..................................................................... ------------------------------ July 1, 2003 ------------------------------ Effective immediately, customers who reside within the European Union will be charged VAT equal to 17.5% of their subscription fees. To comply with changes in the law in the European Union, EverQuest subscribers who are residents of EU countries will be charged VAT equal to 17.5% of the subscription fees. These changes require that digital services be taxed at the point of consumption , i.e. in your country of residence. The countries currently covered by this policy are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ July 10, 2003 ------------------------------ ** Information Gathering ** You will soon notice a new dialogue box appear when you log in (it appears after logging in three times to prevent spam for new players). We are asking you to let us gather a bit of information about your computer that will help us build the future of EverQuest. The important thing here is that you can say no and we won't gather any information. If you do accept, we'll gather CPU, RAM and video card information to help us evaluate and improve EverQuest. If you agree and then change your mind later, you can disable the feature under the Options tab (Alt-O) and then the General tab in game. So when you see the new dialogue box appear, please read it over carefully and click whichever answer you feel most comfortable with. Thanks. ** Zones ** - Droga and Nurga moving to Live servers - These zones were revamped and sent to Legends, and now they are moving to the Live servers. This is a great chance to revisit these zones. - Chardok - Treachery and lies are not uncommon in the court of the Overking. But there are some unusual rumors being told by some unusual adventurers. Some say that there is strife within the council of the Overking, and that heroes may find adventure there while that strife lasts. OOC: We're introducing a new zone and a new zone type. The Halls of Betrayal is a "pocket zone", and new type of zone for EverQuest. It will exist for a short time to be part of the storyline, and then will be gone. So if you're going to see it, now is the time. - Grieg's End revamp going to Legends - The redesign includes new encounters, items, traps, and events that make the zone a challenge for the experience group, with plenty of events for a raid group. - Plane of Earth B - we have removed the Call of the Hero restrictions in this zone. - Rallos Zek - the Warlord will now kick anyone out of the zone that is on his hate list and is not in a valid raid greater then 20 people in size. This should prevent single players being able to attack him and grief other players who are making a valid attempt at him. This is in addition to the previous limitations of having only one raid allowed to attack him at any given time. - Increased Experience - We have increased the experience modifier in the Tower of Solusek Ro, Halls of Honor, The Temple of Marr, and the Lair of Terris Thule. - Bastion of Thunder - The mini-bosses in Bastion of Thunder no longer spawn immediately after the zone comes up. ** Tradeskills ** - Tradeskill chance of failures changed - The higher your skill is over the trivial of the combine, the less likely you are to fail with a combine. This is a reduction on the chance to always fail. - Stackable - Ice Burrower Silk, Pie Tins and Muffin Tins are now stackable. ** Spells ** - New Imbue, Enchant, and Thicken spells - New Imbue, Enchant, and Thicken spells have been added that create five magical items rather than just one. These spells require five components and take longer to cast and use more mana. - Damage Over Time Spell Foci - Extended Affliction has been changed to Burning Affliction, which causes DoT spells to do more damage instead of having a longer duration. - Enthrall spells - Enthrall spells will not un-stun the target when they wear off if there are other enthrall spells on that target. Also, when an enthrall spell breaks due to damage it will now remove all Enthrall spells, not just the first one it finds. - Ferocity - We have removed the component requirement for Ferocity. - Kindle - We have added a new Magician spell to the game called Kindle. - Force of Akera - We have added a new Paladin spell to the game called Force of Akera. - Burnout V - this spell should now stack with the Shielding line of spells. - New Spell levels for Clarity line - Boon of the Clear Mind is now a level 44 spell, Clarity II is now a level 52 spell and Gift of Pure Thought is now level 56. - Area of Effect spells - AoE spells that do not affect your group in PvP no longer affect your Raid in PvP either. - Direct Damage spell messages - Striking the killing blow with a direct damage spell will no longer show a double cast on the spell message. - Target Group Buff - TGB will no longer work with any illusions. - Illusion - With Permanent Illusion, Levitation effects will no longer be stripped when zoning and gnome enchanters with a large-size illusion will no longer return to gnome size after zoning. In general, characters that are under the effect of a size-changing illusion should be seen properly by everyone. - Song Spam - Bards should see less spam when they hit low level PCs with their high level songs. - Treeform - This spell should now work in Luclin outdoor zones. - Draught of Lightning - We have added a new Wizard spell to the game called Draught of Lightning. ** Items ** - Bards Using Components - Bards using right-click items with a casting time greater than 0 will now expend any required components. - Ornate Armor Molds - These molds are more readily available. - Spellshield - Spellshield items now reduces spell damage by a percentage rather than a fixed amount. - Strikethrough and Stun Resist - You will now receive a message when Strikethrough and Stun Resist work. ** Quests ** - Newbie Quests - Erudites, Trolls, Ogres and Barbarians now have quests in their newbie areas similar to those implemented for all other races. This completes the updated newbie quests for all races. - Seana and Stefan Marsinger - These two will be clearer when giving their quest requests, and will return them if you hand them to the wrong Marsinger. - Bors Wharhammer - He will be checking level instead of flags as a requirement for his quests to bring him in-line with the flag removals for the lower tier planes. ** Alternate Advancement ** - Frenzied Burnout - this ability has been changed to better stack with the Burnout spells. The attack speed portion of the spell has been reduced in percentage (it hastes the pet much less), but changed to a "bard" haste which will stack with Burnout V. The strength bonus has also been decreased but made to stack with that of Burnout V. ** Skills ** - Sneak - Sneak will now work under water. - Instill Doubt - Instill Doubt will now work if the Monk is using his other skills. Previously, use of other skills such as a kick would cause Instill Doubt to fail. ** Interface ** - Camera - We have added the ability to bind cameras to keys. This will allow players to hit one key to switch to a desired camera rather than having to cycle through the F9 camera chain. This can be changed in the Options window (Alt-O) under the Keyboard tab (select "camera" from the list). - Auto-inventory - Items right-clicked off your corpse will now be place into your inventory in the correct order. - Spell Favorites - Creating a spell favorite name that matches a name that already exists will cause the new favorite to be saved over the old (whereas before it would create a second list with the same name). - Random name generator - Asking for a name should no longer result in a name that will be rejected due to duplication. Note: names can still be rejected by GM's. - Bow Graphics - Bows that have been autoequipped will now display a graphic. - Raids - The creation of a group will now work from inside