patches-2001-1.txt

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January 9, 2001  3:00 am
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***Patch Day***

We're happy to present today's patch, which focuses primarily on 
addressing issues that have been brought forth by EverQuest players. We 
appreciate the opportunity to spend some time focusing on specific 
issues important to you. Today's patch includes the following:

*Disciplines*

- The "Resistant" Discipline now lasts 5 minutes instead of the 
previous 1.
- The "Holy Forge" Discipline now lasts 5 minutes instead of the 
previous 2.
- The "Weaponshield" Discipline now lasts 20 seconds instead of the 
previous 15.
- The "Leechcurse" Discipline now lasts 20 seconds instead of the 
previous 15.
- The "Deftdance" Discipline now lasts 15 seconds instead of the 
previous 10.
- The "Puretone" Discipline now lasts 4 minutes instead of the previous 
2.
- The "Sanctification" discipline now lasts 15 seconds instead of the 
previous 10.
- The "Unholy Aura" Discipline now gives a 50% bonus to Harmtouch 
(compared with the previous 25%) and causes it to save versus disease, 
which should result in even fewer resists in most high-level 
encounters.

*Spells*

- "Lay on Hands" has been improved starting at 40th level.
- The "Summon Corpse" spell is now available to Shadowknights.
- Corrected a bug that was causing damage while using the "Trueshot" 
Discipline to be the same regardless of the quality of your bow.
- The spells "Focus of Spirit" and "Visions of Grandeur" now stack.
- "Harmtouch" is now resisted as if it were a "Lifetap" spell, meaning 
that it is all-or-nothing, and nearly unresistable with exception to 
encounters that are immune to magic or out of the acceptable level 
range. In addition, maximum damage for Harmtouch has been increased 
starting at 40th level.
- We fixed a bug that caused "Lure" type spells (Wizards) to be 
resisted more than they should have been in certain types of 
encounters.
- Melee attack timers will no longer be reset when a SK, Paladin, or 
Ranger cast a spell. Previously these classes had to wait a full attack 
delay after casting before they would attack via melee again. 

*Miscellaneous*

- You may now adjust the clipping plane in the Hole. Previously, the 
clipping plane was fixed. Many people requested the ability to bring 
the clipping plane closer to allow them to improve their client's 
performance.
- Fixed several problems with trade-skill components that were not 
dropping. Also added some new recipes.
- Fixed the Iksar "Shackle of Steel" quest. 
- The additional options for /camp (/camp server, /camp desktop) have 
been implemented. /camp server will take you to the server-selection 
screen. /camp desktop will cause EverQuest to terminate and take you to 
the desktop.

*Root and Snare*

Root-type spells and "snare" type spells now use a separate spell 
effect. 

Previously, "Root" spells would overwrite any snare effect upon the 
target. When the root would wear off, the target began moving at full 
speed. With this change, when root wears off, snare will still be in 
effect. This has a few added effects on the other end. 

For instance, root will no longer cancel SoW or Journeyman's Boots 
effects. It also allowed us to correct a long-standing bug that was 
allowing bards to cancel root on themselves by playing Selo's 
Accelerando if Selo's was in effect at the time that the bard was 
rooted. As mentioned in a previous patch where the first part of this 
bug was fixed, this was not the intended effect.

*Looting NODROP Items*

A new command is now available to EverQuest players. 

In order to prevent the accidental looting of NODROP items, the 
/lootnodrop command has been added to the client. The command supports 
three options: ALWAYS (Default) - You will be presented with a yes/no 
confirmation box when attempting to loot any NODROP item. SOMETIMES - 
You will be presented with a yes/no confirmation box when attempting to 
loot any NODROP items that your race and/or class cannot use. NEVER - 
NODROP items will be looted without confirmation. 

It is highly recommended that you DO NOT CHANGE this from the default 
option, as the GM staff cannot assist in cases of accidental looting.


- The EverQuest Team

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January 17, 2001  3:00 am
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*Baltimore Fan Faire - Last Chance*

Monday is the registration deadline for the Baltimore Fan Faire! We are 
almost sold out so hurry and visit 
http://everquest.station.sony.com/fanfaire/fanfaire.html before you 
miss your chance to attend this event!

*Patch Day*

The primary focus of today's patch is to implement changes noted in the 
new Producer's Letter which can be found at 
http://everquest.station.sony.com/news/letter.shtml

It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you read the Producer's Letter before 
playing EverQuest. It contains some unprecedented and exciting 
enhancements to gameplay.

In addition to these changes, the following changes have been 
implemented:

*Bug Fixes*

- Fixed a bug that caused "root" and "snare" type spells to function 
incorrectly when stacked. They should now stack properly.
- Fixed a bug that negated the "instrument modifier" for bards using 
Selo's, causing them to run slower than they otherwise would. 
- Fixed a bug that allowed two or more spells that grant levitation to 
stack. Levitation spells should not stack.
- The "Track Corpse" spell now works.
- Tracked down and eliminated several bugs that were causing a very 
small percentage of people to crash when zoning or upon entering the 
game.
- Fixed a problem with some Ulthork armor that caused it to disappear 
on death if the wearer was of extremely low level.
- Tserrina's Whip has been fixed. If you received one prior to today's 
patch, you will need to trade out your whip with a GM in order to get 
one that works correctly.
- Last week's patch attempted to fix Celestial Elixir, Celestial 
Healing, and Torpor, so that they would stack another similar spell, 
unintentionally causing it to stop stacking with standard regeneration 
spells. This has been fixed. The downside to this fix is that these 
spells will now overwrite the "Call of Bones" series. As the three 
former spells are cast to save a character's life, this solution 
appears to be the most beneficial for all of those involved. 
- The stronger /lootnodrop options will no longer prompt you for 
confirmation when looting your own corpse. It is highly suggested that 
everyone reset their option to the strongest security available: 
/lootnodrop ALWAYS (always ask for confirmation).
- Added some code to address an issue reported by a few players, that 
being that an NPC named "Ragefire" would die and not leave a corpse. 
Though we were unable to reproduce this problem in testing, the code we 
added should function as a catch-all for this problem. Please be sure 
to let us know how this goes.


*Changes/Enhancements*

- While not mentioned in the Producer's Letter, the Zone Experience 
Modifier has also been increased in Guk (guktop), by roughly 12%.
- "Lay on Hands" has been enhanced again to heal more hitpoints.
- Overlooked in the last patch message, new spells were made available 
to Rangers and Paladins in the upper levels. 
- "Voice of the Berserker", a beneficial spell, no longer drains mana 
over the duration of the spell.
- The maximum duration of "Strength of Nature" has been increased.
- A new spell for magicians is now available in game.
- The "Shield of the Eighth" spell will now last a number of minutes 
equal to your level.
- You can now use the arrow and enter keys to select characters in the 
character select screen. In addition, the last character you chose will 
be automatically hilighted when entering that screen. This value is 
stored in the EQCLIENT.INI file as "LastCharSel=0-7"
- The ranger's "Trueshot" discipline has had its damage increased after 
analyzing data from its fix last week. Prior to the last patch, all 
bows, while under the discipline, were hitting as if they were 45dmg 
bows regardless of the delay. Last week's patch fixed it so that damage 
was based on the damage of the bow. This weeks patch increases damage 
bonuses in relation to delay (longer delays yield better damage 
bonuses). 
- You can now reverse the left and right channels on your speakers 
using the /reversesound command. This should be very useful for those 
who have had to place their speakers backwards due to cable lengths.
- Made some improvements to Paw, Mistmoore, and The Hole, to address 
some concerns brought forth by the players. Both zones had some 
problems that would cause them to be exceedingly difficult in some 
cases.

- The EverQuest Team

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January 24, 2001 
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*QA Openings* 

Our Quality Assurance department is looking for some AVID EQ gamers to 
join us as testers at the San Diego branch. If you would like more 
information please visit www.verant.com or mail your resume to 
resume@station.sony.com with "QA Openings" as the Subject. 

Applicants should include their time playing EverQuest, and their 
number of characters and their respective classes and levels as part of 
their resume. 

*Small Patch* 

The EverQuest Team is currently hard at work evaluating, planning, and 
documenting our project plans for the current year. As such, we did not 
plan game updates during this period, forecasted to last a few weeks. 

However, given today's server maintenance being performed by our 
Operations Team, we were able to include a few small updates. These 
include some minor polishing on the Plane of Mischief, as well as the 
placement of the wizard's Velious teleport spells on merchants. 

Very soon, we'll be back to our continual plans to enhance the game 
world. We'll be sure to let you know what we have planned as we can. 

- The EverQuest Team

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January 31, 2001  3:00 am
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*File Download*

The file just downloaded contains some new art for use in game in the 
future. 

