9/5/07 Patch

[Lance Berg]

9/05/2007
Here’s a sneak peek at the Update Notes for Wednesday morning’s Game Update:

*** Highlights ***

- Legends of Norrath: Legends of Norrath: Oathbound is now live!

Legends of Norrath is an online-only trading card game, based on the
richly-detailed sword-and-sorcery world of Norrath from the massively
multiplayer online role-playing games EverQuest and EverQuest II. EQ and
EQII players have been awarded a complimentary random Oathbound digital
starter deck. To play, navigate the EQ icon to Legends of Norrath or
simply type /TCG. Visit http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com for
more information.

- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

- The EverQuest window can now be sized by simply dragging the border on
the window!


*** Items ***

- The Fan Faire item, Stones of Fortune, can now be claimed.
- The Discordant Seal of Health has had its focus changed to one that is
more appropriate. Since this is a slight downgrade, if you feel you no
longer want this, Go to Caerlyna in the bazaar and give her the
Discordant Seal of Health and she will give you an Ambleshift's Amazing
Automated Amalgamator with the parts used to make it inside, and you can
do whatever you wish with the parts. **Be sure you have a bag spot
available**
- Changed the icon and in-game representation of the following items.
For the ones that can be pickup up as a ground spawn, this will change
how they look on the ground: Tomato, Green Apple, Straight Oak Treant
Branch, Dry Treant Branch, Straight Treant Branch, Fallen Straight Oak
Treant Branch, Fallen Dry Treant Branch, Fallen Straight Treant Branch,
Windwillow Branch, Fallen Rotwood Treant Branch, Fallen Windwillow
Treant Branch, and Fallen Grovewalker Treant Branch.
- Corrected the spelling of the Eminent Impression Book.
- Made Gothic Ringmail usable by Drakkin.
- Corrected stats on Expert Crafted Gloves of the Attackers.
- Removed an erroneous augment slot from the Hand of Glory.
- Shadowknights can now use the Gloomsteel Blade.
- Corrected an issue with several Depths of Darkhollow skills that could
not be learned by right-clicking.
- Corrected the required level on the Fabled Crystallized Shadow Tunic.
- Corrected the required casting level on Sphere of Air's effect.
- Certain clickable items from Veeshan's Peak have their recast times
reduced.
- Changed the "Pained Memories" spell to use consuming thickener.
- Removed augments that fit into multiple socket types from type 3 sockets.
- All silk armor usable by pure caster classes will now have a graphic
if it previously didn't.
- The Last Blood, Bazu Stone, Discordant Stone, and Chronal Stone have
all had their lore flag removed.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Xanuusus is now a little more informative about his vague poem.


*** Spells ***

- Sea Snake Venom is now curable with effects that remove poison counters.
- Modified the Frenzied Devastation and Prolonged Destruction AAs. Mana
preservation effects should again reduce the mana cost of using these
AAs although now the mana cost will be variable instead of fixed (but
should average out to the same cost.) Additionally the increased mana
cost should only apply to direct damage spells and the ability is
limited to a set number of casts with a longer duration rather than a
short period of time as before.


*** NPC ***

- The Casino operator will now make sure you do not have the Vibrating
Gauntlets of Infuse and the Vibrating Hammer before awarding you that item.
- Fixed a bug preventing the door into the Shade King's room in
Frostcrypt from opening.
- Guards in Commonlands will now attack pumas and lions. Not only will
this make the area a bit safer, but it should also improve the spider
population a bit for those seeking their silk.
- Summoned pets for both players and NPCs will now appear at a certain
range in front of the player. Pets should no longer spawn on top of
their master.


*** AA ***

- Increased the hitpoints of the swarm pets summoned by ranks 4 and 5 of
the Shaman AA Spirit Call so that the swarm pets from rank 4 would not
be killed faster than the swarm pets from rank 3.
- Removed the AA "Frenzied Defense" while we continue to investigate
issues with this ability.


*** Zones ***

- Re-enabled Manastone usage in the following revamped zones: Lavastorm,
West Freeport, East Freeport, North Desert of Ro, and South Desert of Ro.


