Producer's Letter and August Patch

Producer's Letter, Patch August 2019

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Hail Norrath! My friends!

We’ve had a thrilling first-half of the year thanks to you! After the 20th Anniversary game shenanigans and the thrill of the Comic-Con Museum exhibit in San Diego, we got right back into working on the next expansion coming this December!

Speaking of which, here’s a sneak preview of one of the as-yet-to-be-named-and-announced locations in a very icy place that may feel vaguely familiar.

One big difference? After 20 years EverQuest finally has an ice shader! It might seem silly, but those kinds of changes to a decades-old code base are significant and I’m so proud of the team! We hope our fans enjoy the chill!

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And here are some frosty giants!

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Speaking of expansions, when we release in December, we will be going up to level 115! With that in mind, last year’s expansion, The Burning Lands, is 50% off starting August 21. Go to everquest.com/expansions and prepare for level 115!

Earlier this year, I mentioned putting together a fan event which we are exploring for next year. We have a survey here we’d love you to respond to here: LINK. We want to get an idea of how many players are interested and a couple of other questions. Please participate if you are interested in hanging with your EQ friends and family!

Also on tap this year is EverQuest II’s 15th anniversary on Nov. 9 which we will support in EverQuest with a new take on a progression server. Players will start as Level 85 Heroic Characters with experience gain at the same rate as live servers. Content up to the House of Thule expansion will be available at launch with expansions unlocking every 2 – 3 months. We’ll release more details as we get closer to that date!

For all those folks on the Mangler progression server, get prepared for the Scars of Velious expansion to unlock on August 28!

Also, the mystery Troll Heritage Crate is now available in the marketplace with armor sets, mount and more. I’d advise plugging your nose, eyes, and ears before opening one….

And finally, Labor Day is coming at the end of the month so look for an in-game bonus that weekend, ahem. Double down!

Until next time, Norrath, which won’t be long, I promise you!

Sincerely, as ever,

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale

 


 

August 21, 2019
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*** Items ***

- To alleviate confusion with the 'Purified Nest Water', we updated the item not needed for progression to have the name 'Potable Nest Water'.
- Added equipment slots to Stone Eye of the Guardian from Stillmoon Temple.
- Added drakkin to many classic game items.
- Added vah shir to Hynid-Hide Bag and Tarnished Halberd.
- Fixed lore errors in The Burning Lands subsumptions and transmogrificants.
- Fixed some item spell descriptions that reported zero effect.
- Fixed the lore text for Inventor's Handbook.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Fixed many inconsistencies found with the spelling of recipes and items associated with those recipes.
- Aneuk NPC that can drop Aneuk Eye now drop it much more frequently.


*** Quests And Events ***

- Savage Lord's Totem (Beastlord Epic 1.5) - Moved the rares in Siren's Grotto that shared an encounter with the Ailing Walrus to a different encounter table and different spawn points. This should prevent rare spawn bonuses from preventing the Ailing Walrus from spawning.
- Origins of the Curse - It's no longer necessary to have a single character loot four Fragments of Zebeker's Bone Chips. They can be handed to Zebeker one at a time by anyone in the task.
- A Goblin's Escort - Made the following changes:
- - After a 13 year hiatus, Higglin Diggerchop has returned to the highest level version of this mission.
- - The escort NPCs are now PC friendly.
- - The escort NPCs now stop at their destination to prevent soft locking the task if they walked away before you interacted with the next escort NPC.
- - Increased the movement speed and health of the escort NPCs.
- - The task now updates when you confirm with an escort NPC that you are ready for them to move, and not on their hail.
- End the Return - Made the following adjustments to the steps that involve using the Glob of Oil or Burning Ember:
- - Increased the range at which these items will work on a nearby target by about 50%.
- - The check for closest valid target will now skip any targets which have already been affected.
- - The Z axis is no longer taken into account when determining nearest target.
- - Widened the valid area in Tomoko's room where the objects can be used so that it no longer says you're not in a valid area when up against the south wall.
- - It's now necessary to oil all the tools before any of them can be burned.
- - Burned tools now disappear.
- - Fixed the bug where you could burn multiple tools with one use of the ember but only get credit for 1.
- Restored the darkwater piranha spawn in Nektulos Forest so that Roary Fishpouncer's Kerran Fishing Spear quest can again be completed.
- Night at the Museum - Added a speculative fix to prevent the situation where multiple waves spawn simultaneously.
- Breakdown in Communication - It is now possible to complete the quest to receive another Stone of Entry from Councilman Sislono Nislan if you have deleted your Stone of Entry, but don't have credit for completing the Qinimi execution event.
- Rogue Epic 1.0 - Made some changes to Renux Herkanor's dialogues so that they can all be reached and some of the more obscure ones can be found more easily.
- Pyrique Redwing - It's no longer possible to identify the real from the fake Pyrique's Shadow by considering them.
- Keeper's Imbalance Achievement - Fixed the description for this achievement to match the actual requirement. You only have to push the keepers out of balance by 20 percent.


*** Spells ***

- Fixed a bug that was preventing some NPCs from summoning their custom pets.
- Magician - Call of the Hero (including AA versions) can now only be cast on other players.


*** NPCs ***

- Bathouse Manager Hakvar is now Bathhouse Manager Hakvar, because he manages a house with baths and not a house for bats.
- Restored three missing rare spawns from the Broodlands.
- Removed the dragorn box and dragorn chest that would sometimes spawn upon killing an NPC in The Bloodfields.
- Made 1,052 NPCs immune to charm. These are rare NPCs and those with very long respawn times.
- The Bloodmoon Orcs that harry Gnome Memorial Mountain will now give positive faction hits with the Gnomelikes when the orcs are in their were-form.
- Bloodmoon Night-Orcs faction standing can now be viewed in the faction window in the Secrets of Faydwer Category.


*** Collections ***

- Removed an unreachable collection location in the Empires of Kunark version of Droga.
- Corrected an error that was preventing half of the collectibles in Skyfire (Ring of Scale) from spawning.


*** UI ***

- When inspecting a spell on an item, it will now correctly display the spell at the correct level.
- Corrected an issue where augmentation procs would not display the correct damage when viewed inside another item.
- Fixed the issue that broke the ability to invite someone to your DZ or task by clicking on their name in chat.
- Corrected an issue where leaving an item on a corpse would display an unformatted NPC name.
- Made the following changes to the Spell Display Window:
- - Added directional AE degrees, reflectability, and focused spell duration.
- - Added text samples of what is seen when the spell lands on you or others.
- - Increased precision of focused cast time.
- - Fixed a bug where Gift of Mana caused focused mana cost to display incorrectly.
- Cleaned up the tribute related windows. The current tier of a tribute will now be highlighted to clearly indicate which one is available. Each tier will also display information more clearly, much like the item display window.
- Adjusted the default location of the Mercenary Management window and the Tutorial Help window to not overlap with the Task Overlay window.


- The EverQuest Team

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