Velious Patch History

Velious Era

Core Velious Era

December 5, 2000

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001205.html)

Emergency Patch

This morning's patch was to correct a problem with the EverQuest client that caused those trying to exit The Hole or The Plane of Hate to crash and not be able to reenter the game.

As part of this patch we've added a new /-command. /dynamiclights [on/off](on by default) will turn on or off your ability to view dynamic lighting in game, such as that created by a torch or lightstone. Dynamic lighting uses CPU power. We've found that those participating in large raids with many people can increase their framerate by setting this to off for the scope of the raid.

New settings to this option will take place after you zone, and the preferred setting is stored in the EQCLIENT.INI

December 6, 2000

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001206.html)

Today's patch requires that Velious subscribers press the "Velious Patch" button on the patch program UI.

Emergency Patch

We appreciate everyone's patience while we address a few issues as tens of thousands of new players check out Velious. This emergency patch addresses several issues:

• The transparent inventory screen will no longer come up in 640x480 resolution. It was not supposed to come up as the available screen space is not large enough to house the new screen.
• "Disabled" windows in full screen mode will no longer interfere with mouse clicks.
• Addressed some item drop bugs in Skyshrine that had the highest-level loot dropping off of yard fodder. This has been addressed with a retroactive item change. We apologize for the inconvenience.
• Several disciplines (Resistant, Trueshot, Unholyaura, and Holyforge) have been upgraded. Please read the updated EQManual_Supplement.doc (or .txt) in your EverQuest Directory.
• "Dragon Circles" have been fully implemented. In short, you will not be able to receive a teleport to a dragon circle unless you've been to the circle before and carry a soulbound souvenir that spawns at the circle. Please read the updated EQManual_Supplement.
• Innate class-based resistances implemented a year or so ago did not take into account levels 50 through 60 with exception to those provided to the warrior. As such, each class that has class-based resistance bonuses (with exception to the warrior) will get an additional bonus as they level from 50 to 60.
• The problem of blank faction messages being reported to the players has been corrected.
• Screenshots are again enabled.

Overall the Velious launch is going very well. We are happy to see that the problems found so far are minor and that we can address them quickly.

December 7, 2000

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001207.html)

Today's patch addresses a few issues brought up by players over the last several days:

• Fixed an issue with /split that would cause people to go linkdead in the event that they used the command in quick succession.
• Fixed a bug where you could not edit socials or skills (via the hotbutton window right click) in fullview mode if you had hidden your "MainMenu" window.
• Fixed a bug where you would not see hotbuttons in "normal" mode if you had hidden that window in fullview mode.
• Fixed it so you can't use hotbuttons when looting, trading, banking, or using a merchant in fullview mode (which is how it is in normal mode, but with the inventory working in fullview mode now it wasn't blocked properly for that).
• Fixed the message for the /dynamiclights command to report properly.
• Fixed a problem where INI setting were not being read properly if you had camped or went LD to server select then reentered the game. This was causing various UI problems with window positions and colors being wrong.
• Fixed a problem with Sirens Grotto - Some people entering the zone were getting stuck.
• Fixed a problem with passage from Skyshrine to Cobalt Scar. Travel in that direction was supposed to require a key.
• We believe we fixed a problem where NPCs sometimes would hit a pet-owner no matter how far away the owner was from the pet and the NPC.
• Corrected loot drops in Thurgadin.
• We again appreciate patience while we stabilize following Velious launch.

December 8, 2000

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001208.html)

We appreciate everyone's continued patience over the past couple of days, and are happy to see that the problems that have been experienced are relatively minor compared to those of the past. Tonight's patch is expected to be the last one we'll have to do for a while, so we hope to have you enjoying Velious over the weekend non-stop.

Today's patch corrects the following issues

• The user interface problems that occurred as of last night have been addressed, such as window positioning and transparency. Also addressed were problems with targeting, enabling and disabling windows, and switching to and from resolutions above 1280x1024.
• Corrected a problem that would cause some Voodoo card users to lock up when killing giants.
• Added messages for some new skills that some NPCs have (e.g. Rampage, and Flurry).
• Fixed items and item drops in a number of zones.

December 19, 2000

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001219.html)

Today's patch primarily consists of tuning of Velious zones as well as content and other additions. In addition, the following changes have been implemented on the Live servers:

• High-end items that have a activatable (right-click) healing effect have in several cases had their casting times increased.

Factions for some of the higher end encounters in Velious have received some adjustments. Basically, "bad acts" receive more weight than "good acts". For instance, if "A" hates "B" and "B" hates "A", killing "A" will hurt your faction with "A" more than it will help your faction with "B".

• The stamina reduction with "Resurrection Effects" has been replaced by a slight attack-speed debuff.
• The Ranger's Trueshot discipline now works correctly. It was previously only working versus other player characters.

The Shadow Knight's "Unholy Aura" discipline has received an enhancement. When in use, harmtouch resistances will be checked versus disease instead of magic. In addition, harmtouch will resist in the same fashion as lifetap spells, meaning that unless the creature is immune to disease, you should get full damage most of the time.

• The spell attached to the "Fiery Defender" can now be partially resisted instead of being "all or nothing". The net result is that the average damage will be higher.
• The Paladin "Holy Forge" discipline will now give paladins triple the normal chance of scoring a critical hit. Each critical hit has a percent chance to be scored as a critical blow.
• Added parameters to the /camp command (the command that will cause you to camp out if you are already sitting). "/camp server" will take you back to the server selection screen. "/camp desktop" will take you out to the desktop following a successful camp. Despite popular request, "/camp spawn" will not be implemented.
• Walruses now indeed sound like they should.
• Added the /chatfontsize [0 to 5] (default is 1) command. This command will allow players to adjust the size of the font in the chat window.

January 9, 2001

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010109.html)

We're happy to present today's patch, which focuses primarily on addressing issues that have been brought forth by EverQuest players. We appreciate the opportunity to spend some time focusing on specific issues important to you. Today's patch includes the following:

Disciplines

• The 'Resistant' Discipline now lasts 5 minutes instead of the previous 1.
• The 'Holy Forge' Discipline now lasts 5 minutes instead of the previous 2.
• The 'Weaponshield' Discipline now lasts 20 seconds instead of the previous 15.
• The 'Leechcurse' Discipline now lasts 20 seconds instead of the previous 15.
• The 'Deftdance' Discipline now lasts 15 seconds instead of the previous 10.
• The 'Puretone' Discipline now lasts 4 minutes instead of the previous 2.
• The 'Sanctification' discipline now lasts 15 seconds instead of the previous 10.
• The 'Unholy Aura' Discipline now gives a 50% bonus to Harmtouch (compared with the previous 25%) and causes it to save versus * disease, which should result in even fewer resists in most high-level encounters.

Spells

• The spell 'Strength of Nature' is now available to Rangers.
• The spell 'Resist Disease' is now available to Paladins.
• 'Lay on Hands' has been improved starting at 40th level.
• The 'Summon Corpse' spell is now available to Shadowknights.
• Corrected a bug that was causing damage while using the 'Trueshot' Discipline to be the same regardless of the quality of your bow.
• The spells 'Focus of Spirit' and 'Visions of Grandeur' now stack.
• 'Harmtouch' is now resisted as if it were a 'Lifetap' spell, meaning that it is all-or-nothing, and nearly unresistable with exception to encounters that are immune to magic or out of the acceptable level range. In addition, maximum damage for Harmtouch has been increased starting at 40th level.
• We fixed a bug that caused 'Lure' type spells (Wizards) to be resisted more than they should have been in certain types of encounters.
• Melee attack timers will no longer be reset when a SK, Paladin, or Ranger cast a spell. Previously these classes had to wait a full attack delay after casting before they would attack via melee again.

Miscellaneous

• You may now adjust the clipping plane in the Hole. Previously, the clipping plane was fixed. Many people requested the ability to bring the clipping plane closer to allow them to improve their client's performance.
• Fixed several problems with trade-skill components that were not dropping. Also added some new recipes.
• Fixed the Iksar 'Shackle of Steel' quest.
• The additional options for /camp (/camp server, /camp desktop) have been implemented. /camp server will take you to the server-selection screen. /camp desktop will cause EverQuest to terminate and take you to the desktop.

Root and Snare

Root-type spells and 'snare' type spells now use a separate spell effect.

Previously, 'Root' spells would overwrite any snare effect upon the target. When the root would wear off, the target began moving at full speed. With this change, when root wears off, snare will still be in effect. This has a few added effects on the other end.

For instance, root will no longer cancel SoW or Journeyman's Boots effects. It also allowed us to correct a long-standing bug that was allowing bards to cancel root on themselves by playing Selo's Accelerando if Selo's was in effect at the time that the bard was rooted. As mentioned in a previous patch where the first part of this bug was fixed, this was not the intended effect.

Looting NODROP Items

A new command is now available to EverQuest players.

In order to prevent the accidental looting of NODROP items, the /lootnodrop command has been added to the client. The command supports three options: ALWAYS (Default) - You will be presented with a yes/no confirmation box when attempting to loot any NODROP item. SOMETIMES - You will be presented with a yes/no confirmation box when attempting to loot any NODROP items that your race and/or class cannot use. NEVER - NODROP items will be looted without confirmation.

It is highly recommended that you do not change this from the default option, as the GM staff cannot assist in cases of accidental looting.

January 14, 2001 Producer Letter

Taken from: a Wayback machine snapshot on 1/24/2001

January 14, 2001

Hello all, Since the launch of EverQuest: The Scars of Velious, the EverQuest Live team has been working on a number of things, from addressing issues in Velious to adding additional content to other portions of the world. At this same time, we've been working towards a point where we can stop tweaking class-based abilities, and declare with confidence that they are as "balanced" as we can make them.

It is a foregone conclusion that the diversity of EverQuest's population will never let us reach a point where everyone will be perfectly satisfied with their class's abilities, as nearly every change we make tends to bother some people while pleasing others. Still, we are confident that we can reach a point where problems in our current game systems can be reduced to the point that those left are either negligible in their impact, or offset inversely by a similar problem affecting gameplay in an opposite direction. We're nearly there, but following heated debate and the review of material and opinions sent in by the players, we've decided to make some exciting and unprecedented changes to a game system that has remained intact since release: the experience system itself.

While the EverQuest Message-board FAQ states that the experience system is not subject to post-production changes, it also explains that as developers of an ongoing MMORPG in a dynamic world, there are times that we need to be flexible and address issues as necessary. Though it has always been our goal to avoid changes to core systems whenever possible, our additional goal of finalizing class balance takes precedence in this case.

We're going to depart from our usual method of releasing information by giving everyone some specific information in regards to how these systems currently work, and how they will work after the patch. It is very important to us that everyone understands our goals, and the fact that these changes are helpful to all of the players. We can only do that by giving you the details necessary for you to draw your own conclusions.

Zone Experience

The first and perhaps easiest to explain change that we are making to the experience system is the modification of what we call the "Zone Experience Multiplier", or 'ZEM'. Currently, every creature in game of a given level yields a fixed amount of "Base Experience" (experience before it is allocated to group members). That base experience is then multiplied by the ZEM which is set to a value in correlation with the risk in a particular zone compared with the reward; at least, that is the goal.

Recently we evaluated many underutilized dungeons and considered reasons why they might be underutilized. Some people suggested that proximity of bind locations plays a part, and as such we are considering adding more binding locations to the game. We of course will not allow everyone to bind on the doorstep of a dungeon, but these changes should hopefully reduce the potential run for a melee class. While additional binding locations probably will not be in the next patch, we did want to discuss our thoughts on the matter.

Another suggestion, one that probably has the most merit, is that some dungeons are too risky given everything concerned. The natural conclusion is that we should increase the reward in order to offset the added risk. Our contention is that most people would rather be grouping and fighting their way through a dungeon because it's more fun, but feel "forced" to sit outdoors and camp zero-risk single spawns because it is safer and thus more efficient. While that statement might be true in an ideal world, it usually results in crowding in these popular outdoor zones (for example, Lake of Ill Omen or Oasis). The crowding in these zones really results in less efficient progress than one could make in a dungeon given a good group, but is still SAFE, at least ensuring that one will not have to tolerate "going backwards".

We can increase the reward of a particular dungeon in two fashions: We can either put in good loot, or we can change the ZEM. The problem with increasing the quality or quantity of loot is that if the loot is good enough, it's more likely to draw people far above the desired level range for the dungeon, making it some place that appropriately leveled folk choose to avoid. The second problem with the ever-increasing quality of loot is inflation: as good loot becomes more widely available, its value and the prestige value from owning it declines.

In this case, we decided that the most appropriate action for several underutilized dungeons would be to increase the ZEM; that is, increase the amount of experience that everyone gets when adventuring in the zone.

As of the next patch, you will receive additional experience (per kill) in the following zones:

• Droga increased by 12%
• Nurga increased by 12%
• Solusek's Eye (SolA) increased by 13%
• Najena increased by 13%
• Befallen increased by 13%
• Paw increased by 13%
• Permafrost increased by 13%
• Kaesora increased by 18%
• Qeynos Catacombs increased by 20%
• Runnyeye increased by 20%
• Kerra Ridge increased by 20%
• The Hole increased by 25%

Grouping Bonus

We've always been the first to say that EverQuest is designed to promote grouping. Those who prefer to solo should be able to do so with some restrictions, but probably will not be able to go everywhere and do everything like a well-oiled, or like multiple well-oiled groups. This is a main foundation of EverQuest, and is what drove our decision to implement a class-based system where classes have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other.

Aside from making it so that the best gear requires groups, either to get quest items or get the best gear directly, our goal was to make it so that groups could advance faster than a solo player. One way we tried to reach this goal was by putting experience bonuses in dungeons, so our changes mentioned above should certainly help in that area. Another way we tried to reach that goal was by giving a per-kill experience bonus based on the size of the group.

One thing that has been confirmed by many of our high level players, both inside and outside the company, is that the "best" groups can already advance faster in a grouping situation than by any one member camping a single spawn. However, it has been pointed out that not everyone has the opportunity to get in the "best group". This led to many players choosing to "camp the single spawn" because they then do not have to worry about someone else getting their character killed. This in turn exacerbated the problem, as many players chose to "camp the single spawn" from creation to old age, and are just beginning to experience grouping and learn group-skills at about the time that dungeons become the most unforgiving. The inevitable result is that the level 50 "dungeon newbies" contribute to the fact that the group isn't the "best group".

Our goal is to get people grouping earlier, and provide them enough of a bonus where they do not feel that they are losing ground during the learning process. We feel we can do this by doubling the grouping experience bonus and by scaling it up based on the size of the group. Currently, the bonus is an additional 2% experience per group member, not counting the first one, leading to a maximum bonus of 10%. Following the next patch, the bonus will be as follows:

• 2 person group - 2% total bonus.
• 3 person group - 6% total bonus.
• 4 person group - 10% total bonus.
• 5 person group - 14% total bonus.
• 6 person group - 20% total bonus.

This bonus is applied to the total experience reward for killing a creature prior to distributing it to the group.

Many people have pointed out that when killing in a group you get less experience per kill. This is of course true, but what is often missed is that you can kill many more creatures, and creatures of a higher level when in that group. For instance, a good two-person group should be able to kill things of a higher level over twice as fast as a solo person should. Now, we're going to give them even more of a bonus for doing so, AND make it easier for people to find pickup groups on the basis of getting higher scaled bonus.

