Nights of the Dead is now live! The event runs through November 9th. The zones were not available first thing this morning, but this issue has been addressed.

Kiara and Amnerys from SOE’s Community Relations team will be hosting a rat race through Norrath! Just roll a level 1 Ratonga toon starting in Neriak and meet at Hate’s Envy. You’ll be given a list of items to gather along the way, and the fastest finishers will be rewarded. But if you don’t win, don’t fret! Everyone who attends will get a prize just for coming.

The dates and times by server can be found in the writeup at EQ2Players. The event happens on one server a day, running from October 13th through November 6th.

From EQ2Players:

The leaves are turning and the air has become crisp in the land of Norrath. Ghoulish activity has started to increase. It can mean only one thing; the return of the Nights of the Dead. Norrath’s annual Halloween celebration will be returning from 12:01am PDT on October 16th and will run through 11:59pm PST on November 9th.

New this year:

• New Haunted Hedgemaze in Nektulos Forest!
• New holiday collection.
• New Headless Horseman in Nektulos Forest.
• New rewards for some of the old Nights of the Dead Events!
• New illusions from the goblins.
• New costume illusions available from holiday merchants.
• New holiday recipe book.

Returning favorites:

• Trick-or-treating in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Haunted house in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Ponchy’s quest line in Antonica.
• Decorations in the cities.
• Goblins who cast costume illusions.
• Haunted Mansion in Loping Plains.
• Candy drops for tradeskilling.
• Holiday tradeskills are back.
• Purchaseable costume illusions.
• Neriak’s clandestine (and smashable) decorations!

Some Nights of the Dead Wallpapers

Here are your EQ2 Update Notes for October 7:

GENERAL

• Legends of Norrath (LoN) cards and booster packs that drop in game are once again tradeable.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• The Maj’Dul Monitor Achievement now accepts quests completed in the Courts.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• The dire and alpha snowbeasts associated with Enraged Haladan now have somewhat less health.
• Hard Mode: Brilliant Adepts have less health.  Boreas and Argos should no longer cast Trio of Teeth on players while they are leashed.  Curse of Confusion now lasts 18 seconds rather than 30 seconds.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE

• Anashti Sul will no longer reset her ring event (the Manta Ray) when raids wipe to her (after the ring event was completed).

Player vs Player

• Novice of Discord ward will no longer place you into combat when hit.
• You may now purchase the Crystal of Discord from the general merchant.

QUESTS

• Quests now sort properly by name.
• The section of the heritage quest for the dark mail gauntlets, Tie up Some Loose Ends, should now update properly upon entering Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible.

SPELLS

• Spell Trainers will now provide you with the latest information about spells.

SPIRES EVENT

• The Magic Mouth now can be placed in guild halls, as originally intended.
• Boss encounters will once again spawn for full groups in The Ethereal Rift.
• The quest “Connecting Threads” should now be a little less confusing.
• The Ethereal Rift would sometimes be empty if the player entering it was very lagged. This should no longer happen.

VEESHAN’S PEAK

• Magics in Veeshan’s Peak are no longer able to restrict players from entering certain wings of the stronghold!

Windslasher, who headed up the Rebuilding the Spires event has shared their insight into why we did not see a “Grand Finale” to the Spires Event:

Congratulations on finishing the spire!

While it would have given me great pleasure to have an epic-x4 dragon with 20 million hitpoints spawn and attack you, that simply would not have fit the theme or lore of this event. The idea here was to let everyone on the server contribute in a 100% cooperative effort that permanently affects the game world. So the bosses that attack the spires during construction have a lore reason to exist, and were intended to be beatable by a small pick-up raid. The real reward for completing one of these spires is the permanent teleportation portal that opens up in the middle platform. It’s a reward for the entire server, that anyone can use.

Now, I absolutely love competitive raid gameplay, but I couldn’t justify setting up this event as a race to spawn the boss mob for server-unique rewards and eternal bragging rights. It just would not have made sense in this case.  I certainly want to make events like that in the future, but this one isn’t a copy of the old Kingdom of Sky prelude.

and in another thread:

I remember the Kingdom of Sky prelude event, and the intent behind this event was much different from the previous one. While there are some contested epic spawns, they don’t give rewards that are unavailable to other participants. Everything you can take away from this event is purchased from the Quellithulian merchant.

I personally feel that enough precautions were taken, that a contested mob at the end would not have left hurt feelings like the Kingdom of Sky event did. Otherwise there is no question a ton of work went into making this event work.

It’s too bad EQ2 developers don’t really talk to the players about Live Events and instead make assumptions.

