Welcome to the Station LaunchPad

EverQuest is now officially on the Station LaunchPad.

Read all about it from the patch notes here.

EQ Producer Letter - 8/13/07

Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer:

Hello everyone! Now a Producer's letter that has a bit more meat to it compared to the one that rolled out prior to Fan Faire.

The Producer's letter is here.

Commentary: If this is what he considers more meat, then Jourdian must be anorexic.

Fan Faire Report

Here are some issues reported from the latest Fan Faire in Las Vegas.

General Gameplay

* Fizzles – They plan to look into changing the fact that fizzling a spell takes up a gift of mana. Between the MOTP patch and the following one, fizzles didn't use them up and they seemed to agree that fizzles shouldn't use them up.

* AC – Planning to address some issues involving AC caps. They would like to see AC be a more dramatic change than it currently is. Rashere mentioned a few times that visible AC isn't what a players AC actually is.

* Buff Timers – Looking into equalizing buff timers so that some of the fundamental long term buffs will have the same timers.

* % Health – Hopefully they will find a way to put this command into the game. On the wishlist.

* Auras – Code is preventing fixing aura stacking at the moment. Looking into possibly adding a self buff to the aura you cast so that you'll have that on you if you run into an aura stacking issue.

* Rezzes – 1-2 second immunity after rezzes could be possible. They would consider allowing a player to get a couple items looted before they start dealing with the Aes of the zone they're in.

* Hover – The request to have a “no hover” toggle option was mentioned and will be looked into.

* Spell Sets – Possible addition of more spell sets to how many you can have saved.

* Ldon Points – Possible for these to eventually be turned into a currency like newer expansions have.

* Faction / Merchants – It was suggested to link item cost to faction in the case of currency items.

* /Ann – Looking into making this persistent so you don't have to turn it on every time you log on. Also will look into making it channel specific.

* Guild Bank – Possibly adding a coin slot to it

* Guild Lobby – Potentially adding a zone to the bazaar so that players can skip going through PoK.

* Cross Server Instancing – Is not possible and won't be most likely for a long time. This is due to the way the game was created and has nothing to do with people potentially abusing the system. Its a code thing.

* Chaotic Jester – Will not be changed. Its meant to have positive and negative rewards and they have no intention of altering how it works.

* Line of Sight – These issues are code problems and its not something that we can expect to see any changes to soon.

* PVP Recourse Spells – Certain spells may not be used in PVP on normal servers since they have recourses. There was a reason for this initially but since so many spells are now affected by this simple rule, they will look into flagging some spells as PVPable since the reason they weren't allowed doesn't apply.


Class Specific

1. Wizard -

* Cryomancy - Has been changed to unresistable damage and unresistable snare. The snare has been properly set back to 65% which is the maximum amount that you can snare a mob for. Nodyin wasn't sure why it was broken but it should be fixed (if it isn't already in game). Snare immune mobs will no longer have this land on them, however, and that was intentional.

* Spell Changes - The wizard spell changes are still not finalized. The general idea is that you will use a specific nuke to get a proc that will affect only a specific spell so you will need to cast certain spells in order in order to maximize your DPS. This type of casting pattern will appear for the TBS / TSS lines and will be continued with SoF.

* Spell Changes - I pushed both Rashere and Prathun into responding at least twice about the statement Prathun made about burst DPS coming at a higher penalty and sustained DPS being increased. Both of them insisted several times that sustained DPS would be getting an increase and that our burst will not be affected. I'm still very skeptical of this since I still feel that if they start giving us all this sustained DPS...they won't give us the needed burst improvements we need.

* Familiars – I requested a permanent “get lost” feature to be added for the wizards so that they wouldn't have to get rid of them every time they zoned. This was written down to be looked at.

* Burst DPS – Berserker vs. Wizard. In a 2 minute fight where resists and mitigation aren't an issue, Prathun said that a wizard should win when both are equally raid geared. Thats the balance he thinks it should be but that doesn't mean thats the case right now.

2. Shadow Knight -

* Slay ___ - Paladins were never supposed to have Slay Undead in its current form. Slay Undead is WAY too powerful and paladins should be thanking their lucky stars they have what they currently have. They are hesitant to put a Slay humanoid or other such ability in the game since they would do it correctly and SKs would be upset that their ability would be very limited in power compared to the broken Slay Undead. In my opinion they should do it anyways and nerf the paladin one in the process but they didn't say they were going to do either.

3. Warrior -

* Weapon Graphics - These are going to get larger. Merloc doens't like the little swords any more than you guys do.

4. Magician -

* Pet Invis - Removing invis from the air pet.

Misc

* TBS Beta Rewards – There is still no word on these. I believe the difficulty is that they aren't sure if they've got records of who would qualify. They haven't decided completely against them yet.

* Server merges – They feel that EQ has a healthy population right now that isn't drastically changing. Of all of the SoE games, EQ1 has the highest number of subscriptions and while it may seem that the particular niche we play in has a low number, they don't see the numbers to justify any merges at this time.