Finally, we very well may decide to revamp and/or readjust NPC populations and/or experience multipliers in the future in order to ensure that groups adventuring there find them worthwhile.

Experience Penalties - Description

I think that it would be appropriate to say that most players are aware that there are different experience requirements for advancement based upon the race and class you choose to play. Ogres, for instance, require more experience to level than Halflings, and Shadowknights require more experience to level than Warriors. As such, an Ogre Shadowknight requires FAR more experience to level than a Halfling Warrior does. What some people have discovered is that when in a group, everyone shares in this penalty. Before getting into our plan, I think that its important to talk about what our goals were regarding experience penalties and the group sharing in that penalty.

When EverQuest player characters were being designed, it was immediately apparent that some races and classes would be more powerful than others given versatility and other factors. Later, it came to light that the concept of being "more powerful" began to break down at the upper levels, given that everyone capped at the same level. We could not let any one race or class be immensely more powerful than another at that final point, as it would essentially put parts of the game off limits to those who chose the less powerful classes. While we did a good job of making races vary in power, but not so much as to be unbalancing, the same could not be said for classes. Still, though classes would be roughly equivalent in regard to the compelling reason to play them through versatility, the experience penalties were kept.

In regards to the sharing of the experience penalty, it was apparent in beta, before the penalty was shared, that those playing characters without an experience penalty leveled faster than those that did. It was obvious that this would occur, but it was to the extreme that a group of friends, all playing together, would become separated to the point that they could no longer group efficiently in the mid to upper-mid levels. So we chose to distribute experience in the group on the basis of the total experience of each member rather than the level, in order to keep groups together.

As such, a level 20 Troll SK, having more experience total than a Human Wizard of the same level, would get more experience from each kill, while the total experience for the kill was unchanged. Essentially, the SK would take part of the Wizard's share were everything distributed equally to begin with.

Experience Penalties - Resolutions

Over the past week the EverQuest team has been considering experience penalties in all their forms. We had many meetings where the issue was hotly debated from both sides. We had to consider not only the effect on the individual player, but also the effect of any changes on the game as a whole. Eventually, we nearly unanimously decided the following:

Race-based penalties are appropriate. An ogre, for instance, does indeed make a better warrior than a halfling. It is not so little that the faction and size problems make up for it, and not so much that it is really unbalancing at upper levels, but enough that the penalty should apply. Secondly, the penalty is not so severe (compared with class-based penalties) that it would cause groups to break up on the journey from one to sixty due to level differences. Class-based penalties are not appropriate. Classes are roughly equivalent in power throughout the level ranges, and the versatility does not make up for that penalty. In fact, the majority of changes made to classes in the name of balance in the last year were based on the assumption that, at the high end, each class should still be roughly as needed and balanced as any other. Penalties, in any form, should not be shared with the group. Players know that no one class is immensely more powerful/valuable than another, and as such it is not fair to ask them to share a burden. If classes with penalties were really more powerful or valuable than the other classes, then it might be right, but that isn't the case here. Furthermore, sharing of penalties causes people to reject potential group members on the basis of them "sucking" too much experience. We're going to fix it. Class-based experience bonuses (which warriors and rogues get) are also not appropriate, as they cannot be so if penalties are not. However, we've decided to leave this as-is, since the bonus is not so severe as to be unbalancing. Bottom line: we don't feel the bonus is enough to warrant a fix that could be interpreted as a 'nerf'. Experience Penalties - Implementation Though people often refer to the class-based penalties as the "Hybrid Penalty", most classes have a penalty. Hybrids just have the largest. A hybrid requires 40% more experience to level than standard, Monks require 20% more, and Intelligence casters require 10% additional experience.

Unfortunately, we cannot change the experience tables themselves without running each character (which number in the tens of millions) through an "Experience Converter" without existing players changing levels spontaneously. While some might argue that we should grant free levels to everyone with a penalty, that would not be in the best interest of gameplay. After all, who would want a paladin with level 40 skills (skills in the player-sense, rather than the character-sense) in your level 60 group tomorrow? Everyone earns his or her experience under the rules that exist at the time.

This means that we must address the penalty differently: basically, for every kill, after all grouping bonuses and zone bonuses are applied, the experience will be split up according to level, rather than experience. For those classes that do not have a penalty, they will then be given that share. Those classes that have a penalty will get their share, multiplied by their experience penalty. Essentially we are creating extra experience to give to those with a penalty after everyone else has gotten their share.

Since penalties are always a value over "1", this results in the creation of additional experience. And, since shares are determined by level rather than total experience as before, a character will get just as much experience for a kill based upon the size and level of the group, regardless of the class makeup. Finally, everyone in the group gains experience at a faster rate because we're creating the additional experience for those with penalties out of thin air, rather than taking it from other members of the group. That means that after implementation, those without penalties will get more experience for every kill than they would have if they ever grouped with a class with a penalty.

Now you'll notice that we are dividing up experience based upon the LEVEL makeup of the group. For instance, if a level 20 and a level 21 group together, the level 21 will get more experience per kill. That is however only fair since the level 21 does actually contribute more value to the group.

There is a problem, however, with this 'new' formula. Death penalties are currently based off of the level before your current one. Secondly, everyone suffers the same numeric experience loss on death as anyone else of their race, regardless of class or class-based experience penalties. What this means is: if I am a cleric, and you are an SK of the same level and race, we both die and lose the same numeric value of experience (Example: 100,000 experience points). When we go back to recover from death, you as the SK will get your 100,000 points back faster than I will as a cleric, since all of the experience you get is multiplied by your class-penalty (1.4). Essentially, I lose and gain experience at 1.0, but you lose at 1.0, and gain at 1.4.

This is a balance issue we decided was also necessary to address. If we are going to make the statement that class experience penalties should not exist, we then have to do it on both ends (with exception to the two classes that we've decided to leave as-is). As such, rather than losing the same numeric value, loss on death will ALSO be multiplied by the experience penalty. Since everyone currently loses experience as if they are a warrior of their own race, we do not want anyone to lose more relative experience (e.g. experience such that recovery from death is more difficult). Hence, we further multiply the experience loss on death by the class experience modifier for warriors (0.9).

In our example above, my cleric would lose 90,000 XP on death at my level (Same as before since clerics do not have an XP penalty), but your SK will lose 126,000 XP (Same as before, plus something to offset the experience gain bonus). Death is, however, still easier to recover from for both classes since we create experience out of thin air for every kill.

We felt that it was important to announce this as well since those with penalties will see a larger portion of their "bubble" lost upon a death, but will now recover that experience much faster. It's VERY important to understand this. Again, if you play a class that gets a bonus now when you make a kill, you will also lose more due to death. Please remember this when, after your first death post-patch, you see a greater experience loss on your screen: you are ALSO gaining more experience for each kill.

Summary

The changes that we are making in the next patch should have a profound impact upon the game:

Classes no longer have a true class-based experience penalty, making it easier for people to play the class that they want to play, rather than the class that they feel compelled to play due to faster advancement. Race based penalties are no longer shared with the group, and in truth are not severe enough to greatly impact the advancement speed of any particular race. Even the race with the worst penalty will level no slower than a human monk does now, and in truth will level faster due to the other changes that went in. The grouping bonus increase, in addition to the other changes, makes grouping much more efficient, without reducing the current efficiency of soloing for those who prefer that route. Experience modifiers turned up in the other zones should encourage people to spread out, have more fun, and allow those staying behind in other areas to have more fun themselves since the area is less crowded. All players, assuming that they have an experience penalty, or ever group with anyone who does, will level faster. Many of these changes are quite involved in regards to their implementation, and as such we want to be sure that everyone interested understands them. Alan "Absor" VanCouvering will be happy to answer any questions that you may have on the EverQuest Message boards. Until then, we sincerely hope that these changes will help all players, whether "uber" or "causal", experience and enjoy EverQuest to their greatest potential.

For Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler, and every dedicated member of the EverQuest Team,

Gordon Wrinn Associate Producer, EQLive Sony Online Entertainment

January 17, 2001 3:00 am

Baltimore Fan Faire - Last Chance

Monday is the registration deadline for the Baltimore Fan Faire! We are almost sold out so hurry and visit http://everquest.station.sony.com/fanfaire/fanfaire.html before you miss your chance to attend this event!

Patch Day

The primary focus of today's patch is to implement changes noted in the new Producer's Letter which can be found at http://everquest.station.sony.com/news/letter.shtml (Patch_Notes#January_14.2C_2001_Producer_Letter)

It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you read the Producer's Letter before playing EverQuest. It contains some unprecedented and exciting enhancements to gameplay.

In addition to these changes, the following changes have been implemented:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused "root" and "snare" type spells to function incorrectly when stacked. They should now stack properly.
• Fixed a bug that negated the "instrument modifier" for bards using Selo's, causing them to run slower than they otherwise would.
• Fixed a bug that allowed two or more spells that grant levitation to stack. Levitation spells should not stack.
• The "Track Corpse" spell now works.
• Tracked down and eliminated several bugs that were causing a very small percentage of people to crash when zoning or upon entering the game.
• Fixed a problem with some Ulthork armor that caused it to disappear on death if the wearer was of extremely low level.
• Tserrina's Whip has been fixed. If you received one prior to today's patch, you will need to trade out your whip with a GM in order to get one that works correctly.
• Last week's patch attempted to fix Celestial Elixir, Celestial Healing, and Torpor, so that they would stack another similar spell, unintentionally causing it to stop stacking with standard regeneration spells. This has been fixed. The downside to this fix is that these spells will now overwrite the "Call of Bones" series. As the three former spells are cast to save a character's life, this solution appears to be the most beneficial for all of those involved.
• The stronger /lootnodrop options will no longer prompt you for confirmation when looting your own corpse. It is highly suggested that everyone reset their option to the strongest security available:

/lootnodrop ALWAYS (always ask for confirmation).

• Added some code to address an issue reported by a few players, that being that an NPC named "Ragefire" would die and not leave a corpse. Though we were unable to reproduce this problem in testing, the code we added should function as a catch-all for this problem. Please be sure to let us know how this goes.

Changes/Enhancements

• While not mentioned in the Producer's Letter, the Zone Experience

Modifier has also been increased in Guk (guktop), by roughly 12%.

• "Lay on Hands" has been enhanced again to heal more hitpoints.
• Overlooked in the last patch message, new spells were made available

to Rangers and Paladins in the upper levels.

• "Voice of the Berserker", a beneficial spell, no longer drains mana

over the duration of the spell.

• The maximum duration of "Strength of Nature" has been increased.
• A new spell for magicians is now available in game.
• The "Shield of the Eighth" spell will now last a number of minutes

equal to your level.

• You can now use the arrow and enter keys to select characters in the

character select screen. In addition, the last character you chose will be automatically hilighted when entering that screen. This value is stored in the EQCLIENT.INI file as "LastCharSel=0-7"

• The ranger's "Trueshot" discipline has had its damage increased after

analyzing data from its fix last week. Prior to the last patch, all bows, while under the discipline, were hitting as if they were 45dmg bows regardless of the delay. Last week's patch fixed it so that damage was based on the damage of the bow. This weeks patch increases damage bonuses in relation to delay (longer delays yield better damage bonuses).

• You can now reverse the left and right channels on your speakers

using the /reversesound command. This should be very useful for those who have had to place their speakers backwards due to cable lengths.

• Made some improvements to Paw, Mistmoore, and The Hole, to address

some concerns brought forth by the players. Both zones had some problems that would cause them to be exceedingly difficult in some cases.

- The EverQuest Team

January 24, 2001

• QA Openings*

Our Quality Assurance department is looking for some AVID EQ gamers to join us as testers at the San Diego branch. If you would like more information please visit www.verant.com or mail your resume to resume@station.sony.com with "QA Openings" as the Subject.

Applicants should include their time playing EverQuest, and their number of characters and their respective classes and levels as part of their resume.

• Small Patch*

The EverQuest Team is currently hard at work evaluating, planning, and documenting our project plans for the current year. As such, we did not plan game updates during this period, forecasted to last a few weeks.

However, given today's server maintenance being performed by our Operations Team, we were able to include a few small updates. These include some minor polishing on the Plane of Mischief, as well as the placement of the wizard's Velious teleport spells on merchants.

Very soon, we'll be back to our continual plans to enhance the game world. We'll be sure to let you know what we have planned as we can.

- The EverQuest Team

January 31, 2001 3:00 am

• File Download*

The file just downloaded contains some new art for use in game in the future.

- The EverQuest Team

February 2, 2001

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010202.html)

Siren's Grotto Changed

Update: We also made several changes to Siren's Grotto to address player concerns with the difficulty of the zone.

File Download

More future art was added.

February 21, 2001 3:00 am

Patch Day

Today's patch contains a wide variety of enhancements and changes. Due to the number of changes being made, this list is primarily a summary. Extended descriptions of the changes and the reasoning behind them can be solicited on the EverQuest Message Boards.

Spell and Skill Changes

Druids, Shaman, and Clerics:

• Superior Healing moved to level 51 for shamans and druids.
• Casting difficulty of Superior Heal reduced (less fizzles)
• New level 55 Druid and shaman spell, Chloroblast, similar to remedy for clerics.
• New Druid spell at level 60, upgrade to superior healing, Natures Touch.
• Created a new spell effect for Celestial Healing, Celestial Elixir,

and Torpor. This will allow them to stack with all other spells, save spells of the same type (Heal over time). Prior to this, all heal-over- time spells followed the same rules as regeneration spells.

• Reduced the casting difficulty of Remedy.
• Lowered recast time on Wake of Karana

Paladins:

• Added Endure Magic spell at level 30
• Added Resist Magic at 55
• Moved Guard spell from 49 to 39
• Moved Armor of Faith from 53 to 49
• Added New level 53 paladin spell: Divine Glory
• Added New level 59 spell: Celestial Cleansing
• Defense skill cap made exactly same as warriors
• Added Yaulp 4 at 60 and enhanced.

Shadowknights:

• Removed artificially inflated mana cost for pre level 50 lifetap

spells. Please note that post-50 lifetap spells never had an inflated mana cost.

• Moved Spirit Tap to level 55
• Moved Drain Spirit to level 57
• Added Drain Soul at level 60
• Grim Aura added at level 22 and enhanced
• Moved Shieldskin to level 34
• Pet buff added at 29
• Added Diamondskin spell at 59
• Defense skill cap made exactly same as warriors
• Due to the recent improvements to "Harmtouch", it is doing much

more damage than it would before and unbalances PvP. As such it will now do less damage in PvP (68% of PvE, down from 80%). In addition, Shadowknights on the PvP servers were routinely killing themselves via non-XP losing means and attacking other players with Harmtouch immediately upon respawn. In order to address this situation, Harmtouch is no longer automatically "recharged" by death on the PvP Servers.

• The "Lifeleech" discipline now increases hit probability in

addition to its other effects.

Rangers:

• Added Endure Cold at 22
• Added Skin Like Nature at 59
• Added FireFist at 22
• Moved Bramblecoat from 49 to 39
• Added Spikecoat at 49
• Added resist cold at 55
• Added Panic Animal at 22
• Moved Jolt to 51
• Moved Spirt of Wolf from 39 to 30
• Added Cinder Jolt (fire-based Jolt spell) at 55.
• Offense and weapons skill made identical to warriors
• Added See Invisible at 39

Bards:

• Added new level 20 Bard Song: Cassindra`s Chant of Clarity
• Bards defensive skill made exactly the same as a warriors
• Changed it so that the bard spell Denon's Desperate Dirge to

increase damge by 10pts per level over 45. Also made it so the spell does 20% more damage using the Puretone discipline.

