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.

Highlights

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• Destrea Kinmare in the Plane of Knowledge needs your help to stop the cruel experimentation that is underway within The Hatchery. Completing this mission provides a health and mana boost to the Dragonscale Skystrider Mount, which can be purchased in the Marketplace.
• Modified the functionality of prestige items so that armor or weapons with prestige augments inserted do not become prestige.
• Made numerous changes to Tier 3 and Tier 4 Veil of Alaris raids.
• Most items with activated spell effects can now be triggered from within your inventory.
• Maxed tradeskill trophies now produce a 24 slot tradeskill component bag in addition to the 12 slot general carry-all.
• You can now create an Extraplanar Trade Satchel using Extraplanar Silk.
• Reduced the number of players required to experience several older raid events.
• Secalna Galnor can now send you to the tutorial if you are level 10 or lower.
• Corrected an issue where players who had completed non-repeatable tasks in the past were not receiving achievement credit. This should clear up many issues where players were unable to complete the Hero's Journey meta-achievements.
• You can now ask Arias to send you to a different instance of the second Tutorial zone, if the initial instance is too full and another one is available. Just tell him that you [wish] to go.

Items

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• Nearly all items that previously needed to be equipped in order to activate their spell effect should now be useable from your inventory if you are capable of equipping that item. These changes intentionally exclude a number of quest and bane items.
• Rod of Alsa Thel can now be placed in your bank.
• Midnight Veil can no longer be stored in banks or real estates.
• Woodwind Finesse effect on the Twisted Reed Flute will no longer affect PBAE songs.

Tradeskills

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• Maxed tradeskill trophies now produce a 24 slot tradeskill component bag in addition to the 12 slot general carry-all.
• You can now find Extraplanar Silk in Veil of Alaris and House of Thule zones. To find instructions on how to use it to craft an Extraplanar Trade Satchel, visit Bookseller Shoden in Argath or Sherin Matrick in the Plane of Knowledge.
• Looted cultural crafting components now have small coin and tribute values.
• Added a coin or tribute value to many looted poison and jewelry tradeskilling components.

Quests & Events

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General

• Destrea Kinmare in the Plane of Knowledge needs your help to stop the cruel experimentation that is underway within The Hatchery. Completing this mission provides a health and mana boost to the Dragonscale Skystrider, which can be purchased in the Marketplace.
• The number of players required for the following events has been reduced from 18 to 6: Muramite Proving Grounds raid trials, and Erdna the Sleeping Giant in The Steppes.
• Quests granting reward sets that offer faction gains will now adjust opposing factions accordingly.

13th Anniversary

• Removed the option for 1 AA point as a reward. The quests now grant a small amount of experience upon completion.
• Lowered the re-use time of the mining pick used in "Responsible Mining".
• Corrected a few issues with "Ferocious Feralings" and "Rumor Has It...".
• Added an achievement related to the missions.
• The AA reward has been increased to 5 AA points, but may now only be selected once.
• 13th Anniversary raid rewards - Players who have already completed the raid should be granted a reward set via their raid achievement. The reward set allows you to select either augmentation that drops from the event. This choice is only granted once. Subsequent victories will allow you to choose between receiving factions or experience.

Cacophony of Power raid

• Decreased the mana drain on Dissonance of Depletion.

Fumerak the Quintessence raid

• Fixed a number of bugs, reduced the damage output of Fumerak and its adds, and improved the messaging.

Order of Three raid

• Removed an unnamed exploit.
• Decreased the melee damage of all three main bosses.
• The long-term debuffs (Life Enhancing Light, Coat of Oilflowers, Song for the Sea, and Coat of Roiling Water) no longer prevent out of combat regen.
• Reduced the radius of Bonds of Guilt and changed the spell's effect from a long snare to a short stun.

The Triune God raid

• Prevented the Blinding Lights from moving in a cluster and affecting avatar pathing.
• Reduced the sphere of influence sizes for Blinding Lights, Filth Clouds, and personal charm effects. Blinding Lights no longer has a knockback component, and its damage has been reduced.
• In the first phase, now only 4 of 8 crystal shards need to be destroyed. You also can damage the Triunity for up to 10% of its health, instead of 5%, on each vulnerability window.
• Charmed avatars will now stay focused on attacking crystal shards.
• In the second phase, the HP of crystal relics has been reduced by 30%, and their vulnerability window has lengthened.
• A checkpoint has been added after the second phase.
• The length of time between several emotes and their consequences has been increased.

