patches-2007-2.txt

Patch Messages from July 2007 to December 2007


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July 5, 2007
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*** Highlights ***

- AA Window Changes: The AA window has been revamped and many of the AA lines have been consolidated to make them easier to find.

The biggest change you'll notice when you first open the AA window is that there are only 4 tabs now - General, Archetype, Class and Special. The first three tabs are fairly self explanatory and the Special tab will hold any AA that doesn't fit into other tabs. For example, the "Glyph" (expendable) AAs will be on the Special tab and various AAs that have been used for progression for several expansions will live on this tab as well.

With the new UI, there are a series of drop down menus you can use to view only certain sets of AAs. Additionally, all of the column headings can be clicked to order the visible AAs by that column in either forward or reverse alphabetical order. Finally there is a "Can Purchase" button in the new UI that will narrow the list down to only the AAs that you currently qualify to purchase. 

In the past, new AAs have been created that were pure upgrades to existing AA lines from previous expansions. These added many ranks of similar abilities, each with its own name. To cut down on the amount of data that each of the new tabs holds, many of those types of AA lines have been consolidated into a single line. This should make it easier for you to see where you are in a line without the need to search through multiple tabs. You will still have all of the AAs you had previously, but their names and ranks may have changed and you may need to recreate hotkeys for some of the abilities in order to ensure you are using the highest rank's effect. 

- Item Window Changes: The Item Window has a new look and some helpful new functionality. We've changed the window to be easier to read and you will now find a button in the middle of the window that will let you toggle between the item's base stats and its stats with augmentations. In addition, the name of the item will change colors depending on if you can use it or not.

- Triple Attack has been implemented as a skill for those classes that had it innately before. You will automatically receive the appropriate skill for your level with this patch. Characters becoming eligible for triple attack after the patch can receive it by visiting their guild master.

- Misty Thicket Revamp: Halflings across the world of Norrath rejoice as the hills of Misty Thicket flourish into a new paradise.


*** Recently Reported Issues ***

While some of the other issues that were resolved in this update were reported via bug reports, here are a few we'd like to highlight this update.

Issue: Guilds not able to send guild wide emails with text in the body. 
Summary: All of the players in the guild are able to send in game mail messages to the entire guild that have text in the main body. The email is sent, there is a subject line, but none of the text entered in the body of the mail. 
Status: In-Game emails should now send correctly to guilds. The maximum message size is now set to 4500 characters. The address list will display "Too many addresses to display" if it is longer than 500 characters but the message will still be sent.

Issue: Enchanter Epic 1.5
Summary: The Cryptic Page in Ocean of Tears could no longer be located after the zone was revamped.
Status: The note was moved to an island to make it easier to find.

Issue: Task - Pepe's Got a Brand New Bag
Summary: NPC Rion is not giving the correct item for the task 'Pepe's Got a Brand New Bag'.
Status: If you ask Rion "Where is Pepe?" after you receive the poison sac back from Rion, he will now properly give you the doll.

Issue: Black Wolf Tooth
Summary: Players are unable to find the drop 'Black Wolf Tooth' for an armor quest.
Status: The black wolf tooth was added to other black wolves throughout the newbie areas of the game.


*** Items ***

- Jagged Claws of Rending have returned to being weapons built specifically to destroy Draz Nurakk.
- Staff of the Hiveslayer and Wingcrusher now have a type 4 socket type, instead of type 7.
- Darkfell Bow is no longer bard useable.
- Twisted Staff of Temporal Paradox is now useable by beastlords.
- Paza's Cursed Remains can now be equipped in the ammo slot and cast time is reduced to 2 seconds.
- Type 13 and 14 Purity augments are available for purchase from Trader Vallarines in Katta Castrum.
- Augmentation solvents to dissolve (destroy) the purity augments are available for purchase from Trader Difius in Katta Castrum.
- Bulwark of the Firebringer and Buckler of Corruption are now monk and beastlord useable.
- Twisted Staff of Temporal Paradox is no longer dwarf useable.
- Increased stats on several Solteris items.
- Increased spell effects on Solteris items.
- Increased mods on most Solteris items.
- Added one extra potion belt slot with Solteris belts.
- Solteris items vendors will temporarily buy back equipment for 100% of the cost.
- Changed augments in TBS from Katta Castrum and the habitats to be useable in socket type 8 in addition to socket type 7.
- Re-added the spell focus effect back to Valorium Belt of Devotion that was mistakenly removed.
- Increased the number of items summoned by Ton Po's Mystical Pouch and by Dusty Worker's Soriz Pouch from 20 to 100.
- Slightly increased charge amount on Pure Energeian Orbs.


*** Quests 

- Lowered the minimum players required to attack Rallos Zek's final form in Plane of Tactics to 6 people. 
- Updated the valid zone for some older Ocean of Tears quests to the new Ocean of Tears.
- The Goblin Dojo event can now be started with 6 players instead of 12. 
- Added faction adjustments to several raids in Ashengate.
- The Monk epic event in the Ocean of Tears will again spawn a reward chest.


*** Spells ***

- To help balance the way healing items work from class to class, healing-based AAs no longer work on heals cast from items. Items that cast healing spells that are not castable by normal players and were previously affected by healing AAs have had their healing amount increased accordingly. 
- The 30 second global cool down on the bard song Brusco's Boastful Bellow has been changed to a 30 second spell cool down.
- The spell cool down on Bind Affinity has been removed.
- Long term heal-over-time (HoT) spells will now display their messages after zoning.


