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.