Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)
Once again Sony tops the bar with yet ANOTHER EQ2 content release this
upcoming week!
*** Headlines ***
- Act as a mentor for your lower-level friends with the new Mentoring
system!
- New treasure is available for solo players and small groups.
- Grouping made even better with reduced shared debt.
- Solo and small group XP increased even more, especially for players over
level 30.
- Artisans can let buyers know they're available with the new /LFW (looking
for work) tag.
- Quest coin and experience rewards have been increased.
- Friends and guilds can now share housing more effectively.
- Experience a new level 50 raid battle in The Deserted Mine.
- Enjoy a new solo instance in the Commonlands: Valley of the Rogue Magi.
*** Mentoring ***
- Act as a Mentor for your lower level friends with the new Mentoring
system!
- When you right click a lower level group member, you will see an option to
Mentor them.
- Selecting "Mentor" will set your level to that of your lower level friend,
and you will operate at the same effective level as your groupmate.
- The Mentor and Apprentice will receive experience, loot, and quest credit
as if the Mentor were the same level as the Apprentice. Mentors, be sure to
revisit any of those quests or locations that you may have missed along the
way!
- The Apprentice will receive an experience bonus while under the guidance
of a Mentor. Up to 5 other players can act as a Mentor for a single player
at the same time (each increasing the experience bonus).
- Mentors receive viable amounts of experience and advance toward their
actual level while mentoring, though at a slightly reduced xp rate.
- All of your gear will scale with you. You don't have to go out and get
different gear to mentor friends of different levels.
- While you are mentoring, you can use any of your abilities that you would
normally have at that level.
- You can select "Stop Mentoring" if you wish to stop acting as a Mentor to
your ally. If the Mentor or Apprentice leaves the group, the Mentor will go
back to their original level.
*** Solo and Small Group Loot Improvements ***
- All solo and small group encounters in the following zones have the chance
to drop improved treasure: Antonica, Commonlands, Nektulos Forest,
Thundering Steppes, Orcish Wastes, Enchanted Lands, Rivervale, Feerrott,
Everfrost, and Lavastorm.
- It will be easier to collect sets of armor and accessories from certain
types of creatures. A solo creature that drops one armor type is likely to
drop armor pieces of the same type. A creature that drops accessories is
likely to drop more accessories.
- More loot! You will now see more items of various levels drop in the world
than before.
- There is now greater variance in the loot type and volume that normal solo
creatures will drop and the loot that advanced solo creatures will drop.
- Encounter drops are now separated by the high and low levels for each
zone. For example, level 12 solo encounters in Antonica will drop level
10-14 appropriate gear, spells, and recipes. A level 16 solo encounter in
Antonica will drop level 15-19 items.
- Progressive solo population has been added to Enchanted Lands, Orcish
Wastes, and Thundering Steppes.
*** Increased Solo and Small Group XP ***
- Solo and small group experience has been increased again to further
enhance the solo/small group game. Players over level 30 will especially
notice an increase in solo and small group experience gain.
*** New Zones ***
- New Level 50 Raid Zone: The Deserted Mine can be entered from the Orcish
Wastes. Protect the Coercer you find within, or who knows what might happen.
- New Solo Instance: Valley of the Rogue Magi can be found in the
Commonlands. Encounter elementals, gargoyles, skeletons, zombies and more
within.
*** Looking for Work (/lfw) ***
- Artisans can now let other players know they are willing to take crafting
requests with the /lfw command.
- Using /lfw works much like the /lfg (looking for group) tag. Players can
perform a "/who lfw" command and find artisans willing to take crafting
requests.
- Players can also search for a specific profession, such as "/who
carpenter" for a list of Carpenters who are online or "/who lfw alchemist"
to get a listing of Alchemists currently flagged as looking for work.
*** Gameplay ***
- We have reduced the percentage of debt shared by group members.
- Gaining Swimming skill now increases your swim speed.
- Encounter behavior has been changed such that if an encounter breaks and
would have reset (and respawned the same encounter), it will now check if it
was overpowered or overmatched and, if not, it will instead unbreak and
become a viable target for a short period of time. If the encounter is
killed successfully during that period of time, players will receive all of
the original encounter bonus and some portion of the loot.