Time and Tides raid

• Lowered the initial DPS of High Priests within the raid.
• Those who are currently on top of a High Priest’s hate list should no longer receive a whirlpool emote.
• Increased the amount of time characters have to respond to the whirlpool emote.
• Decreased the radius of the whirlpool effect.

Two Sides of the Stone raid

• Significantly lowered the amount of HP Vision or Decay will heal when a condition is "failed".
• Characters who are dead and unable to follow the "jump" emote will no longer trigger the fail condition.
• Characters now have a little more time to execute their "jumps" and remove "filth".

Unearthing Alra raid

• Clarified the effect of each tower.
• Made a number of changes to the messaging to better explain some previously ambiguous mechanics.

Raids

• The number of players needed to start the following raids has been reduced to 6: Ancient Heroes - Lady Vox, Ancient Heroes - Lord Nagafen, Big Bynn's Return, Crazok Moonfang, Fippy's Revenge, Ralkor's Crystals, The Fanged Moon, and The Soulbleeder Must Bleed.
• Reduced from 4 to 1 the number of players required to be at each altar in the "exiles" portion of the Inktu`Ta, The Unmasked Chapel raid.

Spells

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Enchanter

• Increased the damage on Mana Reiteration Strike and Mana Repercussion Strike.

Magician

• Exigent Minion and Exigent Servants have discovered a new ability that will only work against certain strong raid targets.

NPC

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• Fixxin Followig is in a great mood due to the 13th anniversary and will be more likely to chat with folks that he normally does not like.
• Geniveve, the Tribute Master in Crescent Reach, will now accept the tribute of any race, not just Drakkins.
• Laurentiu and Marilena in Goru`kar Mesa are more willing to accept the help of higher level adventurers undertaking the Hero's Journey.
• Secalna Galnor can now send you to the tutorial if you are level 10 or lower.
• Corrected an issue where Cook Idriak was not accepting the Ripe Bixie Head for his task "Heads Above the Rest".

AA

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• Enchanter - Mesmerization Mastery is now restricted to single-target mez spells only. Area-of-effect spells are not extended.

Achievements

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• To complete the "7th Anniversary Tasks" achievement, you now only need to finish one of the three tasks.
• Added a list of tasks to the Alaran Language Master achievement that shows the language points for the completion of various task groups.
• Corrected an issue where players who had completed non-repeatable tasks in the past were not receiving achievement credit. This should clear up many issues where players were unable to complete the Hero's Journey meta-achievements.

Progression Servers

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• Small Grease Jar Sketches are now available.

Mercenaries

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• Bloodbone Skeleton tank mercenaries will now keep the attention of their targets as reliably as other mercenaries.
• The following caster DPS mercenaries now cast at the same speed and generate the same amount of hate as other mercenaries - Amygdalan, Aviak, Bloodbone Skeleton, Dragorn, Gingerbread Man, Girplan, Hadal, Marionette, Rallosian Ork, Sarnak, and Swinetor.

Miscellaneous

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• Added two small signs in the Guild Lobby to signify which door will take you to a standard guild hall and which door will take you to a real estate guild hall.
• You can now ask Arias to send you to a different instance of the second Tutorial zone, if the initial instance is too full and another one is available. Just tell him that you [wish] to go.
• Made it so that members that do not have access to prestige items will no longer be able to insert a prestige augmentation into an item.
• Modified the functionality of prestige items so that armor or weapons with prestige augments inserted do not become prestige.
  • The item slot now appears purple when an item has an augment that is prestige (but the item itself is still enabled).
  • When examining the item, the item name will appear purple, and any augments that are disabled as a result of being prestige appear red.
  • If the item itself is prestige, and disabled as a result, then prestige augments are factored into the item display stats.
  • If the item itself is not prestige, then disabled prestige augments are not factored into the item display stats.

UI

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• Made it so that every UI window will have the "Help" option in its right click menu.
• Fixed an oversight where the "Style_Qmarkbox" didn't actually make the window display its "?" in the title bar. Now it will.
• Converted all the locations from defining the visibility of the "?" in code to the XML file instead.
• Added the "DecalSize" and "Location" properties to the ListboxColumn UI type. This allows custom UI designers to specify the size and positioning of graphical elements within list boxes. This has been implemented in the EQUI_MarketplaceWnd.xml for an example.