*** NPC ***

- Made Jala and Lyjak in Shar Vahl less greedy in their merchant dealings.
- The Hatchet and Redfang events in Demi-Plane of Blood will now drop back flag items.
- Bark at the Moon and Rampaging Servant pets will now enrage properly.
- Mage pets from The Serpent's Spine will now spawn pre-equipped with a full set of Phantom Plate armor.


*** Tradeskills ***

- New Cultural Symbol QUESTS have been implemented. At this time it is only the quests, and not the other upcoming cultural drop changes. If you still have one of the old quests they can still be completed. The NPCs will still respond. The target NPCs are still up and still dropping the items as they were before. You just will not be able to get the new quests any more as the NPCs will now only give out the new quests.
- The recipe for making the unfired runed potion vials used for throwing have changed. There are no new items, just a reorganization of what is used in order to make them less expensive to create. The Art of Delicate Throwing Things books have been updated with recipes that match the changes.
- The alchemy potions Distillate of Antidote X, Distillate of Immunization X, and Distillate of Regeneration X now require Hypericum instead of Wormwood. You can find Hypericum where you would find Wormwood.
- Fixed the naming on the pattern books to match the patterns they make.
- Fixed the failure return on some Fishy brewing.
- Fixed the Additive in the spell research recipe for War March of the Mastruq.


*** Missions ***

- The task leader should no longer change when the leader zones.
- Zhisza - Counter Attack: All 3 major (named) mission targets will now return home when idle if they have moved from their spawn location. 


*** AA ***

- Consolidated many AA lines. AAs that were logical extensions of previous abilities have been consolidated into single lines. For example instead of 5 different AA lines to increase critical spell hits, there will now be 1 AA line with more ranks.
- There are 4 new expendable AAs available:
* Glyph of Stored Life - Stores some of your heath in a protective shield around yourself. Your health is returned when your protection fades or is lost.
* Glyph of Frantic Infusion - This ability increases the damage done by your pet in three steps. The first step will increase your pet's minimum damage by 10%, the next by 15% and the final step by 20%.
* Glyph of Angry Thoughts - This ability increases the hate you generate by 30%.
* Glyph of Courage - This ability increases many forms of damage.
- There are now additional ranks of the AA "Mastery of the Past". Ranks 4 through 9 will allow you to increase the maximum level of spells that are immune to fizzling to the following levels: 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70. Note that the new Mastery of the Past AAs are tied to the level cap increase expansions. Ranks 4, 5 and 6 are Omens of War AAs and Ranks 7, 8 and 9 are Serpent Spine AAs.
- Added Mastery of the Past to all casting classes which did not have the AA previously.
- Corrected issues with Touch of the Cursed in certain instances.
- Spell Casting Deftness, Quick Damage, and Quick Buff now work on spells with a minimum casting time of 3 seconds instead of 4 seconds so they are consistent with how spell casting foci work.
- Alternate Abilities that are interrupted by player death will now have their timers reset appropriately. 


*** Zones ***

- Misty Thicket Revamp: Halflings across the world of Norrath rejoice as the hills of Misty Thicket flourish into a new paradise.
- Buffs will no longer count down while you are in the Guild Lobby.
- The entry orb into Solteris now allows 85/15 entry into the zone.
- The Kerra Catfish, thought to recently be extinct, have been found again and are breeding strongly.
- Characters should no longer get stuck in the geometry when Level of Detail is set to minimum in The Buried Sea zone.
- The Ghost's Vengeance spell will no longer cause the Ghost, Guardian of Razorthorn event to crash.
- The Atlas entry for Ocean of Tears should now point to the new map.
- Moved one of the fights with King Odeen away from the hot springs. Hopefully this will improve performance for some players. Also reduced the number of NPCs in the zone by about one third.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- A long and outstanding projectile weapon problem has been fixed. Previously, if you shot an arrow or a projectile spell such as a firebolt, the visual representation of the projectile would actually hit its target after the player was notified of the hit. Now it is syncronized such that the output to the player's chat window is appropriately updated with the projectile hit information when the visual representation of the projectile actually hits its target.
- The /who command should now process quicker.
- The Tip Window for Dragons of Norrath merchants should now show correctly.
- Solvents that destroy augments now display a destroy message instead of safely remove message.
- Drakkin should now receive the level up messages directing them to new zones at level 20, 25, and 30.
- /melody now terminates for bards when they get silenced. They should no longer get spammed with "You can't cast now, because you are silenced" messages.
- Loot permissions are now passed as part of corpse messages and are updated to the world when loot permissions are changed except if a corpse is ported to another zone.
- If a merchant has no items to sell, it will now use the welcome that contains no item names.
- Armor should no longer disappear after using illusions.
- Updating the price of an item without changing the price will no longer increment item count in the bazaar search.
- After attempting to invite a player that does not exist or is not logged in, an error "Player soandso was not found." is now displayed in red text.
- The Link All button will now wrap links onto the following chat line. This will allow a list of items spread over multiple lines to be sent over chat channels. If the amount of text is long enough that a link can't fit on the line without exceeding the text limit, only the links that fit will be shown.
- You can drag corpses through teleporters once again.
- When auto attacking an NPC, characters will no longer lose a fraction of a second from the delay on each swing.
- Faction losses/gains while shrouded (not in a monster mission) will now affect your main character appropriately.
- Players that camp out on a boat and use the Return Home button should now get sent back to their home city.


