Everquest 2 – Baneful Battlegrounds, and February 25th Patch Notes

It all went a bit pear shaped up at EQ2’s end-game today.

Battlegrounds went live. I’m quite excited about this addition to the game, as I discussed here. Unfortunately, as it turns out, anyone who went into a Battleground with over 200 AA points had their points set back down to 200 when they left the zone.

For folks who don’t play EQ2, Alternate Advancement points are something you gain through a separate system to levelling, that you can spend on various extra powers and improvements. They’re not something you want to be losing. Until the launch of Sentinel’s Fate the cap was 200, which then went up to 250. So people were only really losing the points they had gained in the last week. However, as a lot of them would have been gained through doing non-repeatable quests, it was a bit of a big deal.

Battlegrounds are now back up after some quick fixing work, and any player affected by the bug should be able to contact customer services to get their AA returned in full. Hopefully no harm done (except to the CSR’s nerves), once everyone is fixed.

None of this affected Maltheas, of course. Battlegrounds are only for folks of level 80 upwards at the moment. Still, he has his own problems. Kaladim was supposed to have been retiered down to t4 in GU55, but it seems that many of the quests, and even some monsters in the dungeon, are still level 60ish. The bugfixing attention is unsurprisingly focused on the high level content of Sentinel’s Fate at the moment, but hopefully Kaladim will receive some love soon.

There is also a problem with quest drops as of today’s patch. In any quest that drops a physical item that you have to loot for a quest update, the chests are completely empty. This should be getting hotfixed tomorrow.

For a Ratonga, Qeynos can be an emotional Battleground.

BATTLEGROUNDS

* Battlegrounds are now live in EverQuest II! To access them, simply hit Alt+Z.

GENERAL

* Guard levels in Freeport have been slightly adjusted: many level 95 guards remain, but they are no longer blocking access to quest updates for good-aligned players of high level.
* Obelisk of Lost Souls: Characters who are high enough level to gray-out the access quests now automatically gain the power to open the doors.
* Sata, the Quel’ule faction merchant, now also sells scholar type fuel (candles, coal, and incense).

ITEMS

* Elemental Barrier (a unique proc on some PvP gear) has been improved as a proc and now stacks with itself
* The PvP proc Mutilation has been changed. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of your target’s heals (thus making it only effective vs healers), it now reduces the effectiveness of all heals on your current target (making it effective vs anyone who is being healed)
* Those that completed the quest “The Fleshbound Tome Speaks Again” can now buy the “Flesh Bound Tome” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Those that completed the quest “A Crusade to Faydwer” can now buy “The Missing Pages of the Sword Heist Journal – Rebound” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Those that completed the quest “Hadden’s Earring” can now buy “Hrath’s Journal” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Sentinel’s Fate (and scaled-to-90 TSO dungeons) heroic legendary gear should all have resists now.
* Roger Goldie’s Straw Hat should no longer have the “Hooluk in a Hat” effect on it.

QUESTS

* Players that decline or delete the quest “Geobot” after completing “Conflict Among the Kobolds” can now regain it by speaking with Watchman Plarg in Steamfont.
* Players are no longer being misdirected to search within “The Hole: Outer Vault” for Dartain’s Fortress, while on the quest “The Footsteps of Dartain: Emergence.”
* Players on the quest “The Footsteps of Dartain: Experimentation” only need to speak with the spirit once in order to advance the quest.
* “Infiltrating the Sanctum: Emissary Kvikz” now recognizes when the player defeats “Sslan’yiz the Animator”.
* Alim Dabir in Sundered Frontier now responds for the quest ”Further Research Required” even if you have previously deleted it after completing other quests.
* “Justice for Jojo” now updates more reliably at the final stage, and correctly removes quest items from inventory when they are no longer needed.

TRADESKILLS

* Incorrect recipe costs on a number of crafted Mark of Manaar equipment items have been corrected.

NEKTULOS

* The “guardian mist grinnin” have a higher chance of carrying the kneespikes required for the quest “Ashland Kneespikes.”

VASTY DEEP

* Xilaxis the Explorer’s item tables have been corrected and he should always drop loot on both normal and challenge-mode.

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