SS Patch Message 9/19

Welcome to EverQuest: The Serpent's Spine, the 12th expansion for EverQuest!

- New Player Race: The Drakkin have been created from both human and
dragon blood to protect the future of all dragon kind. Several colors
and customizations will be available to make each Drakkin character
unique, such as elegant scale markings and horns.
- Level Cap Increase: Players can now reach level 75, complete with new
spells, abilities, raids and quests for greater power.
- Content for Levels 1 to 75: Play through every level of the game
without ever leaving the Serpent Spine Mountains. The entrance to
Serpent's Spine can be found within Highpass Hold.
- New Starting City: Crescent Reach is a fully functioning city with all
that is required to learn and thrive in EverQuest, including merchant,
quest, combat and tradeskill areas. All classes and races are welcome
within the city.
- Dynamic Features: New zones, NPCs, destructible and interactive objects.
- New AAs

Spell Ranks: The new spells that you can acquire in The Serpent's Spine
have different ranks to them. The higher ranks of a spell are generally
more powerful and more difficult to obtain than the lower ranks. When
you scribe a higher rank of a spell that you already know, the lower
rank will automatically be overwritten by the higher rank and your spell
casting gems and hotkeys will be updated to reflect that you now have a
higher rank of the spell.


*** General Game Improvements ***

*** AA System ***

The AA system has undergone some significant back-end changes. The
experience you get toward an AA point is now based on the difficulty of
the NPC relative to you rather than being based directly on the NPCs
level. This means that you will gain a similar amount of experience
killing even con creatures at all levels. The amount of experience
required to gain an AA is based off the current amount required for a
level 70 character to do so, so players at level 70 shouldn't see much
of a difference. Players below level 70 will gain AA experience at a
rate faster than they were before since they are now gaining it at a
similar rate as the level 70. Going forward, this rate will remain
static so the amount of kills to gain an AA point at level 75 will be
the same it is at level 70. Current abilities and points spent are not
affected by this change.


*** Death ***

We've made a change to the way death works. When you die now you will be
"hovering" over your body and can choose to stay that way while waiting
for a resurrection instead of immediately zoning to your bind point.
This is being done to help players on slow connections who take a big
hit from having to zone twice when they die.


*** Character Creation ***

We've changed character creation to make it more graphical, allow
characters to be created from a single page, and updated it to include
features associated with the new Drakkin race. As part of this, we've
set up some character defaults so starting point allocation, starting
city, and starting deity all have defaults now, which can be changed if
you wish.


*** Con Color Changes ***

We have introduced a new con color, dark blue, which represents a range
of blue con NPCs that give a bonus to their experience due to being very
close to your level, generally within 5 levels. The concept of a dark
blue con NPC has existed in EQ for a while now, but we've decided to
change the con system to visually include this range so you can visually
see when an NPC falls into this "sweet spot". To properly display a
different shade of blue, we've had to reorder the cons a little bit.
From trivial to highest con, the colors are now:

- Gray - This creature is trivial to you and will give you no experience
for killing it.
- Green - This creature is not much of a threat, but will still give you
some experience.
- Blue - This creature is below your level, but high enough level to
give you experience.
- Dark Blue - This creature is below your level, but close enough to
provide a solid challenge and gives you more experience than normal blue
cons.
- White - This creature is the same level as you
- Yellow - This creature is slightly above your level.
- Red - This creature is well above your level.

In addition, yellow con now extends up to 3 levels above the player for
high end NPCs to help casters determine what can be affected by their
spells.


*** Downtime ***

As EverQuest has grown over the years, the amount of downtime imposed
upon players has grown as well and we'd rather players find challenge in
the fights themselves than in the time between them. Toward that end,
we've created a new system that is simple to use, but powerful and
flexible enough to control downtime as the game continues to grow.

The basics of the new system are simple. Once you have been
out-of-combat for a sufficient amount of time, you can sit down (or be
on a non-moving horse) and begin to rest. While resting, you enter an
accelerated regeneration state that will quickly recover your mana,
health, and endurance. For most single group content, once you are out
of combat for 30 seconds you can rest. While dealing with multi-group
content, that time is 5 minutes. The amount of time you have to be
out-of-combat before you can rest varies for group content and raid
content due to the different needs of the different encounter types.

There are a series of icons that will display by your character's name
to let you know what your character's current state is.

- Crossed Swords - You are currently in combat.
- Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest yet. In
addition to the hourglass, there is a timer bar beneath the endurance
bar that will count down as you get closer to being rested.
- Poison Drop - You are no longer in combat, but cannot rest because of
a debuff that is affecting you. You must get rid of the debuff before
you can rest. Certain debuffs now have a yellow border instead of a red
one. These debuffs do not affect your ability to rest.
- Void - The void is the default icon and indicates that you are not
in-combat and you can rest at any time.
- Energy Swirl - The energy swirl indicates that you are currently resting.


*** Group Mentoring ***

Players can now share their group leadership experience with another
member of their group.


*** Reward Window ***

Tasks within The Serpent's Spine have a new way of giving out rewards.
When there are multiple rewards to choose from, you will get to choose
which one you like from a selection window. If you don’t choose a reward
immediately, you can bring up the window later to make the selection but
you can only have a maximum of 5 outstanding rewards at any time. If you
go above that, the oldest reward will be replaced and you will be unable
to claim that reward.


