Fall Faction Frenzy

From the EQ login screen:

Fall Faction Frenzy

This season of the harvest it's time to gather together and be thankful with the friendly or less than friendly denizens of Norrath and beyond. From 12noon (PST) Friday, November 20th until 12noon (PST) Monday, November 30th faction hits both positive and negative all across the world will be increased! Gain or lose bonus faction with friends and foes this season!

Patch Scheduled November 11, 2009

From the EQ log-in patch screen:

Game Update News: The next Game Update is tentatively planned for Wednesday, November 11, 2009.

UPDATE:

Game Update News: All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be coming down around 2:00 am PST (PST is -8 GMT: 3:00am MST, 4:00am CST, 5:00am EST, 10:00am GMT) on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be down for about 6 hours.

Double Time Rare Weekend

From the log in patch notes:

10/30/2009

The haunting air has caused a strange phenomenon to occur. From 2pm PDT on Friday, October 30th until 10am PST until Tuesday, November 2nd, several rare encounters will double the rate of their appearance.

- The EverQuest Team

Which "rare encounters" are included are not known at this time.

UPDATE:

"It means that the chance for any rare NPC from the last four or five expansions to spawn in their associated encounter will be doubled. The rate at which their associated encounters spawn is unaffected."

"It includes anything flagged as rare in its encounter from recent expansions. I other words, anything that has a chance of spawning a placeholder instead of a named."

"Also, this only affects rare mob spawn rate. Not rare drop rates (global or not)."

- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

Read the thread here.

UPDATE:

"From 2pm PDT on Friday, October 30th until 10am PST until Tuesday, November 2nd"

Since today is Monday, November 2nd, either the "strange phenomenon" has caused a rift in the space-time continuum, or they need a calendar. So, I'm taking up collecting a fund to buy them a calendar.

-----

Oh, besides a calendar, they need someone who can actually post corrections to errors, so once they get a calendar, they can post the corrections, since they can't seem to handle that at the moment.

The in-game Welcome to EverQuest window still says "Tuesday, November 2nd" so it is unknown if this has ended on Monday, November 2nd or will end on Tuesday, November 3rd.

SOE Network Downtime Tuesday, October 27th

From the Welcome to EverQuest in-game window:

SOE Network Downtime - All SOE games will be brought down for switch maintenance at 3:00 AM PDT on Tuesday, October 27th. Expected downtime is four hours.

EQ Halloween Starts October 24, 2009

It turns on October 24th (not sure of the exact time)

Most of the older things will return and a new event will be in as well. News article will be up tomorrow.

- Zatozia, EQ Community Relations Manager

The thread is here.

Halloween ends November 7th. SOE Official page is here.

The "West" Bug is Back

The infamous "West" bug, where you see a white or blue screen when you face west, is back.

A year or more ago, many players reported this bug. After a long, long time of trying to track this down, it appeared that SOE had fixed it for almost everyone. Now, it seems to be back.

This bug has been reported in the Field of Scale and the Hatchery Wing off the Field of Scale.

Reports of the "West" bug began to increase several weeks ago, but the last few days have caused many more reports.

Emergency Patch October 14, 2009

From the Official EverQuest forums:

All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be coming down around 5:00am PDT (PDT is -7 GMT: 6:00am MDT, 7:00am CDT, 8:00am EDT, 12:00pm GMT) on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 for an Emergency Game Update. The servers are estimated to be down for about 3 hours.

SOE posted the following about the patch:

"The patch is to fix an issue with the Road to Underfoot events, not Dragoncrypt. The Dragoncrypt issue will hopefully be hot-fixed tonight before the patch." - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

Underfoot Beta Sign Ups Now

Sign Up for the EQ Expansion Beta

We are now accepting sign-ups for the EverQuest® Underfoot™ expansion beta. The beta period is expected to begin on October 20, 2009 and end on December 1, 2009.

As with last year's 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.

Read the full details and/or sign up here.

Patch Scheduled October 8, 2009

From the Welcome to EverQuest in-game window:

Next Update Postponed - EverQuest's scheduled update for October 7th, 2009 has been postponed. We expect to be able to update on the morning of October 8th, 2009. This will be updated when final details are known.

UPDATE from the EverQuest LaunchPad:

Game Update News: New Schedule for the Update: All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be coming down around 12:00 mid PDT (PDT is -7 GMT: 1:00am MDT, 2:00am CDT, 3:00am EDT, 7:00am GMT) on Thursday, October 8, 2009 for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be down for about 8 hours.

Patch Scheduled October 7, 2009 - CANCELED

Rumor has it that a patch is scheduled for October 7th. No official announcement has been made by SOE, however, the in-game Welcome to EverQuest window has the following:

Hot Zones! With the update on 10/07/09 we will be changing the hot zones. Look for Franklin Teek outside the guild lobby in the Plane of Knowledge after the update. The new hot zones include the exceptionally creepy Grieg's End and the Plane of Nightmares!

UPDATE:

Game Update News: All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be coming down around 12:00 mid PDT (PDT is -7 GMT: 1:00am MDT, 2:00am CDT, 3:00am EDT, 7:00am GMT) on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be down for about 9 hours. We will also be doing maintenance during this downtime so please keep an eye on the EQ forums for status updates.

From: EverQuest Players - Game Updates.

UPDATE:

The Game Update and Server downtime has been postponed and will not be taking place on October 7th. We will post a new date when it become available.

From: EverQuest - Discussion Boards.