Over 2 years ago, the first Spires were being rebuilt. Tradeskillers did all the work, and then when the spire reached 100% completion, an Epic x4 dragon appeared, killing them all. Raid guilds swooped in and battled it out for the contested win. Some even swarmed the various zones by logging in dozens of alt characters to intentionally lag out other players to prevent them from successfully taking down the mob. In the end, the raid guilds got Titles and all the credit, and the tradeskillers, the ones who had done the work of building the Spires, got nothing but a bitter taste in their mouths.

This time around, I do believe the event developer wanted to make sure there was not a repeat of these hard feelings. Certainly, there were many precautions taken. First, participation in the Spire Rebuilding came in the form of solo quests, small group quests, harvesting, and tradeskilling. Second, there are a huge variety of awards available on the merchant, more than have ever been offered for a live event. Third, the quests varied depending on whether you were rebuilding a spire or attuning a spire.

With all of these precautions, I thought for certain that we could now safely and fairly have this Grand Finale when each spire neared completion. What with the event now encompassing 9 spires instead of 3, I thought more guilds would have a chance to participate in the event. And every player who had the smallest part to play in the event still got something.

I’ve taken a small part in these events myself. Not only the repeatable quests, but  when the spire in Zek reached 30%, a cry of frustration rang out from other players who gave up and moved on to other spires. Four of us grouped up and defeated the 84^^^, allowing the Zek Spire Rebuild to continue. So I had been looking forward to dealing with the forthcoming x2 mob, and eventually (presumably) a x4 raid mob.

.
So I was disappointed to read this account from Hellswrath of the Alliance Guilds of Blackburrow and how their completion of the Everfrost Spire turned out:

First, I would like to say a big congratulations to everyone in the Blackburrow Guild Alliance for their hard work over two days in first building the Everfrost spire to 100%, and then starting all over and aligning it to 100% too!  An awesome job and a lot of hard work for two days straight!  Also, thank you to everyone else who helped on the spire, even for a little while!

Next, I’ll give a quick breakdown of the spire event to all those who are wondering what goodies these spires hold for those willing to put in the effort to complete them!

As most know, the spires in Zek, Everfrost, Lavastorm, and Loping Plains need to be built while the ones in CL, ANT, EL, Feerrott, Nek, and TS are already built and need to be aligned.

While being built, the spire in EF spawned a lvl 84 ^^^ heroic mob at 30%.  The mob killed all npcs and most low level alts doing the spire quests until he was taken down.  The reward for killing the spawned heroic was a small chest that gave 20 spire tokens to each group member.

The spire progressed as normal until it hit 90%, when it spawned a x2 epic.  It was a mob that looked very similar to the heroic, and gave 50 spire tokens to each raid member for killing him.

At 100%…….the spire reset back to 0%.  lol, yes, after all that work we needed to start all over again.  So we picked up again the next day and ground it out again.  While we expected another spawned mob or two, nothing happened by 70%, so we figured the next one would be a logical progression to an epic x4.  By the time we approached 100%, we had a full raid of people who had all been spending time building this spire.  The lowest contributor was a couple hours, the highest was somewhere well over 20 active hours.

It was the way it should be, with most of the people who had spent all their time to build the spire being the ones to get the epic pull and the credit.  Even the people from other guilds who came to look at getting in on the kill were gracious about being politely turned away.

We hit 100%, the spire completed, and . . . . . nothing happened.

Not a thing.  We stood around looking for a mob, checked track, checked the quest npcs and the spire itself to see if we were missing something.

Nope.  There was simply no point to completing this live event.  I must say that a full raid of great people (and many who were cheering on from the sidelines who had helped as well) went away feeling dispirited about the complete lack of reward for all this work.

That being said, thanks again to all those from Alpha Legion that entertained this crazy notion and stayed with us for a ridiculous amount of time to finish this event!  And a huge thanks to everyone who joined us from Casual Alliance, Wayward Waifs, Vainglory, Solace, and everyone else in the Blackburrow Alliance (and outside, too) who took their time to come hang out and grind out this spire to completion!  Awesome job!

I believe if, during Testing, or even the planning of the event, a dialogue had been opened with players asking what they felt was Good or Bad about the past Spires event and how these concerns could have been mitigated, watering this event down would not have been necessary.

It seems there is a dichotomy within the EQ2 team of what is easy, what is just plain tedious, and what is difficult, and decision after decision proves that these definitions are unclear. There is only one reliable way they’re going to find out how players feel about difficulty and fairness– ask the players. Yet this tool is ignored far too often.

The Shard of Love

A lot of folks have been asking me where the Shard of Love is and how to get there.

First, it should be noted that the Shard of Love is not a group zone like any of the other group zones in The Shadow Odyssey or Rise of Kunark.

