[Live] Update Notes - The War of Zek: Thursday, August 25, 2011(2)

[Offical Forums]

"The War of Zek"

A GENERAL SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN GAME UPDATE 61:

• All dungeon and overland loot items have been re-itemized. What does this mean? It means loot everywhere should be legitimate for the level it drops for, no matter where you go now. Go explore some nooks and crannies you haven’t seen for a long time and get off the Golden Path! The loot’s good again.
• The Velious saga continues as you journey past the Citadel of Drunder to the Plane of War itself in a new dungeon and raid, and a continuation of the Signature quest line.
• New dynamically-scaling dungeons have been added. These scale to your group between levels 60-90 and are designed as new single group heroic content that’s more re-playable. We’ll be watching your reactions to these initial two dungeon experiments and improving on these in the future!
• The new House Rating System lets you publish your house so other players can rate it, as well as adding house leaderboards, easy access to housing, and more! (And we increased House Ownership limits to 20, instead of 10!)
• If you ever wanted to show EQII to your friends, it’s now very easy. Push a button, record, and post your footage to YouTube with our new Video Capture system.
• The Eastern Wastes area in Velious now has a lot more overland content added to it (the new quests start at the Ry’Gorr keep).
• A big revamp of the class AA tree so that it’s easier to select the AAs you want, and adding more utility to the AAs that were weak previously.
• Many stats have been un-capped so that they have meaning as your characters progress. This doesn’t result in massive power increases, but it does let all stats continue to have meaning as you earn new items and power. Additional mechanics changes were made to increase power for many classes. (See below for things like spell auto-attack, flurry improvements, etc.)
• Tradeskillers now have their own AA tree to chase!
• And yes, Fae and Arasai now have a level 85 quest that can unlock their ability to FLY!

A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT!

• The reitemization means that the following things are going to occur:
  • All of your items are going to become UNATTUNED.
  • Any item that you are wearing at the time of this update *that has adornments on it* will have those adornments popped off and returned to your inventory. (You can put them right back on afterward, if you so desire.)
• Because of the AA revamp, *all AA points are reset*. Thus, you should plan a bit of time to reassign your AA points after this update.
• We are excited to bring you the Plane of War raid, but since the raid progression has not yet been completed by players to allow access to that raid, we’re going to take advantage of that situation to keep the door locked for a week to give it a bit more polish.
• The Dungeon Finder feature scheduled for GU 61 is slightly delayed. It will become available ASAP after it sits on Test for a week or so.

There’s lots more. See the details below for more info!

PLANE OF WAR
The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders as a massive portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of battle echo through its halls as the God of War himself prepares his innumerable armies to march across the frozen face of Velious and seize control of the lands of Norrath for all eternity. Are you ready to face Rallos Zek himself? Prove your mettle against the Children of War to enlist their aid in battle as you leave the mortal world behind and face a god himself in the Plane of War!

• The Plane of War is a normal and challenge mode raid.
• Elements of War is a normal and challenge mode heroic experience.

Two new dynamically scaling dungeons have opened up in the Sinking Sands. These dungeons automatically scale to your party between levels 60 and 90. The entrances can be found using the door to Silent City and the newly added genie’s lamp directly next to it.

THE PALACE OF SABARON

Sabaron’s Palace is the home of a mad Djinn who believes that by using his power and the power of a newly discovered artifact, the Tear of Anashti, he can raise an army of Sul’Dal to march on the Plane of Air and take it over for Djinn to rule. His palace is full of undead evils he has resurrected as well as his most trusted attendants.

SILENT CITY: THE DELVING DEAD

The dead within the halls of the Silent City are restless after lifetimes of slumber, as if roused by an unseen hand. Ancient overseers crack whips as the undead hordes delve deep into hallowed soil. They labor tirelessly, endlessly searching for an ancient artifact of great power.

BEASTLORD PRELUDE EVENT #1

Strange spiritual energies have emerged within Antonica and Commonlands. A few spiritual-attuned individuals have felt this new energy, like gentle ripples on the surface of a calm lake. What might this new power be, and what secrets might it hold for the future of Norrath? Interested adventurers should seek out either Caalina, who can be found in Antonica outside the gate to North Qeynos, or Elmin, who has begun his investigation near the city gates to Freeport in Commonlands.