a raid. - New Filters - We've added a Melee Warnings filter. It will filter out "cannot see your target" and "cannot hit them from here" messages, along with other such melee warnings. - Spell category lists - We moved a few of the Necromancer spells around on the category lists (from right-clicking spell gems) to make more sense. ** Miscellaneous ** - Updated character creation descriptions - Right-clicking the class, race or statistic buttons while in the character creation screen will display a detailed explanation of the item clicked. - Clicking on corpses - Right-clicking on a PC corpse other than your own will no longer make a character visible. - Mounts - Fixed a bug with mounts showing up with incorrect Luclin model settings. Mounts should now only show up when the Luclin models for the character race of the rider AND mounts/elementals are both on. Also, as a heads up to players that have created their own user interfaces for EverQuest, these are the interface files that we have changed: EQUI_Optionswnd.xml EQUI.xml EQUI_charactercreate.xml ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 6, 2003 3:00 am ------------------------------ Note: Some internal data restructuring created a delay in the introduction of the new platinum slot in the shared bank and the new text filters. We will bring those to the Live servers as soon as we can. ** New Adventure in Lavastorm! ** In the depths of the Lavastorm Mountains there is only one ruler. But even his burning breath and power have their limits. Rumor has it that there is wealth and danger in locations even further below the boiling lands than Lord Nagafen can reach. These tales have been spreading like ripples on a calm lake, and their point of origin appears to be an upstart barbarian named Morden. Some say that he's already delved these fabled caverns and taken what there was of value. Other say that he couldn't have carried it all off by himself. But most say that he's a rogue, a teller of tales, and not to be trusted. Will you discover the truth and brave the heat, or will you sit beside your cozy campfire and listen to stories? This new adventure zone will only be around for a while, so you may want to visit soon. ** Spells ** - Summoned Burning Affliction focus items added - Mages have four new spells, Summon Wooden Bracelet, Summon Stone Bracelet, Summon Iron Bracelet, and Summon Steel Bracelet. The bracelets summoned provide the Burning Affliction effect for DoT spells. - Summoned container spells updated - The Quiver of Marr, Bandoleer of Luclin and the Pouch of Quellious now appear filled with the appropriate item (for example, the Quiver of Marr now appears with six stacks of arrows). Also, these items should all be exactly the same, so the quiver function should work properly. - Mass Enchant spells corrected - The mass enchant spells for Adamantite, Brellium, Mithril and Steel now create the 5 enchanted blocks that they should. - Illusion: Guktan is available - This is an illusion spell for the new Froglok models. - Illusion: Scaled Wolf is available - This is an illusion spell for the Scaled Wolf seen in Kunark. - Tiny Companion - The spell scroll for this spell is no longer No Drop. - Dooming Darkness no longer overwrites Cascading Darkness. ** Items ** - Moss Covered Hood - This item can now be equipped by all classes. - Silk String - This item is now stackable. ** Trade Skills ** - New Fletching recipes added - We've added several new Karana-only fletching recipes to help round out that skill. ** Quests and Zones ** - Halls of Betrayal - Corrected an error with some of the quest item drops in this zone. - Plane of Time - The events in Plane of Time B now remember the progress your raid has made through the zone when you leave and will restore you to the same state when you return. - Kagazz will respond when you ask him about fasteners. - Experience in city zones updated - Some time around the release of Planes of Power we reduced the experience gain in some city zones. The experience gained from quests in those zone has been increased. - Ogre newbie quests - Added a weapon quest for young ogres. - Iksar Necromancer Spell Vendors - The Iksar necromancer spell vendors have moved and are a lot closer to the necromancer guild. This should make it easier for new necromancers to find these vendors and will hopefully boost their sales. ** Miscellaneous ** - Spell book bug - Corrected a bug that was causing characters to be randomly forced to stand up when in their spell book. - Client crash information - If your game crashes on the client side, a dialogue box will come up asking if you'd like to send us the information about the crash. This information may help us pinpoint problems and make it easier to fix them. Only information relevant to the crash, your character name, server name and the zone you were in will be sent. ** Fan Faire ** Chicago Fan Faire is sneaking up on us! The Chicago event will be held September 26-28th, and the last day to guarantee your spot at the event by pre-registering is September 8th. To reserve your spot and pre- register, or to simply get more information, please go to www.everquest.com/fanfaire. See you in Chicago! ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 6, 2003 12:00 pm ------------------------------ ** Live Update Addendum ** Just a brief update, as we'd like to get the word out quickly. Two issues with items being sent to the live servers have been discovered. Both will be fixed in another update at 3:00am. - Weapons that have "special" types of damage, such as elemental and bane damage, are not working properly. - A planned upgrade to the Shinai of the Ancients that is presently on the Test Server did not make it live as intended. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 7, 2003 3:00 am ------------------------------ ** Items ** - Ghaib's Flame-Forged Longsword will no longer give an out of charges message. - Shinai of the Ancients has had its delay lowered to 20. - Elemental and bane damage weapons are once again working correctly. ** Events ** - Caverns of Exile - An event NPC who was doing too much damage has been corrected. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 7, 2003 7:30 pm ------------------------------ ** Lost Dungeons of Norrath Adventures ** The Lost Dungeons of Norrath is our largest expansion to-date, featuring the most content ever delivered in an EverQuest expansion. The Lost Dungeons expansion features 48 new dungeons that span the old world of Norrath, focusing on several long lost locations, including the Rujarkian Hills and Deepest Guk. Encounter never before seen monsters that prowl the halls of these dungeons, waiting to challenge any explorer brave enough to venture in. In this expansion, players are introduced to several exciting new concepts in adventuring through the world of EverQuest. After joining the Wayfarers Brotherhood, you and your group undertake perilous new adventures into the recently unearthed Lost Dungeons of Norrath. These new adventures offer many benefits, including a clearly defined goal, the ability to play and make progress in a couple hours per adventure, and the confidence that you can set a time to meet your friends and have a dungeon fully available for you right away - no competition and no waiting! Additionally, one of the most important gameplay improvements we've made in Lost Dungeons of Norrath is the introduction of personalized dungeon adventures for single groups. When you and your group receive an adventure, you're provided with a full dungeon exclusively for your own use. There's no need to worry that you're competing against others to reach the same goal, or that someone might already be camping there. All the focus is on having fun, which allows you to get lost in the adventuring and fighting to accomplish your objective. The challenge is the dungeons themselves - if you can best the Lost Dungeons, you deserve the