*** User Interface Changes ***

- A problem has been addressed and fixed regarding full screen mode. Previously, users would experience "bleed through" where background applications would sometimes draw through the EverQuest window in full screen mode, and where the mouse cursor might periodically change to the background application's mouse cursor. This mouse issue appears to have been fixed, and the "bleed through" of background application drawing has been significantly reduced.
- GUI handling of containers with an odd number of slots has been changed. The last slot will be aligned with the container icon if it exists. This could affect some custom UI skins.
- Using the escape key to close the petition window should no longer cause a crash to desktop.
- Froglok characters should now appear with their selected look after character creation.
- Vah Shir and Guktan illusions should now appear with matching heads and body colors.

- Changed -

EQUI_PotionBeltWnd.xml
EQUI_AAWindow.xml
EQUI_ItemDisplay.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_DynamicZoneWnd.xml


*** Previously Updated ***

- Lowered the hit point value for all of the adds spawned in the mission "Counter Attack" in Zhisza.
- Reduced the hit points of several of the adds in the mission "Confront Emperor Vaakiszh."


- The EverQuest Team

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July 12, 2007
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- Fixed an issue with some casters having more hitpoints than intended after the last patch.
- NPCs should no longer be pushed through walls as easily.
- Fixed an issue that was causing problems with some NPC pathing.
- Players should now be receiving the same kind of push from NPC attacks as the did prior to our last patch.
- Players using custom UIs should no longer crash when clicking on an item link.
- Two handed weapons should no longer show up as unusable if you have a shield equipped.

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July 25, 2007
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*** Highlights ***

- Innothule Swamp Revamp: As the stench of evil pullulates throughout the region surrounding the home of the trolls, the denizens of the Innothule Swamp surface to see the rejuvenated swamplands.

- SOE Fan Faire: The 2007 Vegas Fan Faire from August 2nd-5th is approaching. Online registration is now closed, but we've still got plenty of room for walk-ins! Walk-in Registration will begin at the Rio All-Suite Hotel 

- SOE Block Party: We invite you to join the SOE team in San Diego on July 28th for the second annual SOE Block Party. Visit http://eqplayers.station.sony.com for details.


*** Items ***

- All items that have a clickable aura now have a cast time of .5 seconds.
- Changed the 2 avoidance to 2 DoT shielding for Buckler of Corruption.

*** Quests 

- Changed the names of Sacred Stone I and Sacred Stone II to The Kobold Hearthstone and The Stone-fed Shaman respectively.
- Gnashclaw Stonefed will not become "active" until a player on the "The Stone-fed Shaman" quest gets into the area of the orc fort. This should help prevent him from being killed by folks that are not on the quest.
- Gnashclaw's aura now makes the orcs near him a bit tougher, so beware the Stone-fed shaman.


*** Spells ***

- Sorcerer's Spell Guard now has its hit limit reinstated.
- Less powerful pet focus effects should no longer override more powerful pet focus effects.
- Sporali Advisor should no longer be overwritten by Malo.


*** Tradeskills ***

- It seems that the gnomes made a mistake on the roboboar supplemental upgrades. They have since adjusted the containers so that all will work appropriately. (The recipes were bugged, now they work. There will be no change as far as you the players see, other than the fact that it will now work.)


*** AA ***

- Added a damage component to the wizard AA Cryomancy.
- Removed ranks 4 - 6 of Blood Tithe. All points spent on this ability have been refunded.
- Modified the way the Wizard AAs Frenzied Devastation and Prolonged Destruction work so that they will have a buff icon when active.
- Increased the cost of Glyph of Arcane Secrets to 4 points.
- Corrected the "Heart of" and "Core of" AA lines to only require rank 1 of their respective prerequisite AA lines instead of rank 3, as it used to be.
- Separated the Paladin and Shadow Knight "Steed" lines. 
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 4 and 5 of the Innate Lung Capacity line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing lung capacity by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 4, 5, and 6 of the Extended Notes line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the bard song range by the appropriate percentage and will now increase it by the same percentage as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 4, 5, and 6 of the Double Riposte line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the double-riposte rate by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 4, 5, and 6 of the Ferocity line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the double-attack rate by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 4, 5, and 6 of the Knight's Advantage line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the double-attack rate by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 7, 8, and 9 of the Speed of the Knight line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the rate to fire an additional 2H attack by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 7, 8, and 9 of the Fury of Magic line of AA's for Clerics, Druids, Shaman, Enchanters, Magicians, and Necromancers. These ranks were not increasing the spell crit-rate by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 9, 10, and 11 of the Spell Casting Fury Mastery line of AA's for Wizards. These ranks were not increasing the spell crit-rate by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.
- Corrected an issue with Ranks 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the Lightning Strike line of AA's. These ranks were not increasing the flurry chance by the appropriate amount and will now increase it by the same amount as they did prior to the AA consolidation.


*** Zones ***

- Fixed an issue that caused crashing out during raid phase transitions in the Solteris: Stalwart Defenders instance.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Fixed an issue with the Rogue's Backstab ability button that caused it not to work when clicking it too many times before it was ready to be activated again.


*** Previously Updated ***

- The Rear Guard Balreth event has been slightly tuned up in difficulty.



- The EverQuest Team

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September 5, 2007
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*** Highlights ***

- Legends of Norrath: Legends of Norrath: Oathbound is now live! 

Legends of Norrath is an online-only trading card game, based on the richly-detailed sword-and-sorcery world of Norrath from the massively multiplayer online role-playing games EverQuest and EverQuest II. EQ and EQII players have been awarded a complimentary random Oathbound digital starter deck. To play, navigate the EQ icon to Legends of Norrath or simply type /TCG.  Visit http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com for more information.

- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

- The EverQuest window can now be sized by simply dragging the border on the window!


