While we wait the last 1 1/2 hours for the EQ2 servers to come back up, I thought some of you might like to check out a few more tidbits expected to come in Game Update 53 at the end of the month. I’ve focused on new features here. If you want, you can read the full EQ2 Test Update Notes courtesy of EQ2 ZAM.

GENERAL

• Runic Deflection should proc slightly more reliably.
• House layout files now properly save the scaling of an object.
• The save_layout and load_layout commands now properly save and load positions of NPC amenities.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• New crafting Achievements have been added.
• Certain Achievements have had rewards added to them.
• The Antonican Adventurer Achievement should now be able to be completed. The Achievement has been reset.
• The Lavastorm Nomad achievement has been reset to allow completion.
• Some Slayer quests will no longer be added back to your player after converting them to Achievements.
• The guild event for members earning achievements will now show up in the event list.
• Achievements can now be expanded even if they are completed.
• Achievements that give rewards will now display the reward when expanded.  The rewards can be clicked to open an examine window or control-clicked to view in the dressing room window.
• The Commonlands Colonist and Ykeshan Trekker achievements have been reset to allow completion.

CHRONOMAGIC

• The Chronomagi Taskers (quest givers to complete older Norrath content) have moved to be near the Timeless Chronomages [article at EQ2 Zam] (causing them to change zones from Qeynos South -> Harbor and from Freeport North -> East. In Gorowyn and Kelethin, they simply moved)
• When mentoring or chronolocking scaled down item bonuses will now be applied correctly.

ITEMS

• Rare drops from Tradeskill instances (Deadly Mixing Spoon, etc.) have been flagged as LORE-EQUIP ATTUNEABLE HEIRLOOM.
• A large number of the Station Cash and Legends of Norrath items are now HEIRLOOM.
• House items placed in moving crates will now stay in those moving crates, even when you are not looking!

USER INTERFACE

• Tooltips for Books inside of packing crates will now look correct.
• The Threat window now resizes properly.
• The Welcome Screen now displays the name and zone of the Daily Double mission.
• Hotbar windows no longer have as much empty spacing around them making it easier to stack them close without overlapping.
• There are now Save Layout and Load Layout buttons on the /house window to help make it easier to manage your house layout setups! You can save the location and size of all your house items, and restore it later (Frostfell setup anyone?)
• The raid window has been put on a diet and is now slightly more compact.
• The raid window progress bars are slightly larger and more readable.
• There are now placeholder icons for the detrimental icons on the raid window.

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~

Even though we do not have a specific release date for Gu53 (Shards of Destiny), “late September” has been posited as a timeframe we should be watching for. As we approach the duly appointed time, more information is coming out about what we can expect in this update.

Unless you follow the EQ2 Dev Tracker, you’ve probably missed some salient details.

Skill Up Catch Up

Not every EQ2 player has access to a Guild Hall, specifically the Training Dummy amenity. This is relevant because at the great speed most folks now level up into their 50’s or 60’s, many players find themselves deficient in certain skills such as priest skills (Ordination), mage skills (Subjugation), scout/fighter skills (Piercing, Slashing) and want to “catch up”. So far, the only easy means to do this was to grind kill mobs or fight a training dummy.

You get better at Ranged (126/400).

According to Aeralik, this issue has been identified and in Gu53, if there is a large gulf between your skill level and the maximum, you will skill up faster. From this Dev Tracker post:

If you are really low in skill it will be much easier to level it up and the skill gains will come along much faster.  Then once you get closer in skill to your level you will then slow down to a more gradual level.

AA XP Slider

One of the features I am the most excited about in Gu53 will be the AA XP Slider. On PvE (regular) servers, we will be able to channel up to 100% of our combat XP into AA XP.  PvP servers will allow up to 50% of combat XP to be converted into AA XP (until the AA cap is reached). I intend to roll an alt and see how feasible it is to level from 20-80 entirely by grouping all while earning sufficient AA points.

I am very hopeful that this AA XP slider will encourage folks to group in the level 20-60 range again. Flying through Stormhold, Nek Castle, Runnyeye, Deathfyst Citadel, and getting a solid amount of both Alternative Achievement (AA) and levels will be a great thing. A lot of folks out there are soloing to 80 and have no clue what their character brings to a group/raid.

Once again Aeralik chimes in on the EQ2 Forums with the facts:

The aa slider enables at level 10.  Pve players can put all adv xp into aa if they want but pvp players will be limited to 50% while below the current maximum level.

