Here are your update notes for 5 October 2010:

EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED

• Bronze members will now be able to view chat channels (Silver or higher is still required to participate in chat).
• You can now purchase Gold memberships directly in game.

MARKETPLACE

• You can now buy extra character slots in the marketplace!
• You can now redeem station cash cards directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Station Cash Card.
• You can now add a credit card to your file directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Credit Card – Add New Card.
• Check the marketplace for “New” and “Hot” items!
• Marketplace items that are discounted from normal price will now show “SALE” on the icon in both the welcome window and the marketplace window.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY

Homicidal Madness (the charm spell) no longer affects fighters.

SmokeJumper just announced some changes to the bronze level chat channel restirctions on the EQ2X Forums:

As of Tuesday, October 5th, the chat restrictions for Bronze players will be eased somewhat.

Bronze players will now be able to *see* the chat that’s occurring in broadcast chat channels (like /auction, /Level 1-9, etc.).

However, they will still be unable to *send* chat in those channels.

In theory, this allows Bronze players to hear what’s going on in the world, and opens up a huge pool of potential customers for Silver and Gold players that are /auctioning items in chat. (Bronze players can /tell back to the auctioneer if they’re interested in the item.)

The world should feel a bit more filled with people for Bronze players now, as well.

EQ2Players.com has a news item up announcing the new 7 year veteran reward, your very own Mistmoore Crag Estate!

It looks like it’s going to be quite impressive.  More pictures are available at EQ2Players.com.

There was quite an amusing thread with several devs posting screenshots and info over the past week about this new housing.  All of it false of course but pretty humerous.  Definately worth a read.  It includes comments like this from Haohmaru like this:

Hey all!

We’ve decided to give a sneak peek of the Mistmoore Crag Estate. After much deliberating and rock paper scissors, we decided on…

A Boat!

But, should we just do a boring old boat? Would that even be interesting? What else could we do to make it unique and unlike anything seen before? So then we got to thinking… and thinking… and then, EUREKA!

Ladies and Gents – I present to you, the Mistmoore Crag Estate. Your very own floating coffin. And yes, for those wondering, the lid does indeed close during the day locking you and your friends inside. TELL ME THAT DOESN”T ROCK!

Even includes screen shots of the coffin.   Kinda makes you wonder who spiked the coffee at SOE last week.  🙂

The folks over at Massively.com have posted an interview with SmokeJumper.  In it, he talks about F2P, comparisons to other MMOs, the possibility of a dungeon finder, and the class balance manifesto.  Interesting read.

I remember several years ago preparing to raid Deathtoll.

The first thing I did was ride a cloud up on Bonemire and jump off at just the right spot so I could land on the floating island containing Arbiter Selek. But before I could talk to him, I had to speak Draconic. That’s right, first I had to do the quest Speak as a Dragon that started with a raid and then sent me all over Norrath looking for items.

Here are your update notes for 28 September 2010 (since we cover EQII Live and EQ2X, the link is to the EQ2X forums where the full update notes are posted):

EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED

• Going to Battlegrounds on EQ2 Extended should no longer cause your items to set to 1c sell value.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• There is now a new respawn location right by the entrance to the Underfoot Seal chamber where Master Yael spawns. In order to activate this new respawn location, players will need to defeat fire elemental encounter “Saalax” before it can be accessed.

Domino posted this heads up for the test update notes on the official forums.  This is scheduled to go live with GU58:

The fuel that I’ve made since joining the team has had more standard names that I hoped would give some direction as to the level range, but the old fuel names were not easy to guess the appropriate level from the name.  Although I realize it’s going to require some work updating notes, web sites, and habit, I think it’s worth while in the end to rename the fuel to a standard so that it all uses the same adjective.

Consequently, if all goes well this afternoon, by this evening on Test server you should see all the tradeskilled fuel convert to using the name of the imbued material for that level range (and the level 1-9 fuel is called “basic” so it will be listed right at the top of the list).  Example names:  glowing candle, glowing coal, glowing kindling, lambent candle, lambent incense, luminous candle, luminous coal. The examine descriptions on the fuel have also been standardize to say the level range they are used in. Nothing else has changed about the fuel, prices etc. are all the same, and if you have any fuel in your inventory it will simply be automatically renamed when the update hits.  I hope that overall this will solve more confusion than it causes, but if you come across any NPC dialog or quest text that specifically references the name of a fuel that no longer exists, please do /bug it or post here so I can get that changed.

Here are your update notes for 21 September 2010:

ITEMS

• Torrent and Pestilential Rain no longer gain damage from attributes.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER

Roehn Theer will now lock you into your rune choice should you lower his health below 75%.

Here are your update notes for 15 September 2010:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug causing some zones to not be available for zoning.
• Fixed a bug were Experts and Masters of the previous tier could be automatically overwritten in your hotbar by an Apprentice spell.

