News Announcements - December 5, 2006

Headlines

East and West Commons have been combined and graphically updated to form a newly revamped Commonlands zone!

Hot Zones

New Hot Zones! Some new zones and some familiar stomping grounds make up this set of Hot Zones. Included in these zones will be some new encounters and new items for you to enjoy.

The new hot zones are:

• 20 Kurn's Tower
• 25 Unrest
• 30 Tower of Frozen Shadow
• 35 Lower Guk
• 40 The Hole
• 45 Chardok
• 50 Sebilis
• 55 Grieg's End
• 60 Cazic Thule
• 65 Splitpaw

AAs

• Corrected an issue with the AA - Petrified Roots that was incorrectly increasing the chance for an NPC to break root. This ability should now correctly reduce the chance an NPC has to break root.
• Modified the Serpent Spine Expendable AA abilities to be more powerful for the same cost.
• Added Spell Critical chance increases to the Expendable AA Glyph of Destruction and opened it up for use by casters.
• Deep Sleep will now work on mesmerization spells over level 70.

Items

• The weapon delay restrictions have been removed from the Mossy Tundra Stone and Everlasting Forge Coal.
• Several high level TSS shields now have their appropriate augmentation slots.
• The proc rate on Brightflame, Pride of the Lifebringer has been increased to a more appropriate level.
• With the exception of diseased forages, the forages from The Serpents Spine zones have been given a small vendor value.
• Changed most of the gems in the game to stack to 100.
• Dyn'leth's Spy Glass has been improved to work more effectively.
• Keikolin's Mindhaze Sleeves now have a chromatic damage focus effect instead of a magic damage focus effect.
• The swarm pet from the Savage Platinum Fists functions correctly again.

NPCs

• NPCs can now potentially drop more than 8 items. Also, stackable items will be dropped as stacks instead of as several single items.
• Added cash loot to some NPCs in Sunderock that had none.
• Butcher Redloe now correctly describes how to make Blood Sausage.
• Termun in Crescent Reach is a bit more forgiving of foreigners.
• Lowered the poison effect on the lower half of snakes in the mesa.
• Removed some errant drops from the base Thundercrest zone.
• - Increased the drop rates for the Powersources in Ashengate and Frostcrypt that are used for various armor tasks in Crescent Reach.

Spells

• Fixed an issue with casting spells as soon as spell gems started to become available, where the user would get a "Spell recovery time not yet met" error.
• Players will now always be able to see themselves and their group members who are invisible or hiding.
• Bolt spells should now function more appropriately. Arrows and bolt spells should now work regardless of height differences between you and your target, as long as you have line of sight.
• The recourse effects from Doppelganger and Dimensional Instability can no longer be buff blocked.
• Necklace of Warportal Fragments effect now requires vendor bought Small Portal Fragments as a reagent instead of Portal Fragments

Quests

• Fixed a pathing issue that would cause the pilgrims on the Altar Escort task to warp through Icefall.
• The Evidence of Corruption task has been modified slightly. Zhureni will no longer want Igneous Cairn Stones, Lava Ooze Glands, or the Vial of Burning Liquid until you have collected them all.

Tasks

• Changed an error in the text of Dorina's Quest in the Mesa.
• Corrected an issue with the following Grandmaster Cultural Symbol quests: "Thundercrest Expedition", "The Latest in Clockworks!", and "A Bit of Spider, a Bit of Drake". If you are a Dwarf, High Elf, or Gnome, have the quest from before this update but haven't completed it, and the task has less than 6 steps including hidden ones marked with a "???", there are some special steps you can take to update your quest to include these changes while keeping your current progress. NOTE: These steps are not required and your task can be completed without going through this, but your task may not display updates properly.
1. Go to the Artisan in your home town that gave out the task. Be sure that you have a few minutes and do not zone or log out until you have completed all steps.
2. Say "Broken" to the Artisan and it will start a new dialog tree.
3. Read everything carefully and respond appropriately. There will be text in brackets. Be sure to say exactly what is in the brackets. You will be asked to remove tasks at certain steps. Be very certain you have the correct task highlighted before you hit the remove button. Take your time and follow the directions carefully.
4. Following these steps properly will give you the updated the task and preserve the progress you have made on the old version.

