The Week of EQ Hell Level

2015-07-24_22-20-15Qindaar has spent the last week in Shard’s Landing.  Not that there was a need to be there, he is trying to get out of level 96.  This must be one of those hell levels that everyone talks about, where it takes and extraordinary amount of XP (kills) to move up. He has spent hours killing white and dark blue cons only to move three percentage points towards the next level.  He is currently at 74%.

Going to bite the bullet and continue to kill there until the next level. It gets really boring when all you do is kill the same creatures over and over.

New Updates for EverQuest

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July 22, 2015
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*** Highlights ***

– Proc effect stacking – Multiple procs can now trigger from the same triggering action. Each proc effect that is active will be processed independently. See the Spells section for details.

– Damage shields now report the damage that they do in all cases and can be directed to chat filters.

– Spells that do not take hold will now relay a more accurate description as to why they did not take hold.

– A new item, the Legend of the Oathbreaker, is available with prizes from the Legends of Norrath sets Oathbreaker, Ethernauts, and Against the Void.

– Journeyman’s Rucksacks and Journeyman’s Pocketed Rucksacks are now available for purchase year-round on all servers that have Omens of War unlocked.

*** Spells ***

– Beastlord – The Nature’s Fury line of spells will now correctly reduce offhand damage from damage shields, instead of increasing it.

– Magician – Summon spells such as Call of the Hero no longer cause their target to dismount, unless the location that the target is being summoned to is too small of an area for that target to have summoned a mount.

– Spells that do not take hold will now relay a more accurate description as to why they did not take hold.

– Reduced the critical chance for all rain spells level 96 and above.

– The Spell Critical Chance spell effect has been split into separate Critical Chance and Critical Damage effects. Spells that affected one or the other have been changed to have equivalent effects.

– Proc effect stacking – Changed how buffs that trigger effects when spells and skills are used (“procs”) interact with each other. All procs now have the ability to cast concurrently. This changes previous behavior that only allowed one proc spell to be cast at a time.

– – Example one: For a player using the Bone Staff of Wickedness and the buff Spirit of the Puma, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each melee round. Under the previous rules, players could only cast one or the other spell per melee round.

– – Example two: For a player wielding Kyzer’s Ritual Dagger augmented with The Murderer’s Heart, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each time that player casts an appropriate detrimental spell. Under the previous rules, players could only cast one or the other spell per appropriate detrimental spell cast.

– Spells can now be defined as belonging to a Spell Stacking Group. Inspecting a spell that belongs to a Spell Stacking Group will list the name of that group and the rank of that spell within the group in the spell inspection window.

– Assigned Spell Stacking Groups to buffs that trigger effects when casting spells or using skills in order to support the fact that you can now have multiple buffs with these effects active at the same time.

– – Examples: Mana Reiteration Rk. III (which is now rank 22 of the “Mana Flare” stacking group) will now be overwritten by Mana Reciprocation Rk. III (which is now rank 40 of the “Mana Flare” stacking group).

– – Mana Reciprocation Rk. III will *not* be overwritten by Ancient Hedgewizard Brew because Ancient Hedgewizard Brew is part of the stacking group “Resonant Tonics”.

– Damage shield damage is now considered magical non-melee damage; this means that melee guard and melee threshold guard spell effects will no longer negate damage shield damage. Rune, spell guard, spell threshold guard, and spells that allow you to absorb damage as mana will continue to block damage shield damage.

– Taking damage from a damage shield is now an action that can decrement the use counter on some limited use spells.

– A number of changes have been implemented regarding damage shield and environmental damage messages:

– – Changed damage shield message filters from “Show All/Hide All” to “Show All/Show Mine/Hide All.”

– – Added the ability to filter environmental damage messages for other players as “Show All/Hide All.”

– – Added the ability to set individual colors for incoming, outgoing and others’ damage shield messages, and to filter them to separate windows.

– – Damage shield messages will now display the amount of damage dealt by a defender to an attacker. Damage assignment has not changed; damage from damage shields is still not assigned to an owner.

