Drowned Citizens are back, for sure this time.
- Fixed a bug that was not allowing some NPCs in Kael to see invisible
creatures as they should.
- Restored "charmability" of most NPCs (merchants will remain
uncharmable) in Kael due to fix of combat AI bug listed bellow under
Miscellaneous Changes.
** Item Changes **
- The Giant Tree Flayer is now Large instead of Tiny.
- Staff of Temperate Flux has been changed to main hand only.
- Ring of Frost Spiders can now be worn.
- Robe of the Seacaller should now be equipable.
** Trade Skill Changes **
- Imbued Field Plate Boots should be working properly now.
** Sullon Zek Changes **
- Changed the way resists are calculated when a Player Character casts
a spell on another Player Character on Sullon Zek. Resist modifiers
based on level will now be more smoothly distributed and will allow
lower level characters a slightly better chance to land spells on
higher level characters. At the same time giving lower level characters
a slightly better chance to resist spells cast on them by higher level
characters.
- Characters below 6th level cannot be pick pocketed in any zone.
- Guards have a better chance of aggro'ing a rogue that fails at
picking pockets near guards.
** Miscellaneous Changes **
- Fixed a recently introduced combat AI bug that caused NPCs to focus
unduly on attacking pets rather than PCs
- Added a few crowns to the list of items that can be traded in for new
crowns with new textures. The same NPCs that were interested in trading
out your helms will now trade your crowns. Please keep in mind that
they will not be trading them back to you. Once you get the new look
it's yours to keep, even if it clashes with your favorite eye shadow.
** NOTE **
Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles,
latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
August 22, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Crashing Bug Fixes **
- Fixed the problem that was causing zones to crash in some instances.
- Corrected a bug that would cause some people to hang up while waiting
for a sound event between the splash and character-select screens.
** Item Change **
- The Green Flower should be working again.
** Spell Change **
- Fixed a stacking bug that allowed multiple Levitation buffs to stack.
** Sullon Zek Changes **
- The Resist code changes we made with the last patch should be working
properly now. Here is the text about that change:
"Changed the way resists are calculated when a Player Character casts a
spell on another Player Character on Sullon Zek. Resist modifiers based
on level will now be more smoothly distributed and will allow lower
level characters a slightly better chance to land spells on higher
level characters. At the same time giving lower level characters a
slightly better chance to resist spells cast on them by higher level
characters."
- Cancel Magic spells should now work across teams.
- Characters should no longer disappear when Mesmerized or stunned.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
August 29, 2001
------------------------------
Located on the small continent of Odus, the Stonebrunt Mountains are
rich with vegetation and distinctive hills that give way to the
towering Mount Klaw; the largest mountain in Odus and home to the
Kerran village of Kejeka. The zone of Stonebrunt is designed to be a
mid-level, outdoor zone similar in scope and scale to the Lake of Ill
Omen on Kunark, which has proven to be a very popular zone in
EverQuest.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
September 11, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Spell Changes **
- Changed all enchanter mesmerization spells so that they overwrite
Screaming Terror
- Changed Shaman epic effect (Curse of the Spirits) so that it would
not conflict with certain Damage over Time spells.
- The Emissary of Thule Necromancer pet is now immune to fear
- Beneficial buffs that don't have an ability drain component on them
can now be clicked off.
** Miscellaneous Updates **
- The server selection screen now only gives information on whether or
not a server is up instead of providing player counts. In addition, the
"count" option on the /who command has been restricted to internal
personnel. Servers on the server selection screen are still ordered
from least-populated to most populated in order to assist players in
choosing the least populated server.
- Harla Dar has been repaired (this happened sometime earlier than
today, but we wanted you to know).
- Reactivated broken zone line between Qeynos to the Sewers. A dead
halfling was stuck in the drainpipe and has been removed.
- Fixed a long-standing bug that was causing Feign Death to fail when
several characters were on the NPC's hate list along with the character
using Feign Death. We'd like to extend much thanks to the monk
community who helped us track this one down. Also fixed a problem with
the monk's 'Block' skill which inadvertantly was recapped at a lower
than normal skill level in recent months. Kudos to "Faned" of the
"Monkly Business" bulletin board who brow-beat Gordon with the facts
until he gave in and looked at the code :)
- As announced earlier this week, the Belt of the Cenobite was made
useable by some inappropriate classes/races in the last patch. This has
been corrected.
- Several quest components in zones with the Trivial Loot Code will now
be lootable regardless of level.
*** Norrathian News ***
Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles,
latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.
*** Announcing Test of Tactics III ***
Yes you heard right, Test of Tactics will be making its return to the
lands of Norrath in October and November. This event will present teams
of 18 members in a battle to the death. Only the strong of body and
mind will survive and come out of the arena victorious. For more
information on the event and sign up for please look on Harpy's Head
Tavern at http://everquest.station.sony.com/hht/events/.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack Response
------------------------------
"The staff of Sony Online Entertainment wish to extend their
condolences and prayers to the victims, and the families of the
victims, lost in today’s horrific events. We share in your grief during
these difficult times."
The quote from our front page expresses how we all feel here in the
office. I only want to extend my personal sympathies to all the
families that this has touched.
We have received many letters, and I want to thank you all for sending
them in. It's obvious that we will all be different people from here
forward. If I don't dwell on this in my responses here it is only
because I know that none of us will forget what has happened, and that
you come here for entertainment not reminders of tragedy.
Alan
.....................................................................
------------------------------
September 13, 2001
------------------------------
Sony Online Entertainment, is asking for your help in locating someone
involved in the recent terror:
Sony Online Entertainment needs your help in locating Gregory Trost.
Gregory is a nephew of an SOE employee and his last known location was
the 86th floor of Tower Two in the World Trade Center. With the tragic
events that took place on September 11, the Trost family is anxious for
any information regarding Gregory. If you have any information on
Gregory's whereabouts, please contact Sony Online Entertainment at this
special address. greginfo@station.sony.com
[Editor Note: Gregory Trost was later found to be among the nearly 3000
people killed in the World Trade Center disaster.]
.....................................................................
------------------------------
September 25, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Spell Changes **
- We have removed the changes to bard song stacking that were made with
the recent emergency patch. We will be reviewing those changes for
possible update in a future patch.
