[12/23/2008] Well, bad news.
In order to fix this I'll have to change some data on the tasks themselves. Unfortunately servers have to come down to update task data. So I can't get this into a hotfix no matter how quickly I get it fixed. I'll fix it today, but it won't be updated until the next full update.
- Absor, EQ Asst. Lead Designer
A Frosty Experience Bonus: To help them celebrate the season of Frostfell, adventurers will be surrounded by a frosty bonus experience increase of twenty-five percent starting with Tuesday, December 23, 2008. The frosty bonus experience will remain until the end of Frostfell, Tuesday January 6, 2009. Enjoy the holidays!
Not being able to target group members by left clicking their HP is a bug and has been fixed internally. - J. Chan, Senior Programmer - Everquest
After the new pet functionality has been pushed, the following are some of the new pet features you will have!
1) New pet UI! You will be able to assign buttons to all pet commands in the pet window!
2) Pet target will be displayed under your pets hp bar so you will always know who your pet is attacking!
3) Toggleable buttons throughout the pet UI for sit/stant, focus, hold, taunt, and spell hold!
4) New pet text based commands! You will now be able to toggle all states off or on, or simply toggle the state with a pet text based command. For example, /pet focus on, /pet focus off.
5) New pet attack command will switch your pet to attack the new target regardless of AA's or level. Great for new and low level players! (Old command will still exist as qattack which is what it always should have been).
6) New pet hold functionality! (Ever had your pet not hold properly? Ever have your pet run off and aggro a mob somewhere far away in the zone? Ever have to spam pet back? Well, not anymore!)
7) New pet focus + pet hold functionality (call this pet state "pet convergence" )! This is what the players really wanted, now, when you turn on both the focus and hold states, your pet will attack SPECIFICALLY what you want it to and when finished won't attack or aggro or do anything else! No more pet back, no more of your pet doing anything but what you exactly want it too! Pets not allowed in raids because they might run off, aggro some mobs, and wipe the group? Nah, this ain't happening with the new changes!
8) Improved /pet back off. Fully clears the hate list and stops your pet from doing whatever it was doing before.
9) Bug fixes for: focus failing to work properly when aggroed in certain situations, PERSISTENT pet states now hold on zoning, on logout, and are will now be 100 percent persistent.
10) Coming soon, new and updated full and complete documentation of all these changes!
juhans-DEV
EverQuest Programmer
MESSAGE OF THE DAY: Greetings Norrath! There will be a scheduled patch tonight at 2 a.m. Thursday 12/11/08 with an estimated downtime of 2 hours. We apologize for the short notice, please plan accordingly. Thank You!
...tonight's patch is only to fix Win98/ME issues. - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Assistant Lead Programmer
Sorry it took so long to get back on this, but I had to do some research on what was and wasn't possible in the system before I could make a determination.
The SoD quest NPC will be changed to use chronobines instead of doubloons and will buy any of your quest items for 1 chronobine as well. So you'll only ever actually be losing chronobines if you're buying an item you've destroyed or lost in some other maner.
It's important to note that he won't purchase the combined pieces, only the individual quest rewards.
-Ryan, EQ Lead Designer
From October 9, 2008 through February 11, 2009, current EverQuest and EverQuest II subscribers with paid subscriptions in good standing will receive five non-tradable Ethernauts booster packs per month included with their EverQuest or EverQuest II subscription at no additional cost, for their personal collection.
During this promotional period, the booster pack in-game drops in EverQuest and EverQuest II will be suspended, and will resume on February 12, 2009.
It was not supposed to go up as much as it did from what I'm hearing. So don't expect it to stay that way forever. Enjoy it while you can. - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Assistant Lead Programmer
All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be brought down at 1:00 am PDT on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be down for 7 hours and are due to come back up on at 8:00am. (PDT is -7 GMT: 9:00am MDT, 10:00am CDT, 11:00am EDT, 3:00pm GMT)
10-24-08: Status Update: Any pending issues with bonus items will be resolved with the next Game Update which is pending for next week. - Zatozia, EQ Community Relations Manager
Found the bug. Fixed it... but it needs a data patch to go live. I am not sure when the next data patch will be. ...It is looking like next week, though I do not have a specific day (it sounds like Wednesday... but sometimes this post launch patches get pushed a day to Thursday) - Dev-Ngreth, EQ Designer
So after doing some checking, it seems this is real, and is a problem..
However.. There will be a simple way for people to receive the items necessary without having to petition. - Elidroth, EQ Designer
We are implementing something to allow people to NOT have to carry all the myriad parts of these quests around all the time taking up inventory space.
