..................................................................... ------------------------------ January 18, 2006 ------------------------------ *** Highlights *** - M.C. Tinkerton bids all in the Plane of Knowledge farewell as he packs up his Clockwork Party Machine and heads for home. - The issue where player pets were attacking other players when hit by an AE spell has been fixed. Thanks to all those that helped provide information about this issue. *** EQPlayers *** - The leaderboards now exclude tribute, guild tribute, food and drink bonus, and leadership abilities. - /paperdoll will now auto-update your current character's profile with a real-time screen shot of your character. - Guild rosters will update more frequently and remain in sync with the game more reliably. - There are a couple new menu items under the character menu. One will perform a full update of your character much like the slash command does and the other will open a web browser to your current character's profile. - There is a new option in the option window to disable the auto-update feature to the EQPlayers site. - Characters will stay up-to-date better. *** Misc *** - The issue that some people experienced with being able to cause other people to sit when they sit has been fixed. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ Follow-Up to the Tradeskill Vendor Error (January 18, 2006): ------------------------------ This morning we had an error with the update that resulted in merchants, and subsequent items, in the Plane of Knowledge that should not have been appearing in the world. In order to address this we will be performing selective and aggressive rollbacks of certain characters throughout the day. There will be multiple phases and some characters may be subject to multiple adjustments. If you believe that you have been involved in any way (even indirectly) then please consider holding off your playtime until tomorrow. We apologize for the inconvenience and we are resolving this in the most complete way possible while minimizing the impact on the majority of the customers. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ February 21, 2006 ------------------------------ *** Headlines *** - Prophecy of Ro Launches! - The Desert of Ro and the city of Freeport have been revamped - Alchemy system has received an overhaul - New Hot Zones *** Prophecy of Ro Launches! *** As a demi-god, Mayong Mistmoore -- the greatest vampire ever known -- is threatening Norrath and its gods. Druzzil Ro, the goddess of Magic, has seen the future and the darkness that lies ahead. Now, the time has come to heed Druzzil Ro?s calls as she opens the planes of Rage and Magic and a passage through time to the long lost Elddar elven city of Takish-Hiz. Draw your swords and prepare your magic to face the greatest fight of your lives. The full story is available in-game in your Storyline window. *** Prophecy of Ro Features *** - Spheres of Influence - Spheres of Influence will appear in expansion zones as visual effects, like soft blue lights, whirling winds, or spinning axes. Any player or non-player character that enters the area of the sphere is subject to its effects. In order to see Spheres of Influence, you must have Player particles enabled in your display options. - Auras - Players can create Spheres of Influence called Auras. There is an Auras window available in the Character section of your EQ menu which shows your currently active auras and gives you the ability to remove them with a right-click. Player auras are available through mission rewards and events much like spells. In order to see Auras, you must have Player particles enabled in your display options. - Destructible Objects - Destructible objects, like walls, doors, and siege engines, are used in many of the new expansion zones. These are terrain objects that have a health points which can be depleted and, when the object has reached low enough health, it will crumble and break. As you damage the objects you will see it break down until it is completely destroyed. You can identify an object that is destructible because it will pulse when you put your mouse over it. - Zone Traps - Traps in EverQuest are now represented by objects that can be seen or hidden. As you would expect, traps trigger if you move into their range and you or your party, and sometimes the entire zone, can be affected by them. Rogues and bards have the ability to sense traps, reveal them to those around them, and disarm them. All traps in the game have been converted to use this new trap system. - Player Traps - Traps are available to players in the same way as spells and abilities, through specific quests, mission rewards, and off spell or discipline vendors. Once a trap has been memorized, it can be created by using the spell or discipline. The trap will remain in the area it is summoned until it is triggered, disarmed, removed by the player who set it using the new Remove Trap skill, or expires. - Buff Filters - Players can now filter beneficial spells cast upon them and their pets. By right-clicking on any active buff showing in your Effects window, you can select to remove it and/or select that it will never be allowed to take effect on your character again. Pet owners can also click off buff icons in the Pet window and apply filters to them. The list of spells being blocked can be found in the Blocked Buffs or Blocked Pet Buffs windows in the Character section of your EQ menu. - New Bank Space - Available bank space has been increased by 8 slots. - /Claim Item - If you have received the Prophecy of Ro /claim item from the retail box, Stable Ward Kyle in the Bazaar may be able to help you use it to upgrade your old horse to a warhorse. Paladins or Shadowknights who have the Holy or Unholy Steed AAs and the /claim item can upgrade their special mounts to a warhorse by visiting Stable Ward Rames as well. - New Tradeskills - Event Coordinator Baublie Diggs has a test for you to prove your abilities! See the Prophecy of Ro manual (Prophecy_of_Ro.pdf) downloaded to your EverQuest directory for more information! --Live Updates-- *** Zone Revamps *** - Freeport has been redone. East, West, and North Freeport have been replaced with a brand new East and West Freeport. All your old friends should still be there and more. - Desert of Ro recreated. North Ro, Oasis, and South Ro have been replaced with a new North Ro and South Ro. Watch out for Sand Giants while checking out the new scenery. *** New Guild Functionality *** - There is now an "Alt" button to flag a member of the guild as an alt character (this can be done by an officer on anyone, and by anyone on themselves). - The "Hide Alts" button will hide anyone in the guild list who is flagged as an alt. This defaults to off. - A "B" is no longer appended to the status of bankers. Instead there are two new columns, Banker and Alt, which have the status in them. You can sort by either Banker or Alt by clicking