Game Updates for December 2016

December 14, 2016
_____________________

*** Highlights ***

– Look to the marketplace this December for the Frostfell Familiar in a Box!

*** Items ***

– Look to the marketplace this December for the Frostfell Familiar in a Box. Each one contains a random adoptable familiar. Trade them to your friends or collect them all yourself, and keep an eye out for some rare and unique Frostfell familiars!
– Removed backstab from the various Sulstones of the Thoughtful as these are caster only augments and are not usable by Rogues. Similarly, removed backstab from the various Sulstones of the Fighter as these are slashing only augments, and backstab requires piercing weapons.
– Corrected the description for the Visage of the Hideous Harpy.
– Icesprite Familiar will now summon a familiar and fit in the keyring.
– Master’s Token of Command will properly scale as you kill rare NPCs in Empires of Kunark.
– Sathir Trade Gems and Ancient Sebilisian Coins are now Tradable on the Firiona Vie server.
– Duffel of the Di`Zok is now Heirloom and No-Destroy.
– Bridle of Queen Velazul’s Sokokar is now Heirloom.
– Petamorph Wand items can now summon a familiar if you do not have a pet or change your pet’s visual if you do have a pet.
– Some missing Empires of Kunark items are now dropping on the appropriate NPCs and chests. Some items are now available only from the intended channels instead of also dropping from specific NPCs.
– Invested Small Manisi Branch will now convert if you are a Cleric, Druid, or Shaman.
– Crackjaw and Mad Researcher now drop Selrach’s armor instead of Cohorts.

*** Tradeskills ***

– Corrected a bug that prevented ranks 4-13 of Brewing Mastery from functioning as intended.

*** Quests & Events ***

– Atrebe’s Vault (Raid and Group Mission) – The spells used in these events now have appropriate descriptions.
– Of Pirates and Men (Task) – The compass will again be granted for completing the first three steps to kill pirates and open crates in the ship’s cargo hold.
– Captain Krasnok (Seventeenth Anniversary) – Made several changes to the 17th Anniversary Event:
– – Krasnok and the Fists of Hate summon only after they have been damaged, rather than immediately.
– – Fixed a bug with the spell Hate’s Furies: increased recast time from 7.6 seconds to 46 seconds.
– – Sweeping Scimitar radius reduced from 150 to 120. Two more people can stand safely inside each bubble. Bubbles should always appear inside the playable area. Added a decal to the bubbles to make them a bit more visible.
– Kod’Taz Summoner Ring (Event) – Repaired a bug that could cause the event to fail when deranged golems would spawn under the world.
– Curing the Cure (Group) – Fixed an issue that would prevent the final step from working in any zone.
– S.H.I.P. Workshop (Group) – Fixed an issue that could cause The Mechalossus to die and not give task credit.
– Ring of Fear (Solo) –  The ring event in Cazic-Thule should now respawn properly (every 6 days).
– The Cost of Balance (Mission) – Fixed this mission in Arx Mentis. Now the key generators can be picked or fought to be destroyed.
– Other’s Things (Group) – Fixed the lack of crystals in this adventure.
– Fixed a bug that allowed Aura of the Kar`Zok to land on pets and mercenaries.
– Emollious (Raid) – Fixed an issue with the Half Traps achievement. It was possible to fail the achievement by using the same trap multiple times. It was counting each use of any trap, rather than whether or not you used two distinct traps.
– Rivervale – Fixed a dialogue problem with Kizzie Mintopp.
– Hunting Leather Leggings (Solo) – This quest for saurek scales in Shadeweaver’s Thicket can now be completed.