Changed

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• EQUI_AAWindow.xml
• EQUI_AdventureLeaderboardWnd.xml
• EQUI_AdventureRequestWnd.xml
• EQUI_AdventureStatsWnd.xml
• EQUI_AlertHistoryWnd.xml
• EQUI_AltStorageWnd.xml
• EQUI_AudioTriggersWindow.xml
• EQUI_BandolierWnd.xml
• EQUI_BankWnd.xml
• EQUI_BarterMerchantWnd.xml
• EQUI_BarterSearchWnd.xml
• EQUI_BarterWnd.xml
• EQUI_BigBankWnd.xml
• EQUI_BodyTintWnd.xml
• EQUI_ClaimWnd.xml
• EQUI_CombatAbilityWnd.xml
• EQUI_DynamicZoneWnd.xml
• EQUI_FellowshipWnd.xml
• EQUI_FriendsWnd.xml
• EQUI_GiveWnd.xml
• EQUI_GuildBankWnd.xml
• EQUI_GuildManagementWnd.xml
• EQUI_HotButtonWnd.xml
• EQUI_Inventory.xml
• EQUI_ItemExpTransferWnd.xml
• EQUI_JournalNPCWnd.xml
• EQUI_LeadershipWnd.xml
• EQUI_LFGuildWnd.xml
• EQUI_LootWnd.xml
• EQUI_MailAddressBookWindow.xml
• EQUI_MailCompositionWindow.xml
• EQUI_MailWindow.xml
• EQUI_MarketplaceWnd.xml
• EQUI_MerchantWnd.xml
• EQUI_NewPointMerchantWnd.xml
• EQUI_PetInfoWindow.xml
• EQUI_PlayerCustomizationWnd.xml
• EQUI_PointMerchantWnd.xml
• EQUI_PotionBeltWnd.xml
• EQUI_PvPLeaderboardWnd.xml
• EQUI_PvPStatsWnd.xml
• EQUI_QuantityWnd.xml
• EQUI_RaidWindow.xml
• EQUI_RealEstateItemsWnd.xml
• EQUI_RealEstateLayoutDetailsWnd.xml
• EQUI_RealEstateManageWnd.xml
• EQUI_RealEstateNeighborhoodWnd.xml
• EQUI_RealEstatePlotSearchWnd.xml
• EQUI_RealEstatePurchaseWnd.xml
• EQUI_SendMoneyWnd.xml
• EQUI_SkillsWindow.xml
• EQUI_SpellBookWnd.xml
• EQUI_StoryWnd.xml
• EQUI_TaskSelectWnd.xml
• EQUI_TaskTemplateSelectWnd.xml
• EQUI_TaskWnd.xml
• EQUI_TitleWnd.xml
• EQUI_TradeskillWnd.xml
• EQUI_TradeWnd.xml
• EQUI_TrainWindow.xml
• EQUI_TributeBenefitWnd.xml
• EQUI_TributeMasterWnd.xml
• EQUI_TributeTrophyWnd.xml
• EQUI_VoiceMacroWnd.xml
• EQUI_VoteResultsWnd.xml
• EQUI_VoteWnd.xml
• EQUI_ZoneGuideWnd.xml
• EQUI_ZonePathWnd.xml
• SIDL.xml

Previously Updated

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• Corrected an issue that could prevent players from requesting Bobo Gleemaker's mission 'This Ain't Right'.

Highlights

• Defiant augments are no longer prestige-flagged.
• Power sources should no longer cause armor to be unusable by Silver or Bronze players.
• Fixed several issues in 13th Anniversary content. Please see the Quests and Events section for details.

Items

• Corrected an issue with the Polymorph Wand: Lightning Warrior item that could allow people to grow to immense sizes.
• Defiant augments are no longer prestige-flagged.
• Power sources should no longer cause armor to be unusable by Silver or Bronze players.

Quests & Events

• Corrected a few issues with the Spider's Bite 13th Anniversary quest that could force players to start over or have other issues advancing.
• Fixed a problem in the Summoning the Master task that could cause one of the ritual areas to be unreachable.
• Changed the 13th anniversary raid to allow teleporting to banners that you place in the Tower of Frozen Shadow instance.
• Corrected a problem with the final turn-in for the quest Heads Above the Rest in Blightfire Moors.
• Corrected a problem where Valdoon Kel`Novar was instantly wiping out raid forces. He will now be a bit more judicious in who he targets with his AE lifetaps.
• Corrected an issue with the mission The Sound of Silence that caused players to get stuck when trying to use the Harmonic Disruptor on the active sentry stones.