– – Damage shield messages will now display the correct message if the amount of damage being taken was negated by spell effects such as rune or spell guard.

– – Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the bearer to take damage when they attack (such as the cleric “Mark” line of spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the attacker takes.

– – Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the caster of a detrimental spell to take damage (“feedback” spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the caster takes.

– – Created new filters and assignable colors for environmental damage messages (such as burning in lava, drowning, suffocating, freezing in ice, falling, or being hit by a trap). They are no longer filtered as if they were damage shield messages.

– Adjusted the spell names and the ‘spell landed’ and ‘spell wore off’ messages on a number of spells to reduce the cases where dissimilar spell lines shared the same messages or where multiple spells shared the same name.

*** AA ***

– Corrected a display issue that could occur when two existing AA lines were consolidated into a single line.

– Activated AA abilities that have their timer refunded because their spell failed to take hold or affect a target can no longer trigger spell procs.

– Enchanter – Retuned Gift of Hazy Thoughts to grant a more consistent but lower damage increase. Gift of Hazy Thoughts now triggers Gift of Chromatic Haze rather than Chromatic Haze VI, and can now be triggered by casting damage over time or stun spells in addition to direct damage spells. Gift of Chromatic Haze has a much lower damage focus than Chromatic Haze VI.

– Enchanter – Ranks 1-21 of the AA ability line Nightmare Stasis have been consolidated into ranks 4-24 of the Stasis AA ability line. The /alt act number for Nightmare Stasis (previously 748) is now 409. The functionality of Waking Nightmares, triggered when ranks 4-24 of Stasis breaks, remains unchanged.

– Enchanter – Fixed a bug that prevented the AA ability line Quickened Stasis from shortening the cast time of ranks 4-24 of Stasis.

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Hastened Nightmare Stasis has been renamed Hastened Stasis.

– Enchanter – Fixed a bug with the AA ability line Profound Visage. The ability line now multiplies the base effectiveness of the visage buffs by 20% per rank. (Ex. Rank 6 now allows the bearer of Horrifying Visage to generate 22% more aggro, up from its base 10%.)

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Surreality has been renamed Hastened Mind Over Matter.

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Doppelganger’s Beckon has been renamed Hastened Doppelganger.

– Enchanter – The buff triggered by the AA ability Gracious Gift of Mana has been renamed Gracious Gift of Mana 96 to 105 and has had its messages updated to more closely match other “Gift of Mana” spells.

– Enchanter – Corrected a bug with the AA ability Hastened Mesmerization that prevented it from functioning on level 86 through 89 and level 100 to 105 spells.

– Enchanter – Ranks 1-6 of the AA ability line Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 2-7 of Gather Mana. The AA ability line Hastened Gathering has been renamed Hastened Gather Mana. Ranks 1-3 of the AA ability line Hastened Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 3-5 of Hastened Gather Mana.

– Enchanter – Corrected a bug with the AA ability line Forceful Banishment that prevented it from working on ranks 2-4 of Beguiler’s Banishment.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Hunting zones in The Ruins of Kunark will spin up new load balancing versions when they are populated by enough adventurers.

– Many of the bosses in the Plane of Sky, the Plane of Hate, and the Plane of Fear will provide more of a challenge on Progression Servers.

– Antonican Traveler’s Bags and Antonican Traveler’s Rucksacks are now available for purchase year-round on Progression Servers.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– Added /pickzone fewestplayers to automatically pick the zone with the lowest number of players.

– Fixed a bug that would very occasionally cause you to appear unconscious even though you were full health after a divine save.

– NPCs that are in combat and are pushed by spells with a knockback component should no longer teleport directly to their most hated target if their most hated target remains stationary.

– NPCs that are pushed by spells with a knockback component should appear in their new location more quickly than before.

*** UI ***

– When viewing achievements from chat you will now see the category and sub-category that the achievement is from in the Achievements window.

– Added the ability to open an achievement in the achievements window when viewing an achievement from chat by clicking “View Mine”.

