From SOE:

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

April 10, 2012 - Server Downtime April 11, 2012

All EverQuest Live Servers will be down on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 3:00 am US Pacific* for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

*** Highlights ***

• 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 ***

• 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.
• The Rod of Alsa Thel can now be placed in your bank.
• The Midnight Veil can no longer be stored in banks or real estates.
• The Woodwind Finesse effect on the Twisted Reed Flute will no longer affect PBAE songs.

*** Tradeskills ***

• 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 ***

• 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.
• Time and Tides raid - Lowered the initial DPS of High Priests within the raid.
• Time and Tides raid - Those who are currently on top of a High Priest’s hate list should no longer receive a whirlpool emote.
• Time and Tides raid - Increased the amount of time characters have to respond to the whirlpool emote.
• Time and Tides raid - 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".
• Two Sides of the Stone raid - Characters who are dead and unable to follow the "jump" emote will no longer trigger the fail condition.
• Two Sides of the Stone raid - Characters now have a little more time to execute their "jumps" and remove "filth".
• Unearthing Alra raid - Clarified the effect of each tower.
• Unearthing Alra raid - Made a number of changes to the messaging to better explain some previously ambiguous mechanics.
• Cacophony of Power raid - Decreased the mana drain on Dissonance of Depletion.
• Order of Three raid - Removed an unnamed exploit.
• Order of Three raid - Decreased the melee damage of all three main bosses.
• Order of Three raid and mission- 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.
• Order of Three raid and mission - Reduced the radius of Bonds of Guilt and changed the spell's effect from a long snare to a short stun.
• Fumerak the Quintessence raid - Fixed a number of bugs, reduced the damage output of Fumerak and its adds, and improved the messaging.
• The Triune God raid - Prevented the Blinding Lights from moving in a cluster and affecting avatar pathing.
• The Triune God raid - 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.
• The Triune God raid - 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.
• The Triune God raid - Charmed avatars will now stay focused on attacking crystal shards.
• The Triune God raid - In the second phase, the HP of crystal relics has been reduced by 30%, and their vulnerability window has lengthened.
• The Triune God raid - A checkpoint has been added after the second phase.
• The Triune God raid - The length of time between several emotes and their consequences has been increased.
• 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.
• The number of players required for the following events has been reduced from 18 to 6: Muramite Proving Ground raid trials, and Erdna the Sleeping Giant in The Steppes.
• 13th Anniversary quests - Removed the option for 1 AA point as a reward. The quests now grant a small amount of experience upon completion.
• 13th Anniversary quests - Lowered the re-use time of the mining pick used in "Responsible Mining".
• 13th Anniversary quests - Corrected a few issues with "Ferocious Feralings" and "Rumor Has It...".
• 13th Anniversary quests - Added an achievement related to the missions.
• 13th Anniversary mission - 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.
• Quests granting reward sets that offer faction gains will now adjust opposing factions accordingly.

*** Spells ***

• Enchanter - Increased the damage on Mana Reiteration Strike and Mana Repercussion strike.
• Magician - Exigent Minions and Exigent Servants have discovered a new ability that will only work against certain strong raid targets.

*** NPC ***

• Fixxin 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 Heads for his task "Heads Above the Rest".

*** AA ***

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

*** Achievements ***

• 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 ***

• Small Grease Jar Sketches are now available.

*** Mercenaries ***

• 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 ***

• 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 ***

• 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 -

• 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

January 30, 2012 - EverQuest is Going Free-to-Play

/Tell Norrathians INCOMING BUFFS!

Hello everyone - I hope you all are doing well early on in the New Year! With an exciting Veil of Alaris expansion just released in November, we're thrilled to announce the next big adventure for EverQuest®. After listening to your feedback and suggestions over the past few years, I'm happy to announce that in early March 2012, EverQuest will be going free-to-play.

You can read more here

In other news, while our hosting provider finally got our two months of missing data back from the data restore place, that was over two weeks ago, and we never saw any of the data ourselves, nor are they forthcoming with updates. Once I get information on bandwidth and such from the hubbyogre, I will be asking both our EQ and our EQII communities for hosting recommendations. Please, please, please, wait until I ask and post in the proper thread. While they are very well-meaning, the flood of private messages, IMs, in-game tells, facebook messages and so on offering recommendations is already overwhelming and very hard to to keep track of, especially on the bad fibro-fog days. I should have that post up later this week. Thanks!