on the header. *** New Raid Functionality *** - There is a new raid loot option: Entire Raid. This will allow any raid member to loot NPCs killed by the raid. *** New Hot Zones *** - The time has come to once again update the "Hot Zones" throughout Norrath. The previous zones have been reverted to their former states and the following zones are now a great place to go for experience and fun: Level 20: Najena Level 25: Iceclad Ocean Level 30: Rathe Mountains Level 35: Frontier Mountains Level 40: Gulf of Gunthak Level 45: Velketor's Labrynth Level 50: Fungus Grove Level 55: Old Sebilis Level 60: Cazic Thule *** Spells *** - Increased the duration and lowered the mana cost of Talisman of the Tribunal. - The Test of Efficiency spell should no longer conflict with Peace of the Disciple or Grace of the Order. - Increased the damage and lowered the mana on Touch of Inruku to better match the rest of the spell line's progression. *** AAs *** - The way that the wizard AA Mana Burn works has been modified. The new version will use a maximum of 3000 mana instead of draining your whole pool and will do 4 damage for every point of mana spent. This is a raw channeling of magical energy that cannot be focused and will not critically hit. The ability is unresistable by normal creatures, but certain special creatures may be immune to the effects. Like the previous version, once a Mana Burn ability has affected a target, no other Mana Burn abilities will be able to affect that target for the next minute. Upgraded versions of the ability, Mana Blast and Mana Blaze, are available at level 65 and level 70 and use a maximum of 6000 and 9000 mana respectively. The original Mana Burn ability has been refunded and can be repurchased by Wizards interested in the new version. - Gift of Mana will no longer be used up when you cast a 0 mana spell and now has a chance to trigger on heals other than just instant heals, including heal-over-time and percent healing spells. - Rogues and Bards have a new AA ability called Thief's Intuition. This ability goes hand-in-hand with the new trap system and allows those classes a chance to automatically sense nearby traps. The new AAs can be found in the Class tab. - There are new special mounts available for Paladins and Shadowknights under the Class AA tab. *** Events *** - The planar projection for defeating Mithaniel Marr was not rewarding the correct character flags. This has been fixed. - Raids in Dynamic zones in Gates of Discord now require a minimum of 12 people to be started. - Sendaii the Hive Queen raid will now lock out the expedition after the glowing egg is broken. - NPC?s should no longer re-spawn after being killed in the Controlling the Beast mission set in Stoneroot Falls. - The mission "Taking Control" from Stoneroot Falls now only requires 3 people to start it. - Adjusted the rewards on monster missions so they scale better based on how long it's actually taking to complete the mission. - It should be much more difficult for Stefan Marsinger to die within one of the Greater Faydark spires. - Various magician epic mobs should no longer double, triple, or quadruple spawn for every mage that enters the zone. - A number of changes were made to the Demi-Plane of Blood, including pathing fixes, tuning tweaks, and bonuses for defeating Mayong. For more information, see the EQLive forums. *** Missions *** - Monster Mission XP rewards have tuned to better account for the amount of time required to complete the mission. Longer missions now give more XP while shorter missions give less. In addition, the way XP is rewarded has been refactored so it scales better as you gain levels. - In Stoneroot Falls, mission givers Kelliad and Widdlethorpe will now offer you missions that you have completed previously in each of their story arcs when requesting the mission that you are currently on. *** Tasks *** - Added a timer to normal tasks. You can now only complete a task once every 15 minutes. As with shared tasks, the time counts from when you initially get the task, so if it took you longer than 15 minutes to complete the task, you can immediately get another one. *** Tradeskills *** - Alchemy has undergone some changes resulting in modifications to old recipes as well as introducing new recipes and potions, smoother progression in the skill, and significant cost reductions. - Potions - All old-style (10 charge, non stackable) alchemical potions have been removed and replaced by an equivalent potion in the revamped system. These new potions are stackable up to 20 per stack. Note: Due to an error that did not show up on our testing, this was not completed, but only partially done. Some players will have their items exchanged, some will not. The old potions will still function, despite the fact that there will be no way to make them. You can still make the new potions using the new recipes once the community discovers them. We will correct this error and do this exchange the next patch after it has been re-tested. - Recipes - All recipes that point to the old-style alchemical potions no longer exist. New recipes have been created for all of the new potions and will use new herbs. - Herbs - Many old herbs have had their prices altered and new herbs have been introduced, both as purchased components as well as dropped components. - Planar Fletching Kits are now tradeable. - Changed Othmir Short Beer to use a bottle instead of a Cask. - Deep Orc Essence now requires less meat. - Disabled the spell research creation of the spell Draught of Lightning. This was done because it is a quest derived spell. - Some very old erudite only combines have had their trivials adjusted up from being no-fail to on par with other combines of that era. -The Research Recipe to make Unholy Bellow has been disabled. - The Rusty Mining Pick used by Druids has changed names, but works exactly the same. *** Items *** - Changed the Slot12 Tradeskill augments that have Cleave, Ferocity, Furious Bash, Improved Dodge, Improved Parry and Sharpshooting to be worn effects instead of focus effects. - Made a few minor modifications to damage ratios on some of the Demi-Plane of Blood weapons. - Set a cap on the maximum amount of skill bonuses you can get from certain worn effects. The caps are for bash (100), backstab (125), dragon punch (100), eagle strike (100), flying kick (100), kick (100), round kick (100), tiger claw (100), and frenzy (125). *** General Bug Fixes *** - Players will no longer see their breath in first person while on a boar mount. - Froglok jump animation will now play at normal speed. - Skeleton illusions will now function correctly on boar mounts. - PCs will no longer warp to the location they were charmed or feared when those spells wear off. - The autofire ability will now turn off when a player sits down or loots a corpse. - Charmed PCs will no longer disappear after being stationary for a few seconds. - When alt-tabbing out of full screen mode and then re-entering