Free Sarnak Illusion for All Access Members

Posted on the everquest.com Community News - September 2016:

Whoa! Who’s the Sarnak?

09-27-2016

As Norrathians prepare for EverQuest’s next expansion, EverQuest: Empires of Kunark, we’ve found many adventurers reminiscing about the first time they saw Kunark and the strange and mythical beasts that inhabited it.

One such creature is the Sarnak. First introduced to Norrath in the expansion The Ruins of Kunark, Sarnaks are Iksar/Dragon-hybrids. Once servants to the Iksar, Sarnaks famously revolted and claimed Chardok as their own.

In EverQuest, players have admired the might – and the vibrant appearance – of the Sarnak for many years. Now, if you’re an All Access Member, you can take on that appearance for yourself!

From 12:01AM on Wednesday, September 28, 2016 through 12:00PM (Noon) on Wednesday, October 12, 2016, All Access Members who log in to EverQuest will receive the “Visage of Chardok Royalty,” which is a Sarnak player illusion!



The illusion uses one of the classic character models that were first introduced when The Ruins of Kunark was released in 2000.

You can earn this item on every character, but you will need to log in with each character on which you want the item. Your account must have an active membership when you log in to be awarded this item. The Visage of Chardok Royalty is available to characters on all servers, including progression servers!

Want this illusion but not an All Access Member? Click here to read about the benefits of membership, and sign up today!

Daybreak General Maintenance - September 19, 2016

From the everquest.com website:

Daybreak General Maintenance - September 19

There will be a general maintenance on Monday, September 19, 2016 beginning at 6:00AM Pacific Time*. The estimated downtime is up to four (4) hours. The following services may be impacted during this maintenance:

• Game Logins
• Forum Logins
• Account Management (including filing Customer Support tickets)
• Commerce

Please follow @DaybreakGames on Twitter for any necessary updates. Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance.

*Convert to Local Time

NOTE: this is not a game-specific update; there will be no patch notes.

Daybreak General Maintenance - September 13, 2016

From the everquest.com website:

Daybreak General Maintenance - September 13

There will be a general maintenance on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 beginning at 5:00AM Pacific Time*. The estimated downtime is up to four (4) hours. The following services may be impacted during this maintenance:

• Game Logins
• Forum Logins
• Account Management (including filing Customer Support tickets)
• Commerce

Please follow @DaybreakGames on Twitter for any necessary updates. Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance.

*Convert to Local Time

NOTE: this is not a game-specific update; there will be no patch notes.

Next Expansion Announced, Labor Day Weekend Double XP

Daybreak has posted on the everquest.com website the September 2016 EQ Producer's Letter.

Here is the letter:

---

Greetings Norrathians, 

‘Tis the season to talk about our next expansion for EverQuest! The team has been working hard this year to manage the ongoing progression and event server updates, big server-side updates to improve stability, as well as toiling away on our new content-focused expansion this November. Speaking of the expansion…

While we are still in the throes of development, we are thrilled to announce we are returning to a much-loved continent of Norrath! Prepare for EverQuest: Empires of Kunark! We’ve got a new look for Sarnaks (perhaps an illusion for some?!), new zones like Scorched Woods, Chardok: War March, Lceanium, Droga, Kor’Sha, new monsters, armor, weapons, items and more!

It’s been many years since we’ve set our eyes on Kunark and there are many stories to discover. At the beginning of October, look for announcements regarding expansion features, for pre-orders to become available, and news about when you can join us in the beta. The launch of EverQuest: Empires of Kunark is scheduled for November.

Also on the horizon, we’ll be unlocking Luclin on Phinigel server on September 28th 2PM PDT.  Ragefire and Lockjaw also have some expansion votes coming in October and November.

