Corisu's gaming blog

Moving!

2009-11-05T16:34:00.002-05:00

I will keep the blog on here for now, but for new posts please bookmark
Cor's gaming blog in a new zone!

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Servers are coming down today November 03

2009-11-03T08:24:00.003-05:00

Here is the newest from the network status page:

US Scheduled Maintenance - 11/03/2009 6:00 AM Pacific Standard Time. This is a notification that all live EQ2 Servers will be coming down at 6:00 AM PST on 11/03/2009 for maintenance. The estimated downtime is expected to be 1 hour.
- SOE Operations team

Downtime scheduled - Downtime scheduled 11/04/2009 5:00 AM London Time / 11/03/2009 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 11/04/2009. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.
- SOE Operations team

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Today's Norrathian update October 28, 2009

2009-10-28T10:55:00.003-04:00

So what did they do today? Here are the patch notes:

Hotfix October / 28 / 2009
ACHIEVEMENTS
New Achievements have been added! Test your skill with three new types of Achievements that have been added to Rise of Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey zones: Flawless Victory, Sense of Urgency and Shorthanded Victory.

ITEMS
Equipment with pet buffs should no longer experience stacking issues which cause the cancellation of multiple pet buffs when removing a single piece of armor.
Jewelry items purchased from Lavastorm and the Moors of Ykesha are now heirloom attuneable.
The “Blanket of Fog” should now be placed as a red puzzle cube then after placed should retain its fog effects.
The “Blanket of Fog” should now change into a red puzzle box when turned off by the defogifier.
The Necklace of the Plague has been increased to 12% base damage.
Hallow’s Gallows now grants ranged crit.
Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now give larger gains when stacked.
The appearance of the Ceremonial Robe of the Brethren has been corrected.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD
Miragul Encounter (Hard mode) : Miragul’s Arcane impairment now only affects spells. Miragul’s Physical Impairment now only affects auto attack and combat arts.

USER INTERFACE
The placeholder detriment icons were removed from the raid window.
The raid window’s font-size was decreased and the overall window is a little more compact.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Server downtime, yep today again

2009-10-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

I do prefer shorter downtimes more often than really long ones that still require many shorter fixes after that one. However, I go to log in my brigand. I figure well he's 80 carpenter and it would make it a lot easier to get some of these cool carpenter recipes if he was more of level for those factions (i.e. 70 plus). He's 55, and I really seeing now how difficult it is to find a group sometimes. With the shadowknight it really isn't an issue most times but I see it there too. Okay so I log in and server downtime announced. I wasn't expecting there do be a hot fix today again, but so there is and here is the scoop from the network status page:

US Scheduled Maintenance - 10/28/2009 6:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

This is a notification that all live EQ2 Servers will be coming down at 6:00 AM PDT on 10/28/2009 for maintenance. The estimated downtime is expected to be 1 hour.
- SOE Operations team

Downtime scheduled - Downtime scheduled 10/29/2009 5:00 AM London Time / 10/28/2009 9:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time

This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 4:00 AM London Time on the 10/29/2009. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.
- SOE Operations team

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Zomg downtime!

2009-10-27T08:56:00.001-04:00

I missed it again, hisss.... I go to log in to twobox some writs. Trying log in servers 1,2,57... (you get the idea). Hm, I think to myself, are the servers down again? Yep.

Beginning at 3:00 AM PDT on Tuesday, October 27, 2009, all SOE game servers will be offline for hardware maintenance. This includes all of our MMOs as well as TCGs. The estimated downtime is 4 hours and we expect to have all systems back online at 7:00 AM PDT. We apologize for this interruption and will resume all affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.

Now, I can understand they need to do maintenance, just that bleh! did it have to be right now? lol.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Threatmeter and some other goodies

2009-10-25T07:52:00.001-04:00

Apparently they put the threatmeter in there a bit ago, (I was looking for it, no one seemed to know where it was) but with an update on October 21st, they had moved it to user interface/gamewindows. I know I checked the threatmeter to show at all times. I got used to having it there and it proved to be quite helpful. Here is the update for that:

Hotfix October / 21 / 2009
GENERAL
Nu’roga now has plunderable loot!
Malicious Thoughts and Icicle Explosion now trigger on ranged and melee attacks.
Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now correctly modify each other’s damage.
Purifying Persistence should properly modify the caster’s heals rather than the targets.

ITEMS
The Cloak of Crystal Shards, Assassin Master’s Cloak and Cloak of Runes returned from Collector Rattelis are now Heirloom.
Icy Prison now has 3 shield effectiveness to match its deflection chance.
Charm of Solusek Ro once again triggers multiple times on AE casts, however its effect is now limited to 5 targets.

