July 15, 2009

Here is the "sneak peek" version of today's patch message (from the patcher):

• New Hot Zones are now available!: Hot Zones offer an increase in normal adventure experience for the zone and have the additional bonus of some new content. Franklin Teek in the Plane of Knowledge will be happy to point you to the current location of a Hot Zone appropriate for your level. Franklin also has a series of tasks that can be done in each of the current Hot Zones. Each task can only be completed one time each day. The following zones are now Hot Zones:

Everfrost Permafrost Keep Iceclad Ocean Tower of Frozen Shadow Great Divide Eastern Wastes Velketor's Labyrinth Kael Drakkal Western Wastes The Ascent Icefall Glacier Valdeholm Frostcrypt

• Hard Mode: All Seeds of Destruction raid events should now have a more challenging version available with a lower population cap. The "hard mode" versions of the raids are the same as the original raids but have a maximum character limit of 36. There are new reward items for completion of these raids.

• Anniversary Augments: This year's reward augments have been added to the abaci from the 10th Anniversary raid events. Each abacus will compare the reward from last year to the reward from this year and give you the better of the two results. Rewards for the Dragons, Dragons, Dragons event are currently only being given for players who defeated all 20 dragons. A progressive reward for defeating each individual dragon will be added with our next items update.

• Removed the NO TRANSFER flag from 51/50 server starting gear that prevented augments from being inserted into it.

• Arcane Blade Strike now has a higher multiplier cap for higher rank versions of the song.

• All Seeds of Destruction raid events should now have a more challenging version available with a lower population cap. The "hard mode" versions of the raids are the same as the original raids but have a maximum character limit of 36. There are new reward items for completion of these raids.
• This year's reward augments have been added to the abaci from the 10th Anniversary raid events. Each abacus will compare the reward from last year to the reward from this year and give you the better of the two results. Rewards for the Dragons, Dragons, Dragons event are currently only being given for players who defeated all 20 dragons. A progressive reward for defeating each individual dragon will be added with our next items update.
• The Automated Vending Unit II in Dragonscale Hills will now sell un-cored templates for achievements in Crystallos as well as Meldrath's Mansion.
• Players on the Mayong server will now be able to get a secondary set of titles from killing certain marquee encounters from each of the encounters. These titles will be awarded on any kill after the server first.

• The Beastlord AA Ability Group Shrink will no longer interfere with your Summon Clockwork Banker veteran reward ability.

• Seeds of Destruction Beta Rewards are now available for anyone who met the correct qualifications. The Beta reward is available on your account via the claim window. In order to claim the reward, log on to the character you wish to claim the reward on and open the claim window by using /claim. Once you have claimed the reward, you will receive a Mercenary Conscription Authorization. Click on the Conscription Authorization and you will be granted access to purchase 2 new mercenaries from Facesmasher Brog in the Plane of Knowledge – a Siren cleric and a Minotaur warrior. Once you /claim the item on a character you will not be able to claim it on another character so please be sure you log on to the correct character before accepting the claim. You do not need to log on to the Beta server to claim the reward.
• Made some behind the scenes changes to the marketplace. Let us know if you have any issues adding funds to your wallet.
• Fixed a bug that caused certain rogue poisons to use the user's level rather than the poison's level.
• /who all <guild name> will now return the members of that guild, as well as any guilds whose names begin with <guild name>.
• /who all <name> where the name is shared by a guild, class, or race should now return all matches.
• The state of /announce is now persisted across logins.
• Fixed a bug that could occur if you redeemed a LoN card when you had more than one of the same cards in your inventory.

• Added some new drag icons and bitmaps to the animations file.

• Changed -

EQUI_Animations.xml

• The EverQuest Team