Here are the patch notes as EverQuest launches its 20th expansion, Call of the Forsaken:

(Note: Servers are expected to come back up at around 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time.)

*** Highlights ***

- EverQuest's 20th expansion, Call of the Forsaken, has launched!  A cataclysm has befallen the Western Plains of Karana, where a great dragon calling herself Lady Lendiniara has appeared.  Is she here to help the people of Norrath, or to destroy them?  What connection does this event have to Zebuxoruk, the mad immortal who was forsaken by the gods? Will you be the first to discover the truth in this ongoing saga?

*** Expansion Features ***

All purchasers of Call of the Forsaken gain access to the following:
- Access to four new zones: Ethernere Tainted West Karana, the Dead Hills, Bixie Warfront, and Neriak - Fourth Gate
- Heroic Adventures, a new type of mission that can change each time you play them
- New spells and AAs for every class
- Two additional shared bank slots
- New collections and achievements
- New items and tradeskill recipes
- New raids
- Enhance your Mercenary's power with new mercenary-only items
- Strengthen and customize your mercenary as they earn their own alternate advancement skills


*** Items ***

- The cleave effect on Fearlinked Leather Chest Seal of the Warchief and Fearlinked Silk Chest Seal of the Warchief will now function.
- The farming implements in Crescent Reach are no longer flagged as tradeskill items.  While they are tools of a trade, they cannot be used in conventional tradeskills.
- The Chunk of Bronze and Chunk of Iron in Gloomingdeep now have lore in the description indicating Absor could forge the metal into weapons.
- Several items that could be used by all races except Drakkin (Hard Bone Chips, for example) are now usable by all races.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Corrected an issue with the Scaled Curskins quest from Klok Mugruk in East Cabalis.
- Yama Twerik's inactive clockwork recharging event should work correctly.


*** Spells ***

- Increased the number of spell sets that you can save to 20.
- Fixed a bug that caused post-crit foci to apply to DoT spells before critical damage was applied.
- Berserker - Lowered the min damage modifier of Brutal Discipline.
- Berserker - Lowered the damage amount that Reflected Viciousness adds to two-hand piercing to match the other two-hand weapon skills it improves.
- Magician - The Shard of Fire pet should now cast the correct rank of Frenzied Elemental Bolt when under the effects of Frenzied Burnout.
- Magician - Lowered the damage dealt by Salvo of Many with the maximum number of pets on the target's hatelist.  Lower "waves" were not affected.
- Ranger - Increased the duration of Bosquestalker's Discipline, lowered the endurance upkeep, and increased the damage added to melee strikes.
- Rogue - Increased resist modifiers for Beset, Gullible Mark, Jugular Lacerate, Gash, Pinpoint Deficiencies, and Smokecloud Effect.  They should land much more reliably now.
- Rogue - Increased the skill damage and min damage modifiers of Executioner Discipline.
- Wizard - Ethereal spells no longer deal different amounts of damage to higher-difficulty creatures.


*** NPC ***

- Drill Master Vygan in East Cabilis will again let you progress through his dialogues to get the Pincer Satchel.


*** AA ***

- Fixed an issue where some AA recast timers could get in a bad state and report a recast time of over 1 million hours.
- Fixed an bug where Trap Circumvention was not properly applying the chance to not trigger a trap.
- Cleric - Quiet Miracle now leaves a residual effect called Shroud of the Miracle on your target preventing the use of Quiet Miracle on the same target for 5 minutes.
- Necromancer - Death Bloom's reuse timer has been increased to 10 minutes.
- Rogue - Hastened Purge Poison has been refunded. You now have 3 new ranks of Hastened Purification which brings the Purge Poison timer down to where we want it.


*** Achievements ***

- A number of existing achievements have been modified:
- - The achievements for completing all of the raids in an expansion are now called "Conqueror" achievements rather than "Vanquisher" achievements.
- - The achievements for completing all of the raid challenges in an expansion are now called "Vanquisher" achievements rather than "Conqueror" achievements.
- - New achievements have been created for completing all of the raid challenges in a particular raid. These are referred to as "Vanquisher of Raidname" achievements.
- - The ability to purchase the rare items from Rain of Fear raids from currency merchants is now tied to individual raid "Vanquisher" achievements rather than the achievements for completing all of the raid challenges in the expansion.

- For multi-part expansions like the Rain of Fear, Shadow of Fear, Heart of Fear trilogy, over-arching achievements have been better broken up to reflect individual completion of each release.
- Several over-arching achievements from the Rain of Fear expansion have had optional elements from the Shadow of Fear and Heart of Fear removed and have been renamed.
- - The completion date for those achievements should not have changed, but their name has. For example, the achievement previously titled "Explorer of Rain of Fear" is now called "Lesser Explorer of Rain of Fear" but will still show the date you completed it under its previous title.

