Hero's Forge launches on Wednesday, August 15, 2012. This is an exciting new armor system that allows you to dramatically change the appearance of your visible gear. With a one-time purchase of 1200 Station Cash per character, you will immediately receive a complete set of Hero's Forge armor appearance augmentations. More importantly, you'll unlock the ability to use hundreds of new armor pieces that you can gain through various means as you adventure through Norrath.

Norrath's mightiest heroes will be garbed in armor never before seen in EQ!

In addition to the Hero's Forge set you receive with your initial purchase, there will be three armor themes that can be gained through playing the world of EverQuest: Bloodforged (available as rare drops off level 80+ Rare Mobs), Valiant (dropped from Veil of Alaris Mission Chests), and Noble (available for completing certain Veil of Alaris Mercenary Achievements). In the near future we will add even more sets and different means to acquire Hero's Forge armor, including tradeskills, raids, and through defeating monsters throughout Norrath!

Whether you wear Plate, Cloth, Leather or Chain, Hero's Forge armor has you covered!

The call goes out to all true warriors of spirit to unsheathe your swords and raise your shields, as adventure and the thrill of all-new items falls within your grasp throughout Norrath over the coming weeks!

To learn more about Hero's Forge, please click on the link for our detailed FAQ!

• The Hero's Forge is now live! Players who purchase the Hero's Forge armor feature will be able to equip new armor ornaments that are found throughout Norrath.

• All augmentations can now be added to or removed from items directly from the item window now, without the use of an Augmentation Sealer. You will still need to have augmentation distillers or solvents in your inventory to remove those augments that require them.

• Players can now choose to post updates to Facebook or Twitter from within EverQuest! You can enable this option in the Share tab of the Options window.

• Reduced the cost of all Augmentation Distillers.

• Several potions that grant a bonus to experience gain have had their effects changed to persist through death.

• Augments can now be directly swapped in a piece of armor by clicking on an inserted augment with another augment on your cursor. Distiller requirements will still apply.

• Fixed the missing spell descriptions on the Glob of Oil, Handful of Coal, and Burning Ember quest items used in and around the Gyrospires.

• Corrected the name of Keremar's Wand to Keramar's Wand.

• Keramar's Crystal-Chain Belt is now using a more appropriate icon.

• The Order of Three (Raid) - Corpses left on the roof should be teleported out to the starting area on reset.

• The Order of Three (Raid) - Archers on the roof should no longer be attackable until the fight at the city hall has started.

• Time and Tides (Mission and Raid) - Fixed an issue where High Priest Xalziks would sometimes not spawn.

• Time and Tides (mission) - the Whirlpool spell effect is now a single-target effect and should now only strike players who are inside the whirlpool aura.

• Defeating the Triunity will now have a visible impact within the Sepulcher.

• Updated the augmentation tutorial to reflect the new changes to augments.

• Hill giants in The Steppes should now drop an Ancient Parchment more frequently.

• A Book for Toegnasher - Ancient Parchments required for this quest should now be easier to acquire.

• Druid - Added new Zephyr spells to Lavastorm, Dawnshroud Peaks, Plane of Knowledge, Wall of Slaughter, Undershore, and Arcstone. These spells are available alongside their personal and group versions.

• Added savior achievements for Underfoot and Seeds of Destruction content for better organization of tasks in these expansions.

• Included achievements to help track the collection of Hero's Forge armor. These new achievements will be displayed under the General -> Class tab if you have purchased access to the Hero's Forge feature.

• The achievement "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Past" should now update properly when "Audience with the Warmaster" is completed.

• Removed the erroneous achievement "The Precipice of War Traveler."

• Handful of Prism Grains will be available on Progression Servers on the normal merchants when Omens of War is unlocked.

• Fixed a problem that was causing some characters on Free or Silver accounts to die when using the /quit or /exit commands.

• Added code to prevent several apparent freezes when zoning or entering the game in Windows 7.

• Added more server side performance enhancements to better mitigate usage spikes.

• All augmentations can now be added to or removed from items directly from the item window now, without the use of an Augmentation Sealer. You will still need to have augmentation distillers or solvents in your inventory to remove those augments that require them.

• Added the ability to set the visibility level of new armor in the Display Tab of the Options Window. You can choose to have it on for everyone (default), your raid, your group, yourself, or no one at all.

• Added the ability to enable Facebook or Twitter updates from within EverQuest. These are enabled via the Share tab of the Options Window and can be accessed by the EQ -> Players -> Social Sharing button or with the following commands:

• Added -

• Changed -

• All players who are level 91 or higher will receive Knowledge of Alaran Culture - Advanced automatically upon entering any Veil of Alaris base zone.

• Fixed a problem that was causing server performance issues.