the game, you should now properly be put back into full screen mode instead of windowed mode. - Players marked as group leaders in a raid would sometimes not have functioning leader abilities. This was happening when reforming groups in the raid and has been fixed. - Players will no longer remain encumbered by coin after donating that coin to a guild tribute master. - If a player is wearing an item with a focus effect and casts a delayed spell that utilizes that focus effect, it will no longer be negating if they use a clicky effect before it lands. - Fixed sync issues with removing shared tasks and tasks from a player. - Throwing axes will no longer throw an entire stack, instead only a single axe will be consumed from the range slot. - The map window should now be available to all players. - Fixed a problem that was causing several of the Dragons of Norrath items to have the wrong colors. - The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ February 22, 2006 ------------------------------ - Fixed server stability issues. Please accept our apologies if you were on one of the unstable servers. - Fixed the old alchemy potions that were not casting at the proper level. - Corrected an issue that was preventing Elixir of the Avian from stacking with Elixir of the Beast. These should now stack properly. *Please note: We are still investigating the issue with items disappearing from the Guild Bank. The Guild Hall zone will be unavailable while this investigation continues. -- The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ February 23, 2006 ------------------------------ - The Guild Hall is still not available. We apologize for the inconvenience. - Fixed another stability issue - The Key to the Past and The Burning Prince should now hand out an appropriate reward. - Exiting LDoN zones in North and South Ro should no longer leave you quite so close to the zone in locations. - Changed the starting location for some Paladins in Freeport West to be closer to a Guild Master. - Corrected several issues with LDoN NPCs in the Revamped Freeport and Desert of Ro zones. - Made the new throwing potions stack to 100 as the old ones did. - Fearchar in shadowhaven has decided not to stand on his brother and has moved over a few feet. - The pottery task now makes the combine check on the more difficult of the pottery wheel combine or the kiln combine. You will still need to compete the item (fire it) to hand into the judge. This is to enforce it being a test of the potter's skill, not the potter's friend's skill. - Some of the PoR items were missing their lore flags and have had them added. - Corrected a problem that was making the guild lobby look foggy and larger than normal. - Porthio the Second Born will offer a more challenging fight. - You will no longer trigger your own trap if set while on a mount. -- The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ February 24, 2006 ------------------------------ - The Guild Hall is now available. - The guild banker has returned to his post. - The guard patrols in Freeport have been replaced by less experienced guards who don't put the entire Norrathian army to shame. - We've temporarily changed Devastation and Rage back to normal death rules. - The final warlord in the Defense of Thurgadin mission will no longer poof upon death should he be killed entirely by dwarves. - The mini-bosses in Anguish are dropping their augments again. - Devlin in Dreadspire will select his new sets of weaponry a little more quickly now. Please accept our apologies for the loss of the Guild Hall in the past two days. We believe that all issues are now resolved. If you are having any problems with your guild bank or guild bank inventory please contact Customer Service. -- The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ March 15, 2006 ------------------------------ *** Headlines *** - EverQuest turns 7! Starting on March 16th, join us for a month long anniversary celebration! - We believe we have fixed all issues related to the increased network lag when re-forming groups in a raid. Please let us know if you have any further issues related to this. *** Anniversary Events *** - Double experience! To kick off the celebration, from 12:00 PM Pacific Time on March 16th until 12:00 PM Pacific Time on March 20th all normal experience rewards will be doubled! - Fabled NPCs have returned! Many of your favorite NPCs from the original EverQuest zones and Kunark have been upgraded to Fabled versions that are tougher and tote better loot. And for the first time, they are joined by over a hundred NPCs from Velious! - New scavenger hunt! NPCs in Thurgadin, Kael, and Skyshrine are looking for help finishing up some of their collections. *** Missions, Quests - Fixed a bug in the Gilded Scroll mission that was not updating the scrolls when they are looted. - Five new unusual creatures have been spotted in the Demi-Plane of Blood. - The mini bosses in Anguish will now drop augments again. - Made some aesthetic changes to the Snowtail and Ghost encounters in Razorthorne. - Tailfang in Shar Vahl will now drop his tail on the Firiona Vie server. - The mission The Key to the Past should now hand out an appropriate reward. - Reduced the difficulty of the Oroshar encounter in Arcstone. Oroshar should now be in line with the other four spirits. - Modified the Sundersky encounter in Arcstone. Sundersky is now more powerful, but becomes less so after his four summoned winds are destroyed. - Collapsed all of the missions on Spirit Hunter Elijo into one mission: Mark of the Spirits. Any previously collected spirit marks can still be turned into Spirit Hunter Elijo for task credit. - Ao the Fourth Born now gives out a spell scroll reward for completing his mission arc. If you've previously completed all 3 Skylance Missions, then simply hail Ao for your reward. - For the quest, Through the Portal, a fix has been made so that crazed scyrkins will drop the needed shards. *** AAs , Spells, and Disciplines *** - Temporarily removed the AA Abundant Healing. This ability was causing a conflict with the ability Gift of Mana. As Gift of Mana is generally considered the more useful of the two, Abundant Healing has been removed until we can resolve the conflict. Any points spent in Abundant Healing will be refunded - Dispel spells can no longer be blocked using buff blocking. - Harmonic Dissonance now has a 15 minute reuse time associated with it. - Pets will no longer instantly die when told to attack a trap they are not allowed to attack. The owner will receive notification about why the pet did not attack. - You can now remove pet buffs even if they are stacked beyond 4. - The buffs in the pet information window will no longer show 0 time left in their tooltip. *** Traps and Auras *** - We?ve made a change to how aura particles are displayed. You will now only see aura particles for auras that are owned by someone in your group or raid. - Most player cast auras will