- The EverQuest Team

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February 21, 2001  3:00 am
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*Patch Day*

Today's patch contains a wide variety of enhancements and changes. Due 
to the number of changes being made, this list is primarily a summary. 
Extended descriptions of the changes and the reasoning behind them can 
be solicited on the EverQuest Message Boards.

*Spell and Skill Changes*

Druids, Shaman, and Clerics:
--- Superior Healing moved to level 51 for shamans and druids. 
--- Casting difficulty of Superior Heal reduced (less fizzles)
--- New level 55 Druid and shaman spell, Chloroblast, similar to remedy 
for clerics.
--- New Druid spell at level 60, upgrade to superior healing, Natures 
Touch.
--- Created a new spell effect for Celestial Healing, Celestial Elixir, 
and Torpor. This will allow them to stack with all other spells, save 
spells of the same type (Heal over time). Prior to this, all heal-over-
time spells followed the same rules as regeneration spells.
--- Reduced the casting difficulty of Remedy.
--- Lowered recast time on Wake of Karana

Paladins:
--- Added Endure Magic spell at level 30
--- Added Resist Magic at 55
--- Moved Guard spell from 49 to 39
--- Moved Armor of Faith from 53 to 49
--- Added New level 53 paladin spell: Divine Glory
--- Added New level 59 spell: Celestial Cleansing 
--- Defense skill cap made exactly same as warriors
--- Added Yaulp 4 at 60 and enhanced.

Shadowknights:
--- Removed artificially inflated mana cost for pre level 50 lifetap 
spells. Please note that post-50 lifetap spells never had an inflated 
mana cost.
--- Moved Spirit Tap to level 55
--- Moved Drain Spirit to level 57
--- Added Drain Soul at level 60
--- Grim Aura added at level 22 and enhanced
--- Moved Shieldskin to level 34
--- Pet buff added at 29
--- Added Diamondskin spell at 59
--- Defense skill cap made exactly same as warriors
--- Due to the recent improvements to "Harmtouch", it is doing much 
more damage than it would before and unbalances PvP. As such it will 
now do less damage in PvP (68% of PvE, down from 80%). In addition, 
Shadowknights on the PvP servers were routinely killing themselves via 
non-XP losing means and attacking other players with Harmtouch 
immediately upon respawn. In order to address this situation, Harmtouch 
is no longer automatically "recharged" by death on the PvP Servers.
--- The "Lifeleech" discipline now increases hit probability in 
addition to its other effects.


Rangers:
--- Added Endure Cold at 22
--- Added Skin Like Nature at 59
--- Added FireFist at 22
--- Moved Bramblecoat from 49 to 39
--- Added Spikecoat at 49
--- Added resist cold at 55
--- Added Panic Animal at 22
--- Moved Jolt to 51
--- Moved Spirt of Wolf from 39 to 30
--- Added Cinder Jolt (fire-based Jolt spell) at 55.
--- Offense and weapons skill made identical to warriors
--- Added See Invisible at 39

Bards:
--- Added new level 20 Bard Song: Cassindra`s Chant of Clarity
--- Bards defensive skill made exactly the same as a warriors
--- Changed it so that the bard spell Denon's Desperate Dirge to 
increase damge by 10pts per level over 45. Also made it so the spell 
does 20% more damage using the Puretone discipline.

Magicians:
--- Added new level 59 spell: Valiant Companion
--- Added new level 39 spell: Summon Companion
--- Rain spells no longer count pets against total number of entities 
they can damage (all rain spells)
--- Added level 29 spell for Mages: Expedience

Enchanters: 
--- Lowered recast time on Visions of Grandeur

*Bug Fixes*

--- Aggressive and Defensive disciplines have been fixed. Before they 
would only affect damage taken and not affect damage dealt out. Now 
they affect both as designed.
--- Fixed the bug with going to the spellbook when the inventory window 
was up in fullview mode. It should work now. Also, fixed a minor bug 
where if you were in normal mode and tried to go to the spellbook from 
inventory via /book or the keymapped key it would not go, and it would 
make the done button not work properly for the inventory mode.
--- Fixed NPC melee ranges to be the same as for player characters. In 
other words, if you can hit the NPC, he can hit you. This bug was a 
problem with one dragon that could be hit, but could not hit back.
--- Fixed a bug that made it impossible to "Call of the Hero" someone 
out of water or lava.
--- Fixed the proc on the Chilled Scythe. Owners of this item will need 
to swap it out with a GM.
--- The Kromzek Surveyor Scope now fits in the "Ranged" slot rather 
than the "Ammo" slot as before.
--- Fixed a bug that caused the two single-target bard snare songs to 
break too soon in some cases.
--- Fixed a bug whereby NPCs would consider the race of a player prior 
to the loading of the faction table upon zoning or logging in. This 
would cause people to be attacked by things that normally like them. 
--- Players should now be properly removed from the group regardless of 
how they exit the game.

*Misc Changes*

--- Added text labels to the fullview inventory window "body" slots 
(Available only to Velious Subscribers)
--- Added the ability to toggle those labels on and off. Use 
/invwinlabels [on/off] (or no arguments to toggle). This is saved in 
the eqclient.ini file in the [Defaults] section with the key 
InvWinLabels=[TRUE/FALSE]
--- Increased the pre-50 bind-wounds cap for rogues and warriors.
--- Pickpocket now works to a max of 5 levels below you, or level 
45...whichever is greater... You can pickpocket NPC up to level 55 if 
you are level 60. 
--- The mouse pointer will now move at a multiple of its normal speed 
when you adjust the MousePointerSpeedMod setting in the eqclient.ini 
file. You can set that multiple on-the-fly with the /mousespeed 
command.
--- The "AutoHelp" feature that can be set under the options menu has 
been enhanced. Spell casters in particular might want to turn it on and 
try depressing the ALT key. It's perfect for refreshing your memory in 
regards to your spell lineup.
--- If you are interrupted while trying to cast a spell that uses a 
component, you will no longer use that component. Jewelers should be 
very pleased with this change.
--- Reduced the casting difficulty (fizzle rate) of all spells over 
level 56. Spells have always previously been set up so that it's 
usually more efficient to use a spell from a previous circle than the 
current one. The formula did not take into account the fact that 
everyone stops at 60.
--- Changed it so that players will now lose experience when they die 
in the Arena in Kael Drakkel. It seems that people were fighting giants 
in that arena in order to avoid the death penalty.
--- Naked PC corpses that have experience and are above level 30 will 
now last 3 hours instead of 3 minutes.
--- Avatar and Focus of Spirit should now stack
--- Raised the pre and post 50 bind wounds cap for paladins, clerics, 
druids, and shaman.

*Item Changes*

--- The effect on the "Frost Giant Beard" can now be used at 35th level 
rather than level 50.
--- The Wurmslayer will now fit in a bag. 
--- Iksar can now use the Ashenbone Shield
--- Chandged Crystallized Shadow leggings to rentable
--- Changed Gorilla Hide Leggings to show up as leather, was cloth 
before
--- Changed Envy from a piercing weapon to a shield so players could 
Bash with it. Envy is a parrying dagger.
--- The Shralok Pack is now LORE. It was set to pending-lore some time 
ago.
--- The Guardian and Sentry Armor bracers are no longer LORE.
--- Donal's Breastplate can now only be used on any individual target 
once every 7.5 minutes. This addresses some of the balance issues that 
became apparent given the existence of a mana-free complete heal.

*Trades and Crafts*

--- Fixed the Gator Roll baking recipe.
--- Repaired the notetext instructions for creating a Mixing Bowl with 
pottery. 
--- Repaired Holgresh Fur Cap and Holgresh Fur Moccasins tailoring 
recipes.
--- Made it so that the file is returned in addition to the hammer when 
a character fails to forge any of the various chain jointings.
--- Repaired Recipe for Enchanted Tier`Dal Adamantite Bracelet
--- Made it so that the Dwarven Smithy Hammer is returned on a failure 
to forge Brellium Chain Jointing.
--- Repaired Field Plate Boots smithing recipe
--- Changed the name of the smithed Enchanted Cabilis Scale armor to 
Imbued Cabilis Scale armor for naming convention reasons.
--- Repaired the recipe for converting 3 Enchanted Large Adamantite 
Bricks into 1 Enchanted Block of Adamantite in the Tier`Dal Forge, it 
was previously only possible in the Oggok Forge.
--- Made it so that the Bread Tin is returned upon a failure to bake 
bread.
--- Mithril and Velium Bonings will be stackable.
--- Mithril Studs will be stackable.