** Item Changes **
- The Shaman Epic effect has been returned to its previous effect (and
it should conflict with fewer Damage over Time spells, as was the
intention for the change made last patch).
** Quest Changes **
- Ivory Sky Diamond is now dropping as it should.
- Fixed an error in a Stonebrunt quest where an NPC was handing out the
wrong reward.
** Miscellaneous **
- Added some code that might fix a bug with female hair and Erudite
hoods that caused them to fail to appear sometimes when a helmet was
removed. This would cause some characters to look as though the back of
their head was missing at times.
- Mouselook will now work a little differently when in the first two
third-person camera modes (overhead and chase). They will work
similarly to first-person mouselook (i.e. your character's heading will
change when you move the mouse left or right, the left and right
movement keys will cause your player to strafe, and the camera angle
will pitch up or down when you move the mouse forward or back). These
changes should make those first two third-person camera modes more
useful.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
September 30, 2001
------------------------------
Firiona Vie server is available on Test now:
Or it will be very shortly...
You can get to this server by running testeverquest.exe from your
EverQuest directory. Please read the Test Server disclaimer (available
in the Test Server patch message) carefully before playing on the Test
Server.
Here is part of the message from the Test Server.
*** Firiona Vie Server ***
The new Firiona Vie Server is now available for testing. As usual,
please keep in mind that this is a Test server and we will be changing
things as time goes by. The Test Server Disclaimer shown above applies
to this server as well. Please be aware that when the server 'goes
Live' all existing characters from the beta periods will be removed.
There are many special rules for this server. We will be keeping an
updated list of these rules on our Developer's Corner message board.
Please head over to www.everquest.com and head to the message boards
for the most recent information about this server.
Here is the preliminary list of rules. To read this information later,
you can refer to the testeqnews.txt file in your EverQuest folder.
* Firiona Vie Server Feature List *
This is a new server, not a split server. Nor will there be any
transfers to this server.
Characters will be wiped before the server goes Live.
This is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) server, NOT a PvP (Player vs.
Player) server. In other words, it's a standard 'blue' server with the
same rules and features regarding PvP as the vast majority of our
servers. It is not one of the 'Zeks'.
Auction restricted to city zones: Qeynos, Surefall Glade, Highkeep,
Freeport, Rivervale, Erudin, Halas, Neriak, Grobb, Oggok, Greater
Faydark, Ak'Anon, Kaladim, Felwithe, Paineel, Cabilis, Kael and
Thurgadin.
Beneficial buff spells will not work on characters 20 levels lower than
the caster.
Each character will be assigned an "alignment" upon creation. This
alignment will be described in brief on the character creation screen
(in the same location the their Deity is described).
Each character will be able to change their alignment once any time
after they reach 10th level if they choose. A character is not required
to change alignments, but may do so any time after attaining 10th
level. The player will be able to chose from a list of alignments based
on their race, class and deity.
A character's alignment will determine whether or not they can group or
guild with other characters. (Note: The Guild portion of this code has
not yet been implemented, and no guilds will be forming on this server
until we can get it working).
A character's alignment will determine an experience bonus or penalty
when grouping with other characters.
A character's alignment will determine if they can cast beneficial
spells on other characters (including resurrections).
Language skills will improve only through group chat in the same zone
and from /say.
Languages will only improve 1 point each hour and will be capped at
level*5+5 skill points.
Common will not exist. A Human language will be added and only made
easily available to certain races.
One character per account.
The Trivial Loot Code will be in effect in all zones.
Very few items will be No-Drop. Exceptions will include things such as
newbie notes and epic weapons.
Bind Affinity will be restricted for all characters to locations where
melee characters can bind on other servers.
/emote will be language specific
All characters will be /roleplay.
/alignment will display the alignment of your character and probably a
more detailed description of that alignment.
* Trivial Loot Code *
Briefly, the Trivial Loot Code works like this: If a character kills an
NPC and that NPC does not give them experience, then the Trivial Loot
Code takes effect. If any member of a group does not get experience for
a kill, the Trivial Loot Code will take effect. The Trivial Loot Code
prevents magical, lore and no-drop items from appearing on the corpse.
Normal items and coins will appear on the corpse in all cases as usual.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
October 5, 2001 Press Release - Graphics Upgrades
------------------------------
THE WORLD OF EVERQUEST® GOES HIGH RESOLUTION WITH EVERQUEST: THE
SHADOWS OF LUCLIN™ EXPANSION
-Old World Environments To Rival Luclin's Beauty With Improved
Graphics-
SAN DIEGO, CA - October 5, 2001- Sony Online Entertainment Inc., (SOE)
announced today that EverQuest®: The Shadows of Luclin™ will launch
with an additional CD-ROM featuring a complete upgrade to all textures
throughout the original world of Norrath and all previous expansions.
"We are pleased to make this surprise announcement," said Brad McQuaid,
Chief Creative Officer & Vice President, Sony Online Entertainment.
"EverQuest players will be amazed at the clarity the texture upgrade
provides and we feel the gameplay experience will be richly enhanced."
When EverQuest originally shipped in 1999, the development team
utilized 32 x 32 low-resolution pixels because of graphics technology
at the time. With the advent of superior graphic cards, the upgraded
texture resolution featured in EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin will be
256 x 256 pixels and occasionally as large as 512 x 512 pixels. This
vast improvement in quality will make Norrath appear more vibrant and
detailed than ever before.
"We have gone through the entire game and applied the new higher
resolution textures by hand," said Scott McDaniel, EverQuest Art Lead,
Sony Online Entertainment. "The sheer size of EverQuest has made this
upgrade quite a project. To see the old zones in high resolution is
really exciting for the entire team."
EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin features over 24 new zones, rideable
mounts, all new character models, new facial animations, and over 120
new spells and will be available on retail shelves in December 2001.
For more information visit the official Shadows of Luclin website at .
The Station (www.station.com) is the official provider of EverQuest,
with software updates and news about the game, message boards and other
community features, as well as an easy-to-use billing system for
EverQuest's monthly subscription fee.
Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), the online gaming division of
Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, is a worldwide leader in massively
multiplayer online gaming. Headquartered in San Diego, California, SOE
develops, publishes and distributes entertainment for the PC and online
markets. With more than 10 million registered users, SOE's award-
winning website, The Station® (www.station.com) hosts a variety of
entertaining games and player communities spanning all genres. In
addition to blockbuster hits EverQuest® and Jeopardy! Online, SOE has
an array of cutting-edge online games in development such asPlanetSide,
Star Wars Galaxies™ and Sovereign™.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
October 8, 2001
------------------------------
*** Item Changes ***
- Increased the duration on Song of the Deep Seas (the proc on a bardic
weapon) dramatically.