*** Spells ***

– Fixed an issue that prevented invisibility from breaking charm spells if a player had a familiar buff active.
– Druid – Sharp Eyes and Eyes of the Winter Hawk can now allow you to see invisible level 3.
– Magician – Worlu’s Prying Eyes now allow the user to see invisible level 3.
– Magician and Wizard – Aspect of Zomm will allow you to see invisible level 3.
– Ranger – Skylight Sagacity will allow you to see invisible level 3.
– Enchanter – Removed incorrect references to damage risk on Perilous Disorientation Reprisal and Perilous Bafflement Reprisal.
– Magician – Corrected Chaotic Fire Jolt so that it will correctly lower your opponent’s hatred for you.
– Enchanter – Spells in the Strangle line and the Baffling Constriction line will now do less initial damage than before since that initial damage can now hit for critical values.
– Beastlord – Lowered the amount of initial damage dealt by the Scorpion Venom and Edoth’s Chill spell lines since they can now hit for critical damage.
– The following spells now have casting text: Summon Armored Frontier Rhinoceros, Wurmslayer’s Guard, Scale Gnashing, Obulous Strike, Obulous Soothing, Gather Umbra, Binding Leaf, Manisi Balm, Woven Thorns, and Summon Golden Frontier Rhinoceros.

*** AA ***

– Fixed an error with Essence of the Dragon that prevented it from working for Bards, Monks, Rogues, and Warriors.

*** NPCs ***

– Boss spawn times in Vex Thal are now persistent for all servers. There is no longer an initial delay after the zone comes up before the bosses will spawn.
– Male Dark Elf guards in Neriak – Fourth Gate will no longer vocalize as if they were undead.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Bosses in Vex Thal will spawn twice as often, on average, for Progression Servers.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– Fixed a typo that still stated in the error message that you need The Darkened Sea to use the stat slot for the mount key ring instead of stating the need of the mount key ring feature.
– Addressed an issue that caused Guild Looking for Players to no longer function.
– Addressed an issue where some high-hitpoint NPCs were giving no experience when they were supposed to give more than the previously current cap of experience in one kill.

*** UI ***

– Fixed an issue with advanced looting that was causing the wrong items to be left on the corpse since the previous patch.
– – This also fixes an old issue that would rarely cause one of the never marked items to not ‘leave on corpse.’
– Dynamic zone replay times not associated to a particular event will now display ‘Replay Timer’ in the Event Name column of the expedition window rather than a blank space.
– Sorted the entries in the EQ-button menu alphabetically and created a new category for the 10 hotkey windows.
– Added a ‘Print Items’ button to the Item Display window which will print the names of items inside housing crates to the chat window. Note that this button will only show up if an item contains real estate items.

– Changed –
EQUI_ItemDisplay.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

– The Summoning of Droga (Raid) – The Incarnate Droga will no longer cast Blood Splash without an associated warning and a way to avoid the effect.
– On Behest of the Emperor (Group Mission) – Fixed a problem that prevented Dread Overseer Akalod and Royal Guard Kakator from leaving corpses.

– The EverQuest Team

November 16, 2016
_____________________

After decades of slumber, Imperator Tsaph Katta awakens and vows to reform the Combine Empire. With the former glorious capital of his nation rebuilt in the treacherous lands of Kunark, Tsaph Katta vows to cement his place in the annals of history as The Great Unifier. Not all are ready to bend to the will of Katta and his allies, least of all the current inhabitants of Kunark.

Make haste and return to the ruins of Kunark to play your part in the coming turmoil!

*** Highlights ***

– EverQuest’s 23rd expansion, “Empires of Kunark” is out now!
– With the expansion comes an exciting new feature – the Familiar Key Ring!
– Added the Task Overlay Window.

*** Items ***

– Added the Familiar Key Ring feature.
– – The Familiar Key Ring provides 10 slots for you to store your familiar friends! Familiars can be added or removed from the Key Ring at any time, making it easy to organize the companions you want to have in your pack. In addition to freeing up precious bag space, the Familiar Key Ring also provides you with the ability to apply the stats of one familiar to the appearance of another, giving you more ways to customize your companion in-game.
– – In addition to this, pet classes that previously had to decide between having a familiar or a combat pet specific to their class can now have BOTH out at the same time!
– – Each character on your account will be granted a Familiar Key Ring with 10 slots. Need even more room than that? To unlock additional slots on your Key Ring, you can purchase them in the Marketplace or get them by upgrading your expansion to the Collector’s Edition or Premium Edition.
– Inspecting a recipe book will now display ‘Scribed’ if you have learned all of the recipes the book is able to teach you and ‘Not Scribed’ if scribing the book would teach you new recipes.

