SEPTEMBER 14, 2005

Welcome to EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow!

As Lanys T'Vyl and Firiona Vie crossed blades in Nektulos Forest, a failed curse exploded that shook the lands from sky to stone. When all settled, for a time there was no sound. Firiona, Lanys, their armies, all the beasts and creatures had vanished from the grove where the curse was bound. But down at the end of the forest river where it ducked under loose stone, a way into darkness was revealed -- passage into a subterranean world called Darkhollow.

For more details on what befell those in Nektulos Forest, see today's story entry!

Depths of Darkhollow Highlights:

Monster Missions:

• Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be a monster in Norrath? Now you can find out! Through Monster Missions, you are able to enter the bodies of a variety of characters and be transported into a different time to re-enact the past or play a critical role in Norrath's future. These missions are found in Darkhollow and other areas around Norrath, like Nektulos Forest and Butcherblock.
• While you play in a monster mission, your main character earns experience and, quite often, rewards! The rewards you gain from monster missions appear in the inventory of your main character when the mission is successfully completed.

Spirit Shrouds:

• Shroudkeepers have learned to channel spirits in the ethereal world. They are found in the Plane of Knowledge and can offer you the form of one of Norrath's creatures through a Spirit Shroud! The Shroudkeepers can transform you into creatures in various categories, like Undead or Animal. The Spirit Shroud itself changes your form and gives you a specific set of abilities, like a fighter or healer, depending on the shroud you picked. Once you've selected a shroud type, you can choose to play a creature of that type of any available level less than or equal to your own level.
• While you adventure with a Spirit Shroud, you will gain experience for your main character. When you remove your shroud, the items you collected will appear in your Shroud Storage which is accessed at a banker. Also, as you use the Spirit Shrouds in a particular category you will gain enough knowledge and experience to unlock new forms.

Evolving Items:

• As you adventure and advance in Norrath, you may find new items that will learn and grow right along with you! These Evolving Items change over time the more you use them, including their names and statistics. These weapons and worn items are marked as Evolving and will show their status in a percentage upon inspecting them. You can watch that status grow as you kill monsters! When it reaches 100 percent, presto, you will have the next level of your item!

Intelligent Items:

• Imagine what some of your gear might say to you if it could talk. Now some will! Intelligent items, much like evolving items, are now found in Norrath and will show their status when inspected. As they grow, they change their statistics and even what they say. They can talk to you and, sometimes, people around you (you can customize these chat options). These items usually have something to say about your actions, so keep your eyes open!

Tradeskills:

• The gnomes of Corathus have amassed a collection of new tradeskill items. You will find some vendors with books detailing javelins, food and drink, and new ways of doing spell research. Merchants who frequently traffic in high quality ore have been taking a keen interest in the new ores and minerals of Darkhollow and often have surplus available for purchase by others.
• The new spell research is a totally different system that covers a large majority of spells that were found in Planes of Power, and Gates of Discord, though not all of them. The new system may seem more complex than the way you are used to doing spells, but is much more systematic than the previous system and will be more consistent.
• Additionally, there are new highly powerful augments for cultural armor... One of the Gnomeworks is a bit damaged and if you have something of interest to him, he may be willing to help you with a way to make them. Good luck!

AAs:

• New AAs are now available to players who own Depths of Darkhollow.

Spells:

• New Spells are now available to players who own Depths of Darkhollow.

EverQuest: Escape to Norrath:

Are your friends bored now that the summer is coming to an end? Has their work, school, or in-laws plain taken the fun out of their days? If this is the case, invite your friends to Escape To Norrath to join you in your adventures throughout the world of Norrath. Our new tutorial, EverQuest: Escape To Norrath, is a FREE stand alone experience tailored around a fun and easy to learn introduction to the world of Norrath.

There are several ways to play Escape to Norrath:

• Invite your friends to play EverQuest with you by using the disk included with your Depths of Darkhollow box. Feel free to share this disk!
• Our new EverQuest: Escape To Norrath website has a full download available, along with instructions on how to obtain account keys: http://escapetonorrath.station.sony.com/index.vm
• Existing EverQuest players can play on the Escape To Norrath server by using the EscapeToNorrath.exe in their EverQuest directory. Join your friends and relive the experience of discovering the magic of EverQuest!

