Patch 28th of April

[Argach]

April 28th, 2004
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Headlines!

- A new storybook has arrived! Make sure you read it to find out what Tondal is up to now.
- A new adventure zone is live on Stormhammer!
- A new adventure zone has moved from Stormhammer to Live!
- What are the "HOT SPOTS"?
- Plane of Knowledge open to everyone!


New Adventure Zone goes to Stormhammer
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- We have added a new adventure zone which should be a challenge for 2 groups of about 50th level.
A party of adventurers is missing and was last seen working with the undead. Will you brave the catacombs to find them?


New Adventure Zone moves to Live
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- The adventure zone currently on Stormhammer will move to live servers. You can visit the Lost Pyramid of Galuuk Korr. This midlevel adventure zone will allow you to explore a monument from the lost elvish city of Takish Hiz! Now you must find what was left beneath the sands. Good luck.

Hot Spots
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Try out the new Hot Spot zones which give a boost to Experience while adventuring in them, in a similar manner to Paludal Caverns. The current Hot Spots are:

- The Castle of Mistmoore (20th to 30th level)
- The Lair of the Splitpaw (35th to 45th level)
- Dulak's Harbor (40th to 45th level)
- The Tower of Frozen Shadow (30th to 35th level)
- The Gulf of Gunthak (35th to 40th level)
- Hate's Fury (55th to 60th level)
- The Crypt of Nadox (50th to 55th level)
- The Torgiran Mines (45th to 50th level)

These Hot Spot zones are generally aimed at characters level 20 to 51. The Hot Spot zones will shift from time to time, so watch for messages giving clues as to where the new ones may be.


Plane of Knowledge
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All EQ characters can now access the Plane of Knowledge whether they have purchased Planes of Power or not!

General
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- We have decreased load times when zoning.


Gates Sewers and Vxed
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- Rare NPCs in the Gates sewers and Vxed will not spawn at the creation of the expedition zone. They will now spawn after the zone has been occupied for some time.


Items
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- Skill percent-mods now work for Ammo slot items.
- Grand Tunic of the Oracle and the Grand Robe of the Oracle have had a type 7 augmentation slot added to them.
- Lungi of the Forbidden will display a robe graphic once again. Monks and Beastlords will be able to swap the robe in for a leather looking BP with the same stats by visiting Garath the Trader in East Wastes. You will be able to swap the items back and forth with Garath for your desired look. (Lungi? Lungi? What is a Lungi?)


Spells
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- Characters in illusion form can again be targeted.
- Bull Rush is now a magical resist. Please do not use in a china shop.
- Balance of the Nihil has had its Mana and Slow percentage increased.


Tracking
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- More NPC's in Qinimi now leave tracks for trackers to find.


Firiona Vie
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- The Shuriken of Eternity and Ton Po's Mystical Pouch are now no-drop.

[mac173]

Try out the new Hot Spot zones which give a boost to Experience while adventuring in them, in a similar manner to Paludal Caverns. The current Hot Spots are:

- The Castle of Mistmoore (20th to 30th level)
- The Lair of the Splitpaw (35th to 45th level)
- Dulak's Harbor (40th to 45th level)
- The Tower of Frozen Shadow (30th to 35th level)
- The Gulf of Gunthak (35th to 40th level)
- Hate's Fury (55th to 60th level)
- The Crypt of Nadox (50th to 55th level)
- The Torgiran Mines (45th to 50th level)

So, you can level up to level 60 with the speed of PC? Is this really a good thing? As it is, it takes a dedicated player 4 to 5 months to make level 65. It needs to go FASTER?
Hell, why don't we just initiate /testbuff on the Live Servers?

I know a lot of ppl will not like my opinion on this, but this is bad for the game. It just makes the game below level 65 irrelevant. The one characteristic that makes EQ stand out from the croud is the content. If you make 3/4 of the content irrelevant, how have you improved the game?

[DontPetBear]

- The Crypt of Nadox (50th to 55th level)
- The Torgiran Mines (45th to 50th level)

I forsee a lot of bodies piling up in here.

[katahn]

Take look at those zones, they are all off the beaten path, far from PoK books, and generally are the places where people learn to play or will be waiting a week for their bodies to appear in ShadowRest.....  We've constantly argued that folks needed to be rewarded better for going off ezloop, this strikes me as a good change.

[Incite]

Hell, why don't we just initiate /testbuff on the Live Servers?