rewards. Lost Dungeons of Norrath breaks the mold of traditional zones by allowing every zone in the expansion to provide adventures for all groups between levels 20 and 65. Each time you embark on a new adventure, you're sent to one of 48 distinct dungeon zones, each customized with challenging monsters and traps tailored to the level of your group. This means, as long as you're over level 20, you'll have 48 challenging new dungeons to explore and conquer! Beyond the hundreds of single-group adventures in the Lost Dungeons expansion, you can also join up to 36 of your friends for powerful raid encounters! Take part in several new raids that you can do on your own schedule, with no competition or racing against other guilds. Set up raiding times that are convenient for you and your friends, with the knowledge that the dungeon will be there waiting for you when you log in! The Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion will redefine EverQuest by providing an enormous amount of adventuring possibilities, with the addition of massive amounts of content to the game - far more than any previous expansion. Pre-order yours today by pressing Pre-order at the server select screen, or at https://store.station.sony.com! ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 19, 2003 10:00 pm ------------------------------ ** Lost Dungeons of Norrath Downloads ** If you ever plan on ordering or buying Lost Dungeons, we recommend starting the downloads now. You can start downloading files *before* you make any decision to pre- order the expansion! We have been introducing the LDoN files in small bits for several days now. This is the most convenient way for you to get the files you'll need for the new expansion. Whether you plan on ordering the expansion online, or buying it in the store, or are even thinking that you might buy it sometime later on, you'll have a much easier time if you get the downloading out of the way in our daily LDoN pre-downloads. As with all expansion releases, the downloaders will likely be very busy on the first day. Even if you buy the CD, you'll still need to wait through a small download on launch day. We recommend beating the launch-day rush and downloading as much as you can, as early as you can. It will get you online and into the game that much faster. The easiest way to begin downloading the files is to click yes when the dialogue box pops up asking you if you'd like to incrementally download LDoN. If you've already told that dialogue never to appear again, you can get the files in a few easy steps: - Run EverQuest from your Start menu or Desktop shortcut as normal. - Click the Advanced button - Click the checkbox next to Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Click Save - Click Download This will catch you up on the downloads you have missed, and will update you as we continue to add files. This will make your download much smaller the day LDoN launches, or the day you purchase the digital version of the expansion. - The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 26, 2003 ------------------------------ ** Zone Revamps ** - The Deep, Charasis (Howling Stones), Dragon Necropolis, Siren's Grotto, The Hole, The City of Mist, and The Accursed Temple of Cazic- Thule have been partially revamped. Gameplay in these zones has been improved, based on feedback from players and careful review of the content. The changes are not dramatic, but make these zones more entertaining to play in. - The Plane of Mischief, home of the trickster Bristlebane, has undergone an extensive revamp. As one of the most unusual places to visit in EverQuest, this zone is a very interesting challenge, if you have a sturdy funny bone. The improved zone is now available on Stormhammer. - The Greig's End revamp is now available on the Live servers. The redesign includes new encounters, items, traps, and events that make the zone a challenge for the experience group, with plenty of events for a raid group. ** Interface ** - /memspellset # - Using this command memorizes one of your saved spell sets. # is the number or name (or shortened name) of the spell set you wish to memorize. Note that if you use a shortened version of the spell set name, it will match the first spell set that has those characters, so /memspellset Dots will find your "Dots and Charms", or "Dots", or "Dotsandstuff" - whichever shows up first on your list. - A Platinum slot has been added to the shared bank to make transactions between characters on the same account more convenient. - Clip Plane - The clip plane slider should work more reliably now. Where before it may not have done anything until lowered to a very low percentage, now the slider should have an effect at any setting. - Filters for your own pet's messages have been added. Your own pet's attacks are no longer subject to the Other Attacks/Misses filters. On the options screen there is now a separate button for filtering YOUR Pet attack messages. Also, the ability to redirect your pet attack messages to any chat window has been added to the chat window context menus. - /random messages can now be sent to any chat window you'd like. There is no option to filter these messages, however, to prevent any loss of the information in cases where it is needed (meaning, people can't claim that they didn't see the /random that they lost just to force a re-roll). - The Journal Window has been changed to make it easier to use and understand. We've merged the the two information windows into a single window. - Fixed a bug in the Looking for Group window. The Get Matches button should no longer grey out at inappropriate times. - The Bad Word Filter now filters chat channel text as well as other game text. - To make things a little more logical, the /inspect command will allow characters to inspect interactive objects for LDoN, and /toggleinspect allows you to toggle on or off the ability to inspect other player characters using the mouse. ** Alternate Advancement ** - Purify Soul reuse time reduced from 72 minutes to 30 minutes. - Divine Resurrection reuse time reduced from 36 hours to 18 hours. - Celestial Regeneration reuse timer reduced from 72 minutes to 15 minutes. We have increased the duration from 24 seconds to 48 seconds, adjusted the amount healed, and made this a group effect. - Celestial Renewal duration increased from 24 seconds to 48 seconds, adjusted the amount healed, and this has become a group effect. - Harmtouch has been fixed. There was a problem with the timer for Harmtouch that would make it appear to reset when the character was logged out, even though it does not reset until the appropriate amount of time has passed. - Summon Death Charger and Summon Holy Steed have been fixed. We fixed a bug that caused these abilities to fail until the character zoned or logged out. - Endless Quiver no longer grants an endless supply of thrown weapons, only arrows. ** Spells ** - Unswerving Hammer of Faith has had its mana cost reduced from 250 to 175. - Divine Barrier no longer has a damage shield component and has gained three times the healing effect. - Celestial Remedy has had its mana cost lowered from 190 to 150. - A targeting issue with pets is now fixed. There was a bug that caused pets to be untargetable with the F1 key and with pet spells that target the pet automatically. This was happening only if a pet was summoned and then a mount was summoned. - AE Rain Spells were resisted 100% of the time when an NPC was above level 20 and had less than 10% of its hit points left. This will no longer happen. - Eye of Zomm would cause a player's pet to kill itself if that pet was commanded to kill the owner's Eye. This has been corrected. Also, the Eye no longer moves at incredible speed under water, but they can now swim up and down in water. - PBAoE Songs no longer prevent a bard from singing if used while the bard has himself targeted. - Illusions can once again be cast on others while