As we start cooling down for fall and prepare for EverQuest: Empires of Kunark, we’ve got a few promotions for you too:

• This weekend we kick off a 40% off sale for members from September 1st 12PM PDT through September 6th 12PM PDT as well as Double Experience for everyone!
• Starting this weekend, EverQuest: The Broken Mirror will be on sale at 50% off September 1st 12PM PDT through October 5th 12PM PDT. Note that option to purchase the Collector’s or Premium Edition of EverQuest: The Broken Mirror won’t be available after pre-orders for EverQuest: Empires of Kunark begin in October.
• Also, throughout October and November until expansion launch we’ll be running bi-weekly bonuses, like experience boosts, reduced lockouts, increased rare spawns, and more.

There is plenty more to come, so keep an eye out for more news and announcements soon. As always, we are grateful to all of our dedicated and thriving EverQuest players!

Sincerely,
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale

Legends of Norrath Shutting Down Permanently August 17, 2016

Daybreak has announced that Legends of Norrath will shut down permanently on August 17, 2016. The last day to purchase booster packs and claim monthly All Access free packs is July 18, 2016.

Here is the announcement:

 For the past nine years, EverQuest and EverQuest II players have interacted with the world of Norrath through the Legends of Norrath Trading Card Game. Many of you have enjoyed its art, its strategic gameplay, and hopefully found that elusive Loot card granting one of our cool in game items.

Legends of Norrath has not had an active development team for quite some time and in the best interest of our company and players, we have made the difficult decision to close the servers on Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at Noon Pacific Time.

Purchasing Legends of Norrath booster packs and the monthly All Access Membership claim of Legends of Norrath booster packs will no longer be available after Monday, July 18, 2016 at 10AM Pacific Time.

All loot rewards and packs in the Legends of Norrath client will need to be open and claimed on your character prior to when the servers close to ensure that your loot rewards are available in EverQuest and EverQuest II.

We know some of you are extremely enthusiastic about some of the items that were previously introduced in the Legends of Norrath TCG packs. These loot rewards will continue to be available to players through other means. Look to the Marketplace for packs which give an opportunity for rewards from previous LON sets.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support.

Chalandria's Fang Scenario Active Again in LoN

I just went into LoN to get my five free decks this month and checked for this and discovered it is live. No idea for how long.

Chalandria's Fang is an item that will summon poison once every 20 hours. The poison for all level 105 classes except rogues is Chalandria's Bite XVIII. Rogues may get a different (better) poison, however this needs to be confirmed. Lower level toons (exact level / reward is to be discovered) get a lesser poison.

It is a Legends of Norrath Spider Queen scenario loot item. The Spider Queen scenario has returned. If you win the scenario, you get Chalandria's Fang as the EQ loot item. Chalandria's Fang and the poison can not be traded.

• EQ forum thread on how to play and win the item

This information is from http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Adv...ndria.27s_Fang.

UPDATE: It appears this was for the month of May and is now over.

Some Self Melee Skills Fail If Nothing Targeted, To Be Fixed

From a post by Dzarn, EQ Developer, on the Daybreak forum:

Thank you for the feedback on this bug, we've been able to identify the source and will be working on a fix.

It looks like any melee skill that uses an SPA to trigger another spell ID will fail if the caster does not have any target before using the button, which is obviously not intended for self spell target types.

Daybreak, All EQ, Down Due to Attack

All Daybreak websites are either down or extremely slow. EverQuest is down. The reason? It appears to be an attack.

• Lizard Squad lashes out after Daybreak Games CEO threatens cyberattacker group
• Harassed Dev Tells Lizard Squad Hacker “I’m Coming For You”

Since the EQ forums are inaccessible, the only news is coming from social media.

Daybreak has posted very little information, only a few posts such as this post on Twitter:

EverQuest retweeted

Daybreak Games ‏@DaybreakGames 1:00 PM - 9 Jul 2015

We are currently investigating reported issues with connectivity both in-game and on our websites/forums. Thank you for your patience.

It appears likely that the game and EQ forums will be down for a while.

UPDATE July 10 11am EDT:  Two hours ago Daybreak announced that service was restored but then four minutes ago they said they are experiencing issues.   Access to Daybreak assets and games is still unreliable if not impossible.