* Filters – A lot of bugs with filtering text were reported. They will be looking into making pet procs visible and allowing your own spells to be filtered into their own window since that currently isn't functional.

* Caster Armor Graphics – Got no response to this. You can thank Wycca for screwing us here since he got the conversation changed away from this.

* UCS – Going to see if they can get AFK messages to go through for cross server tells and also queuing messages that happen while you're zoning.

* TSS Charm – There will possibly be alternate pieces soon for the charm since raids like Udengar and Ambersnout are rarely done.

* Aug Distillers – Since people were having an issue with buying too many aug distillers and they don't see a reason for them to be no-drop items, they will most likely be making them tradeable.

* Firiona Vie – Rashere is looking into loosening up the rules on the Firiona Vie character transfer rules. This may only affect transfers to Firiona Vie at first but he would like them to be different than they currently are.


Raiding Specific

* Solteris server instability is still being looked at. Nothing new here.

* Level 80 will make TSS raiding content very easy and any guild thats around the demiplane level now should have no trouble with it.

* Powersources - Raid powersources may see a duration increase

* Solteris Spells – Only 19 rank 3 TBS spells have been purchased and they realize there is a problem there. We argued for them to be switched to the phosphite system and they are considering it since there are flags required to buy the spells anyways. They plan on discussing this and possibly adding a third option to solve the problem.


Itemization

* Item Focuses - Will soon be able to have minimums. This could go two ways. Either some focuses could simply just have their minimums raised or potentially you could have to choose between a 10%-75% focus or do a 40-45% focus depending on your playstyle.

* Focus effects – Other than the focus minimums, there isn't any plan to radically change how these work at this time.

* Melee Focuses – Looking into merging Parry and Block. I believe this one got a thumbs up.

* Solteris Focuses – Level cap changes on focuses are possible and likely on Solteris items.

* 2H Weapons – Possible extra aug slot on 2h weapons in the future.

* Caster Weapon Ratios – Will be looked at. He didn't know that there was an interest in seeing the ratios go up but sees no reason not to look into upgrading them.

* Charm Slot Augs – Hopefully will see some new options for this in the next expansion.

* Intelligent Items – Merloc wants to add more of these, just needs the time to do it.

* Gear in SoF - It was said that raiding gear will be nearly 1000 hp and that groupable gear will be near Solteris level. This was a little scary to me since it is such a massive change. It was unclear if this included aug values and powersources or not.


Spells

* Spell Ranks - in TSS and TBS were minimal and smaller than they should be. The concern was that rank 1 spells needed to be an upgrade to their predecessors and they couldn't allow rank 3s to be that much more powerful. With the upcoming expansion there will be much more room to work with and the spells will actually be larger upgrades between the ranks. The rank system will be continuing, no news on if it will be more like TSS or TBS as far as obtaining goes.
* Enchanters - Will be getting an AE knockback + root + mem blur spell in SoF.
* Wizards - Will be getting a Patient Harvest upgrade in SoF since it will be much needed with the upcoming gear changes


Lore

* Sleeper – When he woke up..he ran off to a place called Dragon Scale Hills I believe (someone can correct me..I might have misheard) and he is coming back in SoF. They would not tell us if we will be killing him or doing something like waking him up again.

* Ayonae Ro – Her banishment is what allowed Mayong Mistmoore to escape and attack in Solteris. Now that we have killed him, don't expect to see him back for quite some time but it is possible that he could come back eventually.

-----------------
The full thread is here.

Q & A from Merloc’s Tower – 7/20/07

Throughout the week, Merloc receives questions from various places and answers as many as he can. He wanted to start sharing some of his answers with everyone else so that he wouldn't have to repeat himself.

Here's the fourth edition of Q & A from Merloc's Tower.

EQ Producer Letter - 7/31/07

Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer, has released his latest letter to players. The link to it is here.

Commentary: This letter basically says nothing. He recently became EQ Producer and upon gaining the position he told us how he would listen to us and he would communicate with us often to keep us informed. Once again, SoE promised us they would be responsive, and once again, they have lied.

Update: Jourdian responded, "I really did mean to shoot out an update instead of a full blown Producer's letter. Once Fan Faire is over I will be at liberty to discuss more about the expansion, new additions to the game and overall concerns and suggestions." Read the entire thread commenting on the Producer's letter here.

EverQuest House of Commons Dev Chat - July 18, 2007

Click here for log.

This chat mentions they are aware that the "West" bug began a new breeding season after the last patch. They also mention that the most hated "feature", expendable Power Sources, are going to be in the next expansion and will be increased in power. So get used to even more boring grinding in crappy missions just to have your gear not suck.

House of Commons Dev Chat Log - June 20, 2007

I've been slacking with EQ lately but here is the chat log for June 20, 2007, click here.

Knight Summoned Steeds Bug, Fix Due Next Patch

Knights have three separate steeds which they can call up. With the new AA window, they were combined into one.

I'm going to fix that. Next patch all 3 lines will be separated out again.

- Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full post is here.

