Increased Rare Spawns for Frostfell and Double Experience for New Years

From the SOE forum:

Increased Rare Spawns December 23, 2011 to December 26, 2011

Who do you want to see coming down the chimney of your Guildhall this year - Santug Claugg? Only if he’s dropping phat loot! The rare mobs of Norrath have decided to make the rounds this year and will appear quite a bit more often for a limited time!

From 11:00 a.m. Pacific* December 23, 2011 until 11:59 p.m. Pacific* December 26, 2011, we’ll turn up the spawn rate, so get out there and work on your Hunter Achievements!


Double Experience** December 30, 2011 to January 2, 2012

New Year’s Eve is the time to make resolutions… and great experience gains! From 11:00 a.m. Pacific* on December 30, 2011 through 11:59 p.m. Pacific* on January 2, 2012, we’ll dramatically increase experience gains from mob kills to help start the new year with a ding! Make sure you log in during Double Experience** and reap the rewards of EverQuest at New Years!

*Convert To Your Local Time Link

**Experience awarded per kill will be doubled; please note that other modifiers and caps will still be in place and will affect experience gain normally. As a result, total experience gains may vary slightly, depending on each individual’s situation.

Frostfell returns to Norrath December 8, 2011

From this SOE forum thread:

It’s that time of year again, when Santug Claugg gets ready to give presents to the deserving, and sometimes less than deserving, adventurers of Norrath. Starting December 8, 2011 and running through January 8, 2012, Frostfell will be upon us!

All your old favorite quests will be returning this year, whether it be aiding the Frostfell Goblins in saving Santug or commencing Operation: Jolliness to keep Santug in good spirits. There are also a number of New Year’s Adventurers available, so don’t forget Pizimp Nobbletod.

As an added bonus, starting on December 14, 2011, a brand new Frostfell quest will be released! Santug Claugg has become obsessed with the Braxi and wants them to pull his sleigh. Unfortunately there has been an incident with the ship transporting the Braxi to Santug and as a result, Braxi and Gigglegibber Goblins are scattered on beaches throughout Norrath. Make sure to seek them out!

Mercenary Rosters To Come For Real Life Cash Only

Well, the long awaited ability to have several mercs and swap them out as needed arrives on Test Server. However, in a surprise (although it shouldn't be, considering SOE actions lately) it was announced that they will only be available for Station Cash.

One of the most anticipated features we planned to implement this year for EverQuest is now on the Test Server: Mercenary Rosters! No longer will you have to settle on just one Mercenary, but instead you'll be able to maintain a full roster of mercenaries and switch between them as needed. Log on to the Test Server today to see this feature in action and give it a whirl

When Mercenary Rosters travel to the Live Servers, they will be available for purchase via the in game Marketplace in various sizes depending on your personal needs and desires. We can't wait to hear what you think of this new feature and see how you all use it!

See you all on Test!

Follow the flames as players let SOE know how they feel on the issue on the SOE forum thread.

UPDATE:

As I mentioned yesterday, we were still discussing the options and/or availability of obtaining Mercenary Slots via game play methods. Today, we finished up those conversations and have this information to share with you.

There will be two methods (two slots) that you will be able to obtain an additional mercenary slot:

• One will be given for doing VOA content
• & another will be given for tradeskilling

In addition to this, we are also considering having rentable mercenary slots obtainable by numerous ways (not just by means of the Marketplace). Something similar to a 2 hour rentable mercenary that you can either pick the race/class OR...we may have the race randomized.

We're still discussing/considering these final details but at minimum, we will have the first 2 methods available to you by our January update.

As we get closer to the release, we will update you with more details.

Guild Hall Alchemy Table Graphic Bug to be Fixed

Right now the Guild Hall Alchemy Table looks like a large bag.  SOE has posted:

We're aware of the issue with Alchemy tables and it is on a list of bugs to be addressed.

New Guild Hall Soon to be Available for Platinum

In response to player outrage over the lack of a new style of guild hall obtainable without spending Station Cash, SOE responded:

Hey folks,

I wanted to post here and let you know the status of Guild Halls.  With the release of the expansion, Guild Halls beyond the basic model were always intended to be available as an addition through Station Cash. We wanted to deliver the core functionality (placing your guildhall in a neighborhood and being able to place objects in the guild hall as you choose) to everyone, along with cosmetic options available through the Marketplace as upgrades.

Based on some of your posts it seems there was some confusion about whether any new Guild Halls would be available for platinum. We have decided to add another Guild Hall in addition to the ones we have available already in a future content patch, probably the December patch, but as this is still in the development process we can't quite confirm the exact timing yet. The new Guild Hall will be made available in game through purchase with platinum. We greatly look forward to seeing all the creative efforts of the housing community, either with the current Guild Halls or the one forthcoming.

Regards,

-Piestro
EverQuest Community Manager

Shatter the Veil Achievement Bugged

According to SOE:

We'll be updating the requirements for this one, not everyone is getting it who should have gotten it.

Sorry for the confusion!

Exact details about what is needed to obtain it are still lacking.

Valley of Lunanyn Crashing Bug to be Fixed

At least one cause of the crashing that almost everyone experiences in the Valley of Lunanyn will be fixed in the November 22, 2011 patch.  Here is the post by Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer:

I identified what's causing this over the weekend.  There are some particle effects abusing memory in that zone.  A fix for this should be going out tonight.   But in the meantime if you turn your environment particles off, I believe it should fix the crashing issue until the particle fix goes out.

Crashing? Here's What You Can Do To Help Stop It

There is a thread on the SOE forum on this issue. SOE seems to think it is a problem that we should work around.  Still, they will fix it if we can get them some information to work with.

Here are the highlights:

The best way to reduce crashing due to memory issues is to change the Memory Mode to "Least memory usage". We're still a 32-bit game so EverQuest can only use 2 gigs even if you have 36.

To change this:

1. Open the options to the Display Tab.
2. Click the "Advanced" button.
3. In the "Advanced Options" window, change click on the combo box below "Memory Mode*" near the bottom left hand corner.
4. Select "Least memory usage:.
5. Type "/camp desktop" in your chat window.

If you can no longer enter the game to change this, change find GraphicsMemoryMode and make it look like "GraphicsMemoryMode=0" in your eqclient.ini file.

There was a bug related to players with large guild sizes and that was fixed in the patch this morning [Friday, November 18, 2011]. If you are still crashing with the same frequency (after changing your memory mode) then please send your dmp files to equserclient@soe.sony.com.

In addition to sending your dmp files, please send them the following:

Can you give me a rundown of your full system spec please? I'll forward it over to the coders who can look at it.

• CPU
• Motherboard
• Video card
• RAM
• Operating System

Also include any other details that are out of the ordinary about your system.

So, to sum up, if you are crashing a lot:

1. Set your Memory Mode to "Least memory usage".
2. Send SOE as much information as you can on the crashes. The more email they get on the issue, the more likely they are to fix it; and the more information they have, the more chance they can track it down.

Hot Button Window Shape Bug to be Resolved Soon

Currently, some people have a bug where after they change the shape of the Hot Button Window it resets itself after they log out.

JChan, EQ Developer, reports that the fix:

Unfortunately not it didn't make it to today's patch.

Issues with Special Mercenary Contracts

From this SOE forum post:

Hey folks,

Just to let you know, there are issues that may prevent some special mercenary contracts from working currently. We're aware of this issue and working on a fix, potentially for the planned 11/22 patch. Sorry for any inconvinience [sic], these items will be restored to full functionality as soon as possible.

Thanks,

- Piestro
EverQuest Community Manager

Patch Scheduled Tuesday, November 22, 2011

No official word, but according to this post by Ngreth, EQ Developer:

It may go in with tonight's emergency patch, if not it will be in the patch on the 22nd.

UPDATE:  Additional "confirmation" from this post by Piestro, SOE Community Relations:

We're aware of this issue and working on a fix, potentially for the planned 11/22 patch.

UPDATE:  Finally, official word:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:00 am US Pacific* for a emergency maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 4 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed. 

Miragestone Bug Destroys Stacks, Merchant Price Lowered

From this SOE forum thread, Ngreth, EQ Developer, comments on the issue:

The stack size change was a mistake.  They will be returned to 100 stacking.  You can petition for replacements.  You may want to wait until the stack size is returned.  It may go in with tonight's emergency patch, if not it will be in the patch on the 22nd.