- The time required to camp out has been reduced from 30 seconds to 20
seconds.
- If a player was kicked from a guild while offline, their spendable guild
status points would be lost once they rejoined a new guild. This should no
longer occur.
- Encounters should no longer break if your pet lands the final blow on a
wild dog in The Sprawl.
- All group members in the same zone when a guild is created should
automatically receive an invitation to join it.
- A pop-up message will now let players know that they must use their boat
tickets before camping or leaving the zone.
- Flying mounts should no longer have a random orientation when they first
start flying.
- Fixed an issue that was sometimes preventing an encounter from ever
resetting after being broken.
*** Housing ***
- Players can now share housing more effectively.
- Items marked NO TRADE can be placed in a house by Trustees or the Owner.
- All NO-TRADE items placed in a house remember who placed them and can only
be picked up by that player.
- The house Owner and any Trustees can move any NO-TRADE items placed in the
house.
- The house Owner can destroy NO-TRADE items not owned by them.
- NO-TRADE items already placed in houses before the update are treated as
follows:
- If items with identical names are found in the house, the first 4 items of
the same type are set to NO OWNER.
- NO OWNER house items cannot be picked up until they are claimed. The
"pickup" menu item is replaced with a "claim ownership" menu item for these
items.
- After the first 4 identical items are set to NO OWNER, all subsequent
items of the same type are automatically owned by the house Owner.
- If the Owner of the house wishes to claim all NO OWNER items, that
character can use the command /house_own_all to do so.
- If the Owner of the house uses the "Collect Contents" button, they will
NOT pick up NO OWNER items, they must explicitly claim those items using the
right click menu or /house_own_all.
- Example: A house contains 3 "Know your Gnolls" books and 12 Simple Forges.
All 3 "Know your Gnolls" books become NO OWNER and can be claimed by any
Trustee or the house Owner. 4 of the Simple Forges become NO OWNER and can
be claimed by any Trustee or the house Owner. 8 of the Simple Forges are
automatically owned by the house Owner and can only be picked up by that
character.
*** Zones and Population ***
- The number of fishing spots in many outdoor zones has been reduced, making
way for other harvestable resources.
- The success and failure boat timers for the following zones have been set
to 25 minutes: Orcish Wastes, Enchanted Lands, Everfrost, The Fanged Sea,
and Lavastorm.
- The Windstalker Rumbler should no longer break the encounter when
attacked.
- The restrictions placed on zoning into Blood Skull Valley have been
lessened: Players can now enter with 1-24 people instead of 12.
- Modifications have been made to The Malevolent Knight in the Freeport
Graveyard.
- Some modifications have been made to the Drayek event in Icebound.
- More elder hawks have been spotted near their nesting grounds in
Thundering Steppes.
- Lower level deer should no longer roam in the higher level areas of
Thundering Steppes.
- All solo encounters within A Pirate's Hidden Stash, The Rumbler Caves, and
An Open Grave should now be of the correct difficulty.
- Rognon the Angler should no longer spawn twice in the same instance.
- Zoning out of the Crypt of Vox will now allow you to arrive in a safer
location.
- Evacuating the dungeon instances in the Thundering Steppes and the
Enchanted Lands should now take you to the dock area of those zones.
- Wildlife in front of the gnoll towers in the Thundering Steppes will no
longer break the encounter when attacked.
- Advanced solo creatures in the Thundering Steppes will now be aggressive
toward travelers.
- Gurk Strongarm will be found within the mill in Orcish Wastes more often.
- A typo in the name of some lizardman encounters in the Feerrott has been
fixed.
*** Quests ***
- Quest coin and experience rewards have been increased from this day
onward. The experience increase will be especially noticeable in
non-repeatable quests that are of a lower level than your character. You'll
want to complete any quests that you may have missed during your journeys in
Norrath.
- Books providing details on the Norrathian calendar can now be found in
each city's library.