*** UI ***

- New -

EQUI_ClaimWnd.xml

- Changed -

EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_VideoModesWnd.xml
EQUI_AAWindow.xml
EQUI_BarterSearchWnd.xml
EQUI_BarterWnd.xml
EQUI_Inventory.xml
EQUI_ItemDisplay.xml
EQUI_TCGStartupWnd.xml
EQUI.xml


*** Miscellaneous ***

- We fixed a number of issues with Legends of Norrath within EverQuest.
- Fixed a problem with transformation molds where items transformed
could not be linked in the chat window.
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.
- You now need to be in full screen mode to change your resolution size
under the options menu. While in windowed mode, you can simply drag the
window border to resize the window.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Lance Berg
9/05/2007
- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

Why? What does this add to the game? Are there choices that will be
available to people via this window that weren't by the original claim
system?

Post by Lance Berg
*** Items ***
- Removed an erroneous augment slot from the Hand of Glory.

This is the key to open all doors in Howling Stones (aka Charassis)? I
can't even look now to see if it had an aug slot, since I destroyed it
once it was on my keyring. Fun to see oldschool junk getting some love
though.

Post by Lance Berg
- Shadowknights can now use the Gloomsteel Blade.

Tutorial sword right? Yeah, SK did have a complaint there, nice little
attention to detail fix.

Post by Lance Berg
- Corrected an issue with several Depths of Darkhollow skills that could
not be learned by right-clicking.

I don't know what this means. There are DODH-only skills? Combine is
at DODH now, and I don't remember seeing any new skills.

Post by Lance Berg
- Certain clickable items from Veeshan's Peak have their recast times
reduced.

You know, I'm keyed for VP 2.0 and I've only been in there running
around to explore. I was planning on doing some of the quests, but they
took so long to do that I've since gotten better items for those slots.
I should read up on the drops and see if its time to get some people
and go in there hunting... I love clickies!

Post by Lance Berg
- Removed augments that fit into multiple socket types from type 3 sockets.

What? Why? As if LDoN armor wasn't outdated enough... the only reason
I'm still wearing a piece of it is for my slot 3 dodge skill augment!

Post by Lance Berg
- All silk armor usable by pure caster classes will now have a graphic
if it previously didn't.

Thats going to make for some sad casters, since most agree a no helm
look is the way to go

Post by Lance Berg
- Guards in Commonlands will now attack pumas and lions. Not only will
this make the area a bit safer, but it should also improve the spider
population a bit for those seeking their silk.

OK Good news for spider farmers I guess, but bad news for pelt farmers.
Why change this sort of behavior in a zone few people visit anymore
anyway?

Post by Lance Berg
- Summoned pets for both players and NPCs will now appear at a certain
range in front of the player. Pets should no longer spawn on top of
their master.

This will be a nice little tweak, its annoying to hand pet gear to pets
who have just been summoned.

Post by Lance Berg
- We fixed a number of issues with Legends of Norrath within EverQuest.

You hope.

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Um, what did they do before? I can only think of a few things this
could be changing: 1) AE procs will now no longer be AE>.. goodbye
Shakerpage. Or 2) Weapon procs no longer affect the wielder, change to
nullify magic sword and rodrick's dagger and anything else that casts on
the weilder. Or 3) there was some way to get a weapon's proc to hit
more than one target even though it should have been single target and I
just never heard of it

[Larry Laffer]

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:39:03 -0400, Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
9/05/2007
- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

Why? What does this add to the game? Are there choices that will be
available to people via this window that weren't by the original claim
system?

The "item" cards from the card game are brought into the game using
the claim system. It's just a pretty window format vs. the
command-line format that we're used to using. I don't see this as a
problem. Probably should have been done this way from the start.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Larry Laffer
On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:39:03 -0400, Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
9/05/2007
- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

Why? What does this add to the game? Are there choices that will be
available to people via this window that weren't by the original claim
system?

The "item" cards from the card game are brought into the game using
the claim system. It's just a pretty window format vs. the
command-line format that we're used to using. I don't see this as a
problem. Probably should have been done this way from the start.

Ah well that makes more sense, its something people will be continuously
using rather than just once per expansion purchase, makes the effort
more worthwhile.

[Pris Flynn]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Larry Laffer
On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:39:03 -0400, Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
9/05/2007
- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

Why? What does this add to the game? Are there choices that will be
available to people via this window that weren't by the original claim
system?

The "item" cards from the card game are brought into the game using
the claim system. It's just a pretty window format vs. the
command-line format that we're used to using. I don't see this as a
problem. Probably should have been done this way from the start.

Ah well that makes more sense, its something people will be continuously
using rather than just once per expansion purchase, makes the effort more
worthwhile.