*** Spells ***

– If you own the Familiar Key Ring feature, any illusion spells on summoned pets will persist when you zone.
– Corrected a number of visual issues related to height and illusion spells:
– – Applying and removing an illusion after having your height modified should now consistently return you to your adjusted height. Previously some illusion spells would return you to your racial default height rather than your shrunk/grown height.
– – Players under the effects of an illusion should now consistently appear to be the correct height to other players. This should reduce the likelihood of seeing 6-foot-tall gnomes.
– The initial damage or healing on certain spells that have a duration can now land critically. Previously, spells that healed a target or dealt damage when they landed but also had a duration would not roll a critical chance.
– Improved how buffs stack when checking spell effects that modify particular skills. If two buffs use the same spell effect in the same slot but impact different skills, they will now be allowed to stack.
– – Example: Previously, if a Monk had activated Steelfist Discipline (which increases Round Kick damage by 270% in slot 5) and a Beastlord activated Group Bestial Alignment (which increases all melee damage by 30% in slot 5) the Beastlord’s effect would not have taken hold on the Monk. Under the new rules, the abilities are allowed to coexist because they are modifying different skills.
– Added the ability for Warlowe Rida in the Plane of Tranquility to help you [remember] your progressive spell progress and make sure you have the highest rank available. If you have lost ranks of these abilities due to race changes or other errors, please consult her.
– Increased the base accuracy of all pets summoned by spells between levels 101 and 105. This should help them hit NPCs, particularly raid targets, much more often.
– Ranked pets in these levels now gain much more accuracy per rank than they did before.
– Boosted the base accuracy of all unfocused pets.
– Boosted the rate of accuracy gain per focus level for focused pets.
– Several buffs that increase the damage of a limited number of spells have been adjusted so that they will only focus spells that deal more than 100 points of damage. This should prevent cases like the Magician Rampaging Servant line of spells from consuming charges from Flames of Power.
– Changed all healing spells that formerly would have given additional bonus healing under certain conditions to now heal for either their base amount or a larger bonus amount. The following spells were changed:
– – All Cleric spells that gave bonus healing for targets at low health
– Changed all damage spells that formerly would have dealt additional bonus damage under certain conditions.  They will now deal a base amount of damage or a larger amount of damage with bonuses. These bonuses were increased over their former amounts of damage to account for the loss of additional spell damage effects on each “line.” The following spells were changed:
– – All Cleric/Paladin/Druid spells that dealt additional damage to undead or summoned creatures
– – All Shadowknight/Necromancer spells that dealt additional damage to plants
– – All Magician spells that would hit multiple times based on the number of pets active on the target’s hatelist
– Beastlord – Removed push from the Envenomed Breath line of DoT spells.
– Berserker – Moved Dichotomic Rage from timer 18 to timer 21.
– Druid – Changed Nurturing Growth so it will function correctly if you have a familiar or pet active when you cast it.

