Patch Notes for May 16, 2007

Here is the patch message from today:



May 16, 2007
_____________________

*** Highlights ***

- Jardel's Hook Mission: Long ago, a holy war brewed between the Redfeather aviaks and the Suncrest goblins. Using a blessed artifact of the ocean god, Prexus, the Suncrest goblins shaped the tide in the Buried Sea. The aviaks, fearful of the power the goblins possessed countered with their own artifact blessed by Karana, the god of storms, which created monsoons and heavy rain. This era in the Buried Sea became known as the Time of Storms. Many years after it began, the war ended abruptly when a powerful siren stole both artifacts and hid them somewhere in the vast expanse of the Buried Sea. Find out what happened to these powerful artifacts in a new mission in the Buried Sea!

- Ocean of Tears: The Ocean of Tears has a new look. Sail over to check it out and to experience the return of the boats!

- A new integrated web browser has been added to EverQuest. This web browser will be accessible from either the help menu or the /petition command. From this point forward, all problems related to switching to an external browser will be eliminated because this browser will pull up in an in-game window.

- Congratulations to the winners of EverQuest's "The Fabled Adventurer" Video Contest. The First Place winner was Quarken of the Maelin Starpyre server. You can view the winning video on EQPlayers.station.sony.com.


*** Recently Reported Issues ***

First of all, we want to thank everyone for their assistance with reporting bugs in the game. Your effort helps us pinpoint the source of bugs so that they can be resolved as quickly as possible. Our main source of reports on bugs comes from the in-game submitted /bug reports but we also get verification from /petitions and forum posts.

In order to make sure everyone knows what we are currently aware of and working on, we will be frequently posting a List of Recently Reported Issues that have been addressed. The following is a list of the Recently Reported issues that have been resolved in this update:

Issue: Tartons Wheel (A Rod)
Summary: Players are unable to combine Staff of the Wheel in A Glowing Chest. The recipe that players must combine in order to get the Staff of the Wheel and Star of Eyes, eventually leading to the Ice Comet spell, is currently not useable.
Status: The combine works properly again.

Issue: Elder Longshadow #4 Trailing Longshadow.
Summary: Players can port into the instance before completing the first element of the quest. The player is ported into the instance with no way to update element 0 of the task.
Status: You can no longer enter the instance before you have updated the first element of the quest.

Issue: Shaman spell 'Protection of Wishka' when scribed becomes 'Wishka's Favor'.
Summary: Name and description of item do not match the spell that is scribed from.
Status: The spell scrolls have been changed to the proper spell name.

Issue: NPC 'a goblin headmaster' in the 'Ocean of Tears' zone is not spawning.
Summary: The Goblin Headmaster is no longer spawning in the Oot zone.
Status: The Goblin Headmaster is spawning again in the new version of Ocean of Tears.

Issue: EQPlayers site not updating character profiles.
Summary: People are reporting that their character profiles are still not updating.
Status: With this update, work will be done on the EQPlayers database. The hardware will be upgraded. We believe that this will help prevent the database from becoming overloaded which is what was causing many people not to get updated. There are some other changes that they will be making as well in regards to the flow of information. Once the upgrade is done and the changes are made we will be able to track the situation closer to determine exactly what is causing the problem if it occurs again.

Issue: Vah Shir Illusion makes Rogues naked.
Summary: Armor doesn't show up correctly when under illusion.
Status: The illusion should no longer hide the armor.


*** Items ***

- Guardian Blade is no longer useable by Paladins, Shadowknights, or Rangers as they can't actually obtain it.
- Improved Silver-Wrapped Turquoise Earring.
- Changed the icon for Ink of Terris Thule.
- The Bucket of Slop used in the Meek Shall What? task is now Lore.
- Fixed backstab issues with Eye of the Onyx Guardian and Rogue Epic 2.5.
- Added a worn effect to Venesh's Evergreen Gauntlets.
- Improved Jagged Blood, Iron Ring, Scorched Froststeel Ring, and Ice Enameled Gorget of Battle.
- TBS pet class items are now useable by Frogloks.
- Added Pelzia's Replenishment to Keikolin's Forcephase Sandals.


*** Quests

- Fixed a bug with Bloodeye's event. He will now cast his curse less often.


*** Spells ***

- Dawn's Sunlight now works on Burst of Sunlight Rk. II.
- Mana Flare and Mana Recursion have been changed so that DoT spells can now also trigger the damage effect.
- Reduced the reuse timer on the Unholy Aura Shadow Knight Discipline to 36 minutes.


