Highlights

• Hardcore Heritage zone revamps begin with Blackburrow and the Temple of Cazic Thule on May 11th, 2012! Lower Guk and Unrest will transform on June 1st, and Crushbone and Permafrost will transform on June 22nd.
• Existing Lost Dungeons of Norrath adventures can now be obtained and completed by players above level 80. The Wayfarer's Brotherhood has not found any more challenging adventures, however.
• A variety of achievements are now available for Seeds of Destruction.
• Healer mercenaries level 85 and above can once again cast the Promised and Elixir lines of spells.
• Healer mercenaries now regenerate their mana faster in and out of combat.
• The first player-generated maps have been added. See below for a list of the included maps.

Items

• All Legends of Norrath claim items are now heirloom.
• The dropped furniture items found in Sarith City and Pillars of Alra can now be traded.

Quests & Events

• The Triune God raid - Corpses of players who die in the third phase will now be teleported to the proper location if the raid resets.
• Existing Lost Dungeons of Norrath adventures can now be obtained and completed by players above level 80. The Wayfarer's Brotherhood has not found any more challenging adventures, however.
• Hardcore Heritage zone revamps begin with Blackburrow and the Temple of Cazic Thule on May 11th, 2012! Lower Guk and Unrest will transform on June 1st, and Crushbone and Permafrost will transform on June 22nd.
• The Triune God mission - The Triunity and its relics will clear themselves of detrimental spells when going invulnerable.
• The Triune God mission - The Shard Explosion spell no longer damages Relics or the Triunity.

Spells

• Bard - Reduced the amount of flurry chance given by Aria, Aura, and Echo of the Composer and Aria of the Orator.
• Bard - Increased the instrument modifier cap on Aria of the Composer and the Orator.
• Beastlord - Reduced the amount of flurry chance given by Nature's Fury and Kolos' Fury.
• Beastlord - Increased the damage modifier of Bestial Vivisection and Bestial Rending.
• Beastlord - Increased the speed of Spirit of Kolos summoned with Enhanced Minion VII through Enhanced Minion XII to match the speed of pets summoned by higher foci.
• Berserker - Reduced the amount of flurry chance given by Avenging Flurry Discipline ranks 2 and 3.
• Enchanter - Added the effects from Speed of Aransir to Compelling Edict and Enforce. Creatures you charm with these spells will now have all the benefits of a haste spell while under your control, but the haste effects will drop when the charm is broken.
• Magician - All level 91-95 non-swarm pets now come equipped with a Summoned: Visor of Vabtik in addition to the other armor and jewelry they already had equipped.
• Magician - Increased the innate run speed of all level 91-95 pets that are summoned with an applicable focus.
• Magician - Increased the resist modifier and damage dealt by Servant Slay and Minion Slay.
• Magician - Increased the damage dealt by all components of Strike of Many.
• Necromancer - Level 92 and 95 pets summoned with Enhanced Minion XIII and up have had their proper appearance restored.
• Rogue - Smokeblind traps have been set to no longer trigger when touched by mercenaries.

Achievements

• A variety of achievements are now available for Seeds of Destruction.
• Secalna Galnor now offers the Achievements Tutorial in the Plane of Knowledge.

Mercenaries

• Healer mercenaries level 85 and above can once again cast the Promised and Elixir lines of spells.
• Healer mercenaries now regenerate their mana faster in and out of combat.
• Mercenaries will no longer trigger Smokeblind traps (or other such traps).

Maps

• The first player-generated maps have been added: – Acrylia Caverns map by Cardiac of Drinal – Al'Kabor's Nightmare map by Cardiac of Drinal – Ashengate map by Blindheart of Drinal – Crystallos map by Blindheart of Drinal – Goru`kar Mesa map by Zigie of Povar – Harbingers Spire map by Zigie of Povar – Hills of Shade map by Blindheart of Drinal – Icefall Glacier map by Zigie of Povar – Kaesora Library map by Jyve of Antonius Bayle – Korafax map by Danille of Bristlebane – The Steppes map by Jyve of Antonius Bayle – Stone Hive map by Blindheart of Drinal – Sunderock Springs map by Jyve of Antonius Bayle – Toskirakk map by Blindheart of Drinal

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue that caused some players to be unable to remove their shroud forms.
• Fixed issue with pets and mercenaries not properly gaining effects from their worn items. This will prevent melee DPS mercenaries from generating too much hate, among other issues.
• Fixed a crash issue related to selling items while in a shroud.

UI

• Added a tip file for the evolving item XP transfer window.
• The item display window will only display its scroll bar on the augmentation section when it needs it now (instead of all the time).

• Changed - EQUI_ItemDisplayWnd.xml

Previously Updated

• Hatching a Plan - Characters should now receive credit for either destroying eggs before they hatch, or killing the hatchlings that hatch from the eggs.
• Hatching a Plan - The character who has an Empty Vial should now receive a Blood-Filled vial when all eight creatures have been killed, regardless of who killed the final creature.
• A Different Perspective - This mission is now available to all adventurers on non-progression servers regardless of expansions purchased.
• The Triune God raid - Prevented players from having a charm aura placed on them without warning.