*NPC AI - Hate*

We've made a number of changes to NPC AI, specifically to the section 
dealing with target-selection, or what's commonly referred to as 
"Hate". It is not so much that NPCs react differently to hate now than 
before, but that we've changed the way that hate is awarded. 

--- We reduced the amount of hate that can be caused by a proc. Due to 
the high proc rates at upper levels, the amount of hate generated from 
procs, and the spells that were selected for those procs, made keeping 
the attention of the creature much too easy a task for the tank. 
Simply, it nearly eliminated the challenge of keeping a foes attention 
at levels above 50.

--- We've capped the amount of hate that can be awarded to most 
casters, specifically for debuff-type spells like the Malo and Tash 
series. The hate calculation for these spells takes into account the 
number of hitpoints of the NPC and did not "play nice" with the 
increased HP limit of Velious. It explains why Enchanters, for 
instance, would complain that casting a Tash spell would lead to near-
instant death.

--- We've redressed the amount of hate generated by heal spells. 
Previously, and *partly* due to a bug, the high level heal spells such 
as superior heal or complete heal would generate no more hate than 
greater heal. In fact, so little hate was generated by these spells 
that it made controlling NPC aggression trivial. Heal spells will now 
generate an amount of hate more in line with the number of hitpoints 
actually healed. Due to our desire to leave the lower level game more 
or less untouched, two separate caps have been placed for targets level 
50 or below, and 51 or above. Heal spells will generate significantly 
less hate for targets below level 51 than those at or above that level.

--- We've also re-evaluated ways that players have to reduce their own 
hate. While spells in place to allow this are OK, the Evade skill 
(possessed by rogues) let them out of their damage too easily. A rogue 
that successfully evaded would immediately drop to a level of hate 
lower than someone who was in the awareness range, but hadn't done 
anything to really upset the creature such as damage it or heal its 
foe. This problem was exacerbated by the increase of the size of the 
hate list implemented with Velious. 

*Tracking*

Tracking now works in full view for all classes that can use it, and 
sports a nifty scroll bar that allows players to see everything on the 
list. In addition, the /trackplayer setting is now saved to the 
eqclient.ini file.

The following options have been put in for Rangers only:

--- /tracksort 
--- /trackfilter 

*/tracksort options beginning with R are reverse order

*Hybrid Casting*

Hybrids that cast spells in combat were taking double penalties at 
higher levels. The casting times of their spells went up, and the 
amount of melee damage they do per second went up. This results is 
having to take longer to cast spells, and losing more damage/second for 
each second taken in casting. To help offset this, Rangers, Paladins 
and Shadowknights casting non-beneficial spells that have casting times 
greater than or equal to 3 seconds, now get a 3 % reduction in casting 
time for each level over 50. 3% at 51, 6% at 52, etc., to 30% at 60. 
Again, this applies only to non-beneficial spells. 

- The EverQuest Team

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March 6, 2001  3:00 am
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***Patch Day***

*General Changes*

-- Doubled the chance gain skill points in skills that are above 200. 
-- Fixed a bug that disallowed casting of the Donal's Breatplate on 
others once casted upon yourself.
-- The spell scrolls for Grim Aura should now all reflect usability by 
SKs
-- Fixed a bug that would allow melee players to open a spellbook via 
/book or alt+b.
-- Merchants will now recognize Iksar as a valid race.
-- New bind locations have been added to three zones in the world - One 
on Antonica and two others on Kunark. NPCs at these locations can fill 
you in on the details. Good hunting.
-- The casting time for four cleric brestplates sporting the "Celestial 
Healing" effect has been increased to one minute. We understand that 
this severely limits the use of that effect and we are currently 
discussing alternate effects to place on those items in the next patch. 
We did, however, need to address the 300pt per tick regen that could be 
placed and kept on the group tank. When we've decided on the new 
affect, it will be applied to those items retroactively. 
-- Numeric skill values will be shown on character skill display for 
skill values over 100. Values under 100 still show the qualitative 
identifiers.
-- Players have expressed concern about accidentally inspecting other 
players. You can now turn on or off your ability to inspect other 
players by typing /inspect. 
-- Those of you with z-axis mouse wheels on your mice may use them over 
the chat window.
-- Fixed "Breath of the Sea". It was mistakenly set to be unresistable.
-- Same-zone evac-type spells will now cause you to reload the current 
zone. This is a necessary step to ensure that you are removed from all 
hatelists and clean up your pet.
-- "Voice Graft" will no longer show the spawn number (Jobaber00) of 
your pet.
-- You will now receive a message when you are being bandaged.
-- The tracking skill cap for Druids has been raised to 125. It was the 
intent for druids to be better at tracking than they were, however 
before the scroll bar, smaller skill numbers were often considered 
better. With the tracking improvements from the last patch, this 
increase was appropriate.
-- Increased the number of hitpoints healed by Celestial Cleansing.

*NPC AI Adjustments*

-- Level 60 players with the taunt skill will now have a chance to 
taunt creatures that are level 60 to 65. Previously, players could only 
taunt creatures below their level.
-- NPCs that are mesmerized or stunned will now only add a very small 
amount of hate when they see you cast beneficial spells on their 
enemies. Prior to this, they would add full hate when they saw you do 
this. This is why NPCs would always jump the cleric after breaking Mez.
-- Fixed a bug that would cause NPCs to add too much "temporary hate" 
when a player would sit down in front of them.
-- The maximum amount of "hate" that an NPC can add when witnessing a 
heal to targets above level 50 has been decreased substantially.
-- Hate from heals is also now calculated at a lesser number than the 
number of hitpoints healed. Previously, healing one hitpoint would 
cause one point of hate. Now, healing 3 hitpoints will cause 2 points 
of hate.

*Velious Music*

Velious subscribers should run the Velious Patch to pick up new mood 
music for some Velious Zones. Let us know what you think of the new 
compositions. 

*EQGems*

A new "mini-game" has been added to the EverQuest client. EQGems is our 
first effort aimed towards allowing people to engage in different 
activities while playing EverQuest. Based upon the success of EQGems, 
we may explore opportunities for other mini-games in the future, even 
some that are multiplayer in and of themselves. Type /gems to play.

- The EverQuest Team

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March 9, 2001  12:00 am
------------------------------

*E'ci and The Rathe Movelog*

We will be opening a new server and moving characters from the E'ci and 
The Rathe servers to this new server upon the request of the customer. 
If you choose to move your characters to the new server, please be 
aware that all of your characters on the old server will be moved to 
the new server.

To request to have your characters moved to the new server, all you 
need to do is type "/movelog yes" into the chat window while playing a 
character on that server during the time that the move log is open.

We will be opening the move log for these two servers on Friday, March 
16th, 2001 at 6:00 pm. PST (which is Saturday morning at 2:00 am GMT). 
We will be closing the move log on Sunday, March 18th, 2001 at 11:59 pm 
PST (7:59 am on Monday the 19th GMT). The new, yet unnamed, server 
should be opened some time during the week of March 19th. We'll 
announce the exact date as soon as we can.

There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing to move your 
characters to the new server. The most important thing to keep in mind 
is that character corpses will not be moved with the characters. So it 
is important to make certain that you have looted all of the corpses 
that you want to loot before the characters are moved.

Also, characters names are unique on the new server. Because characters 
will be moving from two separate servers onto the new one, there may be 
cases where two characters with the same name are created on the new 
server. Because character names must be unique, one of the two 
characters will be chosen at random and have an 'x' added to the end of 
their name. If you find that one of your characters has had an 'x' 
tacked onto their name after the move and you would rather have a new 
name, please contact your GM by using the /petition function. The GM 
will help you to change the name of your character.

Guild structures do not follow the characters to the new server. We 
will be unable to reestablish guilds until at least a week has passed 
after the split. On any day after the new server has been up for eight 
days, the guild leader can /petition for a GM to help them reestablish 
the guild. Please do not petition for this before seven days have 
passed, we will not be able to set up your guild before then.

We will not be moving characters back to the old server, so make 
certain that you want to move your characters before you type "/movelog 
yes". And we will not be moving characters for those that fail to 
execute the movelog command during the stated window of opportunity. 

- The EverQuest Team

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------------------------------
March 14, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

***EverQuest Turns Two***

Two years ago this Friday, EverQuest was launched, forever changing the 
course of online gaming. Today EverQuest boasts nearly 360,000 active 
subscribers, and a two-year retention rate of 65%. Peak usage tops 
89,000 simultaneous users with average peak usage at roughly 87,000. 
The EverQuest community continues to grow daily. 