the caster is on a mount. - When Invisibility drops due to looting a corpse, the player will be informed that their invisibility has dropped. - Pets no longer break enthrall. - Armor of the Zealot will no longer be overwritten by Focus of Soul and Focus of the Seventh. Blessed Armor of the Risen and Ancient: High Priest's Bulwark will no longer be overwritten by Focus of Spirit or Khura's Focusing. Also, Pact of Hate and Call of Darkness should stack properly (meaning that they won't stack). - Illusion: Guktan was fixed on all servers a little while ago. We just wanted you to be aware that the spell will make the target look like a Guktan, not a male human. ** Zones and Quests ** - Bazaar - We have increased the limit on the number of traders in the bazaar. We fixed an issue that would cause the "Begin Trader" button to be disabled if a player tried to use it when the maximum number of traders was reached. And the "Held" slot option was removed from the search, since it is not a valid option. - The Coirnav Encounter has been modified to respawn faster when the encounter is failed badly (if the attempt fails to reach a certain depth in the encounter). - The Illusion: Guktan quest had some issues. We have addressed them. ** New Player Improvements ** - After creating a new character, that character is the default selection on the character select screen. - At character creation, left-clicking on an attribute displays text that explains what that attribute is important for. Right-clicking allocates the maximum possible points to that attribute. - To help reduce clutter for the new player, the Story window no longer pops up when a player first logs in. - When a context Tip window pops up, if the Tip of the Day is still open, the Tip of the Day window will close. Again, this is to help reduce the clutter. - We've change the name of the "Camp" button in the Actions window to "Camp (Exit)" for clarity. - The Inventory Tip window now explains how to read books and notes, how to give/trade items with NPC's, and how to scribe spells. - We've added a text message on the screen to inform players when they are loading a zone, and what zone they are about to enter. - Added numeric background to buttons in the Hot Button window to make it easier to tell which button corresponds to which number key. - The Mousewheel zoom is now enabled by default. - New installations of EverQuest will default to 1024x768 resolution. ** Misc ** - Fixed a bug that caused some equipment to be invisible on characters created recently (since our update on August 6th). - Luclin elemental models will now display if selected, regardless of other settings for Luclin models. You can turn these models on with no other Luclin models active, and you will see the Luclin elemental. - Hitting cancel on a trade window or using the /consent or /deny commands will now only send you one message, not two. ** UI Files ** * Changed * EQUI_BankWnd.xml EQUI_BigBankWnd.xml EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml EQUI_ActionsWindow.xml EQUI_JournalNPCWnd.xml SIDL.xml EQUI_Animations.xml EQUI_HotButtonWnd.xml EQUI.xml dragitem26.tga * New * dragitem27.tga window_pieces06.tga window_pieces07.tga * Removed * EQUI_JournalTextWnd.xml ..................................................................... ------------------------------ August 28, 2003 ------------------------------ - Two Bastion of Thunder keys and one key in the Plane of Air that were supposed to open up a location for your entire group were only taking the key holder. We have fixed that problem. Also, the Enchanted Ring of Torden will now attach to your key ring the next time you use it. - The "base" population in the Tower of Solusek Ro now has the ability to summon. Please be aware of this the next time you enter the tower of the god of flame. - We have corrected a pathing issue in South Karana that was causing the NPCs to all travel to the same point. - Cloth caps will no longer drop off NPCs in Siren's Grotto. - We have reduced the number of characters in a raid required to access the Plane of Time from 40 to 18. - The Burrower has been modified back to its original difficulty. - A tether has been added to Fennin Ro. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ September 9, 2003 ------------------------------ *** Lost Dungeons of Norrath Launches! *** Make sure to check out this groundbreaking new expansion! EVERY new zone has something fun and rewarding just waiting for everyone levels 20-65, and there's always something available for you! For the first time in EverQuest you have the ability to interact with your environment in new and exciting ways! Find that chest at the end of the dungeon, but approach it carefully - It may be trapped. In addition, there have been rumors of a new type of treasure that allow you to improve your existing equipment, augmenting what you've already earned with new power... Succeed and be rewarded as YOU choose! Those who best the Lost Dungeons will find that the Adventurers have quite the cache of treasure that they've discovered on their own. It seems that, the more you help them in their cause, the more they're willing to share... If you have purchased Lost Dungeons, thank you and welcome! If you haven't -- What are you waiting for? Order now and join the grand Adventure! *** Game Updates *** ** Items ** - Warrior and Magician epic changes – A new version of these two epic items is available to accommodate the new item augmentations. Both of these epics are basically summoned items, and therefore they would lose any augmentations when used or unsummoned. Players wishing to change these items into "permanent" versions in order to augment them should do the following: Warrior Epic - Talk to Gartrog Smitehammer in East Freeport. He will replace your Red Scabbard and Jagged Blade of War with augmentable versions of the Jagged Blade of War, the Blade of Strategy, and the Blade of Tactics. You will not receive the Red Scabbard back, as it will no longer be useful to you. Magician Epic - Talk to Ilisiv Gantrau in the Tox Forest. She will take a summoned Orb of Mastery and replace it with a permanent augmentable orb. The epic pet is still summoned in exactly the same way, with no changes to the spell or use. ** Zones and Quests ** - Plane of Mischief - We have updated the factions for a few NPCs for this zone on Stormhammer only. All of the NPCs there are meant to be aggressive. Some of them were on the wrong faction, and were not aggressive. They are now. - The Deep - There were some NPCs in this zone that could see invisible but were bugged to be non-aggressive. They will again be aggressive, so be more cautious when using invisibility in The Deep. - Plane of Valor - The Aerin'Dar projection was despawning after only a few minutes. It will now remain as long as other projections. - City of Mist - Black Reavers are immune to magic once again. - Oxidized Steel Plate will now drop. This should allow the completion of the Rallican’s Bracer quest - The Ghost of Kindle has returned. - Manastone is no longer usable in The Hole. - The trader limit increase mentioned in the last update should be working properly now. ** Spells ** - We have reduced the cost of the Summon Wooden, Stone and Iron Bracelet spells. - We have added new Skeleton models for pets, illusions, and transformation spells. - We have changed the underlying way that pet focus items work to allow for future upgrades and items. All existing foci should work as they always have. If you notice anything unusual when using a pet focus, please /bug report the issue. ** Interface ** - Context Tips - We have added a question mark symbol to windows that have help information available. Just click on the question mark in the upper right of the window to see the tips. ** Miscellaneous ** - Fixed a bug that was causing NPCs to appear to have a larger melee range than they should have in some cases. - Sullon Zek - There