GU52 now on Test — Update Notes

Here are the notes for GU52 which has now appeared on Test. It is unknown exactly when these changes will go live.

FEATURED

Charasis: Emperor’s Athenaeum

• The Order of Rime has managed to re-open this ancient vault of Venril Sathir’s. What secrets lie within? What terrible guardians? Venture in with a single group of adventurers to find out what awaits!

Kunark Overland Quests

• A mysterious army has appeared upon the shores of Kunark and begun pillaging the land and slaughtering those that oppose them. Citizens of Dreg’s Landing in Kylong Plains, Riliss in Fens of Nathsar, the City of Jinisk in Kunzar Jungle and Danak in Jarsath Wastes are looking for your help in learning about the invaders and defeating them.

Kurn’s Tower

• After Najena’s magic revealed the void tear slowly consuming the tower, the Bellywhumpers have frantically dug a passage into Kurn’s Tower once again! Delve into your choice of the x2 raid or the single group instance, and attempt to solve the mysteries within!

Research Assistants

• Research Assistants have moved into many cities in Norrath.  These hardworking men and women will do the research to upgrade a spell or combat art from journeyman to adept or from expert to master.  They will only assist one character per account at a time and only help those level 20 or higher.  Research Assistants can be found in each of the six hoods and villages of Freeport and Qeynos, Neriak, Haven, Gorowyn and Kelethin.  You can ask any guard in those areas to point you in the direction of a Research Assistant if you can’t find them.

GPU Shadow System

• A new shadow system has been implemented for the game.  This new system uses your graphics card to build the shadows rather than your CPU and it comes with a few extras as well.  Using the shadow mapping technique and 3.0 Shaders we’re now able to cast softer shadows, fade shadows, and cast dynamic shadows from trees, plants, feathers, and more!  The new system fixes a few shadowing glitches found in certain armor sets and self-shadowing and depending on your computer’s settings may also significantly improve performance.

User Books

• Players can now leave their permanent mark in the world of Norrath by authoring their own books. Empty books are now available from sages.  Once you edit the content of an empty book you become the author and from that point forward you are the only one who can edit the book content.  Player-written books are tradable so you can give them to your friends or even sell them on the broker.

GENERAL

• Indus Surion should no longer sell “The Freeport’s Guide to Opportunity – 2nd Edition”.
• Navarius Orvalis should no longer sell “Welcome to Qeynos, Citizen! – 2nd Edition”.
• Class Trainers will now only sell Entertainment spells and not Apprentice II spells.
• By popular demand, the Gigglegibber Gamblin’ Lotto game has expanded onto the Lavastorm docks (void where prohibited by Norrathian law).
• After a disturbing number of Koada’Dal disappeared while speaking with him, Vindain Greenfaith has moved slightly away from the entrance to The Down Below in Castleview Hamlet.
• Daily faction missions in Tupta, Grobb, and Firmroot Moot now award more faction.
• Killing NPCs will now accumulate achievement experience faster.
• Missions now grant slightly higher achievement experience.
• Merchants who formerly made a living selling Apprentice II spells are experiencing an economic downturn and have either found new employment or departed the city to seek fortune elsewhere.
• Menders based in Kunark will now assist you even though they may be apprehensive.  Bankers and brokers are also willing to deal with you once they consider you indifferently.  Fens of Nathsar now has a mender, banker, and fence.
• Mounts will now persist through death.
• Most Baubles that apply illusions will show the illusion in the dressing room when Ctrl+Left Clicked.
• Beneficial spells will no longer fail to cast if you have an object such as a harvest node or non-attackable npc targeted.
• Cosmetic pets will no longer be killed by AOE from monsters.
• Castable items will no longer trigger proc spells.
• Item based triggered effects can no longer critical or have their damage components modified unless done directly through something like an achievement or set bonus.
• You can now cancel a maintained spell by using /cancel_maintained spell name.
• Fixed a case where some triggered spells would cause reactive damage triggers to go off.
• Power draining dots will no longer trigger reactive damage once applied.
• The elusive Schizophylum Spore in upper and lower Guk instances can now be found!

ACHIEVEMENTS

General

• Castable Achievement abilities have been moved to the Combat Art or Spells tab depending on the class and the ability type.

Bard

• Heroic Storytelling will now apply properly to damage and heals.

Druid

• Reduced the recast of Rebirth to 5 minutes.

Predator

• Toxic Expertise will now improve the damage of poisons instead of increasing spell critical chance.

Shadowknight

• The Shadowknight will now be healed properly from Malevolent Protection.

Summoner

• Reanimate pet will properly apply TSO pet modifiers now.

AUTOFOLLOW

• Improved auto follow to avoid having the follower sometimes run large circles around the character they are following.
• Auto follow now works when following someone who starts climbing down a cliff.
• Autofollow while climbing used to only go up or down, now it also goes left or right.

CODING

• EverQuest II now supports the Philips amBX experience.  With the amBX system, you can experience dynamic lighting, wind and rumble effects. See http://www.ambx.com/ for more information.