We've put up a page on the EverQuest website to help celebrate 
EverQuest's achievement and to thank our loyal fans. Over the next 
couple of days we will be posting interesting content from EverQuest's 
humble beginnings, as well as a few surprises. Check it out! 
http://everquest.station.sony.com/2ndanniversary/index.jsp

*Ever Changing, Evolving, Expanding*

The Warrens:

As part of our two-year celebration, we're pleased to announce the 
release of "The Warrens", a free expansion zone located on Odus. "The 
Warrens" is a low-to-mid level dungeon and the home of the Kobolds on 
Odus. You can patch the Warrens by running the "Optional Patch". 

In addition to filling-out the continent of Odus, "the Warrens" will 
also serve as a platform to try out some of the new ideas brought forth 
by members of the team and the public aimed at addressing some common 
gameplay issues. We would like to see what options might be open to and 
enjoyed by the players in the future.

The first issue addressed in the Warrens is the problem of higher level 
characters competing with lower level characters for loot on lower 
level creatures. To address this issue, in the Warrens, a group that 
"outclasses" a particular foe will not receive any loot that is MAGIC, 
LORE, or NODROP. All other loot will drop. "Outclassing" a foe is 
defined as having a group makeup such that no one in your group 
receives experience from the kill. This can happen if, for instance, 
the foe is "green" to all group members, or if the group makeup is of 
such a wide level range that the system determines the fight was 
unbalanced using regular experience rules.

Any time that an NPC would have dropped special loot and does not due 
to it being outclassed, a message indicating that the combat was 
"trivial" will be displayed to the group. 

As time goes on, we will be implementing new gameplay subsets and 
adjustements in the Warrens. Please be sure to let us know what you 
think!

The Planes:

The Planes of Fear and Hate have been updated as part of our two-year 
celebration. Adventurers in the Plane of Fear will notice that some 
high-level foes are now available. Rewards for former "boss npcs" have 
been moved down to underlings that are roughly as powerful as the old 
bosses were.

The Plane of Hate has also received a large update, but this one also 
includes the opening of a previously undiscovered part of the zone, now 
full high-level expansion-oriented content. Much as with Fear, rewards 
from bosses have been moved. 

Epic Quests:

As part of the Plane updates, we've made several adjustments to Epic 
quests for a number of classes. Previously, questers of many classes 
were put in direct competition with regular non-questing adventurers 
for a few coveted spawns. In these cases, a new step has been added to 
separate the "Epic Encounter" NPCs from the "Epic Quest" NPCs. 

For those who are mid-quest, all quest requirements have remained the 
same. In other words, if you turn the same items into the same NPC, the 
same reward applies. What has changed is that some components may be in 
a different location from where you expect them. It is recommended that 
you check with the last NPC in line or other adventurers to find where 
you need to go next.

***Patch Day***

Along with the big announcements above, today was a patch day as well:

- Fixed a bug that allowed exploitation of the period of time between 
character control being established and loading of character faction 
tables.
- Fixed the Dagger of Frost. Its special item flags were improperly 
removed in the last patch.
- The spell, Mark of Karn, has been enhanced to heal more per hit.
- The effect on the Celestial Elixir Breastplates has been changed to 
the enhanced Mark of Karn. The casting time on these items has also 
been changed to 9 seconds.
- NPCs in Thurgadin will no longer stop traveling when you /hail them.
- Fixed a problem present in Nagafen's Lair and the Plane of Hate that 
caused framerate to drop over time.
- Shift-clicking on a stack of items will cause you to pick up the 
whole stack. This is in addition to CTRL-clicking on a stack, which 
will cause you to pick up one. These both also work for coins now as 
well as items.
- In addition to the above, holding down the shift key while clicking 
the "Sell" button in the vendor screen will cause you to sell the 
entire stack of items if a stack is selected. For example, you can sell 
20 peridots by selecting the stack, and shift-clicking "Sell". I'd 
recommend though that you give them to your neighborhood cleric first 
though :) The ability to buy stacks is on the list for implementation 
in the near future.
- There are a ton of new recipies for trade skill users out there. 
Check your books. 
- There are a bunch of new quests as well.
- It appears that we fixed a bug with the Mend skill that caused it to 
be unavailable for a few seconds after it was supposed to be ready for 
use. Let us know if there are any further problems.
- Foraging items will now yield a message giving you some idea of what you've foraged.

Please remember that the /movelog for the Rathe and E'ci is scheduled 
for this weekend. Please read the message below for details on the 
/movelog.

*A Message From Customer Service*

We regularly receive requests from customers that want their characters 
moved from one server to another, or from one account to another. 
Unfortunately, due to the EverQuest EULA, the number of requests that 
we receive, the desire to maintain stable server communities and 
economies, and other problems associated with character moves, we can 
not move characters across servers or accounts. 

It is important for the integrity of the server that items from a 
server remain on that server. We also feel that it is important that 
characters that have built up a reputation, good or bad, have to live 
with the consequences of their decisions, and are not allowed to 
retreat from that reputation by changing servers.

The only exception to this rule is when we open a Movelog for moving a 
large number of characters to new servers. At no other time will we 
move a character in such a fashion.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
March 27, 2001  2:00 am
------------------------------

***Fan Faire Reminder***

Registration for the San Diego Fan Faire closes on Wednesday, March 
28th, and we are running out of spaces. Once all the spaces are taken, 
we will not be accepting any further registrations (or walk-ins). So if 
you plan to attend sign up before someone else gets your spot. Head 
over to www.everquest.com to register.

*** Patch Day ***

*Spell Changes and Additions*

- A new teleportation spell has been added to the game for both Druids 
and Wizards. These are self-only gate spells to the Dreadlands. These 
spells should be available on the more exclusive spell vendors in 
Norrath.

- Increased the drop rate on some Kunark spells to coincide with the 
narrowing of the creatures carrying those spells as the game evolves.

- Wizards now have access to a new type of spell that only works on 
certain types of target. Generically called 'bane' spells, a few are 
now available in the game. May your quest for such spells be 
successful.

*Item Changes*

- Changed the effects on the Singing Steel Boots and Greaves. After a 
fair amount of concern from players, we have removed the summon food 
and water effects from these items. They have been replaced with 
modified versions of Aria of the Eagles (boots) and Appalling Screech 
(greaves).

- The Incandescent Bracer can now be worn on the wrist rather than the 
waist.

- The Incarnadine Breastplate must now be worn to activate.

- Changed spell effects on Pauldrons of the Fearsome and Fearsome 
Shield to right click and worn to activate.

*Bug Fixes*

- Fixed a bug that was causing some players to zone into the Warrens at 
the wrong location.

- Corrected an error with the Bixie Sword Blade, changing its delay 
from 6 to 16.

- Fixed a bug where Iskar Monks were unable to Feign Death after 
Foraging.

- Kodiaks in the Great Divide are now seen as animals.

- Toxdil, the wandering rogue poison vendor, will now sell to 
characters even when he is away from his home.

*Enhancements*

- Fixed a problem that occurred when players mistyped /guild. Typing 
/guildd in the chat window is the shortcut for typing /guilddelete. 
/guildd now has a confirmation box so that such an error should no 
longer lead to the accidental deletion of a guild. 

- Added /showspelleffects. Using this toggle ('on' or 'off') a player 
can turn on or off the display of particle effects for spells. This 
will only affect spells, not world effects like waterfalls or weapon 
particle effects. This should allow you to turn off many of the effects 
that hamper rendering performance, inducing effects of spells, while 
still being able to see some of the awesome effects, like those on 
certain paladin weapons...

- Added server-side filtering for chat and combat messages. This will 
allow you to turn off guild chat, shouts, auctions, oocs, 'my misses', 
'others misses', 'others hits', 'attacker misses me', PC spells (all 
options), NPC spells and Bard songs (all options) at the server instead 
of at the client. This can reduce that amount of data sent to you over 
your connection, and can help those with slower connections with better 
performance and connectivity.

- Ships will now be announcing their arrival in most zones. They will 
also be announcing their progress to any zone they travel through. Any 
of those zones that they are not currently making announcements in will 
be added in the next patch or two.

- Shift - Left and Shift - Right will now repeat in the chat window. 
This means that when editing what you've typed, you can just hold down 
the Shift and Left Arrow keys and the cursor will move left until it 
reaches the beginning of the line or until you release the keys.

- The spell slot number will now show up in front of the spell name 
when you press Alt to cast a spell using the Alt-Spell Number method.

- View perspective in wolf form has been fixed. First-person view will 
now be on level with the wolf, rather than a few feet above it. At the 
same time, perceiving other players in wolf form will appear to be 
standing on the ground instead of floating a few feet above it.

- Trade skill success and failure messages will be sent to the 
craftsperson's group instead of just the craftsperson, as long as the 
craftsperson is using the proper ingredients. Failure of the craftsman 
to use the proper ingredients will result in no failure message being 
sent.