MIRAGUL’S PHYLACTERY
The Master’s spell reflect percentage has been greatly reduced.
Miragul’s Planar Shard - In the final hard mode fight with Miragul, his Brilliant Adepts will no longer stun/mez players within a second of initially spawning, but will wait 3-6 secs after spawning to start casting.
Miragul’s Planar Shard - Miragul Encounter (Hard mode): Miragul will now cast Curse of Confusion on up to 2 players per cycle, rather than 3.

MISTMOORE’S INNER SANCTUM
The Vampiric Protectors that spawn during the Mayong encounter will now respawn in the center of the room if they break, rather than rapidly spawning and despawning near the point where the encounter broke.

MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION
Certain items that drop from Munzok have become slightly more powerful.
Overlapping unstable void protrusions should provide protection from Munzok’s edict as expected, and no longer conflict with one another. Additionally void protrusion protection now more closely matches the sphere’s size.
Munzok’s max health has been reduced.

NIGHTS OF THE DEAD
Altius Volfban in the Hollow Hedge should be much easier for mage classes to handle.
The Headless Horseman now spawns somewhere near his tree instead of just in the same spot every time. He also requires someone offer him the necklace instead of simply taking the necklace near him to activate. His respawn has also been lengthened slightly.
The Nightmarish Ceremonial Armor has gotten a slight change to color.
The Nightmarish Ceremonial armor should now all have an equal chance of dropping.
Altius Volfban now has a chance to drop a piece of the Nightmarish armor when killed.
The Blanket of Fog now comes with a remote so you can turn them on and off. In the off state it should be much easier to tell where they are!

USER INTERFACE
The option to always show the threat window has been moved from Game Features to Options->User Interface->Game Windows.

With all the househunting, RL got a bit hectic and didn't have a chance to log in as much. Hopefully we will find something soon.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Update October 7, 2009 for EQ2

2009-10-07T09:59:00.002-04:00

I went to log in to the game and what happened? Servers were down... okay so here is what it said on the network status page

Downtime scheduled - Downtime scheduled 10/08/2009 5:00 AM London Time October 07, 2009 9:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 10/08/2009. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.
- SOE Operations team

US Scheduled Maintenance - 10/07/2009 6:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time
This is a notification that All US EQ2 Worlds will be coming down at 6:00 AM PDT on 10/07/2009 for maintenance. The estimated downtime will be 1 hour.

- SOE Operations team

The update notes for today's patch are as follows:

Hotfix October 7, 2009

GENERAL
LoN cards and booster packs that drop in game are once again tradeable.

ACHIEVEMENTS
The Maj’Dul Monitor Achievement now accepts quests completed in the Courts.

MIRAGUL'S PLANAR SHARD
The dire and alpha snowbeasts associated with Enraged Haladan now have somewhat less health.
Hard Mode: Brilliant Adepts have less health. Boreas and Argos should no longer cast Trio of Teeth on players while they are leashed. Curse of Confusion now lasts 18 seconds rather than 30 seconds.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE
Anashti Sul will no longer reset her ring event when raids wipe to her (after the ring event was completed).

PVP
Novice of Discord ward will no longer place you into combat when hit.
You may now purchase the Crystal of Discord from the General merchant.

QUESTS
Quests now sort properly by name.
The section of the Heritage Quest for the Dark Mail Gauntlets, Tie up Some Loose Ends, should now update properly upon entering Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible.

SPELLS
Spell trainers will now provide you with the latest information about spells.

SPIRES EVENT
The Magic Mouth now can be placed in guild halls, as originally intended.
Boss encounters will once again spawn for full groups in The Ethereal Rift.
The quest "Connecting Threads" should now be a little less confusing.
The Ethereal Rift would sometimes be empty if the player entering it was very lagged. This should no longer happen.

VEESHAN'S PEAK
Magics in Veeshan’s Peak are no longer able to restrict players from entering certain wings of the stronghold!

Also, at least as of yesterday, they had not yet installed the toggle for the threatmeter.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Cookies for Rothgar - return of the threatmeter / aggrometer

2009-10-04T06:55:00.003-04:00

Okay, so it never really went away, but they are going to make some updates to it. Quoted from Sony Forums:

We have an update coming soon for the threat meter. The goal of the change was to not show the threat meter when not in combat and also to not show the meter when you're the only one with aggro since you'll always be at 100.

However, there was a bug where someone's hate could round down to zero which would cause the meter to hide. So lets say you attack with your pet and its hate is 100. If you did a small attack the meter would become visible. As hate decayed, your hate might round down to zero which would cause the meter to disappear again.