- Modified the effect of Feast of Blood (weapon proc) it is now a DoT
lifetap
- Added a texture to Flayed Barbarian Skin Leggings.
- Added Illusion: Barbarian to the Flayed Barbarian Hide Mask.
*** Miscellaneous Changes ***
- The last language used by your character will be stored in your
eqclient.ini file when you log out. This means that if the last
character you were playing was speaking Elvish, then when you log back
in with any character, that character will be speaking Elvish if he
can, otherwise it will be set to a default language (most often
Common).
*** Magic System Changes ***
There is a more detailed explanation of these changes posted on our
Developer's Corner. Please visit there for more details (either at
www.everquest.com or http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/cgi-
bin/Ultimate.cgi). Here is a summary of the changes:
- The level-based spell resistance bonus inherent in super-high level
NPCs has been reduced significantly.
- Several NPCs have had their resistances reduced. Each of them was
examined carefully, and resistances changed as seemed appropriate. For
some of these NPCs other things were changed as well to compensate for
their increased susceptibility to spells, such as armor improvements or
perhaps greater hit points, if needed for that NPC.
- NPCs that were highly magic resistant in order to make them immune to
certain spells can now be given specific immunity to those spells. This
means that they can be made immune to critical spells, as intended, and
still be generally less resistant to magic. Players will receive a
message similar to the one that is already given for Mesmerization
spells when they cast a spell on an NPC that it is specifically immune
to.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is very important to note that we have not made any
NPCs immune to spells that they were not already immune to. Many NPCs
that were previously immune to spells due to their high innate
resistance to magic have had that resistance reduced and specific
immunities added. So if you see an immunity message after attempting to
cast a spell on an NPC that you hadn't seen such a message from before,
understand that the NPC was already immune to that spell before due to
high resistances, and the only difference is that it now has lower
resistances in general and specific spell immunity (which is why you
are seeing the message).
*** Melee Changes ***
After extensive research, testing, and evaluation we have completed the
melee portion of our class balancing. To be clear, these changes apply
just to the combat aspect of melee classes. Any issues with non-combat
skills, spell effects, spell selection, or non-combat aspects of
classes will be evaluated in the near future. With the completion of
the melee combat balancing, we will be moving onto spells and spell
casting classes.
Due to the extensive nature of these changes, we can't describe them in
detail here. A detailed summary will be available on our Developer's
Corner message board. Please visit www.everquest.com and our forums for
more information.
* Summary of Melee Changes *
- Two-Handed Weapons have been given an increased damage bonus for
characters over level 50. Also, certain post-epic quality two-handers
have been improved.
- Warriors have had their taunt skill cap increased to 230 at 60th
level. Also, the Blades of Strategy and Tactics can now be used in
either hand.
- Rogues, as the primary user of piercing weapons, will benefit from an
improvement in the quality of a few existing high-end daggers. At some
future date new piercing weapons will be added to the game to fill gaps
in equipment availability.
- Monks will now be on an improved combat table at levels 55 and again
to a better table at 60. Monks now have the ability to Triple Attack at
60th level. The minimum damage done by Flying Kick will be greatly
increased for monks starting at 51st level and scaling up to level 60.
We also intend to add more monk weapons in the future to fill equipment
gaps.
- Rangers have their Double Attack skill cap raised to 245. They have
also gained an innate offensive bonus that starts at level 55 and
increases until level 60. Ranger's Defense skill cap has been raised to
220, and their Riposte skill cap has been raised to 185.
- Paladins and Shadowknights, besides the benefits they gain from the
two-handed weapons change mentioned above, have also been moved to the
same combat tables as warriors. In the future we intend to examine the
existing one-handed weapons useable by knights for possible upgrades.
We are also increasing the Taunt skill cap for these two classes to
220.
- Bards have had their 1h blunt and 1h slash skill caps increased to
250. Their piercing skill cap has been increased to 240. Their Offense
skill cap has been raised to 252. Bards are also being moved to the
same combat table with all the other melee and hybrid classes (save
monks who have separate tables after level 55). Bards Parry skill cap
has been raised to 185 as well. Finally, the Singing Shortsword can now
be equipped in the off hand and still give full song enhancing
benefits.
Please read the detailed explanation of these changes on our
Developer's Corner message boards at
http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi
*** Firiona Vie (Roleplaying Preferred) server goes Live ***
Our newest special rules server is now available. Firiona Vie is
designated as roleplaying preferred. There are many special rules for
this server, please read over them carefully before playing. We will be
keeping an updated list of these rules on our web site at
http://everquest.station.sony.com/guidebook/firionavie.jsp .
** Firiona Vie Server Feature List **
- This is a new server, not a split server. Nor will there be any
transfers to this server.
- Characters will be wiped before the server goes Live.
- This is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) server, NOT a PvP (Player vs.
Player) server. In other words, it's a standard 'blue' server with the
same rules and features regarding PvP as the vast majority of our
servers. It is not one of the 'Zeks'.
- Auction restricted to city zones: Qeynos, Surefall Glade, Highkeep,
Freeport, Rivervale, Erudin, Halas, Neriak, Grobb, Oggok, Greater
Faydark, Ak'Anon, Kaladim, Felwithe, Paineel, Cabilis, Kael and
Thurgadin.
- Beneficial buff spells will not work on characters 20 levels lower than the caster.
- Each character will be assigned an "alignment" upon creation. This
alignment will be described in brief on the character creation screen
(in the same location that their Deity is described).
- Each character will be able to change their alignment once any time
after they reach 10th level if they choose. A character is not required
to change alignments, but may do so any time after attaining 10th
level. The player will be able to chose from a list of alignments based
on their race, class and deity.
- A character's alignment will determine whether or not they can group
with other characters.
- A character's alignment will determine an experience bonus or penalty
when grouping with other characters.
- A character's alignment will determine if they can cast beneficial
spells on other characters (including resurrections).
- Language skills will improve only through group chat in the same zone
and from /say.
- Languages will only improve 1 point each hour and will be capped at
level*5+5 skill points.