Magicians:

• Added new level 59 spell: Valiant Companion
• Added new level 39 spell: Summon Companion
• Rain spells no longer count pets against total number of entities

they can damage (all rain spells)

• Added level 29 spell for Mages: Expedience

Enchanters:

• Lowered recast time on Visions of Grandeur

Bug Fixes

• Aggressive and Defensive disciplines have been fixed. Before they

would only affect damage taken and not affect damage dealt out. Now they affect both as designed.

• Fixed the bug with going to the spellbook when the inventory window

was up in fullview mode. It should work now. Also, fixed a minor bug where if you were in normal mode and tried to go to the spellbook from inventory via /book or the keymapped key it would not go, and it would make the done button not work properly for the inventory mode.

• Fixed NPC melee ranges to be the same as for player characters. In

other words, if you can hit the NPC, he can hit you. This bug was a problem with one dragon that could be hit, but could not hit back.

• Fixed a bug that made it impossible to "Call of the Hero" someone

out of water or lava.

• Fixed the proc on the Chilled Scythe. Owners of this item will need

to swap it out with a GM.

• The Kromzek Surveyor Scope now fits in the "Ranged" slot rather

than the "Ammo" slot as before.

• Fixed a bug that caused the two single-target bard snare songs to

break too soon in some cases.

• Fixed a bug whereby NPCs would consider the race of a player prior

to the loading of the faction table upon zoning or logging in. This would cause people to be attacked by things that normally like them.

• Players should now be properly removed from the group regardless of

how they exit the game.

Misc Changes

• Added text labels to the fullview inventory window "body" slots

(Available only to Velious Subscribers)

• Added the ability to toggle those labels on and off. Use

/invwinlabels [on/off] (or no arguments to toggle). This is saved in the eqclient.ini file in the [Defaults] section with the key InvWinLabels=[TRUE/FALSE]

• Increased the pre-50 bind-wounds cap for rogues and warriors.
• Pickpocket now works to a max of 5 levels below you, or level

45...whichever is greater... You can pickpocket NPC up to level 55 if you are level 60.

• The mouse pointer will now move at a multiple of its normal speed

when you adjust the MousePointerSpeedMod setting in the eqclient.ini file. You can set that multiple on-the-fly with the /mousespeed command.

• The "AutoHelp" feature that can be set under the options menu has

been enhanced. Spell casters in particular might want to turn it on and try depressing the ALT key. It's perfect for refreshing your memory in regards to your spell lineup.

• If you are interrupted while trying to cast a spell that uses a

component, you will no longer use that component. Jewelers should be very pleased with this change.

• Reduced the casting difficulty (fizzle rate) of all spells over

level 56. Spells have always previously been set up so that it's usually more efficient to use a spell from a previous circle than the current one. The formula did not take into account the fact that everyone stops at 60.

• Changed it so that players will now lose experience when they die

in the Arena in Kael Drakkel. It seems that people were fighting giants in that arena in order to avoid the death penalty.

• Naked PC corpses that have experience and are above level 30 will

now last 3 hours instead of 3 minutes.

• Avatar and Focus of Spirit should now stack
• Raised the pre and post 50 bind wounds cap for paladins, clerics,

druids, and shaman.

Item Changes

• The effect on the "Frost Giant Beard" can now be used at 35th level rather than level 50.
• The Wurmslayer will now fit in a bag.
• Iksar can now use the Ashenbone Shield
• Chandged Crystallized Shadow leggings to rentable
• Changed Gorilla Hide Leggings to show up as leather, was cloth before
• Changed Envy from a piercing weapon to a shield so players could Bash with it. Envy is a parrying dagger.
• The Shralok Pack is now LORE. It was set to pending-lore some time ago.
• The Guardian and Sentry Armor bracers are no longer LORE.
• Donal's Breastplate can now only be used on any individual target once every 7.5 minutes. This addresses some of the balance issues that became apparent given the existence of a mana-free complete heal.

Trades and Crafts

• Fixed the Gator Roll baking recipe.
• Repaired the notetext instructions for creating a Mixing Bowl with pottery.
• Repaired Holgresh Fur Cap and Holgresh Fur Moccasins tailoring recipes.
• Made it so that the file is returned in addition to the hammer when a character fails to forge any of the various chain jointings.
• Repaired Recipe for Enchanted Tier`Dal Adamantite Bracelet
• Made it so that the Dwarven Smithy Hammer is returned on a failure to forge Brellium Chain Jointing.
• Repaired Field Plate Boots smithing recipe
• Changed the name of the smithed Enchanted Cabilis Scale armor to Imbued Cabilis Scale armor for naming convention reasons.
• Repaired the recipe for converting 3 Enchanted Large Adamantite Bricks into 1 Enchanted Block of Adamantite in the Tier`Dal Forge, it was previously only possible in the Oggok Forge.
• Made it so that the Bread Tin is returned upon a failure to bake bread.
• Mithril and Velium Bonings will be stackable.
• Mithril Studs will be stackable.

NPC AI - Hate

We've made a number of changes to NPC AI, specifically to the section dealing with target-selection, or what's commonly referred to as "Hate". It is not so much that NPCs react differently to hate now than before, but that we've changed the way that hate is awarded.

• We reduced the amount of hate that can be caused by a proc. Due to

the high proc rates at upper levels, the amount of hate generated from procs, and the spells that were selected for those procs, made keeping the attention of the creature much too easy a task for the tank. Simply, it nearly eliminated the challenge of keeping a foes attention at levels above 50.

• We've capped the amount of hate that can be awarded to most

casters, specifically for debuff-type spells like the Malo and Tash series. The hate calculation for these spells takes into account the number of hitpoints of the NPC and did not "play nice" with the increased HP limit of Velious. It explains why Enchanters, for instance, would complain that casting a Tash spell would lead to near- instant death.

• We've redressed the amount of hate generated by heal spells.

Previously, and *partly* due to a bug, the high level heal spells such as superior heal or complete heal would generate no more hate than greater heal. In fact, so little hate was generated by these spells that it made controlling NPC aggression trivial. Heal spells will now generate an amount of hate more in line with the number of hitpoints actually healed. Due to our desire to leave the lower level game more or less untouched, two separate caps have been placed for targets level 50 or below, and 51 or above. Heal spells will generate significantly less hate for targets below level 51 than those at or above that level.

• We've also re-evaluated ways that players have to reduce their own

hate. While spells in place to allow this are OK, the Evade skill (possessed by rogues) let them out of their damage too easily. A rogue that successfully evaded would immediately drop to a level of hate lower than someone who was in the awareness range, but hadn't done anything to really upset the creature such as damage it or heal its foe. This problem was exacerbated by the increase of the size of the hate list implemented with Velious.

Tracking

Tracking now works in full view for all classes that can use it, and sports a nifty scroll bar that allows players to see everything on the list. In addition, the /trackplayer setting is now saved to the eqclient.ini file.

The following options have been put in for Rangers only:

• /tracksort
• /trackfilter

• /tracksort options beginning with R are reverse order

Hybrid Casting

Hybrids that cast spells in combat were taking double penalties at higher levels. The casting times of their spells went up, and the amount of melee damage they do per second went up. This results is having to take longer to cast spells, and losing more damage/second for each second taken in casting. To help offset this, Rangers, Paladins and Shadowknights casting non-beneficial spells that have casting times greater than or equal to 3 seconds, now get a 3 % reduction in casting time for each level over 50. 3% at 51, 6% at 52, etc., to 30% at 60. Again, this applies only to non-beneficial spells.

- The EverQuest Team

February 21, 2001

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010221b.html)

Shralok Pack and Pending Lore

It's apparent that some EQ players, primarily those who started playing after the introduction of the LORE tag, did not know what the "Pending Lore" tag meant. "Pending Lore" means that in the future, an item WILL become LORE, making it so the character can possess only one. When this change occurs, the server deletes additional items upon login.

The Shralok Pack is one of those items. However, due to the number of people unaware of the meaning of the tag, we've changing it back to "Pending Lore". Players who had the item disappear from their characters can contact a GM to have their characters restored to the time of the last backup.

Going forward, we will work to distribute additional notification when making a change of this type. To that end, the Shralok Pack will become a LORE item in the very near future, and players should take steps to remove all items and get rid of additional packs. It should be noted that there is no guarantee as to which pack(s) will be deleted when the server reduces the total number owned to one, so you will want to destroy any superfluous packs manually.

Healing and Hate

A team member has asked that we clarify the changes to the way hate is awarded in healing. The important point that may not have been clear below is that there is a cap on the amount of hate that can be awarded for any particular heal spell. For a target below level 51, no heal spell can generate more than 800 hate, regardless of the number of hitpoints healed. For targets level 51 or above, the cap is higher, but does not approach the total hitpoints of a fully buffed warrior.

Casting Difficulty

The patch message mentioned that the casting difficulty for spells above level 56 was reduced. The actual value is spells of level 51 or above. These spells should fizzle less than they did before.

Crashing on Zoning

We tracked down and eliminated another bug that was causing some people to intermittently crash upon zoning. If you were affected by this problem you should notice better performance.

March 6, 2001 3:00 am

General Changes

• Doubled the chance gain skill points in skills that are above 200.
• Fixed a bug that disallowed casting of the Donal's Breatplate on

others once casted upon yourself.

• The spell scrolls for Grim Aura should now all reflect usability by

SKs

• Fixed a bug that would allow melee players to open a spellbook via

/book or alt+b.

• Merchants will now recognize Iksar as a valid race.
• New bind locations have been added to three zones in the world - One

on Antonica and two others on Kunark. NPCs at these locations can fill you in on the details. Good hunting.

• The casting time for four cleric brestplates sporting the "Celestial

Healing" effect has been increased to one minute. We understand that this severely limits the use of that effect and we are currently discussing alternate effects to place on those items in the next patch. We did, however, need to address the 300pt per tick regen that could be placed and kept on the group tank. When we've decided on the new affect, it will be applied to those items retroactively.

• Numeric skill values will be shown on character skill display for

skill values over 100. Values under 100 still show the qualitative identifiers.

• Players have expressed concern about accidentally inspecting other

players. You can now turn on or off your ability to inspect other players by typing /inspect.

• Those of you with z-axis mouse wheels on your mice may use them over

the chat window.

• Fixed "Breath of the Sea". It was mistakenly set to be unresistable.
• Same-zone evac-type spells will now cause you to reload the current

zone. This is a necessary step to ensure that you are removed from all hatelists and clean up your pet.

• "Voice Graft" will no longer show the spawn number (Jobaber00) of

your pet.

• You will now receive a message when you are being bandaged.
• The tracking skill cap for Druids has been raised to 125. It was the

intent for druids to be better at tracking than they were, however before the scroll bar, smaller skill numbers were often considered better. With the tracking improvements from the last patch, this increase was appropriate.

• Increased the number of hitpoints healed by Celestial Cleansing.

NPC AI Adjustments

• Level 60 players with the taunt skill will now have a chance to

taunt creatures that are level 60 to 65. Previously, players could only taunt creatures below their level.

• NPCs that are mesmerized or stunned will now only add a very small

amount of hate when they see you cast beneficial spells on their enemies. Prior to this, they would add full hate when they saw you do this. This is why NPCs would always jump the cleric after breaking Mez.

• Fixed a bug that would cause NPCs to add too much "temporary hate"

when a player would sit down in front of them.

• The maximum amount of "hate" that an NPC can add when witnessing a

heal to targets above level 50 has been decreased substantially.

• Hate from heals is also now calculated at a lesser number than the

number of hitpoints healed. Previously, healing one hitpoint would cause one point of hate. Now, healing 3 hitpoints will cause 2 points of hate.

Velious Music

Velious subscribers should run the Velious Patch to pick up new mood music for some Velious Zones. Let us know what you think of the new compositions.

EQGems

A new "mini-game" has been added to the EverQuest client. EQGems is our first effort aimed towards allowing people to engage in different activities while playing EverQuest. Based upon the success of EQGems, we may explore opportunities for other mini-games in the future, even some that are multiplayer in and of themselves. Type /gems to play.

- The EverQuest Team

March 9, 2001 12:00 am

• E'ci and The Rathe Movelog*

We will be opening a new server and moving characters from the E'ci and The Rathe servers to this new server upon the request of the customer. If you choose to move your characters to the new server, please be aware that all of your characters on the old server will be moved to the new server.

To request to have your characters moved to the new server, all you need to do is type "/movelog yes" into the chat window while playing a character on that server during the time that the move log is open.

We will be opening the move log for these two servers on Friday, March 16th, 2001 at 6:00 pm. PST (which is Saturday morning at 2:00 am GMT). We will be closing the move log on Sunday, March 18th, 2001 at 11:59 pm PST (7:59 am on Monday the 19th GMT). The new, yet unnamed, server should be opened some time during the week of March 19th. We'll announce the exact date as soon as we can.

There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing to move your characters to the new server. The most important thing to keep in mind is that character corpses will not be moved with the characters. So it is important to make certain that you have looted all of the corpses that you want to loot before the characters are moved.

Also, characters names are unique on the new server. Because characters will be moving from two separate servers onto the new one, there may be cases where two characters with the same name are created on the new server. Because character names must be unique, one of the two characters will be chosen at random and have an 'x' added to the end of their name. If you find that one of your characters has had an 'x' tacked onto their name after the move and you would rather have a new name, please contact your GM by using the /petition function. The GM will help you to change the name of your character.

Guild structures do not follow the characters to the new server. We will be unable to reestablish guilds until at least a week has passed after the split. On any day after the new server has been up for eight days, the guild leader can /petition for a GM to help them reestablish the guild. Please do not petition for this before seven days have passed, we will not be able to set up your guild before then.

We will not be moving characters back to the old server, so make certain that you want to move your characters before you type "/movelog yes". And we will not be moving characters for those that fail to execute the movelog command during the stated window of opportunity.

- The EverQuest Team

Warrens Era

March 14, 2001 3:00 am

EverQuest Turns Two

Two years ago this Friday, EverQuest was launched, forever changing the course of online gaming. Today EverQuest boasts nearly 360,000 active subscribers, and a two-year retention rate of 65%. Peak usage tops 89,000 simultaneous users with average peak usage at roughly 87,000. The EverQuest community continues to grow daily.

We've put up a page on the EverQuest website to help celebrate EverQuest's achievement and to thank our loyal fans. Over the next couple of days we will be posting interesting content from EverQuest's humble beginnings, as well as a few surprises. Check it out! http://everquest.station.sony.com/2ndanniversary/index.jsp

The Warrens

As part of our two-year celebration, we're pleased to announce the release of "The Warrens", a free expansion zone located on Odus. "The Warrens" is a low-to-mid level dungeon and the home of the Kobolds on Odus. You can patch the Warrens by running the "Optional Patch".

In addition to filling-out the continent of Odus, "the Warrens" will also serve as a platform to try out some of the new ideas brought forth by members of the team and the public aimed at addressing some common gameplay issues. We would like to see what options might be open to and enjoyed by the players in the future.