*** Items ***

- The Fan Faire item, Stones of Fortune, can now be claimed.
- The Discordant Seal of Health has had its focus changed to one that is more appropriate.  Since this is a slight downgrade, if you feel you no longer want this, Go to Caerlyna in the bazaar and give her the Discordant Seal of Health and she will give you an Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator with the parts used to make it inside, and you can do whatever you wish with the parts. **Be sure you have a bag spot available** 
- Changed the icon and in-game representation of the following items. For the ones that can be pickup up as a ground spawn, this will change how they look on the ground: Tomato, Green Apple, Straight Oak Treant Branch, Dry Treant Branch, Straight Treant Branch, Fallen Straight Oak Treant Branch, Fallen Dry Treant Branch, Fallen Straight Treant Branch, Windwillow Branch, Fallen Rotwood Treant Branch, Fallen Windwillow Treant Branch, and Fallen Grovewalker Treant Branch.
- Corrected the spelling of the Eminent Impression Book.
- Made Gothic Ringmail usable by Drakkin.
- Corrected stats on Expert Crafted Gloves of the Attackers. 
- Removed an erroneous augment slot from the Hand of Glory. 
- Shadowknights can now use the Gloomsteel Blade. 
- Corrected an issue with several Depths of Darkhollow skills that could not be learned by right-clicking. 
- Corrected the required level on the Fabled Crystallized Shadow Tunic. 
- Corrected the required casting level on Sphere of Air's effect. 
- Certain clickable items from Veeshan's Peak have their recast times reduced.
- Changed the "Pained Memories" spell to use consuming thickener.
- Removed augments that fit into multiple socket types from type 3 sockets.
- All silk armor usable by pure caster classes will now have a graphic if it previously didn't.
- The Last Blood, Bazu Stone, Discordant Stone, and Chronal Stone have all had their lore flag removed.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Xanuusus is now a little more informative about his vague poem.


*** Spells ***

- Sea Snake Venom is now curable with effects that remove poison counters.
- Modified the Frenzied Devastation and Prolonged Destruction AAs. Mana preservation effects should again reduce the mana cost of using these AAs although now the mana cost will be variable instead of fixed (but should average out to the same cost.) Additionally the increased mana cost should only apply to direct damage spells and the ability is limited to a set number of casts with a longer duration rather than a short period of time as before.


*** NPC ***

- The Casino operator will now make sure you do not have the Vibrating Gauntlets of Infuse and the Vibrating Hammer before awarding you that item.
- Fixed a bug preventing the door into the Shade King's room in Frostcrypt from opening.
- Guards in Commonlands will now attack pumas and lions. Not only will this make the area a bit safer, but it should also improve the spider population a bit for those seeking their silk.


*** AA ***

- Increased the hitpoints of the swarm pets summoned by ranks 4 and 5 of the Shaman AA Spirit Call so that the swarm pets from rank 4 would not be killed faster than the swarm pets from rank 3.
- Removed the AA "Frenzied Defense" while we continue to investigate issues with this ability.


*** Zones ***

- Re-enabled Manastone usage in the following revamped zones: Lavastorm, West Freeport, East Freeport, North Desert of Ro, and South Desert of Ro.


*** UI ***

- New -

EQUI_ClaimWnd.xml

- Changed -

EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_VideoModesWnd.xml
EQUI_AAWindow.xml
EQUI_BarterSearchWnd.xml
EQUI_BarterWnd.xml
EQUI_Inventory.xml
EQUI_ItemDisplay.xml
EQUI_TCGStartupWnd.xml
EQUI.xml


*** Miscellaneous ***

- We fixed a number of issues with Legends of Norrath within EverQuest.
- Fixed a problem with transformation molds where items transformed could not be linked in the chat window. 
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target. 
- You now need to be in full screen mode to change your resolution size under the options menu.  While in windowed mode, you can simply drag the window border to resize the window.


- The EverQuest Team

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September 6, 2007
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There were a few technical issues that we addressed today that require a server update and some downtime. We are sure for those affected they will welcome the fixes and for everyone else, thank you for your understanding.

Legends of Norrath crash related to the 8000 series NVidia cards
- This has been addressed and now the crash and gameplay problems should be addressed and working as intended.

Legends of Norrath Global Loot Drop
- The loot drop percentage has been fixed and now you will be able to obtain LoN loot from NPC's in game.

Custom UI's being scrambled when tabbed out to other windows
- We are aware of the problems players are having with custom UI’s and we are looking into the issue. In the meantime on of our developers has started a post called UI Problems and Workarounds and it is sticky’d on the forums. Please refer to that post while we do some work on our end.

New human NPCs loading into global memory
- This has been addressed and the standard Human models have replaced the models from the Test server.

Weapons with procs not working correctly
- This has been addressed and the weapons that were affected are now working as intended.

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October 30, 2007
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*** Highlights ***
- Steamfont Revamp: The sounds of gnomish cheers and clockwork gears echo across the continent of Faydwer as the Steamfont Mountains transforms its appearance.

- Halloween Events: Citizens and denizens of Norrath and beyond will encounter new and old ghoulish tasks and fiends as the spirit of Halloween takes over EverQuest this eerie season. Visit the EQPlayers website for more information about the Haunted Activities.

- Hot Zones: New Hot Zones have been created! Be on the lookout for new items and content in the following zones:

Level 20 The Castle of Mistmoore
Level 25 The Permafrost Caverns
Level 30 Trakanon's Teeth
Level 35 The Warsliks Woods
Level 40 The Dawnshroud Peaks
Level 45 Velketor's Labyrinth
Level 50 The Deep
Level 55 The Temple of Droga
Level 60 Nobles' Causeway
Level 65 The Halls of Honor


*** Items ***

- Improved several Rogue usable 1HP weapons from TSS and TBS.
- The last stage of the smithing trophy has become easier to evolve.
- The cultural and template books are now also not tradable on the Firiona Vie server.
- Cultural items should now have a tribute value.
- The Elegant Ogre Cultural Smithing books now include the Warborn armor recipes.