- Common will not exist. A Human language will be added and only made
easily available to certain races.
- One character per account.
- The Trivial Loot Code will be in effect in all zones.
- Very few items will be No-Drop. Exceptions will include things such
as newbie notes and epic weapons.
- Bind Affinity will be restricted for all characters to locations
where melee characters can bind on other servers.
- /emote will be language specific
- All characters will be /roleplay.
- /alignment will display the alignment of your character and probably
a more detailed description of that alignment.
** Trivial Loot Code **
Briefly, the Trivial Loot Code works like this: If a character kills an
NPC and that NPC does not give them experience, then the Trivial Loot
Code takes effect. If any member of a group does not get experience for
a kill, the Trivial Loot Code will take effect. The Trivial Loot Code
prevents magical, lore and no-drop items from appearing on the corpse.
Normal items and coins will appear on the corpse in all cases as usual.
For detailed information about the alignment system on the Firiona Vie
server, please visit our web site:
http://everquest.station.sony.com/guidebook/firionavie.jsp
** NOTE **
Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles,
latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.
** A Tale from Norrath **
Adventurers, glory seekers, and plunder-hungry knaves,
A few new tavern tales have been circulating from across the Deep. It
appears that strife and civil unrest have once again plagued the lands
of Kunark. Stories of treachery and terror within the ranks of the
Sarnak have spilled forth from the mountain fortress of Chardok.
Only a few of the most cunning spies have made their way into the
Sarnak hive during this brief time of turmoil, and their reports may
have serious implications. The Brood of Di`zok seems to be more
organized than before. Their leadership is becoming more structured...
and much more brutal. Production in the mines appears to be increasing
and soldiers have been amassing in great numbers.
Other tales have come from this mountain fortress as well. Terror
squads and interrogators have decimated the ranks of reported Sarnak
traitors. These squads have been working under the leadership of one of
the Sarnak Collective's newest council members, Korucust. It can only
be presumed that this cleansing is another step towards strengthening
the foul brood.
These tales are hard to confirm, since many of your adventurous kind
are prone to drink and to the occasional mistruth. If these tales are
true, it would only stand to reason that new dangers may reveal new
wealth and glory. Perhaps it is time for you to gather your best gear,
finish your mug of ale, and head out to investigate.
Good luck adventurers.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
October 31, 2001
------------------------------
The scheduled patch is now complete. All servers are now up and
operational.
- The EverQuest Operations Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
November 7, 2001
------------------------------
** Project M Implemented **
Tonight we have patched something to the PvP servers that many players
have been waiting for. The ability to play that gnoll, orc, or the cute
and fuzzy rat. On your character select screen you will notice another
button in the upper right part of your screen called "Monster".
Clicking this button will randomly place you in a low-level NPC in a
random zone. You will be given full control of the creature to do with
it what you like. You may hunt and kill other creatures. You may even
attack other players.
Some things to remember when playing your own personal monster (NPC).
-You will not be able to interact with players or NPC's other than
moving and hitting attack.
-You cannot speak, trade, sell, or do anything else that a player can
do.
-You will spawn with normal loot for the monster you are playing and
Player Characters will be able to kill you for loot and experience.
-If you are a spell casting monster you might want to take a moment to
memorize some spells.
-Once you die, you will return to the character select screen where you
may choose to return as another NPC or play your normal character.
-You may gain experience, levels, and skills as this NPC, but once you
die, it is all lost. You will need to start over the next time you
choose to be a NPC character.
-You can't zone as a monster.
-Monster PCs (MPCs) can not loot, sell, or gain items. They only get
what they start out with.
This ability to play a monster is being implemented for PvP servers
only as we have no plans to implement non-consensual PvP on a non PvP
server.
However, we are still working with this system. We may find other ways
to implement Project M on the non-PvP servers that are acceptable. We
aren't done looking at the possible uses of this new feature.
** PvP Server Related **
- Guards, when seeing PCs in combat, will now attack the one that they
like the least (the one with the lowest appropriate faction). If all
the PCs involved are highly regarded (have very high faction) the
guards will allow them to resolve their own issues without interfering.
- Guards should also refrain from attacking PCs that are attacked by
pets of any sort.
- Sullon Zek now has an across the board experience bonus of 20%, and
the experience loss on all deaths on Sullon Zek is now 50% less.
** Zone Specific Changes **
- Kael now has specific bind locations, located only at the entryways.
This means that binding will only be possible in those areas.
- Anti-bottom feeding code has been removed from the Stonebrunt
Mountains and the Warrens.
- Added a melee bind location to the dock in Iceclad.
** Bug Fixes **
- Fixed a bug that allowed corpses to exist inside walls. Now if a
corpse ends up in a location that is not 'valid' the corpse will be
moved to the 'safe coordinates' of the zone. Also, the /corpse command
will now summon your own corpse to you anywhere in the zone as long as
that corpse is on the safe spot of the zone. This should prevent
corpses from being stuck in walls.
- Fixed it so that Critical Hit damage messages match the actual damage done.
- The visible damage bonus modifier on two-handed weapons has been
corrected. The value that was displayed was incorrect, no change has
been made to the damage bonus itself.
** Item Changes **
- Fixed an issue with the Bardic Epic weapon. Now if the bard has his
Epic and an instrument that gives bonuses to songs, the best effect
will take precedence, rather than the Epic bonuses always being used.
- Cloak of Imperception should now have charges. You will need to
exchange your old one for a new one with your GM within the next five
days.
- Donal's Chestplate of Mourning has unlimited charges again.
** Gameplay/Interface Changes/Additions **
- We have changed the way the /consider command works. We have added a
'light blue' area between green and blue. NPCs that used to /consider
green but gave experience will now /consider light blue, as well as
NPCs of slightly lower level than those greens. You will always get
experience for something that is light blue. You will not receive
experience for greens. At the same time, by including lower level NPCs
in the light blue /consider, we have increased the range of lower level
NPCs that will grant experience. This will be most noticeable for
characters of higher level.
- Added /targetgroupbuff. Type /targetgroupbuff on to activate, off to
turn it off. When on, all group buff spells you cast will require a
target but will affect everyone grouped (and in range) with that
target, even if it is not your own group. When it is off your group
buff spells will act normally. This will only work with group buffs
that have a duration, and will not affect heals, portals or change form
spells.