no longer cast their effects every spell tick. Instead, they will work like other spheres of influence and the effect will remain on an affected player as long as they are within the area of the sphere and be removed from the player only when they leave the sphere. Note that if you remove the effect from yourself by clicking it off, you will need to leave the area of the aura and return before it is reapplied. -The cleric spells Aura of the Pious and Aura of the Zealot have been changed slightly. They will no longer fade after a certain amount of damage has been taken, but will absorb slightly less damage per hit. - Traps will now apply the correct amount of damage whether in a pvp setting or not. - Corrected a problem that would cause older traps to go off every time someone entered their area instead of going off, then being inactive for a time before going off again. - You can now try to sense a trap even when you have a PC or NPC targeted. It you are targeting an object that could be trapped (such as a chest), you will still attempt to find the trap on the object rather than searching the area for traps. - Using pick, disarm, or inspect while invis will no longer automatically make you visible. - Rain spells will no longer count interactive objects, traps, and auras towards the max number of NPCs they can hit. - Beneficial auras will now properly affect your group and raid members in a pvp setting. - The Aura window will not longer close when hitting the escape key. *** Items *** - Fixed the evolving item reward for the Spirit Hunter Missions in Arcstone. If you have a cloak that is stuck in the second stage of the evolving item (Cloak of the Spirit Stalker) speak to Spirit Hunter Elijo to receive the final version. - Modified the Black Orb of the Scrykin quest. The orbs of the seven dead Scrykin are now called "Gray" orbs and are tradeable. The orbs of the six living scrykin will also drop off the appropriate scrykin (in addition to being the task rewards for completing Or`Sarro's tasks) - The Enraged Flesh Armor pieces are now no trade. - The Prophecy of Ro tier1/2 cleric breastplate now has the activated effect of Pious Elixir - The Prophecy of Ro tier1/2 shaman breastplate now has the activated effect of Ghost of Renewal - The Prophecy of Ro tier1/2 enchanter breastplate now has the activated effect of Ethereal Rune - The Saga of Skin Translations are now no-trade - The Coldain Historical Seal augmentations are now lore to each other - Hammer of Shadows now has 300 endurance - A number of items from the events in Theater of Blood now have their proper stats - Burning Tree Leaf now only returns at max 337 hp and mana and has reduced stats. - Pendant of Insurgency, Aelly?s Earring, Prickly Earring, and Mary-Anne?s Ring of Insanity now have monk, beastlord, and berserker as usable classes. *** NPCs *** - Farwein Windrun has returned to his camp in South Ro. Feel free to stop by and welcome him back. - Queen Tak`Yaliz in the Desert of North Ro will no longer be missing while you?re looking for her. - Ping Fuzzlecutter is now carrying some tasty water! - Tak`Valnakor will now properly offer all of his tasks. - Boomba the Big has returned to his old stomping grounds near the west gate of Freeport. - Vulak`Aerr, High Priest of Veeshan, has returned to the Temple of Veeshan. - Gnarlibramble has loot again. *** Tradeskills *** - Changed the Stunning Bola and Explosive Bola to use the new potions. (Basic Suspension of Pestilence IV and Basic Suspension of Flame IV respectively) - Increased the yield on the Treant Laminating Adhesive by adding one more Acid Wash to the recipe. - The trivials for the Staurolite and Prestigitase recipes have been appropriately altered to be more in line with the result. The trivials were on Saurolite are now on Prestigitase, and vise versa. - Fixed the names of the Prestidigitase items. - Fixed the Reinforced medicine bags (normal and foldable) to take large sized items like the medicine bag. - The pottery task now makes the combine check on the more difficult of the pottery wheel combine or the kiln combine. You will still need to complete the item (fire it) to hand into the judge. This is to enforce it being a test of the potter?s skill, not the potter?s friend?s skill. - Made the new throwing potions stack to 100 as the old ones did. - Fixed many of the old alchemy potions that were not casting at the proper level. - The trophy certificates will now give the trophy exp to get it to a percentage appropriate to your skill within the "Tier" in addition to setting the trophy to the appropriate level. This will not exceed 99% though, so do not hold onto the certificate, but use it before you gain more skill. - Worked Suspension of Slime potions now have the proper range of 90. - Drop rates on the Alchemy dropped components for the new items have been increased in most cases. - Modified the Distillate of Skinspikes potions to be more in line with the old Kilva's series of damage shield potions. - Modified the Distillate of Antidote to cure multiple layers of poison counters, as well as more counters overall (44 instead of 36). - Modified the Distillate of Immunization to cure multiple layers of disease counters, as well as more counters overall (44 instead of 36). - Added some NPC?s to various zones to help consolidate some of the alchemy herb inventory. - Updated many of the trophy tasks to remove items that were too rare and items that were only in zones that required keys. Ngreth is open to further debate on additional items and items he may have missed. Please feel free to post about it on the forums. - The composite treant bows have been altered. Those that had the "calmed" versions will get a version similar to the bows they had, but it will have gained a slot 7 augments slot, in addition to the slot 4 it already had. The calmed compound version has had a slight adjustment DOWN in the stats, but slight increase in the damage and range. The rest of the calmed versions got an increase to their overall stats, though there may be some shuffle. Those that had the version of the bow with the proc will get a significant upgrade to their bow, but these bows no longer have an innate proc. Instead they have a slot 4 and a slot 7, and the players will be able to choose to add a proc via slot 4, or not. These bows have also changed to attunable. The recipes to make the bows have changed, and the in game book includes the changes. - Altered the recipe for the Grandmaster's Medicine bag. Please see Jolum for the new requirement. *** Zones *** - Veeshan's Peak should now be in the appropriate state. - Guild lobby fog issues should be resolved now. - You should be able to bind in North and South Ro again. *** General *** - Windows Sticky Keys functionality on Windows 98 and ME is fixed. - The Auto-Bank feature now works for everyone. - Procs and clickable items will no longer cause spell gems to refresh randomly. - You can now open up to 34 bags