GU44  

See also the Game Update #44 Preview at EQ2Players.

March 8, 2008

HIGHLIGHTS

• The Shard of Hate is now open for high level raid groups willing to try their mettle against the Maestro. The influx of hatred into the world is affecting many throughout Norrath with increased hostility clearly evident.
• You can now choose to show off your equipped bow by displaying it in place of your melee weapons.
• Two new armored wargs have been discovered. Potential owners should look for the new beasts in Kunark.

GAMEPLAY

• Entrances to the Shard of Hate have been activated in Neriak and Nektulos Forest.
• Not to be outdone by their Qeynosian counterparts, The Coalition of Tradesfolke in West Freeport have refurbished their headquarters to provide more convenient facilities for crafters.
• You can now choose to display your equipped bow instead of your melee weapons by going to Persona->Options and checking Display Ranged Weapon.
• You can also type /showranged. To undo this, type /showranged again, and /showcloak to turn your cloak back on!
• The Village of Shin's monk challenges will now scale to provide experience for players above level 70.
• Several avatar encounters have been rebalanced to provide a better play experience for players.

LOOTING

• Raid Leaders can now create designated raid looters by right-clicking their names in the raid window and choosing add/remove looter.
• Designated raid looters are able to assign loot as if they were a raid leader when the group loot method is set to "Leader Only".
• It's now easier for the group leader to loot an item with the Leader Only loot method.

MOUNTS

• There are two new armored wargs now available in Kunark.
• Mounts will automatically be removed while climbing a wall and should return once you have reached a flat surface.
• Shallow water will no longer scare away your horses, rhinos and wargs.

COMBAT

• Ranged ammo has been adjusted to have a minimum level that represents the start of the tier. Ranged weapons will no longer scale down to that level unless the ammo is significantly lower than the weapon. For example, all ferrite ammo is now level 70 to use. Level 80 ranged weapons will use level 80 for calculations now instead of scaling down to level 70. Overall damage of current level 80 items will stay the same.
• Combat text will now display if you double attack, flurry, ranged double attack, etc.
• Melee hit rates should now be slightly better against orange con mobs.

ITEMS

• Strength Imbued rings will now proc from ranged attacks.
• Mitigation has been increased on all low fabled raid armor sets. Boots, Gloves, Bracers, Shoulders and Helms have a higher chance of dropping.
• Di'Zok Ceremonial cloth armor is now more comparable to tranquil swiftcloth. The poisons Rilissian Vital Stirke, Di'Zok Mental Strike, and Regimental Elixir of Combat are now more effective.
• The Collapsible Fishing Pole can now be used from inventory slots.
• Collection items that you don't need will now con grey.
• The Fabled Eagle's Talon should do slightly more damage .
• The Di`Zok Bow of Flame is now a 7 second delay and should do slightly more damage.

QUESTS

• The number of initiates need to update "The Trial of Tynnonium" has been reduced to four.
• Increased the drop rate on pages 8 and 9 in "Tome: An Old Memoir".
• The Pirate Jones encounter for the Swashbuckler Epic Weapon Quest Series should be a little easier.
• Those participating in the quest "Once a Marine, Always a Marine!" in Jarsath Wastes should no longer be mislead by quest icons to speak with Necromancer Corporiss at the beachfront.
• Deputy Hopple in The Enchanted Lands is no longer trying to take twice as many apple muffins as he had asked for.
• Players on exchange servers can now obtain three quests previously unavailable on those servers because they are given out by guides. Seek out NPCs in the Commonlands, Antonica, and Everfrost.
• Those that switched sides during the Bloodline Chronicles quest series will now be able to continue on and get the 7th quest in the series from the side you last chose.