– Changed –

EQUI_AchievementWnd.xml

– The EverQuest Team

Trying to get Back Into the Swing

2015-07-18_23-03-25 2015-07-18_23-07-50Qindaar ventured out last Saturday evening with Vmalice and a couple of others from the Guild – Veterans Crew. We did a few this in Dead Hills and then one of the others needed to get flagged for the Plane of War, so Qindaar tagged along on that to get his flag as well.

The evening was fun with a lot of killing of MoB’s to get to the named to get the flag. Now Qindaar is tasked with making a Zekarian Stonewwod Compound Bow with an embedded Zekarian Diamond to turn in.  Since Qindaar is a wizard and not a huntsman his fletching skills are zero.  Wizards usually do not carry a bow, but what the hell he will give it a try.

So Qindaar will be heading off to the Plane of Earth to forage for the parts.

Qindaar Back From Vacation

EQ 16th AnnivGood afternoon all,

Happy to announce that Qindaar has returned from a month long vacation to Israel where he truly enjoyed the time spent there.

A lot has happened in the world of EQ with two new updates:

July 01, 2015
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*** Highlights ***
– Big bags are returning to Norrath for a limited time! Special larger bags will be available on the Marketplace starting at noon (PDT) on July 2nd. Act quickly, as they will disappear after July 6th!

*** Items ***
– Girdle of the Weaponmaster – The focus effect Boon of the Seeress has been adjusted to include the number of spells that it previously focused, prior to a number of data changes to AA spells.

*** Quests & Events ***
– Aranaea the Cleaver – Fixed an issue with the use of the Arcanist’s Ignitor in the Plane of War. Burn it all down!

– Seductive Subterfuge – The task step to “Banish the skeletons, spirits, and banshees” in this Caverns of Endless Song heroic adventure now requires 9 kills instead of 10.

*** Spells ***
– Enchanter – Corrected an issue with the way that damage shield damage from items is calculated in order to fix a problem with the Ward line of spells. Damage shield damage from items will now only be added to your total damage shield amount if your effective Damage Shield total is greater than 0.

– Corrected an issue with player cast spells that trigger an additional spell when the first spell fades. The second spell will now properly use the original caster’s focus effects and send damage messages to the correct person.

– AoE resurrection abilities will now properly land on corpses in hover mode.

*** NPC ***
– Original EQ bosses are now immune to memory blur effects.

– Most clockworks throughout Norrath now have a chance to carry saltpeter.

*** AA ***
Magician – Updated Theft of Essence to include the three ranks of the level 103 summoned bane damage spell “Eradicate the Unnatural” as a possible trigger for the “Theft of Essence” pet buff.

Magician – Corrected a bug that caused rank 6 of Extended Fire Core to extend the duration of all spells by 36 seconds rather than extending the duration of just the “Fire Core” AA spells.

*** Progression Servers ***
– The Hole, Kedge Keep, Permafrost Keep, and Nagafen’s Lair will spin up new load balanced versions when they are populated by enough adventurers. There is no hard limit to the number of adventurers that can be in any particular version of these zones. Raid NPCs will only spawn in the base instance of these zones.

– The Commonlands can now support many more simultaneous adventurers before it is full.

– Raid bosses will provide more of a challenge on progression servers. They will also spawn more frequently but with more randomization between spawn times.

– The residents of the Plane of Hate and Plane of Fear will spawn more frequently.

*** Miscellaneous ***
– /outputfile will now tell you it’s complete in chat. Also if you use /outputfile with an invalid option, it will output the usage message.

– Shadowrest – Corrected an issue that could potentially result in a player becoming stuck in Shadowrest. If the location from which you entered has been cleared, you will now be sent to your original starting location rather than your bind point.

*** UI ***
– Merc AAs – Made the cost column display nothing when the max rank has been purchased.

– Added the current count of players in your current /pickzone instance to the window.

– When a player is in a load balanced zone (/pickzone) they will now display their instance number in /who.

– Changed –

*** Previously Updated ***

– Corrected an issue that would cause a zone to crash if a player died from a limited use doom effect.

– The EverQuest Team

June 17, 2015
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*** Highlights ***
– Fixed an issue where a player could crash after logging back into a load-balanced zone (/pickzone) or gating to a point in a load-balanced zone when that particular instance had closed.