at once. - Autofire will properly turn off when a destructible object is destroyed. - The Defense of Thurgadin. Dwarves at Base Camp will now be more focused on recovery than combat and will be less effective in battle. They will refocus on Combat when they move away from basecamp - The Defense of Thurgadin. The Giant Captains will now strengthen their soldiers that are nearby in combat. - The Defense of Thurgadin. Added additional failsafes to prevent the Kromzek General from failing to leave a corpse *** Special Notes *** - We have made really good progress on the reported issues of increased zoning times. We would like to thank all those that have helped with this by providing detailed information. We know what the issues are and we are in the process of implementing our solution. We hope to have a fix that can be tested on our Test Server within the next week or so. - Just in the last couple of days we were able to find the line of sight issue that some of you have been reporting. Given how close we were to our next live update, we felt that there was not a sufficient amount of time to properly test this change. For this reason the line of sight fix will not be in this update, but will go to our Test Server this week so that we can have the proper amount of testing time to ensure that our fix actually fixes the problem and does not create any others. Thank you for your understanding. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ March 15, 2006 (follow-up) ------------------------------ EverQuest Live Update - 03/15/06 - Addressed an issue with group management in the raid window which affected status updates with members of those groups. -- The EverQuestTeam ..................................................................... ------------------------------ March 17, 2006 ------------------------------ EverQuest Live Update - 03/17/06 - A fix for a pathing problem where NPCs would pace back and forth erratically is included with this update. - Fixed an issue with the third Skylance mission reward that was causing players to receive only the spell OR the tarnished chime. Players should now receive BOTH the spell and the chime if they still need both items. - If you have completed the Saga Skins quest but lost your book, you many now hand the skins in to Maelin and receive new translation pages so that you can make new books. -- The EverQuestTeam ..................................................................... ------------------------------ April 19, 2006 ------------------------------ *** Headlines *** - Thank you for participating in the 7th Anniversary events. We hope you enjoyed them! - Applications for the Itemization Designer position are now closed. Thank you to all who submitted an application! - A new Monster Mission has been added to the Prophecy of Ro expansion. - The reuse time on all the veteran rewards has been reduced by 4 hours. - The stacking issues related to Gift of Mana and Abundant Healing have been resolved. - We are refunding the Spell Casting Deftness AA to Enchanters. - Loading to character select should be much faster than it has been. - You will no longer take damage when you have an aura on you and are moving fast while mounted. *** Quests - Added an item reward at the end of the Corruption story arc in Elddar. Turn in the Chalice of Life to Shalowen the Pure when you have finished the arc. - Changed the second kill element in Bill Whistletop's trade skill armor pattern book quest to include all Stillmoon stone drakes (instead of just the Stillmoon stone casters). - Fixed a bug with the Become the Vessel quest that would fail to give credit for kills when a pet got the kill shot. - Further adjustments to some of the tradeskill trophy tasks, especially Fletching, were made. In some cases this was to clarify and fix a bug, in others it was to ease some of the rare items needed by changing the element to another item. *** NPCs *** - Widdlethorpe in Stoneroot Falls will now give you Magical Corathus Coral if you wish to continue your practice even if you have already completed the Learning the Power mission. Just tell him you would like to practice. - It seems that the shipments of wolf blood were missing. You will now find Measure of Wolf Blood on the appropriate merchants. - Shards of Ro will no longer drop. Instead Powder of Ro will drop at a much greater rate than Shards did. - The gnomework bankers in Corathus Creep will no longer get involved in any fighting; they just want peace and a bouquet of bolts and gears. *** Events - Brazlin the High Priest of Ro has summoned his enforcer to help bring the difficulty of the Corruption of Ro raid more in line with the reward. - Upped the drop rate of Deathknell key pieces dropping from the Porthio event. - A new Monster Mission has been added to the Prophecy of Ro expansion. Speak with Oathmir in Devastation for more information. - The key to Tunare’s Shrine from the Corruption of Ro mission arch will now be placed on your key ring the next time you use it. - The Guardian of the High Priest in the Corruption of Ro mission will now have a chance to drop a Last Blood augment to bring the reward more in line with the difficulty of the event. *** Tradeskills *** - Added a Brewing Barrel to the Bazaar. - Rejoice, the master tradesmen of New Tannan have found a way to concentrate Celestial Solvent. This concentrated solution will work with three of the same magically imbued items as before in order to make three doses of celestial essence at a time. - Rock salt can now be ground to fine salt in batches of five or ten. - Fixed the tradeskill flag on Favor of Druzzil. - Raised the trivial on Druzzil's Steel Bowstring. - Adjusted the trivial on the highest end bows from Prophecies of Ro. - Reduced the yield of Composite Treant Laminating Adhesive to 2. - The poison Freezing Feedback has had the effect changed to Freezing Feedback (instead of Anemone Feedback). - Changed the research recipe for Blood of Saryrn to use Saryrn's ink additive instead of Bertoxxulous'. - Changed the research recipe for Legacy of Bracken to remove the use Ink of the Tribunal. *** Zones *** - Changed the teleporters within the bazaar. When going to a "Hall" from the base location, you are no longer facing the teleporter. When teleporting down from the hall, the location has been changed so that you are on the other side of the teleporter with it to your back. This should prevent lag from making you go in a loop. - There is now an augmentation sealer at the Wayfarer camp in Lavastorm. - The fungus farm in Kaladim has been re-cultivated. *** Player Characters *** - The AC cap and the returns over the cap for rangers and berserkers has been slightly increased. *** AAs *** - Refunded Spell Casting Deftness AA to Enchanters. SCD was being overwritten by Quick Buff (a similar AA with superior benefits). - Reduced the reuse time on all the veteran rewards by 4 hours. - The stacking issues related to Gift of Mana and