*** NPCs ***

- Corrected a couple of problems in the NPC call-for-help code. NPCs
will now call for help immediately when attacked regardless of when they
were last aggroed if they are no longer aggro. Also, NPCs will now
properly aggro on the owner of a pet if the pet is sent to attack the NPC.
- Shrewd halfling bankers have set up shop in the guild lobby.
- Coldwind in Nektulos will now offer a confirmation box to players when
they try to remove their Curse of the Blood AAs.
- Various issues with the Trial of Lashing in Plane of Justice have been
resolved.
- The balances in the Kvxe Pirik event in Tacvi will once again reset to
full health between waves.
- The Alchemy vendors have set up shop in Innothule, Everfrost, West
Cabilis, and Shar Vahl.
- A new vendor has appeared in East Cabilis that caries some basic
adventuring supplies.
- Tani N`mar and Founy Jestands are now pick-pocketable again.
- The skeletons summoned by the Swarm of Decay ability are casting their
spells properly again.
- Tegea Prendyn has grown tired of her ocean view and now rests near an inn.
- Char and Blaze in the ROTA raid now have their spells functioning
correctly again.
- Many healer NPCs in Depths of Darkhollow now require some casting time
to get off their big heal.
- The Vengeful skeletons in Everfrost should no longer evade the guards
quite so well.


*** Tradeskill ***

- Made the Foldable Reinforced Medicine Bag a bit roomier.
- For clarity, the tradeskill trophies and carry-alls now list the lore
group they are part of.
- The yield when making metal bits has increased to 2.
- Modified the recipe for Blessing of Reverence to make the spell line
more consistent.
- Lost Dungeons of Norrath and Omens of Wars spells have become
tradable. Additionally, Lost Dungeons of Norrath spells will have no
token sellback value to NPCs.


*** Spells ***

- Stun-caps have been added to the various levels of the Strike of
Opportunity spells.
- The Circle of Power aura effects will now improve all melee and ranged
attacks instead of affecting only one-hand blunt.
- Wolf form illusions will no longer automatically make you KOS to guards.
- Illusion: Tree now uses a different, global tree model rather than the
tree model it used to use, which was only available in older zones.
- The damage dealt by high level NPCs that have been charmed has been
increased.
- Increased the regeneration of pets while they are out-of-combat to
keep pace with the increases of out-of-combat regeneration for PCs.
- Translocate spells no longer require a reagent.
- The reuse on the warrior disciplines Bazu Bellow and Mock are no
longer linked together.


*** AAs ***

- Most beneficial AA effects that last for less than 30 seconds will now
go to the short duration buff window instead of the normal buff window.
- Improved Harm Touch and Leech Touch are now on different timers.
- The Shadowknight AAs Consumption of the Soul and Improved Consumption
of the Soul now provide a greater increase to Leech Curse.
- Refunded all AAs that increased your chance to channel through damage.
Channeling is currently set to 100% for all classes due to a long
standing issue in how it is calculated, so the abilities weren't doing
anything. This includes Channeling Focus, Channeling Mastery, and
Internal Metronome. Item Channeling abilities, such as Concentration,
are not affected.
- You will now get a message if you have the Stonewall or Willful Death
AA and successfully feign death through a spell that hit you.
- Lowered the reuse time on the Monk AA Imitate Death to 18 minutes.
Modified Hastened Death to reduce the reuse by 2 more minutes per rank
of the ability.
- Increased the mitigation of the higher ranks of the bard AA Shield of
Notes.
- By popular demand, removed Spell Casting Subtlety from the Bard AA
lineup. Any points spent in that ability will be refunded.
- The Beastlord AA Feral Swipe has received a damage increase.


*** Skills ***

- Modified skill progression for many classes.
- Bards and Beastlords now have access to Double Attack starting at
level 71.
- All bard instrument skills are now available starting at level 5.


*** Veteran Rewards ***

- Issues with the Steadfast Servant casting lower level effects at
certain level ranges have been corrected.


*** Events ***

- The Aura of Destruction from Uqua and **SMURF** of a Poisoned Pin from
Demi-Plane of Blood will land reliably again and last their intended
duration.
- Slightly reduced the hit-points of the third wave adds in the Sendaii
event.


*** Items ***

- Changed the name of the "Stromguard Forge" to "Stormguard Forge".
- Many items that had extremely strong light sources have had their
light sources reduced a bit to help with the issues where lightly
colored surfaces become blindingly bright.
- Many spell reagents now stack to 100 instead of 20.
- Some items now have a new tab on them called "Lore" that will give
extended information about the item.
- Shield of the Immaculate, Amulet of Necropotence, and Holgresh Elder
Beads are now flagged all/all.
- Upgraded Stats on Class Specific Items in Demiplane of Blood.


*** Disciplines ***

- You may now learn combat abilities by right-clicking upon the Tomes
instead of delivering them to your guild master.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Race based experience penalties have been removed.
- You can you enable texture streaming from the advanced graphics
options window. This should reduce the total memory used by the client
during any given play session.

Small update:


September 19th, 2006 - UPDATE
_____________________

*** Please Read ****

Due to issues with granting the extra two character slots to Station
Access subscribers we will be temporarily granting these slots to all
players. If you are not a Station Access subscriber then these slots
WILL be taken away when the issue is fixed. Please do not make
characters using these slots unless you are a Station Access
subscriber.

- Fixed issue with AA experience while grouping.
- Server stability addressed.
- Non-TSS players will no longer get stuck in the Tutorial.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. Thank you for
your patience.

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Submitted by: Davek
This message was submitted through the Erollisi Marr Forum