Miscellaneous

• Modified the notice that players receive when losing inventory slots. Players will now be referred to a parcel merchant to retrieve their items.
• Mail items in parcels no longer expire.
• Duplicate lore items are no longer destroyed when in a parcel.
• When a player loses access to bag slots, we will now attempt to move the item in the inaccessible bag slots to open bag slots (if they exist). If they do not, then the items will be mailed back to them, however in the case of special no storage items they will be placed in any open inventory slot or on the cursor if there is no other space.
• Removed the ability to redeem head start characters on the Vox server. Players who have already redeemed head start characters on Vox will have those characters moved to a different server of their choice.
• Fixed two separate crashes that could occur when players opened certain merchant windows.

UI

• Removed the expiration date on parcels in the parcel merchant window because mailed items no longer expire.
• Changed the default behavior for the zone path finder window. "Include Bind Zone" is now off by default.

• Changed - EQUI_MerchantWnd.xml

Previously Updated

• Players who fail to zone out of the first section of the tutorial will now be able to attempt to do so again.
• Corrected a problem that was allowing players to request the task A Different Perspective without having completed the other 13 anniversary quests. All players will still be able to join the task once someone with the correct requirements requests it.
• Corrected a problem that was causing Grobb to endlessly repop itself on some servers.
• Corrected an issue that was activating the 13th Anniversary banners and booths on Progression servers when the 13th Anniversary events are not yet available.
• Removed a section of the Guild Lobby that doesn't connect to anything. You will have to re-run your patcher to see this change.
• Corrected an Achievement error that could cause some players to crash when they updated.

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Blue denotes a first prize recipient.
Red denotes a second prize recipient
Green denotes a special prize given at the discretion of Magelo, enjoy!

Bard

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oblib: Are there any plans to review the functionality of instruments? As it is, we lose DPS by equipping one and gain zero benefit overall, since most of us are high above the mod cap implemented in PoP.

Beastlord

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HieroDesteen: I have always wondered why the Beastlord class cannot track? It seems that a person that has an affinity for beasts would have some ability to track them!

Druid

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ValinEndac: Can we look forward to seeing the Druid class become a more damage focused hybrid again since the lack of healers was fixed with the addition of cleric mercenaries?

Magician

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jman2890: How do you intend to nullify pet tanking in the raid game, without destroying how a group magician functions day to day?

Monk

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Rten: What do you consider to be our unique defining class characteristic? EQ has many hybrid classes, and I love the concept of a monk. Since DPS is shared by many classes and several are superior to ours, FD/Fade is now shared by many classes, our ability to tank is limited, and so on; I am no longer clear what ours is.

Paladin

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hazimil: Throughout roleplaying history, the main focus of a Paladin was against Undead. However, their powers against Undead appear to diminish with each expansion (compared to other classes). Also, their ability as tanks has been substantially reduced with VoA (to the point where it’s very hard to get a group). Are there any plans to improve this class as an Undead Specialist and/or improve their ability to tank in VoA?

afai: What would you consider to be the best main role for a Paladin based upon gear solely attainable from grouping? Should our primary concern be a Secondary Tank, Heal and Cure support or focus as Main Tank and concentrate on our defensive AA? I would really like to know how to address new players who do not have access to raid gear and will more likely be playing in the F2P scenario thus limiting their AA count. Which role would be best suited given these factors?

Warrior

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makavien: Are there plans to implement a charge ability which engages an NPC?

Class Systems/Itemization Questions:

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Menehune1: It's always been a pain to do epic quests since they aren't usable in higher content. Are there plans to review this, or to consider ornamentation post-2.0? I think it would be cool to have pallies with their flaming swords, warriors with their light sabers, and casters with their staves and that it might encourage players to pursue their epic quests.

bamjammer: Will there be new epic weapon/item quests introduced (3.0) in future updates/expansions, and are there plans to streamline the current epic quests for incoming new players to make it easier for them to get started on them?

Off the beaten path

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Oxgoad
Class: Enchanter
Q: If you disguise yourself as the illusion of a tree falling in a forest, and no NPC is around to hear, do you make a sound?

Jerad
Class: Bard
Q: How long on average does it a take a new dev to realize that they wish bards never existed?