The first issue addressed in the Warrens is the problem of higher level characters competing with lower level characters for loot on lower level creatures. To address this issue, in the Warrens, a group that "outclasses" a particular foe will not receive any loot that is MAGIC, LORE, or NODROP. All other loot will drop. "Outclassing" a foe is defined as having a group makeup such that no one in your group receives experience from the kill. This can happen if, for instance, the foe is "green" to all group members, or if the group makeup is of such a wide level range that the system determines the fight was unbalanced using regular experience rules.

Any time that an NPC would have dropped special loot and does not due to it being outclassed, a message indicating that the combat was "trivial" will be displayed to the group.

As time goes on, we will be implementing new gameplay subsets and adjustements in the Warrens. Please be sure to let us know what you think!

The Planes

The Planes of Fear and Hate have been updated as part of our two-year celebration. Adventurers in the Plane of Fear will notice that some high-level foes are now available. Rewards for former "boss npcs" have been moved down to underlings that are roughly as powerful as the old bosses were.

The Plane of Hate has also received a large update, but this one also includes the opening of a previously undiscovered part of the zone, now full high-level expansion-oriented content. Much as with Fear, rewards from bosses have been moved.

Epic Quests

As part of the Plane updates, we've made several adjustments to Epic quests for a number of classes. Previously, questers of many classes were put in direct competition with regular non-questing adventurers for a few coveted spawns. In these cases, a new step has been added to separate the "Epic Encounter" NPCs from the "Epic Quest" NPCs.

For those who are mid-quest, all quest requirements have remained the same. In other words, if you turn the same items into the same NPC, the same reward applies. What has changed is that some components may be in a different location from where you expect them. It is recommended that you check with the last NPC in line or other adventurers to find where you need to go next.

Patch Day

Along with the big announcements above, today was a patch day as well:

• Fixed a bug that allowed exploitation of the period of time between

character control being established and loading of character faction tables.

• Fixed the Dagger of Frost. Its special item flags were improperly

removed in the last patch.

• The spell, Mark of Karn, has been enhanced to heal more per hit.

- The effect on the Celestial Elixir Breastplates has been changed to the enhanced Mark of Karn. The casting time on these items has also been changed to 9 seconds.

• NPCs in Thurgadin will no longer stop traveling when you /hail them.
• Fixed a problem present in Nagafen's Lair and the Plane of Hate that

caused framerate to drop over time.

• Shift-clicking on a stack of items will cause you to pick up the

whole stack. This is in addition to CTRL-clicking on a stack, which will cause you to pick up one. These both also work for coins now as well as items.

• In addition to the above, holding down the shift key while clicking

the "Sell" button in the vendor screen will cause you to sell the entire stack of items if a stack is selected. For example, you can sell 20 peridots by selecting the stack, and shift-clicking "Sell". I'd recommend though that you give them to your neighborhood cleric first though :) The ability to buy stacks is on the list for implementation in the near future. - There are a ton of new recipies for trade skill users out there. Check your books. - There are a bunch of new quests as well.

• It appears that we fixed a bug with the Mend skill that caused it to

be unavailable for a few seconds after it was supposed to be ready for use. Let us know if there are any further problems.

• Foraging items will now yield a message giving you some idea of what you've foraged.

Please remember that the /movelog for the Rathe and E'ci is scheduled for this weekend. Please read the message below for details on the /movelog.

A Message From Customer Service

We regularly receive requests from customers that want their characters moved from one server to another, or from one account to another. Unfortunately, due to the EverQuest EULA, the number of requests that we receive, the desire to maintain stable server communities and economies, and other problems associated with character moves, we can not move characters across servers or accounts.

It is important for the integrity of the server that items from a server remain on that server. We also feel that it is important that characters that have built up a reputation, good or bad, have to live with the consequences of their decisions, and are not allowed to retreat from that reputation by changing servers.

The only exception to this rule is when we open a Movelog for moving a large number of characters to new servers. At no other time will we move a character in such a fashion.

- The EverQuest Team

March 27, 2001 2:00 am

Fan Faire Reminder

Registration for the San Diego Fan Faire closes on Wednesday, March 28th, and we are running out of spaces. Once all the spaces are taken, we will not be accepting any further registrations (or walk-ins). So if you plan to attend sign up before someone else gets your spot. Head over to www.everquest.com to register.

Spell Changes and Additions

• A new teleportation spell has been added to the game for both Druids

and Wizards. These are self-only gate spells to the Dreadlands. These spells should be available on the more exclusive spell vendors in Norrath.

• Increased the drop rate on some Kunark spells to coincide with the

narrowing of the creatures carrying those spells as the game evolves.

• Wizards now have access to a new type of spell that only works on

certain types of target. Generically called 'bane' spells, a few are now available in the game. May your quest for such spells be successful.

Item Changes

• Changed the effects on the Singing Steel Boots and Greaves. After a fair amount of concern from players, we have removed the summon food and water effects from these items. They have been replaced with modified versions of Aria of the Eagles (boots) and Appalling Screech (greaves).

• The Incandescent Bracer can now be worn on the wrist rather than the waist.

• The Incarnadine Breastplate must now be worn to activate.

• Changed spell effects on Pauldrons of the Fearsome and Fearsome Shield to right click and worn to activate.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that was causing some players to zone into the Warrens at the wrong location.

• Corrected an error with the Bixie Sword Blade, changing its delay from 6 to 16.

• Fixed a bug where Iskar Monks were unable to Feign Death after Foraging.

• Kodiaks in the Great Divide are now seen as animals.

• Toxdil, the wandering rogue poison vendor, will now sell to characters even when he is away from his home.

Enhancements

• Fixed a problem that occurred when players mistyped /guild. Typing /guildd in the chat window is the shortcut for typing /guilddelete. /guildd now has a confirmation box so that such an error should no longer lead to the accidental deletion of a guild.

• Added /showspelleffects. Using this toggle ('on' or 'off') a player can turn on or off the display of particle effects for spells. This will only affect spells, not world effects like waterfalls or weapon particle effects. This should allow you to turn off many of the effects that hamper rendering performance, inducing effects of spells, while still being able to see some of the awesome effects, like those on certain paladin weapons...

• Added server-side filtering for chat and combat messages. This will allow you to turn off guild chat, shouts, auctions, oocs, 'my misses', 'others misses', 'others hits', 'attacker misses me', PC spells (all options), NPC spells and Bard songs (all options) at the server instead of at the client. This can reduce that amount of data sent to you over

your connection, and can help those with slower connections with better performance and connectivity.

• Ships will now be announcing their arrival in most zones. They will also be announcing their progress to any zone they travel through. Any of those zones that they are not currently making announcements in will be added in the next patch or two.

• Shift - Left and Shift - Right will now repeat in the chat window. This means that when editing what you've typed, you can just hold down the Shift and Left Arrow keys and the cursor will move left until it reaches the beginning of the line or until you release the keys.

• The spell slot number will now show up in front of the spell name when you press Alt to cast a spell using the Alt-Spell Number method.

• View perspective in wolf form has been fixed. First-person view will now be on level with the wolf, rather than a few feet above it. At the same time, perceiving other players in wolf form will appear to be standing on the ground instead of floating a few feet above it.

• Trade skill success and failure messages will be sent to the craftsperson's group instead of just the craftsperson, as long as the craftsperson is using the proper ingredients. Failure of the craftsman to use the proper ingredients will result in no failure message being sent.

• In order to prevent a few trade scams, money can no longer be removed from a trade window. You will have to cancel the trade and start over to adjust the amount of money involved in the trade.

• We're now sending hitpoint updates to the casters of direct damage spells no matter how far away they are when the spell lands. This will allow those casters that try to stand as far back as possible to get updates even when their range indicates that the messages should be surpressed.

Quest

Several new quests have been added as well, so don't be afraid to talk to the folks of Norrath, they might have new information for you.

- The EverQuest Team

March 27th, 6:00 pm

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20011228012911/http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum1/HTML/000002.html

Server-Side Filter Clarification

If you use the Chat Filter options in game to turn off OOC, Shout, Auction, Guild Chat, Damage Shields or any form of combat miss, this filtering will occur on the server automatically. This means that once you turn them off, these messages will not even be sent to your computer.

All other messages will remain filtered on the Client Side (by your computer rather than the server) even if you turn them off, until you type /serverfilter ON. When you do that then they will be filtered at the server. This may, however, prevent you from seeing certain spell particle effects and possibly some damage animations. /serverfilter OFF will allow these messages to be sent to your computer once again.

The advantage to filtering things on the server rather than at your computer is that it reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent to your computer. For people that don't have the best connections to the Internet, and/or for those in locations where a lot of data is being sent (such as in raid situations), server-side filtering should make the game more stable.

- The EverQuest Team

March 28th, 1:30pm

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20011228012911/http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum1/HTML/000002.html

IMPORTANT NEW MESSAGE

Combine Button Containers

First of all thank you to everyone who posted the problem with the Velious Tailoring recipes and other recipes that appeared to be broken after the patch.

With the most recent patch, we fixed a bug that is causing some confusion with these recipes.

There was a bug that allowed certain recipes to work in any container of its type, where they were intended to work only in special containers of that type. For example, there are recipes that were intended to only work in the Coldain Tanner's Kit that could be completed in any Sewing Kit. That bug was repaired along with some other minor bugs associated with combine button containers in this last patch.

Please make sure that you are using the proper container as instructed by in game instructions or npc's when combining trade skill components or quest components in any combine button container.

The Velious Tailoring Recipes are currently functioning in the Coldain Tanners Kit. We apologize for the inconvenience.

- The EverQuest Team

March 30, 2001

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010330.html)

Client Patch

Tonight we patched out a new EverQuest client. This client will address issues reported by those using video cards that require square textures, and who are crashing or experiencing garbled textures.

We are working on the other problems reported. As always, please be sure you have installed DirectX 7 or higher, and have also installed the latest drivers for your video card. It is very important that the video drivers are installed AFTER DirectX.

April 4, 2001 3:00 am

New and Changed Features

• Guild Message of the Day. Guild Officers and Leaders will be able to type /guildmotd to set up a Guild Message of the Day (GMotD). From then on any time a member of that guild logs in they will see the message with the name of the message sender added at the front, so you will know who sent the message. Any guild member will also be able to read the GMotD by typing just /guildmotd and the message will be displayed again. The GMotD will be erased if the server comes down, however. You will have to reset the GMotD when the server comes back up.

• /assist changed and improved. It should be much more reliable now. It also will target whatever the assisted person has targeted. The assisted person does not need to have auto-attack on for /assist to work.

• Fixed a problem with /corpse that kept it from working on corpses that were too far above or below you.

Skill Change

• Foraging changed so that if you are getting the hungry and thirsty messages, your next successful forage will always be drink or food. We have also decreased the chance of foraging fishing grubs a bit and increased the chance that you will forage water.

Spell Changes

• Acumen now overwrites See Invisible.

• Translocate now has the proper spell gem.

Bug Fix

• Fixed many crash problems for Windows 2000 users. This fix will most likely also aid some folks that are not using Windows 2000 that are having problems.

Item Changes

• Velious racial plate helm quests have been added that will allow you to 'trade in' your existing helms for ones with textures. We have decided to allow the players (or their characters) to chose whether they wish to have the new helmet textures or to continue to use helmets that show no graphics.

• Five and ten charge versions of Potions of the Bone Field have been added.

• Kilva's Skin of Flame potion has been changed. It no longer has the same effect as the Kilva's Blistering Flesh potion.

• Removed the tinting from Dark Forge and Resonant armors. Tinting was never really intended to be on those pieces and, frankly, they look better without it.

Miscellaneous Items

• Reduced the 'bottleneck' for getting Howling Stone keys by increasing the availability of one of the quest items.

• Erudite guards will now be much less friendly to Kobolds.

• Vendors are once again selling the Coldain Tanner's Kit.

'Combine' container changes

We've made a change to 'combine' containers. In order to prevent people from accidentally destroying items, all containers with a 'combine' button will not combine any items that do not form a complete recipe. This will be a huge boon to craftspeople all across Norrath. But this removes the only drawback to using trade containers as backpacks. Their reduced weight and often greater carrying capacity made them more desirable as bags, with the compensating risk that you might just lose something if you made a mistake.

We will be increasing the weight of portable 'combine' containers somewhat. Where some of these containers weighed under 1 pound, they will now weigh as much as 4 pounds for the largest sewing kit.

Along with this we are making a change to tailor made backpacks. In case you didn't know, most tailor made packs have a built in weight reduction of 5%. We are raising that to 10%. We will also be displaying the weight reduction of all containers with the information shown on a right click.

- The EverQuest Team

April 4, 2001 11:30 am

EverQuest Classic Edition

There is a new package for EverQuest. It's a small box with a small price. Here's a bit from the press release for details:

---

SAN DIEGO, CA - April 3, 2001 - Sony Online Entertainment announced today that its classic edition of EverQuest(tm) is now available for the SRP of $9.99, a price point that will attract new users to a continuously growing community. EverQuest, the most successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game ever, will be available in both a jewel case and mini box versions at retail stores nationwide. "Newbies" will enjoy all the amazing aspects of the original EverQuest from creating their own specialized characters to embarking on perilous and excitement filled journeys across three continents.

---

- The EverQuest Team

April 17, 2001 3:00 am

Food Changes

• Food items now have a 'duration'. This means that some food items

will not sustain a character as long as others, and some items will sustain your character longer than they did before.

Bug Fixes

• We THINK we've fixed the problem with the Dusty Werebat. This fellow

has been steadfastly refusing to appear where and when we ask him to. We've worked out a deal with his agent, and we think he'll be back to work with this patch.

• Corrected an anomaly with hit point bars that occurred when a

character was healed or damaged by spells. This could be seen, for example, when a character was healed and the hit point bar would go up and then quickly go back down a bit right afterwards. There was no error in the assignment of healing or damage previously, just in the way it was being displayed.

• Fixed the visual bracer bug where other people would see a different

bracer graphic than you would. Now everyone (including the wearer) will always see the same bracer texture. If you have two bracers that have a different look (one is leather and one is steel, for example), make sure that the one you want to show up graphically is on your right wrist inventory slot, because this is the one that the game will choose to show for you (unless you take off the left one and put it back on, which will show the left one, but that is only temporary, and it will go back to showing the right one after you zone or reenter the game).

• Fixed zoning problem in Nurga to Droga that caused characters to be

facing the wrong way when they zoned, often causing confusion that lead to accidentally zoning back the way they had come. You should be facing the right way when you make that zone transition now.

Zone and Quest Changes

• The marauding Tar Goos will no longer be assisted by the Geonids.

This should make at least one quest more available.

• Grobb should now have a couple of ovens. Hopefully this will allow

Troll bakers to keep their fellows full of carbs and ready to fight.

• Fixed a bug that occurred when selling stacks of items. Previously,

if you had 4 bat wings and sold them one by one to the merchant, the merchant would have 4 bat wings for you to buy, but if you sold all four at once to the merchant he would only have one for you to buy. Now he will have 4 in either case.

• We have increased the spawn rate of Venril Sathir and his skeletal

remains. Please note that only Rangers and Druids will be able to trigger the spawn for the skeletal remains, and those remains will only be dropping items for those epic quests. Hopefully these changes will dramatically reduce the competition and resentment over this spawn.