- In order to prevent a few trade scams, money can no longer be removed 
from a trade window. You will have to cancel the trade and start over 
to adjust the amount of money involved in the trade.

- We're now sending hitpoint updates to the casters of direct damage 
spells no matter how far away they are when the spell lands. This will 
allow those casters that try to stand as far back as possible to get 
updates even when their range indicates that the messages should be 
surpressed.

*Quest*

Several new quests have been added as well, so don't be afraid to talk 
to the folks of Norrath, they might have new information for you.

- The EverQuest Team


.....................................................................


------------------------------
April 4, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

** New and Changed Features **

- Guild Message of the Day. Guild Officers and Leaders will be able to 
type /guildmotd to set up a Guild Message of the Day (GMotD). From then 
on any time a member of that guild logs in they will see the message 
with the name of the message sender added at the front, so you will 
know who sent the message. Any guild member will also be able to read 
the GMotD by typing just /guildmotd and the message will be displayed 
again. The GMotD will be erased if the server comes down, however. You 
will have to reset the GMotD when the server comes back up.

- /assist changed and improved. It should be much more reliable now. It 
also will target whatever the assisted person has targeted. The 
assisted person does not need to have auto-attack on for /assist to 
work.

- Fixed a problem with /corpse that kept it from working on corpses 
that were too far above or below you.

** Skill Change **

- Foraging changed so that if you are getting the hungry and thirsty 
messages, your next successful forage will always be drink or food. We 
have also decreased the chance of foraging fishing grubs a bit and 
increased the chance that you will forage water.

** Spell Changes **

- Acumen now overwrites See Invisible.

- Translocate now has the proper spell gem.

** Bug Fix **

- Fixed many crash problems for Windows 2000 users. This fix will most 
likely also aid some folks that are not using Windows 2000 that are 
having problems.

** Item Changes **

- Velious racial plate helm quests have been added that will allow you 
to 'trade in' your existing helms for ones with textures. We have 
decided to allow the players (or their characters) to chose whether 
they wish to have the new helmet textures or to continue to use helmets 
that show no graphics.

- Five and ten charge versions of Potions of the Bone Field have been 
added.

- Kilva's Skin of Flame potion has been changed. It no longer has the 
same effect as the Kilva's Blistering Flesh potion.

- Removed the tinting from Dark Forge and Resonant armors. Tinting was 
never really intended to be on those pieces and, frankly, they look 
better without it.

** Miscellaneous Items **

- Reduced the 'bottleneck' for getting Howling Stone keys by increasing 
the availability of one of the quest items.

- Erudite guards will now be much less friendly to Kobolds.

- Vendors are once again selling the Coldain Tanner's Kit.

** 'Combine' container changes **

We've made a change to 'combine' containers. In order to prevent people 
from accidentally destroying items, all containers with a 'combine' 
button will not combine any items that do not form a complete recipe. 
This will be a huge boon to craftspeople all across Norrath. But this 
removes the only drawback to using trade containers as backpacks. Their 
reduced weight and often greater carrying capacity made them more 
desirable as bags, with the compensating risk that you might just lose 
something if you made a mistake.

We will be increasing the weight of portable 'combine' containers 
somewhat. Where some of these containers weighed under 1 pound, they 
will now weigh as much as 4 pounds for the largest sewing kit.

Along with this we are making a change to tailor made backpacks. In 
case you didn't know, most tailor made packs have a built in weight 
reduction of 5%. We are raising that to 10%. We will also be displaying 
the weight reduction of all containers with the information shown on a 
right click.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
April 4, 2001  11:30 am
------------------------------

** EverQuest Classic Edition ** 

There is a new package for EverQuest. It's a small box with a small 
price. Here's a bit from the press release for details:

---

SAN DIEGO, CA - April 3, 2001 - Sony Online Entertainment announced 
today that its classic edition of EverQuest(tm) is now available for 
the SRP of $9.99, a price point that will attract new users to a 
continuously growing community. EverQuest, the most successful 
massively multiplayer online role-playing game ever, will be available 
in both a jewel case and mini box versions at retail stores nationwide. 
"Newbies" will enjoy all the amazing aspects of the original EverQuest 
from creating their own specialized characters to embarking on perilous 
and excitement filled journeys across three continents.

---

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
April 17, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

** Food Changes **

- Food items now have a 'duration'. This means that some food items 
will not sustain a character as long as others, and some items will 
sustain your character longer than they did before.

** Bug Fixes **

- We THINK we've fixed the problem with the Dusty Werebat. This fellow 
has been steadfastly refusing to appear where and when we ask him to. 
We've worked out a deal with his agent, and we think he'll be back to 
work with this patch.

- Corrected an anomaly with hit point bars that occurred when a 
character was healed or damaged by spells. This could be seen, for 
example, when a character was healed and the hit point bar would go up 
and then quickly go back down a bit right afterwards. There was no 
error in the assignment of healing or damage previously, just in the 
way it was being displayed.

- Fixed the visual bracer bug where other people would see a different 
bracer graphic than you would. Now everyone (including the wearer) will 
always see the same bracer texture. If you have two bracers that have a 
different look (one is leather and one is steel, for example), make 
sure that the one you want to show up graphically is on your right 
wrist inventory slot, because this is the one that the game will choose 
to show for you (unless you take off the left one and put it back on, 
which will show the left one, but that is only temporary, and it will 
go back to showing the right one after you zone or reenter the game).

- Fixed zoning problem in Nurga to Droga that caused characters to be 
facing the wrong way when they zoned, often causing confusion that lead 
to accidentally zoning back the way they had come. You should be facing 
the right way when you make that zone transition now.

** Zone and Quest Changes **

- The marauding Tar Goos will no longer be assisted by the Geonids. 
This should make at least one quest more available.

- Grobb should now have a couple of ovens. Hopefully this will allow 
Troll bakers to keep their fellows full of carbs and ready to fight.

- Fixed a bug that occurred when selling stacks of items. Previously, 
if you had 4 bat wings and sold them one by one to the merchant, the 
merchant would have 4 bat wings for you to buy, but if you sold all 
four at once to the merchant he would only have one for you to buy. Now 
he will have 4 in either case.

- We have increased the spawn rate of Venril Sathir and his skeletal 
remains. Please note that only Rangers and Druids will be able to 
trigger the spawn for the skeletal remains, and those remains will only 
be dropping items for those epic quests. Hopefully these changes will 
dramatically reduce the competition and resentment over this spawn.

- We have reduced resistances to some spell types on some NPCs in Sky 
Shrine and the Tower of Frozen Shadow. This is the beginning of our 
overview of the resistances of NPCs in Velious.

** Improved and New Features **

- When you /consent someone it will give them the ability to drag all 
of your corpses.

- You can now buy stacks of combinable items (such as rations, water, 
etc...) from merchants. It works the same way as sell in that you can 
hold down shift to buy a full stack and control to buy just one item.

- Added the ability to change the color of all windows at one time with 
/wincolor (all windows that can be changed, that is). You can now use 
/wincolor ALL 0 0 100 2, for example, instead of having to set each 
window separately.

- Right-clicking items while looting will 'auto-equip' them. This will 
work just as if you had picked the items up and dropped them onto the 
'auto-equip' area of your character profile. So if there is already a 
piece of equipment on your character in the spot where the looted item 
would normally go, it will drop into your inventory, if you have room 
for it.

- The tab key will no longer toggle between you and your last target 
when the chat bar is up. When the chat bar is open the tab key will 
take you through the list of your most recent /tell names or /reply 
names. When the chat bar is closed the tab key will switch you between 
yourself and your last target.

- /assist has an added parameter. /assist on and /assist off will 
determine whether or not your character auto-attacks when you use 
/assist. So if you type /assist off, from that time forward using 
/assist will NOT engage your character's auto-attack. This change will 
be persistent, so it will remain as you left it when you log out. 
/assist also now has a range of 200 feet.

- The destroy confirmation requestor now shows the name of the item you 
are trying to destroy, or it just says money if you are destroying 
coins. This should greatly reduce the chance of accidentally deleting 
the wrong item. PLEASE read the text in the destroy confirmation box to 
be certain that you are destroying the right item before choosing to 
destroy it.

- Hailing Player Character will now say 'Hail Playername', rather than 
just 'hail'.

- Added /charinfo command. Currently this command only reports the zone 
where the current character is bound. We may add further information as 
things progress.

- You will now see how much damage your character has taken when he is 
hit by a spell that causes instant damage (DOT damage is not reported).

** Item Changes **

- We've made a change to the Red Scabbard that should relieve most of 
the problems warriors were having with their epic weapon occasionally 
disappearing during conversion between the two-handed weapon and the 
two one-handed weapons. What will happen now is rather simple. The very 
next time you use the container to combine the weapons (or break them 
apart), the old scabbard will disappear and a new one will replace it.