- Added code that will put one item onto your cursor if it won't fit
into your inventory due to a cancelled trade or looting items (and
other cases). This will only work if there is not already an item on
the cursor.
- Added code that prevents player characters from dropping coins on the
ground. This should prevent the loss of coins due to accident or scam.
- Made a modification to the chase camera mouselook code. Moving the
mouse forward or back in this camera view will make the camera move up
and down, and the camera also automatically pitches to keep your
character in view.
- You now see the number of hit points you are healed, and you also now
see how many hit points you heal when healing others.
** Skill Changes **
- Bard Piercing cap was raised to 250 at 60th level.
- Foraging and Fishing will now result in a wider variety of items,
especially in zones that have unusual items available to forage or fish
(such as quest items). Quest and unique items were too common in zones
that had them, often making it hard to use those skills to obtain items
such as food and drink. These quest and rare items will now actually be
rarely foraged or fished, as they should have been. Such items will
still be available, even to those with low foraging skills, but they
will be more easily found by those who have practiced the skills.
*** Norrathian News ***
Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles,
latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
November 8, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Follow-up Patch **
We had a couple of bugs pop up in yesterday's patch. Rather than having
everyone wait to see them fixed we've elected to roll them in now:
Bards lost the ability to use item effects while moving. This has been
fixed.
Monks can now train mend again.
Fixed a collision problem that caused people to fall through some
walls.
Fixed a problem with /targetgroupbuff that allowed people to cast
combat portal spells on others.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
November 28, 2001
------------------------------
** Server Outage for Shadows of Luclin Launch **
In order to update our server for the launch of EverQuest: Shadows of
Luclin, all servers will be taken down starting at noon on Monday,
December 3rd. They will be brought back up again on Tuesday, December
4th at 8 am (Pacific Time - which is -8:00 GMT).
We regret the down time that setting up the new expansion requires.
Shadows of Luclin offers some exciting new content as well as a
fantastic new graphics engine. We hope that you'll agree with us that
Shadows of Luclin is well worth the extended patch time.
Thanks for your patience.
** DirectX 8.0 or higher Required for EverQuest **
When we update the servers on December 3rd for Shadows of Luclin, we
will also be updating a lot of the code for the existing game. This
code is written specifically for use with DirectX 8.0 and higher, and
should provide better performance to most of our customers. The
improvement will be most noticeable for people using newer hardware.
This will require that all EverQuest players update their DirectX to
version 8.0 or better to play EverQuest. We will be providing an
instructional page to help people with this upgrade in the very near
future at www.everquestlive.com. If you want to test your DirectX 8
configuration and drivers sooner rather than later, you can do so by
running "TestEverQuest.exe" in your EverQuest directory and logging on
to the Test Server. Please view the patch message there for information
should you have any problems logging in.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
Dcember 3, 2001
------------------------------
*EQClient INI Setting*
There's some confusion about the information that's been released on
the Test server over the past couple of days, and that confusion is
resulting in some people having trouble playing EverQuest. To clear it
up:
The GraphicsDLL setting in your EQClient.ini file should read
"GraphicsDLL=EQGfx_Dx7.dll" regardless of what server you are playing
on or what version of DirectX you are running. If you are having
problems getting in to EverQuest, specifically, problems crashing prior
to reaching character select, please check and set this entry in your
EQClient.ini as necessary.
Also, as a reminder, all EverQuest subscribers will need to have
DirectX 8.1 or better installed on their system in order to play
beginning Tuesday morning. The latest version of DirectX can be found
at http://www.microsoft.com/directx.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 4, 2001 6:00 am
------------------------------
*** Welcome to Luclin ***
"As you know, youngster, we of the League of Antonican Bards have made
it our primary goal to travel to places before others. It is our duty
to see what hasn't yet been seen and to make song of it when we return.
We carry news, song and spirit to all of Norrath. We have also taken it
upon ourselves to carry personal news in the form of letters wherever
possible. And that's what I've called you here to talk about.
...
No, I am not assigning you the duty of establishing a mail route into
Grobb. We've lost far too many young bards trying to do that.
Recruitment of smart young lads and lasses is nearly impossible when
they all think that we plan to send them out to become bard fillet.
We've only been able to recruit youngsters that no other guild wanted
because they were so...
...
No, of course I don't mean you.
Now stop interrupting.
I have a job for you. You know, don't you, that Al'Kabor has once again
been clomping about using his powerful magics without much regard for
consequences, don't you?
...
/em sighs.
Ok, your FIRST task is to read up on current events! ()
Your second task is to find out if the rumors about his recent
experiments are true. They say (and "they" are pretty reliable) that
things such as noble-looking Kerrans calling themselves the Vah Shir,
strange beasts of burden and new spells and songs have started showing
up on Antonica. They also say that this is all due to the experiments
of that Erudite Wizard Al'Kabor. You are to head out to one of the
great wizard spires and investigate. If you can, interview one of these
cat people and bring us back one of these horses they talk about...
...
Maybe you should talk to my assistant about things like directions out
of the city and where you can find some shoes more appropriate for
travel."
All this you overhear as you wait outside for your turn to talk to the
loremasters of the League of Antonican Bards.
The door opens and you see a dejected and confused looking young bard
step out. Following him out the door you hear a bellow,
"I also expect you to let everyone know that we are NO LONGER trying to
establish mail routes to Grobb! Trolls can't read very well anyway."
Shadows of Luclin opens up new adventures and new challenges, as well
as new rewards for those with a spirit of adventure.
Are you up to the challenge?
*** Notes for Shadows of Luclin customers ***
IMPORTANT: do not lose your Shadows of Luclin CDs. Because of the
immense amount of data on the three Shadows of Luclin CDs, you will not
be able to just copy the executable file into a new directory and
download the rest of the expansion. We have placed restrictions on the
amount of data that customers can download from our patcher so that
massive patching as a replacement for reinstalling from the disk will
not impact our other customers. So if you have a hard drive problem or
you wish to install EverQuest on a new computer, you will need to have
your CD to do so.
TECH SUPPORT: Please visit our Tech Support Center at if you have any
problems with your Luclin installation.
/facepick - this new command will allow those of you with Shadows of
Luclin to change your characters face. It will only work for characters
using the new models. If you've turned off Gnomes and your character is
a Gnome, you will not be able to use this command on that character.