• We have reduced resistances to some spell types on some NPCs in Sky

Shrine and the Tower of Frozen Shadow. This is the beginning of our overview of the resistances of NPCs in Velious.

Improved and New Features

• When you /consent someone it will give them the ability to drag all

of your corpses.

• You can now buy stacks of combinable items (such as rations, water,

etc...) from merchants. It works the same way as sell in that you can hold down shift to buy a full stack and control to buy just one item.

• Added the ability to change the color of all windows at one time with

/wincolor (all windows that can be changed, that is). You can now use /wincolor ALL 0 0 100 2, for example, instead of having to set each window separately.

• Right-clicking items while looting will 'auto-equip' them. This will

work just as if you had picked the items up and dropped them onto the 'auto-equip' area of your character profile. So if there is already a piece of equipment on your character in the spot where the looted item would normally go, it will drop into your inventory, if you have room for it.

• The tab key will no longer toggle between you and your last target

when the chat bar is up. When the chat bar is open the tab key will take you through the list of your most recent /tell names or /reply names. When the chat bar is closed the tab key will switch you between yourself and your last target.

• /assist has an added parameter. /assist on and /assist off will

determine whether or not your character auto-attacks when you use /assist. So if you type /assist off, from that time forward using /assist will NOT engage your character's auto-attack. This change will be persistent, so it will remain as you left it when you log out. /assist also now has a range of 200 feet.

• The destroy confirmation requestor now shows the name of the item you

are trying to destroy, or it just says money if you are destroying coins. This should greatly reduce the chance of accidentally deleting the wrong item. PLEASE read the text in the destroy confirmation box to be certain that you are destroying the right item before choosing to destroy it.

• Hailing Player Character will now say 'Hail Playername', rather than

just 'hail'.

• Added /charinfo command. Currently this command only reports the zone

where the current character is bound. We may add further information as things progress.

• You will now see how much damage your character has taken when he is

hit by a spell that causes instant damage (DOT damage is not reported).

Item Changes

• We've made a change to the Red Scabbard that should relieve most of

the problems warriors were having with their epic weapon occasionally disappearing during conversion between the two-handed weapon and the two one-handed weapons. What will happen now is rather simple. The very next time you use the container to combine the weapons (or break them apart), the old scabbard will disappear and a new one will replace it.

THE NEW SCABBARD AND THE SWORDS WILL APPEAR ON YOUR CURSOR, rather than in your inventory. So once you have combined them, make sure to place them in your inventory. And don't panic, the items didn't disappear. :) But also MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU HAVE ROOM IN YOUR INVENTORY FOR ALL THREE ITEMS (the two swords and the scabbard, which is a container and needs to be able to fit into your main inventory). If you end up with a No-Drop container on your cursor with no place to put it in your inventory, you will have a problem...

Also, right now the new scabbard is a little bugged. Right now you won't be able to open the new scabbard until you camp out once after it is created. We're working on fixing that bug. We decided to make this change even with this small bug to help relieve everyone of the problems with the old scabbard.

This new scabbard will have a special ability. It will be able to recreate the epic weapons if you have lost them. Simply place a Sword of Runes (summoned by a Magician) into the scabbard and hit the combine button. The scabbard will convert the temporary power of the Sword of Runes into the permanent epic sword.

Customer Service WILL NOT be replacing the old scabbards with the new ones. That will be done by the game itself once you have completed the quest and combined the swords for the first time.

• Changed the size of the Weighted Axe from Tiny to Large (after all,

it's a big two-handed axe...). If you have one in a bag now, be aware that it probably won't fit back into that bag again once you take it out.

• No Rent Items will no longer be immediately deleted from your

character inventory upon disconnection with the server. If you are disconnected from the servers, or even if you log out, your No Rent items (such as summoned food and water) will remain on your character as long as you log back to that character within 30 minutes. After thirty minutes those No Rent items will be deleted. There may be some extreme cases beyond our control (such as hardware failures) where No Rent items will not be on your character even if you log back in within the 30 minute timeframe. No reimbursement will be given for No Rent items lost in this manner.

• Grand Master Wrist Wraps have been fixed and should now create the

"Pouch of Quellios" as intended. If you have one of these items and it still does not work, please contact a GM using /petition and ask them to switch yours for a new one.

• Snow Storm Mask should now function properly.

• The Ring of the Frozen Flame should now be working properly.

• The slow effect on the Willsapper proc has been reduced.

• The weight of Skewers has been increase to a weight of 3.

• Velious Monk armor appearances have been changed. If you're wearing

these items, you probably already noticed this, but we thought we'd announce it anyway. New textures will be showing on the Plane of Growth dropped armors and on the questable armors. Because the Velious textures can be a strain on some systems, the textures for these new armors will not be loaded by default by the game. If you want to see the new textures you will have to edit your EQClient.ini and change the line LoadArmor23=FALSE (the default) to LoadArmor23=TRUE.

Trade Skill Changes

• Bards that worship Sol Ro will now be able to wear the Imbued jewelry made for their god. For those that not only sing around the campfire, but sing about the campfire!

• 'World' Trade Containers (those that are stationary) have been fixed. Previously when a character tried to combine items in a world container that did not match a recipe, the items would seem to disappear. But if the character closed and reopened the container, the items were still in it. Those items should no longer seem to disappear.

• The speed of Selo's Song of Travel, the effect of the Singing Steel Breastplate has been increased a little.

Spell Changes

• Removed Gem component from the following spells. They will now only

require the metal components. These are the Enchant spells for making cultural armor.

Enchant Velium Enchant Mithril Enchant Adamantite Enchant Steel Enchant Brellium

• Changed the spell component for the following Magician spells from

Lapis Lazuli to Malachite. They now use the same reagent as every other Magician pet spell.

Minor Summoning: Earth Minor Summoning: Water Minor Summoning: Fire Minor Summoning: Air Elemental: Earth Elemental: Water Elemental: Fire Elemental: Air

• Added Casting Text to the Following spells (the messages in brackets

will now appear upon a successful use of the spell):

Panic Animal (soandso flees in a state of total panic!) Terrorize Animal (soandso runs away in terror!) Repulse Animal (soandso is utterly repulsed!) Acumen (soandso's eyes tingle)

• Cannibalize IV now exists. This spell is now available in Velious.

• Cannibalize II and III have had their effects improved. They now

return more mana to the caster than they did before.

Class Specific Changes

• Monk weight allowance has been increased. Every 15 levels monks will

get an extra 1 stone weight allowance. The post 50 weight allowance has also been increased by 2 stone.

Level 15, Limit 15 Level 30, Limit 16 Level 45, Limit 17 Level 51, Limit 18 Level 55, Limit 20 Level 60, Limit 24

• Disarmed traps will remain disarmed for a somewhat longer time than

before to allow larger groups to get past the traps before they go off.

April 17, 2001 (Later)

(Allkakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010417b.html)

We're sorry that we've had to patch again so quickly. We found a problem with the change we made to the Red Scabbard. This patch is intended primarily to fix that issue.

Food Changes

Along with the other changes mentioned in the patch message, some player-made food items will now have an effect on your character beyond just keeping him from being hungry. We'll leave it up to you to discover the rest.

We've also added the ability to right-click food to 'force' your character to eat it. This will cause the food to be eaten immediately (though your character can only eat so much food at one time). Food eaten this way will only last half as long as food eaten naturally by the character.

Run the Velious Patch

If you want to see the new Monk textures you will need to make the changes mentioned in the patch message. But you will also need to run the Velious Patch in order to get those textures to show up.

Skewer Change

We didn't actually change the weight of Skewers, we changed the weight of Spits. Sorry for the confusion.

Bug Fixes

Buying a duplicate lore item will no longer cause you to crash.

Clarification

To clear up some confusion, we wanted to let everyone know that we have changed the timing of the spawn of the Venril Sathir remains. It no longer appears directly after the death of Venril Sathir. And we also urge you to read the patch message below about the changes to this creature.

Also since we're patching to fix bugs, we decided to throw in a new feature.

%M used in a macro will now place the name of your pet (if you have one) in the text of your macro.

Bag Positioning: Now bags will stay where you put them. Simply open a bag and move it to where you want it. The bag will remember it's location and open up there again next time. This will be persistent and will be remembered when you log out.

There are two things to know about this new feature. The first is that the default position of every bag is going to be the same. So if you open one bag and then another, their windows will stack on top of each other. Don't let this alarm you, the first bag window didn't close. Just move the top bag to the desired location and you'll see the bottom one.

The other thing to know is a bit more complicated.

The saved locations for opening bags are linked to the bank or inventory slot that the bag is in, not to the bag itself. So if you open a bag that is sitting in your first inventory slot and move the bag window to a new location, it is the inventory slot that remembers the position and any bag opened from that inventory slot will open in the saved position. Take that bag from the first slot and move it to the second inventory slot and it will open in the location set for the second inventory slot. It will not remember where it was opened before.

Experiment with it, it will make more sense once you try it.

Venril Sathir

We have increased the spawn rate of Venril Sathir and his skeletal remains. Please note that only Rangers and Druids will be able to trigger the spawn for the skeletal remains, and those remains will only be dropping items for those epic quests. Hopefully these changes will dramatically reduce the competition and resentment over this spawn.

April 18, 2001 Luclin Announced - Press Release

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT EXPANDS EVERQUEST(r) UNIVERSE WITH "EVERQUEST(r): SHADOWS OF LUCLIN(tm)"

• Massive Additions in Store for SOE's Premier Role-Playing Game--

SAN DIEGO, CA - April 18, 2001 - Sony Online Entertainment announced today its new expansion pack, "EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin" for the Internet's most popular role-playing game, "EverQuest(r)." The new expansion pack will introduce EverQuest fans to an enchanting moonscape packed with new adventure zones, new items, creatures and spells, a new playable character class and more. Supported by a complete graphic overhaul, "Shadows of Luclin" will allow EverQuest players to witness their world in unprecedented splendor.

"'Shadows of Luclin' will give EQ fans a beautiful uncharted territory to explore," states Jeff Butler, Producer, Sony Online Entertainment. "Whether you're a devoted long-term fan looking for new challenges or just discovering online gaming for the first time, 'Shadows of Luclin' is filled with enough captivating adventures to support all levels of EverQuest players."

"The Shadows of Luclin" takes voyagers to a satellite hovering ominously above the world of Norrath. An area of great mystery, magic, and perplexity, Luclin is divided into a land of light, ruled by Discord, and a land of shadow, ruled by Order. Each side of this amazing world will present many new secrets, treasures and unique monsters.

"Shadows of Luclin" key features:

• New adventure zones, including a new starting city
• All new, highly detailed player-character models
• Massively enhanced 3D graphics engine
• An all-new player character race
• Challenging new quests, items to trade and sell, NPCs and more

"EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin" is due to ship in Q4 2001. For more information visit the official Shadows of Luclin Website at http://www.everquest.com/luclin.

Continuing to grow with top-selling expansions "The Ruins of Kunark (tm)" and "The Scars of Velious(tm)," "EverQuest" proves to be the largest fantasy world ever created online. During peak periods, more than 88,000 adventurers and dragon slayers have explored the world of Norrath simultaneously. The active global EverQuest subscriber base is comprised of players from various countries throughout the "real" world, including the U.S., England, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, France, Italy and Australia.

May 8, 2001 3:00 am

• • PvP changes **

We have made the first of our upcoming changes to the PvP aspects of EverQuest:

• Consider: /Consider will only have three results when used to

consider a Player Character. The character will show as 'green' if he is below the range that allows you to attack him. The character will show as 'white/black' if he is within your ability to attack. And the character will show as 'red' if he is above your range. This will only take effect on PvP servers.

• Sanctuary Levels: Characters below level six will not be able to

engage in PvP combat, unless they take part in a Guild War, duel or use the Arena. This will, obviously, only take place on PvP servers.

• De-Leveling: Characters that lose levels will only retain the combat

skills of a character two levels higher. This means that if a character of level 10 somehow loses 5 levels, that character will only have skills that would be available to a 7th level character. This change will apply to all servers (it has to, code-wise). So the two level buffer is there to make certain that people that lose levels during normal gameplay will be minimally affected (hopefully not affected at all), while those that purposefully lose levels with the intent of causing other players grief will find themselves at no great advantage.

These are the first of the things that we plan to. We are taking a careful, step-by-step approach to changes whenever we can, and we have other changes planned for upcoming patches.

• • Quest Changes **

• We've made a change to the Velious armor quests. The folks in Kael

and in Skyshrine that give out rewards for these quests are now being stricter about who they will reward quest items to. You will have to be considered an 'ally' (see Features section below) by these NPCs in order to be able to complete these quests. If you are doing quests for the Coldain, however, they are somewhat less picky, and they only require that they consider you 'kindly' to reward you for your labors.

• The Black Silk Cape will now drop more frequently.

• • Bug Fixes **

• Attacking with a two-handed piercing weapon will now 'gray-out' the

attack button as it should.

- Text that once read: "You cannot remove this affect." now reads "You cannot remove this effect." Changed by popular demand... :)

• Food Emotes: Forcing your character to eat by right clicking food

will now properly display the appropriate emote to those in the area.

• Fixed a problem that often made it difficult to loot really large

NPCs.

• • Item Changes **

• The Shield of Tsunami can now be equipped in the secondary slot.

• Quivers now reduce the delay time on bows, the better the quiver the

faster your bow. We will not be listing the speed increase a quiver will give your bow, but you can tell the good quivers by their ability to reduce the weight of your arrows (better-made or magical quivers have this property).

• The Ivory Handled Falchion should now 'proc' without telling you that

it is out of charges. You may need to contact your GM to replace the item with a new version if it is still acting strangely.

• The Opal Bracelet is now a wrist item, not a finger item. Be aware,

once you remove it from your finger, it will not go back onto that finger, it will only fit on your wrists, as it should.

• The Large Dragonbone Shard will no longer appear to be a Staff of the

Gathering.

• The Ring of Levitation will now poof when all the charges are used

up, and should display the correct number of charges.

• The Priceless Velium Reinforced Bow now has a range of 200 instead of

a range of 0.

• The Refined Mithril Blade should now be equipable in both primary and

secondary slots.

• The Unicorn Horn should now have a graphic.

• The Hammer of Flattening has been changed from tiny to large. This

might cause you a little reorganization in your inventory.

• Runebranded Stone Buckler is now labeled as a shield and can be used

to bash.

• The Ring of Pureblood is now a finger item, not a waist item.

• • Spell Changes and Additions **

- Translocation spells: Five new Wizard 'push' spells have been added (Translocate: Fay, Tox, North, Combine and Group). Translocate spells send the group to the location, while the Wizard remains behind. Translocate Group sends everyone in the group (except the Wizard) to their own bind points. Translocate Group can be found on NPCs in Velious (and they won't give them up easily). The others are available on an exclusive vendor. All Translocate spells (even the original Translocate) have confirmation boxes that must be accepted before the target will be sent. And Wizards can no longer Translocate themselves.

• Some lower 39th and 44th level Velious spells have had their drop

rates increased.

• GM Resurrection has had it's name changed from ResurrectionGM to

Customer Service Resurrection so that players will be able to better tell when they are getting a resurrection from the GM staff. GM resurrection will no longer have Res effects, and will leave the newly Ressed with full Hit Points and Mana.