*** NPC ***

– Added the ability to rename your familiars. To bring up the familiar name change window, use the command “/changefamiliar.” This will require the new item Potion of Familiar’s Amnesia on the marketplace. Familiars will now also have a tag under their name to indicate their owner if their names have been changed.
– Beastlord warders who have their names changed will now display their owners’ names.
– A Grimling Hero in Acrylia will now despawn if he’s been up and idle for several minutes.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Karam Dragonforge will spawn correctly on servers that have not yet unlocked Secrets of Faydwer. Like Praetorian Myral, he also has returned from his beard grooming appointment.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– You may now have a pet and a familiar summoned at the same time. The familiar has been removed from the pet window and the command “/pet leave” will no longer function for familiars.
– Added a slash command “/familiar leave” to tell the familiar to go away. Also added a button to the Familiar tab in the Key Rings window to tell the familiar to leave as well.
– Corrected a visual bug that could cause some Luclin PC models to appear to be standing up rather than riding when running while mounted.
– Statistic buffs have been split from familiar buffs and dismissing a familiar will now also remove the ‘Summon Familiar’ buff.
– Fixed an issue where players did not receive a reduced lockout timer when they were invited to an expedition that had reduced lockout timers.
– Addressed an issue that would cause fellowship leaders to sometimes change randomly.
– Fixed an issue that would sometimes block completion of task elements in Heroic Adventures when they required completing the element multiple times.

*** UI ***

– Added the task overlay window. This window is on by default and its behavior is slightly different from other windows in the UI:
– – It defaults to 0% opacity.  This can be changed using the right click menu.
– – It defaults to allowing clicks through.  This can also be disabled using the right click menu.
– – The window is locked by default, preventing accidental moves.
– – You can click on task names to pop up and hide the full quest window.
– – In addition to “/taskoverlay,” you can show/hide the window using the EQ button or via a hotkey.
– – Mouse scroll is active on the window to allow you to quickly scroll through your active and shown quests.
– – Tasks can be shown and hidden easily using the new checkboxes in the quest window.
– Added some options for the task overlay window:
– – Automatically add new tasks to task overlay (defaulted to on).
– – Show only open steps for the task (defaulted to on).
– – Add most recent task to top (defaulted to off).
– Added an “Auto Leave” toggle to the Familiars tab of the Key Rings window to make most familiars automatically leave when you are summoning a familiar or when zoning. This will not affect any buffs that a familiar will provide.  Note that certain familiars will not be automatically dismissed even if this is checked (for example, the banker).
– Fixed an issue where the pet window will show a pet’s corpse name when zoning.
– Added a new map for the Empires of Kunark, accessible through the main Atlas map under “Empires of Kunark”.
– – The continent of Kunark in the main Atlas map has been split up so that clicking on the top portion of the Kunark continent will bring up the old Ruins of Kunark map, while clicking on the bottom will bring up the new Empires of Kunark map.
– – Added a new link from the Luclin Underground map to the new Empires of Kunark map.

– Added –
EQUI_TaskOverlayWnd.xml

– Changed –
EQUI.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_ItemDisplay.xml
EQUI_KeyRingWnd.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_TaskWnd.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

– Resolved some issues with Felwithe, Nagafen’s Lair, and other zones that would cause the NPCs to be the wrong size, untargetable, and other random issues.

– The EverQuest Team

October 19, 2016
_____________________

*** Highlights ***

– Modified NPC pathing logic when an NPC is in combat against a PC.  See NPC section for details.

*** Items ***

– Increased the rank of Form of Endurance on Mask of Immortal End and Hardened Mask of Immortal End from 25 to 30.
– Placing Jade Tiger in your real estate will no longer place Schrodinger and vice versa.

*** Quests & Events ***

– Karam Dragonforge’s quests should now work correctly and not eat valid items.  His dialogues will indicate which items he needs.
– – On servers that have unlocked Secrets of Faydwer, Karam Dragonforge will require “Square Cut Black Sapphire”, “Marquise Cut Alexandrite”, “Platinum Trio Ring”, and “White Dragon Hide” in order to create a White Dragonscale Cloak.
– – On servers that have not yet unlocked Secrets of Faydwer, Karam Dragonforge will require “Platinum Diamond Wedding Ring”, “Black Sapphire Platinum Necklace”, and “White Dragon Hide” in order to create a White Dragonscale Cloak.
– Deaths of the Unliving – Made some changes to this task in Sul Vius: Life that might prevent it from being broken at the “examine the body” step. Internally this has never been reproduced, so please let us know if you still encounter issues.
– It should no longer be possible to spawn multiple versions of the Caller event NPCs in Fungus Grove by force-feeding the trigger dozens of Blargrot beverages. In addition, the event versions of the Caller NPCs are now PC friendly.