The Shard of Love is a very casual group zone that can be completed with 3-4 players. It scales to level (50-80) and rewards appearance items, house items, and reusable cast items. It does not reward the typical armor, jewelry, weapons you are used to in other zones. Some of the mobs, you actually heal them instead of killing them. Think of it more like the Haunted Mansion from last year’s Nights of the Dead event, which was just a fun zone for 3 players.

EQ2 Wiki has drawn a blank, but fortunately EQ2 Zam is on the ball here and has a writeup on Shard of Love and a list of names and quests.

The Shard of Love Access Quest

As for how to access the zone, thanks to Kreanne (Butcherblock) for posting this information:

1. This quest is picked up at the North Qeynos or Commonlands gates.
2. Speak with Priestess Annalisa Swornlove in Antonica’s Coastal Grove {-2233, 24, -699} near the druid ring. Harvest a virtuous component.
3. Travel to the Commonlands where the Avatar of Valor spawns (near the Mourned location).
4. Return to the Priestess and give here the valorian bloom. Speak to her again and she will tell you that the arrow has been blessed.
5. Travel to Greater Faydark and find a place that had meaning for Lady Shea. This is around the base of Tunare’s Sapling {-92,0,0}. Find an ethereal arrow the size of a spear and click on it. A Disciple of Hate will spawn and attack you.
6. Find the weakest point between the Shard of Love and Norrath. As Everfrost is the world of the E’ci, this is where you should go. 🙂 Head to the north end of the dock {-57,-9,56} and click on a scatter of rubble.
7. Return to the Priestess and give here the valorious bloom.
8. Return to Everfrost and meet the Priestess there. Once she completes the ritual and opens the portal, you will be able to return here any time to visit the Shard of Love.
9. Don’t forget to speak to the three Disciples of Love.

Rebuilding the Spires

Also some have been asking where the Rebuilding the Spires events are. You can pick up a quest in the Moors of Ykesha, but this is optional. Just head to the ruined spires in Everfrost, Lavastorm, Zek, or Loping Plains and get started.

You’ll be happy to know that the vendors here have a large selection of items, including those Bracers/Epaulets/Leggings/etc of Imperceptible Beauty, which allows you to hide armor and go “au naturel”.

There are adventure and tradeskill quests alike for aspiring Spire Rebuilders.

Exact Locations of the Spires (EQ2 Zam delivers again)

Chronomagic

If you are wanting to relive the glory days and run lower-level group zones for AA or special appearance armor, you’ll want to check out the Chronomages. There is one that mentors you down to level 10, 15, 20, 25…70, 75 for a small gold and status cost. Another one offers one of 37 quests which reward clearing these underplayed old zones. And a third offers some rather… interesting looking plate armor you might be interested in.

The Qeynos Harbor clan are not hard to find, they’re just across from the docks.

However, the East Freeport group has bumfuzzled a few. They’re living it up on the patio of the bar/inn. If you are a recovering alcoholic, you’ll just have to gather your strength and run through the building, or I suppose you could swim…

Exact Locations for the Chronomages (thanks EQ2 Zam)

Streaming Client (the Tiniest Little Dragon)
Some folks have noticed a new Dragon window on their screen. This is part of the Streaming Client we’ll be getting in Game Update 54. You can read more about it on EQ2 Forums.

Shards of Destiny (Game Update 53) goes live tomorrow, Wednesday September 23rd.

Most notably absent from the Game Update 53 notes are whether the Avatar Gear changes are going live, and whether the Racial Traits received any changes based on the significant feedback posted on the forums.

If you want to read the full Gu53 Update Notes you can read them by clicking right there. I did some significant cleanup for readability and a few clarifications. It’s worth a read, even if you’ve read the official notes.

HOWEVER… we do understand that the full Update Notes are a lot to read and some folks might want just the key points. I can’t guarantee it’s much shorter, but maybe it’s more pleasant to read. So we present them here…

Thanks to Mistal who got the scoop over on Test about what House Items we might be seeing in the Nights of the Dead event this fall. I believe this is on top of all the rewards from last year, but don’t quote me. EQ2 Forums

Greetings Norrathians! There will be a bonus applied to AA experience this weekend, starting at 1:00 p.m. PDT on Friday, August 21st and ending at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Monday, August 24th.

Happy and safe adventuring!

~from EQ2Players~

Not even Noon struck when the splintered shards of the puzzle had been assembled.

This the third tablet of a series. The first two were provided by Cronyn.