was a bug that allowed players to create characters on opposing alliances. That is no longer possible. If you see this message: "You currently have characters created on opposing deity alliances. You can only have characters that are on the same alliance. Please correct this by deleting the character that was recently created and has an opposing alliance with the first character you created." You will not be able to log in until you delete any characters that are not on the same alliance. ** UI Files ** * Changed * SIDL.xml EQUI_Templates.xml EQUI_Animations.xml EQUI.xml dragitem27.tga window_pieces01.tga * New * EQUI_AdventureRequestWnd.xml EQUI_AdventureMerchantWnd.xml EQUI_AdventureLeaderboardWnd.xml EQUI_AdventureStatsWnd.xml ** Known Issues ** _ This is the list of cosmetic issues that we're aware aren't perfect, but determined as acceptable to launch with, as_none should affect peoples' ability to enjoy the game._ _ Rather than attempt last-minute changes that often break more than they fix, these will be addressed in an update after Lost Dungeons' launch. _ - Paladins and Shadowknights:_ The new INSPECT and OPEN ability buttons will *appear* disabled for the duration of your Harm Touch or Lay Hands timers when you use those abilities._ You may still use INSPECT and OPEN, however._ It just won't look like you can. _ - When receiving an adventure from one of the Wayfarers' Camps, for now, the Adventure Window does not automatically close when you walk away from the Adventure Recruiter as it should._ _ - Pet Users:_ If you tell your pet to attack an interactive object (chest, vase, coffin, etc) inside of a dungeon, your pet will tell you that it is attacking, but it will not actually attack._ This is a problem with the message, not the behavior. _The pet should be telling you that it cannot attack such a thing. ** Use Augmentations Wisely ** If you have an item with more than one slot available and you intend to apply an Augmentation Item that can fit into any slot (i.e. Type 1), be sure to apply it last. For example, you have an item with three slots available and you have filled Slot 1 with an Augmentation Item. In your bag you have an Augmentation Item that can fit into any slot on the item (i.e. Type 1) and one that fits into Slot 2. If you use the Type 1 Augmentation Item first, it will fill the first open slot on your item, which would be Slot 2 in this case. This means you will not be able to use the Slot 2- specific Augmentation Item you had available. So, remember, the rule is that if you have an Augmentation Item that can be used it any slot, be sure to apply it last! ..................................................................... ------------------------------ October 9, 2003 ------------------------------ * Zones and NPCs ** - Two new raid zones have been added to the Lost Dungeons on the Legends server. These are Guk-themed raids, one for Elemental Plane and one for Time Plane capable raiders. - The revamped Plane of Mischief is now available on all Live servers. - There were some situations where the warders in Vex Thal could be up, but the bosses needed to kill them would not be available. That shouldn't happen anymore. - Shrunk the giant wolves that appeared in the lands. - The Coirnav encounter has been changed. Be much more careful if you have been relying on stuns to deal with this encounter. - Corrected an issue with the Filth Gorgers that was causing them to remain around with they were supposed to despawn. - Soldiers of Madness in Grieg's End will no longer be so unbelievably numerous. - Zoning into the Plane of Fire will no longer cause characters to occasionally take 20k points of damage. - The Froglok Hunter and Forager will no longer be killed by the inhabitants of Trakanon's Teeth, so they should be easier to find. - When Mithaniel Marr is killed, his planar projection now spawns in the middle of his room rather than at the point of death. This fixes a problem that could cause the projection to appear out of reach. - The Qeynos investigator is now taking "follow me" orders again. ** Adventures ** - Every character that successfully completes an adventure will now get at least one point as a reward. This is also true for the "consolation" rewards. - Completing Hard adventures will yield more points. - Several trap spells on interactive objects have had their severity reduced. - Added some new type 7 and type 8 augmentations to various adventure merchants. - It will be clearer now which raids are "hard" and which are "normal". Hard raids are intended for Time capable guilds. They are very hard. - All raid recruiters now properly check to be sure that you have completed two adventures in their respective themes before they will give out the raid. - Fixed an issue in a Mistmoore's Catacomb raid that was preventing players from accessing an interactive object they had earned for killing Sfisithik. - Removed the ability to see through Shroud of Stealth from some of the NPCs that appear in LDoN Raids. - There was a misconception about the behavior of goblins in some Rujarkian Hills adventures. Goblins that are fleeing because they are unwilling to die or are seeking help will make it clear that they are doing so. We also corrected an issue that could cause these goblins to "ping pong" in some cases. - All of the "flavor" NPCs in dungeons (usually those that are lying down, nearly dead) will display full health to make it impossible to tell what kind of NPC they are (friend or foe) simply by looking at their health level. - Hostages will no longer be attacked by their captors. - We thinned out the population in the Grand Library and a few other Miragul's Menagerie themed zones to bring the challenge in line. - Rats in Mistmoore's Catacombs are now animals, shadows are now summoned. ** Items and Objects ** - Corrected a bug that allowed players to buy multiple lore augmentations if they were in a bag (which also caused issues when trying to loot corpses with those items). If you had multiple lore items, the extra items will be removed. A refund for the points spent on those items will be made when they are deleted. - Broken Chunk of Coal, Cracked Ruby, and Charred Pebble are no longer valid augmentations. If you had these augmentations bonded to an item, you will find them on your cursor. You can take those items to Dible Hedledrap in South Ro and he will restore your adventure points. - Perfect Garnet of Constitution, Pristine Garnet of Constitution, Perfect Sapphire of Insight, and Pristine Sapphire of Insight can be turned in to Dible Heldedrap in South Ro. He will replace them with type 8 versions of the same items. - Changed pre-LDoN items to have a single slot of type 7 instead of 1. Some LDoN items which had a slot type 1 were also changed to type 7. - Fixed a bug with the Adventurer's Stone that would sometimes cause it to not display its bonuses. - Interactive objects will now only appear on LDoN raids when the main boss has been killed. This change was done to prevent an exploit, and is a temporary change. - We have improved the types of rewards that can be found in interactive objects to improve the reward given for the risk taken by opening them. - Fixed a bug that prevented augments with no deity restrictions from combining with deity-restricted items. - Added a message that should make it clearer when a character is unable to loot an interactive object because they are on an NPC's hate list. - Hand-to-hand weapons are now part of the one-handed restriction on augmentations. So augmentations that say they can be used with one- handed items will also work with hand-to-hand items. - Geomancer's Crown of Reformation now fits in the head slot and the effect is worn instead of right clicked. - Gravestone of Dire Melodies and the Limestone Shard of Battle Cries will now properly modify instrument skills. - All of Royal Attendant Armor will now show up as plate armor. - Rogue pets focused