Tradeskills

• Some of the grandmaster cultural symbol tasks have been made easier by being less specific about the NPCs that are needed for the kill step. For example, if the kill step was "kill 120 Isle Drakes" it will now be "Kill 120 Isle Creatures". Additionally, the kill steps will only be able to be completed in the base zone, or instance of the base zone that is mentioned in the task text. The loot step will still only be on the specific creatures, and only in instances.
• Metal Bits now stack more efficiently.
• Changed the name of the three old cultural sewing kits and their tokens to make them stand out. They will continue to work for basic tailoring as they have for a while, and they will continue to not work for cultural tailoring, as they have not for a while.
• Added fish from The Serpents Spine to the Bait Dispenser.
• Fixed a misspelling of the recipe name for Feir'Dal Sewing Kit and Teir'Dal Sewing Kit.
• Removed the tradeskill flag from Onyx Ring.
• More of the "Blue Diamond Cultural" was set for Luclin release on progression servers.
• Crystalwing Sewing Kit and Crescent Essence recipes can now be learned.
• Crescent Essence can now be traded.

-- Jhet

News Announcements - Wednesday October 25, 2006

Highlights

• The way that AA experience is granted within each con range has been adjusted. NPCs that are higher level within the con range will now give more AA experience than NPCs that are lower level, but con the same.
• In order for Sony Online Entertainment to provide you with the best possible customer service we will be integrating a new SOE Customer Service interface into EverQuest which will allow us to provide you with a Unified Front of customer support where all forms of service will have the same general look and feel in a centralized location. You'll also be able to view support and service requests in an archived history regardless of how you contacted us or what game you contacted us about! For more information on this change please read the announcement in "The Town Crier" on the EverQuest forums at http://eqforums.station.sony.com.

Items

• Warweaver has been corrected to be a Paladin / Shadowknight only weapon. Players who looted the item before the patch have had the item exchanged for a different weapon: Warsorrow.
• The damage ratios of several high-end TSS weapons have been retuned.
• The Cartographer's Loadstone has been modified so that stat increases are better spread over the quest's progression. The final stats are now achieved at the final step of the quest instead of the preceding step.

Tradeskills

• The recipe names for some of the poisons that use sketches have been made clearer.
• Some poison-making components have had their stack sizes adjusted.
• Fixed a misspelling in the title of Brodder's Lost Diaries.
• Enabled Fierce Heraldic for a more appropriate expansion on the progression servers.
• Crow in North Qeynos has decided to use the same supplier as the ones in Abysmal Sea and now has a full stock of his brew.
• Smith Gyasi in Crescent Reach should now properly get more supplies when you offer him a completed ore shipment.
• Halima and Baker Kosey now carry a supply of beans.
• Rylin Coil will now give players any missing Tinkering Mastery books if they have already completed the task.

Events

• The Muramite Proving Ground trials will properly flag everyone currently in the zone when a raid is successfully completed.
• The Stitch event should now spawn properly after the ambush event is completed.
• The Cursebearers in Inktu`ta should no longer warp shortly after spawning.

Quests

• Many of the Ashengate faction quests should take less time to complete.
• Fixed the combine for the Flowers for Veldyn task.
• Shryyn's Quest "A Fair Trade" is now repeatable. Since this is now repeatable the experience given upon completion has been reduced. Additionally the quest item is now lore.

Raids

• Made some fixes to the King Odeen raid in Valdeholm. He will take a little longer to escape and will give warnings if you have almost given him enough time to escape. When he does escape the mission will fail outright. Also corrected some errors with the Commander Clanghor (his assistants won't run off without him) and with the High Keepers. You will now have to defeat them before moving on to the next part of the event and their ability to heal has been removed.