In my travels through Norrath, it is my thirst for knowledge that keeps me engaged, keeps me searching. Sometimes I will stumble upon a scrap of information which may at first prove impervious to understanding, but with further study may yet yield answers. I have discovered such a puzzle and present it to you.

If you have not already read Niami Denmother’s writeup of Tinkerfest over at EQ2 Traders, you should check it out. It spells out exactly which Tinkerfest items you will only be able to acquire during this week+ long event (vendor only), and which ones are also craftable by Tinkerers with a skill of at least 25/400 (approximately 1 hour’s crafting).

Note that even the crafted recipes each require one Shiny Tinkerfest Cog which can be harvested in Steamfont up at Gnomeland Security, as well as the celebration hubs in each of the 5 major cities. I should hope there is plenty enough time between now and the end of the event for folks to harvest enough of these cogs to decorate even the largest guild hall.

Tinkerfest is here!! The gnomes of Norrath have resurrected their holiday from more than 500 years ago. This celebration of all things gnomish will bring you new gnomish house items, new shinies to collect, and lots of fun! Look for signs of celebration in gnomish hangouts – Gnomeland Security in Steamfont Mountains, Temple Street in Freeport, Baubleshire in Qeynos! The festivities will run from 12:01am July 24th until 11:59pm August 3rd PDT. See you in Norrath!!

Read More

Tinkerfest at EQ2Traders

The bug that was preventing the Tradeskill Bonus XP in certain instances such as Guild Halls has been corrected. In addition, this July 4th weekend has been changed to award a +50% bonus to Combat XP, Adventure XP, and Tradeskill XP. Although EQ2Players and the forums were accurate, an e-mail that went out could have been interpreted to suggest that Combat XP was getting a bonus this weekend.

Thanks Rothgar (source)!!!

Several folks are reporting that bonus Tradeskill XP is not working in certain guild halls or instances but only on outdoor crafting tables. Check your Tradeskill XP bar carefully to see if you are getting the bonus.

Note that the e-mail notifications that went about were vague and suggested that July 4th weekend was offering bonus XP for adventure and tradeskilling. In fact this is the first AA bonus XP weekend ever offered for EQ2, along with Tradeskill. Combat XP is not currently getting a bonus this weekend.

For the first time ever, EQ2 will be having a Bonus AA XP weekend. Tradeskillers will also get some XP love as well. 🙂 Posted by Kiara on the EQ2 Forums:

To commemorate the holiday weekend, we’ll be turning on bonus AA and Tradeskill exp starting at 4:00PM PDT tomorrow Thursday, July 2nd and running until 10:00AM PDT Monday, July 6th.

For the UK servers it will run from 12:00AM (midnight) Friday July 3rd until 8:00PM Monday, July 6th for folks residing in London (presuming I did my conversions correctly).

Thanks and happy gaming!

Moonlight Enchantments is a new recurring World Event in the forests of Norrath which will only be available the 20th of every month. I apologize for not getting this information up before June 20th, but it should be available for the 20th of every month hereafter.

This event is now known as Moonlight Enchantments (formerly known as the Enchanted Grottos of Norrath).

Essentially, there is a mushroom ring in each of the forests of Norrath which can be entered once per month (on the 20th) to visit five unique hidden instances. Each has purple shinies and quests to be completed. Both offer house items, charge-based mounts, and illusion forms. The mounts in particular have some…unique choices. Between magic mushrooms, brownies, and sunshine yellow carpets that bloom flowers and belch mushrooms, it was quite a trippy day let me tell you. 😉

For those with a scientific mind who wish to know what these instances look like, here is my best guess:

• Emerald Halls entry
• Lower Guk entry
• Lesser Faydark
• ? – mushroom area — dig up compost
• ? – fawns and brownies — make root beer

As always, EQ2Traders is on the ball with a full accounting of these five new forest-based instances and the rewards they offer. It’s quite a selection of house items if you are looking to spruce up your terrarium or take the plunge with a more interesting looking guild hall aquarium. 🙂 Ok, no more bad humor I promise. At least until Wednesday…

A week without news, some of you might be getting jittery. 🙂

GU52 is still on Test, getting nipped, tucked, and tested out. I believe they are on track to get it onto live servers perhaps as early as June 16th (my estimate, arrived using my advanced degree in EQ2ology). I know they really wanted it to be on Live before Fan Faire.

I’ve already documented the broad strokes of Gu52 in my earlier posts. If you haven’t seen a preview of player made Books, upgraded Hex Dolls and Ranged Weapons, or new furniture coming to EQ2, check out the EQTraders.com preview.