The only thing: Every time you change characters on the account, the window
comes up, covering nearly the whole screen, that you have to clear before
proceeding. This is same thing that happens if you have a map minimized:
it too pops up, not minimized but covering the screen as well. I do not
want to do anything that completely removes the option for these as someday
I will want to award these /claim to my characters. But for now, it really
is annoying.

[Don Woods]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Claim Window: A new window has been added for /claim subscription
rewards. When the command is used, a UI window will popup.

Why? What does this add to the game? Are there choices that will be
available to people via this window that weren't by the original claim
system?

I'll reserve judgment until I see the new window, but the old /claim
command could definitely use a better UI (especially if they added a
"tip" window when you open the Claim window). Heck, if nothing else,
maybe this means my bazaar mules won't have to sit through a dozen
lines of /claim offers every time they log in, caused by having bought

Post by Lance Berg
Your account has a reward(s) waiting to be claimed. Please ensure that
you have a top level inventory slot free, and type one of the following
to claim your reward. Please remember that each reward can only be
claimed by a single character on a single server on this account.
Type "/claim 1" for this item: Satchel of Abu-Kar.
Type "/claim 2" for this item: Taelosian Morphemic Staff.
Type "/claim 3" for this item: Scouting Shield of the Da Bashers.
Type "/claim 4" for this item: Frozen Crystal Shard or Burning Crystal Shard.
Type "/claim 5" for this item: Darvual Crystal.
Type "/claim 6" for this item: Runed Gargoyle Tooth.
Type "/claim 7" for this item: Collapsable Roboboar.
Type "/claim 8" for these items: Satchel of Abu-Kar, Taelosian Morphemic
Staff, Frozen Crystal Shard, Darvual Crystal, Runed Gargoyle Tooth,
Collapsable Roboboar.
Type "/claim 9" for this item: Ornate Barding.
Type "/claim 10" for this item: Sceptre of Draconic Calling.
Type "/claim 11" for this item: Aviak Spirit Totem.
You can claim a veteran reward on this character. Type /veteranReward to
mark this character veteran reward enabled. Once a character is flagged
for veteran rewards they will get all veteran rewards this account is
flagged for, and they will automatically get new veteran rewards as this
account qualifies for them.

I hope they'll replace all that with a single message, such as, "Your
account has a reward(s) waiting to be claimed. Type /claim to examine
and select them. Please remember that each reward can only be claimed
by a single character on a single server on this account."

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Corrected an issue with several Depths of Darkhollow skills that could
not be learned by right-clicking.

I don't know what this means. There are DODH-only skills? Combine is
at DODH now, and I don't remember seeing any new skills.

Only just looking at DoDH myself, but I'm pretty sure there are some
melee discs available from those missions. Maybe when discs got
changed to let you right-click them instead of having to give them
to a guildmaster, these got missed?

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Summoned pets for both players and NPCs will now appear at a certain
range in front of the player. Pets should no longer spawn on top of
their master.

This will be a nice little tweak, its annoying to hand pet gear to pets
who have just been summoned.

And it's aesthetically displeasing having the pet superimposed with you,
and that's something that you get to see every time you summon one.

Hm, I wonder if it opens up any exploits involving sticking your nose in
a wall and summoning a pet to get it on the other side? (Can you cast
Bind Sight on a pet?)

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Um, what did they do before? I can only think of a few things this
could be changing: 1) AE procs will now no longer be AE>.. goodbye
Shakerpage. Or 2) Weapon procs no longer affect the wielder, change to
nullify magic sword and rodrick's dagger and anything else that casts on
the weilder. Or 3) there was some way to get a weapon's proc to hit
more than one target even though it should have been single target and I
just never heard of it

This does sound like it's designed to stop the trick of getting
Earthshaker to proc on ripostes. Presumably there are other weapons
where the proc on riposte was a bonus. Heck, even the little vendor
bought "melee augments" that proc a modest DD or DOT were a nice bonus
on ripostes. Maybe that was determined to be unbalancing?

-- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 69 on E. Marr Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 58 on E. Marr I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Teviron, Knight 58 on E. Marr remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr

[Eric Sursa]

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Um, what did they do before? I can only think of a few things this could
be changing: 1) AE procs will now no longer be AE>.. goodbye Shakerpage.
Or 2) Weapon procs no longer affect the wielder, change to nullify magic
sword and rodrick's dagger and anything else that casts on the weilder.
Or 3) there was some way to get a weapon's proc to hit more than one
target even though it should have been single target and I just never
heard of it

I'm sure option 3 is what they were going for, although whether it 'should'
have been only activated by swinging at the main target is arguable.
Keeping point-blank ae spells from becoming weapon procs seems more
reasonable to me than an across the board nerf to an ability.

Warrior rampage is the operative ability. Hits all targets once in the
frontal
arc, and is also the ability used (in combination with slow) for
shakerpaging,
iirc, so your comment for option 1 still goes. ;)

-Eric

[Pris Flynn]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
9/05/2007

!

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Guards in Commonlands will now attack pumas and lions. Not only will
this make the area a bit safer, but it should also improve the spider
population a bit for those seeking their silk.

OK Good news for spider farmers I guess, but bad news for pelt farmers.
Why change this sort of behavior in a zone few people visit anymore
anyway?

I liked to use this zone to collect spiderling silk and develop a shroud at
level five. There came changes to the zone, the latest being the
consolidation. With that, spiderlings all but disappeared. Now, maybe, I
can send a shroud in there again.

[Robert]

<snip>

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Um, what did they do before? I can only think of a few things this
could be changing: 1) AE procs will now no longer be AE>.. goodbye
Shakerpage. Or 2) Weapon procs no longer affect the wielder, change to
nullify magic sword and rodrick's dagger and anything else that casts on
the weilder. Or 3) there was some way to get a weapon's proc to hit
more than one target even though it should have been single target and I
just never heard of it

Perhaps they mean a reposte will not trigger the weapon effect, except
for a reposte on the one mob the warrior has targeted.

Before I quit, there was a tactic of bringing a large train to
warriors equiped with damaging AOE effect weapons. The warriors would
go into "reposte all attacks" mode; the sheer number of mobs being
reposted meant there was massive AOE process (earthquake as I recall
was the process of choice) -- enough to kill the mobs or at least
enough to let the warrior keep aggro.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Robert
<snip>

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Um, what did they do before? I can only think of a few things this
could be changing: 1) AE procs will now no longer be AE>.. goodbye
Shakerpage. Or 2) Weapon procs no longer affect the wielder, change to
nullify magic sword and rodrick's dagger and anything else that casts on
the weilder. Or 3) there was some way to get a weapon's proc to hit
more than one target even though it should have been single target and I
just never heard of it

Perhaps they mean a reposte will not trigger the weapon effect, except
for a reposte on the one mob the warrior has targeted.
Before I quit, there was a tactic of bringing a large train to
warriors equiped with damaging AOE effect weapons. The warriors would
go into "reposte all attacks" mode; the sheer number of mobs being
reposted meant there was massive AOE process (earthquake as I recall
was the process of choice) -- enough to kill the mobs or at least
enough to let the warrior keep aggro.

Yes, this is exactly what they meant, and this tactic, known as
"shakerpage" was exactly what they were aiming at.

When they initially implemented this fix, it also reputedly disabled a
lot of other stuff like buff based procs, but they fixed the fix before
I tried it out.

[Eric Sursa]

Post by Robert
<snip>

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Perhaps they mean a reposte will not trigger the weapon effect,
except for a reposte on the one mob the warrior has targeted.
Before I quit, there was a tactic of bringing a large train to
warriors equiped with damaging AOE effect weapons. The
warriors would go into "reposte all attacks" mode; the sheer
number of mobs being reposted meant there was massive
AOE process (earthquake as I recall was the process of
choice) -- enough to kill the mobs or at least enough to let
the warrior keep aggro.

Weapons never proc'd on ripostes. You're thinking of
rampage which allowed a warrior an 'ae' swing, hitting
all mobs in his frontal arc, in combination with a
shaman's slow to increase proc rate.

[the wharf rat]

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Hmmmm. Doesn't that break the whole earthshaker thing?

[Tony]

Post by the wharf rat

Post by Lance Berg
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Hmmmm. Doesn't that break the whole earthshaker thing?

That's the intent.

Sony managed to break most non-weapon procs in the patch obviously.

[the wharf rat]

Post by Tony
That's the intent.

So after 8 years why did they bother making major changes to fix
an...exploit???...used mostly by a few wealthy old-timers to PL guild alts?

Was earthshaker really the focus of this change?