GUILDS

• Players now get the message “GuildLeader has kicked YourAltName from the guild” if you are online and one of your alts is kicked (the message used to read “GuildLeader has kicked YOU from the guild”).
• Changed the guild hall teleport pop up window to reuse the existing window rather than spawn multiples of the existing window.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes causes a guild rally banner to deactivate before the two hour time limit.
• Guilds are able to hire a research assistant hireling for their guild hall.
• Fixed a bug causing level 79 guilds to only get 25 amenities instead of 29.
• The slayer sign guild hall amenity no longer uses an amenity slot.
• The guild hall amenity limit is no longer constrained by the size of the guild hall.  The number of amenities allowed is now only based on your guild’s level.

ITEMS

• Upgraded the appearances on Aiden’s cloaks from Ward of Elements.
• The Ground Granite Helm should now match the coloration of the rest of its set.
• Adept and Master spell scrolls for Unyielding Will are no longer no-trade.
• Bite of the Wolf will now trigger properly and apply to the warden.

LAVASTORM

• “Efforts Repaid” has had the number of kills required reduced.
• “Snuff the Flare Reapers” has had the number of kills required reduced and now all flare men count as quest targets.
• “Colossal Lava Rocks” now includes hardened colossi as quest targets.
• There is no longer a group of goblin ritualists that cause the Fiery Apparition to attempt to attack from across the zone.
• There should no longer be any heroic encounters in the Temple of Sol Ro.
• There should no longer be the occasional mob that can see invis in the Temple of Sol Ro.
• Teleporters in Lavastorm can no longer be used while engaged in PvP combat.

MISTMYR MANOR

• The Stewardess should no longer occasionally reset.
• The 3 reward chests no longer have an unintentional 1-hour time limit before they despawn.
• The Primogens teleport less frequently.
• The Primogens should be a little less reluctant to give up certain items.
• The Curator has slightly fewer hitpoints.

PLAYER HOUSING

• The front door of a player house now always leads back to the city.

QUESTS

• Kunzar Jungle: Any players who have completed the quest “Slice Your Way Up the Ladder” will now be able to get “Do Unto Havik” regardless of the order in which they did the Swifttails quests.
• Characters that feign death or run away from the grave watchers for “Gathering Feathers” can now return and try again.
• Gerun Pontian in the Commonlands will now update “Speckled Rattler Venom” for non-Freeport aligned citizens.
• Kregnok Legbreaker in the Commonlands is not quite as good at breaking legs anymore.
• The Clefts of Rujark – Players that have already completed “The Key of Coins” quest no longer need “a fancy steel key” in their inventory to access the Rujark treasure chamber.
• Citizens of Gorowyn should be able to complete the Qeynos Claymore quest now.

SPELLS

General

• Fighter avoidance buffs will once again persist through zoning.
• Persistent spells should apply modification data properly upon zoning now.
• Interpose effects will no longer trigger reactive procs while intercepting damage from another player.

Assassin

• The Death Mark line will now use melee effect modifiers instead of spell modifiers.

Defiler

• Spiritual Circle will once again apply to raid members.

Dirge

• Cacophany of Blades will now make a melee attack instead of using a spell attack.

Enchanter

• Mesmerize spells will no longer trigger additional spells.

Summoners

• Some pet appearances have changed to match the new spell names.

Swashbuckler

• The Inspired Daring line will now use melee effect modifiers instead of spell modifiers.

TRADESKILLS

• Magmatic Bronze armor from Najena’s Forge now requires fewer components to create.
• Tailors across Norrath have been experimenting and have discovered a way to improve the utility of crafted hex dolls.  Already existing pristine quality hex dolls will automatically improve.
• Meledi Augren in the Village of Shin is looking for assistance from an experienced Sage.
• Scholar recipes have been modified to reflect the spell naming changes.
• Woodworkers and tailors have upgraded their recipes and can now make improved versions of tradeskilled ranged weapons (bows, satchels, bandoliers, pouches, and sheaths).  Old ranged weapons that already exist will not be affected, only new ones created henceforth.
• Carpenters may find it worthwhile to investigate — or send their friends to investigate — the Estate of Unrest a little more closely.
• Provisioners may find it worthwhile to investigate — or send their friends to investigate — the arena in Charasis West Wing.
• Harvests are now more plentiful in the Palace of the Ancient One tradeskill instance.
• Sages are now able to craft the level 34 Illusionist spell “Manatap,” formerly known as “Devitalizing Gaze.”
• Alchemists among the Far Seas Supply Division have found new uses for Reflective Smoldering Shards.

USER INTERFACE

• Statistic labels on the persona window now display the same tooltip as their values.
• Updated the heading on the compass tool tip to be in line with the direction the compass is pointing.
• Updated the deposit window to take eight digits rather than just seven.
• Changed tool tips to auto widen if there are very long lines.
• The friends list on the welcome screen will now ignore offline friends if that option is enabled on the community window.
• Items that are appearance-only will now show APPEARANCE-ONLY in the examine window and on the tool tips of those items.
• Fixed a bug causing hidden quests in players’ quest journal to become unhidden after zoning.
• You can now specify the text format of your hotbars from the Hotkey Settings window.
• You can now use the macro window to equip weapons in appearance slots.
• You can now modify the key setting for toggling your point-of-view (F9) under Options->Controls->View Keys.
• Fixed a bug where when a player would complete the last quest in the journal there would still be information from the completed quest showing in the details window in the journal and in the active quest window.
• Textboxes now support selecting all text by pressing CTRL-A.

WARD OF ELEMENTS

• Najena should no longer occasionally be floating up above the tower after Aiden has been slain.
• Dayakara summons her imp minions slightly less frequently.