THE NEW SCABBARD AND THE SWORDS WILL APPEAR ON YOUR CURSOR, rather than 
in your inventory. So once you have combined them, make sure to place 
them in your inventory. And don't panic, the items didn't disappear. :) 
But also MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU HAVE ROOM IN YOUR INVENTORY FOR ALL 
THREE ITEMS (the two swords and the scabbard, which is a container and 
needs to be able to fit into your main inventory). If you end up with a 
No-Drop container on your cursor with no place to put it in your 
inventory, you will have a problem...

Also, right now the new scabbard is a little bugged. Right now you 
won't be able to open the new scabbard until you camp out once after it 
is created. We're working on fixing that bug. We decided to make this 
change even with this small bug to help relieve everyone of the 
problems with the old scabbard.

This new scabbard will have a special ability. It will be able to 
recreate the epic weapons if you have lost them. Simply place a Sword 
of Runes (summoned by a Magician) into the scabbard and hit the combine 
button. The scabbard will convert the temporary power of the Sword of 
Runes into the permanent epic sword.

Customer Service WILL NOT be replacing the old scabbards with the new 
ones. That will be done by the game itself once you have completed the 
quest and combined the swords for the first time.

- Changed the size of the Weighted Axe from Tiny to Large (after all, 
it's a big two-handed axe...). If you have one in a bag now, be aware 
that it probably won't fit back into that bag again once you take it 
out.

- No Rent Items will no longer be immediately deleted from your 
character inventory upon disconnection with the server. If you are 
disconnected from the servers, or even if you log out, your No Rent 
items (such as summoned food and water) will remain on your character 
as long as you log back to that character within 30 minutes. After 
thirty minutes those No Rent items will be deleted. There may be some 
extreme cases beyond our control (such as hardware failures) where No 
Rent items will not be on your character even if you log back in within 
the 30 minute timeframe. No reimbursement will be given for No Rent 
items lost in this manner.

- Grand Master Wrist Wraps have been fixed and should now create the 
"Pouch of Quellios" as intended. If you have one of these items and it 
still does not work, please contact a GM using /petition and ask them 
to switch yours for a new one.

- Snow Storm Mask should now function properly.

- The Ring of the Frozen Flame should now be working properly.

- The slow effect on the Willsapper proc has been reduced.

- The weight of Skewers has been increase to a weight of 3.

- Velious Monk armor appearances have been changed. If you're wearing 
these items, you probably already noticed this, but we thought we'd 
announce it anyway. New textures will be showing on the Plane of Growth 
dropped armors and on the questable armors. Because the Velious 
textures can be a strain on some systems, the textures for these new 
armors will not be loaded by default by the game. If you want to see 
the new textures you will have to edit your EQClient.ini and change the 
line LoadArmor23=FALSE (the default) to LoadArmor23=TRUE.

** Trade Skill Changes **

- Bards that worship Sol Ro will now be able to wear the Imbued jewelry 
made for their god. For those that not only sing around the campfire, 
but sing about the campfire!

- 'World' Trade Containers (those that are stationary) have been fixed. 
Previously when a character tried to combine items in a world container 
that did not match a recipe, the items would seem to disappear. But if 
the character closed and reopened the container, the items were still 
in it. Those items should no longer seem to disappear.

- The speed of Selo's Song of Travel, the effect of the Singing Steel 
Chestplate has been increased a little.

** Spell Changes **

- Removed Gem component from the following spells. They will now only 
require the metal components. These are the Enchant spells for making 
cultural armor.

Enchant Velium
Enchant Mithril
Enchant Adamantite
Enchant Steel
Enchant Brellium

- Changed the spell component for the following Magician spells from 
Lapis Lazuli to Malachite. They now use the same reagent as every other 
Magician pet spell.

Minor Summoning: Earth 
Minor Summoning: Water 
Minor Summoning: Fire
Minor Summoning: Air
Elemental: Earth
Elemental: Water
Elemental: Fire
Elemental: Air

- Added Casting Text to the Following spells (the messages in brackets 
will now appear upon a successful use of the spell):

Panic Animal (soandso flees in a state of total panic!)
Terrorize Animal (soandso runs away in terror!)
Repulse Animal (soandso is utterly repulsed!)
Acumen (soandso's eyes tingle)

- Cannibalize IV now exists. This spell is now available in Velious.

- Cannibalize II and III have had their effects improved. They now 
return more mana to the caster than they did before.

** Class Specific Changes **

- Monk weight allowance has been increased. Every 15 levels monks will 
get an extra 1 stone weight allowance. The post 50 weight allowance has 
also been increased by 2 stone.

Level 15, Limit 15
Level 30, Limit 16
Level 45, Limit 17
Level 51, Limit 18
Level 55, Limit 20
Level 60, Limit 24

- Disarmed traps will remain disarmed for a somewhat longer time than 
before to allow larger groups to get past the traps before they go off.

.....................................................................

------------------------------
April 18, 2001  Luclin Announced - Press Release
------------------------------

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT EXPANDS EVERQUEST(r) UNIVERSE WITH 
"EVERQUEST(r): SHADOWS OF LUCLIN(tm)"

- Massive Additions in Store for SOE's Premier Role-Playing Game--

SAN DIEGO, CA - April 18, 2001 - Sony Online Entertainment announced 
today its new expansion pack, "EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin" for the 
Internet's most popular role-playing game, "EverQuest(r)." The new 
expansion pack will introduce EverQuest fans to an enchanting moonscape 
packed with new adventure zones, new items, creatures and spells, a new 
playable character class and more. Supported by a complete graphic 
overhaul, "Shadows of Luclin" will allow EverQuest players to witness 
their world in unprecedented splendor.

"'Shadows of Luclin' will give EQ fans a beautiful uncharted territory 
to explore," states Jeff Butler, Producer, Sony Online Entertainment. 
"Whether you're a devoted long-term fan looking for new challenges or 
just discovering online gaming for the first time, 'Shadows of Luclin' 
is filled with enough captivating adventures to support all levels of 
EverQuest players."

"The Shadows of Luclin" takes voyagers to a satellite hovering 
ominously above the world of Norrath. An area of great mystery, magic, 
and perplexity, Luclin is divided into a land of light, ruled by 
Discord, and a land of shadow, ruled by Order. Each side of this 
amazing world will present many new secrets, treasures and unique 
monsters.

"Shadows of Luclin" key features:

* New adventure zones, including a new starting city
* All new, highly detailed player-character models
* Massively enhanced 3D graphics engine
* An all-new player character race
* Challenging new quests, items to trade and sell, NPCs and more

"EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin" is due to ship in Q4 2001. For more 
information visit the official Shadows of Luclin Website at 
http://www.everquest.com/luclin.

Continuing to grow with top-selling expansions "The Ruins of Kunark
(tm)" and "The Scars of Velious(tm)," "EverQuest" proves to be the 
largest fantasy world ever created online. During peak periods, more 
than 88,000 adventurers and dragon slayers have explored the world of 
Norrath simultaneously. The active global EverQuest subscriber base is 
comprised of players from various countries throughout the "real" 
world, including the U.S., England, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Saudi 
Arabia, France, Italy and Australia.

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 8, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

** PvP changes **

We have made the first of our upcoming changes to the PvP aspects of 
EverQuest:

- Consider: /Consider will only have three results when used to 
consider a Player Character. The character will show as 'green' if he 
is below the range that allows you to attack him. The character will 
show as 'white/black' if he is within your ability to attack. And the 
character will show as 'red' if he is above your range. This will only 
take effect on PvP servers.

- Sanctuary Levels: Characters below level six will not be able to 
engage in PvP combat, unless they take part in a Guild War, duel or use 
the Arena. This will, obviously, only take place on PvP servers.

- De-Leveling: Characters that lose levels will only retain the combat 
skills of a character two levels higher. This means that if a character 
of level 10 somehow loses 5 levels, that character will only have 
skills that would be available to a 7th level character. This change 
will apply to all servers (it has to, code-wise). So the two level 
buffer is there to make certain that people that lose levels during 
normal gameplay will be minimally affected (hopefully not affected at 
all), while those that purposefully lose levels with the intent of 
causing other players grief will find themselves at no great advantage.

These are the first of the things that we plan to. We are taking a 
careful, step-by-step approach to changes whenever we can, and we have 
other changes planned for upcoming patches.

** Quest Changes **

- We've made a change to the Velious armor quests. The folks in Kael 
and in Skyshrine that give out rewards for these quests are now being 
stricter about who they will reward quest items to. You will have to be 
considered an 'ally' (see Features section below) by these NPCs in 
order to be able to complete these quests. If you are doing quests for 
the Coldain, however, they are somewhat less picky, and they only 
require that they consider you 'kindly' to reward you for your labors.