We've now fixed this bug by making it so that your hate can never be < 1 if you're on the hate list. Also by popular request, we're adding an option to make the meter visible all the time. However, this will be off by default because we want new users to not see the hate meter unless its necessary.original post from Rothgar

That is totally awesome. What is great is also that they have made it possible to choose if you want your meter to be visible all the time or not. I prefer it visible, I got used to having the aggro meter on all my toons lol.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Aggro meter gone?

2009-09-24T12:07:00.002-04:00

Someone asked me if aggro meter was gone, theirs kept coming and going they said. I realized mine was gone too, and from what people were saying, it comes back as needed. I do miss having the aggro meter up all the time.

The journal? Zomg! I know I can adjust the size of the window, but geez. There are tabs for achievements etc too. That will take some getting used to.

New quests by Spires, I only checked out the Commonlands one and got quests picked up. Here is a link to a writeup EQ2 traders did: Quethellian Spires event. I have yet to figure out if there are different quests offered at different spires.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Argh! downtime again! September 24

2009-09-24T09:15:00.003-04:00

Sigh. I figured ya know, today I have time to log in some and get the new shadowknight pet. Alright, takes forever to log in and I think I heard a bell (you know that motd bell) but with everything loading and the update messages I took about another minute to log in and missed it. Hm, have to re-set all the traits? I do remember reading about that. Spell Tap Veins II (worse than expert Tap Veins I) overrode (argh!) the Tap Veins I already had. Now that wasn't supposed to be like that I thought. Grr. So, allow draggable icon and fix it. Some older blasphemy spell was updated too but that one did not override the better one, probably because it was the same spell line, not II but still. I have never seen spells popping in the hotbar when there is no room for it, and especially not overriding better ones.

K, got some title, that was nice, then hm, why is my tank wearing a dress? The shard armor didn't need attuned so I hadn't thought it would be part of the whole overflowed items they had talked about. Very well, I opened a bag was gonna drag from overflow but then decided why not just double click on it and equip it? Double click.... black screen.... trying log in server 1, 2 etc....

Since they took forever to update that the server was going down for gu 53 yesterday I hadn't thought of checking the network status page. However, after the abrupt translocation to desktop, I found the following:

Downtime scheduled - 09/25/2009 5:00 AM London Time / 09/24/2009 9:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time

This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 09/25/2009. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.

- SOE Operations team

US Scheduled Maintenance - 09/24/2009 6:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

This is a notification that All US EQ2 Worlds will be coming down at 6:00 AM PDT on 09/24/2009 for maintenance. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.

- SOE Operations team

I know as well as most Norrathians after a huge patch there will be bugs and hot fixes after hot fixes. However, what is up with changing the "normal" patchtime from 10 am EST to 9 am EST?

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Server downtime for Shards of Destiny

2009-09-23T07:04:00.002-04:00

Kiara on the EQ2 forums came with the info

Hello all!

As you know, Shards of Destiny is going live tomorrow (Sept 23).

The US servers will be coming down at 6am PDT for the update. We estimate about four hours of downtime and anticipate having the servers up and running again about 10am PDT. We'll keep you all updated should the times change for any reason.

For Runnyeye and Splitpaw, the servers will come down at 9pm PDT (5am in London Sept 24th) and should be back up and running about 1am PDT (9am in London).

Thank you for your patience and happy gaming!

So far today I can't find anything on the network status page updated yet so this should be the correct info. Much shorter downtime then expected, woot!

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Shards of Destiny - Game Update 53 for EQ2

2009-09-22T20:24:00.002-04:00

As of now there is no downtime listed, but I would guess there is quite a long patch incoming. Shards of Destiny, game update 53, has been announced to go live tomorrow, September 23. So what kind of goodies can we expect from this update? There is a whole lot of stuff incoming with GU 53!

Achievements

The new achievement system gives players a fun new way to track their accomplishments! Most achievements will award players with achievement points that can be used to compare their progress against other players. Some harder to complete achievements will offer non-stat item rewards. The basic categories are General, Dungeons, Exploration, Player vs. Player, Quests, Raids, Tradeskills and Triumphs. Triumphs are large scale achievements that combine multiple achievements into one large one. An example of this would be to do all of the combat, quest, and exploration achievements in a specific area.

Chronomagic

A number of mysterious erudites have set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin. Any player level 20 or higher can speak to them and for a small fee temporarily lower their adventuring level.
This works similarly to mentoring except:
You do not need a mentoring target.
You can only choose levels in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc).
You do not receive the bonuses granted from mentoring other players (currently you receive a very large bonus to AA gain while mentoring another player, this is not granted by the Chronomagic system).
The chronomagic will last until cancelled (right-click on your nameplate or /unmentor). Once cancelled, you must return to any Timeless Chronomage to reactivate the effect Additionally, 37 new missions have been added that work similar to The Shadow Odyssey’s daily doubles. They task players with slaying various bosses within zones of all levels throughout Norrath And, of course, these missions reward players with an array of exciting new items!
Chronomagic works the same on PvP servers as it does on PvE servers. However, it also has all the same restrictions as mentoring—namely that you cannot engage in PvP combat while the chronomagic effect is on your character. This makes it quite a bit more dangerous on PvP servers, so good luck and be careful!