• Divine Aura and spells of that type (Divine Aura - cleric, Divine

Barrier - cleric, Kazumi's Note of Preservation - bard, Harmshield - necromancer, Quivering Veil of Xarn - necromancer) will now prevent the caster from being stunned when hit for their duration.

- The Eye of Zomm series of spells will no longer work in Kedge Keep. This change was made to prevent an exploit.

• • Feature Additions and Changes **

• Looting text has been changed. You will now see a -- before and after

any loot messages. This has been changed primarily to help prevent any fake looting messages from being thought of as real.

• When you loot an item, you will receive a text message telling you

what you have just looted.

• Expanded Friends List: The Friends List will now hold 30 character

names. And each character has its own friends list. You can find and edit this list with a text editor, if you need to, outside the game. You can locate the text files in your EverQuest directory. The files will look like this: _<#>.ini. The default Friends List for existing and new characters will be your old Friends List.

• The destroy or drop item confirmation box will now close if you

accidentally pick up another item while they are open. This should prevent accidentally deleting or dropping the wrong item.

• When selling to a merchant, you can no longer sell items that are

inside a container by having the container selected and clicking the sell button. The merchant will tell you that you need to empty the container before the merchant will buy it. This should prevent folks from accidentally selling items that they did not know were in those containers.

• You can now move items around inside containers that are in the bank.

- There is a new /consider message: "regards you as an ally". This is the highest level of friendliness that an NPC will register using the /consider command. The faction required to reach this rating is significantly higher than 'warmly'.

- The EverQuest Team

May 8, 2001 4:30 pm

• • Fan Faire **

The Fan Faire in Minneapolis is half way sold out. There are just over two more weeks left to register so don't delay! For each of these events, we get countless e-mails asking if there is any space available after we have sold out... and then it is too late! So don't wait until registration is closed! Register now and be sure your spot is reserved!

• • Guild Wipe for Guilds without enough members **

On May 15th we will be performing another servers-wide guild wipe for any guild with less than ten members. Remember, it is always a requirement to have ten members in your guild. These ten members must all be characters from separate accounts (only one member from each account will be counted for the ten member total). So if your guild does not have ten members on Tuesday, May 15th, it will be deleted.

We're sorry for being so harsh about this rule, but there is a distinct limit to the number of guilds that we can support, and the rules for maintenance of a guild are clear.

- The EverQuest Team

May 14, 2001 6:30 pm

• • Important announcement about the next patch **

Our next patch is planned for May 30th, probably some time in the wee morning hours here on the West Coast.

The important part of the message is not that, though. It's this:

Due to some of the things we are going to be doing, there is a small chance that some corpses might disappear during the patch. GMs will have the ability to verify any corpses that are lost. That means that they can help you get them back if you do indeed lose one. It also means that I should remind everyone that attempting to scam a GM about a lost corpse could mean banning.

• • IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU PETITION TO HAVE A MISSING CORPSE **
  • PROBLEM ADDRESSED WITHIN 5 DAYS OF THE PATCH! **

We will not be recovering corpses that might be lost after that time. In fact, it would be best for you to petition immediately if you have a problem. Don't wait. If you are worried about a corpse that you were unable to deal with before the patch, then please log in an check on it right away after the patch.

So please make certain that you have as many of your corpses cleaned up as possible before the next patch. We're not expecting a lot of corpses to disappear, but the fewer lying around, the less chance of them disappearing.

Thanks.

- The EverQuest Team

May 22, 2001 6:30 pm

• • Updated EQManual_Supplement **

The EQManual_Supplement.doc and EQManual_Suppliment.txt have been updated. The majority of the updates occurred in the description of the EQclient.ini file and the descriptions of the in-game "slash" commands. This document also includes things like a listing of the emotes available, instructions for changing windows and text colors, and other additions to the original manual, and is a good first source for EverQuest information and help.

- The EverQuest Team

May 30, 2001

• • • Important Reminder ***

Due to some of the things we are going to be doing, there is a small chance that some corpses might disappear during the patch. GMs will have the ability to verify any corpses that are lost. That means that they can help you get them back if you do indeed lose one. It is also important to understand that attempting to scam a GM about a lost corpse could mean banning from EverQuest.

• • IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU PETITION TO HAVE A MISSING CORPSE PROBLEM

ADDRESSED WITHIN 5 DAYS OF THE PATCH! **

We will not be recovering corpses that might be lost after that time. In fact, it would be best for you to petition immediately if you have a problem. Don't wait. If you are worried about a corpse that you were unable to deal with before the patch, then please log in and check on it right away after the patch.

So please make certain that you have as many of your corpses cleaned up as possible before the next patch. We're not expecting a lot of corpses to disappear, but the fewer lying around, the less chance of them disappearing.

Thanks.

- The EverQuest Team

• • • Patch Message ***

• • Zone Changes **

• Runnyeye has been changed. Something is up in Goblin land...

• • Spell and Song Changes and Bug Fixes **

• We've been fixing holes in the spell stacking code. For the most part

the changes fix bugs that allowed tricks to get spells to stack that were never intended to stack.

• Increased duration on Bard Charm songs to 18 seconds from 12 seconds.

• Fixed the Spell Scroll for Imbue Amber so that Erudite Clerics of

Cazic Thule can scribe it.

• The casting messages for Necromancer pet summoning spells have been

changed to be more appropriate.

• • Features and Interface Changes **

• The variable %t will now work with /assist. So you can use /assist %t

if you wish. Though it should have exactly the same effect as /assist without the %t.

• %r returns "corpse" for corpses and "NPC" for targeted NPCs.

• Sense traps failure message text color has been changed to user color

15 (same as other skill messages). The success message was already set to user color 15.

• Ignore Lists now work the same way that the Friends List does. It has

been expanded to 30 names per character per server. The new ignore list is stored in the same ini file as the friends list _<#>.ini). The first time a character is created or loaded after the patch their new ignore list will be a copy of the old ignore list, but will from then on be unique to the character.

• The Alt key now works in several new situations. It will now show

item names when in the trade window. Because the trade items of the local player and the trading partner are so close together, the item names of the trading partner will always show up unless the player positions their mouse pointer over the local player part of the trade window, which will cause the game to only show the local player's trade item names.

• The Alt key will show item names for items in your bank.

• The Alt key will also pop up names for merchant items and corpse

items when you hold it down in merchant mode or loot mode.

• The Alt key will even pop up names for items in open containers when

held down and the mouse cursor is over the open container window (they don't show up otherwise).

• The client will now automatically reject a /duel request from any

player that is on your /ignore list. Some players were using this to annoy players that had ignored them.

• You also will no longer see /consent messages from people that are on

your /ignore list (this was also something people were doing to annoy people that had ignored them).

• /who GUILD (and the GUILD must be in caps) will now show you the

members of your guild in your zone. You can also specify a guild name, such as /who "Irontoe Brigade".

• /safelock command added. /safelock will lock the EverQuest interface

(mostly just mouse clicks, keyboard commands/movement, and most slash commands) with the password that you supply to the command. You must use this command a second time, supplying the same password, to unlock the interface. Passwords are NOT case-sensitive. So to lock your interface, you would type /safelock password. You would do the same to unlock it. REMEMBER: If you forget what password you typed, you will need to reboot your machine.

• • Item Changes **

• All the shields in the game that have the Ribcage graphic should now

also have the ribcage icon when they are in your inventory.

- Tinkered Watchman helm should show up now.

• Ring of Pureblood is now equipable only on your fingers instead of

your waist.

• Grand Master's Leg Wraps and Fists of the Grand Master are now No-

Drop. They were intended to be No-Drop when they were created.

• Peacekeeper Staff and the Bug Collection box are no longer equipable.

There are problems that can arise when containers can be equipped, so we had to disable that for these items.

• Sewing Kits: No existing sewing kits are being changed with this

patch. But from now on, kits sold on vendors will be somewhat different. Large Sewing Kits will have 8 slots. Deluxe Sewing Kits will have 10 slots and weight slightly more than the Large Sewing Kit.

• Changed the color of the Kael SK quest armor from a very pretty blue-

green to a more appropriate reddish-gray.

• • Other Stuff **

• Changed the spelling of Troubador to Troubadour for the 55th level

bard title. :)

• King Tormax's spawn rate has been adjusted to be more in line with

that of his counterparts in Velious. This is not the sort of thing that we will usually announce, as spawn times and things of that nature are part of the dynamic content of EverQuest. We're announcing this, however, to help avoid some confusion.

- The EverQuest Team

May 31, 2001 2:00 am

• • • Patch Addendum ***

This evening we put in another patch to correct some issues that arose with the patch yesterday. The changes implemented include some that weren't announced previously:

• Resist-debuffs will do 1.5 times their normal value for PvP

encounters. In other words, if the spell did -60MR in PvP before, it does -90MR in PvP now. PvE (combat versus NPCs) remains unaffected.

• Faction-loss for PvP kills on Vallon and Tallon now only occur

against factions within the hometown of the person killed. In other words, if you kill an Erudite in Erudin, you will only lose faction with the factions in Erudin, not the factions in Paineel. - Turning in the Tomb of Order and Discord will have no effect on Vallon and Tallon.

• On all PvP servers, only the person who gets the killing-blow in PvP

combat will have looting rights. We would prefer to implement some sort of "majority damage" logic however this should solve most of the issues associated with uninvolved players "ninja-looting" the loser in PvP encounters.

- The EverQuest Team

June 4, 2001 3:00 am

Today's patch consisted only of server-side data, and does not contain anything that would normally be announced.

- The EverQuest Team

June 27th, 2001 3:00 am

(NOTE: This patch was not in Allakahazam and came from http://web.archive.org/web/20010926095411/http://www.neriak.com/)

Gameplay Changes

- Aggro Changes: We've made an adjustment to the way that NPCs choose their targets. It's a rather simple change, one that makes a lot of sense. But we want you to be aware of it so that it won't surprise you too much, and so that you won't think that it is a bug. NPCs are now much more aware of the vulnerability (or, more precisely, the invulnerability) of their targets. NPCs will now be very unlikely to waste their time attacking a target that they can't harm.

- Spell and Item Interruption: Ducking will now interrupt a spell instantly. You will no longer be able to sit while using items or casting spells. This will not affect bard songs, which will still work as they always have, but will affect all items, even those with song-like effects.

Spell Changes

• Skin Like Nature and Natureskin should stack with more spells now (though not with each other).

• Aegolism can now be clicked off.

• Imbue Ivory has had its casting level lowered to 29.

• Shard of the Core will be tradable now.

• Shroud of Hate and Visions of Grandeur should stack properly now.

• Several new Translocation spells have been added.

• Call of the Hero will no longer remove the target from NPCs' hatelists if the target is not summoned far enough.

• Egress will now work indoors.

• Wind of the North, Wind of the South, Markar's Relocation and Tishan's Relocation have had their additional restrictions removed, and can now be cast from any zone where other similar spells can be cast.

• Summon Companion can now be used by Necromancers, Shamans, Enchanters, Shadowknights in addition to Magicians.

• Deadeye should now stack with Dead Man Floating, but should not stack with Acumen.

• Plainsight will now stack with Dead Man Floating, but not with Acumen.

• The Great Divide portal spells are now 39th level instead of 44th level.

• Spirit of the Oak will no longer be overwritten by any beneficial spells.

• Paralyzing Poison spells should no longer be broken by direct damage spells.

• Hsagra's Wrath and Porlos' Fury now have a 5 second recast delay.

Item Changes

• The effect on the 10th ring should have fewer stacking conflicts with haste buffs.

• The effect of the Monk epic, Celestial Tranquility, will stack with the higher end haste spells. Keep in mind - the highest haste will always win out. This means that the spells will stack, the haste components will not.

• Speed of the Shissar has had its duration increased from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. This effect should no longer conflict with Call of Earth.

• Bone Ring of Condemnation will no longer be usable in the secondary slot, it will only be wearable on the finger.

• Druid Skyshrine Quest armor has had a color change so that it will look more unique.

• Circlet of Shadow will no longer drop in-game. The Circlet of Shadows, can now be found in its place. This item differs from the original only in that it has a five-second casting time. Existing Circlets of Shadow will retain the same functionality as before, though we may change existing Circlets at some future date.

Quest Changes

• King Tormax is now a little more particular about who he gives quests to.

• The Iksar Shaman 6th Skull/cudgel quest should be working now.

• Rumor has it that there is a new source for green dragon scales in Norrath.

PvP Changes

• If you go link dead on a PvP server and are killed you can still be looted.

• When a player becomes invisible (or hides successfully) every other player that had them targeted will lose their target. This is true for all servers, but has the greatest implications on PvP servers. The use of spells that allow you to see through invisibility will prevent you from losing your target if that target hides or goes invisible.

• Faction hits on Rallos Zek: Killing a person in one of his or her home cities will cause a faction hit with residents of that city.

Miscellaneous

• We've addressed a lot of spelling and grammatical errors over the past few weeks. For example we have corrected all misspellings of "deity" in messages to the player, changed Cantana to Cantata and others.

• The 'Fab Four' in Dagnor's Cauldron will no longer assist Undertow Skeletons.

• Instill Doubt/Intimidation can no longer be used while sitting, and sitting after starting it will cancel it.

• Mastery of language skills now occurs at 100, not at 101. This was a problem for masters of a language, since language skills could not go over 100.

• The messages for eating and drinking now say "Chomp... Chomp," or "Glug... Glug..." so that they can't be copied with emotes.

• Helms on Barbarians, Trolls, and Ogres should no longer block the first person view when in combat.

• Sirens Grotto has been changed a bit. It should be a more interesting zone now.

NOTE

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their home town.

- The EverQuest Team

June 29, 2001

(NOTE: Found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20010725175604/http://eq.castersrealm.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=3626)

In the Emergency patch of June 29 we performed the following fixes:

• We fixed the bug with feign death spells that was causing it to fail and sending a "Your spell has been interrupted" message.
• We fixed the way that NPCs were treating pets. They were accrediting more hate to pets than they should have.
• We also fixed a bug with factions that was making it impossible to raise some factions. There may still be factions that you can't raise because there are no methods for raising them, not because of a bug. If you get a faction message you will also get a faction gain (or hit).

• We also added a message that will let you know when you can no longer gain or lose faction with a certain group. It will say:

Your faction standing with could not possibly get any worse.

or

Your faction standing with could not possibly get any better.

That was the essence of the patch last night. Sorry about the problems.

Alan

July 10, 2001 3:00 am

• • Bug Fixes **

• The "NPC unerringly sticks on pet" AI bug implemented in the last

patch has been fixed. This resolves a bug that occurred a short while ago that would cause pets to be the focus for most attacks by NPCs.

• Fixed the animation problem where an animation played on the upper

body would get stuck. This could be seen by starting to cast a spell and then walking forward while it was playing the casting animation.

• Fixed a bug that wouldn't allow a player to target an invisible PC or

NPC with the F7 or F8 keys even if they had See Invisible up.

• Stacking issues with 'change form' type spells have been corrected.

Lich and Clarity will no longer stack, nor will Spirit of Wolf and Wolf Form.

• The bug with screenshots that some people experienced when using 32-

bit color mode should be fixed.

• • Item and Vendor Adjustments **

• Changed the forged Antonian Javelins to be stackable.

• Gnome Skin Sleeves are now droppable and rentable.