Mage Fire AAs Bugged, Fix Due Next Patch

Mages have AAs that permit them to increase their fire damage. One requires you to assume Fire Elemental form, the other does not. The one that does not require Fire Elemental form appears to be bugged.

Both the "Heart of" and "Core" AAs still exist. The Mage correspondent alerted me that the requirements were set incorrectly on both of them (Requiring rank 3 of the "Elemental Form: X" line instead of the previous rank 1 requirement. I've corrected that bug and it will be fixed in the next patch.

- Nodyin, EQ Designer

Read the full post here.

Careful, or Your Face Will Stay That Way

Making faces really can cause problems. And you thought your parents were just trying to scare you!

i changed my facial features and whenever i zone they revert back to something else. anyone else have this problem? it seems to only happen when i try to use no facial hair and have a bald head.

It's a bug and should be fixed with our next patch.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

Read about it here.

New Expansion Release Dates and More

Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer, has posted a letter about SOE's future plans for EQ. Among other things, he says:

In this Producer letter I am proud to announce that we're changing our tactics so we can accomplish what we have set out to do and do it with the quality we know we can deliver. Our next expansion will be released in November. This will give us more time to polish the game content and features. I am also happy to announce that November will be the month for all future expansion releases as well.

Read his letter to players here.

Upcoming DoT Hate Change

In the near future, we're going to make a change that will reduce the amount of hate generated by DoTs so I wanted to give a head's up. For most damage spells, they generate aggro based on the base amount of damage they do. DoTs do this as well, generating hate based on their damage every tick, but they also generate initial aggro worth one tick of damage when they first land. This means that they basically have one extra damage tick's worth of aggro at all times.

We're changing things so that you won't gain aggro based on the DoTs damage until it actually does its first tick of damage which will bring them in line with other damage spells for the amount of hate they generate.

- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

DoT Shielding Still Broken

Although the April 18 patch message reported some fixes to DoT shielding, it appears there are still a few problems with it. It seems that while it works now for DoTs cast on you, when the mob that cast it dies, it stops working.

Just checked with code and they've got a fix for this already.

- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

No word on when the fix will go live.

The full thread is here.

Frostcrypt Trash Mobs on Steroids

Normal mobs in Frostcrypt have been taking steroids, according to reports. Norrath Mob Anti-doping officials have begun an investigation after hearing they were hitting for upwards of 10k.

We've been able to reproduce this problem (as was stated in the Maximum Redfang!!! thread) and it has been given to the coders so they can look into it.

Thanks for the heads up on this issue! - Maddoc, Assistant Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Massive Changes Coming for Cultural Armor and Tailoring / Smithing

SOE has announced that they will be making some huge changes in Cultural Armor as well as the skill up paths for Tailoring and Smithing.

The changes are too large to detail in this post so you should check out the announcement here.

More Skin to Vines Changes Due

The druid spell Skin to Vines has never worked properly. After several fixes, SOE has announced that they will be making another change. Hopefully, with this change, the spell will finally work properly.

Since Skin to Vines now turns undead and summoned creatures into plants and stops other abilities from working, it seems the cure was more harmful than the affliction. With some new functionality we received a few days ago I was able to change Skin to Vines such that it works on everything except undead and summoned creatures. This should go live in our next major patch. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Prathun, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Additional information:

Good point. Changed it to affect everything but Summoned, Construct, and Undead. Thanks! - Prathun, EQ Designer

DoT Shielding Fixed?

Fast updates on this one...

Code has found and fixed the issue. DoT Shielding was only working if you cast a spell on yourself or in a PvP situation. After the fix, DoT shielding will properly work on any spell NOT cast on you by yourself and will continue to work in PvP.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

SOE was not clear it is already fixed in the game or if it will go out in the next patch.

Progression Servers To Merge

On March 28, 2007, we will be merging the EverQuest Progression Servers. Characters will be moved from The Sleeper server to The Combine server and The Combine server will retain its name. The Sleeper server will then be closed.

We will not be doing the low level character wipe at the time of the merge. We will re-evaluate the situation after the merge and determine if the character wipe is needed.

The scheduled downtime is from 4:00 am Pacific Time to 12 noon. We will provide the answers to other questions as needed before the merge as needed.

The full article is here.

Fabled Augments Bugged

The fabled augments can't currently be inserted, but they should be fixed in the next patch.

The 35 AC aug from a 55ish level NPC was a mistake, the 35ac is meant to be 35 endurance and it will be changed in the next patch.

- Merloc, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

8th Anniversary Events Live

SOE has announced a number of things to commemorate the eighth anniversary of EverQuest. Of main concern is the Fabled mobs and a new scavenger hunt.

Anniversary In-Game Events - We have introduced dozens of Fabled Luclin NPCs, we brought back all the fabled fiends of years past and there is a new scavenger hunt! Speak with Tyla Filinav in the Nexus if you are interested in helping her collect a few things. These Anniversary Festivities will be available from March 16, 2007 through April 16, 2007.

Read all about it as well as some messages from current and former developers here.

EQ With All Expansions for $19.99

Apparently SOE has secret plans to release a new edition of EQ with all expansions. I call the plans secret since the press release seems to only be found on Casters Realm and no where else. EverQuest.com and EQ Players have no word on this.