Many folks have been asking for more Live Events to be added to EQ2 especially during the summer doldrums. Due to changes in how server updates can be handled, it is possible to roll out Live Events a lot more easily. You can look forward to:

• Tinkerfest — Tinkerfest is the great annual gnomish festival of tinkering and all things tinkered. It’s that time in the year when gnomes spend time with family and friends, exchange tinkered gifts, and celebrate the gnomish life.

Further, you can expect a recurring event which will likely be available only one day per month (perhaps when the moon is full!):

• Enchanted Grottos of Norrath — Enchanted Mushroom Rings have sprung up in the forests of Norrath. These lead to instances which contain purple shiny collections, not to mention quests which award Elemental Tokens. Both the collections and the Elemental Tokens reward fantastic furniture and house items.

These two live events are discussed further on the EQ2 Forums, as well as links and pictures to some of the awesome rewards.

It wouldn’t be an EQ2Wire post without a hairball or two…

If you are a bard and your Drum of the Ethernaut  Chronicler is starting to sound a little flat, you’re not alone. A change on Test will make this item (which Fatuus wisely observed is more difficult to acquire than the Dirge/Troubador epic weapons) practically useless. Risk vs. Reward? Discuss it.

She’s got Skills

Adventurers in EQ2 go out of their way to be the best they can be, learning their class, tweaking their AA setups, adjusting casting orders, getting their skills up, and of course getting the best gear. I can assure you that EQ2 Tradeskillers are just as passionate about bettering themselves.

Tradeskillers acquire every recipe available to them, run the Tradeskill group instances added in TSO (some run them solo — oy vey!), earn faction to get access to more items, furniture, clothes, and recipes, work with adventurers to bring home more recipes, etc.

So when a scientific analysis of harvesting revealed that having significantly higher Harvest/Mining/Gathering/Trapping/Fishing skill had such an minimal effect on getting a rare as to be statistically insignificant, I had to dig deeper.

It is possible by donning the harvesting cloak (A Gathering Obsession), tradeskill epic earring (Proof in the Pudding), tradeskill jewelry, diety quest rewards, etc. to increase ones harvesting abilities to 540. This is 59% increase in this skill over what is required for T8 nodes (340). To put this in other terms, to naturally get a harvesting skill of 540, you would have to be a level 108 player.

Now, do I expect a 59% increase in the likelihood of harvesting rares? No. I’m well aware that this would unbalance the game and make rares too common. EQ2 operates on a diminishing returns curve. However nothing prepared me for the revelation that increasing Harvesting skill by 59% only increased the chance of harvesting a rare by .369%.

I know some folks would like to protect their lucrative market for rares (especially silicate loams), but a less than half of one percent increase? Instead of taking roughly 90 minutes to harvest one silicate loam, it will take 89 minutes and 27 seconds.

I love Domino to death, and she has always been above board, telling us exactly what we can expect, what she is looking for input on and what has already been decided. You know where you stand with her. But I will be making the point at Fan Faire — in the politest, most respectful way possible — that some of us expect Skills on items to actually do something. 🙂

GAME UPDATE 51

March / 31 / 2009

FEATURED

• Weapon Appearance Slots
• Players now have access to primary, secondary and ranged appearance slots. The wield style (one-handed, two-handed, shield) of the weapons must match the weapons that are currently equipped.

• Bristlebane’s Day
• (3/31/2009 – 4/8/2009) Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the festivities that surround Bristlebane’s Day! You never know what laughs and pranks are to be found, during this enjoyable time of year. Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight Wood, Timorous Deep and Greater Faydark! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special events occurring only on the highest of silly days, 4/1/2009!

• Lavastorm Revamp
• Lots of brand new content has been added in this classic zone. Almost all of the population has been re-tiered for solo players, with a new level 45 to 55 adventure quest line with the industrious–but rather insane Sootfoot goblins, and a new level 40-45 tradeskill quest line. Brand new void invaded areas also feature new level 80 solo quests. Additionally, a solo-able daily shard quest has been added as well as flying horse paths and additional teleporters to make traversing the zone much easier!

• T3 Shard Armor
• A new set of shard armor is now available from merchants. This requires Molds that drop from the new x2 raid zone, your T2 void shard armor piece, and additional void shards.

• Threat Meter
• Players can now see how much aggro they have generated towards NPC’s in combat. A new UI element will display players’ aggro percentage for their current target or implied target.
• Players with the most hate will also see the hate value for the player below them.
• Players’ aggro value will also appear above an NPC’s head, just below their remaining power. The aggro value displayed above an NPC’s head may be toggled off under Options -> User Interface -> Name and Chat Bubble

• Ward of Elements
• A brand new level 80 two-group (x2) raid instance has been added! This zone is balanced for players without a proliferation of raid gear, and should provide an exciting challenge to any group of 12! The first six bosses can be tackled in any order, and provide fantastic fabled loot with brand new armor sets upgraded from the tier 2 void shard sets, complete with new appearances! They also drop Molds which are necessary to create T3 Void Shard Armor.
• You can find the Ward of Elements in Lavastorm by taking the elevator down to Hollow Tower (in front of Deep Forge) to its lowest level.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Cleric
• Sacrifice is now instant cast and recovery but will no longer be absorbed by wards.
• Allied Prayers will trigger properly if the Cleric is casting.

ATREBE’S LABORATORY

• Many NPC spells within Atrebe’s Laboratory: The Fabled City of Kor-sha will no longer target other NPCs.

GAMEPLAY

• Xebnok and other charming mobs should no longer cause clients to crash.
• Picking character advancement and training spells (i.e. Master II spells) will now attempt to add the spells to your hotbar and indicate where they are with spinning arrows.
• Group members can now use the /invite command to request that the group leader invite a player to the group. Just type /invite <playername>

• The entire group will no longer be zoned out of Scion of Ice when 1 person leaves.

• Chests looted with NBG or Lotto looting options will now give the group 120 seconds to make their decisions.

• Players that have completed the access quest to Trakanon’s Lair will now be able to zone directly to Trakanon without clearing Veeshan’s Peak.

• Sarnak teleporter technology in Gorowyn has expedited transport from the base of the main lift to the residential area.

• Gnomeland security R&D have created a tinkered banker prototype, which is now available for use. No warranty applies, use at own risk, no refunds, gnomeland security accepts no liability for injuries or loss incurred due to malfunction or spontaneous combustion.

GUILD HALLS

• The guild hall mender will now correctly remember the new coverage setting after it is changed.

• Paying upkeep on a house or guild hall now requires confirmation.

• The “Call to Guild Hall” spell to has been modified to have less of an impact on server performance when many players use it at once.

• Amenities will now move with players when moving to a new guild hall.

• Any amenities that are not allowed in the new guild hall will continue to be refunded to players’ escrow accounts. If the move results in having more amenities than allowed, players will not be able to move items until some amenities are removed.

• Permissions for the Harvest Supply Depot amenity have been changed as follows:
• Any player with access to the guild hall may deposit items into the depot.
• Only players with Trustee access to the hall may withdraw items directly from the depot.
• The ability to craft using items in the depot is defined using the permission level on the amenity tab.

ITEMS

• Forgotten Ring of Souls had a higher bonus on it than was intended. It has been changed to 2 base spell damage and 2 spell crit.
• The Paladin Voidbeam set’s 4-piece bonus has been changed.
• The Ranger Flightrift set’s 2-piece bonus now lowers the reuse time of Focus Aim.
• The Zealot’s Steel armor set is no longer sunshine yellow.
• The Shadow Odyssey dirge set armor has had its chest and 2-piece set bonus swapped.
• The Void Shard merchant in the Moors of Ykesha now offers weapons suitable for Brawlers.
• Items collected from the ‘old’ Ethernaut Relics collection now apply to the ‘new’ Ethernaut Relics collection.  The ‘old’ Ethernaut Relics collection has been deleted.
• Set bonuses for Shadow Odyssey raid gear and some “T4” shard-purchased gear have been modified and improved.
• Flightrift Leggings now have a ranged crit bonus instead of melee crit.
• The High-Pressure Forged Breastplate awarded by Tertiary Gurowyn Riz’Din in the Timorous Deep can now be equipped by crusaders as well as warriors.
• The delayed shipment Nagafen statues have finally arrived. Anyone who had /claimed their Nagafen at Rest item should now have a statue in place of the delivery crate.
• The Thex Mallet can now be purchased from Shady Swashbuckler if you have completed the heritage quest.
• Darkened Rapidity now adds +10 Deflection Chance to the fighter version of the Dark Mail Gauntlets.
• The effect from the Talisman of the Ethernauts should now stack with similar effects, like Frenzy of the Dead and Adrenaline Rage.
• The Tainted Ring of Anashti Sul should now proc Deflection Chance similar to its Shield Effectiveness.
• The Signet of Vampiric Kind should now also proc Barrier on a successful deflection.
• Many quest items in Moors of Ykesha have been fixed to no longer trigger procs.
• Quest items for the Befallen missions will no longer trigger procs.
• The Wantia Artisan’s satchel and meager harvesting bag no longer hold non-harvested raw items such as wolf fangs. Only items that are actually harvested can be placed in them.

MOORS OF YKESHA

• Many parts of the solo population within Moors of Ykesha have been reduced in difficulty.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE

• Multiple occurrences of Abstalius should no longer spawn in Palace of the Ancient One.