*** Spells ***

– Necromancer – Moved Dichotomic Paroxysm from timer 18 to timer 20.
– Bard – Lowered the endurance cost of Dichotomic Psalm, increased the amount of damage it adds to spells and melee strikes, and changed the HP, Mana, and Endurance return amounts to match the proportions granted by Crescendo songs.
– Casting Call of the Hero in Acrylia will again summon A Grimling Hero.

*** NPC ***

– Modified NPC pathing logic when an NPC is in combat against a PC.
– – NPCs will now be less inclined to stop short of a moving target, which should result in high speed NPCs more consistently catching and attacking PCs.
– – Fixed a visual bug where an NPC moving toward a player would move, then teleport forward a short distance a second later.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Bartering will now unlock when the Shadows of Luclin unlocks instead of waiting until Dragons of Norrath.
– In the instanced version of the Accursed Temple of Cazic-Thule, the bosses will now correctly use Mitigation of the Mighty IV.
– Darrisa Nyny in West Freeport and Celni Pawfoot in Commonlands will begin spawning when the Shadows of Luclin has unlocked. They offer Beastlord discipline tomes. Darrisa Nyny is also another source of hybrid discipline tomes.
– The shissar wraiths that spawn after Emperor Ssraeshza’s death in Ssraeshza Temple instances will no longer be subject to the loot lockout for the basepop, but instead will be linked to the lockout for the emperor himself.
– Praetorian Myral’s extensive beard grooming appointment has completed. He will again spawn in Grieg’s End.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– Fixed a few bugs with the advanced looting system.
– – Zones which have been repopped will now properly work with advanced looting.
– – Fixed a crash which could happen when items are removed from the personal loot list.
– – Fixed a problem with multiple of the same item dropping on an npc/chest.
– Fixed the excessive vertical camera bounce that occurred for Frogloks introduced in the last update.
– Fixed an issue that would disable entire accounts from logging in if one of the characters on an account is corrupted. The non-corrupted characters will appear roughly 10 minutes after login if this is the case. Players experiencing this should contact Customer Support to get the corrupted characters removed or fixed.
– Fixed a client crash when the total number of Traders in the bazaar is more than 600.
– Upgraded some internal graphics libraries. Please let us know if you can no longer reach character select.
– Reduced the number of Alternate Advancement Point achievements. Achievements are granted for every 500 points spent between 5000 and 10000 and for every 1000 points spent between 10000 and 20000.
– Characters will no longer receive the achievement “Whispers of Kunark.”

*** UI ***

– Corrected issues with the reward selection window that would cause rewards to fail to preview and sort correctly.
– Fixed an issue where Pet Rename reminders were not properly being disabled.
– Paste from clipboard will now default to Ctrl-V.
– Removed the allowing / disallowing of Pixel Shaders 1.1 and Pixel Shaders 1.4. The Pixel Shaders 2.0 control will now handle allowing / disallowing of those because all pre-2.0 Pixel Shaders are now treated as 2.0 Shaders.

– Changed –

EQUI_AdvancedDisplayOptionsWnd.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

– Zones that have areas with restrictions on corpse summoning, Call of the Hero, Bind Affinity, or similar effects, will work the same way in the instance as the base zone. The Emperor’s Room in Ssraeshza Temple is one example.
– Sage Vindillar will no longer attempt to send live test subjects to a place that doesn’t exist yet. He will return when Planes of Power is unlocked.
– Locked doors and portals inside Ssraeshza Temple and Vex Thal will now work correctly inside the Phinigel instance.
– All teleportation stones except for the stone to Qeynos in the Plane of Knowledge will be disabled until the Planes of Power launches.
– Being in the Emperor’s room in Ssraeshza Temple without the key will kick you back to the Nexus. The key requirement for Emperor’s room is removed once Gates of Discord has unlocked on the server.

– The EverQuest Team