The AA cap only applies on pvp servers and works to keep players relatively close in strength.  We don’t have any plans to adjust this cap because its just a spending cap and you can still earn additional AA levels while capped.

Racial Traits

When racial traits were added after the launch of EQ2, players were surprised at just how good some of the effects were. Specifically, erudites are clearly superior spellcasters, while ogres are the obvious choice for tanks due to their health buffs.

With the upcoming Racial Respec tokens we will be able to purchase with StationCash,  and with certain racial traits being such obviously good choices, there is a concern that all wizards will change to Erudite, all predators to Dark Elves, all tanks to Ogre, etc. As a result, we can expect racial traits to be rebalanced and reshuffled in Game Update #53.

Here are Aeralik‘s comments on the EQ2 Forums:

The racial trait changes are staying largely in line with how they have always really been oriented.  Fighter races get some nice fighter bonuses,, caster races get caster bonuses, etc.  This really goes back to the base race design.  The original stats favored certain archetypes for play and usually their racial packages complemented these using effects of the time.  The previous racial update made things a bit more specific with current effect packages but we tried to make each race a bit more unique.

This next race update tries to mix them together so you have a wider variety of choices but the race’s abilities come from common pools.  So if you picked a mage oriented race and play a mage you get some nice choices but nothing really amazing.  If you went off the normal path and chose something like an ogre mage you still get a lot of benefits to yourself but overall dps differences from a mage race will be minimal at best and easily overcome.  In fact the ogre mage is probably a really good choice for a number of playstyles because the fighter package is really nice in some aspects and the priest package shares a lot with the mage one.

Leather & Lace

And I leave you with some leather screenshots to tide you over until the next posting. Toodles!

Tier’Dal Executioner Leather Assassin appearance gear

-available today on StationCash-

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!

Auto mentoring system
Hail an NPC in the cities to mentor in 5 level increments
No aaxp bonus

Aaxp slider

Upgraded quest window

Let enchanters do crowd control on raids

May make T9 version of some TSO dungeons

Well one of my big notes got eaten. Sorry guys.

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. 🙂

As you might be aware, EQ2 Automated Server Transfers have been down for over a year now. As a result, server transfers are something which must be done manually by a customer service rep. Server transfers have cost $50 per character, which makes it absurdly expensive to transfer all of your characters from one server to another.

Hopefully good news on this front is that the EQ2 Automated Server Transfers are coming back, but rather than through the Station Store, they will be triggered in-game through Station Marketplace (StationCash). Check out the Coming Soon thread at the EQ2 forums. Or just read these quotes requesting a definition for ‘soon’, how much it will cost, and whether server transfers were being held up for stationcash.

From Brenlo:

[Server Transfers] were not withheld to implement Marketplace.  Just fortunate timing on the work.

A few weeks is the current plan.

I am confirming pricing options.

Inevitably, comes the question of whether we’ll see Free Character Transfers, as a summer promotion, but Brenlo indicated that there were “none planned at the moment.”

Xalmat asked if EQ2Players Character Stats such as most mastered, discoveries, etc. would carry over.

Zoltaroth replied with:

The new system builds upon the old automated system, which should support transfering over your stats.  If it does not work with the new sytem, it is something that I will look into fixing.

I am sure we will post a FAQ at some point, but a few things I wanted to point out since this thread is here (keep in mind these are subject to change):

• Transfers will be limited to monthly current subscribers only
• Transfers will be limited to characters above level 10
• Transfers will be limited to accounts older than 60 days

Anyone wishing to transfer who does not meet those requirements, will have to use the old manual proccess.  However, since the vast majority of transfers meet those requirements, manual transfers should become less impacted and faster as well.

We’ll have more info as it comes down the pike. Hopefully one of the options is to move all characters on the account to another server.

EQ2 has added some of the most attractive furniture yet for the game. I think many people have been hoping for a nice, “clean” set of wooden, upholstered chairs for years now and we finally got them. Not to mention an awesome looking hutch.

Unfortunately these new house/guild items are being made available at an extra cost through the StationCash system.

While I appreciate that carpenters and woodworkers have received many additional recipes in the last year (thanks Domino!), a nice set of all-purpose chairs, table, and hutch have remained elusive. Until now.

I guess if you’ve gotta have them, you’ll produce your credit card. One can hope that craftable versions of these will be made available in a different color scheme.

From EQ2Players.

Don’t like your character’s name, gender, or appearance? Change it!

Coming to StationCash on April 7th…

EQ2Players

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.