Couple of Bard issues addressed in today's patch...

May 25th, 8:00am
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*Patch Day*

Greetings all! The following changes have been implemented on the Live
servers:

*Spells/Songs*

- Voltaic Draught, a high level wizard direct damage spell was improperly
saving versus resistance to cold. It now appropriately saves versus magic.
- The higher level bard song by Brusco was improperly healing the target
instead of damaging it. This has been corrected.

*Items*

The Shadowknight class-specific quest armor, Darkforge armor, has had its
weight decreased substantially.

The Runed Fighter's Staff, previously useable by Monks and Warriors, has
been restricted to Monks only. The statistics on this staff are much more
powerful than normally allowed for warriors. This change is retroactive and
will be reflected on items currently in inventory. Though we strive to avoid
negatively adjusting items after they have been earned, this item presented
a balance issue, making the change necessary. We apologize to warriors that
currently own this weapon.

A data error with the Symphonic Saber, causing it to report "Item out of
charges", has been corrected. Due to the dynamics of this particular issue,
current owners will need to contact a GM to trade this item out for a new,
properly working version of the item.

The Burning Rapier (rogue weapon) has been enhanced. In addition to an
increase in statistics, it received a stronger spell effect. The lightsource
effect on the weapon has been removed due to an aesthetic rogue desire to be
"sneaky" :)

The effect on the Hangman's Noose will now work properly.

*General Changes*

- Some NPCs in Dalnir were casting spells much too powerful for their level.
They have been adjusted.
- Pathing information has been updated in Highkeep. NPCs and pets should
have a much easier time of navigating the zone.
- Some Quest-NPCs were not spawning properly in Rathe Mountains. These
issues have been corrected.
- A handful of problems reported with research practice via the Concordance
of Research have been corrected. All practice-rune recipes should now work
correctly.
- Gorilla's in Burning Wood now have a new texture set that properly
reflects their undead status.
- Fishing should now work properly in Kunark zones.
- /yell now reports the proper direction to people hearing the yell.
- Corrected a bug that gave some races the impression that they were allowed
to start their character in Cabalis. They were never actually allowed to
create the character there, however the indication that they could has been
fixed.
- Corrected sound issues that were causing some crashes to the desktop in
certain cases.

We are in the process of patching music files (*.XMI) for zones in which
music does not currently work. There are 55 small files (around 2K each)
that will be patched over the next couple of days to enable music in all of
the affected zones.

The zone of Timorous Deep has been tuned and itemized. Certain aspects of
the changes have made certain areas of the zone more dangerous, but the
reward should be well worth the risk. Feel free to visit this zone and
search out its treasures at your leisure. Note: These changes went in on
Monday.

Upon investigation, we discovered a deficiency with the amount of experience
being rewarded in many Kunark zones (mostly dungeons). The affected zones
have been updated, and adventurers should notice the greater experience
reward in return for the increased risk and challenge associated with these
zones.

- The EverQuest Team

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