EverQuest® The Anniversary Edition includes all expansions ever created for EverQuest® making it the largest compilation of MMO expansions ever

EverQuest The Anniversary Edition will only be available at participating retail locations and is scheduled for release on April 23, 2007, for the suggested retail price of US$19.99.

Go here to read the full press release.

Allegedly, this was sent out in the Station Newsletter. Since I subscribe to the EverQuest Newsletter (I still haven't received any yet) and not the Station Newsletter (since I have zero interest in their other games), I was unaware of this information.

Developers' Chat March 21st

Click here for a log of the chat.

No Reward for The Domes Are Cracking Mission

Yes the reward is missing. I don't know how it happened but I'll take the hit for this one. We'll need a patch to get this fixed but I've already made the change on Test. As soon as I know when we can fix this I'll let you guys know. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Bazaar Items Lose Pricing

In a stealth 'update', items placed for sale in the bazaar must have their prices input again.

Due to the method for storing bazaar prices, any prices on bazaar listing has been removed. You will need to relist your bazaar items with new prices. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes. Going forward there should be no further issues with pricing being removed from items. - Kytherea, EQ Community Relations Manager

The full thread is here.

Note that the prices should be saved in your bazaar log file, so check your Log folder and you should be able to find them there. However, you have to manually input them into EQ.

Some people have created some programs to automate fixing this. Go here to read the thread.

Melee Bind Coming to Katta Castrum

Currently, melee types can't bind in Katta Castrum, even though it is a city.

I'll change it so you can bind there.

- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Station Access Subscription Price Increase

Note: Be aware that this only applies to people with a Station Access subscription, which allows them to play many SOE games for one price. It does not apply to those people who only play and pay for EverQuest.

February 28, 2007
_____________________

News for Station Access Subscribers

We want to give you some important information regarding your Station Access subscription. Effective April 2, 2007, the new monthly subscription rate will be US$29.99 per month (not including applicable taxes).

We know that rate adjustments are never popular, but the increase is driven by our desire to provide our Station Access subscribers with a consistently high quality entertainment experience, as evidenced by our most recent addition to the Station Access subscription plan, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes™.

You don't have to do a thing; you will automatically be migrated to the new monthly subscription rate under your existing subscription plan when your current subscription plan comes up for renewal on or after April 2, 2007.

We appreciate your support and continued participation in our community.

Station Access subscriptions are recurring, meaning you will continue to be billed at the appropriate subscription interval, until you affirmatively cancel your subscription. Subscription fees are subject to tax and value-added tax, as applicable. The subscription charges are in addition to the cost of the games that are part of the Station Access subscription plan. All game software is sold separately.

For more information, please visit: www.stationaccess.com.

Deathknell Flag Problems

Several problems with the Deathknell flags have been reported. Several fixes have been put into place, others will require a full patch.

Read the full thread here.

Forage for Everyone

A forage AA will be made available to everyone in the next few months if things go as planned. We didn't get the code changes we needed to make this work for TSS and it wasn't something that I could do for TBS.

- Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Darkened Chanting Woodspirit in Plane of Storms Bugged

The Darkened Chanting Woodspirit is for the shaman epic 2.0. This mob has several issues that prevent a shaman from completing this part of the epic.

Thanks for posting. I've looked into it and it has been fixed. The change will be live in the next couple of days.

Vahlar, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Quest Fixes Due Next Patch

The Cleansing the Island quest requires that you say to the researcher "vials" and "special potion" for the cures and disguise potion to turn you in to the various animals of the island. He then gives you a stack of 50 cures and one special potion. However, the text never mentions this.

I've added information to his task text that mentions that you have to ask for the potion and the vials. This will go out with the next full update.

- Absor, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

The Secret of Sunset Ridge? quest requires that you hand in the Sunstone Sun Charm that you handed in on a previous mission. Needless to say, since you handed it in earlier, you don't have it now to hand in.

Well that was pretty stupid of us. That happened because of a lack of communication between two designers (my bad).

I've fixed the Sunstone Savages task to not require handing in the Sunstone Sun Charm, but that will have to be updated with a full update, and I don't know when that will happen.

- Absor, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Charm Augment Removal Problem

I'm not sure if this is something new, but it seems like augments with extra text are not displaying solvent information.

I'll ask code to look into it and correct the display so that it displays the solvent type as well.

- Merloc, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Old Sebilis Key Problem

If you have the idol but don't have it on your keyring, it seems you can't go in. It looks like the zone in only checks the /key and not the idol.

I've been working on this problem most of today. I think I know what's going on and have a fix heading over to QA to verify. The problem seems to affect people who only have the idol and don't have it on their key ring yet.

- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Update 02/27/2007:

I can get a semi-fix in place without a full patch that will let people use the normal entrance again. You just won't be able to fellowship in until a full patch is done. I'll be looking to get the semi-fix in place today or tomorrow.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

Developer Chat - February 21, 2007

House of Commons Dev Chat Log - February 21, 2007

Stacked Items Bugged in Bazaar

I saw something from a coder about looking into something about this.