- A number of over-arching achievements have been moved from the general category into their relevant sub-categories. This includes hunter achievements, savior achievements and vanquisher achievements.
- The order in which achievements are displayed within their sub-categories has been standardized across all expansions.
- A number of achievement types have had their icons changed and standardized across all expansions.
- The achievements "Fearless Vindicator" (group and raid) are now called "Legend of Fear" (group and raid).
- The new achievement "Challenger of the Heart of Fear" will give access to the reward set that contains the Signet of the Crystal Circle.
- - This is an alternate means for group level players to obtain this item. Raid level players that have completed both this achievement and the achievement "Vanquisher of the Heart of Fear" will not gain any benefit from this duplicate reward set. This is intended.

- Modified the achievement "Hunter of Chelsith Reborn" to make "The Undefeated Blade" and "A Huge Mistake" optional encounters for the achievement's completion.
- Modified the achievement "Shatter the Veil" to not display unless you qualify for its completion.
- Modified the achievement "In the Absence of Fear" to not display unless you qualify for its completion.
- Achievements from the Seeds of Destruction, Underfoot, and House of Thule expansions are now listed in progression order.
- The achievements "Adept Hunter of the Void", "Veteran Hunter of the Void" and "Expert Hunter of the Void" have had their components changed to better reflect an increase in difficulty from one tier to another.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Increased the number of plots that a character can own to 3 from 2.
- Addressed a number of animation issues.
- Added "/target group #" to allow for targeting a group member.  This behaves just like pressing F1 - F6.
- Fixed a bug where players would be unable to train skills if they had too much money in their inventory. Also addressed a number of other locations where having too much money could potentially cause unforeseen issues.
- Corrected an issue where buy lines could be setup for multiple items without having the proper monetary compensation on hand.
- The treasure chest ground spawn in South Ro now looks like a treasure chest instead of a bag.  How did it fit into that tiny bag, anyway?
- The hay ground spawn in West Karana now looks like a pile of hay instead of a bag.
- Addressed a client hang when trying to move items from a 32 slot bag to a 36 slot bag all at once.
- Increased the range of sensitivity for mouse-driven camera controls.
- Fixed some capitalization issues with character names in the Universal Chat system.
- When renaming a character, you should no longer lose your friends list nor your e-mail.
- Healer mercenaries will no longer incorrectly attempt to cast spells immediately after zoning when they are in the passive stance.


*** UI ***

- Made the claim window sortable.
- Added a total parcels count to the tab as well as to the header of the parcels tab.
- Removed the "Update EQPlayers" and the "My EQPlayer Page" buttons from the EQ -> Character button.
- Added multiple usable dragitem icons.
- Converted game credits to a two tab system.
- Split up the controls for mouse sensitivity into X and Y sliders and uncapped turning speed.
- Fixed an issue where the Mercenary Manage window was not properly persisting between /loadskin, zoning, or logouts.
- Revamped the character select screen.
- Slowed down and smoothed the rotation on the character select screen.
- Added to character select and character creation the ability to control the camera rotation using the left and right keyboard buttons.
- Changed "Nature" to "Growth" for the Plane of Growth in the atlas.
- Added some new elements to and modified the AA window to display Mercenary AA information.
- Added new EQTypes for the Mercenary AA Experience gauge (150), experience percent label (335), AA points label (336), AA points spent label (337).
- Modified the inventory window to support the display of mercenary statistics and items.
- Added the following EQTypes for mercenary stat labels:
--- MERCENARY_HP = 338
--- MERCENARY_MAX_HP = 339
--- MERCENARY_MANA = 340
--- MERCENARY_MAX_MANA = 341
--- MERCENARY_ENDURANCE = 342
--- MERCENARY_MAX_ENDURANCE = 343
--- MERCENARY_ARMOR_CLASS = 344
--- MERCENARY_ATTACK = 345
--- MERCENARY_HASTE_PERCENT = 346
--- MERCENARY_STRENGTH = 347
--- MERCENARY_STAMINA = 348
--- MERCENARY_INTELLIGENCE = 349
--- MERCENARY_WISDOM = 350
--- MERCENARY_AGILITY = 351
--- MERCENARY_DEXTERITY = 352
--- MERCENARY_CHARISMA = 353
--- MERCENARY_COMBAT_HP_REGEN = 354
--- MERCENARY_COMBAT_MANA_REGEN = 355
--- MERCENARY_COMBAT_ENDURANCE_REGEN = 356
--- MERCENARY_HEAL_AMOUNT = 357
--- MERCENARY_SPELL_DAMAGE = 358

- Changed -
EQUI_AAWindow.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_BigBankWnd.xml
EQUI_Inventory.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_MerchantWnd.xml


- The EverQuest Team