Test Update #19a- January 18, 2006

*** Headlines ***
- Mentor your friends without needing to change your hotbars!
- Adventure writs are now more convenient to obtain and offer clearer rewards!
- The Norrathian Express expands its coin and item delivery service between Qeynos and Freeport!
- Enjoy a plethora of enhancements to the user interface!
- House vaults gain some extra space!


*** Mentoring ***
- Your high level spells are now useable (at a reduced effectiveness) when you mentor a lower level player. No more messing with your hotbar when you want to help out a friend!
- Most spells will no longer drop or suspend when you start mentoring a lower-level player. Instead, they now adjust themselves accordingly.


*** Writs ***
- You can now select from a list of all writs you are eligible to embark upon when speaking to a writ giver.


*** Gameplay ***
- You can now jump off a flying carpet or griffon at any point along your path by hitting your jump key. Beware, as you may take considerable falling damage.

- By popular request from those unfortunate souls who are prone to meeting an untimely demise, potion, poison, and totem effects will now persist through death.
- When a character successfully uses Safe Fall, the falling sound and "ouch" animation will no longer play.
- Going more than 50 meters away from an encounter will cause the active Heroic Opportunity for that encounter to disappear for you, freeing you to perform other Heroic Opportunities on other encounters. Returning within range will cause the Heroic Opportunity to reappear as long as you aren't participating in any other Heroic Opportunities.
- You can now see how many personal status points you have in your Persona window and earn more of them while you are not in a guild.


*** Items ***
- All creature Lore and Legend items now stack. These items are also no longer Lore.
- Language items are no longer Lore and No Value and can stack.
- Reading is fun! Share (most) of your book page finds with your friends, as they are no longer flagged as No Trade.


*** Quests ***
- You will now see how much status a Heritage quest will award when accepting the quest as well as in your journal.


*** Housing ***
- The Qeynos Exchange and Freeport Reserve have expanded their business and now allow those with more prestigious homes access to expanded vault facilities.


*** Tradeskills ***
- The tradeskill UI will now display the stack count in the component choice window.
- You can now search for a particular recipe by name from the recipe window.
- The crafter's name will now display on stackable items as long as every item in the stack was created by the same character.
- The maximum stack size of all tradeskill-used fuels is now 100 instead of 20.


*** Commands, Controls, and User Interface ***

- There is now a /load_uisettings command that allows you to load the UI settings from one of your existing characters. If you type the /load_uisettings command with no arguments, it will prompt you with a list of UI files to select from. You may also specify a specific file as an argument when using this command.
- Have friends on other servers or in other games? Great! You can now add friends from other games or other servers in much the same way you would send them a tell (For example, you can /friend unrest.blackguard to add Blackguard from the server Unrest to your friends list).
- Have enemies on other servers or in other games? Great! You can now ignore players from other servers or games in much the same way you would send them a tell (For example, you can /ignore unrest.blackguard to add Blackguard from the server Unrest to your ignore list).
- For those who want to see shorter combat messages, there is now a Hits Mode option (similar to EverQuest) for your chat windows in Options -> User Interface -> Game Features -> Hits Mode.
* Minimal: Shows just the damage numbers or in the case of a miss it shows miss/block/parry. Heals will also just show as numbers.
* Medium: Cuts down on the combat text a bit by removing the damage type and giving you strict basics.
* Full: This is how it exists today.
* Note: Full combat info will continue to be sent to your log file. The Hits Mode option only affects what you see in the Chat window.
- Anonymous and Roleplaying players will now be filtered properly when others perform a search:
* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players.
* Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but will still show up in LFG and LFW searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.
- You can now quickly change to a different character on your account by using the following command: /camp <character_name>
- Faction rewards from quests now give out the proper faction messages in the Chat window.

- Ammo that is purchased will automatically be placed into empty slots in your quiver before going into other bags.


Information:
- Poison tooltips will now display the remaining proc count of your poison.
- Haste, DPS, and run speed are now displayed in the Persona window.
- Crush, Pierce, and Slash mitigation values will now appear in the mitigation tooltip on the Persona window.
- Examining a melee weapon and viewing the weapon's tooltip will now display its damage type.
- You can now view the amount of status reduction you currently have from the Housing window.
- When examining an item, your character's class will be highlighted in green if the item is useable for your class.