- The Black Silk Cape will now drop more frequently.

** Bug Fixes **

- Attacking with a two-handed piercing weapon will now 'gray-out' the 
attack button as it should.

- Text that once read: "You cannot remove this affect." now reads "You 
cannot remove this effect." Changed by popular demand... :)

- Food Emotes: Forcing your character to eat by right clicking food 
will now properly display the appropriate emote to those in the area.

- Fixed a problem that often made it difficult to loot really large 
NPCs.


** Item Changes **

- The Shield of Tsunami can now be equipped in the secondary slot.

- Quivers now reduce the delay time on bows, the better the quiver the 
faster your bow. We will not be listing the speed increase a quiver 
will give your bow, but you can tell the good quivers by their ability 
to reduce the weight of your arrows (better-made or magical quivers 
have this property).

- The Ivory Handled Falchion should now 'proc' without telling you that 
it is out of charges. You may need to contact your GM to replace the 
item with a new version if it is still acting strangely.

- The Opal Bracelet is now a wrist item, not a finger item. Be aware, 
once you remove it from your finger, it will not go back onto that 
finger, it will only fit on your wrists, as it should.

- The Large Dragonbone Shard will no longer appear to be a Staff of the 
Gathering.

- The Ring of Levitation will now poof when all the charges are used 
up, and should display the correct number of charges.

- The Priceless Velium Reinforced Bow now has a range of 200 instead of 
a range of 0.

- The Refined Mithril Blade should now be equipable in both primary and 
secondary slots.

- The Unicorn Horn should now have a graphic.

- The Hammer of Flattening has been changed from tiny to large. This 
might cause you a little reorganization in your inventory.

- Runebranded Stone Buckler is now labeled as a shield and can be used 
to bash.

- The Ring of Pureblood is now a finger item, not a waist item.

** Spell Changes and Additions **

- Translocation spells: Five new Wizard 'push' spells have been added 
(Translocate: Fay, Tox, North, Combine and Group). Translocate spells 
send the group to the location, while the Wizard remains behind. 
Translocate Group sends everyone in the group (except the Wizard) to 
their own bind points. Translocate Group can be found on NPCs in 
Velious (and they won't give them up easily). The others are available 
on an exclusive vendor. All Translocate spells (even the original 
Translocate) have confirmation boxes that must be accepted before the 
target will be sent. And Wizards can no longer Translocate themselves.

- Some lower 39th and 44th level Velious spells have had their drop 
rates increased.

- GM Resurrection has had it's name changed from ResurrectionGM to 
Customer Service Resurrection so that players will be able to better 
tell when they are getting a resurrection from the GM staff. GM 
resurrection will no longer have Res effects, and will leave the newly 
Ressed with full Hit Points and Mana.

- Divine Aura and spells of that type (Divine Aura - cleric, Divine 
Barrier - cleric, Kazumi's Note of Preservation - bard, Harmshield - 
necromancer, Quivering Veil of Xarn - necromancer) will now prevent the 
caster from being stunned when hit for their duration.

- The Eye of Zomm series of spells will no longer work in Kedge Keep. 
This change was made to prevent an exploit.

** Feature Additions and Changes **

- Looting text has been changed. You will now see a -- before and after 
any loot messages. This has been changed primarily to help prevent any 
fake looting messages from being thought of as real.

- When you loot an item, you will receive a text message telling you 
what you have just looted.

- Expanded Friends List: The Friends List will now hold 30 character 
names. And each character has its own friends list. You can find and 
edit this list with a text editor, if you need to, outside the game. 
You can locate the text files in your EverQuest directory. The files 
will look like this: _<#>.ini. The default Friends List for existing 
and new characters will be your old Friends List.

- The destroy or drop item confirmation box will now close if you 
accidentally pick up another item while they are open. This should 
prevent accidentally deleting or dropping the wrong item.

- When selling to a merchant, you can no longer sell items that are 
inside a container by having the container selected and clicking the 
sell button. The merchant will tell you that you need to empty the 
container before the merchant will buy it. This should prevent folks 
from accidentally selling items that they did not know were in those 
containers.

- You can now move items around inside containers that are in the bank.

- There is a new /consider message: "regards you as an ally". This is 
the highest level of friendliness that an NPC will register using the 
/consider command. The faction required to reach this rating is 
significantly higher than 'warmly'.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 8, 2001  4:30 pm
------------------------------

** Fan Faire **

The Fan Faire in Minneapolis is half way sold out. There are just over 
two more weeks left to register so don't delay! For each of these 
events, we get countless e-mails asking if there is any space available 
after we have sold out... and then it is too late! So don't wait until 
registration is closed! Register now and be sure your spot is reserved!

** Guild Wipe for Guilds without enough members **

On May 15th we will be performing another servers-wide guild wipe for 
any guild with less than ten members. Remember, it is always a 
requirement to have ten members in your guild. These ten members must 
all be characters from separate accounts (only one member from each 
account will be counted for the ten member total). So if your guild 
does not have ten members on Tuesday, May 15th, it will be deleted.

We're sorry for being so harsh about this rule, but there is a distinct 
limit to the number of guilds that we can support, and the rules for 
maintenance of a guild are clear.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 14, 2001  6:30 pm
------------------------------

** Important announcement about the next patch **

Our next patch is planned for May 30th, probably some time in the wee 
morning hours here on the West Coast.

The important part of the message is not that, though. It's this:

Due to some of the things we are going to be doing, there is a small 
chance that some corpses might disappear during the patch. GMs will 
have the ability to verify any corpses that are lost. That means that 
they can help you get them back if you do indeed lose one. It also 
means that I should remind everyone that attempting to scam a GM about 
a lost corpse could mean banning.

** IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU PETITION TO HAVE A MISSING CORPSE **
** PROBLEM ADDRESSED WITHIN 5 DAYS OF THE PATCH! **

We will not be recovering corpses that might be lost after that time. 
In fact, it would be best for you to petition immediately if you have a 
problem. Don't wait. If you are worried about a corpse that you were 
unable to deal with before the patch, then please log in an check on it 
right away after the patch.

So please make certain that you have as many of your corpses cleaned up 
as possible before the next patch. We're not expecting a lot of corpses 
to disappear, but the fewer lying around, the less chance of them 
disappearing.

Thanks.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 22, 2001  6:30 pm
------------------------------

** Updated EQManual_Supplement **

The EQManual_Supplement.doc and EQManual_Suppliment.txt have been 
updated. The majority of the updates occurred in the description of the 
EQclient.ini file and the descriptions of the in-game "slash" commands. 
This document also includes things like a listing of the emotes 
available, instructions for changing windows and text colors, and other 
additions to the original manual, and is a good first source for 
EverQuest information and help.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 30, 2001 
------------------------------

*** Important Reminder ***

Due to some of the things we are going to be doing, there is a small 
chance that some corpses might disappear during the patch. GMs will 
have the ability to verify any corpses that are lost. That means that 
they can help you get them back if you do indeed lose one. It is also 
important to understand that attempting to scam a GM about a lost 
corpse could mean banning from EverQuest.

** IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU PETITION TO HAVE A MISSING CORPSE PROBLEM 
ADDRESSED WITHIN 5 DAYS OF THE PATCH! **

We will not be recovering corpses that might be lost after that time. 
In fact, it would be best for you to petition immediately if you have a 
problem. Don't wait. If you are worried about a corpse that you were 
unable to deal with before the patch, then please log in and check on 
it right away after the patch.

So please make certain that you have as many of your corpses cleaned up 
as possible before the next patch. We're not expecting a lot of corpses 
to disappear, but the fewer lying around, the less chance of them 
disappearing.

Thanks.

- The EverQuest Team

*** Patch Message ***

** Zone Changes **

- Runnyeye has been changed. Something is up in Goblin land...


** Spell and Song Changes and Bug Fixes **

- We've been fixing holes in the spell stacking code. For the most part 
the changes fix bugs that allowed tricks to get spells to stack that 
were never intended to stack.

- Increased duration on Bard Charm songs to 18 seconds from 12 seconds.

- Fixed the Spell Scroll for Imbue Amber so that Erudite Clerics of 
Cazic Thule can scribe it.

- The casting messages for Necromancer pet summoning spells have been 
changed to be more appropriate.

** Features and Interface Changes **

- The variable %t will now work with /assist. So you can use /assist %t 
if you wish. Though it should have exactly the same effect as /assist 
without the %t.

- %r returns "corpse" for corpses and "NPC" for targeted NPCs.