That is an extremely good idea, I've thought that for a while now - for those who have a level 65 character on that account.

I think the idea of adding the "hot spot" thing is to get people to spread out and see more of the zones that are sitting empty a lot of the time.  'Course those zones are mostly under-utilised because the popluation is top heavy ...

[Gimrol]

April 28th, 2004

Hot Spots
-----------------------
Try out the new Hot Spot zones which give a boost to Experience while adventuring in them, in a similar manner to Paludal Caverns. The current Hot Spots are:

- The Castle of Mistmoore (20th to 30th level)
- The Lair of the Splitpaw (35th to 45th level)
- Dulak's Harbor (40th to 45th level)
- The Tower of Frozen Shadow (30th to 35th level)
- The Gulf of Gunthak (35th to 40th level)
- Hate's Fury (55th to 60th level)
- The Crypt of Nadox (50th to 55th level)
- The Torgiran Mines (45th to 50th level)

These Hot Spot zones are generally aimed at characters level 20 to 51.

Hmm... I'm one of about 10 people in the game that actually like the LoY expansion.  I guess I'll get the "fun" of PC in /shout and /ooc while i'm leveling alts in zones that were formerly empty.

Can somebody verify that the xp bonus still applies if you are outside of the ranges listed above?  I'm not a big parser, but I bet some of you could figure this out easilly.

Gates Sewers and Vxed
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- Rare NPCs in the Gates sewers and Vxed will not spawn at the creation of the expedition zone. They will now spawn after the zone has been occupied for some time.

Wow.  I guess they REALLY don't want you to farm stufff out of there if you are not doing trials.  This is sorta abused on FV because of the lack of no-drop, but is it common on other servers?

[Tastian]

"As it is, it takes a dedicated player 4 to 5 months to make level 65."

I'd say it's even faster than that.  Game is crazy fast atm, I agree.

Also some of the zones listed have other content besides just 20-51 I am actually curious to see how big the exp shift is and if perhaps some solo classes might make out good in say torr higher up.

[Tipop]

Wow. I guess they REALLY don't want you to farm stufff out of there if you are not doing trials. This is sorta abused on FV because of the lack of no-drop, but is it common on other servers?

Yep. People were triggering trials, entering to see if the named was in the first room or the first hall, and if not, exiting and triggering a new trial.. over and over and over again. That way they could get one named every 20-40 minutes on average.

With this change, I hope they upgrade the drop rate on the nameds. As it was before you could go through three or four nameds without getting any worthwhile drops.

[Maeceo]

The only thing that the hot spots has going for it is the fact that they are not fast access zones, so ya, as someone pointed out at least it is not a book away. If it means getting people to spread out I guess they needed to do something since LDoNs up to about level 50 is mad fast exp, I bet as good as any of these zones. The other thing is that they are not listing the ZEM, so while it may be higher, it may be somewhat of a scam and not be THAT much higher.

Was hoping the new log in screen thing was going to go live. While it supposedly will kill EQW (not sure how, but that is what a test bard is posting at diva), the quick log-in feature will own.

[Ridum]

The sub 65 game has been irrelevant for some time now.

I would love to see the option of starting new characters at lvl 45 if you already have a lvl 65 character on that same account.

[JillieMT]

Anyone can power level to 65 if they want to anyways, the Hot Spots doesn't change that a bit. Everyone seems to follow the exact same path of zones to get there anyway.

I LOVE the Hot Spot idea! So many underutilized zones, that people will now be more inclined to visit!

Personally, I say kudos SOE.

[janl]

Well, all this discussion about the ZEM changes, but nobody has mentioned opening up PoK to everyone?  When I read that I expected to scroll down and see several whining posts complaining about how the only reason they purchased PoP was for the PoK books, etc....  Glad to see I was wrong.

[Konji]

Since no one has mentioned it so far.

Pet Shrink not fixed yet.

BIG SURPRISE!!

[Tastian]

I think opening up PoK is pretty major, also it allows people that didn't buy PoP to get all of their PoP spells now(some were vender bought and no drop).  I personally would really like it if GoD spells were made tradeable to as most are pretty minor upgrades and some like group infusion might actually make it into the hands of some that would use the silly thing.  *shrugs*

[Hzark]

What news of the new adventure zone?

Is it a normal zone or a LDoN zone?

If the latter, by mid level do they mean for mid-level players or do they mean mid-way between normal and hard?