*** Tradeskills ***

- The clockwork tailor near the loom in Ak'Anon should now be carrying the proper items. Additionally the high elf and wood elf merchants have fixed the problem with their deliveries and are now carrying their own items instead of each others.
- Some secrets to making Mistletoe Cutting Sickles and the Inferno Scepter have been discovered and they have become less difficult to make.
- Disabled the water of terror recipes, the rest had already been disabled.
- Duskwoven armor now uses the correct thread.


*** Previously Updated ***

- Gretamog in Ogguk, and Zok Drup and Zok Gleeup in Rathe Mountains should now be carrying the proper items. Additionally, the Tanner family in Freeport welcomes their daughter Josephine to their business. She offers the human and half elven cultural threads.
- Gralbug and Puglala in Ogguk, Frankle Ironhair in Rivervale, Draan N'Ryt in Neriak 3rd Gate, and Garren D'Vek in Neriak Commons should now be carrying their cultural items.



- The EverQuest Team

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November 13, 2007
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Here's a sneak peek at the update notes for Tuesday.  Please note that this may or may not be modified before the servers officially open back up on Launch Day.
*** Secrets of Faydwer ***

Welcome to EverQuest Secrets of Faydwer, the 14th expansion for EverQuest!

The clockwork armies of the evil gnomish necromancer Meldrath the Malignant gather in the Steamfont Mountains, awaiting his order to invade the kingdom of Ak'Anon. The launch of his great air fortress Mechanotus has torn open the earth, exposing new paths into unexplored regions of the ancient continent of Faydwer.

Rediscover Faydwer as you adventure in the nearby Loping Plains, home to the soul eating wereorcs of Bloodmoon Keep. Strive to end the torment of humans and elves cursed for centuries in the Hills of Shade. All the while, an ancient menace stirs east of the Dragonscale Hills, where the prismatic dragon Kerafyrm the Awakened plans his revenge.

- Level Cap Increase: Players can now achieve level 80. New high level item sets, new Alternate Advancement ability lines, and new spells will come with this increase, including a new AA that grants a new spell slot.

- Heroic Items: One aspect of player power is based on the seven physical and mental attributes of their characters: Agility, Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence, Stamina, Strength, and Wisdom.  For player characters that have reached the maximums for these attributes, equipping normal items with increased attributes offers no benefit.  Heroic Items feature particular stats that allow players to go beyond those maximums.  For each point in a heroic stat, the player gains one point in the statistic and the maximum on that statistic is increased by one point.  In addition, heroic stats offer benefits beyond the normal statistics.
- Heroic Intelligence: Increases mana pool, mana regen, and the maximum amount of mana regen a character can have.
- Heroic Strength: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have.  Also increases damage done by melee attacks and improves the bonus granted to armor class while using a shield.
- Heroic Stamina: Increases hit point pool, hit point regen, and the maximum amount of hit point regen a character can have.  Also increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have.
- Heroic Agility: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of  endurance regen a character can have.  Also increases the chance to dodge an attack, grants a bonus to defense skill, and reduces falling damage.
- Heroic Dexterity: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have.  Also increases damage done by ranged attacks, improves chance to successfully assassinate or headshot, and improves the chance to riposte, block, and parry incoming attacks.
- Heroic Charisma: Improves reaction rolls with some NPCs and increases the amount of faction you gain or lose when faction is adjusted.

- New Content: There are 15 new realms for adventurers to explore including Meldrath's maniacal Fortress Mechanotus, the Dragonscale Hills, the Loping Plains, and Kerafyrm's Lair: Crystallos. Travel through Faydwer solo or with groups to complete new quests, tasks, events, and raids and to acquire new items, spells, tradeskill recipes, abilities, and more.


*** Live Highlights ***

- Book of Legends: The Book of Legends, a tome that holds the record of those who have come together to celebrate EverQuest at the SOE Fan Faires, now lives in the library within Plane of Knowledge.

- New Loot All Options: "Loot All" functionality has been added to corpses. This includes a "Loot All" button on the loot window and the ability to shift-right-click loot a corpse.

- AC Mitigation Improvements: We modified the AC Caps and over-cap returns for mitigation for all classes to bring them more in line with their intended ability to mitigate damage. Warriors, Paladins, Shadowknights, Clerics, and Monks received a minor increase in their mitigation ability. Rangers, Bards, Rogues, Shaman, Beastlords, and Berserkers received a moderate increase in their mitigation ability. Druids, Necromancers, Wizards, Enchanters, and Magicians received a considerable increase in their mitigation ability.

- Fog Rendering System Enhancements: An entirely new fog rendering system has been implemented in the EverQuest graphics engine. This new system is used in all zones that currently have fog.

- Multi-core CPU Support: If you have a Multi-core CPU you no longer have to manually set their processor affinity! EverQuest will automatically assign itself to an available core. If you run multiple copies of the client, each new copy running will assign itself to the next available core. Those interested in customizing which core or cores EverQuest clients run on, check the forums.


*** Recently Reported Issues ***

While some of the other issues that were resolved in this update were reported via bug reports, here are a few we'd like to highlight.