Bosses and Events

As part of the chronomagic initiative, a pass was made through old-world overland and contested dungeons to greatly increase the frequency with which bosses and events spawned or occurred. Many placeholders and placeholder ring events were either removed or weighted much more heavily toward actual bosses spawning. Some of the notable highlights include placeholders being removed from: (Note: These are all from forum feedback)
Crypt of Betrayal – Specter of Ire
Enchanted Lands – Chomper
Everfrost – Chieftain Iceburn
Feerrott – Screaming Mace HQ targets Agony, Hukulan, Kaxor, Xilarga, and Tzugaax. Also Bouncers Prud, Hurd, Fug, and Flerb who were also changed to no longer despawn
Greater Faydark – Crushbone Expedition Leader, Chef, Weaponsmith, and Planner
Lavastorm – Fire Toad, Magolemus
Nektulos – Dannian Blackleaf – removed respawn time and despawn time, should always be up now
Obelisk of Lost Souls – Mediums of Dyrt, Cron, Iza, Odris, Norrath, and Lysys, Soul Harvesters Kul, Na, Gron, and Zej, Avulsor
Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently
Zek - the Orchish Wastes – Sentry Goorlux
Palace of the Awakened – Skylord Stormclaw, Advisor Soliddar
Rivervale – Willowmaw the Rotting
Ruins of Varsoon – Weavemaster Esh’rax, Tome of Life, Tome of Death, The Creator
Solusek’s Eye – Enforcer Maj’Fahd, Soulslaver Djar’veh, The Speaker of Fates, The Castigator, Lord Crana, Onyxlam
Steamfont – Bulka Bloodhorn, Digmaster Pechpooka, Slave Pechmooka, Scout Pechyooka
Steppes – Stiletto, Bloodtalon
Stormhold – a caveroot horror, Battlepriest Alexandria
Stormhold – The Scions – Archiovianix, Hephinntari, Qelinatias, Tumarinan
The Vestibule - The Medium of Hykor
Tombs of Night – The Leucous Maw

There are a large number of ring events that work similarly in these zones: Antonica, Commonlands, Everfrost, Sinking Sands, Enchanted Lands, Feerrott, Nektulos, Zek - the Orcish Wastes, and Thundering Steppes. They had a very high chance to spawn a placeholder, a small chance to spawn a boss, a small chance to spawn a shrine that buffs the player, and a small chance to spawn a number of different merchants. The chance to spawn a placeholder was greatly reduced and there is now a very high chance for one of the ‘events’ to occur. The merchants were all combined into the ‘rare’ merchant, who will now always spawn for that event. They also have a much larger merchantlist, and will buy, sell, and repair your gear! Contested Epic spawns in lower level zones were lowered to spawn every three days (with a large variation) instead of once a week.

A number of x2 and x3 contested mobs were downtiered because they had a 0% chance to drop fabled gear. They were lowered to triple-ups and their spawn times were adjusted accordingly. The contested epic mobs who did have fabled loot were given a 100% chance to drop at least one fabled item each time they are slain. Some of the mobs changed include:
Allidax the Ancient
Alrendi Thoughtsong
Broog the Banished
Commander Nagrat
Cragshell
Cyenadros, Lord of the Sanctum
Doomsquall
Equestrielle
Grimfeather
Haraghur the Deathless
Haywire Opticron (lowered to one-up and added loot)
Lavin Dusk
Mangler
Meathooks
Scytheclaw
Spiregazer
Ssilth Rageclaw
The Unseelie JumJum Thief
Vox

In general, most named mobs (with some exceptions) changed by this pass have a very high chance to drop treasured. Those with rare fabled items had their chances to drop raised significantly as well.
Named mobs in New Tunaria should have a 100% chance to drop legendary gear, and a much higher chance to drop Cloak of Flames pages now!
A new boss has found his way into Sebilis.
Bosses in Sebilis and Chardok should match Karnor’s Castle and spawn every 45 minutes + variation.
The despawn timers from all of Kylong Plains’ rare mobs have been removed.
The Fiery Apparition in Lavastorm should spawn once again.

Miragul’s Planar Shard

Has Miragul himself returned to Norrath? Perhaps the answer can be found within in Miragul’s Planar Shard, a new raid zone connected to Everfrost. The zone features a variety of encounters, some of which can be completed in regular mode, or for those seeking additional challenge and rewards, a more challenging mode.