Abundant Healing have been resolved. Abundant Healing is once again available to purchase for healing classes and should now work properly if you also have Gift of Mana. You cannot proc both of them with one spell, but should see both of them procing now. *** Items *** - Fazzle’s Map of East Wastes will no longer disappear from your inventory if you log out. - Altered many of the PoR Jewelry. This change was to fix No Drop Items that should have been Attunable, and to fix some statistics inconsistencies. Also, the HP/MANA gained were balanced with some recommended and required levels if the gain is 50 or greater. In some cases this resulted in greater restrictions, in others it actually reduced the restrictions. - Modified the Tribute and Guild Tribute values of several items that were either Attunable or NoDrop. - Changed the Tradeskill flag on a few more items. - The Fabled Baton of Flame now is now 27 damage, and +1 damage to fire, 18 delay. - The Fabled Flute of the Sacred Glade now has a 3.2 modifier to wind instruments. - The Fabled Shawl of Perception now has spell shielding and dot shielding instead of combat effects and accuracy. - Certain Fabled items have their AC increased. - Changed the Tanned Hides that were brought to my attention that had an abnormally high merchant greed setting to a more reasonable merchant greed setting. - Reduced the drop rate of the Sister’s Opulent Backstabber. - Increased the drop rate of the Spiroc Wingblade in Plane of Sky. - Modified the drop rate of plate, chain, leather, and silk on Rikkukin and Kessdona to better reflect the number of classes that can use the items. - Caerlyna will now trade an Ethereal Satchel of Gathering for an Ethereal Satchel of Gathering Token and vise versa. - Fixed many bag tokens that were stating the incorrect size for their appropriate bag. *** Spells *** - Several Prophecy of Ro NPC spells have been modified to be somewhat less annoying, like Resonating Screech, Howling, Grappling Roots, Thorny Vines, Sage’s Curse, and Shimmering Silence Dust. - Fixed an exploit with the buff blocking feature. *** Line of Sight *** - Line of Sight issues that were introduced with the last update should now be resolved. *** Guilds *** - Newly formed guilds will now be able to get into their guild halls. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ April 21, 2006 ------------------------------ - Added the fix for the spell proc stacking issue. The Abundant Healing and Gift of Mana AAs should now both have a chance to proc if a player has both of those abilities. - Shalowen the Pure will now return The Chalice of Life if you have completed the single group missions in his arc in order and turning in the chalice of life drop from the Corruption of Ro raid. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ June 13, 2006 ------------------------------ *** Headlines *** *** We've now upgraded to DirectX 9.0c! *** - Continuing our efforts to keep pace with current technology, EverQuest will be upgrading to DirectX9.0c to allow us to take advantage of many of the new features and fixes since our last upgrade in the middle of 2003. You will need to be sure that you are currently running DirectX9.0C . If not you will need to download it. This can be done by simply going to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=56513. Make sure you: 1. Get the April 2006 DirectX 9.0C redistributable version (Caution: Download is about 52 MB) at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fb73d860-5af1-45e5-bac0-9bc7a5254203. 2. Run directx_apr2006_redist.exe. Extract the files to an easily identifiable directory. 3. Go to the directory the files were extracted to in step 2. Run "DXSETUP.EXE" from that directory. 4. Accept the license agreement. Allow the installer to update the DirectX components. - Nektulos Forest got a face lift! Check out the amazing new look. - The Guild Lobby is now available to everyone. - The 8th-year veteran reward Throne of Heroes, a gate ability that transports veterans to the throne room in the guild lobby, is now available to those who are eligible. - The map window now has an option to display your group mates. - To help smooth the transition to incurring death penalties for new players (losing experience and leaving a corpse), the level when you start to incur death penalties has been lowered from level 11 to level 6 and the amount of experience you lose when you die now starts at a very small amount at level 6 and slowly ramps up from there. We've added a corpse summoner to the tutorial who will summon corpses for free for anyone who is level 10 or under. - New Hot Zones! With this patch the old hot zones have been reverted to their previous values and a new set of hot zones has been selected! The following zones are now the "Hot Zones"! Level 20: Swamp of No Hope Level 25: Overthere Level 30: Timorous Deep Level 35: Emerald Jungle Level 40: Dreadlands Level 45: City of Mist Level 50: Skyfire Level 55: Karnor's Castle Level 60: Veksar *** Spells *** - Fire pets should now regenerate mana appropriately. - Pet spells and weapon procs now report to the owner and can be filtered appropriately. - The refresh time on Spirit of Bih`Li has been reduced. - The damage on Bloodpyre and Heartblaze have been increased. - The effect from your aura will no longer be removed if you use an illusion. - Having an aura up should no longer cause targeting issues while you are under illusions. - Illusion: Werewolf now uses the new werewolf model. This applies to enchanter spells and item effects. - Bard songs will now stop pulsing when an NPC forces the bard to feign death. - You can now turn off messages generated by bard songs affecting your pet. - Buffs that increase run speed will no longer overwrite AA run speed increases that are better than the buff. - You can now specify beneficial spells to block by name using the Blocked Buff window. This will allow you to block spells that don't have a buff icon without editing a file. - Attempting to gate or teleport to a zone that isn't currently running will no longer result in your spell bar being locked up. - Several spell texts which were gender-specific have been changed to something more gender-neutral. - Added a wear-off message to Elddar's Grasp, Puratus, Harmony of Nature, and Mind Shatter. - Short duration buff icons should now be a consistent size. - Eyes of Zomm have been sedated and should no longer decide to attack their owners from time to time. - Sitting while levitation wears off will no longer leave your character looking like he's falling until you stand up again. *** AAS *** - Added the 8-year veteran reward Throne of Heroes, a gate ability that transports veterans to throne room in the guild lobby. - Pious Supplication has been renamed to Improved Hand of Piety. *** Items *** - Increased the amount of experience that evolving items gain when you kill an NPC. In addition, you will now gain more experience toward your evolving