Issue: West Display Bug
Summary: When you face west the video geometry disappears except the UI and the Sky. When you face another direction the issue goes away. Normally this is only fixed by doing a reboot of your PC or reloading EQ.
Status:  We have made a change that should reduce the chances of the "west bug" occurring; unfortunately the change requires us to turn off some optimizations. If you want to disable this workaround, please add the following line to your eqclient.ini: DisableWestBugFix=1 (The EQ team would like to thank Community Member Strommmm for his feedback on helping us with this issue.)

Issue: Solteris Instability
Summary: Some people have reported that the Solteris raid zone continuously crashes during raids.
Status: Optimizations have been put in place to improve stability. We will continue to monitor the status of this zone and other instanced zones.


*** Items ***

- Prestidigitase, Staurolite, Harmonagate and Taaffeite have been modified to work in the new jewelcraft system. They will also continue to work in their original fashion if you prefer the jewelry made that way.


*** Spells ***

- Lesser Summon Corpse, Summon Corpse, Conjure Corpse, and Exhumer's Call have had their scribe-levels lowered for shadowknights.
- The Bewilderment line now has an improved resistance modifier.
- Player animations when using various AE spells and combat abilities now display properly.
- The protection granted from Shielding Thunder now stacks with Weapon Shield Discipline.
- The Consecrate Ground line now has a chance to root undead NPCs that enter the aura's area of effect.
- Recast timers on many mage summon item spells such as the Phantom Armor line, Aenda's Trinkets line, and Armaments line were removed.
- Necromancer pet haste now bestows strength and a damage mod.  Upgrades to the line should be improvements under all situations.
- NPC casters will no longer auto-learn Dispel-type player spells.  
- The Decrepit Skin, Ward of Tunare, and Skin of the Reptile lines are now limited by the number of heals / runes bestowed to the buffed player instead of number of hits scored against the buffed player.  The number of "procs" should be relatively the same, but no longer random.  These spells will scale down in effectiveness against lower level NPCs.
- AE spells that use conical or beam areas of effect now have a hit limit of 8 targets.
- The cleric group complete healing spell "Word of Redemption" now mimics Complete Heal in that it heals for 7500 and cannot be focused.
- Single-target fire, ice, and magic instant cast spells from TSS and SoF now share the same recast timer.  The recast delay on Cloudburst has been decreased so it can be chained.  The Cloudburst line is now more damaging but less efficient than the - Flashfires and Cold Snap lines.  Recourses from these instant cast spells now bestow a short-duration buff that applies a damage increase to the next spell with a 3 second cast time or more.  Most other wizard direct damage spells have had their cast times nearly halved and had this time applied to the reuse delay, allowing the use of 2-3 direct damage spells in the time that would previously be required to cast one.


*** Tradeskills ***

- There is a new level 80 cultural armor set for all races and level 75 and 80 cultural symbol sets. New quests can be found for level 75 and level 80 quests.  Additionally there are new cultural raid augments to go with the cultural armor for the Serpent's Spine, the Buried Sea, and Secrets of Faydwer.
- Jewelry Making has evolved to a new method. Now jewelry makers will make base pieces of jewelry and gems that can be put in this jewelry for different effects.  This will allow people to get jewelry customized for their needs. 
- Practitioners of spell research will no longer need to use runes, words and pages.  Instead, they can use the systematic spell research system to make all spells previously made with these materials.
- Within one of the newly discovered areas of Faydwer you will be able to find a gnome who wants a measure of revenge.
- A discovery has been made and now Gem Studded Chains are less difficult to make.


*** AA ***

- Harm Touch and Lay on Hands have been reworked. Changes to how these abilities work will enable us to more easily adjust and tune these abilities. The primary change you will notice is that both of these abilities have been changed from innate skills to the AA system. For the first 10 ranks of these new AAs you will automatically gain the next rank as you level up - you won't need to purchase the AAs. Starting at level 51 you can continue to increase the power of your ability by purchasing new ranks of AAs. These roughly correspond to some of the previous AAs that existed for either ability.

All previous functionality for these abilities has been turned off. All AAs based on focusing these abilities have either been refunded and replaced with new AAs or have been modified to work with the new abilities.

- Refunded the Harm Touch AAs as part of the changes to how Harm Touch operates.
- Refunded the AA "Improved Lay on Hands" as part of the changes to how Lay on Hands functions.
- Corrected an issue with the Flurry line of AA's that was causing them to trigger up to 94 percent of the time on a successful triple-attack, instead of up to the intended 30 percent.


*** Zones ***

- Fixed an issue with Halls of Honor where NPCs were dropping the incorrect item for the Hot Zone quests.


*** UI ***

- Corrected a few typos and errors with a few of the UI windows.
- Added "Claims" option to the EQ menu button which toggles the Claim Window.
- Made a few minor adjustments to the claims window.
- Added a slider/ctrl to loot slots with stacks. Shift-/Ctrl- semantics work with this functionality.

- Changed -

EQUI.xml
EQUI_LayoutCopyWnd.xml
EQUI_ClaimWnd.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_MailWindow.xml
EQUI_LootWnd.xml
EQUI_LeadershipWnd.xml
EQUI_GuildManagementWnd.xml
EQUI_TributeBenefitWnd.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_VideoModesWnd.xml


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Zoning to Toxxulia no longer puts player in Antonica chat channel.