TRAVEL

• The Stonebrunt temporal pathfinder will now properly zone you into Sundered Frontier instead of leaving you high and dry in the middle of the sky.

ITEMS

Ykeshan Spellbears and Warbears can be used below level 80 and no longer can be combined below level 80.

The 9/14 patch notes contained the following note:

Fixed a bug with and re-enabled new spells replacing old spells in the hotbar if the new spell is more powerful.

Apparently, there was more than one bug.  There are reports that it is now replacing the existing spells regardless of whether they are more powerful or not.  The good news is that they also snuck in a flag to turn it off.  Rothgar posted this on the official forums:

We are looking into the issue, it shouldn’t be replacing more powerful spells with weaker ones.

In the meantime, you have the ability to turn it off right now if you place the following line in your INI file.

replace_spells_on_hotbar false

We will be exposing this option to the Options window soon.

So add that line into your eq2.ini file in your game directory (or create it if it doesn’t exist) and you should be good to go.

Some people trying to load the game after this morning’s update have been experiencing DirectX errors.  Rothgar has posted a temporary fix for this on the official forums and says that an updated file should be pushed to the patcher soon:

After this morning’s hotfix we’ve had reports of a few different issues.  So far, the issues that we’ve tracked down are related to an upgrade that we performed internally to bring our development environment up to a newer version.

Some players have reported a DirectX error when launching the game client.  This appears to be caused by systems that have not been updated to DirectX 9.0c.  If run into this problem, please download the latest DirectX 9.0 installer from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/…;displaylang=en

You may also have noticed that some zone junctions don’t appear to be working properly.  We’ve found the source of this problem and it will require a hotfix to correct it.  We’ve already fixed it internally and are planning on a hotfix Wednesday morning to take care of it.

If you experience any other issues after today that seem to be new problems, please let me know and we will look into them right away.

Thanks!

Update from Rothgar:

Just an update, we will have a fix for the missing DX9 dll later today. This update will not require server downtime and will be fixed automatically when you run the patcher.

Here are your update notes for 14 September 2010 after the break:

Here are your update notes for Wednesday, 8 September 2010:

EVERQUEST II EXTENDED

• Fixed a bug causing Platinum subscribers to not be able to use the shared bank.

USER INTERFACE

• Fixed a bug that would cause your AA slider to reset to 50% upon zoning.
• Sort by current zone for the quest journal now properly puts the current zone quests at the top of the list.
• We have disabled the spells from replacing old ones in the hotbar until we can track down a bug regarding it.

SHADER 3.0

• Fixed an issue causing parts of some structures in Halas to show as wireframe.

ITEMS

• Torque of the War Blade and Ring of the Vice Vigoth now have resists added to their stats.
• Runic Deflection on Band of Mreeptahp’s Fury now correctly wards your target.

STONEBRUNT HIGHLANDS

• The King Speleothem multi-stage event in Stonebrunt Highlands should now be fixed. Player should now be able to progress through the stages and fight the end boss.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• Zaalax, Xaalax, Saalax and Yaalax : Seismic shock should strike the correct targets named by Zaalax.

For a while now, there have been items that give a bonus to mitigation.  These bonuses are shown as the blue stat on gear that says +x% Mitigation Increase.  Apparently, for a long time now, there has been a bug with how this bonus is calculated which has been granting more of an increase than intended.

A fix for this has crept its way onto the test server which is lowering the mitigation of most tanks.  So, on the test server, if you have any of this gear and yesterday you were barely able to survive during a given fight, chances are, today you’ll go splat.  Xelgad posted an explanation on the EQ2players.com forums.

Xelgad says that they aren’t in a rush to get this to live and that they will take the time to get it working right.  Hopefully this means tweaking other things if needed, like mob damage output.  Xelgad writes:

You may have noticed that currently on test mitigation numbers seem lower. There was no notes in the Test Update notes because it was pushed to Test a little sooner than we expected.

We’ve been evaluating all of the systems in the game to find out what is working and what is not working correctly. During this investigation, we found that there was a bug with the blue stat “Mitigation Increase” causing it to give noticably more than the listed amount of mitigation. This bug has been fixed and is currently on the test servers.

A mitigation increase of 10% was increasing plate mitigation by about 30% and leather mitigation by about 54%. This has been fixed so that the mitigation increase that says 10% will increase your mitigation by 10%. The addition of mitigation to the brawler self buffs was to be in tandem with this bug fix. This change is important because reaching the cap on mitigation causes some abilities, advancements and gear options to become irrelevent. That is obviously detrimental to gameplay and it can be detrimental to balance as well. If some classes have been balanced around having abilities to boost their mitigation and players end up capping out that stat then that element of balance is lost.

This bug has been in the game for a long time so the fix will reduce the mitigation of most tanks. For the sake of being able to balance the tanks in the future, we needed to correct the formula that was used to calculate the effectiveness of “Mitigation Increase.”