[Impmon]

Post by the wharf rat

Post by Tony
That's the intent.

So after 8 years why did they bother making major changes to fix
an...exploit???...used mostly by a few wealthy old-timers to PL guild alts?
Was earthshaker really the focus of this change?

I think it has something to do with the new card game, ES would mean
farming cards easy while nerfing ES means slow and long farm for the
desireable card.

[Tony Evans]

Post by the wharf rat

Post by Tony
That's the intent.

So after 8 years why did they bother making major changes to fix
an...exploit???...used mostly by a few wealthy old-timers to PL guild alts?
Was earthshaker really the focus of this change?

Devs have commented in the past that Rampage + Earthshaker was the reason
why no further PBAOE weapons had been added to the game recently, and that
they would fix the code if they got around to tinkering with that part of
the code for any other reason.

As someone else has posted, the suspicion is that they want to remove any
option for killing hundreds of LB mobs at once to avoid LoN booster pack
farming.

[Impmon]

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 06:23:09 -0400, Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg
- Summoned pets for both players and NPCs will now appear at a certain
range in front of the player. Pets should no longer spawn on top of
their master.

Nice, makes it a lot easier to give the pet toys without having to
move. Other than that it's mostly pointless athestic fix.

Post by Lance Berg
*** Zones ***
- Re-enabled Manastone usage in the following revamped zones: Lavastorm,
West Freeport, East Freeport, North Desert of Ro, and South Desert of Ro.

And the price on Manastone would raise a bit... still largely useless.
PS why not Split Paw? The zone is on Antonica contenient.

Post by Lance Berg
*** Miscellaneous ***
- Weapon procs will now only fire on the player's main target.

Hello flood of useless Earthshaker in bazaar... ES + war's ramp disc
= massive AE aggro but with the proc only working on main target, ES
is mow mostly worthless.

[Don Woods]

Post by Lance Berg
- The EverQuest window can now be sized by simply dragging the border on
the window!

Okay, I know everyone's up in arms over all the non-weapon procs
breaking (like SK lifetap procs, among many many others), but when
I got home today and logged in for the first time since the patch,
the first thing that struck me was that they've completely broken
windowed mode.

As you may know, under the old windowed mode there were various
specific screen resolutions you could select. And of course you
might need to lay out your UI windows differently at different
resolutions, so the UI_name_server.ini files kept track of the
location and size of each UI element separately for each possible
resolution.

Well, apparently the new windowed mode uses some new way of figuring
out the dimensions of the EQ window, and it doesn't match ANY of the
existing resolutions in the .ini file. The result? If you play in
windowed mode -- which I do almost exclusively -- all the UI elements
are tossed around the window in some haphazard way. In many cases,
users have reported that the UI elements are resized too small to use,
such as spell gem windows that only show 3-4 gems. The problem is
worse if you use a custom UI, but even the default UI is messed up in
windowed mode.

It's pretty impressive that they can do this twice in one patch.
They make a change to how procs work, and manage not to notice that
they've broken most procs completely. (Despite the fact that, even
in the very limited time this was on Test, the problem WAS reported.)
And they make a change to how windowed mode works, and manage not to
notice that they've broken windowed mode UI layout completely. This
is exceptionally thorough, even for SOE.

I suppose at some point I'll sit down and painstakingly log in each
of my characters, then switch back and forth between fullscreen (so
I can remind myself where all my windows belong) and windowed (so I
can put everything back). Fortunately many of my characters have
similar layouts so once I've fixed a few I should be able to edit
the .ini files to fix the others. Heck, I might even be ready to
play the game again in time for Saturday's raids.

And here I thought I was paying SOE so I could play. Little did I
know I'm paying them for the right to alpha test their code changes.
And as an added bonus I get to spend a few days reconstructing my UI.
What fun!

Bah. I'm going to go play some other games for a while and hope that
they fix this mess before I bother spending any time trying to repair
it myself.

-- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 69 on E. Marr Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 58 on E. Marr I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Teviron, Knight 58 on E. Marr remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr

[the wharf rat]

Post by Don Woods
Okay, I know everyone's up in arms over all the non-weapon procs
breaking (like SK lifetap procs, among many many others), but when

Did they break the cleric "ward of..." procs?

Post by Don Woods
It's pretty impressive that they can do this twice in one patch.

I'm suprised the problems weren't revealed by their extensive
testing and QA processes.