The price change was intentional.

Some Valley of Lunanyn Tasks Not Updating Language

From this SOE forum post by Piestro, SOE Community Relations:

Yes, we've determined there is an issue with possibly 3 kill tasks. Good part is the fix should be retroactive as long as you click on a book.

Emergency Patch Scheduled Friday, November 18, 2011

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Friday, November 18, 2011 at 5:00 am US Pacific* for a emergency maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 3 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

From this SOE forum thread.

SOE Reports Some Spawn Times Slower Than Intended

In a SOE forum thread about the slow spawn times of living steel, molten steel, living blades, empowered blades, a steel cyclone and a steel hurricane in Argath, Absor, EQ Developer stated the following:

Actually, those NPCs spawn very, very fast.  Unfortunately, there is some sort of issue with the large number of people in those zones that we've not seen before causing them to spawn super slowly.  We're looking at a way to fix it soon.

It is unclear if the "zones" he is referring to means that there are problems with spawn timers in other zones as well.

Wizard "Unresistable" Snare Nerfed

The Wizard Atol's Shackles spells have been nerfed.  They will no longer snare any mob.   Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), EQ Game Designer, commented in this SOE forum thread:

It's still unresistable to anything that isn't flagged immune to runspeed changes, which it should have never been usable on in the first place.

SOE Warns Berserkers Not to Buy New Ranks of Frenzied Volley

From a SOE forum post by Elidroth, EQ Game Designer:

BERZERKERS!

There is a bug with ranks 5, 6, and 7 of Frenzied Volley that will effectively cause you to stop proc'ing this effect at all. I will be fixing this the next time we patch following launch of VoA.

DO NOT BUY ranks 5, 6, and 7 of Frenzied Volley until after I can get it patched.

Tier 1 VoA Focus Effects Level to be Changed

For some strange reason, Tier 1 VoA group and raid gear have level 90 on the focus effects, with the effects degrading on spells above level 90.

This will be changed sometime after launch, according to Chandrok, EQ Developer:

While changing the focus to 90 did make sense at the time, we've decided to change it back to 95. Having the focus at 90 really doesn't make the armor appealing to anyone and we want it to be useful. This will happen sometime soon after launch.

Patch Scheduled Tuesday, November 15, 2011 for VoA Release

From SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 12:00 am Pacific for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 8 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

HoT Armor Prices and Deadly Guild Lobby Virus to Change in First Patch after VoA

Two changes that are coming to EQ in the first patch after VoA is released (exact date unknown, assumed to be mid December).

First, the prices for NPC armor templates for House of Thule armor will be reduced:

This is a valid request in light of the lowered priced on VOA templates. I was already planning to lower the costs but it won't be done before launch. You should see the changes in the first patch after launch.

Next,  Virulent Pustules / Contagious Pustules will no longer spread among players in the Guild Lobby:

As amusing as this "feature" is, I will be closing the loophole that is allowing people to bring it to the guild lobby. This will happen in the first patch after the expansion launches.

Veil of Alaris NDA Lifted

From this post on the SOE forums:

As of 10:30am Pacific Tuesday, November 8, 2011 Beta participants are now released from the confidentiality requirements of the EverQuest Veil of Alaris Beta Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Thank you to everyone who waited patiently for the NDA to be lifted before sharing information with their friends!

Please note that even though the NDA has been lifted, there are still some limitations. Specifically the Veil of Alaris Beta forums remain under restriction. You are not permitted to share (especially via copy and paste) information from that section of the EQ Forums.

Thank you for participating in the Veil of Alaris Beta. We can't wait to see you in Alaris once it goes live!

-Piestro
EverQuest Community Manager

Corpse Experience Wipe November 15, 2011

From the SOE forums:

As part of the launch of EverQuest Veil of Alaris we will be wiping corpse experience on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. This is something we have done a number of times with previous content launches and should be expected with future content releases.

Please make sure to ressurect [sic] all corpses with experience that you would like to retrieve before the downtime on November 15, so that you have full credit for any experience you have earned.

Major Changes to Task and Mission Experience Beginning November 15

There are several changes being made.  Of importance right away, banked HoT and VoA group missions need to be claimed before November 15 or no experience will be granted.  Banked HoT and VoA solo missions will give less experience if claimed after November 15.  "Banking" such rewards has become a common way to get a head start on new expansions.

HoT and VoA Group mission rewards banked before November 15 will not grant any experience, and HoT and VoA solo mission reward experience will be reduced, if claimed after November 15.

More changes are being made:

• Experience Rewards
• For group tasks not in instanced zones, experience will be awarded to all group members within 300' of the final step in the Task. This is usually a Hail or Delivery, and in the few cases where a Task ended on killing a NPC these tasks will receive an additional step.
• For group Tasks in an instanced mission, Task experience will be handed out upon opening of the chest. Experience will be shared with group members within 300' of the chest.
• Characters will need to be living at the time experience is awarded, please make sure to resurrect anyone in the party who may have met an untimely end before you trigger the experience award.
• Other Rewards
All rewards other than experience including progression flags, coin, and any items will be shared as they always have been. No changes to rewards other than experience are being implemented.
• House of Thule Experience Changes
• As stated above, House of Thule Tasks (solo and group) are currently awarding too much experience. Experience for House of Thule Tasks will be reduced by approximately 50%.

Given these changes we highly recommend claiming any unclaimed Task rewards before November 15. If you claim previously completed Tasks after November 15, your awards will be affected in the following ways:

• Previously completed Solo Tasks will receive the modified experience rewards.
• Previously completed Group Tasks will receive no experience reward, as the Task Rewards will have been significantly modified.

Read the entire post, as well as further explanations, on the SOE forum thread.

November 1st Early Morning Maintenance

From this SOE forum post:

We will perform maintenance on all games and services beginning at 4:00 a.m. US Pacific Time on November 1, 2011. You may experience the following:

• Logins for all games, websites, and forums may be unavailable between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. US Pacific Time.
• Commerce transactions, including purchases on our websites and in-game marketplaces, may be unavailable between 4:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time. 

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Halloween Task "The Hunt for Tattooed Flesh" Bugged

It appears that there are problems getting the task.

We're looking into the issue with this line of quests. I don't know if we will be able to get a fix in before they end though.

-  Chandrok, EQ Developer

From this thread on the SOE forums.

VoA Discount Through Station Cash

It seems that it will be possible to buy Veil of Alaris using Station Cash, thereby getting a discount over the standard price.

Posted on http://www.facebook.com/EverQuestLive:

EverQuest ‎[Piestro] Yes the new expansion will be available on launch day for SC

Yesterday, Station Cash was half price. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that you could do this until now. But there might be another Station Cash offer before launch date. In any case, most of us have some Station Cash, because they gave us all some for free, this will give a discount.

It is expected to cost 4300 SC.

Triple Rare Spawns and Free Marketplace Items for Halloween

From this SOE forum post:

Triple Rare Spawns

Starting at 12:00 p.m. PDT* on Friday, October 28, 2011 and lasting through Monday, October 31, 2011, mobs flagged as rare will be spawning at triple their normal rate. Need a few last pieces of gear to get you ready for Veil of Alaris, or maybe you want to finish up some Hunter achievements? This will be your chance to get them!

 On the subject of free marketplace items Piestro, SOE Community Relations said:

You have to log in each day to find out what they will be. I know at least one would be something you will probably enjoy ish.

UPDATE:  In addition, Double Station Cash October 29, 2011, 12:01 AM PDT through 11:59 PM PDT; when you redeem any SOE Pre-Paid Game Card or buy Station Cash, excludes purchase by mobile/SMS.

Veil of Alaris Release Date Tuesday, November 15, 2011

From SOE:

We are very proud to announce that EverQuest Veil of Alaris will be launching on Tuesday, November 15, 2011!

EQ Halloween Sneaks In

Without notice, EQ Halloween returns. If it follows the dates of previous years, it should run from October 24th through November 7th. Fanra's EverQuest Wiki has some quests listed.

UPDATE: SOE finally breaks their silence and announces that it will, indeed, run until November 7. It appears that there are no new Halloween quests for 2011.

Veil of Alaris Pre-Order Now Available

From SOE:

Hail Norrathians!

The EverQuest team is proud to bring you our 18th expansion, Veil of Alaris! Starting today, October 18, 2011, you're able to pre-order your copy of Veil of Alaris. Pre-orders will end on November 14, 2011.

View this SOE forum post for details.

Server Side Lag "Fixed"

Players have been reporting massive server side lag.  According to this post by Steven S. Klug,
EverQuest Lead Programmer, the problem has been identified and fixed:

Ok, we believe we have identified the main cause of this.  Please let me know if you continue to see severe lag like this.  Sorry for the issues!

House of Thule Raid Completion Titles Being Fixed

SOE is manually going through the servers and adding these titles.  From a post by Head GM Kaeldread, EQ Customer Service:

I just wanted to give everyone an update on this.

Yesterday our Dev team discovered the issue and is correcting it. However, it would take a patch to push it out to live. So, we are having a GM's go through and grant this manually.

Read the entire post here for full information and a timetable for each server.

Sony Reports Hacking Attempt May Affect Small Number of Players

From the SOE forums:

We want to let you know that we have detected attempts on Sony Entertainment Network, PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment (“Networks”) services to test a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database.   These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources.   In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks.  We have taken steps to mitigate the activity.

Less than one tenth of one percent (0.1%) of our PSN, SEN and SOE audience may have been affected.  

Philip Reitinger, SVP and Chief Information Security Officer, Sony Group, goes on to mention:

As a preventative measure, we are requiring secure password resets for those PSN/SEN accounts that had both a sign-in ID and password match through this attempt.   If you are in the small group of PSN/SEN users who may have been affected, you will receive an email from us at the address associated with your account that will prompt you to reset your password.

Similarly, the SOE accounts that were matched have been temporarily turned off.  If you are among the small group of affected SOE customers, you will receive an email from us at the address associated with your account that will advise you on next steps in order to validate your account credentials and have your account turned back on.

Read the entire post here.

Patch Scheduled Wednesday, October 12, 2011

From EQ Players news:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 pm CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Veilbreaker Executive Escape Device Bugged

The Veilbreaker Executive Escape Device is one of the items you can purchase with your rewards from the Veil of Alaris pre-launch quests.  It is a clicky port to Steamfont with an 8 hour recast time.

Currently, once you use it, you are unable to use most other clicky devices (including mounts) until the 8 hour recast time elapses.

Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager, commented on the issue on the SOE forums:

Update on this issue. The Escape device is fixed internally, however it will require server downtime to patch. As such it will be at the next regular patch time (tentatively scheduled for next week).

Login to be Down for About An Hour on Thursday, Oct 6, 2011, 9 AM PDT

From the in-game Message of the Day:

MESSAGE OF THE DAY: Greetings Norrath! Game login and Marketplace will be down for about an hour on Thurs, Oct 6 at 9 AM PDT.

Update -  SOE posted in their forums:

Beginning October 6, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. US Pacific login for all servers, subscription and commerce services will be unavailable for maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately an hour and a half. This may also cause some forum accounts to temporarily lose permissions, due to the inability to verify account status while the maintenance is taking place. This is only temporary and normal permissions will return automatically once the maintenance is complete.

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Chief Foreman Salli, Hobbs, Return to Steamfont

With the return of Chief Foreman Salli and the arrival of Hobbs, the VoA pre-launch quests are now fully functional.

Chief Foreman Salli on Vacation, Making Some VoA Pre-Quests Non-Functional

In reply to a SOE forum post about the missing Chief Foreman Salli, Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager, replied:

He [sic] should now be missing on all servers. He'll be making a triumphant return next week [Oct. 2-8] hopefully.

 This means several pre-quests can not be obtained and others can not be completed.

Veil of Alaris Pre-Quests Coming October 1st

From EQPlayers News:

The Gnomes are about to commence work on their greatest project ever! Join them Saturday, October 1 through Sunday, November 14, 2011.

Deep in the valleys of the Steamfont Mountains the Gnomes are preparing perhaps their most ambitious endeavor to date, the construction of a massive airship. Does this have anything to do with the Emissary of Brell? Where do the Gnomes plan to travel? Has the King of Ak'Anon contrived some plan of his own? Journey to the land of the Gnomes and investigate their enterprise. Perhaps you could lend a hand, as the gnomish people have been known on occasion to be generous to those who assist them.

Go forth and find the answer to this gnomish enigma! Seek the Chief Engineers for revelations on the future of Norrath!

Dragons, Dragons, Dragons! Quest Bug To Be Fixed

At various parts of the quest you are required to hail the Emissary to continue.  It has been reported that the Emissary is missing during several stages.

Absor, EQ Developer, replied to the issue in this SOE forum thread:

We are working on a fix for this.  Hopefully we'll get it out tomorrow [Tuesday].

SOE Webcast Reveals Some Veil of Alaris Plans

On September 22, 2011, SOE had a webcast which announced several features planned for VoA:

• Improved Taunt.  An ability that the mob ignores its hate list and will attack whoever used the ability.  The Warrior version is called Undivided Attention.  Paladins and Shadow Knights also get a version.
• Free Target.  This enables you to target areas.  One use is to spawn Auras.  Shaman will be able to spawn their Malos Idol in a spot away from them.  They will no longer have to run up and plant it.
• AAs - Monks are getting a new pulling tool.  Temporarily named Constrictive Dark, it is a single target silence whose main purpose is pulling caster mobs.
• Bard instruments to be improved.  They will extend songs of that type by 1 tic and the melee damage bonus is going from 25% to 30%.
• Devs will now have NPC generated parses to better evaluate raids and group content.
• New Power Sources under consideration, but will not happen by VoA launch.
• Tier 1 VoA gear will be minimum level 85 and attunable.  Although the content is designed more for level 90 toons.
• Higher levels of Tribute.

Of course, everything is subject to change as they continue development of VoA.

If you wish to waste 21 minutes to hear what you just read above, you can view the webcast here.

Emergency Patch Wednesday, September 21, 2011

From an in-game system wide message:

all EverQuest is having an emergency patch at 6:00am on Wednesday, September 21st. Downtime is expected to be two hours.

All times should be assumed to be Pacific time (USA).

UPDATE:  SOE has posted the full information on their forum:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 6:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc [sic] -PST is -8 GMT: 5:00 am MST, 8:00 am CST, 9:00 am EST, 2:00 pm GMT, 3:00 pm CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 2 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Giants, Giants, Giants! and Dragons, Dragons, Dragons! are back through Tuesday, October 11, 2011

SOE announces:

Everyone loves killing giants and dragons so we thought it was time for the Giants, Giants, Giants! and Dragons, Dragons, Dragons! tasks to return! How well can you do in these limited time challenges? Find out before Tuesday, October 11, 2011!

Veil of Alaris Beta Registration is Live

From EQ Players news:

We are now accepting sign-ups for the EverQuest® Veil of Alaris™ expansion beta. The beta period is expected to begin on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

As with previous years' beta, the sign-up process has been made easier for you… and for us! Once you sign up, the system places you in a pool of potential beta testers. When the invite stages occur, beta testers will automatically be selected from that pool. We will, however, still be limiting the number of participants during different beta stages—the difference is that now you don't have to wait for a window of opportunity to sign up. The beta sign-up page will remain open until the beta ends. Once you sign up, you do not need to sign up again.

Go to this link to read more and sign up.

Patch Scheduled Thursday, September 15, 2011

From the SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Power Outage in San Diego Shuts Down EQ

A widespread power outage across San Diego has shut down EQ Thursday afternoon (September 8, 2011). No information on the cause or when power will be restored is yet available. For more information on the power outage, it is suggested that you Google, "San Diego power outage".

UPDATE: Customers should expect to be without power for hours, possibly through the night and into Friday. SDG&E (San Diego Gas and Electric) said 1.4 million customers have been affected by the outage.

UPDATE:  As of Friday, September 9, EQ should be back up.

Older Focus Effects Will Not Be Increased When Level Cap Raised

Veil of Alaris will include an increase of the level cap to 95. Currently dropping focus effects degrade when used for spells above level 90 (or lower). In the past, SOE has gone back to the previous expansion when there was a level increase and changed some of the focus effects on the older items. This enabled them to still be useful.

This time SOE has announced that they will not do so for Veil of Alaris.

From this thread on the SOE forum:

I spoke with the Dev team at length about this issue today, and there was a lot of discussion including what our historical actions in this regard have been, how doing so would relatively effect casters (with their disproportionate power gain at the begining [sic] of expansions due to spells being easier to aqquire [sic] than gear) vs. melees, and a number of other issues.