• Spiderling and Spider Silks are now stackable

• Spider Legs are now stackable.

• Tarnished weapons worth slightly more to the vendors than the rusty

ones.

• Reduced the weight of the monk only Black Pantherskin armor.

• All Sheets of metal and Folded Sheets of metal are now stackable.

• Rangers will now be able to wear Girdle of Reflection

• There is now a vendor in Felwithe that sells the Enchant Ores series

of enchanter spells.

• • Zone and Quest Changes **

• The Crazed Ghouls should be less of a problem in Unrest.

• The Monk red headband quest should now be available again.

• We've added a few more Yew Leaf spawns.

• Reevaluated the values of the various fish fillets. All fish vendors

should return to normal, but they won't be paying as well for certain fishy items. This resolves a problem that was created with the increased value of player made food items all over Norrath. Some of food items were made too valuable, and merchants were complaining to their union leaders...

• The EverQuest Team

July 24, 2001 3:00 am

• • Item Changes **

• Silver Chitin Hand Wraps' haste effect has been repaired.
• The Smite scroll no longer lists Enchanters as a class that can use

it.

• The Augment Death scroll no longer lists Shadowknights as a class

that can use it.

• Many pelts have been made stackable. Those that are not stackable now

are quest items that will not be made stackable.

• • Spell Changes **

• Focus of Spirit will now stack with Voice of the Berserker.
• Barrier of Force will now stack with Protection of the Glades.
• Manaskin and Protection of the Glades will now stack.

• • Trade Skill Changes **

• Repaired some class/deity combinations on two of the deity specific

pottery Idols.

• • Changes to Sullon Zek **

• There are no faction hits for killing half-elves in any city.
• If an Erudite of Paineel is killed in Paineel the killer takes a

faction hit (existing rule).

• If an Erudite of Erudin is killed in Erudin the killer takes a

faction hit (new rule).

• Bards can't cast harmful spells on boats.
• If a character kills a higher level character, the higher level

character will always lose experience. This is in addition to the fact that any player killed within the + or * 5 level range will lose experience.

• Goods and Neutrals will now be able to turn in Greater Insignias for

a Magician only summon corpse potion usable only at levels over 45th.

• Characters under level 6 will no longer be immune to PvP in many

adventure zones. Players will be notified when they enter such zones.

• • Misc. Changes **

• /target playername will now work on invisible targets as long as the

character doing the targeting has the ability to see invisible.

• • NOTE **

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.

• The EverQuest Team

^^^ GREEN IS HERE ^^^

August 15, 2001 3:00 am

• • Spell Changes **

• Celestial Tranquility and Call of Earth will now stack
• Some stacking issues with Torpor have been corrected.
• Celestial Cleansing will fizzle less now
• Cannibalize should fizzle slightly less often now

• • Zone Changes **

• Updated some pathing in Runnyeye, Paineel, Siren's Grotto and Kedge.
• The Drowned Citizens are back, for sure this time.
• Fixed a bug that was not allowing some NPCs in Kael to see invisible

creatures as they should.

• Restored "charmability" of most NPCs (merchants will remain

uncharmable) in Kael due to fix of combat AI bug listed bellow under Miscellaneous Changes.

• • Item Changes **

• The Giant Tree Flayer is now Large instead of Tiny.
• Staff of Temperate Flux has been changed to main hand only.
• Ring of Frost Spiders can now be worn.
• Robe of the Seacaller should now be equipable.

• • Trade Skill Changes **

• Imbued Field Plate Boots should be working properly now.

• • Sullon Zek Changes **

• Changed the way resists are calculated when a Player Character casts

a spell on another Player Character on Sullon Zek. Resist modifiers based on level will now be more smoothly distributed and will allow lower level characters a slightly better chance to land spells on higher level characters. At the same time giving lower level characters a slightly better chance to resist spells cast on them by higher level characters.

• Characters below 6th level cannot be pick pocketed in any zone.
• Guards have a better chance of aggro'ing a rogue that fails at

picking pockets near guards.

• • Miscellaneous Changes **

• Fixed a recently introduced combat AI bug that caused NPCs to focus

unduly on attacking pets rather than PCs

• Added a few crowns to the list of items that can be traded in for new

crowns with new textures. The same NPCs that were interested in trading out your helms will now trade your crowns. Please keep in mind that they will not be trading them back to you. Once you get the new look it's yours to keep, even if it clashes with your favorite eye shadow.

• • NOTE **

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.

• The EverQuest Team

August 22, 2001 3:00 am

• • Crashing Bug Fixes **

• Fixed the problem that was causing zones to crash in some instances.

• Corrected a bug that would cause some people to hang up while waiting

for a sound event between the splash and character-select screens.

• • Item Change **

• The Green Flower should be working again.

• • Spell Change **

• Fixed a stacking bug that allowed multiple Levitation buffs to stack.

• • Sullon Zek Changes **

• The Resist code changes we made with the last patch should be working

properly now. Here is the text about that change:

"Changed the way resists are calculated when a Player Character casts a spell on another Player Character on Sullon Zek. Resist modifiers based on level will now be more smoothly distributed and will allow lower level characters a slightly better chance to land spells on higher level characters. At the same time giving lower level characters a slightly better chance to resist spells cast on them by higher level characters."

• Cancel Magic spells should now work across teams.

• Characters should no longer disappear when Mesmerized or stunned.

Stonebrunt Era

August 29, 2001

Located on the small continent of Odus, the Stonebrunt Mountains are rich with vegetation and distinctive hills that give way to the towering Mount Klaw; the largest mountain in Odus and home to the Kerran village of Kejeka. The zone of Stonebrunt is designed to be a mid-level, outdoor zone similar in scope and scale to the Lake of Ill Omen on Kunark, which has proven to be a very popular zone in EverQuest.

September 11, 2001 3:00 am

• • Spell Changes **

• Changed all enchanter mesmerization spells so that they overwrite

Screaming Terror

• Changed Shaman epic effect (Curse of the Spirits) so that it would

not conflict with certain Damage over Time spells.

• The Emissary of Thule Necromancer pet is now immune to fear

• Beneficial buffs that don't have an ability drain component on them

can now be clicked off.

• • Miscellaneous Updates **

• The server selection screen now only gives information on whether or

not a server is up instead of providing player counts. In addition, the "count" option on the /who command has been restricted to internal personnel. Servers on the server selection screen are still ordered from least-populated to most populated in order to assist players in choosing the least populated server.

• Harla Dar has been repaired (this happened sometime earlier than

today, but we wanted you to know).

• Reactivated broken zone line between Qeynos to the Sewers. A dead

halfling was stuck in the drainpipe and has been removed.

• Fixed a long-standing bug that was causing Feign Death to fail when

several characters were on the NPC's hate list along with the character using Feign Death. We'd like to extend much thanks to the monk community who helped us track this one down. Also fixed a problem with the monk's 'Block' skill which inadvertantly was recapped at a lower than normal skill level in recent months. Kudos to "Faned" of the "Monkly Business" bulletin board who brow-beat Gordon with the facts until he gave in and looked at the code :)

• As announced earlier this week, the Belt of the Cenobite was made

useable by some inappropriate classes/races in the last patch. This has been corrected.

• Several quest components in zones with the Trivial Loot Code will now

be lootable regardless of level.

• • • Norrathian News ***

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.

• • • Announcing Test of Tactics III ***

Yes you heard right, Test of Tactics will be making its return to the lands of Norrath in October and November. This event will present teams of 18 members in a battle to the death. Only the strong of body and mind will survive and come out of the arena victorious. For more information on the event and sign up for please look on Harpy's Head Tavern at http://everquest.station.sony.com/hht/events/.

• The EverQuest Team

September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack Response

"The staff of Sony Online Entertainment wish to extend their condolences and prayers to the victims, and the families of the victims, lost in today’s horrific events. We share in your grief during these difficult times."

The quote from our front page expresses how we all feel here in the office. I only want to extend my personal sympathies to all the families that this has touched.

We have received many letters, and I want to thank you all for sending them in. It's obvious that we will all be different people from here forward. If I don't dwell on this in my responses here it is only because I know that none of us will forget what has happened, and that you come here for entertainment not reminders of tragedy.

Alan

September 13, 2001

Sony Online Entertainment, is asking for your help in locating someone involved in the recent terror:

Sony Online Entertainment needs your help in locating Gregory Trost. Gregory is a nephew of an SOE employee and his last known location was the 86th floor of Tower Two in the World Trade Center. With the tragic events that took place on September 11, the Trost family is anxious for any information regarding Gregory. If you have any information on Gregory's whereabouts, please contact Sony Online Entertainment at this special address. greginfo@station.sony.com

[Editor Note: Gregory Trost was later found to be among the nearly 3000 people killed in the World Trade Center disaster.]

September 25, 2001 3:00 am

• • Spell Changes **

• We have removed the changes to bard song stacking that were made with

the recent emergency patch. We will be reviewing those changes for possible update in a future patch.

• • Item Changes **

• The Shaman Epic effect has been returned to its previous effect (and

it should conflict with fewer Damage over Time spells, as was the intention for the change made last patch).

• • Quest Changes **

• Ivory Sky Diamond is now dropping as it should.

• Fixed an error in a Stonebrunt quest where an NPC was handing out the

wrong reward.

• • Miscellaneous **

• Added some code that might fix a bug with female hair and Erudite

hoods that caused them to fail to appear sometimes when a helmet was removed. This would cause some characters to look as though the back of their head was missing at times.

• Mouselook will now work a little differently when in the first two

third-person camera modes (overhead and chase). They will work similarly to first-person mouselook (i.e. your character's heading will change when you move the mouse left or right, the left and right movement keys will cause your player to strafe, and the camera angle will pitch up or down when you move the mouse forward or back). These changes should make those first two third-person camera modes more useful.

• The EverQuest Team

September 30, 2001

Firiona Vie server is available on Test now:

Or it will be very shortly... You can get to this server by running testeverquest.exe from your EverQuest directory. Please read the Test Server disclaimer (available in the Test Server patch message) carefully before playing on the Test Server.

Here is part of the message from the Test Server.

• • • Firiona Vie Server ***

The new Firiona Vie Server is now available for testing. As usual, please keep in mind that this is a Test server and we will be changing things as time goes by. The Test Server Disclaimer shown above applies to this server as well. Please be aware that when the server 'goes Live' all existing characters from the beta periods will be removed.

There are many special rules for this server. We will be keeping an updated list of these rules on our Developer's Corner message board. Please head over to www.everquest.com and head to the message boards for the most recent information about this server.

Here is the preliminary list of rules. To read this information later, you can refer to the testeqnews.txt file in your EverQuest folder.

• Firiona Vie Server Feature List *

This is a new server, not a split server. Nor will there be any transfers to this server.

Characters will be wiped before the server goes Live.

This is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) server, NOT a PvP (Player vs. Player) server. In other words, it's a standard 'blue' server with the same rules and features regarding PvP as the vast majority of our servers. It is not one of the 'Zeks'.

Auction restricted to city zones: Qeynos, Surefall Glade, Highkeep, Freeport, Rivervale, Erudin, Halas, Neriak, Grobb, Oggok, Greater Faydark, Ak'Anon, Kaladim, Felwithe, Paineel, Cabilis, Kael and Thurgadin.

Beneficial buff spells will not work on characters 20 levels lower than the caster.

Each character will be assigned an "alignment" upon creation. This alignment will be described in brief on the character creation screen (in the same location the their Deity is described).

Each character will be able to change their alignment once any time after they reach 10th level if they choose. A character is not required to change alignments, but may do so any time after attaining 10th level. The player will be able to chose from a list of alignments based on their race, class and deity.

A character's alignment will determine whether or not they can group or guild with other characters. (Note: The Guild portion of this code has not yet been implemented, and no guilds will be forming on this server until we can get it working).

A character's alignment will determine an experience bonus or penalty when grouping with other characters.

A character's alignment will determine if they can cast beneficial spells on other characters (including resurrections).

Language skills will improve only through group chat in the same zone and from /say.

Languages will only improve 1 point each hour and will be capped at level*5+5 skill points.

Common will not exist. A Human language will be added and only made easily available to certain races.

One character per account.

The Trivial Loot Code will be in effect in all zones.

Very few items will be No-Drop. Exceptions will include things such as newbie notes and epic weapons.

Bind Affinity will be restricted for all characters to locations where melee characters can bind on other servers.

/emote will be language specific

All characters will be /roleplay.

/alignment will display the alignment of your character and probably a more detailed description of that alignment.

• Trivial Loot Code *

Briefly, the Trivial Loot Code works like this: If a character kills an NPC and that NPC does not give them experience, then the Trivial Loot Code takes effect. If any member of a group does not get experience for a kill, the Trivial Loot Code will take effect. The Trivial Loot Code prevents magical, lore and no-drop items from appearing on the corpse. Normal items and coins will appear on the corpse in all cases as usual.

October 5, 2001 Press Release * Graphics Upgrades

THE WORLD OF EVERQUEST® GOES HIGH RESOLUTION WITH EVERQUEST: THE SHADOWS OF LUCLIN™ EXPANSION

-Old World Environments To Rival Luclin's Beauty With Improved Graphics-

SAN DIEGO, CA * October 5, 2001* Sony Online Entertainment Inc., (SOE) announced today that EverQuest®: The Shadows of Luclin™ will launch with an additional CD-ROM featuring a complete upgrade to all textures throughout the original world of Norrath and all previous expansions.

"We are pleased to make this surprise announcement," said Brad McQuaid, Chief Creative Officer & Vice President, Sony Online Entertainment. "EverQuest players will be amazed at the clarity the texture upgrade provides and we feel the gameplay experience will be richly enhanced."

When EverQuest originally shipped in 1999, the development team utilized 32 x 32 low-resolution pixels because of graphics technology at the time. With the advent of superior graphic cards, the upgraded texture resolution featured in EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin will be 256 x 256 pixels and occasionally as large as 512 x 512 pixels. This vast improvement in quality will make Norrath appear more vibrant and detailed than ever before.

"We have gone through the entire game and applied the new higher resolution textures by hand," said Scott McDaniel, EverQuest Art Lead, Sony Online Entertainment. "The sheer size of EverQuest has made this upgrade quite a project. To see the old zones in high resolution is really exciting for the entire team."

EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin features over 24 new zones, rideable mounts, all new character models, new facial animations, and over 120 new spells and will be available on retail shelves in December 2001. For more information visit the official Shadows of Luclin website at .

The Station (www.station.com) is the official provider of EverQuest, with software updates and news about the game, message boards and other community features, as well as an easy-to-use billing system for EverQuest's monthly subscription fee.

Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), the online gaming division of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, is a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online gaming. Headquartered in San Diego, California, SOE develops, publishes and distributes entertainment for the PC and online markets. With more than 10 million registered users, SOE's award- winning website, The Station® (www.station.com) hosts a variety of entertaining games and player communities spanning all genres. In addition to blockbuster hits EverQuest® and Jeopardy! Online, SOE has an array of cutting-edge online games in development such asPlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies™ and Sovereign™.

October 8, 2001

Item Changes

• Increased the duration on Song of the Deep Seas (the proc on a bardic weapon) dramatically.

• Modified the effect of Feast of Blood (weapon proc) it is now a DoT lifetap

• Added a texture to Flayed Barbarian Skin Leggings.

• Added Illusion: Barbarian to the Flayed Barbarian Hide Mask.