And it will, obviously, only work for those with Shadows of Luclin
installed.
/dismount - This command allows your character to dismount from a horse
if for some reason he has lost the ability to do so using the bridle.
There is no /mount command, only the bridle will allow you to mount a
horse.
*** Other Changes with this Patch ***
Along with our preparations for the introduction of Shadows of Luclin,
we have made a few other changes with this patch:
** Gameplay Changes **
- Increased the amount of mana given by high Intelligence and Wisdom
scores, as well as that granted by items and spells.
- Fixed a bug that was causing rogues to critical with every use of a
thrown weapon.
- Fixed a bug that caused the experience bar to displaying incorrectly
after leveling. This also seemed to cause a crash in certain cases when
in F10 view.
** PvP Changes **
- PVP looting will now display to the group.
- Empty corpses will no longer disappear when looted by an enemy
player, they will decay at the normal rate for empty corpses.
- Guards in 'guard zones', such as cities, will continue to protect
characters that they find the least offensive (the one with the highest
faction). But guards in outdoor zones will be less likely to join in a
fight. They will only come to the aid of people that they like.
Otherwise they will not get involved in PvP combat.
- Etched Peridot of Nature will be removed from all locations,
including those held by players on their characters or in their banks.
This item was not intended to be available until Shadows of Luclin went
live, and then only in Luclin zones.
** Spell Changes **
- Spells that heal less than 10 points of damage will not generate a
message to the player.
- Velious portal teeth (Great Divide, Wakening Lands and Cobalt Scar)
are no longer required to teleport to those locations. These items are
also no longer soul bound.
- Fixed a bug with the Bard Song of Occlusion
** New Commands **
- /stand now implemented. We've added this command because not everyone
speaks programmer and would think that the logical reverse of /sit
would be /sit off. :)
- /particledensity command - Switches particle density on the fly
without having to click it in the menus and exit the game.
** Some new things you'll see **
- We now have the ability to flag an NPC as non-targetable. This in
effect renders the NPC non-attackable as well. Clicking on one of these
NPCs will cause your current target selection to clear. This
functionality is used primarily for the presentation of content. For
instance, if we want an NPC to spawn and tell you a story, he can tell
his story without being attacked mid-sentance by other players. It also
opens up some pretty interesting content avenues. As an example, we can
make NPCs unharmable until you do a quest "stripping them of their
power".
- There are several new item classes (types) in the world. For example,
there are weapons that do enhanced damage versus certain races (e.g.
Perhaps you'll find a +2 vs froglok sword, or a +4 vs Bear club. In
addition we can do the same type of thing with types of creatures (+3
vs humanoid, +1 vs Undaed). We've also added elemental modifiers (e.g.
a +4 Fire sword). The bonus value is calculated as and increased DMG
stat on the weapon, except that the elemental portion is run through
the resistance system before calculating the strength of your hit.
There are some items out there with bonuses to some more interesting
stats, but we'll leave it to you to figure them out :)
- There's a lot more out there. Be prepared to reevaluate your
assumptions and redefine the way you approach the world. Proposed
solutions to situations and quests that you might have previously
written off saying, "They can't do that in EverQuest", might be exactly
the way you need to approach the problem at hand. As fellow gamers, we
envy you as you approach Luclin and find everything fresh, new, and
waiting to be solved. And to those of you who aren't first to solve the
quests or adventure in the new areas, we urge you to do so with your
friends, and leave the spoiler sites out of it. Good luck on your
journies.
** Note on New Features **
EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin contains many new features which have
yet to stand up to the scrutiny of 400,000 experienced players. Without
doubt there will be some situations where we need to reevaluate the
gameplay-impact of some of those features and adjust them accordingly
to maintain game integrity. As an example, we think that they might
accelerate and decelerate too quickly, but will have to wait until we
see them used by a broad spectrum of players before we can make a final
determination. We thank you for your patience in these matters.
** Note on Impending Features **
As we approached our launch date we found that several features which
are planned are also not yet ready for prime-time. We're currently
working on the following items, many of which will be implemented in
the very near future:
- Extra flora in outdoor zones. Sprigs of grass, small bushes, flowers,
etc.
- A robuste merchantile system in the bazaar that lets you flag
yourself as a merchant, set prices, and conduct business without having
to conduct business manually with each buyer and seller.
- We will be polishing up issues regarding tinted items in game. In
other words, things that shouldn't tint with a tinted item (e.g. your
skin) won't tint when the feature is complete.
- Light beards on high elves, dark elves, half elves, and dwarf females
will be tintable along with the hair color. We are going to leave in
the ability for you to change your appearance until after we've added
more customization options.
We thank you for your patience and patronage as we implement these
features. Good luck with your adventures on Luclin!
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 6, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
*Fixed Bugs*
- Fixed a bug that was preventing characters from being bald (those
that were allowed to).
- Halved the speed of the new Skeleton walk and run animations because
they were playing about twice as fast as they should have been.
- Fixed a bug that was causing all of the facial features (hair, beard,
etc...) to switch back to default in certain cases when you switched
from one face to another (faces with special eyes, like the faces with
eye patches and white eye).
- Fixed a crash bug with /follow.
- Found and Fixed the crash bug with soldungb and everfrost and other
places.
- Fixed transparency code with i810 display adapters
- Fixed a problem introduced into the sound engine that causes
framerate problems and sound stutter in some places.
- Fixed a crash bug that had to do with dying from your familiar
effect.
- Research the group buff bug and fixed it.
- Fixed a crash bug with root and gate.
- Various item and content fixes.
*Hot Items* (The items we're considering top priority)
- Bard issues: We're working to correct the problems bards have been
experiencing with their songs.
- K6 Processors: We're working to fix, or provide a work-around for
problems AMD K6 users are experiencing when entering some zones.
- Armor layer tinting (e.g. tinting your armor without tinting your
skin)
We are reviewing the issues sent to us as they are sent in and will be
doing daily patches as necessary to get everything working to your and
our satisfaction as quickly as possible. Please remember that EverQuest
users need to have DirectX 8.1 and the appropriate drivers for their
video card. Visit our tech support center first if you are having
issues:
http://everquest.station.sony.com/support/luclin/index.jsp
Thank you,
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 7, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
*Fixes*
- Shaved 10 seconds of zoning for every subscriber.
- Made it so familiars don't get agroed on.