This same system will actually allow people who have lost the item, or in this case did not receive it due to some missing data, to also get the item if they have completed the appropriate content (quest, mission... or whatever the appropriate content was)
There will be more information on this in the future. - Dev-Ngreth, EQ Designer
it is mostly done, it just needs some testing and confirmation that it works.
Assuming it works properly, it should go in shortly after launch. (since it is all but done) We are just in lockdown to try and prevent last minute changes from causing bugs. - Dev-Ngreth, EQ Designer
There wasn't a chance to get this NPC tested before launch. We chose to hold it until after launch rather than send it live undtested. We'll get it in soon. - AbsorEQ, EQ Asst. Lead Designer
"Ok, this is fixed and should be in the next patch. I need to do some digging to see why it broke in the first place to make sure my fix isn't breaking something else, but barring anything odd, it should be good." - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Assistant Lead Programmer
I'm sure almost everyone is aware of how putting a see invis aug on an item with faerune allows a player to see a rogue that is using SOS. Is that supposed to happen or is that just a mess up in coding? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I have only heard different answers from different players, and never a definitive answer from a Dev. Thanks! - Sirrod
It's a bug that will be fixed soon. - Nodyin, EQ Designer
In the next patch evolving items that are lore will be going onto linked lore groups.
If you somehow acquired two versions of the same evolving item one of them will be removed after the patch.
I don't think this will affect most players, but this is a heads up just in case.
- Merloc, EQ Designer
Actually, it is an intended behavior. I intentionally added it.The full thread is here.
While fixing the heal crit issues, I had a discussion with Rytan and Prathun about item-based heal spells. We decided that heal spells from items should be focusable, but only from AAs.
Nuke clicks should be unaffected.
Enjoy!
- Bembaru, EQ Coder
As I'm sure most of you are aware, backflagging has been a hot topic for EQ for quite a while now. The complex flagging mechanisms for older expansions can make it difficult for guilds that take on new people to experience the content they are wanting to do. With the sheer amount of content between Qeynos and Crystallos it can be extremely difficult for new players to catch up with their friends in any reasonable time frame.
So, in order to make it easier for players to access appropriate content we would like to make some changes to previous flags. All of the existing flags will stay in place, as will the various quest rewards that were additional benefits to their completion. However, the following zones will have an alternate entry criteria of a minimum level. It's important to know that either the previous key OR the new minimum level is required to enter the zone, not both.
Required Level 46
1. The Howling Stones
2. Old Sebilis
3. Cobalt Scar
Required Level 55
1. Veeshan's Peak
2. Vex Thal
3. Sleeper's Tomb
4. Locked areas of the Temple of Ssraeshza
Required level 57
1. Bastion of Thunder
2. Halls of Honor
3. The Temple of Marr
4. Tower of Solusek Ro
5. Drunder, The Fortress of Zek
6. Yxxta
7. Kod`taz
Required Level 60
1. Plane of Water
2. Plane of Air
3. Plane of Fire
4. Plane of Earth
5. Uqua
6. Ikkinz
Required Level 62
1. Plane of Time
2. Qvic
3. Inktu`Ta
Required Level 65
1. Txevu
2. Tacvi
- Rytan_the_Wyrmlord, EQ Asst. Lead Designer
The various flag requirements for actually spawning the instances and stuff have not been changed as of this time. So you'll still need 1 guy who has the flags to spawn them in many cases. We're going to look at those and evaluate them on a case by case basis and may change some of them in the future.
- Rytan_the_Wyrmlord, EQ Asst. Lead Designer
Two things to note here:
First, these changes won't occur on the progression server. The point of that server is to experience content as it was released as much as possible, so this runs contrary to that. The work Rytan has been doing has included a check to negate the changes if we're on a progression server. When the progression server eventually catches up to normal servers and essentially becomes a normal server, these changes will kick in.
Second, this is part of a larger push aimed at updating the low to mid-tier game in a way that will culiminate in events aimed squarely at attracting new players and people who have left over the years. This isn't the first change we've made like this recently and certainly not the last. There are a number of other things that will roll out over the next few months so if you're upset about this change because you feel the way to keep the game healthy is to continue to make sure that people new to the game or returning to the game have as steep a hill to climb as those of us who did the climb when the mid level game was thriving and the hill was much smaller, then I'll apologize in advance because you're not going to be getting happier anytime soon. I understand the feeling that it cheapens what you personally had to do to get into the content at the time and Rytan is working out some rewards for that effort, but I think continuing to attract new players that you can actually play the game with once they reach your level is a bit more important than that and, frankly, the online landscape isn't the same as it was. People simply won't tolerate what they would even a couple years ago so we're working to address that.
- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer
