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