- Fixed several zone crash bugs
- Changed a paladin spell - a design error in the spell trivialized
several aspects of the high-end game.
- Fixed several item and content problems.
- Fixed several faction issues - some faction information released with
Luclin deviated from norm.
- The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 10, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
*Patch Changes*
- Fixed a problem that resulted in excessive swapping for people with
particles turned off.
- Fear spells should again be working correctly.
- AoE fear spells will no longer work versus players on PvP Servers.
- Fixed a crash caused by a familiar dying.
- Fixed a bug with the "Alternate Advancement" system. An artifact from
the removal of the class-based experience penalty several months ago
resulted in hybrids gaining AAXP much faster than they should, and
warriors and rogues gaining it slower. AA-point cost was designed to be
the same regardless of class.
- Increased the experience cost per AA-point overall after analysis of
point accruals accross the game.
- Corrected several zone-crashes. Also implemented a workaround to
prevent the Hollowshade crash while we investigate the problem further.
- Fixed several miscellaneous bugs that were causing crashes or had the
potential to cause crashes on varied systems.
- Fixed a bug that caused some people to crash when reentering the game
after exiting.
- Addressed a good number of content-related issues (quest problems,
bad items, etc).
*Luclin Install*
- We found that the default install directory for Luclin may be wrong
for some people, specifically those who have copied their EverQuest
files into a directory different from their initial installation.
- Also, we've received a number of calls from Luclin subscribers who've
tried logging in to their character on a friends computer that does not
have an install of Luclin on it. This will not work as the files
necessary for you to view Luclin content are not present unless Luclin
has been installed.
- We've added code to point out both of these cases in the future.
*Continued Plans*
- As we wrap up the technology-related issues over the course of this
week, making sure that everyone who wants to play EverQuest can play
EverQuest, the programming team will shift their focus to aesthetic
issues such as animation speed/timing, armor tinting, face-picker
operation, etc. We do indeed plan on getting to all of these issues in
the very short term.
- The content-team, however, is hard at work on content-related issues
right now, and stands ready to address any broken quests, items,
encounter-imbalances, etc., that you may run across in your adventures.
Please feel free to visit our forums off of www.everquestlive.com and
submit a comment through the Developer's Corner.
Thank you for your patronage,
-The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 11, 2001 12:00 am
------------------------------
*Patch Changes*
- Fixed a memory leak that was causing excessive swapping when moving
between outdoor Luclin zones.
- Implemented some changes to zoning that should improve times,
especially for modem users.
- Fixed several potential crash bugs.
- You can now only have 100 unused points in your alternate advancement
pool.
- Fixed the bug that prevented non-Luclin subscribers from seeing the
Vah Shir model.
- Addressed many content-related problems. We appreciate the reports
we've received.
- Continued optimizations of the 3D engine.
The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 12, 2001 12:00 am
------------------------------
* Patch Changes *
- Several changes to hair functionality: Expanded beard color choices
for Erudite males, pushed back the camera a bit for human males when
making hair selections (so they can see themselves) and fixed it so
that the camera will no longer rotate around Erudites while in hair
selection mode of character creation. Also fixed a bug with the left
selection arrow sometimes not changing hair color.
- Fixed the "Entering Luclin" message bug. This was only an errant text
message, it was not causing any crashes or keeping anyone out of the
game.
- Fixed a bug where Vah Shir with an intelligence over a certain amount
could not be created.
- Fixed a bug with faction-affecting items: They were giving a bonus to
all factions instead of just the intended faction
- Fixed a problem with arrows and quivers that would result in the
person being logged out.
- Adjusted the cost of Combine Platemail to be inline with its stats
and other armor available within game.
- Made several gameplay changes to The Grey. A single group having the
ability to simultaneously engage and prevail against 35+ experience-
giving creatures is not in line with the desire for risk vs. reward and
the promotion of balanced groups.
- Removed some bad NPCs in Chardok.
- Tuned encounters in The Fungus Grove, Maiden's Eye, and Dawnshroud
Peaks.
- Clarified some quest dialog in Sanctus Seru.
- Tuned The Deep, also improved the variety of drops.
- Improved pathing in The Temple of Ssraeshza
- Improved pathing in Sanctus Seru
- Improved pathing in Echo Caverns
- Added some newbie beastlord quests in the old world.
- Removed the "Lore" tag from the "Darkened Knight's Bracer"
The EverQuest Team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 13, 2001 12:00 am
------------------------------
** Texture Cache **
In an effort to improve loading and zoning times, we've added the
ability to cache textures to your hard drive. One of the things that
your computer is doing when you load up the game or change zones is
building textures and putting them into RAM on your computer. Each time
you log in or zone the game has to create the textures you need and put
them into RAM for use during gameplay.
This, obviously, takes a little time.
We have added an option that allows you to save that information to
your hard drive rather than creating it each time you log in or zone.
This does have a few drawbacks. It will require a lot of hard drive
space to store these textures. In the most extreme case it could use up
as much as 1.5 GB of hard drive space, though this would be the
extreme. It could, however, easily use 500 MB of space on your hard
drive. And because writing all this data to your hard drive takes a
little time, the first time you use this feature it will take a bit
longer to log in.
The game will never allow you to fall below 500 MB of space on your
hard drive when creating the texture cache. This is to prevent any
problems with a shortage of space on your hard drive. But it also means
that you will need to have plenty of hard drive space free to use this
option; 500 MB plus the amount needed for the texture cache.
Also, if you change any of your setting for graphics {like changing the
texture quality) it will have to rewrite these files, meaning that your
first log in after making such a change will take longer than usual as
it writes these files to your hard drive.
The benefits is that once you have allocated the hard drive space and
logged in to create the needed files, the game can then read that
information directly into RAM from your hard drive rather than creating
them each time you log in or zone.
What this feature does not allow you to do is to increase the settings
above those that are recommended. If the game suggests that you only
use ten models, turning on the Texture Cache will not make it a good
idea to turn on more models. This feature will not change that. Those
recommendations are based on the amount of RAM you have available and
your video card. The hard drive cache does not effectively add RAM to
your machine, it just allows the game to save time creating the
textures that your existing RAM and video card use.
There are two ways to activate this feature. You can check the 'Texture
Cache' box in the Options screen, or you can turn it on from within the
eqclient.ini file. To activate it, add the following line to the
eqclient.ini file:
TextureCache=TRUE
This could improve load times dramatically depending on your settings.
The more models and graphics features you have turned on, the greater
the potential decrease in loading times you will see using the Texture
Cache.
Remember: This will require a lot of hard drive space, so be certain
that you have a lot of free hard drive space if you turn this option
on. The more stuff you enable (models, texture quality, etc.) the more
space you will need.
We expect this to be of greatest benefit to folks with 256 megs of RAM
and a lot of hard drive space. The more RAM your system has, the less
benefit you should expect to see by using the texture cache.
* Patch Changes *
- Fixed a pathing problem in the waters of Acrylia Caverns
- More fixes for face and hair issues: Most notably a bug with Erudite
male hair color arrows changing the hair style instead of the color.
- Fixed a problem that was causing the % to crash some people when
using in tells.
- Addressed several potential crash bugs.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 14, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
- Removing or killing your familiar will no longer have the possibility
of killing you directly. It can, however, take you down to very few hit
points...
- Skyshrine key is soulbound once again
- Custom Velious helms should now be visible
- Plate helmets should now be visible on Vah Shir
- Female humans should no longer see the inside of their heads when
firing a bow
- Using the ESC key to exit the /facepick menu should no longer lock
the right mouse button
- Fixed an issue with several transparencies, including Vox and Nagafen
spots, Kael giants helms, halfling helm and old dark elf model hair
- The Kneel and Grovel emotes are no longer switched
- The BACK and NEXT buttons on the last page of the keyboard options
now work properly.
- The 'ALT' pop-up for spells memorized will no longer show up if the
memorized spells window is not open
- Removed the mipmap setting from in-game Options-->Display menu. The
mipmap setting found at the options menu before log in is now the valid
way to change mipmapping settings
- Improved the pathing in Echo Caverns
- Staff of Living Sand and Skull-Shaped Sacrificial Hammer should no
longer say that they are out of charges.
- The Ruthless Bracer is now a wrist item, not a shoulder item
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 18, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
** Patch Changes **
- Added tools to help us track serverside zone issues that have come up
since the release of Luclin in an effort to solve some continuing
problems.
- Orb of Lost Souls will now have a casting time.
- Geomantic Focus has had its effect changed.
- Fixed a problem that prevented Barbarian custom Velium helms from
being visible to other PCs.
- Corrected a problem with horse acceleration and deceleration in
extremely low framerate situations. Acceleration and deceleration now
seem the same at high and low framerates.
- Fonts should display correctly, regardless of desktop settings.
- Hoober and his pet have returned. Yes, we used the singular... only
one pet.
- The wind instruments "ivory horn" and "ivory flawless horn" can now
be equipped.
- Added Beastlord Guildmasters to Firiona Vie and The Overthere
- Added several merchants to Freeport (North and East) to round out the
availability of trade supplies there.
** Note about upcoming changes to the Temple of Veeshan **
In the next patch, we are making a few changes to the monster
population in Temple of Veeshan. Places that were previously safe to
camp, may not be any longer. Please be sure to not camp deep within the
Temple of Veeshan on Wednesday night, or you may be unpleasantly
surprised following the patch.
** NOTICE TO CONSUMERS -- WINDOWS 95 EVERQUEST PLAYERS **
We very much regret that the dramatic upgrades to EverQuest on December
4, 2001 has made EverQuest and all expansions incompatible with Windows
95.
If you are running under the Windows 95 operating system and,
therefore, can no longer play EverQuest, and your account was in good
standing as of December 3, 2001, you may be entitled to receive a
refund of the purchase price for the EverQuest product(s) you recently
bought and any subscription money paid for the period December 4, 2001
onward.
In order to obtain a refund, you may do any of the following:
(1) Call (858) 537-0898 M-F, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. PST (this is NOT a
toll free call)
or
(2) Send an email to refunds@soe.sony.com
or
(3) Send a written request for a refund to:
EQ Refunds
8928 Terman Court
San Diego, CA 92121
Please include in your email or written request your name, address,
telephone number, email address and station name (but NOT your
password).
You will be asked for information verifying your request and, upon the
issuance of a refund, your account and characters will be permanently
removed from EverQuest. Please allow four to six weeks for processing.
- The EverQuest team
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 20, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------
* Bug Fixes *
- Fixed a bug with sleeves not showing properly when wearing robes
* Item Changes *
- Aqualung charges should now work properly
* Trade Skill Changes *
- Regular, medium quality, high quality, mithril, brellium and
adamantite rings, as well as their enchanted versions are now
stackable.
- Added a few trade skill vendors to Ak'Anon
- Added ore, clay, pottery sketch, baking, and brewing vendors to
Felwithe to round out the tradeskill supplies available in Felwithe and
Kelethin.
- Crafted fishing flies, special fishing poles and special baits now
add a fishing skill bonus.
- Made all Bait and flies equipable in the Ammo slot.
- Added clay, ore and brewing supply vendors to Halas.
- Added several trade skill vendors to Oggok.
* Localization Information *
Localization on the EverQuest login/chat server has been fixed so that
users can once again select French and German. Japanese and Korean have
also been added.
To obtain the text files which enable a language, go to the Advanced
Options screen in the patcher and click on the appropriate language box
before clicking on "Download".
* Soulbinders *
A new group has appeared in Norrath (and on Luclin as well). Rumor has
it that these 'Soulbinders' have dedicated themselves to research on
the power and essence of our inner being. Some call them fanatics, as
they claim that knowledge of the spirit that dwells within will lead
them to an understanding of the whole of existence. Citizens often
treat them with the same respect and distance that they treat the
Priests of Discord. However, these Soulbinders have dedicated
themselves to public service, and for them that service falls along
their lines of specialty...
The next time you find yourself far away from home, you might seek the
services of a Soulbinder.
/ooc: We've added these "Soulbinder" NPCs to all cities that player
characters can start in, as well as Firiona Vie, The Overthere,
Shadowhaven and Iceclad at the request of players. It is our hope that
these new NPCs will help players by reducing the time it takes to find
a bind from another player character.
.....................................................................
------------------------------
December 28, 2001
------------------------------
- Some spots in ToV no longer safe to camp out due to New Drakes and
Wurm spawns being added.
- A bug allowing multiple pets to be summoned has been fixed.
.....................................................................