HOUSE RATING SYSTEM

• You can now publish your house to be rated against fellow decorators!
  • The ‘Housing Leaderboards’ window can be accessed through the EQII menu or by using the /house_ratings command.
  • Use the ‘Publish / Unpublish’ button on your house’s door menu to add / remove your house from the leaderboards window.
    • You cannot place or move items in a published house.
    • Unpublishing your house will reset its rating, but it won’t reset any awards you have obtained.
• Visit homes on the list and let the owners know what you think.
  • You may rate a house once per account. You may re-rate a house as often as you like but only the last rating will be kept.
• Houses will earn awards each day for their position on the leaderboard.
• Houses can eventually enter the Hall of Fame when they earn enough awards.

VIDEO CAPTURE

The ability to capture video and upload it to YouTube.com has been added. Note: 4GB of system memory is recommended when using the video recording feature. Systems with less than 4GB of memory may experience a decrease in performance when using this feature.

• The Video Capture Window is now hidden by default (use the default hotkey Alt+y to toggle it).
• After recording video, a file called EQ2VideoCapture.avi will be placed in your root install directory. If you record a second video it will overwrite this file.
  • A UI window to upload your video to YouTube.com will appear after recording video.
• Video Capture Options/Settings:
  • Hotkey can be changed under Controls – Window Keys – Video Capture Window
  • Output quality can be set under User Interface – Video Capture

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where you could select an invalid race during character create.
• You can now use the /sitchair emote while on top of objects to make your character appear to be sitting on them.

USER INTERFACE

• The weapon stats in the character window will now update when your character's combat stats change.
• Fixed a bug with how multi attack and spell weapon multi attack were displaying in the default UI.

PLAYER HOUSING

• You can now own up to 20 houses!

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

• Sages within Norrath (Lorekeeper Drelin in Thurgadin, Navarius Orvalis in North Freeport, Ricka Stonehide in New Halas, Indis Surion in South Qeynos) now count the Destiny of Velious heritage quests towards earning heritage titles.
• Faydwer drakes, such as the Emerald Drakes, now count towards the Drakota Lore and Legend quest.

Heroic Content

• Mobs casting beneficial crit debuffs such as Whispers of War, can no longer cast these spells when they are charmed. Specifically in Kael Drakkel contested, as Whispers of War was adding hate to mobs around the charmed NPC.

All expansion 7 x4 raid zones

• NPC’s will no longer gain any strikethrough from their unbridled series buffs. The amount of base strikethrough that such mobs have has been reduced.

Great Divide / Eastern Wastes

• A Token of Coldain Loyalty can now be purchased from the Coldain faction merchant once your character has reached +40,000 faction. This token can be traded to any alternate characters on your account and will set that alternate character to +40,000 faction.
• A Token of Ry’Gorr Loyalty can now be purchased from the Ry’Gorr faction merchant once your character has reached +40,000 faction. This token can be traded to any alternate characters on your account and will set that alternate character to +40,000 faction.
  • These tokens must be purchased at the rate of one per alternate character and are one charge only.

Great Divide

• Fertilizer corpse loot should be a bit more common.
• The thieving gnomish pirate, Monstrous Beasty, and Warwolf Matriarch, triggered by solo quests in Great Divide, are no longer immune to control aspects. [Fan Faire Request]

Eastern Wastes

• Fertilizer corpse loot should be a bit more common.
• All of the flying accessible harvestables in Eastern wastes are obtainable once again.

All Drunder x4 raid zones

• Damage from AOE spells for many of the bosses in the x4 drunder raid zones (non-challenge) is now somewhat easier to mitigate.

Drunder x4 Challenge mode raid zones

• The Greater Arctic Rage buff package now grants npcs 240% crit bonus instead of 280%.

Temple of Rallos Zek heroic [Challenge]

• The effect of falling rubble will now line up when damage is being dealt.

Shard of Love

• Level 90 players will now correctly have a chance to gain items from WIllowmeena’s rare loot table in Shard of Love.

