March 14th, 3:00am
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***EverQuest Turns Two***
Two years ago this Friday, EverQuest was launched, forever changing the
course of online gaming. Today EverQuest boasts nearly 360,000 active
subscribers, and a two-year retention rate of 65%. Peak usage tops 89,000
simultaneous users with average peak usage at roughly 87,000. The EverQuest
community continues to grow daily.
We've put up a page on the EverQuest website to help celebrate EverQuest's
achievement and to thank our loyal fans. Over the next couple of days we
will be posting interesting content from EverQuest's humble beginnings, as
well as a few surprises. Check it out!
http://everquest.station.sony.com/2ndanniversary/index.jsp
*Ever Changing, Evolving, Expanding*
The Warrens:
As part of our two-year celebration, we're pleased to announce the release
of "The Warrens", a free expansion zone located on Odus. "The Warrens" is a
low-to-mid level dungeon and the home of the Kobolds on Odus. You can patch
the Warrens by running the "Optional Patch".
In addition to filling-out the continent of Odus, "the Warrens" will also
serve as a platform to try out some of the new ideas brought forth by
members of the team and the public aimed at addressing some common gameplay
issues. We would like to see what options might be open to and enjoyed by
the players in the future.
The first issue addressed in the Warrens is the problem of higher level
characters competing with lower level characters for loot on lower level
creatures. To address this issue, in the Warrens, a group that "outclasses"
a particular foe will not receive any loot that is MAGIC, LORE, or NODROP.
All other loot will drop. "Outclassing" a foe is defined as having a group
makeup such that no one in your group receives experience from the kill.
This can happen if, for instance, the foe is "green" to all group members,
or if the group makeup is of such a wide level range that the system
determines the fight was unbalanced using regular experience rules.
Any time that an NPC would have dropped special loot and does not due to it
being outclassed, a message indicating that the combat was "trivial" will be
displayed to the group.
As time goes on, we will be implementing new gameplay subsets and
adjustements in the Warrens. Please be sure to let us know what you think!
The Planes:
The Planes of Fear and Hate have been updated as part of our two-year
celebration. Adventurers in the Plane of Fear will notice that some
high-level foes are now available. Rewards for former "boss npcs" have been
moved down to underlings that are roughly as powerful as the old bosses
were.
The Plane of Hate has also received a large update, but this one also
includes the opening of a previously undiscovered part of the zone, now full
high-level expansion-oriented content. Much as with Fear, rewards from
bosses have been moved.
Epic Quests:
As part of the Plane updates, we've made several adjustments to Epic quests
for a number of classes. Previously, questers of many classes were put in
direct competition with regular non-questing adventurers for a few coveted
spawns. In these cases, a new step has been added to separate the "Epic
Encounter" NPCs from the "Epic Quest" NPCs.
For those who are mid-quest, all quest requirements have remained the same.
In other words, if you turn the same items into the same NPC, the same
reward applies. What has changed is that some components may be in a
different location from where you expect them. It is recommended that you
check with the last NPC in line or other adventurers to find where you need
to go next.
***Patch Day***
Along with the big announcements above, today was a patch day as well:
- Fixed a bug that allowed exploitation of the period of time between
character control being established and loading of character faction tables.
- Fixed the Dagger of Frost. Its special item flags were improperly removed
in the last patch.
- The spell, Mark of Karn, has been enhanced to heal more per hit.
- The effect on the Celestial Elixir Breastplates has been changed to the
enhanced Mark of Karn. The casting time on these items has also been
changed to 9 seconds.
- NPCs in Thurgadin will no longer stop traveling when you /hail them.
- Fixed a problem present in Nagafen's Lair and the Plane of Hate that
caused framerate to drop over time.
- Shift-clicking on a stack of items will cause you to pick up the whole
stack. This is in addition to CTRL-clicking on a stack, which will cause
you to pick up one. These both also work for coins now as well as items.
- In addition to the above, holding down the shift key while clicking the
"Sell" button in the vendor screen will cause you to sell the entire stack
of items if a stack is selected. For example, you can sell 20 peridots by
selecting the stack, and shift-clicking "Sell". I'd recommend though that
you give them to your neighborhood cleric first though :) The ability to
buy stacks is on the list for implementation in the near future.
- There are a ton of new recipies for trade skill users out there. Check
your books.
- There are a bunch of new quests as well.
- It appears that we fixed a bug with the Mend skill that caused it to be
unavailable for a few seconds after it was supposed to be ready for use.
Let us know if there are any further problems.
- Foraging items will now yield a message giving you some idea of what
you've foraged.
Please remember that the /movelog for the Rathe and E'ci is scheduled for
this weekend. Please read the message below for details on the /movelog.
*A Message From Customer Service*
We regularly receive requests from customers that want their characters
moved from one server to another, or from one account to another.
Unfortunately, due to the EverQuest EULA, the number of requests that we
receive, the desire to maintain stable server communities and economies, and
other problems associated with character moves, we can not move characters
across servers or accounts.
It is important for the integrity of the server that items from a server
remain on that server. We also feel that it is important that characters
that have built up a reputation, good or bad, have to live with the
consequences of their decisions, and are not allowed to retreat from that
reputation by changing servers.
The only exception to this rule is when we open a Movelog for moving a large
number of characters to new servers. At no other time will we move a
character in such a fashion.
- The EverQuest Team