It seems to be when the seller has more than one stack of an item, and to give the buyer the quantity requested it needs to hit a "second" stack, it does not count anything from the second stack in the money it gives the seller. From the note it looks like the coder found the issue.

I am not sure when the fix will go in, but I expect that it needs a patch.

Though admittedly this will put a crimp in peoples "AFK" sales... if you can just have one stack per item, it should keep your money complete until the fix goes in.

- Ngreth, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Guide to the Katta Castrum Portals

I have placed a guide to the Katta Castrum Portals in my EverQuest Wiki.

The Wiki is here.

The guide is in the Zones section. At the moment, I've placed a link at the top of the Zones section. It can also be accessed by clicking on the link for Katta Castrum. In the future, once TBS has been around for a while, I plan on removing the link at the top of the page but it will still be accessible through the Katta Castrum link.

A direct link to the guide is here.

Please feel free to edit or add to the Wiki any EverQuest information you have.

More on Guild Banners...

The "Banner Material Kit" and "Banner Dye Kit" are the items that are used to create a banner and place it in the world.

When you open the guild window and go to the "Banners" Tab, you should see a list box with a single entry that says "Standard of Honor". Just beneath that list box, you'll see a checkox that says "Show All", select it.

This will populate the list box with a bunch of banners that are going to be greyed out (which means you don't have the components to create them). Just beneath the checkbox you checked is the description window, which will give you a brief description of the banner's effect, as well as the items needed to create that banner, which you may then purchase those items from the two guild banner vendors in Plane of Knowledge.

The "Banner Exchange Insignia" are used to edit the settings (looks) if your banner. The more you change the looks of your banner, the more it's going to cost you by requiring a higher tier of exchange insignia.

- Maddoc, Assistant Lead Designer

Placing a banner requires 12 guildmates to be in the same zone within 150 distance units from the player planting the banner. If they're too far away, they will not be able to place the banner.

- Maddoc, Assistant Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Veeshan's Peak Mobs Loot Tables Bugged

It seems the mobs are dropping cloth caps instead of their normal loot.

The appropriate folks are aware of this. Currently one of the crash bugs prevents us from even live-copying zones, so we will get it fixed as soon as we can. - Ngreth, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Guild Banner Bugged in Demiplane

It seems you can plant the Banner in Demiplane but when people try to use it, they get this message: "Current guild banner cannot be teleported to".

I brought this up with several people last week, we're looking into it. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

TBS Solteris-Progression Arc Bugged

It seems that the progression Combine Signet Ring is bugged in various ways. Read this thread for more information.

TBS Task "Confront Emperor Vaakiszh" Bugged

The Emperor does not reset on failure. So if you wipe or evac while fighting him, the mission fails.

Sorry about that. I have a fix for this and I'll check when I get in to work to see what the status is on this (has QA verified the fix works?) and figure out when we can get it out to the Live servers. The event can be completed now but just has issues if you wipe. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Bonus Experience Weekend

Bonus Experience Weekend

Greetings,

We hope that everyone is enjoying all the features that The Buried Sea expansion has to offer. The team worked hard to focus on content and features that would enhance gameplay, while reducing the adventuring downtime in between. If you haven't tried it thus far, you can find information about the expansion here.

We would like to apologize for the inconvenience of the amount of server downtime that has occurred since the release on Tuesday. To help you enjoy this weekend, we are turning up the heat! Experience will be increased fifty percent on Friday evening and will remain until Tuesday morning [February 20th] at 10 am Pacific Time.

Enjoy!

~ The EverQuest Team.

The link to the post is here.

TBS Port Spells On The Way

It appears that The Buried Sea expansion will launch without any port spells. They are going to add a wizard port to Katta and a druid port to Buried Sea. This isn't going to make it in time for the launch, but it will follow shortly afterward.

(Checking the official post on lifting the Beta NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement), it appears that I am allowed to relay this information since it relates to game content but I am not allowed to link it to the source or say exactly how I know. But I can tell you it is an official word from SOE.)

Update: I can now link to an official word on the ports. Also here is a developer post on the issue -

Prat made them all - ports, group ports and translocates/zephyrs. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

TSS Item Changes

Just to give a quick update here...

We weren't able to get the TSS item changes in for the live patch this week. It's the top item on Merloc's task list at the moment, though, and I expect he'll be wrapping them up later this week.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Rampage and Other Questions

A while back there was talk of changing the "goes on a Rampage" message to reflect if it was single or AE. Is this still "in the works" or abandoned?

A while back there was talk of adding faction hits to Stitcth and Sothgar (if not all raid trash) to facilitate backflagging. Is this still "in the works" or abandoned?

A while back there was talk that the skels in non-instanced dreadspire were fixed on test to be non-see-ivu and set to normal instead of raid mobs. Is this still "in the works" or abandoned?

Enquiring minds want to know. - Prex_Atlane

1. Fixed and will go live with the next patch. Sorry for the delay. We thought it was done already, I'm not sure what happened with that.