- All items that initiate a quest have been changed to NO-TRADE.
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent players from starting the
Feerrott access quest.
- Logan Belchbottom's "Lost Friend in Fallen Gate" can now be completed by
those who outleveled the quest after receiving it.
- An item used in "Far Seas Supplier - Elven Attack" can now be obtained in
order to complete the quest.
- The "Nektulos Creature Cataloging" quest will now require players to seek
out "a dusk dart" instead of "a voracious bleeder".
- The quest "A Foul Wind" can now be found under the "Access" category.
- The quest "The Idol of Fear" can now be found under the "Access" category.
- "The Treaty For Treasure" quest can now be found under the "Access"
category.
- Players should now be able to complete "Fresh Samples", even if they've
already outleveled the quest.
- Tome quests in Obelisk of Lost Souls and Serpent's Sewer should now have a
quest category added to them.
- A new version of "Children's Rhymes" has been added. Please note, the
original version in a player's quest journal will remain unaltered.
- Permafrost tome quests will now be listed in the appropriate section of
the quest journal.
- Taskmaster Deldrin's dialogue has been clarified.
- The "Karnath the Forgotten" quest in Thundering Steppes should now be
easier to complete.
- Added the correct quest category to item and tome quests in Serpent's
Sewer if they previously lacked them.
- Added the correct quest category to item and tome quests in Obelisk of
Lost Souls.
- The target for the "Wanted Gnoll Bandit!" quest has been changed to a
darkpaw raider.
*** City Sabotage ***
- Some Sabotage quest objects in South Qeynos, West Freeport, South
Freeport, North Freeport, East Freeport have been relocated.
- An inaccurate quest detail with "Towers of Stone" has been corrected.
- "a wandering cow" has been renamed to "an infected cow".
*** Items ***
- Prismatic weapons now have improved damage/delay and more effective procs.
- Merchants no longer sell items related to Erollisi Day.
- Heritage items are now NO-TRADE and NPC merchants desire to get their
hands on these rare items.
- The Inscribed Wooden Staff no longer has a typo in its name.
Once again Sony tops the bar with yet ANOTHER EQ2 content release this
upcoming week!
*** Headlines ***
- Act as a mentor for your lower-level friends with the new Mentoring
system!
- New treasure is available for solo players and small groups.
- Grouping made even better with reduced shared debt.
- Solo and small group XP increased even more, especially for players over
level 30.
- Artisans can let buyers know they're available with the new /LFW (looking
for work) tag.
- Quest coin and experience rewards have been increased.
- Friends and guilds can now share housing more effectively.
- Experience a new level 50 raid battle in The Deserted Mine.
- Enjoy a new solo instance in the Commonlands: Valley of the Rogue Magi.
*** Mentoring ***
- Act as a Mentor for your lower level friends with the new Mentoring
system!
- When you right click a lower level group member, you will see an option to
Mentor them.
- Selecting "Mentor" will set your level to that of your lower level friend,
and you will operate at the same effective level as your groupmate.
- The Mentor and Apprentice will receive experience, loot, and quest credit
as if the Mentor were the same level as the Apprentice. Mentors, be sure to
revisit any of those quests or locations that you may have missed along the
way!
- The Apprentice will receive an experience bonus while under the guidance
of a Mentor. Up to 5 other players can act as a Mentor for a single player
at the same time (each increasing the experience bonus).
- Mentors receive viable amounts of experience and advance toward their
actual level while mentoring, though at a slightly reduced xp rate.
- All of your gear will scale with you. You don't have to go out and get
different gear to mentor friends of different levels.
- While you are mentoring, you can use any of your abilities that you would
normally have at that level.
- You can select "Stop Mentoring" if you wish to stop acting as a Mentor to
your ally. If the Mentor or Apprentice leaves the group, the Mentor will go
back to their original level.
*** Solo and Small Group Loot Improvements ***
- All solo and small group encounters in the following zones have the chance
to drop improved treasure: Antonica, Commonlands, Nektulos Forest,
Thundering Steppes, Orcish Wastes, Enchanted Lands, Rivervale, Feerrott,
Everfrost, and Lavastorm.