Player vs Player

• Players can no longer revive while their group is still engaged in PVP based combat.
• The infamy system has been adjusted.&nbsp; Players no longer lose infamy when they die. However, their infamy will slowly decay over time. Also, a new title has been added.

QUESTS

• Lord Byron and his cohorts should be much more accessible for updating quests in Stormhold.

• You can now assist with Qho Augren’s harvesting obsession as you level up, starting at level 5 (adventurer or tradeskill).

• City writs that previously sent adventurers into Lavastorm have been adjusted due to the changes to the Lavastorm population.

• Some of the collection items that were previously only available through the Kunark Burynai have been made available again in certain zones.

RAIDS

• All Shadow Odyssey Expansion raid bosses now have a chance at dropping master spells.

• Some raid bosses in each zone now drop void shards! (2 per instance, except Zarrakon)
• A void shard now drops from the final boss of Obelisk of Ahkzul, two from the final boss of the Anchor of Bazzul, and three are present within the Palace of Ferzhul!

RUINS OF GUK

• The Ruins of Guk: Halls of the Fallen, The Ruins of Guk: the Lower Corridors and Atrebe’s Laboratory: Fabled City of Kor-sha all have had some changes made. Most of the more undesirable spells have been removed from NPC’s and or are now dispellable.

SPELLS

• Strike of the Ethernauts and similar type effects should now all stack with each other.

TRADESKILLS

• The Far Seas Supply Division has learned of another mission where a group of talented tradeskillers may be sorely needed.  Madria Varas will have details of the new mission once they are available.
• Representative Purrla from the Far Seas Trading Company is seeking help from the cities’ tradeskill societies! Tradeskillers level 40+ may wish to assist.
• Armorers, woodworkers, and jewelers have improved their recipes, and can now make improved versions of tradeskilled shields and secondary items. Old shields and secondary items that already exist will not be affected, only new ones created henceforth.
• Tradeskillers with their epic earrings may soon find more red collectibles if they look in the right areas–
• The “Tunare’s Gifts” volumes 1 through 5 and “Bartending for Sadists” recipe books are no longer limited in number of uses.
• All armorer reaction events in the level 50 range should now result in a success round if successfully countered.

USER INTERFACE

• Players can now drag equipment from their appearance slots to the macro window.
• Fixed a bug where damage reduction info was not displayed correctly in the mitigation tooltip.
• The raid window has a new “Advanced’ mode that will display effect icons for all members of the raid. To switch views, right-click the raid window.
• A bug in the raid window sometimes causing users to not be drag-able has been fixed.
• The carat in text boxes will no longer render if the EQII client doesn’t have focus.
• UI Settings files are now stored in a new XML format.  Existing INI files will be converted the first time a character is logged in.
• Tooltips of icons in the collection window now look like regular item tooltips.
• The quest journal can now be sorted by quest name.
• Players may now specify key bindings for all 10 hotbars in the Options window under Controls -> Hotbar Keys. Right-click a hotbar and choose “Hotbar Setting” to assign a key mapping.
• The group window now displays a health bar for your group members’ pets.

ADVANCED USER INTERFACE

The following modifications were made to UIScripting / UI Builder and are mainly of interest to the modding community:

• UIScript now supports the following functions: int(), abs(), floor(), ceil()
• Results of math operations in UIScript now only return the required precision instead of always forcing 3 decimal places.
• Fixed a bug parsing negative floating-point numbers.
• New Scripting events added: OnMove, OnSize, OnTextChanged.
• The BackgroundEmpty image of a UIProgressbar will no longer render unless the progress value is zero.
• Support has been added for a new UIColorStyle object.&nbsp; Any object property that accepts a color will now accept a reference to a UIColorStyle object.
• Players can now press F2 to edit the name of an object in the TreeView
• Players can press Enter or Escape while editing an object name to commit or cancel editing.

YKESHA’S INNER STRONGHOLD

• Ykeshan Footsoldiers in the Field General Uktap encounter in Ykesha’s Inner Stronghold now drop warbeads.

ZARRAKON’S ABYSSAL LAIR

• The mark of attack spell associated with the Mystmerian Wraiths in Zarrakon’s lair no longer persist through death, but the wraiths recast it on newly resurrected opponents within 3 seconds, allowing them to resume fighting with their group.

Looks like whenever the servers come down to patch in Erollisi Day (which will be sometime between now and February 10th), we will see most of the various patches, fixes, and changes expected to come in Game Update 51, minus the Fighter Revamp.