2. That's in progress. Rashere asked me to look at the entire TSS progression arc and I'm going to be doing that over the next few weeks including these raids and faction hits on them. It makes sense to add "backflag" faction to the raids if you can 85/15 into them.

3. I'm not sure about that, I'll check

Nodyin, EQ Designer (02/08/2007)

The full thread is here.

Update (same thread):

AE Rampage will be shown as "Soandso goes on a WILD RAMPAGE" after the patch tomorrow.

Also, the dreadspire see IVU NPCs should be fixed. That change was done a while ago and the data will go out with the patch.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

Pets - "Thanks for the Memories"

A bug was introduced wherein pets would forget the NPC they were told to attack. This is due to be fixed in the next patch (February 13).

I believe the "pets forgetting their attacker" problem was introduced with the OOC changes which made an NPC forget about you 30 seconds after you left its awareness range. Since pets are NPCs they are also affected.

We've added a check to exclude PC pets from this calculation which should return them to their previous behavior. Barring any problems, this should go out with the expansion patch.

Rashere, EQ Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

Wizard Instacast Bug to be Fixed

The bug that affects instacast spells, you try to cast one, and if it fails for some reason, ALL your spell gems gray out for the duration of the refresh (10 seconds), will be fixed in the next patch (February 13).

As far as I know the fix for this is done and will go out with the Patch for TBS. If it's still giving you issues let us know after that. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

In Game Mail Purge Starting February 20

Greetings,

In order to improve the performance of the in game mail system, starting on February 20, 2007, we will be implementing a routine purge that will clear out all in game mail that is more than 4 months old. This will be an ongoing process.

To help players save messages that they wish to hold on to, on February 13, 2007, we will be implementing the new ability to export their email to a text file in the EverQuest directory. To use the new Export feature, take the following steps:

1. Open up the e-mail window (ctrl-E).
2. Select the messages you would like to export by clicking them in the top pane, using shift-click and/or ctrl-click if you would like to select multiple messages.
3. Click "Export".
4. The selected messages are then saved to a file in the EverQuest Mail directory with a name in the format:
SavedMessages_charactername_servername.txt.

This export will need to be done with each character that has mail you wish to save.

Thank you,
The EverQuest Team

The notice was posted here.

Patch and TBS Release Due February 13

On Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 2:00 am PST (3:00 am MST, 4:00 am CST, 5:00 am EST, -8.00 GMT), the EverQuest Servers will be coming down a Game Update, and the release of The Buried Sea Expansion. The estimated downtime is about 12 hours. If further delays are expected we will make an announcement on the EQPlayers website and the official forums.

Druid Epic 1.5 and 2.0 Spells to be Fixed

The druid epic 1.5 and 2.0 weapons have been the only epics whose spell effects have degraded above level 70. This will be fixed in the next patch (when The Buried Sea expansion goes live, ETA February 13).

Yep, done. Changed the following spells to work up to level 75 before scaling down.

Nature's Blight
Silence of the Snake
Season's Fury
Serpent's Silence

- Prathun, EQ Designer

I am unable to link his post since it was made on the Beta forums. He gave permission for people to announce this despite the Non Disclosure Agreement that normally prevents anyone from revealing what is discussed in Beta.

King Odeen Raid Updated

Last night [01/25/2007] we updated the King Odeen raid. The following changes were implemented. Please let me know if you experience any further issues, and thanks for your patience.

• The issue that could cause the King to remain non-combatable while on the bridge MAY have been fixed. We were unable to reproduce the bug, but introduced changes that might have fixed the problem.
• King Odeen should no longer warp from his location at the Hot Springs to the Bridge and from the back of the castle to the Hot Springs. Note the he will teleport beyond the front gate and the castle gate, and run from there (that's intentional).
• Removed some of the basepop in the throne room.
• Fixed the script that modified the King's resistances as he moved from area to area. At each area he will now be amazingly resistant to a specific type of magic (or two).
• The King will remove all spells on him each time he changes locations.
• Reduced the number of adds that the King calls while fighting at the hot springs. Note: we were not able to reproduce the reported swarming issue. This change should reduce the problem and may eliminate it.
• The Wraithguard that protect the King on the bridge no longer summon.
• The Wraithguard that protect the King on the bridge will give up the fight when the King surrenders.

Absor, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Guild Banners in TBS

SOE has posted some information about the new Guild Banners that will be in The Buried Sea expansion.

Here is the link.

Developer Chat - January 24, 2007

It seems there was a developer chat on January 24th. So far no official logs have been posted by SOE but here is a link to a log:

Developer Chat - January 24, 2007

Developer Chat - January 19, 2007

The log to the January 19 Developer Chat is here.

Official Word On Stealth Spell Changes

Most of these changes are already on Live (sans the Rank III turn-in). Please let me know if you have any questions!

* A vendor named The Quiet Wanderer [location n193, p1633] has moved into Sunderock Springs. He offers spells and abilities of the calming persuasion, including several which were not previously available: Song: Whispersong of Veshma, Spell: Drifting Fog, Spell: Dulcify, Spell: Nature’s Placidity, Spell: Quiet Mind, and Tome of Phantom Silhouette.