NPCs

• The inhabitants of Frostcrypt will be more likely to see invisible individuals than they did previously.
• Reduced the level of Expin in Greater Faydark so he can be successfully pick pocketed again.
• Mesa Snakes have a bit less poison than they used to have, though the effectiveness of the poison is the same.
• Librarian Hemfar in Crescent Reach should now be willing to offer you the charm reward for turning in artifacts. If you did not receive the offered reward, hail him again.
• The swarm pet from the Savage Platinum Fists now functions correctly.

AAs

• Corrected the description of Mercy Kill so it properly reflects that it works on NPCs below levels 66, 68, and 70.
• Adjusted the way that AA experience is granted within each con range. NPCs that are higher level within the con range will now give more AA experience than NPCs that are lower level, but con the same.

-- Jhet

News Announcements - October 5, 2006

• Corrected the missing stats on ashengate and frostcrypt augments.
• Errant spells that were being sold by the crescent reach spell vendor are no longer player usable.
• Fixed an issue with the Wanderlust quests requiring access to a raid instance to progress.

-- Jhet

News Announcements - October 4, 2006

NPCS

• Added level 10 to 25 spell and melee tome merchants to Crescent Reach near the Master's Hall.
• Artisan Moswin decided that she disliked being confused for the bakers assistant Moswen. She has decided to go by her other name Irisi.

Quests

• Scout Zryan will no longer award the final item awards for his mission arc after each mission in the arc.
• Wanderlust Guild: Crypt Delving no longer requires you to enter the Shade King's chambers.
• In Icefall the Nightmoon and Coldeye clans will be more pleased with you than they were before if you kill their enemies. However, the quest givers for these two clans will not deal with you unless you are at least tolerated among the clan itself.
• Nerissa Clothspinner has realized that she will need money to continue the search for her sister. She will now continue to sell her wares when she is on the move.

Tradeskills

• Yew Leaves now look like leaves.
• Some secrets to making the single unfired tradeskill charms have gotten out and they are now easier to make. The unfired artisan charm and the firing of the charms is still a difficult process.
• Some spell research items and a few poison making items stack better.
• Acids used in spell research are now sold by NPC vendors. These vendors do not like handling such items so they charge a hefty premium for carrying them. You will save money making them yourself, but you can save time by buying them.
• Fixed a misspelling in the spell recipe for Elemental Simulacrum.
• Made changes to the following list of spell recipes to more closely match the systematic spell research system. If you already learned to make these spells your recipe book will automatically update to match. The Spells changed are: Feral Form, Virtue, Hand of Virtue, Maelstrom of Ro, Rathe's Son, Elemental Siphon, Elemental Simulacrum, Symbol of Kazad, Flameshield of Ro, Ward of Xegony, Servant of Marr, Xegony's Phantasmal Guard, Kazad`s Mark, Armor of the Zealot, Cry of Thunder, Star Scream, Faith, Pacification, Ward of Nife, Pious Might, Aura of the Crusader, Cloak of Luclin, Crusader's Purity, Serene Command, Placate, Zevfeer's Bite and Touch of the Devourer.
• The task "Thundercrest Expedition" for Dwarven grandmaster cultural charms now requires the correct item in the second stage (Stone Necklace).

AAs

• AA experience now mimics the way leveling experience splits within a group made up of players of very different levels.

Missions

• If you are in the death limbo state (hover mode) when the mission completes and the rewards are granted, you will now get your reward.

Combat

• If you logout with an active combat timer, when you login again you will now see the correct timer.
• Bolt spells and ranged weapons should no longer fire straight up.

Miscellaneous

• Corrected a problem that was causing some beneficial melee disciplines to not show up in the buff windows.