Shard of Love

The Sisterhood of Erollisi has returned to Antonica with grave concerns! Adventurers interested in helping them should seek out a Disciple of Love in Antonica, Kelethin or Gorowyn. Those with more devious intentions should seek out Disciples of Hate within The Commonlands, Neriak or Gorowyn.
Teleportation Spires Event

The Quellithulians are hard at work reactivating the Ulteran Teleportation Spires across Norrath! They may be found in Antonica, Commonlands, the Thundering Steppes, Nektulos Forest, the Enchanted Lands, Zek, the Orcish Wastes, the Feerrott, Everfrost, Lavastorm and Loping Plains. A wide variety of rewards is available for players who assist their project.

GENERAL

Illusions cast from petamorph wands will now last for two hours or until your pet dies, and will persist through zoning.

Melee, defense and casting skills should now be easier and more straightforward to level up.

Swimming will now skill up faster.

You can now buy the Translocate and Druid Portal spells from the trainers.
Racial choices have changed. As a result, your character development choices have been reset.

Adventure writs are now offered to a player’s effective level, so that mentored players can complete adventure writs at any level!

You can now put adventure experience into the achievement pool from level 10 and higher by adjusting the slider in the achievement window.

Examining a ranged combat art will now display the ranged critical bonus properly.

Fixed an issue where items might trigger when they are restricted to a certain damage type.

The /auction channel is now server wide!

You will now receive chat feedback for dispels and cures.

Scouts will automatically disarm chests now when attempting to open them. As a result, the disarm verb will no longer display.

Pets will no longer be hit by aoe autoattack unless they are considered in front of the attacker. This should in turn make it easier to position pets to avoid it since the avoidance range for them is now flanking or behind instead of just behind.

Beneficial Poolburn effects will now display to the chat log.

Target locking abilities will now terminate if the locker is no longer a valid target.

Triggered Spell based effect tooltips will now update appropriately if your intelligence or strength change.

Player-written books will now be editable when transferring to another server.

Fixed a bug where when sometimes editing a very large player written book some text would be lost when closing and reopening the book.

Zoning into a new raid instance will no longer clear your raid looters.

Turning the avatar autoface option ON and the camera autoface option OFF will keep your character facing the target regardless of what direction your character is moving while autoattack is turned off. Toggle autoattack off to toggle off autoface if you just need to turn and run and toggle it back on again to make a final stand.

You can now right click individual house items and place them into a moving crate one at a time. Excellent for storing your holiday decorations!

A mysterious new merchant has appeared in the Moors of Ykesha with a stash of powerful items!

Runic Deflection should proc slightly more reliably.
You may now fly from Dreg’s Landing to The Highton!

CHARASIS

Players who leave Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep and return later will no longer find their progression blocked.

GOROWYN

Players will find that Gorowyn has become a good deal easier to navigate.

KURN’S TOWER

Ilenee’s Despair and Betrayal have fewer HP now.

MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION

Umzok and Ozyk now drop the less specialized cloaks and charms more reliably. Certain items in Munzok’s Material Bastion have become slightly more desirable.

NEKTULOS

The Nerius pirates camping along Nektulos beach are now armed (and still) dangerous.

THUNDERING STEPPES

Turgen Bremhurst now offers a more interesting way for you to earn the key to the gates of Bridge Keep.

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

(formerly Achievements)

Ooze Crawler will now benefit from Wrath of the Undead Servant

Mystic

Spirit of the Ancients will apply properly to Ancestral Sentry when another player is targeted.

Summoner

Pet Achievement Spells now have a higher priority when casting.

Warden

Fixed Shattered Infections to cure the correct person.

Warrior

Cry of the Warrior will be resisted less often now.

ITEMS

The Heirloom flag has been added to a large number of items in the game with the exception of quest items, heritage items, PvP items, and items gained from patterns (but the patterns themselves were flagged as Heirloom). This will allow players to join groups with the character that can help the group the most without the worry of not being able to gear up the character of their choice! As a side effect, items affected by this change will unattune and be sent to overflow initially upon first login.

Fixed a case where some item based triggered effects would begin to critical.

The Brethren of Night quartermaster by Soul Eater Falls in Nektulos Forest has improved the appearance of the armor and robe he sells. (Existing armor purchased from him previously will not be affected.) The Hand of Marr quartermaster in the nearby camp has also begun stocking a robe.

The Cudgel of Obviation’s Spirit Tap Effect is now unresistable.

Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently

Volcanic Knight’s Tempered Helm now has spell and heal crit chance to match its melee crit.

