Test Patch Notes 06/11

[KennyNinja]

June 11, 2014
_____________________


*** Highlights ***

- New AAs and spells are now available for all classes! Visit the vendors in the guard camp of Ethernere-Tainted West Karana to find the new spells.
- Warm winds begin to blow in Ethernere-Tainted West Karana and the South Desert of Ro. Winds like these must portend the arrival of something or someone. Stay alert for when the time comes!
- Optimizations have been made to the Tower of Rot, which should improve frame rates in the zone and the raid.


*** Items ***

- Increased the recast time on the Miniature Horn of Unity to 10 minutes, but the effect is much friendlier with stacking.
- Added tribute values to several items which had none in Call of the Forsaken.
- Shroud of the Forgotten will now correctly evolve into a cloak. This item once again has a chance to drop from rare NPCs in the Tower of Rot zone, heroic adventure, and mission.
- Heroic Characters will no longer be offered heroic-only augment rewards for quests in early House of Thule zones if the characters have already received the augment rewards for a particular slot.
- Replaced the non-functional Illusions of Grandeur focus on Enchanter robes with a new focus that reduces the recast time of Phantasmal Unity.
- Added a new /destroyitem command that behaves like clicking the Destroy button with an item on the cursor.


*** Marketplace ***

- Catch a ride on a new Black Wolf mount, arriving this month on the 25th!
- New Player Studio items will be arriving this month on the 18th and 25th! In July, additional itmes will appear on the 2nd, 9th, and 16th.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Warm winds begin to blow in Ethernere-Tainted West Karana and the South Desert of Ro. Winds like these must portend the arrival of something or someone. Stay alert for when the time comes!
- Narius' Plan - Jrint the Scout has hidden himself in a different location of Tower of Rot, away from the Corpseflower.
- The Search for the Ultimate Story - If you are on the proper step of this quest, you will be able to configure your Clockwork Key using the front door to Meldrath's Majestic Mansion.
- Raid chests in the Ancient Heroes quests from Old Man McKenzie can now be opened with 6 or more players present.


*** Spells ***

- New spells are now available for all classes! Visit the vendors in the guard camp of Ethernere-Tainted West Karana to find the new spells.
- Rogue - Knifeplay Discipline will no longer be activated if Rogue's Fury is active.


*** NPC ***

- Bards, rejoice: drakes can no longer hold weapons in their mouths!


*** AA ***

- New AAs are now available for all classes!
- Bard - Casting bars are now displayed when using AAs with a casting time.
- Bard - When actively singing or using /melody, the song or melody will be interrupted when using an AA with a casting time.
- Bard - Dirge of the Sleepwalker will now show a casting bar when activated, and then it will continue to refresh like any song. The dirge can be stopped with /stopsong or by left clicking a spell slot.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Orphic cards used in research now correctly produce Strength of the Gladetender Rk. II instead of Strength of the Tracker Rk. II.
- Newer tradeskilled equipment items that were missing shared recast timers have had them applied.
- Magi Rune recipes have been changed to use the general Spell Research Kit.
- Tradeskilled items that were triggering with incorrect skill usage have been corrected.


*** Achievements ***

- Corrected an issue that caused the achievement "Vindicator of the Call (Group)" to be awarded after completing the task "A Rotten Heart" rather than the task "The Fall of Lord Bayle" as intended.
- The two-handed piercing skill has been factored into Weapon Proficiency achievements.
- The "Swing and a Miss" challenge achievement is now worth 10 points instead of 40.
- The "The Fall of Lord Bayle: Challenge of Toughness" challenge achievement is now worth 10 points instead of 40.
- The description for the "Figurine Collector's Chest: Denizens" achievement now correctly describes the collectibles as "Denizens," not "Dolls."


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Optimizations have been made to the Tower of Rot, which should improve frame rates in the both the zone and the raid.
- The ", Spirit of Norrath" and "the Adventurous" suffix titles are now applied appropriately.
- The Icebreaker in Iceclad Ocean and the Pirate Runner's Skiff that ferry travelers between the Northern Desert of Ro and Iceclad Ocean have resumed their operations.


*** UI ***

- Options were added for Hide AFK Pets and Hide AFK Mercenaries. Type /hideafk to see the slash command usage.

- Changed -
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
dragitem195.dds
dragitem196.dds

Finally bards get some random fixes for casting and illusions.