We’ll try to address questions and concerns regarding this fix and we aren’t in a rush to get this change to Live. If it looks like there may be problems with it, we’ll take the time to get it working right.

Update: Xelgad just posted this on the official forums:

As stated earlier in this thread, we’re taking our time with this change. It is looking like it is going to wait all the way until the expansion, and we’ll have the expansion beta to test the changes. Of course, we’ll still be looking into Sentinel’s Fate content, gear and alternate advancements in conjunction with the fix.

Here are your hotfix notes for September 1, 2010 after the break:

What’s on Test this weekend? Here are just a few items:

• UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
• UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
• UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
• UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
• Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
• The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
• Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
• Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
• The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

As we posted earlier this week, players have been experiencing an issue with hotbar icons being replaced in random ways as they level. Abilities on hotbars have been replaced with different spells entirely, for instance a group heal being replaced by an apprentice combat spell.

After the jump, the latest update on this frustrating bug.

SmokeJumper posted on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey, folks,

Just wanted to let you know that we recorded all the sessions at Fan Faire, transcribed all the questions, and the team leads have spent the last couple of days pouring over the lists and prioritizing them for action.

We’ll be spending several weeks making fixes and changes based on the feedback we got there and then update the game with those fixes in mid-October.

We’ll post the list of what’s changing much closer to when we launch so that we don’t accidentally overcommit, but we think you’ll be pleased with a lot of the fixes.

Thought you’d be interested to know this is happening. More later!

When you target another player (say your group’s tank, or the raid Main Assist) to channel your damage through, it is sometimes helpful to not only see the Target Arrow (who you have selected), but the Implied Target Arrow (the enemy which your target has chosen). This can be especially important for scouts.

So players have asked for a way to customize or more easily distinguish the color and opacity of the Implied Target Arrow.

Rothgar’s comments after the jump…

From Silius on the EQ2 Forums:

Hello again,

I just wanted to update everyone on the situation. We will be unable to get this fix live until Tuesday. Once again I am sorry for the inconvenience but I offer some assistance. If you are unable to get into the same instance please do the following:

1. Have your raid leader petition so their is only one petition generated for the raid.

2. Place the petition in the stuck character category.

The CS team is aware of this issue and they will do their best to promptly assist by pulling everyone into the same instance. There is no guarantee that they will be able to get to you quickly so I ask that you please be patient. While not an ideal solution, I hope that this is a satisfactory compromise and that you will extinguish your torches and lay down your pitchforks.

The hits keep coming for GU57, and we don’t mean critical heals. Some quick updates on GU57 from the overnight dev responses all in one handy post…

Players on a variety of servers (in two different threads) have reported that yesterday’s change to how players reach the Palace of Roehn Theer, requiring each player to individually click on the zone-in, instead of a raidwide zone-in, is resulting in multiple separate instances.

Currently there seems to be no fix, as even players who zone in one-at-a-time are still ending up in separate instances and must wait 30 minutes before their timers reset.

From the EQ2 Forums:

This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 08/25/2010. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.

– SOE Operations team

then…

Runnyeye and Splitpaw are being kept offline a little longer while the team inspects an issue that has, well…several NPC’s seem to have forgotten to get dressed when they woke up from the downtime! /blush

We apologize for their indecency and the fact that the servers will take a little longer to be brought back online.

and then:

I don’t have an official up time for the server, but based on the emails I’ve seen, it seems like it might come up around 2:00 am PDT, which would be around 10am London time, if I’m calculating correctly. Around three hours after the original planned up time.

I’m very sorry about the delay, everyone. Fingers crossed that the NPCs decided to finally get dressed and everything else is right as well.

You can follow the humorous discussion on the EQ2 Forums (until it gets locked).

Remember when Player-vs-Player was the red-headed stepchild of EQ2? Remember when there wasn’t even a PvP developer, but instead those tasks were delegated to developers who already had a full workload? Fast forward to today and one of the areas of the game getting the most attention is the PvP side, including those issues that extend into Battlegrounds.

So let’s go down the list of responses so far from PvP developer Olihin…

Players on standard EQ2 accounts with more than 7 characters in a region, or players on Station Access accounts with more than 12 characters in a region were locked out of accessing these “hidden” characters with a change in Game Update 57. Although intended to close an exploit, the primary motivation for this change has been to protect the monetization of character slots, which are for sale on EQ2 Extended servers.

Note: This change has been rolled back as of Tuesday, August 24th, to allow players to “get their house in order”. On Tuesday, August 31st, players who have more characters than are allowed by their account type will only have the option of deleting characters to access “hidden” characters. The /camp command will not load any character not visible on the character select screen, and changes to the character list INI file will be ignored.

If you have no more than 7 EQ2 characters on your EQ2 account, or no more than 12 EQ2 characters on your Station Account, you do not need to do anything.