~Mum

January 11, 2012 - Patch Day

All EverQuest Live Servers will be coming down on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 3:00 am US Pacific for a Game Update. The servers are estimated to be unavailable for approximately 5 hours. Keep an eye on the EQ Players website and the forums for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Patch Notes:

January 11, 2010
__________________________________________

***Highlights***

• Mercenary Roster Quest - A new tradeskill quest is available to obtain a mercenary slot for your roster by adding Hero's Barracks as a reward, if it has not been maxed at 4. See Mercenary Captain Cecille in the Plane of Knowledge. You must have mastered all basic tradeskills to take this quest.
• The achievement "Master of Alaris" now grants Hero's Barracks are a reward, which grants an additional mercenary slot, up to the maximum of 4.
• Players who participated in Beta can now claim their reward!

***Items***

• Vyer's Stud is now usable by beastlords
• Prescient Fleeting Quiver now has 39% haste.
• Rustic Coat of Carnage and Modest Warmonger Coat now have Sundering Discipline Quickening
• Rustic Coat of the Assassin and Modest Carnifex Coat now have Eradicator Discipline Quickening.
• Empowered trophies now have their intended graphics.
• The Token of Fanfare should now be far less intrusive.

***Tradeskills***

• Some tradeskilled ornamentations were showing the incorrect icons. These have been fixed.
• Soloist Ascension Sleeve seal of the Warchief now correctly has String Resonance.

***Quests & Events***

• Mercenary Roster Quest - A new tradeskill quest is available to obtain a mercenary slot for your roster by adding Hero's Barracks as a reward if it has not been maxed. See Mercenary Captain Cecille in the Plane of Knowledge. You must have mastered all basic tradeskills to take this quest.

**Spells**

• Scent of Terris should now correctly modify corruption resists instead of counters

**NPC**

• Krongar the Enrager may now appear after killing Rallosian Defectors in the Valley of Lunanyn.
• Prowler's in Beasts' Domain will no longer remain in the same spot where they lose agro.

*** AA ***

• Origin is now auto-granted at level 5 to all players. The reuse time has been lowered to 18 minutes.
• Hastened Origin has been refunded, as it is no longer relevant.

*** Achievements ***

• The achievement "Master of Alaris" now grants Hero's Barracks as a reward, which grants an additional mercenary slot, up to the maximum of 4.
• The achievement "Make Haste" for the mission "Secrets of the Stones" now requires the fragment delivery within 15 minutes, as intended, rather than 8 minutes.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent the completion of the "Pillars of Success" achievement during the mission "The Growing Threat."

*** Progression Servers ***

• Sooty Fine Runic Papyrus is now dropping on progression servers.
• Unfired Shade Summoning Figurine and Shade Summoning Figurine, for the quest "Vampyre Troubles," can now be combined on progression servers.

*** Miscellaneous ***

• Changed the default window size for EQ on a fresh install to default to the current desktop resolution.
• Made a change to prevent out-of-memory crashes on 64-bit systems. On 64-bit operating systems, EverQuest will now use 4GB of address space instead of only 2GB.
• Changed the default display for chat filters to automatically hide SPAM marked messages.

*** UI ***

• Added the ability to tint any control a certain color from the UI XML. The new property is called BackgroundTextureTint.
• Converted the button tinting from the "Buy Slot" button in the Mercenary window to use the new tinting option.

- Changed -

• EQUI_MercenaryManageWnd.xml
• SIDL.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

• Corrected a flag that was hiding Veil of Alaris type 3 augment spells on live servers.
• Corrected a bug that was causing players to fall through the world in the air maze portion of the East Sepulcher of Order.
• Sarith City - Rebel Assault - Experience for most opponents in the mission has been reduced.
• Sarith City - Rebel Assault - Riago Barthes no longer summons extra sets of NPCs when spam-hailed.
• Resplendent Temple - Two Sides of the Stone - The raid should now reset properly during the second phase.
• Resplendent Temple - Two Sides of the Stone - Vision of Splendor should no longer heal itself during the second phase if all players manage to remove the spell "Filth" within the time limit.
• Resplendent Temple - Two Sides of the Stone - The split portions of the event (Shadow/Vision) should now reset the raid if they are idle for more than 5 seconds after being aggroed.
• Quests - Frostfell - The "a hungry predator" mobs will now return to their spawn points when idle.

January 04, 2012 - Happy New Year!

After waiting several weeks for the restore of the database that was replaced in mid December, we've decided to go ahead and start re-entering all the information into our current version of the database. We lost all the updates that happened between mid October and mid December, so we'll be replacing as much of that as possible. We started working on this in earnest yesterday. So far we've managed to restore many of the basic items from VoA and many pottery recipes and brewing recipes. Today we'll work on some research, baking and jewelcraft with more recipes and items to follow. We'll get new pages set up asap.

Please keep your discoveries coming in, we'll get them updated as soon as possible.

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