*** NPC ***

- Caerlyna has decided she is willing to hold brown handmade backpacks.
- Temporarily deactivated the "Avalanche" event in Icefall for performance reasons.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Changed the recipe of the Yttrium-Imbued Oak Bow to return the Planing Tool.
- Altered the recipe "Summon Heatstone" to use Breath of Solusek instead of "Summon Element Scroll."
- Added recipes for Spell: Summoning: Earth and Spell: Conjuration: Fire.


*** Missions ***

- There's an exciting new quest and mission series in the Barren Coast. Speak to Farwhendle Higglespout in The Barren Coast for more details.


*** Tasks ***

- Changed the cultural tasks to be available at the required level of the items they make not the recommended level.
- In shared tasks if the leader disconnects, the leadership is passed to another active member of the shared task.


*** AA ***

- All Shadow Steps from the Wizard AA "Dimensional Instability" should now have the same range.
- The Silent Casting AA ability will now appear in the "Short Buff" window.
- The AA Glyph of Destruction will now increase the damage of all Damage over Time spells when active.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Armor of Experience should now display the correct absorption messages.
- Mipmapping has been setup so that it is turned in every model when the mipmapping option has been selected. Mipmapping allows for a clearer view of the models as distances change.
- When you cast a Heal Over Time spell on another player you can see how many hit points you've healed that player. This can be filtered using the Heal Over Time filter in your Options Window under Filters.
- The Tribute Benefits window is now closed whenever the player changes to or from shroud character form.
- Fixed a message error with throwing weapons.
- Corrected an inconsistency with the purchase messages of player merchants.
- Corrected an issue with the /corpsedrag command.
- Added two new commands /booklearn and /bookunlearn that take a single argument (the item # to be learned/unlearned.)
- Characters with non-weapons equipped should not longer get error messages when they autoattack.


*** User Interface Changes ***

- Changed -

EQUI.xml
SIDL.xml
EQUI_NoteWindow.xml
EQUI_BookWindow.xml

- New -

EQUI_HtmlWnd.xml


*** Previously Updated ***

- Increased the experience gains in the Dragon Necropolis and Wall of Slaughter Hot Zones slightly.


*** Future Tradeskill Changes ***

We will be making a change to the cultural armor that will nullify the usage of all existing drops in the cultural armor and symbol crafting process. For the slot 12 raid augments, only the drops for the seals will be changing, the rest of the drops required for the various steps of the slot 12 raid augments will be staying the same. Those of you who have stockpiles will want to make use of them as best and quickly as possible, as once the changes go in, the currently existing cultural recipes will no longer work.

For more detailed information please see the "Upcoming Cultural Changes" sticky thread in the Artisans Way forum of the official EverQuest forums.




- The EverQuest Team

Comments

Post Comment
zoning in to oot
# May 21 2007 at 8:41 PM Rating: Decent
i cant even zone into ocean of tears without crashing it is a pain especially when that is where i need a drop for a quest im working on
nope
# May 20 2007 at 12:09 AM Rating: Default
The more things change the more they get raped over by people who already ruined everquest, so what's the point? More and more I wonder how people can keep from killing themselves while still playing EverQuest. I'd say they now have grounds for a law suit against sony for any more game related suicides...

Codeguru
Boats and OOT
# May 19 2007 at 12:31 PM Rating: Decent
The more things change the more they stay the same.

Well I see that nothing has changed with the boats.

I just went to OOT to check out the revamp of the zone and had to use the baots to get there. They got rid of the teleporting gnomes. Needless to say nothing has changed with the way the boats are working. As soon as I zoned into the OOT I was dumped into the water with no island in sight. After swimming around enough to take my swim skill up 10 points, it ended at 204, I found the boat dock. Only way out of OOT is once again the boats so, I hopped on and took the boat and got the message "entering Butcherblock Mountains". After taking forever to load zone files a new message popped up "Entering Ocean of Tears", What the Hey? O.K. wait some more more zone files loaded and "Entering East Freeport". More zone files and "entering Ocean of Tears", repeat "entering Butcherblock", repeat "entering Ocean of Tears".

O.K. now it is time to turn off the computer and hope that when I go back into EQ I wil end up somewhere other than OOT.

Oh yeah, there are no GM's to help get people out of this kind of situation since there are probably less GM's available now than there are servers.
Petition crashes
# May 18 2007 at 8:54 AM Rating: Decent
33 posts
Has anyone else noticed that when you try to /petition the game crashes? I have run a compleat file check and everything on my computer is up to date, so I am curious as to what gives?
No mention of the FIZZLES
# May 17 2007 at 11:47 AM Rating: Excellent
Below is a repost about the newly introduced fizzles for casters who for years have had no fizzles due to the AA's. This hit us bards very heavily since we technically cast about 1200 spells an hour with a /melody going. I get about an average of 72 fizzles (missed notes) per 3-hour raid now, when before I got zero.