 

[SiegeTank]

New spells and new AAs!? Sweet! New AA's: a reason for maxed out toons to XP again!

/destroyitem command is interesting but Thank da Gods for the option to recover a destroyed item because you can bet your bottom dollar this command is going to lead to problems for some players.

When does a Test patch usually meander its way to "real" servers?

 

[hawthorne]

1-2 weeks at most usually, assuming everything isn't broken.

 

[saintonan]

This round will probably go live on the 18th, possibly in a slightly different way from what's hitting the Test server now. There's a beta server up running until next Monday, and the AAs and spells are being significantly tweaked almost daily.

 

[Dealings]

about how many more aa are we getting 300 to 500?

and are they mostly just increase to what we already have or is anything actually new?

 

[Noah3]

some new some increase, info is on the everquest forum all the different spells and aas

 

[SiegeTank]

Not to sound like an EQ ass-kisser, but let's remember patches like this one when we all gripe about how xpacs don't have as much content as they used to.

Of course, that being said, a final conclusion awaits seeing what KIND of new spells and AAs are introduced with this patch.

 

[PeteSampras]

i reviewed most the AAs and spells so I know what is coming down the pipe for mq2bot purposes and it isn't much. There are a few odds and ends that are new and nice, but it is mostly just rank23-25 of existing line type of stuff. There are a couple spells revived from the dead with updates for some classes, and a couple entirely new spells.

The problem I have with how they are releasing content is that because there is never a deadline and because they can always put something off until later.. they keep putting it off or come up with crap that I could have updated myself in 10 minutes with an excel sheet.

 

[William12]

i reviewed most the AAs and spells so I know what is coming down the pipe for mq2bot purposes and it isn't much. There are a few odds and ends that are new and nice, but it is mostly just rank23-25 of existing line type of stuff. There are a couple spells revived from the dead with updates for some classes, and a couple entirely new spells.

The problem I have with how they are releasing content is that because there is never a deadline and because they can always put something off until later.. they keep putting it off or come up with crap that I could have updated myself in 10 minutes with an excel sheet.

Lack of resources and the fact that they use the same dev team for expansions. Also after 15 years it can be hard to come up with new ideas and even harder to get the proper code programmed into the game to make them ideas work.

 

[dewey2461]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

 

[hawthorne]

CCP recently did the same thing to Eve. Rather than larger content patches, they are doing smaller ones, as things get done, every 6-8 weeks, or at least that's the theory.

 

[William12]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

It's more to keep you hooked. Before ROF we would just beat all the content in a month farm raids for 3-5 months then people would take a break and come back a month before the next expansion. So 6 months out of the year you never had to pay for your EQ Sub

 

[aspire2008]

i reviewed most the AAs and spells so I know what is coming down the pipe for mq2bot purposes and it isn't much. There are a few odds and ends that are new and nice, but it is mostly just rank23-25 of existing line type of stuff. There are a couple spells revived from the dead with updates for some classes, and a couple entirely new spells.

The problem I have with how they are releasing content is that because there is never a deadline and because they can always put something off until later.. they keep putting it off or come up with crap that I could have updated myself in 10 minutes with an excel sheet.

Lack of resources and the fact that they use the same dev team for expansions. Also after 15 years it can be hard to come up with new ideas and even harder to get the proper code programmed into the game to make them ideas work.

They can't come up with new ideas because of exactly what you said - same exact dev team. Its time to get some new blood, look at what Dzarn has done in the past 2 years compared to what the same freaking devs we have to deal with year after year, who have become secure in their jobs for being at the company so long have, they know they don't have to give a flying fuck anymore on improving the game cause they are not vulnerable in their job security. They need more interns and new hires to bring in creativity at this point.

Remember those SoD breastplate clickies that have been cycled/copied over for the most part for the last 4 years, those were all done by an intern...

EDIT: What ever happened to the weekly content updates they promised in the producer letter?

 

[KennyNinja]

they are probably trying to focus on new games, like the faith on eq is really low.

 

[Copperhead]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

It's more to keep you hooked. Before ROF we would just beat all the content in a month farm raids for 3-5 months then people would take a break and come back a month before the next expansion. So 6 months out of the year you never had to pay for your EQ Sub

People are taking breaks now and not even blinking when "new" stuff comes out. The devs are trying to polish a turd right now, and a lot of folks see through it and are waiting to see what happens next expansion before they make any decisions on their EQ future. I cant say that I blame these people either.

they are probably trying to focus on new games, like the faith on eq is really low.