You asked the questions!

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Bard

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Bards are an incredible multi-functional class. The phrase Jack of All Trades is often used in describing them. Bards are one of the premier pulling classes in the game, and has considerable crowd control abilities. When it comes to damage, Bards have always contributed more through Attributable DPS than through direct contribution. While we may increase bard DPS as part of normal upgrades, giving them DPS “in line with other Hybrids” would make them far too powerful.

With the release of the Veil of Alaris, we’ve added quite a bit of functionality to instruments. Currently if you have the appropriate instrument, it adds an extra tick of duration to most songs of that instrument type, making even more powerful and complex weaves possible. These changes are pretty deep, so we’re evaluating their long term impact before we consider any other possible changes.

Magician

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Pets have never been intended to be a primary raid tank, because this somewhat limits a number of classes from fully participating in raids. While pets can sometimes be a very short term stop gap measure when something has gone wrong, raids should not be tankable by pets for long durations. We do plan in the future to mitigate the ability of pets to tank most raid targets; however we’ll definitely keep the group game in mind when we make these adjustments. We’ll unveil the details of these changes at a later date.

Monk

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Ellie: Bare Midriffs.

The concept of a unique class-defining ability or characteristic simply hasn’t survived over the 13 years of EverQuest. Monks are still a very well rounded DPS class, can handle limited tanking, pulling, and even some limited crowd control. If there is a class-defining characteristic, we would say it is that they are quite good at a wide range of roles.

Paladin

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We're not looking to improve Paladin damage against undead. We always aim to make the two knights roughly equal in terms of survivability while preserving their unique playstyles. Both knight classes could use some improvement in their ability to tank. Paladins will continue to get normal upgrades to their existing undead abilities, but it is not a good idea for any class to become too specialized.

A group geared paladin would be best served as a tank for group content, with the additional ability to do some spot healing or cures if necessary.

Warrior

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This is an interesting idea to consider, but right now it has multiple issues. We currently do not have a good way to drop you in front of the target, and not “in” the target and thus “unable to see” the target. Lag would also affect your “charge”, and as things stand now it is a “leaping” charge, so low ceilings get in the way. We are not against the idea, but as mentioned, it has several issues that make it unfeasible at this time.

Beastlord

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While Beastlords are a Hybrid class with a diverse range of abilities, the Track ability is not currently planned as a future addition. Beastlords are primarily a hybrid of Monk and Shaman, while Track is the special ability of Rangers (and to a lesser extent Druids and Bards). While Beastlords do have many elements of other classes, most recently they were given a limited Feign Death like ability through the AA Playing Possum, Track is not on their list.

Druid

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Druids are the most damage focused of the priest classes, but maintaining a balance between their damage and healing abilities is important. Versatility in roles is key to the Druid class, and if we were to further focus the class towards damage output the cost would come in healing abilities.

Class Systems/Itemization Questions:

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There are no plans to review epic quests at this time, nor to make any ornaments with their functionality. One of the interesting aspects of Epic Weapons is that their powerful focus abilities often come with the limitation that the weapon needs to stay equipped in order to benefit from the bonuses provided. This sort of thing is self balancing as gear overall becomes more powerful, without forcing us to constantly include the epic focus effects in our balancing equations.

Epic type quests take an enormous amount of Design time; something that is difficult to justify for one quest for one class. Taking that same amount of time we can make a lot more content that is available for all classes. Right now we are not planning on an epic 3.0 for that reason.

We also do not plan to alter the current epic quests. By their name, they need to continue to be epic, even if it is older content. One of the fondest memories many players have in EverQuest is the feeling of accomplishment that they have after completing their class Epics. We don’t want to cheapen that in any way, or deny that same experience to future players.

Off the beaten path

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Ngreth - Yes, you can hear yourself.

Aritso - Depends on how far you fall.

Elidroth - As a tree illusion, you cannot move, therefore you cannot fall. This is a trick question.

Ngreth - Which came first? The Bard or the Song?

Aristo - About five minutes after their first encounter with a bard-specific rule.

Elidroth - 0.68 seconds, which for an android is an eternity.

Ellie - Really, it depends on how long the rest of the developers want to make the new one suffer. J

All games and services will be affected

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Important: We will perform maintenance beginning at 12:01AM Pacific* on April 23, 2012. This will impact the following services:

• Login for our games WILL be affected from 12:01 AM Pacific to approximately 11:59 PM Pacific
• Commerce transactions, including purchases on our websites and in-game marketplaces will be unavailable between from 12:01 AM Pacific to approximately 11:59 PM Pacific
• Account management will be unavailable starting 12:01 AM to approximately 11:59 PM Pacific
• All Games will be unavailable starting 12:01 AM to approximately 11:59 PM Pacific

We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.