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

– Fixed an issue regarding binding in a load-balanced zone; you should now properly be sent to an available zone when gating or returning to your bind point.

– Fixed an issue with the leave on corpse option in the manage loot window that could cause crashes.

– All Noble Exchange merchants can now be used to send or receive parcels. These merchants are available in every starting city, the Plane of Knowledge, the Bazaar, and other zones throughout Norrath.

*** Items ***
– Bard – Reduced the casting time of the Arpeggio spells on certain breastplates from 0.3s to instant.

*** Quests & Events ***
– Arx Mentis raids – Glowing Essences of the Citadel now have a small chance to drop in Tier 2 Arx Mentis raids and drop more commonly from Calix Quirinus.

– All Arx Mentis progression raids – Now drop exactly six Essences of the Citadel rather than between four and eight.

– Anniversary – The 5th-13th Anniversary events have been extended to run until July 15th.

– Heritage – The Crushbone and Permafrost Hardcore Heritage events have been extended by a week and will now end on 7/1.

*** Spells ***
– Buffs with limited charges that are consumed when their focus effect is applied now continue to apply their remaining effects until the spell that was focused by that buff is finished resolving. This corrects a problem where the critical chance portion of spells (like Chromatic Haze and Frenzied Devastation) was never applied during the buff’s final charge, because the buff was removed after the focus effect was applied but before the critical chance modifier was checked.

*** NPC ***
– All Noble Exchange merchants can now be used to send or receive parcels. These merchants are available in every starting city, the Plane of Knowledge, the Bazaar, and other zones throughout Norrath.

– Added factions to many NPCs in newbie zones that did not have them before, causing guards to hate them once again.

*** AA ***
– Bard – Restored the doppelganger effect and removed the shadowstep component on the AA line “Lyrical Prankster”.

– Beastlord – Corrected a bug with ranks 4-6 of the AA line ‘Nature’s Salve’ that caused them to cast the spell associated to rank 3 of the ability. Ranks 4-6 should now increase in power and trigger the effect on your warder as originally intended.

– Rogue – Corrected an issue that caused rank 6 of AA Extended Envenomed Blades to not function.

– Rogue – Corrected an issue that prevented all ranks of the AA Enduring Vision from working.

– Wizard – Arcane Fusion no longer deals damage to non-NPC targets. This should ensure that wizards who fail their Bucolic Gambit are slightly less likely to annihilate themselves.

– Corrected a typo in the description of the buff cast by the AA “Glyph of the Cataclysm”.

– Corrected several inconsistencies with the casting level of AA abilities.

*** Progression Servers ***
– Restored the spell merchant Gadallion to the Southern Desert of Ro in all eras.

– The Wizard spell Rend is now available on Progression Servers in all eras.

– The Potion of Companion’s Amnesia is now available for purchase in the marketplace on all Progression Servers.

– “an old froglok” in Upper Guk no longer spawns on Progression Servers until the Planes of Power expansion is unlocked.

– Luminescent Weapon Grade Ore is no longer be available for purchase on Progression Servers until Rain of Fear has unlocked.

– Some cookie molds that were not available at launch are no longer available on Progression Servers.

– Recipes that call for Thalium Ore are no longer visible on Progression Servers until Dragons of Norrath.

*** Miscellaneous ***
– Steamfont Mountains will now correctly use load balancing as intended.

– Corrected an oversight that prevented players that were created on the Vox server from being able to select the suffix “of Vox”.

*** UI ***
– There is now a chat message of how much time you have before you can run /pickzone again, if you have a timer remaining.

– You now get a message in chat with what instance you are in when you run /pickzone in a load-balanced zone. This will only appear when it is possible for the window to open, meaning any circumstance where /pickzone won’t function (such as combat) will prevent this message from appearing.

– Changed –
*** Previously Updated ***
– Fixed the Deepwater Harpoon quest. Returned the missing sentries to West Freeport, and Sentry Xyrin will again attack the nearby spectres on the island when inspired to do so.

– The EverQuest Team