-- Jhet

News Announcements - September 27, 2006

NPCs

• Moved Ezna Connoy and Tavin of the Wild a little further south. While they are one with the animals around them, some of their customers were unhappy with their location.
• Increased the elemental essence drop rates off the four elemental gods in Planes of Power.
• Frannie in Surefall Glade now carries shiny new combine smithy hammers.
• Removed Spin Stun from the NPCs in Infected Paw.
• Improved run animations for both male and female Drakkin

Tradeskills

• Altered the systematic spell research spells Belt of Magi'Kot and Girdle of Magi'Kot to better match the systematic system.
• Added the spells Summon Glowing Bauble, Summon Platinum Choker, Summon Runed Mantle, Summon Sapphire Bracelet, Summon Spiked Ring, Summon Steel Bracelet, Summon Jewelry Bag to the systematic spell research system.
• Vergalid Clay, Medicinal Moss, and Vergalid Slave Manacles have all moved to Sunderock outside of Vergalid.

Spells

• Four of the mage summoned spells in Serpent’s Spine are now tradable.
• Damage from Necromancer and Shadowknight lich-type spells has been reduced by a third.
• The range on Mayong and Ayonae bane clicky items has been decreased.
• Several unresistable melee attacks no longer work on other players.
• Corrected a problem that was causing some spells to resist more often than they should.
• Bolt spells should now behave more consistently.
• Fixed a problem with illusion spells making everyone default to the same appearance.
• Invisibility should no longer stack with other forms.

Missions

• Several issues with the Finding Fibblebrap mission have been fixed.

Items

• The appearance of evergreen leaves on the ground has changed. They now look more leaf like!

AAs

• Corrected the level requirements for Greater Blood Tithe and Funeral Dirge.
• Players should now be able to get AA experience from Monster Missions.

UI

• Players using custom UIs should now be able to go back to character select from in game and see their characters.

-- Jhet

News Announcements - September 19, 2006

Highlights

Welcome to EverQuest: The Serpent's Spine, the 12th expansion for EverQuest!

• New Player Race: The Drakkin have been created from both human and dragon blood to protect the future of all dragon kind. Several colors and customizations will be available to make each Drakkin character unique, such as elegant scale markings and horns.
• Level Cap Increase: Players can now reach level 75, complete with new spells, abilities, raids and quests for greater power.
• Content for Levels 1 to 75: Play through every level of the game without ever leaving the Serpent Spine Mountains. The entrance to Serpent's Spine can be found within Highpass Hold.
• New Starting City: Crescent Reach is a fully functioning city with all that is required to learn and thrive in EverQuest, including merchant, quest, combat and tradeskill areas. All classes and races are welcome within the city.
• Dynamic Features: New zones, NPCs, destructible and interactive objects.
• New AAs

Spell Ranks: The new spells that you can acquire in The Serpent's Spine have different ranks to them. The higher ranks of a spell are generally more powerful and more difficult to obtain than the lower ranks. When you scribe a higher rank of a spell that you already know, the lower rank will automatically be overwritten by the higher rank and your spell casting gems and hotkeys will be updated to reflect that you now have a higher rank of the spell.

General Game Improvements

AA System

The AA system has undergone some significant back-end changes. The experience you get toward an AA point is now based on the difficulty of the NPC relative to you rather than being based directly on the NPCs level. This means that you will gain a similar amount of experience killing even con creatures at all levels. The amount of experience required to gain an AA is based off the current amount required for a level 70 character to do so, so players at level 70 shouldn't see much of a difference. Players below level 70 will gain AA experience at a rate faster than they were before since they are now gaining it at a similar rate as the level 70. Going forward, this rate will remain static so the amount of kills to gain an AA point at level 75 will be the same it is at level 70. Current abilities and points spent are not affected by this change.

Death

We've made a change to the way death works. When you die now you will be "hovering" over your body and can choose to stay that way while waiting for a resurrection instead of immediately zoning to your bind point. This is being done to help players on slow connections who take a big hit from having to zone twice when they die.