The ‘Deception’ effect on the Bracelet of the Trickster no longer affects fighters.

Unbound Elemental Essences from Lavastorm are now heirloom and the items that are purchased with them are now easier to obtain.

Balanced Ayr Stones may now be applied to fist weapons of any damage type.

Saita’s Glowing Gem will automatically cast on the user when activated.

Amazing Presence now shows up in the Maintained Spells window.

The Bangle of the Spiteful now slightly increases spell crit bonus.

Anashti Sul and Ykesha now have a chance to drop new items for Mages.

The descriptions on petamorph wands and their spells now declare that they will only affect combat pets and not cosmetic pets.

Rare Dungeon Drop Tradeskilled items have been flagged as Lore-Equip Attuneable Heirloom.

A large number of the Station Cash and LoN items are now Heirloom.

House items placed in moving crates will now stay in those moving crates, even when you are not looking!

The Earring of the Void Transfer is no longer sold by the Black Market Shard Merchant.

MAIL

Going linkdead while accessing your mailbox will no longer cause your mail to be inaccessible if you log back in before your character leaves the world.

After sending a guild mail or ranks mail the “to” text box will no longer have a random guild member name in it.

PVP

The Priests of Discord have returned. Reports state that they are currently teaching young adventurers the path of discord.
New Shattered Lands, Faydark, Kunark and Void Discord tokens have been created. The Discord tokens will now replace all previously used currency.
Faction merchants have agreed to reduce their status and faction costs! In return, their items have been enhanced to be more desirable to prospective buyers.

EoF, RoK and TSO Faction items have been enhanced to be more desirable by prospective buyers. All previously purchased items have gained the attributes as well.
Writ givers are eager to see more adventurers in battle and are willing to ignore previous requirements for their job completion.
Spawn location near Dreg’s Landing and Teren’s Grasp have been moved to be favorable for all factions.
The Kylong Plains writ giver has moved to Teren’s Grasp from Dreg’s Landing.
The dirge epic triggered effect (Intrepid Strike) will no longer force an attack to inflict maximum damage while in PvP combat.
Hate will now age faster while you are on a server controlled mount.
You will no longer gain immunity while on balloon platforms.
Reactive should no longer trigger incorrectly.

PLAYER HOUSING

Player houses have been given an extra room!
Players can now save and restore their house item layouts. Use the commands save_layout and load_layout . Loading a house layout works on the type of item, so some items that are unique but share the same type, like player-written books and guild hall teleporters, might be restored in different locations. House layout files can only be loaded in houses of the same type. This also works in guild halls!

QUESTS

Adventure writs for all cities now check a player’s effective level instead of actual level. This means that you can now mentor or chronolock and do lower level writs!
Creature mastery quests now use a system of progressively increasing luck that eventually guarantees an update.
The third scout for "Connect the Dots" in Kylong Plains is now easier to find.
The quest "A Strange Gem" Has been re-introduced into Antonica.
The quest "The Final Report" From the Qeynos Claymore progression in Kingdom of Sky should now allow citizens of all evil and good aligned cities to obtain the quest.
The quest “Aelia and the Butcher” can now be completed properly in North Freeport.
The respawn time on a named needed for the Screaming Mace quest within Temple of Cazic Thule has been shortened.
The difficulty of the waves of orcs that spawn at the beginning of Bloodskull Valley has been lowered to be more in line with the difficulty intended for Return of the Light Heritage quest.

SPELLS

Cheap Shot will now last the full four seconds on single up arrow NPCs. Higher difficulty NPCs will remain at two seconds since they are not typically used for solo encounters.
Group and self targeted buffs which do not expire will persist through death. This does not apply to pet spells.
Deity Spells now have a two second casting time.
Ranges have been adjusted to many spells to more consistent.
Maintained spell descriptions from cast items will now look like if you examined the item directly.
Spells that are hostile and beneficial will now apply their beneficial effects to anyone in the group with an AOE avoidance spell on them.

Conjuror

The Earthen Avatar line will now break invisibility spells when cast.
Communion should inherit the proper names from Fiery Magician now and use the appropriate Hydromancer appearance.

Druid

Druid Portal spells have been consolidated into one spell and now work similarly to the druid guild hall amenity.

Inquisitor

Inquisition will now overwrite existing copies of the spell properly on a target.

Paladin

Amends 3 has been removed from the Paladin Training choices like it was prior to GU51.

Shadowknight

Miss your old skeleton pet? Then visit your local Shadowknight trainer and get your new skeleton pet today! Scrolls are going fast so hurry up and get yours today!

Sorcerer

Sorcerer translocate spells have been consolidated into a single spell that works similarly to the druid guild hall amenity.