The Broker Window:
- The Broker window will now show real-time item quantities. If you buy an item, everyone who has that item on the page they're viewing will see the quantity decreasing. To avoid potential purchasing mistakes that might arise if items you see in the window are bought by someone else, items will show zero quantity instead of disappearing entirely.
- You can now Buy Stacks or Buy Quantities of items on the Broker window.
- The Broker window will now perform a search if the Enter key is pressed while the Item Name or Store Owner fields have focus.
- Class information is now displayed for items in the Broker window tooltips.
- Searching for food and drink should now be a bit simpler. For example, if you search for level 40-49 foods, you will now only see food that is appropriate for that level range.
- There is now an option to pop up a confirmation box when making expensive purchases from the Broker window. The default price is 10 gold, and the slider for the minimum price can be set from 1 gold to 5 plat. This is to prevent the accidental purchase of an expensive item. The option is available in Options -> User Interface -> Game Features -> Broker Window.

Test Update #19b: January 18, 2006

*** Headlines ***

- New Character Progression has arrived! Choose your final class at level 1, experience new unique progression paths for each race and alignment, and much more!
- Solusek's Eye: New adventures, stories, and rewards!


*** New Character Progression ***

Note: We want your feedback! We encourage you to create a new character on the Test server and run through our all-new tutorial islands. Please use the /feedback and /bug commands to offer suggestions or report problems on any aspect of the new character progression, as the EQ2 Team reads these reports daily. With your help, we can make the first experience for new players even more fun!

Character Creation
- New characters now choose a profession at character creation.
- Your alignment (good or evil) determines which class choices are shown.
- As you progress through character creation, your current choices (gender, race, class) are shown.
- Characters begin with several key pieces of class-specific armor that are visible in character creation.

New Tutorial Islands
- The original boat tutorial is no longer used. Instead, new characters immediately arrive on one of two new islands. Evil characters explore the Outpost of the Overlord while good characters visit the Queen's Colony.
- Each island has unique inhabitants and feel very different from one another.
- All new quests await to train new adventurers for the challenges that lie ahead.
- Visit trainers on the island to learn about combat, harvesting, banking, and other gameplay elements.
- You can remain on the island for as long as you wish without a restriction placed on your ability to level up (though of course the population will eventually grey out).

Professions
- Players now select their profession at character creation instead of moving from archetype to class to subclass. For example, you can choose to play a Wizard at character creation. When you arrive on the tutorial island, you will be a Wizard--not a Mage.
- Distinct spells and arts designed for each profession are now given immediately in place of the more generic archetype and class versions. You feel like your profession right away instead of waiting 19 levels to do so.
- Previous class and subclass quests have either been removed or modified to provide flavor. They are not required to progress in your chosen profession and will no longer restrict your level growth.
- Existing characters that were at the archetype or class level will be prompted to choose a profession before logging into the game. Existing spells and arts will be replaced (at the same quality level) by the new profession-specific abilities.

Racial Quest Paths
- Upon leaving the island and arriving in your home village or district, you will begin a new series of quests designed specifically for your race.
- These quests will provide a greater understanding of your race's history and how it fits into the fabric of your home city.

Adventure Yard Quests
- Completing your racial quest path will guide you to your city's adventure yards. The adventure yards have new population and quest lines that feel more a part of each city.
- New rewards await those who complete these quests!

Citizenship
- The citizenship quest is gone. You earn citizenship on the tutorial island and become a citizen when you leave it.
- There is no longer a cap on your ability to level up due to a citizenship restriction.

City Betrayal
- The city betrayal quests currently remain as they were. These quests will be changing significantly in a future update. For example, you will be able to betray your city at any level.



*** Guilds ***
- A message is now broadcast to the entire server when a guild reaches level 10, 20, 30, or 40.



*** Tradeskills ***

- You can now view the components and subcomponents required to make a recipe.
- There are now recipes for all the new level 1-19 spells and combat arts. These new recipes require no subcombines, and instead have additional component requirements for the final recipe.
- Recipes will now default to the "N" key rather than "B."
- After creating a specific quality level of an item for the first time, the tooltips for completed product icons will update without requiring you to re-examine the recipe.
- Recipes for some subcomponents that were not marked as recipes are now found properly on the tradeskill prepare window


*** Housing ***

- You can now access your house vault from any house via a new right click menu option on the interior door and market board. Yes, this means you can open up your vault from a friend's house that you're allowed to sell from!

*** Commands, Controls, and User Interface ***

- The default key for opening the Recipe Book is now "N" rather than "B."
- "B" now defaults to open all inventory bags.
- "Shift + B" is now the default to open all bags in your bank vault.
- Your friends list will now show the game and server names of friends who don't play on your server. Friends from other games and servers can now be properly removed from your list.
- A message notification will now be displayed when friends on other servers or in other SOE games log in and out.
- Health, power, and resists have been added to the dropdown in the Broker search window.
- Some merchants will now show you items that you can't currently buy and will describe why you can't purchase that item.