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.

Kiara chimed in this evening with this news:

This is a head’s up to let you know that we’ll be bringing the servers down tomorrow morning to push Elements of Corruption (GU #51) live!  Unless of course the “big one” hits and Southern California drops into the ocean…  In that case, it might be delayed again…

In addition to this, Vivox will be updating voice chat, so it will be unavailable across all games.

The estimated time for the servers to come down is 7am PDT.

If there are any changes to the plan, we’ll let you know.

While we do not have a date yet for GU51 (The Lavastorm Revamp, now minus the Fighter Revamp), we now know that it will be released sooner rather than later, with as many of the fixes, improvements, and content as possible, excluding the much maligned Fighter Revamp.

Kiara posted:

The Lavastorm changes ARE going to be pushed live.

Right now they’re being separated from the fighter changes so that we can push them live (and a little extra polish is being thrown on as well).

I don’t have an exact date yet for the Lavastorm changes going live, but I know that the team is working hard to push them as soon as they can.

When I have a clearer ETA, I’ll be sure to share.

Rothgar was nice enough to post here on my blog and at the forums:

Lavastorm is going live separate from revamp. Right now the plan is that {the Agro Meter} will still make the cut.  The next update to Test should include all of the features that have been accumulating over the past couple of months minus the fighter changes.

After the deafening silence of the last 3 weeks with regards to the Fighter Revamp and the state of GU51 in general, we’ve got a response on March 17 from none other than Bruce Ferguson, Producer of EQ2. Read it Here.

The changes made with the initial release of the fighter revamp (on the Test server) need to be removed.  However, rather than just roll back your characters to when we first introduced the changes on Test back in January; we’re going to need to split out the consolidated spells, which will reset them to Adept 1.

For our Test Copy server, we’re going to need to wipe the entire character database, which will likely take several days.

For all of our players, this means that we’ll be reinitiating the adjustments to tank balance from a fresh point.  The difference is going to be in how we go about planning and communicating the changes, because we want, and need, to know what you think.

Our plan is to start an open dialogue with you, our players, and to get your feedback every step of the way. This will mean more time in between updates, but we think that it’s worth it to get you more involved in the direction of the game.  We hope that you agree.

We realize we haven’t been stellar at consistent communication in the past, but consider this a big step towards this goal.

We are also looking at incentives to get more of you playing on the Test server, for further feedback.  We truly believe that if we can get more of you testing and contributing your feedback, we will know more about what you all want, what you all believe is best for the game.

We want this to be a collaborative effort between SOE and its players. When we get the details of the Test server incentives worked out, we’ll be announcing it on the forums and on EQ2players.  We’ll also be announcing the plan for improving our communication and creating an open two-way dialogue with you as soon as we’ve worked out all of the details.

This is a very refreshing and surprising communication. It tells me that the Ivory Tower approach to the fighter revamp has cost SoE a lot and tarnished the praise they had been receiving from casual to hardcore groupers and raiders about how The Shadow Odyssey addressed a lot of their needs including Shadowknights and Berserkers becoming desireable tank classes and the introduction . I feel that the raid progression of TSO will be even better with the forthcoming x2 and x4 raid zone.

If there is one truly frustrating issue in all this, we don’t know when the Lavastorm Revamp of GU51 will go to the Live servers. I know I have been very excited about the x2 raid zone and other quests to help gain AA points.

We’ll keep you informed as soon as we know when GU51 is going live (and I have 99% confirmation that it will go live separate from the fighter revamp).

Looks like Game Update 51 — Elements of Corruption — including the Lavastorm revamp, new x2, x4 raid zones, T3 armor, and fighter revamp have been further delayed.

From a March 9, 2009 post on EQ2Players:

As many of you know, we’ve been working on Elements of Corruption (Game Update 51) for some time…there really is a lot of good stuff coming, including new zones, new raids, new quests, a revamp of Lavastorm, the list seems endless. However, we’re not quite ready to release it. I know many of you were expecting us to do so this week or next, but at this point, we just need some more time to spend working on it so that it’s just right for all of you. Please be patient with us while we finish polishing the update, and as soon as we have a good date that we can ship out all of this exciting goodness, we’ll let you know.

Here is the new Tier 3 Void Shard Armor.

NEWLY REVISED FOR 3/4/09 — T3 Set Bonuses have been adjusted.

Note: Just in case it’s not clear, I have Photoshopped out the Set Bonuses from all but 1 item in each screen shot. Every T3 Void Shard Armor set has set bonuses for having (2), (3), (5), and (7) pieces from the set.

Bard, Enchanter, Predator

Druid, Rogue, Cleric

Summoner, Sorcerer, Shaman*

* You know those whacky Shamans… always running around buck naked wearing just twigs and funny hats. Actual screen shots BTW.

Crusader, Brawler, Warrior

[placeholder]
Bard/Shaman, Crusader/Warrior/Cleric, Brawler/Druid

I realized today that I do not have the T3 upgrade for Wilderness Warrior up.  I will work on getting this up today.

