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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Patch Scheduled For Progression Servers Only March 10, 2011

The EverQuest Live Servers Fippy Darkpaw and Vulak’Aerr will be coming down on Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:00 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 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.

From this SOE forums post.
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Double XP Weekend Begins

Starting on Friday, February 18th and running through Monday, February 21st we'll be having a Double Experience Weekend* in EverQuest. Take this opportunity to get rewarded twice as much for doing what you love. Whether it's getting a few extra Alternate Experience points for your favorite character or using this boost to start off on a brand new adventure, it's hard to say no to bonus experience.

*Double Experience will not be available on the Fippy Darkpaw Server [it may also be presumed that it is not available on the Vulak'Aerr server]

These quotes taken from from this EQ Players News Article.
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Hailing Quest NPC Distance Change Intended, Although Not So Close

The stealth change made in the January 13, 2011 patch forcing you to be on top of an NPC to get a quest update was intended. However, the distance was made too short. It is expected that you will not be able to hail them across the zone but should not need to be in their lap.

I agree the range has been made too small. We'll be bumping it up. But not leaving it wide open like it was before.

- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

Read more about in in this SOE forums thread.

UPDATE:

Here is a bit more on the issue:

The bug has been in the system for a long time, and was considered an "exploit" (being able to hail an NPC from across the zone). We rarely put exploit fixes in the patch notes. What was accidental was making the range only 20 feet. That will be changed to 100 feet next patch.

- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

UPDATE:

So with next patch it'll be 100ft with no special consideration of z axis. Restriction is only placed on hails that trigger a task step. If there is no matching task step on the NPC no error is given. The NPC name will be formatted properly in the "too far away" message.

- Steven S. Klug, EverQuest Lead Programmer

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Servers Down Monday Jan 10, 2011

From the SOE forums:

Beginning at 10pm PST on Monday, January 10th, ALL SOE games, subscription and commerce services will be unavailable for maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately ten hours.

This might 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 the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

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"Floating Ball" Mob Pet Issues to be Addressed

The floating ball NPCs such as the daydream in Morrell's Castle or the wraiths in Fear Itself are not targetable nor attackable by regular pets. In addition, they "warp" during combat.

We are aware of the issue and working on a solution. Unfortunately it is not a quick fix.

These are "Invisible Eye of Zomm" NPC's with actor tags in their hands.

They move really weird because the client has them constantly spinning, so when the server tels it to move, the client gets out of sync with the server, so they "warp"

Additionally... for some exploit prevention, eye of zomm NPC's cannot be attacked by NPC's... and well, your pets are NPC's (In this weird case, I think mercs act as PC's)

We did not know this before we made them. We are working on a solution, but it is taking some extra time.

This issue discussed in this SOE forums thread.
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Patch Scheduled January 13, 2011

Details have not been officially posted yet, however:

The new tradeskill guy added stat to food and drink that was missing it. Something was done for that charged drink as well.

It should go into the January 13th patch.

UPDATE:

All EverQuest Live Servers (except Al'Kabor) will be coming down on Thursday, January 13, 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 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.

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