It's patching time!

[Kalthanan]

The latest in a series of patches to correct bugs from Omens of War has been installed on the servers, and the servers are back up.
October 13th, 2004
-----------------------

- Summoned pets no longer vanish when their owner turns invisible
- Froglok animations are now fixed, seriously, no really we mean it this time.
- Continue the Adventure! Read the first in the new series of EQ Novels.

The summary is sparse, but there's a lot of meat in this patch. My traditional follow-up post in the forums will have the complete patch message, for those of you at work, or too busy to log in at the moment. However, I'll give you a few highlights;

- Lots of epic fixes.
- Rogues should be ecstatic to hear that sneak/hide is persistent through zones now. Huzzah, say the rogues!
- No more easy named in Omens expeditions; all those non-KOS mobs are now KOS!

A bunch of other fixes, too. See my follow-up!

[Kalthanan]

Full text of the patch message from today follows.


October 13th, 2004
-----------------------

- Summoned pets no longer vanish when their owner turns invisible
- Froglok animations are now fixed, seriously, no really we mean it this time.
- Continue the Adventure! Read the first in the new series of EQ Novels.


Warrior Epic
-----------------------
- Modified the way Decaying Lord Galuk Drek is spawned in Veksar. He should now be more approachable and less of a bottleneck for those warriors at this step.
- Lowered the respawn time of the Dragorn Champion in Wall of Slaughter significantly. We have also lowered his aggro and help radius.

Bard Epic
-----------------------
- Corrected an issue in the Dragons Necropolis that caused more NPCs to be present than was planned for.
- The Kithicor Forest encounter should now reset properly.

Ranger Epic
-----------------------
- Rangers triggering the Senvial, Grinbik and Uisima events for their Epic quest will need to have the trigger item on their person.
- It should no longer be possible for a ranger with Senvial’s Blessing to get the reward for the Senvial event.

Druid Epic
-----------------------
- Corrected an issue with the Coven spawn in South Karana.
- The Blackened Dryad event in Kithicor should now respawn correctly after a failed attempt.
- Only the druid who initiates the Goblin Hide and Seek event will be allowed to the loot the bag upon completion.
- More than one Druid can now summon and talk to the Compelled Spirit.
- We have increased the drop rate of the carved Prexus totem.

Magician Epic
-----------------------
- The Path for finding the air essence should last a bit longer.
- Magicians will now receive a message when the air essence is not available.

Gates of Discord
-----------------------
There’s a new NPC in Natimbi that will make traveling to Qvic much easier. Speak with her for a small teleport.

Tradeskills
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- Alchemists can now create Amber Resin.
- The Feran Glove and Boot recipes will now combine and return their intended items.
- The recipe for the 56th level Necromancer spell, Servant of Bones, should now combine correctly.
- The Dagger Blade Mold, used in Gates smithing recipes, has been renamed to a Knife Blade Mold.

Items
-----------------------
- Seething Fists of Slaughter- Previously this item had no equipped slots. This now has primary and secondary equippable slots
- Fangs of the Serpent- Previously this item had no equipped slots. This now has primary and secondary equippable slots.
- Bone Plated Sledge - This item now has 36% haste instead of +36 atk.
- Boots of Shifting Time - Previously these boots had a worn leather graphic. They are now a worn plate graphic instead.
- Zulaqua's Cloak - Added 30 AC to this item
- Crystal Dagger - This item now has a +12% backstab mod.
- Tome of New Beginnings - Berserkers now can equip this item.
- Lambent Stone of Focus - This item is now a type 7 and type 8 augmentation.
- Crystal Mail Sleeves - This item now has berserkers as usable classes. We have removed Beastlords from this items usable classes.

AAs
-----------------------
Altered Spell Casting Reinforcement and Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery so they will no longer increase the duration of the following spells.
- Flame of Redemption
- Hawk Strike
- Fateseer’s Boon
- Protection of the Eye
- Savage Wildcaller’s Blessing
- Flames of the Valiant
- Falcon Strike
- Prophet’s Gift of the Ruchu
- Aegis of Abstraction
- Might of the Wild Spirits
Altered Healing Adept, Advanced Healing Adept, and Healing Adept Mastery so they will no longer increase the healing of the following spells.
- Harmonic Balance
- Divine Balance


Misc
-----------------------
- Added a new option to turn off the loading screen when zoning. You will still see the progress bar.
- Added a new shadow command to allow you to turn off the shadows in your text bar. The command is /shadow
- Changed the Dynamic Zone window to show player status in the member list. Online players are yellow, Link Dead players are red, Offline players are blue.
- Hide / Sneak will now remain active across zone lines.
- All NPCs in Omens of War expedition zones are now KOS. Beware!
- Summoned pets will no longer vanish when their owner uses invisibility! Rejoice!
- Vallon Zek should no longer assist Tallon Zek.

The Rogues Hour!
-----------------------
RA Salvatore presents a brand new series of EverQuest fantasy novels. Explore the ever-expanding world of Norrath in the first book, EverQuest: The Rogue’s Hour, available in stores soon.

-- The EverQuest Team

[Catweazel]

Nothing about rogue epic fixes with soloable bard exploit, Renux casting disease DT instead of poison DT, drop rates from lions etc. I wonder if there are a bunch of hidden fixes relating to loot drop rates, exp nerfs or improvements etc.

sneak/hide across zones..YAY!!!!!!

Now if they could fix hide breaking with Bard song, or inspecting traps we would truly have nothing to complain about.

[Fiver]

Now if they could fix hide breaking with Bard song, or inspecting traps we would truly have nothing to complain about.


What fun would that be? I would have to quite EQ if I had nothing to complain about.

[InvisiBill]

They only mention Crystal Dagger, but Soulskive and Chailak's Fang both got +12% BS also.

Regarding zombie Renux, the devs did say that the current AE was a temp one until they fixed the original. I don't know if it's actually fixed in today's patch, but it is a known issue that they're working on.

[InvisiBill]

http://www.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?t=15714

I spoke with Prathun this morning, and he had this to say-

1. Shapely Vegetations will be a little easier to come by. Three of them will be up at any given time, and they'll respawn in 30 minutes. They're still hard to see, but it shouldn't be an issue of waiting for respawn.

2. Renux's AE should be fixed.


3. You can use HQ cougar skins or HQ lion skins for the tailoring portion of the quest.

4. Findlesnax the gravedigger spawn time reduced to 2 hours (from 24), however he only spawns at night so you may be waiting 3 hours at most.


These are some great changes, and remove a lot of the aggravation associated with the quest.

[Kalthanan]

I just bought a stack of HQ cougar skins in the bazaar. If you are a rogue, just let me know and you can have 1 for free.

[Bardolaf]

I think they looking for high qual Lion skins no?

[Kalthanan]

3. You can use HQ cougar skins or HQ lion skins for the tailoring portion of the quest.

[Fiver]

But K2... it takes 2 :( ... you wouldn't want me to have to hunt for the other would you?

[Kalthanan]

I thought you only needed one :P

You can have two!

[Fiver]

I wonder if I can do that part of the quest over again :)