- It will be easier to collect sets of armor and accessories from certain
types of creatures. A solo creature that drops one armor type is likely to
drop armor pieces of the same type. A creature that drops accessories is
likely to drop more accessories.
- More loot! You will now see more items of various levels drop in the world
than before.
- There is now greater variance in the loot type and volume that normal solo
creatures will drop and the loot that advanced solo creatures will drop.
- Encounter drops are now separated by the high and low levels for each
zone. For example, level 12 solo encounters in Antonica will drop level
10-14 appropriate gear, spells, and recipes. A level 16 solo encounter in
Antonica will drop level 15-19 items.
- Progressive solo population has been added to Enchanted Lands, Orcish
Wastes, and Thundering Steppes.
*** Increased Solo and Small Group XP ***
- Solo and small group experience has been increased again to further
enhance the solo/small group game. Players over level 30 will especially
notice an increase in solo and small group experience gain.
*** New Zones ***
- New Level 50 Raid Zone: The Deserted Mine can be entered from the Orcish
Wastes. Protect the Coercer you find within, or who knows what might happen.
- New Solo Instance: Valley of the Rogue Magi can be found in the
Commonlands. Encounter elementals, gargoyles, skeletons, zombies and more
within.
*** Looking for Work (/lfw) ***
- Artisans can now let other players know they are willing to take crafting
requests with the /lfw command.
- Using /lfw works much like the /lfg (looking for group) tag. Players can
perform a "/who lfw" command and find artisans willing to take crafting
requests.
- Players can also search for a specific profession, such as "/who
carpenter" for a list of Carpenters who are online or "/who lfw alchemist"
to get a listing of Alchemists currently flagged as looking for work.
*** Gameplay ***
- We have reduced the percentage of debt shared by group members.
- Gaining Swimming skill now increases your swim speed.
- Encounter behavior has been changed such that if an encounter breaks and
would have reset (and respawned the same encounter), it will now check if it
was overpowered or overmatched and, if not, it will instead unbreak and
become a viable target for a short period of time. If the encounter is
killed successfully during that period of time, players will receive all of
the original encounter bonus and some portion of the loot.
- The time required to camp out has been reduced from 30 seconds to 20
seconds.
- If a player was kicked from a guild while offline, their spendable guild
status points would be lost once they rejoined a new guild. This should no
longer occur.
- Encounters should no longer break if your pet lands the final blow on a
wild dog in The Sprawl.
- All group members in the same zone when a guild is created should
automatically receive an invitation to join it.
- A pop-up message will now let players know that they must use their boat
tickets before camping or leaving the zone.
- Flying mounts should no longer have a random orientation when they first
start flying.
- Fixed an issue that was sometimes preventing an encounter from ever
resetting after being broken.
*** Housing ***
- Players can now share housing more effectively.
- Items marked NO TRADE can be placed in a house by Trustees or the Owner.
- All NO-TRADE items placed in a house remember who placed them and can only
be picked up by that player.
- The house Owner and any Trustees can move any NO-TRADE items placed in the
house.
- The house Owner can destroy NO-TRADE items not owned by them.
- NO-TRADE items already placed in houses before the update are treated as
follows:
- If items with identical names are found in the house, the first 4 items of
the same type are set to NO OWNER.
- NO OWNER house items cannot be picked up until they are claimed. The
"pickup" menu item is replaced with a "claim ownership" menu item for these
items.
- After the first 4 identical items are set to NO OWNER, all subsequent
items of the same type are automatically owned by the house Owner.
- If the Owner of the house wishes to claim all NO OWNER items, that
character can use the command /house_own_all to do so.
- If the Owner of the house uses the "Collect Contents" button, they will
NOT pick up NO OWNER items, they must explicitly claim those items using the
right click menu or /house_own_all.
- Example: A house contains 3 "Know your Gnolls" books and 12 Simple Forges.