After weighty consideration, and possibly a bit of shouting, the Dev team has decided in this case to not increase the caps on current focus effects.

Thanks,

-Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager

Labor Day Double XP Weekend Expected

Posted by Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager on the SOE forum:

Sorry, got in later than usual today. It'll be posted soon but yes there is an announcement about a bonus xp weekend comming [sic]

For those who are not in the USA, Labor Day is a holiday which occurs on the first Monday in September. This year the weekend is September 3, 4 and 5, as Monday the 5th is a Federal and State holiday and considered part of the weekend.

UPDATE:

Starting Friday, September 2, 2011, and continuing through Monday, September 5, 2011, experience the glory that is bonus experience in EverQuest. Simply play the game as you normally would and receive even more experience for the things you enjoy doing! It’s easy and fun, and we’ll see you in Norrath!

It has been confirmed that the "bonus" experience for the weekend is double normal. SOE just decided to call all future experience increases "bonus" regardless of how much the bonus is.

In an effort to be precise we will be branding all future bonus xp weekends as bonus xp weekends rather than double xp weekends. That way they keep the same name regardless of the bonus applied. I can confirm this weekend will be a 100% bonus (i.e. double).

Pre-Veil of Alaris Launch Events To Be Extended

Although mentioned in the August 10, 2011 patch, little is known about the Pre-Veil of Alaris Launch Events.

Meeka Gharn in the Plane of Knowledge was known to offer the "Only The Blind Will See" task but the reward was a weapon ornamentation that few wanted. Now it appear that task is needed to be completed to request another task from him, a group task that awards a range item.

The task, "Baga's Stand" can be done without completing "Only The Blind Will See", as only the person requesting it needs to have done that.

Currently, there is a bug with the reward, if you have the reward in your Dreamweave Satchel, and claim the reward again, your Dreamweave Satchel will vanish!

Also, the range item does not have a Dodge focus, this is likely to be fixed in a patch soon.

Read more about this on the SOE forums thread.

UPDATE posted on the SOE forum:

Due to an issue affecting a very small number of users, we have decided to extend the availability of the quest “Only the Blind Will See” through Tuesday, September 6, 2011, to make sure everyone who wants to participate in the pre-Veil of Alaris launch fun can experience this unique quest. Not only that, but for those unfortunates who don’t get a chance to do this quest, we’ll be adding the final reward for this quest to the upcoming Veil of Alaris Launch Event.

Can you help Meeka Gharn find the truth of the ancient book? Log in to EQ and find out today!

Emergency Patch Scheduled Wednesday, August 31, 2011

From this SOE forums announcement:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 6:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 7:00 am MST, 8:00 am CST, 9:00 am EST, 2:00 pm GMT, 15:00 CET) for a emergency maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 2 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Fellowship Experience Sharing to Be Changed

Currently this is on the Test Server. No word on when it will go live. It is expected to go live once the bugs are fixed and it is adjusted for various reasons. It may change somewhat before going live.

From this SOE post on the Test forum:

Currently when someone activates Fellowship Experience Sharing, a portion of the experience that they earned is shared with other members of their Fellowship who also have Fellowship Experience Sharing activated. This is directly applied to other members of their Fellowship who also have Fellowship Experience Sharing enabled.

After the next patch to the Test Server, this will substantially change. Going forward, instead of experience being directly applied to Fellowship members, this experience shared will go into a bank (specific to each member) called Vitality. So If Player A is earning 1000 experience per kill, and is sharing with Player B, C, and D, then players B, C, and D will each be receiving 250 exp per kill into their individual Vitality banks.

Once a player with Vitality experience logs in, they will receive bonus experience for any kills they are credited for, allowing them to gain experience at a vastly accelerated rate*. This bonus experience is paid out of the Vitality experience they have accumulated, and once they run out out vitality they will no longer receive bonus experience. This bonus experience will be applied at a rate of up to 5x if doing normal experience, or up to 3x if doing AA experience.

In addition, when a member of a Fellowship has reached the maximum limit of Vitality experience, Fellowship Experience Sharing will be automatically toggled off for them. The current limit on Vitality experience is enough regular experience to gain 10 levels or enough AA experience to take the player to their AA cap. Vitality experience does not expire, and is permanent (until used). If a player cannot gain normal experience, they cannot store Vitality experience.

Click on the SOE forum post link to read more and comment on the proposed changes.

P.S. In addition, it is expected that the game will soon be changed so you may only join a fellowship once every 20 hours.

Patch Scheduled Wednesday, August 10, 2011

From the SOE forum:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Login Servers Going Down for Maintenance - Wednesday August 3, 2011

From the SOE forum:

On Wednesday August 3, 2011 we will be perfoming [sic] maintenance on the EverQuest Login Servers starting at 7:00 am Pacific (Pacific is -8 GMT). The maintenance will last approximately 2.5 hours, and during that time players will be unable to log in. No disruption is anticipated for players who are already logged in during that time, however please be aware that service disruptions are possible.

Removal (or not) of PC/Pet Push on NPCs on Hold

When asked if Push is going or staying, Elidroth (EQ Game Designer) replied:

I don't have that answer right now. I think push is dumb on a personal level.

In another post in that thread he went on to state:

All I can do is remind people that this is something players want, and see where it winds up in the task priority list, which I don't set, or get a vote on.

Harm Touch Fix Due in August Patch

Posted by Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC, on the SOE forum:

I put the fixes in for the DOT [component of Harm Touch] today. August patch is when they'll go out. I asked about a hotfix and was told no.

Patch Scheduled Tuesday July 26, 2011

From the SOE forum:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 4:00 am US Pacific (US Pacific-PST is -8 GMT: 5:00 am MST, 6:00 am CST, 7:00 am EST, 12:00 pm GMT, 13:00 am CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed..

Some details:

This update will include fixes for Shadowknight Harm Touch, Convergence of Spirits, and Extended Ingenuity amongst others.

Possible Hotfix July 22, 2011 - POSTPONED

In order to address several issues that have arisen as a result of the last patch, there may be a hotfix occuring [sic] around 10:30am Pacific Time. This hotfix might result in a complete repop of all zones, and will be messaged in game. Please be aware that during the repop, it will be advisable to find a safe spot in game.

The AB server may have this hotfix slightly delayed so as to not adversely effect game-play during a high concurrency time frame.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter,

- Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager

UPDATE:

Looks like due to some testing difficulties our hot-fix is being delayed until Tuesday morning.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

Hardcore Heritage Ends

In an hour and a half from this posting, EQ's Hardcore Heritage will end.

Despite the fact that a bug prevented the proper raid loot from dropping in the Clan Crushbone Demise of the Emperor raid, causing people to lose several days worth of opportunities, there is no sign that it will be extended to compensate.

Hardcore Heritage should be back next year, although by then the Clan Crushbone loot is expected to be overshadowed by the newer Veil of Alaris loot.

EQ Players Unable to Show Characters or Signature Banners, Being Worked On

Currently, attempts to view a character at EQ Players results in getting the following error message, "CatalogManager.properties catalogs com entity.catalog struts.xml". People who have their character's EQ Players banner as part of their forum signatures (on any forum) have also discovered they are not working.

We, as in Customer Service, do not provide direct support for the Station Players website. I did have the pleasure of sitting with SKlug today who assured me that the CatalogManager.properties catalogs com entity.catalog struts.xml issue, specifically, is being looked in to and should be repaired as soon as possible.

-- TSR Joshua M., Technical Support Representative, Sony Online Entertainment

Other issues with EQ Players, such as outdated leader boards and many other problems, will not be addressed until some time in the future when a new web site team is hired / assigned.
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Antonius Bayle Server Instance Loading Bug Top Priority for SOE

I am actively working on this. It's not a load issue. There's something very odd going on that I haven't been able to track down yet. It's my #1 task at the moment though.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

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Hotfix Under Development For Patch Issues

A number of bugs from the July 20 patch are due to be resolved with an upcoming hotfix. Some quotes from SOE Devs and Programmers on these issues:

An update:

Going to hotfix all of this [melee beneficial ability duration timers]. Putting changes in-place currently, we'll test them out, and then it'll get scheduled. I'm hopeful we can do all this without bringing the servers down (thanks to some recent SKlug magic).