with Summoner's Boon should no longer lose the ability to backstab. - Shard of Shrunken Bone was changed from Shield of Pain III to Shield of Pain II. - Changed many of the new Lost Dungeons "shields" to make them useable as shields (they can be used to bash now). - Removed augmentation slots from the following items: Primal Velium Knight's Sword, Divine Hammer of Consternation, Breezeboot's Frigid Gnasher, Primal Velium Fist Wraps, Primal Velium Battlehammer, Primal Velium Spear, Primal Velium Claidhmore, Primal Velium Brawl Stick, Primal Velium War Lance, Primal Velium Reinforced Bow, Primal Velium Battle Axe, Primal Velium Warsword, Ancient Prismatic Bow, Ancient Prismatic Lance, Ancient Prismatic Spear, Ancient Prismatic Claymore, Ancient Prismatic Brawl Stick, Ancient Prismatic Battlehammer, Ancient Prismatic Warsword, Ancient Prismatic Axe, Ancient Prismatic Fist Wraps, Ancient Prismatic Staff, Ancient Prismatic Stiletto, and Ancient Prismatic Mace. - Changed some weapons dropped from rare NPC's in LDoN zones to have slot type 4 instead of 1. - Changed Pristine Limestone of Hatred to Vengeance IV. - The hp/mana augmentations that dropped in adventures as slot 1 items will no longer drop. They have been replaced with similar items that fit into slot 7. - Made changes to various stats and effects on Plane of Time items. - Changed the level required to use the right-click effect on Wild Lord Armor to 45, to match all other Kunark armor. - Corrected a bug with mounts that would sometimes leave the horse buff up without the actual mount. Also corrected a problem that could cause a player to be unable to summon a mount. - Fixed the haste on Spiritbound Mystic's Torch - Altered the damage and delay on the Delightful Orb of Forgotten Magic to be more appropriate for where it drops ** For the New Player ** - Find Feature added. This will create a mystical indication of the path to take to find certain people. This feature works in the Bazaar and in newbie zones and cities. In the Bazaar you just click on the merchant you seek in the Bazaar window and click the Find Trader button. For all other uses, just hit CTRL+F to open the window, select someone on the list and click the Find button. This will locate any Bazaar trader or any NPC with an alternate name, such as (Spell Vendor). The exception is that it will not locate NPCs in the Wayfarer's Camps. - The auto-attack key now defaults to Q (not A). - New characters start with their weapons and armor equipped. - New characters start with their spells scribed and memorized. - When a caster reaches the level required for one of the first two rings of new spells, they will get a message informing them that new spells are available. - New characters will begin with a stack of bandages. These bandages cannot be sold or traded. - When a character trains in a hotbutton-able skill that he did not previously have skill in, a hotbutton for that skill is created on the cursor. - New characters will have a page of hotbuttons set for them based on the skills given to them by their class and race. ** Interface ** - Merchants now separate items with different charges in their list. For example, 9 dose and 10 dose potions will show up as separate items on the merchant's list. Items with the same amount of charges will be stacked. NOTE: This will remove the ability to "recharge" items by selling them to a vendor and buying them back. - The Bazaar now supports selling different charged items. For example, a 10 dose potion with 9 charges can be sold for 90 plat., while a 10 dose version of the same potion can be sold for 100 plat. NOTE: All currently priced charged items will no longer have a price attached and will need to be reset by the trader. - Pet buffs are now visible in the pet window. A small icon will display for each buff on the pet (up to 30 - you may need to resize the pet window). You can hover your mouse over the icon to see the spell name. Alt left-click or right-click and hold for spell info box (which only contains name and icon). - Improved the functionality of the ESC key. Windows close in the opposite order that they were opened. - Swarm pet damage is filtered under "pet damage" rather than "others hits". - When World Containers (ovens, kilns, augmentation sealers and similar items) are closed, No Drop items in those containers will be placed in the character's inventory. If it will not fit there, it will appear on their cursor. - The "Only show items I can use" option in the Adventure Merchant window will be saved when you log out. - Hotbuttons created using the Abilities and Combat skill lists are no longer connected to the buttons in the Actions window. This means that you can create a button on the Abilities or Combat section of the actions window, drag that button to the hotbutton window, then change the button on the Abilities or Combat section, and the hotbutton you made will not change. This allows you to create hotbuttons for ALL of your character's skills, not just the ones that can fit in the Actions window. - You can now use the (`) key to "Target nearest NPC", in addition to F8. - Shared bank slots will no longer accept rentable containers with no- rent items in them. - A new system for the leaderboard has been implemented to track adventures by their difficulty. You can sort by normal/hard/all difficulty. Not only will this display the stats for the leaders, but you will also be able to see your own successes and failures at the bottom, based on the sorting you chose for the leaderboard. So, for example, if you filter the leaderboard by Miragul's Wins and choose Hard, you will not only see the leaders for Hard adventures in that theme, you will see your own statistics for Hard Miragul's adventures. NOTE: Because this tracking is new, it will only be able to differentiate hard and normal adventures from the time of this update onward. Past adventures will be treated as if they were normal difficulty. - /autojoin is not saved per character, not for all characters. - The Open and Inspect buttons are no longer "grayed-out" when Lay on Hands or Harm Touch are used. - Merchant inventories will refresh properly after a character purchases the last of an item in inventory. ** Spells ** - Casting Grow on an unshrunk shaman pet will no longer shrink the pet. - Remove Minor Curse cures 2 curse counters instead of 3-4. - Lich and Pact of Hate now use different colored skeleton models. - Monster Summoning will summon the correct models, not just earth elementals. - Frostreaver's Blessing will no longer block the bard song Wind of Marr. We realize there are still some stacking issues with these spells, and we hope to resolve them soon. ** Tradeskills ** - The Blessed Steel Arrowheads recipe will return the file. - NPC Merchants will now pay less for Steel Hunter Arrows, Steel Arrowshafts, and Steel Fletch. - The Muckskipper Chowder recipe no longer returns a pot on a failure or success, since the recipe does not require a pot at all. - The recipe for the "Lemming Fur Backpack" now requires an Embroidering Needle instead of a Sewing Needle. ** Alternate Advancement ** - Jewelcraft Mastery works properly now. - Frenzied Burnout will no longer last indefinitely on a charmed pet. ** UI Files ** * Changed * EQUI.xml EQUI_ActionsWindow.xml EQUI_AdventureLeaderboardWnd.xml EQUI_BazaarSearchWnd.xml EQUI_LootWnd.xml EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml EQUI_PetInfoWindow.xml EQUI_RaidWindow.xml * New * EQUI_FindLocationWnd.xml * New Labels * 86-115 for the pet buff names. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ November 5, 2003 ------------------------------ ** Quests, Adventures and Encounters ** - We have added one more new LDoN raid to Stormhammer. This raid was created with Elemental capable characters in mind. - Changed the minimum required number of group members to request an adventure from 4 to 3. - We have increased the consolation prize on level 65 hard adventures from 19 to 26 to match the increase in reward points for success (raised from 76 to 105 with the last update). - Verrell Cogswin can help convert red dragon scales into green dragon scales. - Fixed the Undead and Fire event in the Plane of Time. There was a bug that could cause some of the minions to fail to spawn. - Raotin Teawel will always give out the correct robe for completion of his quest. - Thought Destroyer has returned to the Plane of Hate. - Check with the Town Crier of your home town for news. There is information about the recent activities of the Wayfarers that should prove interesting. - We have made some improvements to the Plane of Air avatar rings. We have added a random interval to the respawn time of the Plane of Air avatar rings, placed apparitions at the avatar spawns so that it is possible to tell when the event is available, and the Avatar of Smoke will now respawn properly. - The Mujaki event in Plane of Nightmares was completely rewritten._ It should now be a lot more intelligent about where it sends players. - Increased the number of items found at the end of a successful LDoN raid. ** Skills and Alternate Advancement ** - Channeling Focus was not giving bards the proper reduction to the chance of missing a note._ It is now fixed and gives messages to indicate when it is has helped. - Corrected a problem that was causing Alternate Advancement buff duration increase abilities and duration focus effects to negatively affect lull spells. - We have fixed a bug that could cause pick pocketed items to not show up on your cursor until you zone. This could also sometimes cause the client to crash. - Added /stoptracking command so that you no longer have to re-open the track window and hit cancel if you want to cancel your tracking quickly. - Activated AAs from Planes of Power were not working if the user did not have Shadows of Luclin registered. This has been fixed. ** Spells and Pets ** - The Aura of Pain Recourse can no longer be removed by Radiant Cure. - When the character changes size (through illusion), other players will no longer see the mounted player separate from their horse. - Magician Pets will no longer attack the caster who summoned them. - Hitting your own pet while in a PVP area or while you have the PK flag on will no longer kill it. - Cataclysm of Ro has had its movement rate bonus removed to fix a stacking issue with the Selo's line of movement rate songs. - Cassindra's Chant of Clarity_and Cassindra's Chorus of Clarity now lasts 3 ticks instead of being instant. - Cloak of Luclin, Cloak of the Akheva and Frostreaver's Blessing will no longer be overwritten by Call of the Rathe. - There are still some issues with Frostreaver's blessing being overwritten by some spells._ We are aware of the issue and hope to get it resolved soon. - Protection of the Cabbage, Protection of the Glades and Protection of the Nine will block Temperance, Aegolism and Virtue. - Ice Flame of E`ci now has the standard 2.5 second recast time. - Reclaim energy should now function properly on the pet summoned by Child of Bertoxxulous. -Beastlord warders focused by Summoner's boon should now look as they should. ** Interface ** - We have added the consider color to the Target window. The art used to display the consider color can be removed or edited via XML by custom skins. - We have also added a 3D target indicator._ The ring color indicates the con color of the target._ This can be turned off in the Options window. A new settings file in the UI folder can be edited by players to customize the appearance of the indicator, including different animated textures for each con color and other interesting settings. - Added /fontface command (usage /fontface , e.g. /fontface Courier). This will change, on the fly, the fonts used by the interface (and over character's heads). Fonts can also be selected in the General Options page. - Added /tell windows. Each time you get a "tell" from a new character, a new chat window would open. That window will only display "tells" from the particular character, and any message sent from the chat window would automatically be sent as a "tell" to that character. You can turn this option on and off in the Options window. If you have the maximum number of chat windows open when a new tell is received, the tell will go to the main chat window - Temporary pets will no longer send their buffs to the pet window. Generally they have none, and they would replace the buffs of any standard pet. - The buff display portion of the pet window will now fade. - The Auto-inventory area of the Inventory window now fades with the parent window. - The Dump button in raid window now creates the proper, non-blank, file. - We have also added time-stamp to Raid Dump output file. - Pop-up dialogs no longer close when you press ESC. This will prevent the rez dialog from being closed accidentally. - Lay on Hands will no longer "gray out" the Inspect and Open hot keys in the Hotbutton window. This was fixed earlier in the Actions window, but now it is fixed in the Hotbutton window as well. - Alt-tabbing in and out of EQ should no longer cause mouse issues. - Fixed a bug that sometimes left charmed pets health bar in the group window after the owner of that pet is killed. - Find trader can now be cancelled in bazaar. ** Items ** - The Copper Medal of Rapture now gives a bonus to Int. instead of Wis. ** For the New Player ** - Left-clicking on an NPC prints out a message indicating what type of NPC they are and indicating that you should right-click on them. This message can be turned off in the Options window. - New characters will now start with a bag. - Added a tip window that pops up when you invoke the Quantity window that explains the use of Shift and Control when selecting items. - All characters will gain a Sense Heading skill of 200, if it was below 200. All new characters will start with a Sense Heading of 200. ** Miscellaneous ** - Explore mode works properly again. ** UI Files ** * Changed * EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml EQUI_TargetWindow.xml EQUI_Animations.xml * New * Targetindicator.ini TargetBox.tga TargetIndicator.tga ..................................................................... ------------------------------ December 18, 2003 ------------------------------ Headlines! Melee Enhancements Part 1 New Spell Effects Live Casino Now Open In Shadowhaven HEAR YE! HEAR YE! Check with your Town Crier for new editions of your hometown paper! *** AA REFUND *** - Extended Notes 3 and Sionachie's Cresendo have been refunded (More details below). If you had these bard AAs and were close to 30 AA points stored, make certain that you spend enough points to have 30 or less unspent AA points before you zone. All AA points over 30 are removed when you zone. - Improved Reclaim Energy has been refunded to magicians due to changes with the amount of energy received when cannibalizing their pets. If you have this Magician AA and were close to 30 AA points stored, make certain that you spend enough points to have 30 or less unspent AA points before you zone. All AA points over 30 are removed when you zone. ** Melee enhancements ** We have been building an enhancement to the melee system, and the first part of it is now Live. The yellow bar now represents endurance rather than stamina. All Disciplines now require an expenditure of endurance to use. They still have a re-use timer, and they can't be used more often than the timer allows. Disciplines have now been divided into a few different timers. We have also added a few of the new melee skills to the game. These are the skills that do not use the new "opening" system, but can be used without an opening present. The "reactionary" skills and the opening system will remain on Test for further tuning. Warriors have been given a mitigation boost. This affects all warriors at all levels. Monks have been given the ability