All 3 "Know your Gnolls" books become NO OWNER and can be claimed by any
Trustee or the house Owner. 4 of the Simple Forges become NO OWNER and can
be claimed by any Trustee or the house Owner. 8 of the Simple Forges are
automatically owned by the house Owner and can only be picked up by that
character.
*** Zones and Population ***
- The number of fishing spots in many outdoor zones has been reduced, making
way for other harvestable resources.
- The success and failure boat timers for the following zones have been set
to 25 minutes: Orcish Wastes, Enchanted Lands, Everfrost, The Fanged Sea,
and Lavastorm.
- The Windstalker Rumbler should no longer break the encounter when
attacked.
- The restrictions placed on zoning into Blood Skull Valley have been
lessened: Players can now enter with 1-24 people instead of 12.
- Modifications have been made to The Malevolent Knight in the Freeport
Graveyard.
- Some modifications have been made to the Drayek event in Icebound.
- More elder hawks have been spotted near their nesting grounds in
Thundering Steppes.
- Lower level deer should no longer roam in the higher level areas of
Thundering Steppes.
- All solo encounters within A Pirate's Hidden Stash, The Rumbler Caves, and
An Open Grave should now be of the correct difficulty.
- Rognon the Angler should no longer spawn twice in the same instance.
- Zoning out of the Crypt of Vox will now allow you to arrive in a safer
location.
- Evacuating the dungeon instances in the Thundering Steppes and the
Enchanted Lands should now take you to the dock area of those zones.
- Wildlife in front of the gnoll towers in the Thundering Steppes will no
longer break the encounter when attacked.
- Advanced solo creatures in the Thundering Steppes will now be aggressive
toward travelers.
- Gurk Strongarm will be found within the mill in Orcish Wastes more often.
- A typo in the name of some lizardman encounters in the Feerrott has been
fixed.
*** Quests ***
- Quest coin and experience rewards have been increased from this day
onward. The experience increase will be especially noticeable in
non-repeatable quests that are of a lower level than your character. You'll
want to complete any quests that you may have missed during your journeys in
Norrath.
- Books providing details on the Norrathian calendar can now be found in
each city's library.
- All items that initiate a quest have been changed to NO-TRADE.
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent players from starting the
Feerrott access quest.
- Logan Belchbottom's "Lost Friend in Fallen Gate" can now be completed by
those who outleveled the quest after receiving it.
- An item used in "Far Seas Supplier - Elven Attack" can now be obtained in
order to complete the quest.
- The "Nektulos Creature Cataloging" quest will now require players to seek
out "a dusk dart" instead of "a voracious bleeder".
- The quest "A Foul Wind" can now be found under the "Access" category.
- The quest "The Idol of Fear" can now be found under the "Access" category.
- "The Treaty For Treasure" quest can now be found under the "Access"
category.
- Players should now be able to complete "Fresh Samples", even if they've
already outleveled the quest.
- Tome quests in Obelisk of Lost Souls and Serpent's Sewer should now have a
quest category added to them.
- A new version of "Children's Rhymes" has been added. Please note, the
original version in a player's quest journal will remain unaltered.
- Permafrost tome quests will now be listed in the appropriate section of
the quest journal.
- Taskmaster Deldrin's dialogue has been clarified.
- The "Karnath the Forgotten" quest in Thundering Steppes should now be
easier to complete.
- Added the correct quest category to item and tome quests in Serpent's
Sewer if they previously lacked them.
- Added the correct quest category to item and tome quests in Obelisk of
Lost Souls.
- The target for the "Wanted Gnoll Bandit!" quest has been changed to a
darkpaw raider.
*** City Sabotage ***
- Some Sabotage quest objects in South Qeynos, West Freeport, South
Freeport, North Freeport, East Freeport have been relocated.
- An inaccurate quest detail with "Towers of Stone" has been corrected.
- "a wandering cow" has been renamed to "an infected cow".
*** Items ***
- Prismatic weapons now have improved damage/delay and more effective procs.
- Merchants no longer sell items related to Erollisi Day.
- Heritage items are now NO-TRADE and NPC merchants desire to get their
hands on these rare items.
- The Inscribed Wooden Staff no longer has a typo in its name.
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