Warden

Faerie Ally will no longer attempt to save dead people.
Tunare’s Watch will now scale by level since it is not upgraded at higher levels.

Wizard

Rays of Disintegration will no longer interrupt the group and is now only cast by the wizard. The casting time is slightly less while doing a bit more damage now.

TRADESKILLS

The tradeskill society tutorial books now have an improved appearance. If you do not have a copy and would like one, visit your local tradeskill society merchant.

The recipe for the Flame Tapestry found in Najena’s Forge is no longer limited in uses.

Carpenters can now provide a few essentials for those stabling their mounts in their homes.

Byproducts from tradeskilling will no longer have the crafter’s name on them.

Tradeskill level will now count for purchasing racial traditions.

USER INTERFACE

The recipe window now auto adjusts to fit very long recipe names.
The claim window has been revamped and now functions similar to the marketplace window.
Title lists on the Details tab of the Persona window are now sorted.
A new user-interface has been wrapped around the mentoring system.
Type /mentor to display the mentoring window.
You can also use the /unmentor command to cancel mentoring.
The mentoring window will be displayed when you join a group if your level is too high to allow all players to earn XP.
The welcome screen now shows the number of unopened LoN booster packs you have.
The examine recipe window will now use multiple lines for very large recipe names.
The threat window now has an improved tooltip and will only show when it is relevant.
Timers on quests in the group quest window will now have correct times.
Double clicking an item in the marketplace section of the welcome window will now open the marketplace window with that item pre-selected.
You can now alter the hotkey for the zone reuse timer window in the options window.
The confirmation box for destroying a player written book with special characters in the title will no longer display gibberish.
Tooltips for books inside of packing crates will now look correct.
The threat window now resizes properly.
The welcome screen now displays the name and zone of the daily mission.
Hotbar windows no longer have as much empty spacing around them making it easier to stack them close without overlapping.
There are now save layout and load layout buttons on the /house window to help make it easier to manage your house layout setups!
The raid window has been put on a diet and is now slightly more compact.
The raid window progress bars are slightly larger and more readable.
There are now placeholder icons for the detrimental icons on the raid window.

The quest journal details text and quest helper will be clear if you have no quests or complete the last quest in your journal.

Critical damage will once again be tracked properly.

This looks like it is going to be one long update. Can't wait to see it! I sure know I'm picking up that shadowknight pet spell, and probably all other shadowknights too lol.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

September 23rd update?

2009-09-21T09:33:00.001-04:00

I noticed that they will be bringing some new items to the marketplace (pink baby dragon plushie and some armor stuff) on 9/23. That normally means downtime, but there is no downtime listed (yet) on the network status page. Just a heads up for the Norrathians out there.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

How to legally make money in EQ2 - lens unlocked

2009-09-20T10:23:00.002-04:00

Good news - received an email from admin that my lens was unlocked. It is a perfectly legit lens with tips on how to make in game money and linking to the site to sell those platinum, which is Livegamer - the only place where you can legally sell plat.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

One angry iksar - how to (legally) make money in Everquest 2 (lens)

2009-09-19T07:33:00.005-04:00

Alright, I like LiveGamer and I liked Station Exchange. (Plat prices suck these days but that's not the point). A legal way to make money in Everquest 2 (EQ2) was the lens I created on Squidoo a couple of years ago now.

I kept it updated, and it had some links, including links to Live Gamer, EQ2 Traders and a Zazzle module to Kanweienea Kreations and I think it had a Cafepress one too, but I removed the Cafepress link because well, I never got any traffic from there anyways. It was a free lens, so Squidoo put some related ads on there that I did not like. I had written Squidoo about it and they said sorry, nothing we can do, those ads come from Google. So this iksar shrugged her shoulders and moved on with the lens.

Now, when I tried to update the lens yesterday, I got notification it was locked! Grr!!! So I asked for handreview and same response. What the Norrath! So I wrote them for a second review, saying they could at least explain to people WHY they lock a lens and not just send a link to a general blah info page about why they lock lenses. It could take 30 days for the review to take place (if they bother getting back to me in the first place). Until then, I am leaving the link to the lens in the sidebar here, but the lens isn't viewable at the moment.

One angry iksar - still 80 - still 187AA
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Hot fix September 15 for EQ2

2009-09-15T13:39:00.001-04:00

So what was the patch today all about? According to the update notes here is what they did:

Hotfix September / 15 / 2009
ITEMS
Stackable items will no longer reflect quantities in your bank, shared bank or house vault when dragged to a hot bar. They now reflect only items in your inventory.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Mini Live event coming up again on the 20th

2009-09-15T11:31:00.001-04:00

Last month I almost forgot about the mushroom ring event. Here is a reminder for those of us who might forget about the mini live event on the 20th.