Tower of Frozen Shadow

• De'manti Sheda within the fear cage should now be able to be respawned if he defeats the raidforce.
• Dark widows within the fearcage event should no longer reset the encounter when they run away from players.
• Frightful Shadowbones within the fearcage event should no longer reset the encounter when they run away from players.
• Condensed Shadows that spawn during the Tserrina encounter should no longer cause the encounter to reset if they cannot find a valid target.

Tower of Frozen Shadow: Shadowed Corridors

• Spectral Librarian Emiida in Tower of Frozen Shadows: Shadowed Corridors should now correctly award the sense of urgency achievement.

Crystalline Breaks

• Some of the mobs within Crystalline Breaks now detect stealth and/or invisibility.

Greater Faydark

• There is now a mailbox in the Nursery in Greater Faydark. [Fan Faire Request]

Sullon’s Spire [Challenge] x4 raid

• The damage done by many boss spells has been reduced. The amount of health of most adds during boss fights have been reduced. The range of some of Ragebourne Gregor Haldane’s AOE spells has been greatly reduced. Gregor Haldane’s clone no longer has cooperative strike. Hragold the Frenzied summons 6 adds per wave rather than 8.
• Ragebourne Gregor Haldane: His seething strike and ragecloud spells no longer combo causing focus damage.

Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zone

• Various fights have been toned down to make them easier, and more in line with the rewards for this zone.
• Multiple groups zoning in should now all end up in the same instance of this zone.

Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundations of Stone [Challenge]

• Statue of Rallos Zek fight: Greater warboars should no longer taunt lock the main tank group. Warboars and Automaton of Escalation have less health.

Demitrik’s Bastion

• The Contraption Cogwinder (rare spawn named) should no longer fall through the world and be unable to be killed.

Citadel of V’uul

• Difficulty has been brought down overall for Citadel of V’uul x2.
• Bosses strikethrough and AOE auto attack percentages have been lowered significantly.
• Arch Confessor Aytali’s difficulty has come down overall.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

General

• AA selections that are not currently available for purchase will display in grayscale.
• Spell autoattack will turn on automatically when you cast a damage spell on a target.
• Fixed a bug where some spells could become "stuck" and wouldn't be castable until you zoned or logged.
• Added Spell Weapon versions of flurry, multi attack, pvp multi attack, ae autoattack, haste and dps for spell weapons.
• All deity pets now grant increases to all attributes.

Player Statistics Updates

Many stats now provide additional benefits to other stats! See below for details:

• Having parry skill over the level cap now gives a bonus to uncontested parry and uncontested riposte.
• Having defense skill over the level cap now gives a bonus to uncontested dodge.
• Having haste over the cap now gives a bonus to flurry.
• Having weapon skill over the cap now increases your minimum damage amount making it closer to the maximum amount.
• Having weapon skill over the cap now gives a bonus to riposte damage.
• Having spell and combat art skills over cap now increases the minimum damage of those spells and combat arts making it closer to the maximum amount.
• DPS is now a rating that translates into the actual increase to your melee damage with no cap. Mouse over the DPS stat in your persona window to see the actual percent increase to your damage.
• Having spell casting speed over the cap now gives you a slight bonus to double cast spells.
• Multi Attack is now a rating rather than a straight percent chance for additional attacks. Mouse over the Multi Attack stat in your persona window to see how many extra attacks you get, and your chance for an additional attack on top of those.

Alternate Advancement Revamp

• Subclass Alternate Advancement trees have been reformatted. The connections have been removed and the tree is now formatted in rows. The first row contains four abilities and requires no points spent to access. The second row contains five abilities and requires five points spent in the Subclass Tree to access. The third row has six abilities and requires ten points spent in the Subclass tree to access. The fourth row has six abilities and requires 15 points spent in the Subclass tree to access. The fifth row is the endlines - now known as Expertise abilities. These abilities unlock every 20 points spent in the Subclass tree above them. At 20 points spent, you can select one Expertise ability. At 40, 60 and 80 points spent, additional Expertise abilities can be purchased.
• The Shadows Alternate Advancement tab now unlocks at level 50.
• The Sentinel’s Fate Alternate Advancements now unlock at level 80.
• The Heroic Alternate Advancement tab now unlocks at level 80.

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