I know some f0lks have been anxiously awaiting the HEIRLOOM tag so they can move Void Shards from one character to another, do updates for Proof in the Pudding (Tradeskill Epic), etc. with alts, and buy faction recipes for alts as well.

Erollisi Day will be activated February 10th, but the patch will happen before then.

Extrapolated from several posts by Kiara in this thread.

The Shadow “of” Odyssey
Marketing department added the “of” in Shadow Odyssey. Many jokes made by SOE about it. Marketing dept was surprised that a EQ2 expansion didn’t have “of” in the middle. 🙂

The Shadow Odyssey

New lvl 77+ overland zone.
20 dungeons

• Najena — A very large dungeon. Very tall (4 story stairs and just really cool). Very organic, wood, ropes, not the current stone boxes. Najena’s forge is the new place to go to craft various master weapons, etc. taking the place of the existing Solusek Ro forge.
• Nuroga
• Guk — “upper” and “lower”
• Befallen
• Most dungeons scale 50-80 — depends on the adjoining overland zone.
• Lvl 50, 60, or 70 groups going into the new scaleable dungeons will get scaled down loot. All loot designed for 80.
• All dungeons are located “where you expect them to be”
• Dungeons are smarter. Puzzles in dungeons ala some of the raids and VoeS.

Raids

• 4 new x4 raids

Avatars

• (new) Rodcet Nife
• Avatar loot for Rodcet Nife is all new and loot tables for the existing 12 avatars will eventually be updated. basically, if you like a loot item on avatars now, don’t miss any opportunity since it might change. Might add loot to Tangrin.

Quests

• 1 new Signature quest — good and evil versions. Long but not repetitive.
• No new epics or heritage quests. Epics took 3 months to develop for Kunark.
• 5 new heritage quests! (thanks for the comments!)

Dieties

• 2 new dieties
• One of the two dieties being added will behave differently. Must be unlocked on each server. Featured on the Shadow Odyssey box art.

New Travel

• Airships — Live event to build airships and build docks.

Achievement Experience
New Achievement Experience page.
60 points of AA.
There will be limits preventing you from respeccing and moving over, say, 60 of your current 140 points and getting those rewards right away.

1- General
2- Archetype (Priest/Mage/Fighter/Scout)
3- Class (Cleric/Summoner/etc)
4- Subclass (Warden/Ranger/Assassin/etc.)

Instead of a “tree” that forces you to take AA items you don’t want, AA lines are straight across and you just pick what you want. End of line reward for each level.

“Boost taunt” is one of the possible fighter AA lines so crusaders (shadowknights) and bruisers can catch up and match the damage of current weapons. Came up in QA. Taunt has been a linear progression but dps from weapons has gone up faster due to crit, etc.

Tradeskill Harvesting AA increase # harvests per node.

Missions System

• 1 mission per dungeon, 1 per day
• Loot scales 50-80 and tokens are rewarded for completing missions which can be spent on legendary and “low” fabled items.
• Tradeskill Missions — 3 at launch. no combat.

Balance & Itemization

When asked about Itemization — “We have a plan.” Raiders should not need legendary items.

Combat xp in 70-80 will be improved. The pendulum “swung too far in favor of soloing and hurt groupers”.

Bard, Crusader, Cleric specific armor. Less archetype specific. No more templars running around with chain or leather.

PvP Bone
Big news! PvP will now allows all classes in all cities. Existing unhappy classes can complete betrayal to whatever class they want. This will reduce the requirement of Exile PvP guilds.

Miscellaneous
Asymetrical armor pieces if you want one big shoulder, one small shoulder. 🙂

More From Q&A
Basically if it got any kind of acknowledgement beside the standard “we can look into that” which is a big fat “NO!” I put it here.

Torch slot or maybe more items with light effect. No more 80s running around with lightstone. On the flipside perhaps an option to auto-hide light sources on stealth. Maybe too easy? 🙂

Some existing and new zones might auto mentor the group down so the content is not trivial, rather than either lockout or requiring a low level to mentor. They’d like to make mentoring more rewarding include AA.

Warden asked about having to cast 14 wards on every death. SoE might allow more than 2 non-combat buffs to trigger in a macro.

Critical errors in raids will name the culprit ala VS. Right now you can’t tell at a glance who messed up on Trakanon.

May reconsider caster resists because there aren’t enough spell critical items.

Would like to do bard instruments but not in current plans.

No x2 epic zones ready but maybe after expac.

When asked about Itemization — “We have a plan.” Raiders should not need legendary items.

Combat xp in 70-80 will be improved. The pendulum “swung too far in favor of soloing and hurt groupers”.

Bard, Crusader, Cleric specific armor. Less archetype specific. No more templars running around with chain or leather.