- The EverQuest Team

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

------------------------------
November 20, 2007
------------------------------

*** Items ***
- Fixed the missing tribute on drakkin cultural armor.
- Removed the tradeskill flag from the armor templates and cultural drops that are not currently being used.
- Increased the stacking ability of the armor template drops.
- Several tradable tradeskill augments are now attunable.
- Several Secrets of Faydwer quest clickies had reuse delays that locked out other effects.  This has been fixed.
- Fixed an issue with spell research items not dropping in game.
- Fixed the stacking on the new cut gems for jewelry making that were not stacking at all.
- Made the new enchant spells and abilities tradable.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Bristlebum will now collect the items he asks for in the task 'I Can Fly'.
- The Moondancer Pendant used in the quest 'the departed' no longer has a cast time. It will also no longer trigger other item click timers.
- The attackers in the Hollowshade Moor War will no longer get lost on the way to their target.


*** Spells ***

- Casting an LoN familiar while targeting something will no longer fail and display "Your target does not meet the spell requirements."
- Standardized the cast time, recast time, duration, and spell slot usage of pet haste spells.


*** NPC ***

- The brother and sister Eric Rasumus and Sansus Rasumus have set up shop in Plane of Knowledge and sell spell research equipment.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Alchemy Merchants that carry some of the other vials now carry the new alchemy vials.
- Pottery Merchants that carried the other Delicate Throwing Things books now carry another book for throwing bottles.
- The Sublime Books will now be able to be made into patterns. Sorry for the error that prevented them from working properly.
- The Salil's Writ Page 90 can now be created in a spell research kit.
- The spell research recipes for Mesmerization, Identify, Teleport have been modified to more properly match the systematic spell research system.


*** Abilities ***

- Moved Harm Touch and Lay on Hands to a new timer that shouldn't conflict with any other abilities.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Fixed a graphics issue that caused armor to change to cloth when zoning.


- The EverQuest Team

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

------------------------------
December 5, 2007
------------------------------

From the patcher:

Here's a sneak peek at the Game Update Notes for Wednesday December 5th (Please note that these notes may or may not be changed before the servers open back up):
*** Items ***

- Removed the scarecrow effect from the cash loot that was never intended to have the scarecrow effect.
- Modified the weapon ratio on Sparking Short Sword of Magma.
- Added new global rare items to SoF instances.
- An Ornamentation Stripping Tool to remove ornamentations is now available from Magus Alaria in the Guild Lobby and Dashelo Dalroshan in the Bazaar.  Please note that this will only revert the item, not return the ornamentation.
- Modifed the ratio on Twisted Staff of Temporal Paradox.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Gurtrude will now return items if she does not need them or if she does not trust you enough to take them.
- The crystals that Big Bynn consumes can no longer be "/open"ed.
- The Big Bynn raid will now reset properly and completely on failure.
- Fixed an issue with the Burn Their Boats portion of the Testing the Invaders quest.  Character death will not fail to update the task (though the character must be in the zone when the fires are done burning).
- Defeating Wegar's Ghost will now update the appropriate task element for the task Vrald's Lost Brother.
- The Illegible Diary of Lorekeeper Baeldon can now also be found inside Frostcrypt in the hands of one of the ancient lorekeepers.
- The quest "The Dark Crystals" should now properly reset after a failed attempt at detonating the explosives.
- The event for the Disable the Recycler quest should reset properly now.  Also, the Director has been training in Meldrath's mechanomagical weight room.
- Removed the expansion restriction from the Exalted Impressions task.
- Dwindlix has had a change of heart and will not accept the items he originally asked for.
- Clockwork Warmarshal will now trust players again enough to assign them the task to Explore the Mansion if they have lost it in anyway.
- The quest called Supplies for Spies will now update for each group member that completes the final stage.
- Fixed some issues with the Vrald's Lost Brother task.  It should be much harder to find yourself in a position to be unable to complete this quest.
- Fixed some issues with the Screw Loose task in Fortress Mechanotus.
- Overseer Deepscar will no longer reset in certain cases where he is unable to path to his target during his charge attack.
- Overseer Deepscar's minions will now automatically assist him when they spawn.
- Overseer Deepscar will now continue to summon golems throughout the fight in all cases.


*** Spells ***

- Many persistent, beneficial bard songs no longer have a chance to "miss a note".
- The functionality of the Monk Echo of Deception ability now mimics Echo of Misdirection.
- Echo of Misdirection now has an improved resistance modifier.
- Tranquil Harvest and Patient Harvest can no longer have their duration focused.
- Tranquil Harvest and Patient Harvest will no longer be suspended while in the guild hall.
- Durations of the Rime Snap Chill and Flashflames Singe recourses have been extended to two ticks.
- Spectralside and Grim Covenant will no longer display their conversion effect as DoT damage.
- The invisibility effect on Aspect of Zomm will no longer wear off prematurely.
- All faction vendor spells are now lore and no-trade.


*** NPC ***

- More merchants now carry template patterns for armor templates made with tradeskills.
- Increased the respawn time for most NPCs in Bloodmoon Keep to allow groups a bit more leeway when clearing into the zone.
- Increased the maximum hit points of the pets summoned by the necromancer spell Noxious Servant.
- Octa is no longer the only creature collecting interesting items in Mechanotus.
- Aiden Silverwing has taken up residence within the Plane of Knowledge just outside the Guild Lobby.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Cutting Nihilite gems will no longer twist your tools.
- Gravity Flux and Extinguish Fatigue spell research recipes now return the more useful version of the scroll.
- Altered Infusion of Spirit to more properly match the systematic spell research system.
- Drop rates on template items have been adjusted.  Ore will drop 15% more often, leather 5% less often and silk 10% less often on humanoids.  Cultural drops themselves have also been adjusted to more closely match player population in each type of armor when it drops from humanoids.  Finally the level 75 cultural drops (not template drops) have had their drop rate reduced as they were coming into the world too quickly.  We will watch it and readjust it as necessary, either direction as necessary.
- Fixed Seduction of Saryrn, Pact of Hate, Dark Possession, Flight of Eagles, Illusion: Froglok and Night's Dark Terror systematic spell research spells to more closely match the systematic spell research system.