item when you are in a group, similar to how normal experience works. - Reduced the amount of experience required to level up intelligent items. If your items now have more experience than is required to level, they will evolve the next time they gain experience. - Due to the changes to how fast you gain item XP, the amount of XP required to evolve the Cloak of the Spirit Tracker has been increased. - Evolving an item should no longer cause occasional crashes. - The aura effects from Prophecy of Ro "clicky" items are no longer restricted to only hitting your group. In addition, they will no longer recast their effect every 6 seconds, but instead will remain on a character for as long as they are within range of the aura. - Throwing axes should now pull from ammo/inventory appropriately. - Lowered the duration on the spin stun on Peace of the Disciple Strike and One Hundred Blows while in PvP. - Bane of Muram and Curse of Muram now last 18 and 36 seconds respectively. -Modified the Battleworn Symbol of Rage. The charm was calculating values higher than intended and now should be on par with other Demiplane of Blood level charms. - Changed all four of the Furious Bash Augments from DoD that use Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator to Improved Block. Additionally the names of the Chronal, Discordant and Bazu seals have been changed appropriately. - Altered the Favorable Breezes line of augments from DoD that use Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator. They now give a different progression of effect. - Increased the level required to equip the following augments to 45 to match the level that their effect is able to be used: Carnivorous Coral, Deepwood Hunter's Stone. - Increased the level required to equip the following augments to 60 to match the level that their effect is able to be used: Green Fire Phosphorous, Frozen Malachite, Jagged Dragon Scale, Turquoise Lifetap Sieve. - Increased the level required to use the following augments to 65 to match the level that their effect is able to be used: Volcanic Sink Geode, Deep Crust Frozen Malachite, Vein Sap Mineral, Ethereal Sky Stone, Faerie Luck Stone. - The Mystical Aptitude effect will now last its full 20 minutes. - Vibrating Gauntlets of Infuse and Vibrating Hammer of Infuse are now lore to each other. This is to prevent players from getting into an odd state that could cause a crash. - Barbarians can now use Naturalist's Leather Arm Wraps. - Roleplayer's Jester now looks like a doll rather than a bag. - The Burning Affliction focus effect on The Skull of Torture should now work properly. - Increased the stats on the Wrought Blade of Hiz. - Bravefoot Short Sword is now considered a one-handed slashing weapon instead of one-handed blunt. - The Cracked Stone of Savagery now has the proc effect of Lifesap I. - The Shard of Crystallized Rage now has the proc effect of Fiery Strike II. *** Skills *** - Made changes to the taunt formula at high levels. A level 60 character taunting an even con or higher level NPC will now use the character's taunt skill to determine success rate, similar to what occurs below level 60. The chance to taunt is roughly the same. In addition, the reduction in your chance to taunt creatures higher level than yourself now occurs at a slower rate and the minimum chance to taunt an NPC is higher. Also, you will now gain a bonus to your chance to taunt NPCs that are lower level than yourself. To go along with the change to use a character's taunt skill after level 60, paladins and shadowknights have had their taunt caps increased to match warriors and ranger's skill cap has been increased to 200. - Taunts that fail because of distance will no longer cause you to have to wait the cool down period before attempting to taunt again. - Ranged combat should behave much more consistently now. - Increased the sense and disarm range on many traps throughout the world. - /con will now properly report whether an NPC can see you sneaky rogues. *** Tradeskills *** - Increased the amount of mobs that can drop exceptional shissar blood. - The tradeskill recipes for Dreary Deeds and Infusion of Spirit have finally been discovered. - Merchants across the world realized that they were selling small pieces of ore at a loss. They have mutually agreed on a price increase. - The poisons from the Omens of War era will no longer magically create a vial; they now require two of the appropriate poison vial. - You will no longer be able to combine ingredients that you have up for sale in the bazaar. - The Antonican forge has moved to outside of Armor by Ikthar. - Failing to create Frost Bunny Stew will now return your pot to you. - Fixed the bug to the evolution of the tradeskill trophies for players using lower than master certificates while having a 300 skill. - Bristlebane's Challenge and Bristlebane's Challenge Meats have changed to No Drop. - Fixed a bug in the wording of the Grandmaster's Book of Barbarian Culture. - Expanded the shark skins that can be used to make advanced poison vials. There are two shark skin items, both with the same name. - Seeping Haze poisons will now properly bestow the Seeping Haze proc effect. - Bitter feedback poisons will not properly bestow the Bitter Feedback proc effect. *** Quests *** - Removed the "Loot 4" requirement from all of the "Bring Me Their Heads" quests in Devastation and Stronghold of Rage. This should make these quests more accessible by allowing characters to collect the items needed, then get the quest and hand them in to complete it. - Added an experience reward for the "Bring Me Their Heads" and "Engines of Destruction" tasks in the Devastation and Stronghold of Rage. - Fixed a problem with the Shaman epic 2.0 Elder Spirit of Enlightenment in West Freeport. Seemed he wanted to enlighten himself by wandering where he shouldn't. He should now happily lead shamans from the Jade Tiger Inn into the courtyard for the ritual. - The drop rate of the Twilight Sea armor quest gems has been increased significantly. In an effort to keep the amount of money entering the world from those gems roughly the same, the value of the gems has been reduced as a result. - Shalowen the Pure will now return The Chalice of Life if you have completed the single group missions in his arc in order and turning in the chalice of life drop from the Corruption of Ro raid. - Exploring the Valley of Xanzerok for the Arcstone quests should now work correctly when levitating. *** Events *** - The LDoN raids have been switched over to use the expedition system. This means you can add new players to the raid at any time, and the lockout occurs at the end after a success instead of at the beginning when the raid is launched. Also, the maximum player limit has been increased from 36 to 54, and all death count failure mechanics have been removed. - The events in Deathknell, Tower of Dissonance now have individual lockout timers instead of applying a lockout to the