Ancient Heroes Raid Gear to be Nerfed

"All of the "raid" gear will be getting nerfed. I'll let one of the items guys explain in more detail. All I can tell you is that the gear will be very good group gear. It will not be raid-equivalent gear. This will be a change to the existing gear, so the items you already have will change." - Alan "Absor" VanCouvering, Assistant Lead Designer - EverQuest

In addition to nerfing the raid gear, some other changes will be made. Read the entire post by Absor here.

UPDATE: It has been announced how the gear will be nerfed, although the details of what the new gear will be like awaits the next patch due October 7. Until then, all raid gear has been removed from Old Man McKenzie and raids will no longer drop items. Instead of items, raids will drop "Brew tokens", which can be converted into Brew.

· Current "raid" items would be "zeroed out", reducing all stats on them to 0, all augment slots will be removed, and the items will be renamed. This will pop out all augments on the items, returning them safely to players at no cost. Please be aware that the augments will appear on your curser when you log in after the update. Don't zone until you place them into your inventory.

· The "zeroed out" items can be handed to Old Man McKenzie for their full original value in Brew Points. We also plan to offer an additional item from a list of "free" items for those turning in these old items. Exactly what those will be is not certain yet, but may include Golden Casino Tickets and an illusion items.

· Then we will recreate the original raid items and put them back on the vendor.

· Requirements will be added in order to obtain the raids, to enter the raid zones and to loot any items off the raid chest. That same requirement will be added to purchase the raid gear from the vendor. The requirement will be that the player has completed all Crystallos raid events. The gear will be very useful for guilds that have completed Crystallos but have been unable to move forward from there.

Read the entire (complex) post by Absor here.

Sound Bugged

The September 15, 2009 patch contained a bug with EQ sound.

There's an issue with sound effects. It appears only one at a time is playing. - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

The official thread about the patch bugs is here.

Underfoot Launch Date Changed

Posted here:

To ensure that we can give our players the best possible gameplay experience and the amount of content that they've come to expect, we felt it was necessary to move the launch date for EverQuest® Underfoot^TM to December 15, 2009.

Participate* in all three of the Road to Underfoot events and pre-order and purchase the expansion by December 1, 2009 and you'll be one of the first to experience EverQuest Underfoot starting December 8, 2009.

*Terms and Conditions: Early access is available up to seven days prior to the commercial launch date for the expansion, which date is subject to change. *To be eligible for early access to EverQuest Underfoot, consumers must: (i) have a current, valid EverQuest subscription in good standing; (ii) have previously purchased the EverQuest base game and all previous EverQuest expansions (sold separately); (iii) participate in all three Road to Underfoot events with the same character on one account prior to 11:59pm (PST) December 1, 2009 (participation may require completing a task or quest or killing one or more NPCs); and (iv) successfully pre-order and purchase the Underfoot expansion prior to 11:59pm (PST) December 1, 2009. Players who do not satisfy all of the conditions listed above, including participating in all three Road to Underfoot events prior to 11:59pm (PST) on December 1, 2009, will not be eligible for early access to Underfoot, even if they successfully pre-order the expansion prior to December 1, 2009. The scheduled early access date for qualifying EverQuest subscribers is December 8, 2009 and the scheduled commercial release date for EverQuest Underfoot is December 15, 2009.

Pet Shrink Bug Fix Awaiting Next Patch

The bug where you are unable to shrink your pet will be fixed in the next patch, according to SOE.

It's fixed. It's just awaiting the next patch. - Steven S. Klug,
EverQuest Lead Programmer

The thread is here.

Giants, Giants, Giants! Quest Bugged

In the Giants, Giants, Giants! task, The Colossus of Skylance in instanced Arcstone is currently bugged. You often can't get credit for killing him. This is a known bug.

The only advice SOE can give is to kill him very slowly. However, this advice often does not work.

If you don't get credit for killing him, you can't continue the task.

The August 19, 2009 patch should fix this.

Patch Scheduled August 19, 2009

From the Welcome to EverQuest in-game window:

Next Update - There is an EverQuest update tenatively scheduled for 2:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, August 19th. Downtime is expected to be approximately six hours.

The Road to Underfoot Begins

SOE begins "The Road to Underfoot". A series of three events, one in August, September and October. The first one, Giants, Giants, Giants! has begun.

The Road to Underfoot Events Pave the Way For You To Get Into EverQuest® Underfoot™ EARLY!

The busy gnomes of the EverQuest® team are putting the final touches to the 16th expansion to the EverQuest franchise, Underfoot, and we couldn't be more excited to unveil it to you! In anticipation of this EverQuest milestone, we're rolling out the Road to Underfoot events to give you a taste of what's to come and the opportunity to get there early!

If you participate in all three of the Road to Underfoot events and pre-order and purchase the Underfoot expansion, you'll receive early access into the expansion! The first event will begin in August, the second event will begin in September and the third event will begin in October. Check RoadToUnderfoot.com for the latest news about each event, new concept art, screenshots and to find out when SOE will start accepting pre-orders!

Giants are the featured event for August!

Read more about it here.

Patch Scheduled August 12, 2009

From the Welcome to EverQuest in-game window:

Next Update - The next EverQuest update is scheduled for Wednesday, 8/12/09 at 12:00 AM PDT. Expected downtime is approximately eight hours.

Spam Filtering Going To Test Server

SPAM filtering should be going to the Test server sometime this week. - Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

Read the entire thread here.

Emergency Patch July 18, 2009

From the Welcome to EverQuest in-game window:

Emergency Downtime Tonight - All EverQuest servers will be coming down at 4:00 AM PDT on Saturday, July 18th to address an exploit. Expected downtime is less than one hour. We apologize for the inconvenience and the short notice.