- Sense traps failure message text color has been changed to user color 
15 (same as other skill messages). The success message was already set 
to user color 15.

- Ignore Lists now work the same way that the Friends List does. It has 
been expanded to 30 names per character per server. The new ignore list 
is stored in the same ini file as the friends list _<#>.ini). The first 
time a character is created or loaded after the patch their new ignore 
list will be a copy of the old ignore list, but will from then on be 
unique to the character.

- The Alt key now works in several new situations. It will now show 
item names when in the trade window. Because the trade items of the 
local player and the trading partner are so close together, the item 
names of the trading partner will always show up unless the player 
positions their mouse pointer over the local player part of the trade 
window, which will cause the game to only show the local player's trade 
item names.

- The Alt key will show item names for items in your bank.

- The Alt key will also pop up names for merchant items and corpse 
items when you hold it down in merchant mode or loot mode.

- The Alt key will even pop up names for items in open containers when 
held down and the mouse cursor is over the open container window (they 
don't show up otherwise).

- The client will now automatically reject a /duel request from any 
player that is on your /ignore list. Some players were using this to 
annoy players that had ignored them.

- You also will no longer see /consent messages from people that are on 
your /ignore list (this was also something people were doing to annoy 
people that had ignored them).

- /who GUILD (and the GUILD must be in caps) will now show you the 
members of your guild in your zone. You can also specify a guild name, 
such as /who "Irontoe Brigade".

- /safelock command added. /safelock will lock the EverQuest interface 
(mostly just mouse clicks, keyboard commands/movement, and most slash 
commands) with the password that you supply to the command. You must 
use this command a second time, supplying the same password, to unlock 
the interface. Passwords are NOT case-sensitive. So to lock your 
interface, you would type /safelock password. You would do the same to 
unlock it. REMEMBER: If you forget what password you typed, you will 
need to reboot your machine.

** Item Changes **

- All the shields in the game that have the Ribcage graphic should now 
also have the ribcage icon when they are in your inventory.

- Tinkered Watchman helm should show up now.

- Ring of Pureblood is now equipable only on your fingers instead of 
your waist.

- Grand Master's Leg Wraps and Fists of the Grand Master are now No-
Drop. They were intended to be No-Drop when they were created. 

- Peacekeeper Staff and the Bug Collection box are no longer equipable. 
There are problems that can arise when containers can be equipped, so 
we had to disable that for these items.

- Sewing Kits: No existing sewing kits are being changed with this 
patch. But from now on, kits sold on vendors will be somewhat 
different. Large Sewing Kits will have 8 slots. Deluxe Sewing Kits will 
have 10 slots and weight slightly more than the Large Sewing Kit.

- Changed the color of the Kael SK quest armor from a very pretty blue-
green to a more appropriate reddish-gray.

** Other Stuff **

- Changed the spelling of Troubador to Troubadour for the 55th level 
bard title. :)

- King Tormax's spawn rate has been adjusted to be more in line with 
that of his counterparts in Velious. This is not the sort of thing that 
we will usually announce, as spawn times and things of that nature are 
part of the dynamic content of EverQuest. We're announcing this, 
however, to help avoid some confusion.


- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
May 31, 2001  2:00 am
------------------------------

*** Patch Addendum ***

This evening we put in another patch to correct some issues that arose 
with the patch yesterday. The changes implemented include some that 
weren't announced previously:

- Resist-debuffs will do 1.5 times their normal value for PvP 
encounters. In other words, if the spell did -60MR in PvP before, it 
does -90MR in PvP now. PvE (combat versus NPCs) remains unaffected.
- Faction-loss for PvP kills on Vallon and Tallon now only occur 
against factions within the hometown of the person killed. In other 
words, if you kill an Erudite in Erudin, you will only lose faction 
with the factions in Erudin, not the factions in Paineel.
- Turning in the Tomb of Order and Discord will have no effect on 
Vallon and Tallon.
- On all PvP servers, only the person who gets the killing-blow in PvP 
combat will have looting rights. We would prefer to implement some sort 
of "majority damage" logic however this should solve most of the issues 
associated with uninvolved players "ninja-looting" the loser in PvP 
encounters.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................


------------------------------
June 4, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

Today's patch consisted only of server-side data, and does not contain 
anything that would normally be announced.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................

------------------------------
June 27, 2001  3:00 am
------------------------------

** Gameplay Changes **

- Aggro Changes: We've made an adjustment to the way that NPCs choose 
their targets. It's a rather simple change, one that makes a lot of 
sense. But we want you to be aware of it so that it won't surprise you 
too much, and so that you won't think that it is a bug. NPCs are now 
much more aware of the vulnerability (or, more precisely, the 
invulnerability) of their targets. NPCs will now be very unlikely to 
waste their time attacking a target that they can't harm.

- Spell and Item Interruption: Ducking will now interrupt a spell 
instantly. You will no longer be able to sit while using items or 
casting spells. This will not affect bard songs, which will still work 
as they always have, but will affect all items, even those with song-
like effects.

** Spell Changes **

- Skin Like Nature and Natureskin should stack with more spells now 
(though not with each other).

- Aegolism can now be clicked off.

- Imbue Ivory has had its casting level lowered to 29.

- Shard of the Core will be tradable now.

- Shroud of Hate and Visions of Grandeur should stack properly now.

- Several new Translocation spells have been added.

- Call of the Hero will no longer remove the target from NPCs' 
hatelists if the target is not summoned far enough.

- Egress will now work indoors.

- Wind of the North, Wind of the South, Markar's Relocation and 
Tishan's Relocation have had their additional restrictions removed, and 
can now be cast from any zone where other similar spells can be cast.

- Summon Companion can now be used by Necromancers, Shamans, 
Enchanters, Shadowknights in addition to Magicians.

- Deadeye should now stack with Dead Man Floating, but should not stack 
with Acumen.

- Plainsight will now stack with Dead Man Floating, but not with 
Acumen.

- The Great Divide portal spells are now 39th level instead of 44th 
level.

- Spirit of the Oak will no longer be overwritten by any beneficial 
spells.

- Paralyzing Poison spells should no longer be broken by direct damage 
spells.

- Hsagra's Wrath and Porlos' Fury now have a 5 second recast delay.

** Item Changes **

- The effect on the 10th ring should have fewer stacking conflicts with 
haste buffs. 

- The effect of the Monk epic, Celestial Tranquility, will stack with 
the higher end haste spells. Keep in mind - the highest haste will 
always win out. This means that the spells will stack, the haste 
components will not.

- Speed of the Shissar has had its duration increased from 20 minutes 
to 30 minutes. This effect should no longer conflict with Call of 
Earth.

- Bone Ring of Condemnation will no longer be usable in the secondary 
slot, it will only be wearable on the finger.

- Druid Skyshrine Quest armor has had a color change so that it will 
look more unique.

- Circlet of Shadow will no longer drop in-game. The Circlet of 
Shadows, can now be found in its place. This item differs from the 
original only in that it has a five-second casting time. Existing 
Circlets of Shadow will retain the same functionality as before, though 
we may change existing Circlets at some future date.

** Quest Changes **

- King Tormax is now a little more particular about who he gives quests 
to.

- The Iksar Shaman 6th Skull/cudgel quest should be working now. 

- Rumor has it that there is a new source for green dragon scales in 
Norrath.

** PvP Changes **

- If you go link dead on a PvP server and are killed you can still be 
looted.

- When a player becomes invisible (or hides successfully) every other 
player that had them targeted will lose their target. This is true for 
all servers, but has the greatest implications on PvP servers. The use 
of spells that allow you to see through invisibility will prevent you 
from losing your target if that target hides or goes invisible.

- Faction hits on Rallos Zek: Killing a person in one of his or her 
home cities will cause a faction hit with residents of that city.

** Miscellaneous **

- We've addressed a lot of spelling and grammatical errors over the 
past few weeks. For example we have corrected all misspellings of 
"deity" in messages to the player, changed Cantana to Cantata and 
others.

- The 'Fab Four' in Dagnor's Cauldron will no longer assist Undertow 
Skeletons.

- Instill Doubt/Intimidation can no longer be used while sitting, and 
sitting after starting it will cancel it.

- Mastery of language skills now occurs at 100, not at 101. This was a 
problem for masters of a language, since language skills could not go 
over 100.

- The messages for eating and drinking now say "Chomp... Chomp," or 
"Glug... Glug..." so that they can't be copied with emotes.

- Helms on Barbarians, Trolls, and Ogres should no longer block the 
first person view when in combat. 

- Sirens Grotto has been changed a bit. It should be a more interesting 
zone now.

** NOTE **

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the 
arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush 
to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, 
latest gossip, and community news for their home town.

- The EverQuest Team

.....................................................................