Nodyin-Dev


EQ Designer

Joined: Oct 23, 2005
Messages: 2045
Online
I just wanted to start a new thread to discuss the changes that will be going in with the patch today for Mastery of the Past/Spell Casting Expertise etc.

Prior to today the AAs were taking a cumulative total of the "max level" for your no fizzle check. So if you had all 3 ranks of Spell Casting Expertise, for example, your calculation would be (20 + 35 + 52 = 107) So any spell below level 107 would not fizzle, ever. This is a bug that has been reported repeatedly over the years by players but we have not had an opportunity to correct it until now. With this patch the AAs will work as described and only take the max level, as designed, from the AAs you currently own for a max (currently) of level 58.

This was something that Maddoc discovered when he was going through some of the spell code in preparation for some other changes that we will be making unrelated to this. Unfortunately when this was fixed it wasn't included in the patch message and I apologize for that.

In closing here are some statistics on fizzle so that we are all speaking the same language on this topic and using the correct information.

* If you fizzle a spell you will lose 40% of the mana cost of the spell you were attempting to cast
* If you fizzle you will lose no more than 1/8th of your mana (12.5%) This prevents you from losing too much mana if you cast a very expensive spell and have a low mana pool.
* You have up to a 95% chance to avoid fizzling with your spell casting skill and an additional 3% chance based on your specialization skill (which is very easy to achieve the 3%.) This works out to a 98% chance to avoid a fizzle or a 2% chance to fizzle.

In summary: on average you will fizzle 2% of the time and lose 40% of the mana cost of the spell that fizzled.
No mention of the FIZZLES
# May 20 2007 at 11:58 PM Rating: Decent
Yep I fizzle like no tomorrow as well. Never had this problem before all my skills are max. I got the AAs and still fizzle like a damn newbie. WTH is wrong with sony messing up the fizzles??? This game is makeing more and more wanted to put a mod rod to my head and blow out my brains. GRRRRRRRRRRRr for the love of Fippy Darkpaw fix the problems.
70 Warlock Evalin Skullguise
People of Doom
Stormm

Actually fixed long ago...
# May 17 2007 at 2:57 AM Rating: Decent
**
429 posts
The WOS xp bonus was listed under "*** Previously Updated ***" and on EQLive forum, it was mentioned the change had been in weeks ago, just that the fix note wasn't included until the patch.

So if it seems lousy just before the patch, it will still be the same after.
Hello eq 3
# May 16 2007 at 3:08 PM Rating: Default
SOE AQUIRES SIGIL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 15, 2007 San Diego, CA – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced that it has completed a transaction to purchase key assets of Sigil Games Online, Inc. Through the deal, SOE now owns Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Sigil’s tentpole property, a highly-successful massively multiplayer online game. The Sigil acquisition also builds on SOE’s successful strategy of cultivating game development studios around the world to further boost the company’s capabilities. The announcement was made by John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment.

As part of the acquisition, a majority of the Sigil team will join SOE, integrating into SOE’s worldwide group of studios which includes offices in San Diego, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Los Angeles and Taiwan. The acquisition will strengthen SOE’s position as a leader in the online gaming space by expanding the company’s portfolio of gaming offerings.

“With an unparalleled team and exceptional product, Sigil has been a creative force in the online games space. We look forward to continuing the vision for Vanguard and to continue to deliver some groundbreaking game play,” said Smedley.

In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights and the two companies agreed to co-publish Vanguard. The MMO launched in late January of this year and has sold nearly 200,000 retail and digital units worldwide. Sigil CEO and Vanguard creator, Brad McQuaid will become a consultant with SOE as Vanguard Creative Advisor.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes takes place in the fantasy setting of Telon, a vast and ancient world of magic, intrigue and adventure where thousands of players from around the world have formed a steadfast community exploring the grandeur of a world crafted by the seminal fantasy artist Keith Parkinson. The game introduced many groundbreaking new features and an art direction second to none.


http://eq.crgaming.com/
Boatt To Kunark
# May 16 2007 at 2:51 PM Rating: Decent
48 posts
My post went in the wrong section. Apologies.

Edited, May 16th 2007 6:57pm by Shepard
wos
# May 16 2007 at 1:53 PM Rating: Decent
Considering even as a hot zone, wos has been giving very little exp compared to other zones, This was a prayed for fix... I just hope it works as it was intended...
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