June 16^th, 2004 (12:00am) - On June 5, SOE hosted almost 70 players from around the United States in our first-ever Guild Summit. This meeting allowed for a frank exchange of EverQuest views and ideas between the EverQuest Live team and leaders of some of the game’s more prominent guilds. The various guild representatives came well-prepared (notes and notebooks, even CDs) with suggestions for improving the EQ experience.

This was an amazing event for SOE and one of the first in the industry. The EQ Live team came away with hundreds of ideas for changes, improvements, updates and plain old cool new stuff to throw out to our half-million strong player base. Of course, with all the great ideas, it’s going to take some time to get them implemented, but we’re already seeing changes made to the game based on community suggestions. Wednesday’s patch will contain even more great ideas from the community. Among them:

• We have made changes to the scripting for the Plane of Time, which will allow the server to shut down unused instances of the zone. This will remove the problem of waiting for an instance that another group has finished to shut down before you can start your attempt.
• Raid leaders now have the ability to add notes to the raid window. There is now a tabbed window in the Raid window; clicking on the Notes tab will show all the raid members in a single list, with notes next to their name. The Raid leader can click on a player, and change that player’s note in the edit box below the list. The note will show on all raid members’ raid windows.
• Added a Message of the Day to the Raid Window. On the Notes tab there is a window for an MOTD at the bottom. The Raid leader can edit this MOTD, and the new text will show on all Raid members’ Raid windows. Raid leaders will be able to set messages for the entire raid to see which will allow for better organization of raids.
• Raid Leaders can now remove members from the raid, even across zones.
• A tome to the Plane of Knowledge to allow for faster travel to and from Gunthak.
• You can now access the Plane of Hate by talking to Relm M’Loch in the Plane of Tranquility and handing her a Fuligan Soulstone.
• Increased the drop rate of quest items for the Breakdown in Communication quest in the sewers, mountain passes and Ikkinz.
• Increased the number of items that drop from the Qinimi and Barindu events for the Breakdown in Communication quest.
• Pathing in Txevu should be better
• Gates NPCs that previously dropped spells will now drop tokens, which can be turned in for a class-appropriate spell.
• Many Gates items have had their weight reduced.
• The Muramite Death Shroud is now equipable by beastlords and has a wind instrument modifier.
• The Onyx Ring of Prayer now has a stringed instrument modifier.
• The drop rate has been increased for the following items in the Plane of Hate:
The Shattered Emerald of Corruption
Decrepit Hide
Staff of Elemental Mastery
Essence of Vampire
Eye of Innoruuk
• The Diamond Tipped War Javelin should now look more javelin-like.
• Berserker snare now has a set duration.
• The following effects now generate hate instantly, rather than over time:
Diversive Strike
Distracting Strike
Confusing Strike
• There have been several upgrades to Gates tradeskill items
• Gates smithed weapons have been adjusted
• Gates fletched arrows have had their damage increased and are now magical.
• Tradeskill drinks from Gates of Discord have had their duration enhanced.
• We have added a /stopcasting command -- This command will not work when riding a horse.
• Pets no longer go away after their master has feigned death for more than 2 minutes
• Harm Touch and Lay on Hands will no longer affect corpses.
• Many damage shields have had their damage and duration increased.
• Modified the heal rate fn the following spells:
Supernal Elixir
Quiescence
Holy Elixir
Breath of Trushar
Supernal Cleansing
• Lowered the mana cost on the following spells:
Black Steel
Ancient: Chaos Vortex
Sun Vortex
• Increased the duration and mana cost on the following spells.
Falcon Eye
Eagle Eye
Hawk Eye
• The Focus effect should now filter haste messages.
• We have increased the range of the /corpse command

Thanks again to our player community for helping to bring these issues to our attention. In addition to these community requested changes, you will see the following changes in the next update as well:
• Corrections to Collision
• Continued retuning of Gates of Discord
• Changes to the Mouselook feature which will allow for more control
• Voice Over added to the Character Creation process
• The addition of a /guidehelp command which allow for communication and feedback with the guide program

Bear in mind this is in no way a complete list of changes that will be made in the weeks and months to come based off the summit feedback – this is just the first step in a long term process. We understand that EverQuest is a massive game and that there are many issues and play styles that were not addressed by the changes mentioned above. Please understand that over time we hope to hear from all of you. This is a long term effort to improve the game for everyone – The Casual Gamer, The Dedicated Raiding Guilds, and everyone in between.