Working on a hotfix for the AA issues in this thread including melee's beneficial ability durations being shorter than they should.

Also working on the illusion issues and HT issues.

Update.. The Beastlord illusions issues with things that turn you into the image of your warder can't be hotfixed because they're actually hard coded fun. So those issues will have to wait until we can patch and bring the servers down. Pretty much everything else can be hotfixed.

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Patch Scheduled July 20, 2011

From SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 am CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed..

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Crushbone Raid "Demise of the Emperor" to be Off Limits to Mercs

Now on the Test server with the expectation of arriving on live servers on July 20:

Crushbone's raid will no longer allow mercenaries.

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Nerf to Fast DoTs Coming

This nerf is designed mainly to rein in necros but will be done for all fast DoTs.

Lower the damage fast DoTs do against raid bosses only.

The thread on the SOE forums describing the nerf and the discussion is here.

This is currently on the test server with the expectation of arriving on live servers on July 20.
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Patch Scheduled for Next Week, Maybe

In keeping with SOE's policy of not revealing classified information because of the risk of tipping off al-Qaeda, there is no official word of a patch next week (July 20).

However, "loose lips sink ships" and Chandrok forgot to censor his post:

This charm should be working a bit better after the patch next week.

[bold added]
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The Executioner's Crimson Trophy Charm to be Fixed

The Executioner's Crimson Trophy has terrible stats unless you are "holding hands" with a cleric. This is contrary to the description on the item and impractical in gaming.

This charm should be working a bit better after the patch next week.

-- Chandrok, EQ Developer

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Hardcore Heritage Glowing Armor Problems

From this thread on the SOE forum:

People have reported being unable to get two bracers of this type of armor because they are lore, even though they don't say so. You must give back the first bracer you get to Thach Jerden who will then give you a different type of bracer. At that point you will be able to get a second bracer.

Breastplate emblems are currently broken on the armor and will be fixed soon(tm).
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Epic Ornamentation Quests On Hold Until After Veil of Alaris

Under development are quests for each class to gain an ornamentation that allows any weapon to look like your epic weapon. That development has been put on hold until after the Veil of Alaris expansion ships in November.

"An Epic Request" (Epic Ornamentation aug quests) are on hold til after expansion. 14 out of 16 are already done.

Put simply, it's a LOT more than a few days, and he's currently tasked with a lot of other work that MUST take priority. Consider that Dzarn had been doing these quests, and ONLY these quests for a very long time prior to him actually becoming a full designer (not an intern) on the team. It has nothing to do with anything other than getting our work done in time for beta for Veil of Alaris. The epic ornamentation quests will get done and released when they're done, and I completely agree with not releasing them until they're ALL done.

-- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

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Original Memory Mode Should Not Be Used, Will Soon Be Removed

From this SOE forum post:

Definitely do not use Original Memory Mode. In fact I will be removing it as soon as I get the chance.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

This is referring to the setting under Options > Display > Advanced > Memory Mode.
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SOE Forums, Websites and Games Will Go Down for Maintenance July 12, 2011

From SOE forums:

Beginning July 12, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. US Pacific Time, we'll be performing maintenance on all games and services. During this maintenance, our forums, websites and games will also be unavailable. The estimated downtime for the maintenance is 7 hours.

We apologize for this interruption and will resume the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

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Optional Security Token (key fob) Live On All SOE Games

Incorrectly reported here as part of the new Veil of Alaris expansion, the Security Tokens are currently live on all SOE games.

They were given free to all Fan Faire attendees. It seems anyone else who wishes one will have to pay SOE for it.

Security Tokens work by creating a number which is synchronized with the game servers. Upon logging in, you are asked to provide the number in addition to your normal password. The number is different every time you log in and is displayed on the token, which is a small key fob. Anyone attempting to log into the account will be unable to do so without the number. This will be optional for those who want extra security.

Details will hopefully be announced soon.
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Next Expansion: Veil of Alaris

On July 8, 2011 at the annual Fan Faire, SOE announced the eighteenth expansion, '''Veil of Alaris'''.

* Brand new guild halls. Guild halls will be put in the neighborhoods.
* 12 New Zones
* Hotbar Revamp
* Level cap increase to 95
* New continent

Release date is planned for late November 2011.

As we discover more information, it will be posted on the wiki at: http://everquest.wikkii.net/wiki/Veil_of_Alaris
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Patch Scheduled July 6, 2011, Also Clan Crushbone Raid Loot Fixed

Posted on the SOE forums by Aristo, EQ Designer:

The hotfix for this [Clan Crushbone raid loot] (and several other issues) has just been pushed live and data should be completely updated within the next hour or so. There's going to be a brief (about an hour) downtime at 4 AM to get the updated spells and items out.

Assume that is 4am Pacific time.
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Recruit-A-Friend Program Announced

The only thing better than playing EverQuest is playing EverQuest with some of your best friends! With this in mind we are proud to announce our brand new Recruit a Friend program. The new Recruit a Friend program makes it easier and more beneficial than ever to help friends get introduced to EverQuest, with fantastic benefits for both Recruiter and Recruitee!

Read more about it on the SOE forums here.
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Emergency Patch Friday July 1, 2011

From the SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 5:30 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 6:30 am MST, 7:30 am CST, 8:30 am EST, 1:30 pm GMT, 14:30 CET) for a emergency maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 2.5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

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Patch Scheduled June 29, 2011

From SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 4:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 5:00 am MST, 6:00 am CST, 7:00 am EST, 12:00 pm GMT, 13:00 CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 4 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

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Double XP Weekend July 1 to 4. Oh, also some Marketplace deals

From Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager:

It’s a long weekend coming up for those of us in the U.S.A. and we thought we’d add a little more fun and levity for all of you whether you are celebrating or not!

To start things off we’ll be having daily deals on the Marketplace starting Tuesday, June 28, 2011, and continuing on through Thursday, June 30, 2011, with items announced each day on the EQplayers website and in game in the Marketplace. Make sure to check back every day to see if that item that you want is on sale. You might see something that will catch your eye!

We didn’t want to leave the weekend out though, so starting Friday, July 1, 2011, and going through Monday, July 4, we’ll be having a fabulous weekend sale and Double Experience! Details on the sale will be available Friday, so make sure to take a look!

[Bold added]
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SOE Reduces Prices Across the Board, Announces the End of Star Wars Galaxies

From this Star Wars Galaxies forum post:

We write to you today to inform you that on December 15, 2011, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and LucasArts will end all services (MMO and Trading Card Game) for Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).

In addition, with the loss of one of their games in the Station Access "all you can eat" subscription, they are renaming it the "SOE All Access Game Pass".

Prices for the All Access Game Pass are reduced to $14.99 per month with a 12 month subscription. Other subscription lengths are also reduced in price.

Of more interest to EQ only player, an EQ only subscription is also dropping in price. The cost has gone from $11.99 a month for 12 months to $9.99. Other subscription lengths are also reduced in price.

Note that these prices are for U.S. customers, in U.S. dollars, and do not include possible taxes.

Check out their prices here.
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Safe Passage Mission To Be Investigated

If you can remember back to the days of the Seeds of Destruction expansion, you will remember the mission Safe Passage. Annoying and buggy, most people finally just did it by using pets, which seems like an exploit but is about the only way to do it.

Chandrok, EQ Developer, announced that he is going to investigate the mission. Hopefully it will be finally fixed, 500 bug reporting posts and three and a half years after it went live, but better late then never.

I'm going to try to find some time to look a bit deeper into the problem with this mission. After a quick look I found it's a fair bit more complex to diagnose than a normal mission, which is probably why a fix has been so elusive.

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Fellowship Experience Sharing On Test

The Test Server now has Fellowship Experience Sharing. I'll let SKlug (Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer) explain it:

*** Fellowship Experience Sharing ***
- Ever had a friend or friends that fell behind the rest of your group because they could not play as much as the rest of you? Now you can invite them to your fellowship and enable experience sharing. This allows your combat experience to be shared with them even if they are offline!
- The new system requires fellowship members to-opt in from the fellowship window using the new toggle XP button. There is also a new column in the list that displays the XP sharing status of all members. The fellowship leader can toggle XP sharing for anyone, or each member can toggle their own.
- If you have fellowship XP sharing enabled, you both share and receive combat experience with other fellowship members that also have it enabled.