UPDATE July 10 6:49pm EDT: It appears that Daybreak websites and games are up and running.

Crushbone and Permafrost Hardcore Heritage Extended Until July 1

Due to a bug with the raids, Crushbone and Permafrost Hardcore Heritage have been extended.

Yes, this issue is being addressed in the patch on Wednesday 6/17 and we're extending the end date on these Hardcore Heritage zones by a week so that they'll end on 7/1 instead of 6/24 and be available for a full two weeks. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Broken Anniversary Missions to Return Fixed in June

The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Anniversary Missions were reported as having issues with not working (see posts below). Daybreak has announced they will return (fixed) in June.

We've extended the 5th-13th Anniversary Events to July 15th (7/15). They should re-enable after the June update next week [June 17].

"Anniversary" Bug Affects Hardcore Heritage

The same bug reported for Anniversary missions (see post below) is also affecting Hardcore Heritage.

It has been reported that the Hardcore Heritage Crushbone raid is sending people to the normal Crushbone zone instead of the raid instance.

A fix is on the Test server to go live sometime in the near future.

- Corrected an issue causing players entering mission instances of some zones to be teleported to the non-instanced versions.

Still no word from Daybreak if any of the broken missions will be returned this year or extended (for those currently live) due to this bug or if players will have to wait another year before being able to complete them.

Some Anniversary Missions Bugged, No Word If Time To Be Extended

While the anniversary missions are due to end today, some have been reported as being bugged for a while.

When you speak to the quest giver and request to be sent to the mission instance, they instead send you to the normal (non-quest, non-instanced) zone.  This, obviously, makes it impossible to do the mission.

While Daybreak has confirmed these bugs and that they are working on a fix, they have not mentioned whether they will be offered again this year or whether players will have to wait until 2016 to complete them.

"Daybreak Week" Bringing 50% Bonus XP

From "It's Daybreak Week! Help Us Celebrate!":

EverQuest
Want to level up a bit quicker than normal in the game that started it all? Hop in to EQ for 50% Bonus XP, starting at 12AM PDT April 27th and running through 11:59PM PDT May 4th. 

Mercs Reported as Not Working on Balanced

Reports are coming in that, since the patch of April 22, mercenaries do nothing when placed on the Balanced stance.

DBG responded on April 22 to the reports with this post:

Regarding the caster mercenaries, the dev team has been looking into it since the initial reports on test but since none of the changes that were pushed to test/live from beta are directly related to the mercenary systems it's proven to be a bit of a mystery.
Regardless, we'll be poking at all the things until its fixed.

UPDATE:

(Professor's voice) Good news, everyone!
We've tracked down the cause of the mercenary weirdness and are working on the fix now.

A temporary workaround until we patch out a fix is to re-sort the stance list by clicking the blue 'Stance' text at the top of the Manage Mercenary window and then selecting the stance you want the mercenary to take.

Essentially the bug is causing the first option in the stance list to put the mercenary into 'Passive' mode regardless of what stance is listed first.

Thank you to all the players who reported the issue and mentioning that re-ordering the stances fixed it for you, that helped immensely in tracking this one down. 

FURTHER UPDATE:

*** Hotfix ***

- Addressed an issue where the first stance in the Mercenary Manage window would not take effect when trying to set it as the active stance. 

SOE Network Issues Continue into Second Day

Coinciding with the release of SOE's new game H1Z1, SOE began experiencing network issues on Thursday, January 15.   Issues continue into Friday, with the SOE forums still unreachable at times.

Players have reported being unable to log into EverQuest.  The SOE forums are intermittent.  Gameplay is also affected, with lag spikes and players being kicked out of the game.

SOE response to these issues has been very limited, with only a few posts stating they are aware of issues.  On Thursday night, SOE posted a thread, "Continued Login Issues", on their forum, however, accessing it is problematic.