Character Creation

We've changed character creation to make it more graphical, allow characters to be created from a single page, and updated it to include features associated with the new Drakkin race. As part of this, we've set up some character defaults so starting point allocation, starting city, and starting deity all have defaults now, which can be changed if you wish.

Con Color Changes

We have introduced a new con color, dark blue, which represents a range of blue con NPCs that give a bonus to their experience due to being very close to your level, generally within 5 levels. The concept of a dark blue con NPC has existed in EQ for a while now, but we've decided to change the con system to visually include this range so you can visually see when an NPC falls into this "sweet spot". To properly display a different shade of blue, we've had to reorder the cons a little bit. From trivial to highest con, the colors are now:

• Gray - This creature is trivial to you and will give you no experience for killing it.
• Green - This creature is not much of a threat, but will still give you some experience.
• Blue - This creature is below your level, but high enough level to give you experience.
• Dark Blue - This creature is below your level, but close enough to provide a solid challenge and gives you more experience than normal blue cons.
• White - This creature is the same level as you.
• Yellow - This creature is slightly above your level.
• Red - This creature is well above your level.

In addition, yellow con now extends up to 3 levels above the player for high end NPCs to help casters determine what can be affected by their spells.

Downtime

As EverQuest has grown over the years, the amount of downtime imposed upon players has grown as well and we'd rather players find challenge in the fights themselves than in the time between them. Toward that end, we've created a new system that is simple to use, but powerful and flexible enough to control downtime as the game continues to grow.

The basics of the new system are simple. Once you have been out-of-combat for a sufficient amount of time, you can sit down (or be on a non-moving horse) and begin to rest. While resting, you enter an accelerated regeneration state that will quickly recover your mana, health, and endurance. For most single group content, once you are out of combat for 30 seconds you can rest. While dealing with multi-group content, that time is 5 minutes. The amount of time you have to be out-of-combat before you can rest varies for group content and raid content due to the different needs of the different encounter types.

There are a series of icons that will display by your character's name to let you know what your character's current state is.

• Crossed Swords - You are currently in combat.
• Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest yet. In addition to the hourglass, there is a timer bar beneath the endurance bar that will count down as you get closer to being rested.
• Poison Drop - You are no longer in combat, but cannot rest because of a debuff that is affecting you. You must get rid of the debuff before you can rest. Certain debuffs now have a yellow border instead of a red one. These debuffs do not affect your ability to rest.
• Void - The void is the default icon and indicates that you are not in-combat and you can rest at any time.
• Energy Swirl - The energy swirl indicates that you are currently resting.

Group Mentoring

Players can now share their group leadership experience with another member of their group.

Reward Window

Tasks within The Serpent's Spine have a new way of giving out rewards. When there are multiple rewards to choose from, you will get to choose which one you like from a selection window. If you don’t choose a reward immediately, you can bring up the window later to make the selection but you can only have a maximum of 5 outstanding rewards at any time. If you go above that, the oldest reward will be replaced and you will be unable to claim that reward.

NPCs

• Corrected a couple of problems in the NPC call-for-help code. NPCs will now call for help immediately when attacked regardless of when they were last aggroed if they are no longer aggro. Also, NPCs will now properly aggro on the owner of a pet if the pet is sent to attack the NPC.
• Shrewd halfling bankers have set up shop in the guild lobby.
• Coldwind in Nektulos will now offer a confirmation box to players when they try to remove their Curse of the Blood AAs.
• Various issues with the Trial of Lashing in Plane of Justice have been resolved.
• The balances in the Kvxe Pirik event in Tacvi will once again reset to full health between waves.
• The Alchemy vendors have set up shop in Innothule, Everfrost, West Cabilis, and Shar Vahl.
• A new vendor has appeared in East Cabilis that caries some basic adventuring supplies.
• Tani N`mar and Founy Jestands are now pick-pocketable again.
• The skeletons summoned by the Swarm of Decay ability are casting their spells properly again.
• Tegea Prendyn has grown tired of her ocean view and now rests near an inn.
• Char and Blaze in the ROTA raid now have their spells functioning correctly again.
• Many healer NPCs in Depths of Darkhollow now require some casting time to get off their big heal.
• The Vengeful skeletons in Everfrost should no longer evade the guards quite so well.