He also explains more and answers some questions in that thread.

Note that everything on the Test Server is subject to change before going live. The final version of this (if it even makes it past the testing stage) could be very different.

No word on when this might go live.
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Escape to Norrath EQ Trial Secretly Ends

Despite it still being advertised on the everquest.com page and being available for download, apparently it has been discontinued.

TSR Joshua M., Technical Support Representative, SOE, posted this in the SOE forums:

The Escape to Norrath trial has ended. I do believe a new trial is in the works on the live servers but I do not have any official information to post about it. In any case, it shouldn't be too far away.

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Server Lag Issues To Be Investigated

Players all over Norrath are reporting increased and annoying server lag. Most reports involve instances, but some are happening in the normal zones.

SKlug (Steven S. Klug), EverQuest Lead Programmer, posted June 22 on SOE forums:

The server side issues are still being investigated as I posted a week or two ago. The cause of the congestion is not obvious so we're adding a bunch more diagnostics. Those can't go out without a patch though, so we have to wait for the next patch to look at the data. But we're actively looking into it.

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Patch Scheduled June 15, 2011

UPDATE:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 am CET) for maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Nothing official yet but it looks tentatively scheduled for June 15 based on this SOE forum post:

Just wanted to mention in here (I'm sure Piestro will update it more officially tomorrow) that we are delaying the transfers off until the next live update (which is currently scheduled for 6/15) so we can get code out to live servers that allows us to not destroy epics that are flagged as copied. There were a lot of people that were concerned about that so we implemented a solution. Unfortunately it requires code be pushed live.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

[Bold added]

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Double and a Quarter Bonus XP Weekend - NOT!

From the SOE forums:

It's time to grab your favorite refreshments, dust off your neglected alts, and start your long weekend of hunting, fun, and adventure! The experience bonus will run from Friday May 28, 2010 (10:00 am, PDT) to Tuesday, June 1, 2010 (10:00 am PDT)

Even though we didn't reach 15K goal for the 50% rare spawn chance increase , we have decided to run a Rare Spawn Chance Increase of 25% to this weekend as well! Enjoy!

UPDATE: I've been fooled. Someone bumped up an old post from last year and I never noticed. This is from last year.
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Extra Free Packs in Legends of Norrath Card Game and Free Loot Card

All EverQuest players will receive extra packs free, because of the recent downtime. More interesting is that we also receive a free loot card, any loot item of your choice for your EQ character.

Even if you don't play LoN, a free loot card is worth signing into LoN for.

April Prizing!

We are also extremly [sic] apologetic about the lack of tournaments in April and May, so as a thank you for your patience with us as we reorganized, we will be awarding all Legends of Norrath players a Legacies Loot Card. All players will also receive 3 free Legacies packs.

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Patch Scheduled May 25, 2011

From the SOE forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 3:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 4:00 am MST, 5:00 am CST, 6:00 am EST, 11:00 am GMT, 12:00 CET) for a game update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Just a quick reminder, if you experience any difficulty with the launcher after the upcoming game update the most recent version of launchpad can be found here.

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Some Client Crashing Memory Bugs To Be Fixed In June Patch

I have attempted to gather information about these [client] crashes [during raid instances], but very very few (most of whom I have been able to help) have sent me any further information. I understand it's not the players' job to fix these issues, but since we have not been able to reproduce the problems in-house, I'm asking for a bit of help. Sending debug.dmp and dbg.txt files to equserclient@soe.sony.com would be helpful.

If these problems are due to memory issues (which the majority of the ones sent in have been). There are some fixes coming in the June patch.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

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Dragorn and Other Tank Mercs Hate Bug To Be Fixed

Dragorn tank mercenaries have been failing to generate the proper hate.

Chandrok, EQ Developer:

I was able to find a bug causing the Dragorn tank merc and a few others to not generate the proper amount of hate. This will be fixed in the June patch.

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SOE Announces "Hardcore Heritage" Temporary Zone Revamps in May, June, and July

From EQ Players site:

Are you ready to revisit some of your favorite classic zones and experience all new challenges? Well Hardcore Heritage is almost here!

Hardcore Heritage, one of our yearly events where we revisit some older zones and update them to provide a more challenging environment, is coming to a server near you soon! Spread over the months May to July, you'll have an opportunity to visit the old stomping grounds with entirely new foes to battle.

The schedule for events is as follows:

5/23 – 6/12

Blackburrow (Level 80)
Cazic Thule (Level 80)

6/13-7/3

Lower Guk (Level 85)
Unrest (Level 85)

7/1-7/21

Crushbone (Level 90)
?????????? (Level 90)

This year we're presenting two newly revamped zones, Crushbone and one other yet to be announced. Nostalgia and loot will abound, make sure you stop by and visit all the old spots from Trainer Hill to Emperor Crush's throne room itself! There's even a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?

How will you handle the might of the Crushbone Orcs? Check back in the coming weeks as we reveal the final exciting zone to receive a revamp this year. We're positively chilly with anticipation!

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House of Thule $19.95 for U.S., Canada, Mexico from Direct2Drive.com:

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House of Thule $19.95 for U.S. Customers at Amazon.com:

Click here for details.
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SOE Announces In-Game Poll Results

Auto-Granting AA Poll Results are in. The results don't surprise me all that much to be honest other than the low number of votes received.

Yes - 55%
No - 21%
Don't Care - 14%
Yes, but not this solution - 4%
No, but I like free stuff - 3%
Yes, but I would choose a different expansion - 3%

No ETA on WHEN this will happen, but pretty safe bet that I'll be moving forward on this.

More surprising however, was the results for the removal of PC/Pet push on NPCs.

Yes - 44%
No - 34%
Don't Care - 22%

I'm really surprised there are so many of you against removal of push.

-- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

Naturally, SOE is not bound by these results. However, I expect they will implement these changes, as the polls just confirm what they were considering.

From this thread on the SOE forums.
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EverQuest is Back!

Restoration of SOE's game services will begin today. This phased restoration will include the return of nearly all of our portfolio of online games, the reinstatement of our game forums and websites, and added functionality to require players to reset their passwords.

Details on the in-game bonuses:

Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns, Double Faction Gains. All players, each character. From now until Sunday, May 22 2011 at 11:59 pm Pacific

In addition, all accounts, including unsubscribed, are getting free time. Even if you haven't used an account for years, you get 45 free days.
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SOE Announces "Make Good" Plan, Details To Come Here

From SOE's EverQuest page on Facebook:

Players with an active house will be credited one month of upkeep costs and the inactive period will be extended from 90 to 150 days. More information on SOE's "Make Good" plan to come!

UPDATE:

First and foremost, all impacted players will receive 30 days of game time added to the end of the current billing cycle in addition to one day for each day the system is down.

Additionally, many games are offering a variety of in-game items and special events to welcome players back once our services resume (per the outline below). This is true for both PC and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system based products.

[Removed non-EQ game information]

* EverQuest®: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns and Double Faction Gains

[Removed non-EQ game information]

And finally, our Station Access subscribers will receive 500 Station Cash, in addition to the subscription time and items listed above.

Additionally, we announced today that SOE will provide its U.S.-based Station Account holders with complimentary enrollment in an identity theft protection program through Debix, one of the industry's most reputable identity protection firms. For Station Account holders who live outside the U.S., SOE will be offering similar programs, if and as available, and will provide details as they're confirmed for each country or territory.

According to their previous post, to SOE will be sending us email with the procedures for Debix enrollment:

Details, including how to sign up for the program, will be emailed to Station Account holders in the United States soon, and you will have until June 28, 2011 to sign-up and redeem your code. Additionally, Station Account holders will be required to reset their password prior to signing up for this program as an added security measure.

Since we have to change our password before signing up, we can't sign up until SOE is back online. So let's hope everyone identity and credit cards are fine until then. Although almost all credit cards should be safe, according to SOE, only a very small number were compromised.
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"Update" From SOE

SOE has provided us with very little information. Not even a daily, "EQ will not be up today" message. One wonders what the PR people as SOE do all day, it sure isn't keeping us in the loop.

SOE has created a Recent Updates page which should help.

UPDATE: SOE has belatedly begun to post "EQ will not be up today" messages on their Facebook page.

UPDATE: With very little information coming from SOE, rumors are everywhere and facts are almost nowhere to be found. The EQ2 Wire seems to be the best place to find out what is going on, since SOE has never understood the word "communication" (hint: try dictionary.com :).