Other Update News:

[EQ] Menu Button:

• We have added new functionality to the UI. The window selector is no longer available. The functionality is now neatly folded and tucked away in the [EQ] Button. Clicking on the [EQ] button will extend a menu that includes the most vital and commonly used screens in the game.

AAs:

• Based on player feedback, we've changed the way that Turn Undead and Turn Summoned work to make it more useful in normal grouping situations. Both abilities have been refunded and new versions are available for purchase. The new versions are 5-minute reuse, single-target DoTs that have a chance to do a massive amount of damage to the targeted creature when they land, likely destroying it in one hit. The core abilities are still level 59 class abilities and upgrades are available at level 65 for Planes of Power and level 70 with Depths of Darkhollow.
• Due to the changes to Turn Summoned and Turn Undead, the AAs that decreased their reuse times are no longer applicable so they have been removed and refunded.
• The duration of Divine Avatar has been increased to 3 minutes and the reuse time has been lowered to 36 minutes.
• The reuse time on Rabid Bear has been reduced to 36 minutes. As part of this change, the ability will no longer have its duration increased by focus effects. Hastened Rabidity has been changed to lower the reuse on Rabid Bear by 4 minutes per rank.
• Reduced the casting time on Wake the Dead and Army of the Dead.
• Rhythmic Reflexes and Superior Rhythmic Reflexes had their double attack values switched. This has now been corrected.

Tradeskills:

• Added some recipes to create Soy Sauce for the Chef Chowderly quest.
• Modified the stats on numerous pieces of the Cultural Tradeskill armor.
• The Salvage bug when using world containers has been fixed.
• Tradeskill recipes that result in a LORE item that you already have and is not a tool will now block with a message.

NPCs:

• High quality ore vendors will no longer fall for your tricks.
• Volkara will now appear as a spider rather than a 20-foot human male.
• NPC's in Halls of Honor should no longer gate home when there are too many pets in the nearby vicinity.
• Made a minor modification to the Mata Muram script to fix a loophole in the gaze list logic.

Missions & Events:

• Volkara will no longer grow in power if she is outside of her lair. Her encounter will now be the same no matter where she is fought.
• Kessdona's manashard guardian adds should now activate correctly and in sequence.
• Changed the required count for the kill and loot elements on the Dragons of Norrath mission "Diseased Pumas". This change was to fix a discrepancy between the number of items required for task completion compared to the number of kills and items looted that the task said you needed.

Quests:

• The Ancient Sebilite Protector in Sebilis should no longer double-spawn his helper-golems, and the event should despawn / reset normally again.

Items:

• All arrows and throwing items now are max stack size of 100.
• All spell scrolls should now be stackable. Please note that if you try to scribe more than one spell scroll at one time by using a stack of spell scrolls, that you will receive an error message. You must use only one spell scroll to scribe a spell.

Spells:

• Modified Intensity of the Resolute so it won't be overwritten by other, lesser abilities.

Tutorial:

• In case you missed it above, the tutorial has changed. Not only have we added new content and made it more user friendly and streamlined, we actually made it a standalone experience you can give to your friends to learn how to play EverQuest. Please refer to the EverQuest: Escape To Norrath website for more details: http://escapetonorrath.station.sony.com/index.vm

UI:

• There are now 4 Hotbutton windows that can be visible at the same time. Use the Options window to set keys for showing/hiding the windows, as well as setting keys for the individual Hotbuttons in them. Note to skinners, your old skin should work for the single Hotbutton window contained in it, but you'll need to update to see more than 1.
• Item Links have changed format.
• Bazaar search results, when the item is viewed, should now show the correct number of charges for charged items.
• The Task Select window now autoselects the first task in the list.
• The Guild Management Window level display bug should be fixed.
• Changing video modes should no longer clear the Find window list.
• The Find Window now generates a Find path once a target is selected.

Miscellaneous:

• Added new level gained text for lower level characters.
• A fully looted corpse will remain in the game as long as there is experience that can be regained through an experience rez or until the experience rez timer has expired.

Special Thanks:

The EverQuest Team would like to warmly thank all the people who participated in the Depths of Darkhollow Beta. All your feedback, patience and good spirits have been really invaluable to us and the EverQuest community as a whole. Without your efforts, Depths of Darkhollow would not be possible.