Tradeskill

• Made the Foldable Reinforced Medicine Bag a bit roomier.
• For clarity, the tradeskill trophies and carry-alls now list the lore group they are part of.
• The yield when making metal bits has increased to 2.
• Modified the recipe for Blessing of Reverence to make the spell line more consistent.
• Lost Dungeons of Norrath and Omens of Wars spells have become tradable. Additionally, Lost Dungeons of Norrath spells will have no token sellback value to NPCs.

Spells

• Stun-caps have been added to the various levels of the Strike of Opportunity spells.
• The Circle of Power aura effects will now improve all melee and ranged attacks instead of affecting only one-hand blunt.
• Wolf form illusions will no longer automatically make you KOS to guards.
• Illusion: Tree now uses a different, global tree model rather than the tree model it used to use, which was only available in older zones.
• The damage dealt by high level NPCs that have been charmed has been increased.
• Increased the regeneration of pets while they are out-of-combat to keep pace with the increases of out-of-combat regeneration for PCs.
• Translocate spells no longer require a reagent.
• The reuse on the warrior disciplines Bazu Bellow and Mock are no longer linked together.

AAs

• Most beneficial AA effects that last for less than 30 seconds will now go to the short duration buff window instead of the normal buff window.
• Improved Harm Touch and Leech Touch are now on different timers.
• The Shadowknight AAs Consumption of the Soul and Improved Consumption of the Soul now provide a greater increase to Leech Curse.
• Refunded all AAs that increased your chance to channel through damage. Channeling is currently set to 100% for all classes due to a long standing issue in how it is calculated, so the abilities weren't doing anything. This includes Channeling Focus, Channeling Mastery, and Internal Metronome. Item Channeling abilities, such as Concentration, are not affected.
• You will now get a message if you have the Stonewall or Willful Death AA and successfully feign death through a spell that hit you.
• Lowered the reuse time on the Monk AA Imitate Death to 18 minutes. Modified Hastened Death to reduce the reuse by 2 more minutes per rank of the ability.
• Increased the mitigation of the higher ranks of the bard AA Shield of Notes.
• By popular demand, removed Spell Casting Subtlety from the Bard AA lineup. Any points spent in that ability will be refunded.
• The Beastlord AA Feral Swipe has received a damage increase.

Skills

• Modified skill progression for many classes.
• Bards and Beastlords now have access to Double Attack starting at level 71.
• All bard instrument skills are now available starting at level 5.

Veteran Rewards

Issues with the Steadfast Servant casting lower level effects at certain level ranges have been corrected.

Events

• The Aura of Destruction from Uqua and Prick of a Poisoned Pin from Demi-Plane of Blood will land reliably again and last their intended duration.
• Slightly reduced the hit-points of the third wave adds in the Sendaii event.

Items

• Changed the name of the "Stromguard Forge" to "Stormguard Forge".
• Many items that had extremely strong light sources have had their light sources reduced a bit to help with the issues where lightly colored surfaces become blindingly bright.
• Many spell reagents now stack to 100 instead of 20.
• Some items now have a new tab on them called "Lore" that will give extended information about the item.
• Shield of the Immaculate, Amulet of Necropotence, and Holgresh Elder Beads are now flagged all/all.
• Upgraded Stats on Class Specific Items in Demiplane of Blood.

Disciplines

You may now learn combat abilities by right-clicking upon the Tomes instead of delivering them to your guild master.

Miscellaneous

• Race based experience penalties have been removed.
• You can you enable texture streaming from the advanced graphics options window. This should reduce the total memory used by the client during any given play session.

-- Jhet