entire zone. - Made some tuning changes to the first raid event in Deathknell. - The Deathknell Enforcers will no longer use Immobilizing Stone. - Added a tether to Maestro Tan`Lor in Theater of Blood. - The lava spout traps have been removed from the Tirranun encounter. - The traps in the Inktu`ta raid should fire off much less often, as well as be easier to locate and disarm. - Mayong will now teleport back to his spawn point if he wanders too far from his room. - Fixed a crash bug that could occur in the Demi-Plane of Blood during the Performer event. - Drekish the Enforcer of Ro will now properly reset in the event of a failure in the Corruption of Ro raid. - You now only need one flagged player to initiate the 18-man Kunark Monster Mission raid: Fall of an Empire. - The invaders that breach the walls into the Stronghold of Rage will be a bit less easy to split. *** Missions *** - Increased the distance that the Dwarf armies must be from basecamp in The Defense of Thurgadin monster mission before they return to full combat potential. Units moving to forward locations are guaranteed to be back in combat states when they reach their destinations but may still be thinking of resting while they are in transit. - Dain`s Historian Duggans will now review with you which of his missions you have completed and turned in a seal for that mission. Simply ask him to "Review" the Coldain History you have studied. - Corrected an issue that could cause you to not get credit for finishing the mission "Train" if you were charmed when it completed. - Corrected an issue that could cause the mission "Creepy Concerto" to not update properly if there were pets or auras in the mission. *** Zones *** - The Guild Lobby is now available to everyone, whether they own Dragons of Norrath or not. - Added a guild hall port stone to Arcstone. - Added an Augment Sealer Pool to Arcstone. - Fixed a number of crashes that could occur with older graphics cards in Anguish and Muramite Proving Grounds. - The portal out of Veeshan's Peak will now take you to the proper version of Freeport. - Fixed a problem that was causing NPCs to fall under the world in Dawnshroud Peaks. - Creatures in Devastation now travel in smaller packs and are slightly weaker than before. - The portal to Dranik's Scar from East Freeport has a visual effect again. - The entrances to Paineel and The Hole can be lock picked once again. - The Hunter/Forager cycle in Trakanon's Teeth should no longer spawn multiple copies of the same creatures. - Corrected an issue that could cause several non-targetable creatures to attack you in Halls of Honor. - Casting Succor in Grimling Forest will no longer put you under the world. - Fixed a problem with the Guild Hall Portal that could cause the teleport confirmation window to display the incorrect target zone. - Fixed an issue in Illsalin that was causing groups of arena combatants not to despawn after the event. - You should no longer get stuck behind the grate leading into Dranik Sewers. - Kerra Ridge should now be much friendlier to lower level adventurers. *** NPCs *** - Updated the character models for many NPCs throughout the world. This includes changing Illusion: Werewolf to use the new werewolf model. - The corpse summoners in the guild lobby are no longer fooled by shrouding down to lower levels before handing in a soul stone. - Creatures without legs have lost the ability to kick. - The treants in Theater of Blood that have been shedding hooves and horse meat will no longer do so. - Lowered the hit points and increased the respawn time of the door that leads from Devastation into Stronghold of Rage to make access to Stronghold of Rage easier. - The angry and hurt Faydedar that Dolgin helps people bait no longer has any viable meat on him. -Terrorantula's children should no longer warp across the desert. - Summoning a horse should no longer upset nearby NPCs. *** Maps *** - Cartographers have been very busy. Numerous map fixes made. - The map window now has an option to display your group mates. *** UI *** - The default size for the barter and bazaar windows has been increased. - You can now filter the barter window by seller name. - The guild window should now display information properly for guilds with over 999 members. *** Miscellaneous *** - We've now upgraded to DirectX 9.0c! - Many pathing issues have been resolved. Monsters rejoice! - The Universal Chat system will replace the old Channel Server for all channel operations. All player-owned channels will be moved over automatically and using channels in the new system is the same as before, so you should not notice any difference. One of the primary benefits of this change is that channels now support cross-server and cross-game functionality. EQIM will no longer work with this change however we do intend to remedy this situation if possible in the future. - Luclin character models are now available to everyone, whether they own Shadows of Luclin or not. - Increased the amount of experience you gain toward your shroud progression when you kill an NPC as a shroud. In addition, you will now gain more experience toward your evolving item when you are in a group, similar to how normal experience works. This does not affect the evolving tradeskill trophies, which don't gain experience from killing creatures. - Fixed a number of rendering anomalies that could occur throughout the game. - Targeting corpses should now be much easier and much less confusing. - Item links can now be sent across Universal Chat channels! - Ogre females using voice emotes for Agree and Disagree will now play the proper voices. - Player and NPC names should now be rendering correctly at all times when they are overlapping. - The EverQuest Team ..................................................................... ------------------------------ June 16, 2006 ------------------------------ - Fixed a crash while trying to search the bazaar when not using the default UI. - Fixed the problem with AA experience being reset when you enter monster missions or use a shroud. - Fixed a bug with some tasks not being available to be given out to players. - The ‘;’ chat commands should now work again. - Setting a chat window's default channel to a chat channel (instead of say, group, raid, ...) will now broadcast the chat to that channel. - Fixed a problem that was causing the Concentration AA to not function properly. - We've reverted the fix to channeling made with the last patch. After much discussion, our general feeling is that channeling has been broken for long enough that players have come to rely on that broken behavior as expected gameplay. For the time being, we've reverted back to that broken behavior and will address spell interrupts in general at a later date. ..................................................................... ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ..................................................................... |