Until next blog post,
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Argh - downtime

2009-09-15T11:21:00.002-04:00

Argh indeed. I sat for hours organizing my Cafepress images after realizing I had 20 plus pages of images and no way to search through them. I had decided to do some work on my Cafepress store and well there was many images to sort through. Alright, so I got some work done and decided to log in. Started logging in, heated up some tostitos in the microwave, and turn around to the computer... hm... not logging in... What is going on, I was thinking. What was it? Downtime of course. Here is what the network status page says

Downtime scheduled - 09/16/2009 5:00 AM London Time / 09/15/2009 9:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time

This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 09/16/2009. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.
- SOE Operations team

US Scheduled Maintenance - 09/15/2009 6:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time
This is a notification that All US EQ2 Worlds will be coming down at 6:00 AM PDT on 09/15/2009 for maintenance. The estimated downtime will be 1 hour.

- SOE Operations team

6 am? Times a changin' ...

time for some tostitos.

Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Which is better, WOW or EQ2?

2009-09-14T06:55:00.002-04:00

As with most other games, I would say it is a matter of personal preference. I played EQ2 for many years and I have tried WoW. World of Warcraft was fun for a little break from EQ2, but it was cartoony and I prefer Everquest 2. It does seem like WoW does more advertising than EQ2, and I think that Sony needs to step up on that part. Some of the things they have (or at least had) in WoW that I liked they have later implemented in EQ2, for example, the buy back from merchant. What was nice from EQ1 though (and I still sort of hoping they will bring it to EQ2 lol) was that you could buy other people's stuff back from the merchant. You could make a nice income just buying from merchants in EQ1 and reselling it, whether it would be at a small profit or huge profit.

Until next blog post
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Some more upcoming daily doubles

2009-09-11T12:57:00.001-04:00

Today is the Necrotic Asylum: Destroy the Dread Exarch!
Tomorrow, Saturday, September 12, is Caverns of the Afflicted: Abating the Evil

Until next blog post
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Gamma and window mode - too shiny

2009-09-09T17:24:00.003-04:00

I remember one time I was doing some photo editing in Photoshop CS3. I was tired and couldn't figure out what in the world was going on with the lighting. Soon though I realized that I needed to restart the computer and the problem was fixed. What had caused it? The alt enter = window mode for Everquest 2. I know it is good to restart the computer every so often, but it gets to be a bit of a pain sometimes. If I play in window mode I have to reboot or computer will be painfully bright to look at. What is it that causes this problem? I don't know. I just know that it doesn't do it for Vista at all, but it does do it for Windows XP even with all the bells and whistles updates and active x updates.

It does not cause the issue with the gamma if I just type /browser, but if I want to twobox, then I need the window mode running.

Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Say what? - update patch September 09

2009-09-09T14:52:00.003-04:00

EQ2 servers are up, and although I had read somewhere that this wasn't for GU 53, I wasn't sure and it was a really long patch. So when I checked the update notes it says:

Hotfix September / 09 / 2009
ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENTS Templar Enhance: Healing Fate will now work properly.

That's it???? Sometimes, the update notes will say different things or more things the day after the patch or later the same day. Typos happen, so it can be. For now, I need to go wait for the broodlings to come home from school then make the iksar family some chili cheese fries.

Until next blog post
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

How to add a character to test server

2009-09-09T14:05:00.002-04:00

The command for copying a toon over to the test server is as follows (be logged in as the character you want to copy): /testcopy add

Within a few hours or maybe up to a day your character should be copied over to test server.

Until next blog post
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Servers are down - eq2 server status September 09

2009-09-09T11:33:00.003-04:00

September 09 - rainy overcast day with muggy weather. Great day for playing EQ2 eh? So one would think. Latest news I saw was that the servers were locked. With this iksar trying to find a house outside Norrath (although I must say I really like my five bedroom house in North Freeport), I missed the servers going down today. Yeah the forums are down for maintenance too so there goes the chance of checking the latest news on the downtime using that site. After some search it looks like the downtime started at 3 am EDT and will be down for 12 hours or so (yeah we all know that is an estimate lol). Zomg! What to do!

Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations

Mara faction quests EQ2

2009-09-09T11:20:00.001-04:00

Most of my alts have completed the Ship out quest but I rarely have the time to log in all of them to do the weekly solo mission (2,000 plus faction with the Far Seas Supply division). I do try to get a couple of them to do it. I got the unicorn for my little conjuror lady but for the others I mainly do the quests so I can get the faction for the tradeskill specific recipes and tokens. One needs 40k faction to get the recipes (2 per tradeskill class) and there are only 5 charges on each (whoever came up with that idea?).

Until next blog post
Corisu - Kanweienea Kreations