Uhhh, yeah. Its called EQNext. That is where all of the money that we put into EQ1 is going currently.

 

[aspire2008]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

It's more to keep you hooked. Before ROF we would just beat all the content in a month farm raids for 3-5 months then people would take a break and come back a month before the next expansion. So 6 months out of the year you never had to pay for your EQ Sub

People are taking breaks now and not even blinking when "new" stuff comes out. The devs are trying to polish a turd right now, and a lot of folks see through it and are waiting to see what happens next expansion before they make any decisions on their EQ future. I cant say that I blame these people either.

they are probably trying to focus on new games, like the faith on eq is really low.

Uhhh, yeah. Its called EQNext. That is where all of the money that we put into EQ1 is going currently.

I am one of those people. I haven't actively played in over 6 months now except to log in my bazaar mule. I bought CotF for 6 of my 40ish accounts and glad I didn't spend the $$ on it for the rest. I have played in the expansion for about a week when it came out and haven't felt like logging in to play (although I'm starting to get the feeling to log back in soon to check it out for a week or two now that tier 2 is out).

I am hoping Black Desert turns out to be the next game I get hooked into if they ever come out with a English publisher and polish the game play up quite a bit.

EDIT: DOTA2 is what I'm currently hooked into , totally f2p , but its not a Mmorpg.

 

[William12]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

It's more to keep you hooked. Before ROF we would just beat all the content in a month farm raids for 3-5 months then people would take a break and come back a month before the next expansion. So 6 months out of the year you never had to pay for your EQ Sub

People are taking breaks now and not even blinking when "new" stuff comes out. The devs are trying to polish a turd right now, and a lot of folks see through it and are waiting to see what happens next expansion before they make any decisions on their EQ future. I cant say that I blame these people either.

they are probably trying to focus on new games, like the faith on eq is really low.

Uhhh, yeah. Its called EQNext. That is where all of the money that we put into EQ1 is going currently.

If you think EQ is profitable enough to support development of EQ Next I got a bridge to sell you.

 

[wunaye]

If you think EQ is profitable enough to support development of EQ Next I got a bridge to sell you.

Yeah I doubt the money is going to support eq next when they can barely keep eq running. If EQ made good money they would focus more on it.

 

[Copperhead]

The continual push of small content changes. So each push is small and easy to go ... is that all?

Rather than saving it all up for one big push after a couple months of nothing and going well its a lot of the same old crap but at least there's 4-5 zones, new spells, new level ...

It's more to keep you hooked. Before ROF we would just beat all the content in a month farm raids for 3-5 months then people would take a break and come back a month before the next expansion. So 6 months out of the year you never had to pay for your EQ Sub

People are taking breaks now and not even blinking when "new" stuff comes out. The devs are trying to polish a turd right now, and a lot of folks see through it and are waiting to see what happens next expansion before they make any decisions on their EQ future. I cant say that I blame these people either.

they are probably trying to focus on new games, like the faith on eq is really low.

Uhhh, yeah. Its called EQNext. That is where all of the money that we put into EQ1 is going currently.

If you think EQ is profitable enough to support development of EQ Next I got a bridge to sell you.

Its better than no money. However, no, its not just EQ1 funds supporting it and going into it. Its other SOE games as well. EQ1 is just a small part of that overall cannon of money being funneled into their EQnext project.

 

[Fry]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think SoE's only cash cow left is Planetside 2. Giving Planetside 2 away for free on PS4 must be fairly profitable with ingame purchases.

I think changing EverQuest to free to play actually decreased revenue. EverQuest 2 to me seems to have a lower player base than EQ1 so lower revenue than it.

In the last nine months, it seems that EQ1 has lost a lot of it's staff. They either quit, or moved to EQ-Next. To me it seems there isn't too many staff around that know much about EverQuest, they are just trying to run it on a skeleton crew. I really wish they would just do a proper old school p1999 server. If P1999 Emu project can get 2000+ userbase, they would create a hugely popular server. Check out how popular Old School Runescape has become. It's hugely popular, more so than it's normal servers.

/endrant