NOTE 1: For those folks with TSO x4 Raid Gear looking at these items and having a heart attack, stroke, or other blood flow stoppage, login to Test and look at your gear again. The TSO x4 raid gear from ToMC/PoAO/etc. (which people are starting to call T4) has been upgraded substantially to make room for these new T3 items.

NOTE 2: Bracers which are boss drops in the new x2 raid zone. These make the 7th piece in each set.

NOTE 3: For those resourceful Assassins out there who have been juggling 3 pieces each of Soul Lancer and Ravagers, the T3 upgrade for Soul Lancer is not usable by Predators. Fortunately Fyreflyte is making a code change to the T3 Void Shard Merchant to accept T2 Soul Lancer pieces to upgrade to the T3 Ravager pieces.

This is being discussed on the EQ2 Forums.

Ok, I hopped over to Test and got the scoop on how the T3 Void Shard Armor seems to work.

There are two NPCs:

• Assilus Poisonbolt <Elemental Pattern Quartermaster>
• Borden Chargehammer <Elite Void Shard Armor Quartermaster>

As you run the new x2 Raid Zone “The Ward of Elements”, one or more Molds will drop from raid bosses. To buy your T3 Void Shard Armor Pattern from Assilus, you must have the necessary Mold and the requisite number of Void Shards.

Borden will take your Pattern and the requisite T2 Void Shard Armor piece and turn it into a T3 Void Shard Armor piece.

For instance, I run the x2 Raid Zone and I get my Boot Mold. I give the Boot Mold and 5 Void Shards to Assilus and he gives me a Boot Pattern in exchange. Then I turn to Borden and I turn in my T2 Boots and the Boot Pattern and he gives me my brand spanking new T3 Boots. I do see how this could confuse people. The simplest way to explain it is with this chart:

T3 Void Shard Armor

8 Void Shards + Head Mold + T2 Head -> T3 Head
10 Void Shards + Chest Mold + T2 Chest -> T3 Chest
12 Void Shards + Shoulder Mold + T2 Shoulder -> T3 Shoulder
5 Void Shards + Gloves Mold + T2 Gloves -> T3 Gloves
8 Void Shards + Legs Mold + T2 Legs -> T3 Legs
5 Void Shards + Boots Mold + T2 Boots -> T3 Boots

But we’re not done yet. All of the T3 Void Shard Armor Sets have a 7 piece bonus, meaning you’ll have to get the Bracers somewhere. Note that some armor sets have multiple items of the same slot listed in the “set”. Coercer and Illusionist for instance have 2 headpieces they can choose from.

Originally posted by Kirstie at EQ2 Forums:

We have some exciting new features in the works for EQII! One of the first we’ll be talking about is Research Assistants.

These hardworking researchers will help you acquire upgrades to your spells and combat arts while you’re off adventuring in the deepest darkest dungeon or asleep in your own warm cozy bed. Even though they’re hardworking, they’re not a speedy service and they are limited in how much they’ll help you. Because this kind of research is complicated, they’ll only be able to work on one spell or combat art for one character per server.

All research requires a base amount of information to work with. In the case of the Research Assistants, this manifests in that they require you to have the previous tier of the spell being upgraded before they can begin work for you. So, in order to research that Master I, you’ll need to first know the Adept III version, though it doesn’t matter whether that Adept III version came from researching or from your friendly neighborhood sage, jeweler or alchemist. The time required to research a spell increase will vary based on the level and tier of the spell. A level 20 Adept I may only take an hour, while a level 80 master will likely take a month or longer.

We’re still working out the details of how these assistants will work in Norrath and we want to hear your feedback. Do you have a preference on how these researchers would look or how you interact with them?

There have been many requests over the last couple of years for SoE to provide a way for people to acquire hard-to-find masters such as level 53-58 masters which do not get upgraded beyond that level. Rangers have a level 53 buff which does not get upgraded for instance.

I think it’s a good idea. If you have characters on 3 different servers, then you can have ONE character per server researching a spell upgrade.

Considering the time investment (2-5 weeks) for ONE spell, this meets a need that many people have been begging for. There are level 50’s Masters that do not get upgraded. Also, Illusionist and Conjuror master pet spells routinely go for 200-300 plat.

This allows people to choose WHICH spell they want to upgrade rather than having to continue grinding old dungeons or old raid zones to get a master which might or might not be on various loot tables.

I think most people WILL NOT use them to get Adept I’s but I suppose ubercasual players who only play once in a while and don’t want to drop the 4 plat on a silicate loam might upgrade 1 spell a month this way.

I think this is a good idea.

Personally, I would also like to see a device that strips the NO TRADE tag off ONE item per month.

Recently players noticed that they were unable to start Commisioned crafting of void shard items if the crafter was in possession of the void shard. Emily “Domino” Taylor, EQII Tradeskill Developer, responded on the Official Forums:

“The transfer of no-trade items (including void shards) via commission crafting was unintended. Going forward, you can expect that this kind of transfer will not be possible. A recipe that requires a no-trade item to make and produces a no-trade product, should require all of those no-trade components to be held by the person who is going to end up with the final product.”

Many players used this to sell no-trade crafting components along with the crafting service (usually 2-3p per shard).

From EQ2 Forums. First on Zam.