Miscellaneous Changes

• The last language used by your character will be stored in your

eqclient.ini file when you log out. This means that if the last character you were playing was speaking Elvish, then when you log back in with any character, that character will be speaking Elvish if he can, otherwise it will be set to a default language (most often Common).

Magic System Changes

There is a more detailed explanation of these changes posted on our Developer's Corner. Please visit there for more details (either at www.everquest.com or http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/cgi- bin/Ultimate.cgi). Here is a summary of the changes:

• The level-based spell resistance bonus inherent in super-high level

NPCs has been reduced significantly.

• Several NPCs have had their resistances reduced. Each of them was

examined carefully, and resistances changed as seemed appropriate. For some of these NPCs other things were changed as well to compensate for their increased susceptibility to spells, such as armor improvements or perhaps greater hit points, if needed for that NPC.

• NPCs that were highly magic resistant in order to make them immune to

certain spells can now be given specific immunity to those spells. This means that they can be made immune to critical spells, as intended, and still be generally less resistant to magic. Players will receive a message similar to the one that is already given for Mesmerization spells when they cast a spell on an NPC that it is specifically immune to.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is very important to note that we have not made any NPCs immune to spells that they were not already immune to. Many NPCs that were previously immune to spells due to their high innate resistance to magic have had that resistance reduced and specific immunities added. So if you see an immunity message after attempting to cast a spell on an NPC that you hadn't seen such a message from before, understand that the NPC was already immune to that spell before due to high resistances, and the only difference is that it now has lower resistances in general and specific spell immunity (which is why you are seeing the message).

Melee Changes

After extensive research, testing, and evaluation we have completed the melee portion of our class balancing. To be clear, these changes apply just to the combat aspect of melee classes. Any issues with non-combat skills, spell effects, spell selection, or non-combat aspects of classes will be evaluated in the near future. With the completion of the melee combat balancing, we will be moving onto spells and spell casting classes.

Due to the extensive nature of these changes, we can't describe them in detail here. A detailed summary will be available on our Developer's Corner message board. Please visit www.everquest.com and our forums for more information.

Summary of Melee Changes

• Two-Handed Weapons have been given an increased damage bonus for

characters over level 50. Also, certain post-epic quality two-handers have been improved.

• Warriors have had their taunt skill cap increased to 230 at 60th

level. Also, the Blades of Strategy and Tactics can now be used in either hand.

• Rogues, as the primary user of piercing weapons, will benefit from an

improvement in the quality of a few existing high-end daggers. At some future date new piercing weapons will be added to the game to fill gaps in equipment availability.

• Monks will now be on an improved combat table at levels 55 and again

to a better table at 60. Monks now have the ability to Triple Attack at 60th level. The minimum damage done by Flying Kick will be greatly increased for monks starting at 51st level and scaling up to level 60. We also intend to add more monk weapons in the future to fill equipment gaps.

• Rangers have their Double Attack skill cap raised to 245. They have

also gained an innate offensive bonus that starts at level 55 and increases until level 60. Ranger's Defense skill cap has been raised to 220, and their Riposte skill cap has been raised to 185.

• Paladins and Shadowknights, besides the benefits they gain from the

two-handed weapons change mentioned above, have also been moved to the same combat tables as warriors. In the future we intend to examine the existing one-handed weapons useable by knights for possible upgrades. We are also increasing the Taunt skill cap for these two classes to 220.

• Bards have had their 1h blunt and 1h slash skill caps increased to

250. Their piercing skill cap has been increased to 240. Their Offense skill cap has been raised to 252. Bards are also being moved to the same combat table with all the other melee and hybrid classes (save monks who have separate tables after level 55). Bards Parry skill cap has been raised to 185 as well. Finally, the Singing Shortsword can now be equipped in the off hand and still give full song enhancing benefits.

Please read the detailed explanation of these changes on our Developer's Corner message boards at http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi

Firiona Vie (Roleplaying Preferred) server goes Live

Our newest special rules server is now available. Firiona Vie is designated as roleplaying preferred. There are many special rules for this server, please read over them carefully before playing. We will be keeping an updated list of these rules on our web site at http://everquest.station.sony.com/guidebook/firionavie.jsp .

Firiona Vie Server Feature List

• This is a new server, not a split server. Nor will there be any transfers to this server.
• Characters will be wiped before the server goes Live.
• This is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) server, NOT a PvP (Player vs. Player) server. In other words, it's a standard 'blue' server with the same rules and features regarding PvP as the vast majority of our servers. It is not one of the 'Zeks'.
• Auction restricted to city zones: Qeynos, Surefall Glade, Highkeep, Freeport, Rivervale, Erudin, Halas, Neriak, Grobb, Oggok, Greater Faydark, Ak'Anon, Kaladim, Felwithe, Paineel, Cabilis, Kael and Thurgadin.
• Beneficial buff spells will not work on characters 20 levels lower than the caster.
• Each character will be assigned an "alignment" upon creation. This alignment will be described in brief on the character creation screen (in the same location that their Deity is described).
• Each character will be able to change their alignment once any time after they reach 10th level if they choose. A character is not required to change alignments, but may do so any time after attaining 10th level. The player will be able to chose from a list of alignments based on their race, class and deity.
• A character's alignment will determine whether or not they can group with other characters.
• A character's alignment will determine an experience bonus or penalty when grouping with other characters.
• A character's alignment will determine if they can cast beneficial

spells on other characters (including resurrections).

• Language skills will improve only through group chat in the same zone and from /say.
• Languages will only improve 1 point each hour and will be capped at level*5+5 skill points.
• Common will not exist. A Human language will be added and only made easily available to certain races.
• One character per account.
• The Trivial Loot Code will be in effect in all zones.
• Very few items will be No-Drop. Exceptions will include things such as newbie notes and epic weapons.
• Bind Affinity will be restricted for all characters to locations where melee characters can bind on other servers.
• /emote will be language specific
• All characters will be /roleplay.
• /alignment will display the alignment of your character and probably a more detailed description of that alignment.

• • Trivial Loot Code **

Briefly, the Trivial Loot Code works like this: If a character kills an NPC and that NPC does not give them experience, then the Trivial Loot Code takes effect. If any member of a group does not get experience for a kill, the Trivial Loot Code will take effect. The Trivial Loot Code prevents magical, lore and no-drop items from appearing on the corpse. Normal items and coins will appear on the corpse in all cases as usual.

For detailed information about the alignment system on the Firiona Vie server, please visit our web site: http://everquest.station.sony.com/guidebook/firionavie.jsp

• • NOTE **

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.

• • A Tale from Norrath **

Adventurers, glory seekers, and plunder-hungry knaves,

A few new tavern tales have been circulating from across the Deep. It appears that strife and civil unrest have once again plagued the lands of Kunark. Stories of treachery and terror within the ranks of the Sarnak have spilled forth from the mountain fortress of Chardok.

Only a few of the most cunning spies have made their way into the Sarnak hive during this brief time of turmoil, and their reports may have serious implications. The Brood of Di`zok seems to be more organized than before. Their leadership is becoming more structured... and much more brutal. Production in the mines appears to be increasing and soldiers have been amassing in great numbers.

Other tales have come from this mountain fortress as well. Terror squads and interrogators have decimated the ranks of reported Sarnak traitors. These squads have been working under the leadership of one of the Sarnak Collective's newest council members, Korucust. It can only be presumed that this cleansing is another step towards strengthening the foul brood.

These tales are hard to confirm, since many of your adventurous kind are prone to drink and to the occasional mistruth. If these tales are true, it would only stand to reason that new dangers may reveal new wealth and glory. Perhaps it is time for you to gather your best gear, finish your mug of ale, and head out to investigate.

Good luck adventurers.

• The EverQuest Team

October 31, 2001

(Allakhazam fail: http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20011031.html)

By the pricking of my thumbs

• A con man in The Temple of Solusek Ro has been warned by the gods not to tease people about special weapons.
• Forest Barley can be found now, if you like that sort of thing.
• There are fewer blind frogloks in Guk.
• Small trees will fall more frequently in one of the Karanas.
• Be careful in your travels over the next few days. Something is amiss on Norrath.

Trick or treat!

November 7, 2001

Project M Implemented

Tonight we have patched something to the PvP servers that many players have been waiting for. The ability to play that gnoll, orc, or the cute and fuzzy rat. On your character select screen you will notice another button in the upper right part of your screen called "Monster". Clicking this button will randomly place you in a low-level NPC in a random zone. You will be given full control of the creature to do with it what you like. You may hunt and kill other creatures. You may even attack other players.

Some things to remember when playing your own personal monster (NPC).

• You will not be able to interact with players or NPC's other than

moving and hitting attack.

• You cannot speak, trade, sell, or do anything else that a player can

do.

• You will spawn with normal loot for the monster you are playing and

Player Characters will be able to kill you for loot and experience.

• If you are a spell casting monster you might want to take a moment to

memorize some spells.

• Once you die, you will return to the character select screen where you

may choose to return as another NPC or play your normal character.

• You may gain experience, levels, and skills as this NPC, but once you

die, it is all lost. You will need to start over the next time you choose to be a NPC character.

• You can't zone as a monster.
• Monster PCs (MPCs) can not loot, sell, or gain items. They only get

what they start out with.

This ability to play a monster is being implemented for PvP servers only as we have no plans to implement non-consensual PvP on a non PvP server.

However, we are still working with this system. We may find other ways to implement Project M on the non-PvP servers that are acceptable. We aren't done looking at the possible uses of this new feature.

PvP Server Related

• Guards, when seeing PCs in combat, will now attack the one that they

like the least (the one with the lowest appropriate faction). If all the PCs involved are highly regarded (have very high faction) the guards will allow them to resolve their own issues without interfering.

• Guards should also refrain from attacking PCs that are attacked by

pets of any sort.

• Sullon Zek now has an across the board experience bonus of 20%, and

the experience loss on all deaths on Sullon Zek is now 50% less.

Zone Specific Changes

• Kael now has specific bind locations, located only at the entryways.

This means that binding will only be possible in those areas.

• Trivial Loot code has been removed from the Stonebrunt Mountains and the Warrens.

• Added a melee bind location to the dock in Iceclad.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that allowed corpses to exist inside walls. Now if a

corpse ends up in a location that is not 'valid' the corpse will be moved to the 'safe coordinates' of the zone. Also, the /corpse command will now summon your own corpse to you anywhere in the zone as long as that corpse is on the safe spot of the zone. This should prevent corpses from being stuck in walls.

• Fixed it so that Critical Hit damage messages match the actual damage done.

• The visible damage bonus modifier on two-handed weapons has been

corrected. The value that was displayed was incorrect, no change has been made to the damage bonus itself.

Item Changes

• Fixed an issue with the Bardic Epic weapon. Now if the bard has his

Epic and an instrument that gives bonuses to songs, the best effect will take precedence, rather than the Epic bonuses always being used.

• Cloak of Imperception should now have charges. You will need to

exchange your old one for a new one with your GM within the next five days.

• Donal's Chestplate of Mourning has unlimited charges again.

Gameplay/Interface Changes/Additions

• We have changed the way the /consider command works. We have added a 'light blue' area between green and blue. NPCs that used to /consider green but gave experience will now /consider light blue, as well as NPCs of slightly lower level than those greens. You will always get experience for something that is light blue. You will not receive experience for greens. At the same time, by including lower level NPCs in the light blue /consider, we have increased the range of lower level NPCs that will grant experience. This will be most noticeable for characters of higher level.

• Added /targetgroupbuff. Type /targetgroupbuff on to activate, off to turn it off. When on, all group buff spells you cast will require a target but will affect everyone grouped (and in range) with that target, even if it is not your own group. When it is off your group buff spells will act normally. This will only work with group buffs

that have a duration, and will not affect heals, portals or change form spells.

• Added code that will put one item onto your cursor if it won't fit into your inventory due to a cancelled trade or looting items (and

other cases). This will only work if there is not already an item on the cursor.

• Added code that prevents player characters from dropping coins on the ground. This should prevent the loss of coins due to accident or scam.

• Made a modification to the chase camera mouselook code. Moving the mouse forward or back in this camera view will make the camera move up

and down, and the camera also automatically pitches to keep your character in view.

• You now see the number of hit points you are healed, and you also now see how many hit points you heal when healing others.

Skill Changes

• Bard Piercing cap was raised to 250 at 60th level.

• Foraging and Fishing will now result in a wider variety of items,

especially in zones that have unusual items available to forage or fish (such as quest items). Quest and unique items were too common in zones that had them, often making it hard to use those skills to obtain items such as food and drink. These quest and rare items will now actually be rarely foraged or fished, as they should have been. Such items will still be available, even to those with low foraging skills, but they will be more easily found by those who have practiced the skills.

• • • Norrathian News ***

Boisterous shouts can be heard across the lands as carriers herald the arrival of the latest volume of their city's newspapers. Citizens rush to get a copy of these publications to read the featured articles, latest gossip, and community news for their hometowns.

• The EverQuest Team

November 8, 2001 3:00 am

• • Follow-up Patch **

We had a couple of bugs pop up in yesterday's patch. Rather than having everyone wait to see them fixed we've elected to roll them in now:

Bards lost the ability to use item effects while moving. This has been fixed.

Monks can now train mend again.

Fixed a collision problem that caused people to fall through some walls.

Fixed a problem with /targetgroupbuff that allowed people to cast combat portal spells on others.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

• The EverQuest Team

November 28, 2001

• • Server Outage for Shadows of Luclin Launch **

In order to update our server for the launch of EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin, all servers will be taken down starting at noon on Monday, December 3rd. They will be brought back up again on Tuesday, December 4th at 8 am (Pacific Time * which is -8:00 GMT).

We regret the down time that setting up the new expansion requires. Shadows of Luclin offers some exciting new content as well as a fantastic new graphics engine. We hope that you'll agree with us that Shadows of Luclin is well worth the extended patch time.

Thanks for your patience.

• • DirectX 8.0 or higher Required for EverQuest **

When we update the servers on December 3rd for Shadows of Luclin, we will also be updating a lot of the code for the existing game. This code is written specifically for use with DirectX 8.0 and higher, and should provide better performance to most of our customers. The improvement will be most noticeable for people using newer hardware.

This will require that all EverQuest players update their DirectX to version 8.0 or better to play EverQuest. We will be providing an instructional page to help people with this upgrade in the very near future at www.everquestlive.com. If you want to test your DirectX 8 configuration and drivers sooner rather than later, you can do so by running "TestEverQuest.exe" in your EverQuest directory and logging on to the Test Server. Please view the patch message there for information should you have any problems logging in.

• The EverQuest Team

December 3, 2001

• EQClient INI Setting*

There's some confusion about the information that's been released on the Test server over the past couple of days, and that confusion is resulting in some people having trouble playing EverQuest. To clear it up:

The GraphicsDLL setting in your EQClient.ini file should read "GraphicsDLL=EQGfx_Dx7.dll" regardless of what server you are playing on or what version of DirectX you are running. If you are having problems getting in to EverQuest, specifically, problems crashing prior to reaching character select, please check and set this entry in your EQClient.ini as necessary.

Also, as a reminder, all EverQuest subscribers will need to have DirectX 8.1 or better installed on their system in order to play beginning Tuesday morning. The latest version of DirectX can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/directx.

• The EverQuest Team