The EverQuest Facebook page, which would seem a good place to update people since the forums are intermittent, has little to say other than a post made yesterday saying they are investigating.

The EverQuest Twitter account also has the same message, with no update.

The best public response from anyone at SOE is SOE President John Smedley's Twitter account, which is stated to not represent SOE and seems to be focused only on H1Z1.

It appears that the launch of H1Z1 is the cause of this problem, since most or all of SOE's games share the same network and login servers.  However, SOE's lack of communication makes it difficult to know for sure.

Arx Mentis Ornament Prices to Drop, Will Appear in Raid Chests

From a post by Roshen, EQ Community Manager, on the SOE EQ forum:

Hey all,

Thanks for your feedback on the Arx Mentis Ornaments. We do want these to be exclusive and a neat bonus for raiders, but we don't want them to be so rare that you never see anyone wearing them.

The price on the Arx Mentis Ornament pieces are being adjusted on Researcher Orbiana. We're bringing Arx Energy Crystals prices down on these cosmetic items, and scaling them a bit. For example boots will be cheaper than a chest or robe.

We're also adding these to Arx Mentis raid chests. : )

Additional information:

 The current plan is to add this as an additional drop to the raid chest for Arx Mentis raid encounters.

Wizard Mercenaries To Be Fixed Next Patch

SOE forum post by Elegist, EQ Developer:

The issue with caster DPS mercs not attacking NPCs with high HP has been fixed. Also, the issue with the caster DPS mercs not moving into casting range if they are too far away has been fixed. These changes should go out with the next patch.

Level 101+ Pre-CotF Content XP Nerf and New Lockouts

From a post by Roshen, SOE Community Relations, on the SOE forum:

As we move into The Darkened Sea, we've made a few changes to ensure that adventuring in the newest content will be the best way to gain experience to advance their characters in both levels and AA points. Playing in the newest content should always be the most attractive, and demolishing content from several expansions ago should not be the fastest way to advance your character.

Once you hit level 101, content released prior to Call of the Forsaken will grant less experience. This includes tasks, rewards, and farming NPCs. If you’re currently planning on banking rewards and tasks from pre-Call of the Forsaken content to help level through The Darkened Sea, you will likely find the rewards to be less-than-awesome once you ding 101. We encourage you to participate in the newest content, and find places in The Darkened Sea to adventure with your friends.

Each Heroic Adventure Will Have a 6-Hour Lock Out

Heroic Adventures are great because they offer scaling content to players of a variety of levels. This content has a long shelf life for players since it can be accessed by players of a wide range of levels.

It’s not really a fun experience to sit in one Heroic Adventure for hours and days at a time, grinding experience to advance a character. Adventure is all about going out into the world of Norrath and doing things! To address this, once The Darkened Sea launches we have placed a lock out of 6-hours on each Heroic Adventure. Our goal is to reward players that explore more of the content, without punishing the players that prefer running a few Heroic Adventures a day with their friends.

We wanted to let you all know about this prior to the launch of The Darkened Sea, so you can start planning how to spend your time in this expansion. We’re excited about the 21st expansion to EverQuest launching on November 11th, 2014 and we hope you are too!

If you’re an All-Access member, you can purchase and play this expansion two weeks early (starting on Tuesday, October 28) and you can take 10% off your purchase of either the Standard or Collector’s Edition of The Darkened Sea!

A number of questions remain on this issue.  See the post to give your feedback and see any replies by SOE.

Note: Roshen updated his initial post to clarify some things.  I have changed the quote above to match.

SOE Network Issues (10/15/14)

SOE forum and logins are not functioning.  Also, some game servers are down.

SOE is aware there are issues.  You can see their updates on it on EQ's Facebook page and their Twitter account.

Some Items to Get Increased Focus Level with TDS

From a SOE forum post by Chandrok, EQ Developer:

The Bloodstained shoulders focus will be upgraded to 105 with the launch of TDS [The Darkened Sea expansion]. CotF [Call of the Forsaken] top tier focus effects will also be extended to level 103.