From The EQ2 Wire we hear that Bloomberg.com reports, "The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plan to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged".

Naturally, they are talking mostly about the PlayStation Network, since that is where Sony makes the most money. SOE (EverQuest) is just an afterthought.

UPDATE: Industry Gamers has posted a letter they claim was sent to Sony's publishing and development partners about the hack.
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Email from "SOE". Phishing or Legitimate?

Today email has been sent from "Sony Online Entertainment" with the URL of soe.innovyx.net. It has the Subject: "Important Customer Notification". It is a copy of the statement SOE posted on their website.

This email is highly suspicious. All of the links on the page, even though they appear to be to places like www.annualcreditreport.com, www.experian.com, and www.consumer.gov/idtheft, actually lead you to soe.innovyx.net.

Since SOE has reported that hackers have gained access to the email addresses of SOE customers, all email should be suspected of being fake.

It is highly recommended that you be wary of any email purportedly from SOE. Do NOT click on any links you find in such email. Instead, type the address you wish to go to into your browser address bar.

UPDATE: A SOE customer service representative on the phone stated that SOE did indeed send out email to their customers on this. Therefore, the email may be legitimate. However, the warning to be cautious and to NEVER click on email links but to type them in yourself is still good advice.

UPDATE: SOE's web site at https://www.soe.com/securityupdate/ says the following:

A press release was issued May 2, 2011 outlining these details. We are sending customer service notifications via email to all of our impacted account holders whose customer data may have been stolen as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems. These emails will be sent by Innovyx, our third party email distributor, and will contain either 'soe.innovyx.net' or 'soe.sony.com' in the sender field. [Bold added]

So this email appears to be legitimate.
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All SOE Games and Websites Down for Security Reasons

All SOE games, including EverQuest, are down.

Here are some links from SOE explaining the issues: SOE Customer Service Security Update

And Press Release

Summation:

* SOE servers were hacked. Hackers gained everyone's personal info, including name, address (city, state, zip, country), email address, gender, birthdate, phone number, login name and hashed password. (A hashed password may or may not be secure, depending on how much other information the hackers have and how skilled they are. Theoretically, it should be secure but we don't know the extent of their access.)

* Credit card and bank info is supposedly safe, except for some non-US customers. SOE will be informing them if it is suspected their information is compromised.

* SOE is working to discover what happened and to secure their networks going forward.

* SOE recommends everyone be alert for suspicious email, phone and other contacts. Watching your credit reports and banking and credit cards is recommended and they offer some ways to do so.

* No information is available as to when EverQuest will be back up. It is likely that SOE has no idea. There isn't much doubt that they are working around the clock to try to identify and fix this, but it is very complex and difficult. They do not want to bring the game and their web sites back up until they are sure it is safe. It could be as long as weeks, judging by the PlayStation Network, which has been down since April 20, 2011.

* Subscribers of SOE games, including EverQuest, will get 30 days added to their subscriptions for free. In addition, they will be "compensated" one day for each day they are down. It is likely that the compensation is additional days added to their accounts, rather then a cash refund.

More will be reported here as we learn more.

UPDATE: According to the Associated Press, the SOE servers were hacked on April 16 and 17. Sony has obviously done some major investigation into all their systems after the PlayStation Network hack was discovered and just recently figured out that SOE was also compromised.

"We had previously believed that SOE customer data had not been obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company, but on May 1 we concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen and we are notifying you as soon as possible," Sony said in a message to customers.

UPDATE: According to joystiq.com:

SOE has provided us with the following statement, in which it confirms that its user data was stolen as part of the original [PlayStation Network] intrusion -- not a second attack. "While the two systems are distinct and operated separately, given that they are both under the SONY umbrella, there is some degree of architecture that overlaps. The intrusions were similar in nature. This is NOT a second attack; new information has been discovered as part of our ongoing investigation of the external intrusion in April."

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Double XP and Station Cash Saturday April 30, 2011

To thank players for their patience during the recent service interruption, we will be hosting special events this weekend across our game portfolio, including a Double Station Cash day on Saturday, April 30th. We are also working on a “make good” plan for players of the PS3 versions of DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Details will be available soon on the individual game websites and forums.

EverQuest will also be holding a Double XP day on Saturday, from 12:01am PST to 11:59pm PST.

To redeem game cards for Station Cash, visit the Game Cards webpage.

Read the full statement here.
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Patch Scheduled April 27, 2011

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 12:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 1:00 am MST, 2:00 am CST, 3:00 am EST, 8:00 am GMT, 9:00 am CET) for maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 9 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

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AA Fixes Coming In May

Several AA fixes are due to arrive in the May patch. As always, things may change. I also expect more fixes to be added.

From a SOE forums thread on Embalmer's Carapace:

Fixed it. Finally found what was causing it to drop early. May patch.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

From a SOE forums thread on Improved Shield Specialist:

I've removed the damage bonus with ISS, however you should now be correctly getting the agro increases as intended with the May patch. We got some code time recently to give me actual ways to affect your damage, agro, etc. depending upon having a shield equipped or not. Before it was purely damage increases. Now I can manipulate almost anything including agro bonus.

This is something I very much want to use to help diversify the warrior class in the future so you can better utilize your class skills when tanking AND when not.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

From a SOE forums thread on Acute Focus of Arcanum and Wizard Third Spire of Arcanum Rank 3:

Acute Focus of Arcanum - LevelMax raised to 90.

Third Spire of Arcanum Rank 3 - Level Max raised to 90.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

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Stomples Day (Easter) Quest Active Until May 1

In the honor of the elusive Stomples, EQ will be celebrating Stomples Day this year!

Wandering about the Plane of Knowledge is Grundle Cogwelder, a Gnome with many questions on his mind. Somehow he’s got it in his head that rabbits come from eggs. Make sure to stop by and visit him soon!

- Piestro, EverQuest Community Manager

Grundle offers a quest to collect some eggs. The reward is an item which when clicked will sometimes turn you into a white rabbit and sometimes cause baby rabbits to appear around you.
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Some Items Now Light Sources, Change Affects Charm of the Elusive Eidolon

From this SOE forums thread:

All helms in House of Thule and all raid weapons now have light sources. It was my error that the patch notes for these changes were not included in the patch yesterday. This should explain why the Charm of the Elusive Eidolon is showing lower stats for most players.

-- Chandrok, EQ Developer

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April 13 Patch Causes Download Problems

The April 13 patch has caused many people to be unable to download and play EQ.

One possible fix is to use the latest new LaunchPad (LP3 or LaunchPad v3). This may be obtained at http://launch.soe.com/everquest/

Here is some advice for installing LP3:

Even better than this, especially when your EQ folders, like mine, do not directly reside in the default folders SOE uses.

1. Run the launcher install program. On the first screen, where it asks you where your EQ folder is, DO NOT use the default path, use the path where your actual EQ folder is (in my case it's both C:\EQ and M:\EQ , since I run one account per actual EQ folder).

2. Let the setup run itself, log in and whatever...

3. When it starts checking for data, cancel it right away, and go to options. (otherwise you'd end up downloading all 6.5GB) Click the Scan button besides "Game Assets" a few lines under the Open Folder button. Wait.

4. When scanning is done, close the options page, and resume the checks.

For multiple accounts, do not check the "Remember this login blahblah" on the screen where it asks for your username and password. If that is checked, LaunchPad will skip the login screen and go straight to patching every time it runs; great for one standalone account, but horrible for multiples.
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"Leap" AAs Bugged

New Hastened Leap AAs were added in the March 9, 2011 patch. Due to a bug, some people have been reporting that they get an error message when they attempt to Leap.

The error message says you can't leap because the recast is [something like] 1193046 hours.

In this thread on the SOE forums, the issue is discussed and it is currently suggested that if your Leap is bugged you should petition.

However, many GMs and other customer service personnel are unaware that this is a bug in the game, and not on your system. Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), EQ Game Designer, has stated that he has sent an email to them describing the issue and you should tell them if they have any problems to contact him directly.
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SOE Considers Auto Granting Lower Level Toons Free AAs

Something I've thought about in the past and was recently brought up in the forums by a couple people is the idea of granting some AA when you reach the level to use them. The idea being its very hard for a new player to catch up to become useful to relatively current content in any reasonable amount of time. So, without getting too wrapped up in the particulars just yet, I have this question:

Would people be against going back a few years and granting all AA previous to some milestone to anyone who reaches the required level for the AA?