TRADESKILLS

• Harvesting tool buffs are now activated by using the tool, and can be canceled. The effects will now persist through death.
• The Tradesman Service quest from each crafting society's Grandmaster now also awards a simple cloak (those who have already completed the quest can purchase it from the Grandmaster).
• Grandmasters in the five starting cities now offer some new quests for tradeskillers who have assisted them previously.
• All handcrafted and mastercrafted chest and leg armor from 50-59 can now be imbued.
• A lost recipe for a tynnonium stool has been recovered by carpenters.
• Tradeskill Introduction handbooks for each city faction now include information about where to respec crafting professions.
• Effects from the provisioner-made drinks The Jester's Cap and The Queen's Masquerade now follow you through zoning
• The recipe book can now be filtered by classes that can use the final product of each recipe.

SPELLS

• Froglok
• Fervor of Marr should now apply properly to the player.
• Priest
• Priests will receive a new level 80 spell automatically called Cure Curse. Be on the lookout for certain encounters to have special effects that are only curable with this spell.
• Guardian
• Call to Arms line now includes ranged skill.
• Templar
• Redoubt line now includes ranged skill.
• Ranger
• The hawk will no longer break stealth.
• The Focus Aim line now has a group component which buffs the groups melee weapon skills and weapon accuracy.
• Improved the damage on the offensive stance proc, melee based combat arts and faster reuse ranged attacks.
• The Bleeding Cut line has had its duration lowered to 24 seconds.
• Trick Shot, double Shot and Leg shot lines have had their casting times reduced to .5 seconds
• Troubador
• Harmonization should no longer increase the immunity of Jester's Cap.
• Dirge
• The Cacophany of Blades line will now proc from ranged attacks

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Summoner
• Minion's Warding should no longer break invisibility after zoning.
• Guardian
• The icon on Lay Wastes was altered so that it's more apparent that it shares a reuse timer with the Assault line. The prose should mention this as well.

ZONES

• Antonica
• Evil players should now evacuate near Thundering Steppes all the time.
• Commonlands
• Good players should now evacuate near Nektulos all the time.
• Chelsith
• All five boss NPCs in Chelsith now spawn, an increase over the 2 out of 5 that would spawn previously.
• Kaladim
• A number of Kaladim patrols have had their respawn time increased.
• Fens of Nathsar
• The Tangrin has been retuned.
• Chardok and Sebilis
• Adjustments have been made to Chardok's and Sebilis' named NPCs. Those that were level 85+ were lowered to 84, had their health increased significantly and DPS slightly. Additionally, certain nobles had abilities added to their repertoire. They also have a chance to drop master spells between 71 and 75.
• Veeshan's Peak
• The personal treasure of many inhabitants of Veeshan's Peak has been increased in power.
• All Veeshan's Peak item sets have been given additional focus effects and increased stats.
• Venril Sathir's Lair
• Venril Sathir now has a chance to drop first tier armor set breastplates in addition to existing drops.
• The Temple of Kor-Sha
• The Overking now has a chance to drop first tier armor set breastplates in addition to existing drops.

CLIENT DETAILS

• The client will automatically enable a low-memory mode when you are running low on memory. The low-memory mode will downsample far away textures and unload geometry that hasn't been drawn in a while. The low-memory mode should generally be invisible.
• Performance settings were adjusted slightly for better rendering at lower qualities without significantly impacting performance.
• Flora will now only be rendered on High Quality settings and above.
• Objects will not disappear as quickly on lower settings
• The client is Large Address Aware, meaning that you are much less likely to run out of memory if you have 3GB or more of RAM and are running either the 64-bit versions of Windows or have modified your boot.ini to support 3GB user address space.
• Color Profile changes:
• If you have a desktop color profile configured (or your gamma ramp changed), the client is better about restoring your settings when it exits.
• The client no longer overwrites your color profile settings with its own. Instead, the gamma values in the Options -> Display -> Color Correction modify the desktop color profile settings. This means that if all of the client's Color Correction settings are left at defaults (brightness at 0.0, contrast at 1.0, gamma values at 1.0) the client will use your desktop color profile settings.
• Crashes should be better about restoring your color profile.

UI

• Spell icons should no longer tint during casting or recovery.

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