* Based on feedback from the Druid community, Wildskin and Blessing of the Wild have been replaced on a one-for-one basis with Blistering Sunray and Sunscorch. The old spells will be replaced with the new ones.

* Based on feedback from the Cleric community, Rectitude and Cure Corruption have been replaced with Blessing of Purpose and Ward of the Dauntless. Rectitude was swapped on a one-for-one basis with Blessing of Purpose. However, because Cure Corruption is used by multiple classes the spell could not be swapped directly with Ward of the Dauntless, so clerics can simply no longer use the Cure Corruption spell. Turning in a Rank III spell rune while you have Cure Corruption Rank III scribed will result in a copy of Ward of the Dauntless Rank III and a return of the spell rune. Aside from that, Cure Corruption can be deleted from the spell book.

* The statistics on the items created by Summon Aenda’s Trinkets have been improved.

* The number of “procs” that Steeltrap Jaws can fire before fading have been doubled.

* Skin to Vines will now work on a wider variety of NPC targets.

- Prathun, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Drakkin and Armor Dye Changes

Drakkin should be able to dye their armor after the next patch. This is a temporary solution while the developers work to implement a new armor dye system.

Read all about it here.

Next Expansion Announced

SAN DIEGO, CA – January 12, 2007 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced EverQuest® The Buried Sea™, a new expansion for the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), EverQuest. EverQuest The Buried Sea will only be available via digital download beginning February 13th, for the suggested retail price of U.S. $29.99.

Read the full press release containing details on what to expect here.

Official EverQuest Forum Transition January 18th

Greetings EverQuest Community!

On Thursday, January 18, 2007 Sony Online Entertainment will be transitioning the EverQuest Official Forums to an internal forum solution. Transitioning to this new system gives us the opportunity to offer new functionality, as well as update the system as often as needed as well as allowing us to add new features and perform necessary maintenance.

Your Forum Handles, post counts, posts, etc., will be transferred from the existing forums to the new forums. Bookmarks, subscriptions, friends lists, floated threads, etc . . . will most likely not transfer over. If you currently use any of these, you will want to make note of them before the transition, so that you can set them up once again, after the transition occurs.

Forum Ranks (titles) will go thru some changes. However, you will automatically receive the appropriate new ranks and titles upon login. Those of you with specialized forum ranks and privileges will be adjusted after the launch of the new forums or shortly thereafter.

During the transition period, the forums will be down for 48 hours. A single temporary board will be available during this time. Data will not be transferred from the temporary forum, so don’t get too comfortable there. If any of this information changes, we will post the updated information on the official website.

Once the new forums are live we will provide more information on all of the new features.

Thank you and see you on the new forums!

Kytherea [EQ Community Relations Manager]~~fear the Halfling that wields a giant hammer & is accompanied by a hairless War Hamster~~

"We're off to bash the {insert character class here}"

The post is here.

TSS Progression to be Streamlined

I'm in agreement that the progression is in need of streamlining. Some changes are already in testing and due to make their way to Live servers soon, and others will follow. We're not looking to eliminate the single-group stuff. It's been a part of the progression paradigm for the past several years and it works. However, we are looking to make it less time-consuming. - Prathun, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

Update 02/11/2007:

I understand your frustration with the TSS progression. Refactoring the TSS progression will be my first task after we launch TBS and wrap up any launch issues. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

Update is here.

Update 02/18/2007:

Changes to the Frostcrypt Progression should go out with our next patch. Ashengate progression changes will be next after that. My changes involve making more tasks repeatable without needing to do a "set" of tasks and raising the faction gains pretty much across the board for the tasks. I think it will take about half the time it takes now to get Ally with the Wraithguard Leadership. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

This post is here.

EQ Players January Status

EQ Players has posted a January Status report.

The full thread is here.

Dreadspire Skeletons' Vision Goggles to be Seized

The skeletons in Dreadspire have been using contraband goggles to see people with Invisibility versus Undead on them. A raid by the Nerf Police of Norrath is in the works to confiscate them.

It's fixed [the skeletons seeing through Invisibility versus Undead] on Test / Beta but not on Live. - Prathun, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

EQ Players Issues

People using the EQ Players service have reported many problems. In a strange (for Sony) development, a status report has been issued.

Hello,

We are starting the new year here at SOE, and we are commited to providing the best service we can for EQ Station Players. The service has most definitely not been abandoned, and we are currently working on support for the next expansion. We have continually been making improvements, but not announced them in the past. The feeling here has always been "Just one more fix, and then we do a big announcement", which is what has led to buttons showing up on pages with no explanation, or fixes slowly showing up with noone to explain why. We are changing that mentality, so that we have more open communication of the fixes coming out and so that you are more aware of the fact that we hear the issues you are bringing to us, and working on resolving them. In this thread, I will create a list of known issues which we are tracking and try to keep you up to date on the status of those things. Please let us know about any issues you are seeing, and please let us know if there is something you would like to see that you aren't. This service is ultimately for our players, and your feedback is essential to keep it that way.

David Bennett
Platform

This is a list of known issues. This list is to track system-wide issues which are causing problems for many or all of our customers, if your individual issue does not show up in this list that does not mean we are ignoring it, we deal with individual issues through Private Messages or posts.

Known Issues:

1. My Character Doesnt Show Up - This is a known issue which happens when people are restored from a delete, or get into a state which would cause us to mark them as deleted. We are working on removing any situation where your character is not restored in both places, but until then you need to email your Character Name, Server Name, and Station Name to eqplayersqa@soe.sony.com.
2. Not all TSS Items are showing up.
3. /paperdoll does not always work, and the saved image does not upload correctly.
4. The Test Server is not populating data into EQ Players.

Enhancements:

1. On Leaderboards - instead of sorting by Flying Kick Skill, sort by Flying Kick Worn Mods.
2. A List of all Item Stat Mod totals.
3. Profile Items link to Item Details, instead of Character Inventory.

David Bennett
Platform

The full thread is here.

Item / Spell Timer Issue To Be Fixed

This problem affects all items which cast or proc a spell which is the same as a player cast spell. It was mainly noticed with the DA hammer. Characters who cast the DA spell found that the DA hammer would not proc during the 15 minute DA spell refresh time.

Found the problem...

Looks like its caused by linked spell timers. Any item that is activating a PC spell that has a linked spell timer will use up the timer for any other spell on that same timer (including itself). It's just how linked spell timers work.

There's about 30 items that are affected, including the DA hammer. To fix this, I'm going to create new versions of the spells that aren't PC usable and attach those to the items. Should go out next time we patch items and spells to live servers.

Rashere, Lead Designer

The full thread is here.

"A Daring Rescue" Task To Be Fixed

After slaying the Arbiter of Ash, the NPC Hidaga appears and must be hailed. However, on occasion, Hidaga will remain up for only about 20 seconds.

Hey everyone -- here is a little information behind this quest -- Hidaga currently only gives out 12 quest completions per spawn, which may have been why she left in a hurry. Also, once the first player completes their quest by hailing her, she only waits for a short while before porting out unless another player comes to her with the quest. I have removed this timed departure, so she will now wait around for much longer, but will still only complete up to 12 quests.

On a side note, I increased the spawn rate on the Arbiter to be more in line with other rares found in the zone. I hope this helps. - Celrak, EQ Designer

I've just increased the amount of time this NPC will remain up to 30 minutes but Hidaga will still only give out a set number of flags before despawning. I'm passing it to QA and we'll get it out to the Live servers as soon as possible after it clears QA. - Nodyin, EQ Designer

The full thread is here.

EverQuest Newsletter?

Yes, I just discovered that there actually is an official EverQuest Newsletter that Sony supposedly sends out quarterly. It seems like it is a secret, but I'm going to let the word out :).

To sign up for it, go here.

I think they should do it monthly but at least it is something. As soon as I start to receive the newsletter, I'll post links to it in case you are interested in checking it out without signing up.

Developer Chats

I've been slacking with keeping this blog up to date. As a result, some past Developer Chats were not posted here. Here are the links to them:

House of Commons Dev Chat Log - November 29, 2006

House of Commons Dev Chat Log - December 20, 2006 (Note that the page says November 29 even though this is the December 20 chat)

The next Developer Chat is scheduled for January 24, 2007.

Ferocity VII Broken

It looks like the min_damage_done modifier on Ferocity VII isn't providing any useful bonus to min damage. This is something that we'll need to look into further. - Prathun, EQ Developer

The full thread is here.

Dimensional Instability AA To Be Adjusted

Currently the Dimensional Instability AA will shadowstep you for a maximum distance of 9,000. This can create problems. Other shadowstep abilities have a maximum distance of 50 or 900.

You're right. After confirming with Code that the range is the max distance you can be ported with the spell I changed this AA to a much lower value. I'll pass this on to QA for verification and we'll go from there. - Nodyin, EQ Developer

The full thread is here.

Glyph AA Stacking Failure To Be Fixed

The new TSS Glyph expendable AAs currently use up the three AAs spent on them even when the ability fails due to stacking issues.

I'll talk to Rashere when we get back into the office and see if we can get this changed so if the ability "bounces" for any reason you do not lose it. It's a code change, however, so I'm not in control of when it gets implemented. - Nodyin, EQ Developer

The full thread is here.

"Bane Weapon" Charm Problem To Be Fixed

The Worn Iron Rallosian Relic charm currently has no stats unless you equip a bane weapon. However, there are no bane weapons in the TSS expansion.

This is on my list of things to fix, I agree that it's kind of dumb to have a charm like this with no bane weapons in the expansion. - Merloc, EQ Developer

The full thread is here.

Quest History Limited To 50 Tasks

The Quest History tab that is part of the task window (officially called the Quest Journal) only lists the last 50 tasks you have done.

When you complete more than 50 tasks, the oldest one is removed from the list. Thus, it only lists the last 50.

Read more about it here.