There are some hangups to this question though.

* Milestone point selected for granting AA previous. I'm thinking anything prior to Secrets of Faydwer right now.
* Devaluation of time spent by people not affected by this change (IE - long term players who've earned the AA spent)
* Achievements for AA would be affected since you wouldn't be spending the same number.
* This would affect each class very differently and there would not be enough time to sift through and pick and choose which AA would be auto-granted.

As before, this is not something I'm already doing. This is a request for feedback on an IDEA.

-- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

You can read more about this and comment on the SOE forums here.
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Update for Raid Looting Bug and Dragonscale Hills Quests March 25th

Ok, so we've pushed out an update that should fix this issue [raid looting bug] when you get a new dynamic zone. It will not fix it for static zones, however, we will be bouncing dragonscale hills at 4am 3/25/11 PDT. After that point the problem will be fixed in dragonscale for the anniversary event. Other static zones will not get the fix until the next full server patch.

-- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

From this SOE forums thread.
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SOE Responds to Anniversary Quest Spawn Problems

Finally, after many complaints for a number of days by players, SOE responds:

For this anniversary we decided to try something new for the players. We included some of the standard quests and events that players have come to expect from our anniversary events. These events reward players as normal. In addition to these standard events we created an event where there are chase items. By the nature of chase items, not everyone will get them, and there will be competition for these items. We felt this brings back some of the nostalgia people have for original EverQuest where this was the norm. We also always intended to have this event happen every year during the anniversary so those who don’t get a chance to finish this year will have an opportunity in the future. All of this said, we see a few things we can do to improve the experience.

For the Mechamatic Guardian raid, we plan to increase the amount of adds that spawn, to help make the parts more available.

For the “Hunt the Shards” task, we intend to increase the amount of spawns available. Additionally, we plan to increase the chances that the rare items will spawn. This will decrease the chance of some of the common items spawning as a result.

We plan on hotfixing these changes either Thursday before prime time, or 4am Friday, depending on when testing can be completed.

Additionally, if you see someone obviously using a cheating program, send a petition. Please use the “Community Standards” option, and note the player that you believe is using a cheating program to cheat on this quest. Be sure to note the person doing it, not their bazaar mules. CS can look into this, and they can see suspicious behavior. Players that prove to be cheating will be dealt with as per normal CS policy for players caught cheating. Customer Service is already going through the logs and finding the most egregious and easily noticed players and dealing with them. Not all cheating is so obviously visible, but this one is VERY evident in the log files. Customer reports of these people will help us catch them faster, and may catch people we might miss just from reading the massive log files.

- Ngreth, EQ Developer

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Patch Scheduled March 17, 2011

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:00 am US Pacific (US Pacifc-PST is -8 GMT: 3:00 am MST, 4:00 am CST, 5:00 am EST, 10:00 am GMT, 11:00 am CET) for maintenance. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for 4 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

From this SOE forums post.
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EverQuest 12th Anniversary Events Begin Monday March 14 *SOME DATES CHANGED*

Double XP:

From Monday March 14 to Wednesday March 16 and from Friday March 25 to Sunday March 27 they will be activating Double Experience.

More Rare Mobs:

From March 14 to March 16 and March 25 to March 27 you'll be seeing a lot more rare mobs too! During the periods of Double Experience, they'll be increasing the spawn rate of rare mobs as well.

Marketplace Deal of the Day:

Starting on March 16 and lasting until March 27, they'll have a deal every day on the Marketplace. They'll be announcing them the day they go on sale, so you'll have to check the EQplayers site or the Marketplace in game to find out.

In Game Events – 12 Days of excitement throughout Norrath!:

Starting on Tuesday Wednesday March 16, 2011 and lasting until Saturday March 26, 2011 Tuesday April 26, 2011 we'll celebrate our 12th Anniversary in game! Not only will we have everything from our previous anniversary celebrations (including quests, fabled spawns, and raids) but this year brings all new challenges to the lands of Norrath!

Read all about these events by going to SOE's official news web pages here:
EverQuest Turns 12!
Even More EverQuest 12th Anniversary Festivities!

UPDATE: Due to an error on SOE's part, the date posted that the celebrations would end was incorrect. I have updated it to reflect that it ends on Tuesday April 26, 2011. NOTE: SOE also says that it starts on Tuesday March 16, 2011. March 16 is a Wednesday, not a Tuesday. I am seeking comment from SOE on whether it starts on Tuesday or Wednesday. However, since it is now Tuesday and the events have not started, I'm assuming it starts Wednesday.
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Intimidation Skillups To Be Fixed Soon(tm)

From this SOE forums thread:

Yup. Aristo looked through the tables and we looked at the code and it was nigh impossible. In order to even have a chance at a skillup, the ability had to succeed.

We actually got some new code time to fix skillups and the way they work. Hopefully you should see the results of that new code sometime soon.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

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Extremely Long Discussion on Proposed Defensive Changes

An extremely long discussion is currently going on at SOE forums. Here is the gist of it:

Greetings all. Over the years, EverQuest has gone through many changes. Sometimes, these changes have had long-reaching effects the original designers could have never imagined. One of the biggest changes recently has been he dramatic scaling of NPC damage. In order to keep content challenging for raiders, the damage dished out by NPCs has increased to the point we're at today where only the mightiest of tanks can stand up to a difficult target for more than one round. Gone are the days when a caster who accidentally drew the attention of the enemy might have a chance to survive long enough for an experienced tank, or off-tank to draw agro and save the fleeing finger waggler. In our opinion, this has lessened the enjoyment of the game sufficiently that change is needed. Badly.

What kind of change you ask?

We will reduce NPC melee damage across the board. Primarily this would be raid NPCs, but there will be some group changes as well. In short, we want to return EQ to the days when a tank change didn't just mean how many people have to die before a tank can step in; when a caster drawing agro didn't just explode in a single hit. In short, making the game more survivable, more fun, and less punitive for even the smallest mistakes.

Along with the NPC dps reduction, the damage mitigation such as defensive, final stand, knights' mantle and carapace abilities would be overhauled so you still have some emergency situation abilities, but these would last for 18 seconds instead of the three minutes they do now. Warriors would retain their innate mitigation bonus over knights, and would receive a five percent mitigation advantage at 45% damage reduction, as well as an increase to agro generation while this ability is active. Knights will receive a flat 40% reduction ability with no damage caps, with added flavor of SK's adding a lifetap, while Paladins would receive an increase to their healing.

So what does this all mean to you?

Hopefully, more fun in the game again. We also NEED your help in testing the changes. This is obviously no small task. The changes will be pushed out to the test server for a couple months before being implemented on live servers. I can't stress enough how important this time will be for you to help us find any major problems. While we can account for most of the major changes, there is always a chance something will get missed.

Please note, the changes listed above are the MAJOR bullet points. I'm sure there will be more points of discussion and I'm absolutely open to talk about them. Most importantly, this path has NOT been set in stone. It is something we are discussing, but something I feel is very important to the game's health. We are VERY aware this is a big change, and we welcome your opinions on the matter.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

You can read all of it and comment here.

UPDATE:

The more work I put into this project, the more work I am uncovering that will need to be done in order to achieve the goals I set for success.

While I still believe the basic idea to be sound, the sheer scope of work involved is growing much larger than I expected, and is reaching a point where it may not be feasible or accurately testable. The NPC changes themselves are not hard. That data is fairly simple to adjust and test. Another issue gets into the fact that so much of raiding is scripted with many npc power changes happening within those scripts under specific conditions that the likelihood of catching all the changes accurately would be increasingly difficult.

Then there is the issue of healing. Were casters able to survive even a short increase in agro time, the light tanks and hybrids would then have a much easier job of tanking, to the point that they would be sustainable in a raid fight where they should not be. In short, literally all classes would have to be adjusted. Again, scope of the project growing out of reasonable limits.

In short.. this idea is likely dead in the water unless I can come up with a way to reduce the scope and still achieve the goals I set out in the 1st place. Considering how much I have on my schedule already, it's unlikely I'll be pursuing this further.

- Elidroth Renato (Doug Cronkhite), Game Designer, Sony Online Entertainment, LLC

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