to dodge blows from attackers behind them. This affects all monks with the Dodge ability. All existing disciplines can be purchased as tomes in either East Commons or the Plane of Knowledge. To learn a discipline, the Tome must be turned into your guildmaster. Several new disciplines have been added for warriors, monks and rogues who are above level 60. ** Play King's Court in Shadowhaven! ** Shandeling's Roost in Shadowhaven now houses a game of chance. To play you will need to buy a King's Court Token. You then take this token and turn it in to any of the dealers. Based on what your hand turns out to be, you will be awarded a prize. The highest hands will return a gold ticket as the prize. This Ticket can be turned in to win prizes such as a Guise of the Deceiver, Fungus Covered Great Staff, or Holgresh Elder Beads. Good luck to all that play! ** Items ** - Purchased augments, that have not been bound to an item yet, can be sold back to Dible Hedledrap in South Ro. - Caerlyna in the Bazaar will trade your containers for tokens and will trade tokens for containers. This will allow player characters to sell those tokens in the Bazaar. Folks that buy the tokens can then take them to the Caerlyna and trade them in for the appropriate container. You can exchange most weight reducing tradeable containers for a token. - We've changed the +12 Wis on the Copper Medal of Rapture to +12 Int. Really, we have! - We have lowered the minimum duration to 5 ticks on Affliction Efficiency I-IV and Affliction Haste I-IV foci. - Timeless Coral Greatsword will no longer claim to be out of charges when it procs. If you own one of these swords, you will need to petition a GM and ask them to replace your current Coral Greatsword with a new one. - Phylactery is no longer useable by all classes, only MAG NEC ENC WIZ CLR SHA DRU. - The Delightful Orb of Forgotten Magic now only procs for characters level 35 and above. - The following items that had the Invigor effect now have Serpent Sight or Ultravision: Orb of the Crimson Bull, Abram's Axe of the Stoic, Tolan's Darkwood Boots, Mrylokar's Greaves, Singing Steel Vambraces, Crown of Rile, 5 Dose Potion of Wolves Blood, 5 Dose Potion of Fleeting Languor, 10 Dose Potion of Wolves Blood, 10 Dose Potion of Fleeting Languor, Potion of Wolves Blood, Potion of Fleeting Languor, Spiroc Wingblade, Spirit Caller's Boots, Spirit Weaver's Boots, Frozen Efreeti Boots, Ring of the Crimson Bull, Rune Crafter's Boots, Wolf Caller's Boots and Camii's Bracer of Vigor. - The effects on Abram's Axe of the Stoic and Spiroc Wingblade are now Worn to activate, not procs. ** Spells/Songs ** - New spell effects! Just about every spell in the game has been given a new spell effect. If you have your spell effects turned off, you may want to turn them back on. - Fixed the bard AA Channeling Focus. It was allowing 100% recovery from missed notes in most instances. We have restored it to the 5%/10%/15% values as documented in the AA window. - Fixed a problem with short-duration pets (Rage of Zomm, cleric hammers, wizard flaming swords and such) so that they will no longer dissipate before engaging the target NPC. - Reclaim Energy will now return 75 percent of the mana used to summon the pet, 95 percent if the caster has Improved Reclaim Energy. - Lull spells with duration less than 5 should no longer be lasting as if they had duration 5. This will reduce the duration of some lull-type spells to their proper duration. - Fixed a problem that caused Protection of the Nine to block Blessing of the Nine. - We corrected an issue where the same druid damage over-time spell cast on an NPC by two different druids would not stack. - Bulwark of Vie was reducing spell damage as well as melee damage. It now only reduces melee damage. - Eye of Zomm will no longer cause players summoned pets to suicide if commanded to kill the eye. - Improved the melee damage on pets focused by Ritual Summoning. - The magician epic pet can now Enrage when focused by Minion of Darkness. - Increased the offensive capabilities of most pets when focused by Summoner's Boon. - We have removed the Stamina effects from many spells. - Fixed a bug that would cause issues with pet hit points, and could cause them to be unable to move if their hit points got too low. This may also address other issues with pets using hit-point boosting items. ** Alternate Advancement ** - Extended Notes 3 and Sionachie's Cresendo have been refunded. If you had these bard AAs and were close to 30 AA points stored, make certain that you spend enough points to have 30 or less unspent AA points before you zone. All AA points over 30 are removed when you zone. You may, of course, repurchase these AAs. - Extended Notes and Sionachie's Cresendo no longer affects harmful area-of-effect spells. - Jamfest has been fixed. It will now affect the bard's group, not just the bard. - The Archetype AA ability Spell Casting Deftness was not reducing the casting time for the wizard spell Harvest. It does now. ** Tradeskills ** - Merchants will not pay more for a tradeskill product than the cost of the components needed to make it. However, they will still sell those products for the same amount. ** Zones and Quests ** - Maelin will now respond as though you have the Quintessence, as long as you are flagged for time. It is also now possible to receive any of the earlier progression flags, even if you have already earned access to the Plane of Time. ** User Interface ** - Tell windows now log the name of the person sending tells in the chat log. - Tell windows now blink when a tell is received, even when the window is not minimized. - Fixed a problem that caused users some ATI cards to be unable to see the /find path or the targeting ring. - We have added a new combat ability windown which allows you to make up to eight hot keys for disciplines and other new melee abilities and displays any current melee effects. The window can be opened by pressing Alt+C. The keys are accessible using either the mouse or Ctrl+ 1-8. ** Miscellaneous ** - Added some explanation text to the targetindicator.ini file that help explain how to modify the targeting ring. ** UI Files ** AttackIndicator.tga EQUI.xml EQUI_CharacterCreate.xml EQUI_CombatAbilityWnd.xml EQUI_CombatSkillsSelectWnd.xml EQUI_GroupSearchWnd.xml EQUI_PlayerWindow.xml EQUI_SkillsWnd.xml ..................................................................... ------------------------------ December 19, 2003 ------------------------------ ** Shadowhaven Casino goes on vacation ** We're sorry to have to say this, but the new casino has become too popular. The huge number of players gambling at the casino is causing issues with the servers, and has been responsible for a few zone crashes. Unfortunately, this means that we have had to remove the casino NPCs until after the New Year arrives. * Other Changes * - Cancel magic will no longer remove disciplines or melee abilities. - Fixed a bug that was causing the party to be unable to see hit point updates for the last person to join their group. - Healing Will and Focused Will now stack with most other hit point regeneration effects. - Corrected a bug that was causing AAs to increase the duration of combat abilities. - We have reorganized the context menu for Disciplines to make it a bit more logical. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ December 23, 2003 ------------------------------ ** Stability Issues ** The team here at the EQ Lab has isolated a memory leak which was causing server instability after 10 to 12 hours of uptime (which we are sure you have noticed) We hope to have this issue resolved during tonight's update. We would like to thank you all for your patience and understanding during these last few trying days and wish you the best of luck this holiday season. Thanks for your time and thank you for being a part of Norrath. .....................................................................