*The Hole*

We are pleased to announce the opening of The Hole, a high-level dungeon on
the continent of Odus. The Hole is a complementary addition to EverQuest,
available to all subscribers regardless of their Kunark status. The files
necessary to enter The Hole are available via the "Optional Patch" button
at the bottom of the patch program interface. The files are quite large
(about 9MB total), so if the download is going slowly, you may want to
postpone downloading the files until later.

As mentioned above, The Hole is a high-level dungeon, designed to support
characters starting at about level 40. It should be regarded as extremely
dangerous. As a note, jumping in The Hole from Paineel is NO LONGER A
SHORTCUT TO TOXXULIA FOREST. The GMs will not recover corpses for people
who fall, or jump, or attempt to levitate into The Hole.

*Vallon Zek is now Coin-Only*

As we announced earlier this week, due to the number of people specifying
interest in "coin-only" loot on Vallon Zek, versus those wishing to retain
item- loot, we have implemented "coin-only" looting rules for PvP combat on
Vallon Zek.

*Resurrection*

Previously, players had to be resurrected within two hours after death in
order to receive any experience back as part of the resurrection. Due to
the increased size and difficulty associated with Kunark zones, we've
raised this limit from two hours to three. This should assist players and
make it easier for them to obtain an experience-returning resurrection
within the time limit.

*Warping*

We put in some code that should help decrease the "ghosting" (NPCs
appearing to be some place they aren't) being reported in some of the
larger Kunark zones. Please let us know how this goes.

*Locked Doors*

We noticed few weeks ago that it is common practice to use NPCs to open
locked doors rather than by using the services of someone that is able to
pick locks. In order to protect and increase the value of the abilities of
the lock-picking classes, NPCs have gained the ability to walk through
locked doors without opening them.

*Vox and Nagafen*

Over the past couple of weeks, we've received more and more reports of
these dragons being bested by smaller and smaller groups of higher-level
(high 50s) adventurers. As we've always felt that Dragons should be
special encounters that require a large number of people, we were left with
some choices.

One choice available to us was to increase the power of the dragons to a
level where the level 60 folks would find them challenging. This would
have the disadvantage of forever placing them out-of-reach for those who
did not buy Kunark, and place them further out-of-reach for those who did,
but are just now approaching the levels where they could go on Dragon
raids. Another possible solution was to make the dragons flee (depop) when
engaged by a more powerful group of people. This would have the undesired
effect of allowing some people to deny others the experience of fighting a
dragon.

Instead of raising the bar as mentioned above, we've instead decided that
dragons, or at least these two dragons, should have the magical ability to
pick their own fights. Players of level 53 or above will now encounter
some difficulty when attempting to assist in combat with these
dragons. This should help 40s and low 50-level characters with their
chances to encounter a dragon without worry of getting forced out by much
higher level players. In addition, it also has the added effect of
creating a natural progression from the younger dragons of Antonica to the
elder and more formidable dragons of Kunark.

-The EverQuest Team