*** AA ***

- Changed the timer of the AA Companion's Relocation to avoid conflicts with other abilities.
- Blast of Anger will no longer be resistable.
- The innate attack bonus that Rangers get from level 55 onward has been converted into an AA that will be automatically available for zero cost each level starting at level 55. You will not need to purchase this AA and it will contain the same attack increase that was previously given out innately.  The attack boost that was added to ranger spells previously has been reverted.


*** Zones ***

- Rares will not be quite so "frequent" within the Guardian zone.
- Venturing into the areas directly above Vergalid's lair will no longer eject you back to the zone-in of Vergalid Mines.
- The Guardian instance will now last as long as the task that opens it.
- Moved the "safe point" in Meldrath's Mansion a little closer to the front door to make it a little safer.
- Tuned down the rare NPCs in Mechanotus.  This is a first pass, and other changes to the difficulty of these and other such NPCs may happen in the near future.
- Corrected an issue with the final raid in Solteris that prevented the event from resetting properly.
- The Deepest Guk LDoN raid adventures can once again be accessed through the fallen log in Innothule.
- Reaver Lebanezer will now properly assign the raid task to kill the Soulbleeder.
- Corrected an issue with spell drops in the Guardian zone. Spells should now drop at the appropriate rate in this zone.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Double fogging has been eliminated and now all in game objects should fog correctly.
- Dragon Heritage/Tattoos should no longer randomly change when using 'face' function in the inventory window.
- Fixed a few graphic issues with removing an illusion buff.
- Ranged attacks should no longer register incorrectly.
- Fixed a couple of text filtering issues.  NPC death text should now appear in the Other filter. Other NPC say messages now appear in Say filter. Cast on Other messages should now filter correctly.
- Fixed a few zone and server stability issues.
- Fixed collision issues that caused problems for shorter characters and characters on mounts.



- The EverQuest Team

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

------------------------------
December 12, 2007
------------------------------

From the patcher:

The Season of Frostfell
Being Celebrated in EverQuest December 9th - January 6th: Frostfell will be celebrated all across Norrath and beyond once again. Frostfell begins with all of the adventures that return from years past. A new Frostfell adventure will begin later in the season, bringing new treasures to acquire. The Season of Frostfell! 
*** Items ***

- Retuned portions of the "Tinmyn's Oil Can" task to be more in line with the reward.
- The enchant Palladium and Dwerium scrolls will do more checks before allowing you to scribe them.
- Increased the drop rates of the "global" Rank 2 spell drops in Secrets of Faydwer zones.
- Removed parry focus from several items when no classes could use it. It will remain on any items where some classes can use the effect.

*** Quests & Events ***

- Fixed an issue with the Golems in Crystallos that would sometimes have them hitting too hard.
- Increased the number of items that drop from the raids in Meldrath's Progression Quest from 6 to 12.
- Gridbar Galund will no longer eat items given to him allowing warriors to continue along their epic quest line.
- Fixed an issue with the Shaman Epic in West Freeport. Talking to the greater spirit should work now.

*** NPC ***

- The respawn time on Shei Vinitras has been changed to be persistent through server downs instead of having her spawn up to a day after the zone comes up.
- Increased the respawn time of Meldrath's Majestic Mansion's base population.
- The shadows created for the tradeskill quest in hills of shade should now be less dangerous to the rest of the zone.
- Increased the respawn time (time between NPC respawns) in many SoF zones.
- Merchant Sele has set up shop in Shar Vahl and sells some tailoring supplies found in other home cities.
- Increased the power of the pets summoned by the beastlord spell Howl at the Moon.

*** Tradeskills ***

- Cultural metal drops have been adjusted to drop in the proper content now.
- The level 60 to 64 spell parchments should now be properly dropping.
- Legacy Shimmering Nihilite will no longer twist the tools when it is cut.
- Eron now give the rewards for his quest in a less confusing manner.
- Elegant charms have had some mod effects added.
- Fixed a bug with the Elegant charm that prevented it from gaining stats properly from elegant armor.
- Fixed the naming issue with Legacy Pale Nihilite Recipes.
- The new shimmering Nihilite can now be used to make the old weapon components.
- Legacy pale nihilite can be cut the same way as crimson nihilite. This gemstone will undergo an odd transition from the cutting and turn crimson in color.
- The thickener needed to make enchant metal spells via spell research has been changed to invigorating thickener.
- High level humanoids no longer value tin and ruined pelts. Instead they value titanium and flawless animal pelts like they should have.

*** Tasks ***

- The quest to save the scout clockwork in the guardian has been updated to update the whole group. Because of this, the scout will now only repop at the rate of other NPC's in the zone, instead of the five minute repop he was on.

*** AA ***

- Removed the Mana cost from the Call Hither AA.
- Additional ranks of the Druid AA Nature's Boon should increase in healing as the description states.
- Origin and Silent Presence are no longer on the same timer.
- Fixed a number of text and description issues.
- Set all ranks of Steady Hands and Burst of Power to ignore delevel (IE: You keep the value of the AA if you lose the level you need to purchase the AA) to be consistent with other AAs that raise skill caps.
- Shaman were incorrectly left off the AA Hastened Call of the Wild and this has been fixed.
- The AA Foraging will now not be revoked if you fall below the level needed to purchase the AA.
- Modified the timers for Arcane Whisper and Fortify Companion so that they do not conflict.


- The EverQuest Team