Secrets of Faydwer
Game Update Highlights 11/13/07


Secrets of Faydwer Highlights

Welcome to EverQuest Secrets of Faydwer, the 14th expansion for EverQuest!

Secrets of Faydwer Trailer Video (download)

The clockwork armies of the evil gnomish necromancer Meldrath the Malignant gather in the Steamfont Mountains, awaiting his order to invade the kingdom of Ak'Anon. The launch of his great air fortress Mechanotus has torn open the earth, exposing new paths into unexplored regions of the ancient continent of Faydwer.

Rediscover Faydwer as you adventure in the nearby Loping Plains, home to the soul eating wereorcs of Bloodmoon Keep. Strive to end the torment of humans and elves cursed for centuries in the Hills of Shade. All the while, an ancient menace stirs east of the Dragonscale Hills, where the prismatic dragon Kerafyrm the Awakened plans his revenge.

Level Cap Increase

Players can now achieve level 80. New high level item sets, new Alternate Advancement ability lines, and new spells will come with this increase, including a new AA that grants a new spell slot.

Heroic Items

One aspect of player power is based on the seven physical and mental attributes of their characters: Agility, Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence, Stamina, Strength, and Wisdom. For player characters that have reached the maximums for these attributes, equipping normal items with increased attributes offers no benefit. Heroic Items feature particular stats that allow players to go beyond those maximums. For each point in a heroic stat, the player gains one point in the statistic and the maximum on that statistic is increased by one point. In addition, heroic stats offer benefits beyond the normal statistics.

  • Heroic Intelligence: For intelligence-based casters, increases mana pool, mana regen, and the maximum amount of mana regen a character can have.

  • Heroic Wisdom: For wisdom-based casters, increases mana pool, mana regen, and the maximum amount of mana regen a character can have.

  • Heroic Strength: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have. Also increases damage done by melee attacks and improves the bonus granted to armor class while using a shield.

  • Heroic Stamina: Increases hit point pool, hit point regen, and the maximum amount of hit point regen a character can have. Also increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have.

  • Heroic Agility: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have. Also increases the chance to dodge an attack, grants a bonus to defense skill, and reduces falling damage.

  • Heroic Dexterity: Increases endurance pool, endurance regen, and the maximum amount of endurance regen a character can have. Also increases damage done by ranged attacks, improves chance to successfully assassinate or headshot, and improves the chance to riposte, block, and parry incoming attacks.

  • Heroic Charisma: Improves reaction rolls with some NPCs and increases the amount of faction you gain or lose when faction is adjusted.

New Content

There are 15 new realms for adventurers to explore including Meldrath's maniacal Fortress Mechanotus, the Dragonscale Hills, the Loping Plains, and Kerafyrm's Lair, Crystallos. Travel through Faydwer solo or with groups to complete new progression quests, other quests, tasks, events, and raids and to acquire new items, spells, tradeskill recipes, abilities, and more.

The Secrets of Faydwer brings new zones for exploring and adventuring either solo or with groups or raids. Here are some articles that unfold the lore that surrounds the new areas:




Live Highlights

Book of Legends

The Book of Legends, a tome that holds the record of those who have come together to celebrate EverQuest at the SOE Fan Faires, now lives in the library within Plane of Knowledge.

New Loot All Options

"Loot All" functionality has been added to corpses. This includes a "Loot All" button on the loot window and the ability to shift-right-click loot a corpse.

AC Mitigation Improvements

We modified the AC Caps and over-cap returns for mitigation for all classes to bring them more in line with their intended ability to mitigate damage. Warriors, Paladins, Shadowknights, Clerics, and Monks received a minor increase in their mitigation ability. Rangers, Bards, Rogues, Shaman, Beastlords, and Berserkers received a moderate increase in their mitigation ability. Druids, Necromancers, Wizards, Enchanters, and Magicians received a considerable increase in their mitigation ability.

Fog Rendering System Enhancements

An entirely new fog rendering system has been implemented in the EverQuest graphics engine. This new system is used in all zones that currently have fog.

Multi-core CPU Support

If you have a Multi-core CPU you no longer have to manually set their processor affinity! EverQuest will automatically assign itself to an available core. If you run multiple copies of the client, each new copy running will assign itself to the next available core. Those interested in customizing which core or cores EverQuest clients run on, check the forums.

Recently Reported Issues

While some of the other issues that were resolved in this update were reported via bug reports, here are a few we'd like to highlight.

    Issue: West Display Bug
    • Summary: When you face west the video geometry disappears except the UI and the Sky. When you face another direction the issue goes away. Normally this is only fixed by doing a reboot of your PC or reloading EQ.

    • Status: We have made a change that should reduce the chances of the "west bug" occurring; unfortunately the change requires us to turn off some optimizations. If you want to disable this workaround, please add the following line to your eqclient.ini: DisableWestBugFix=1 (The EQ team would like to thank Community Member Strommmm for his feedback on helping us with this issue.)

    Issue: Solteris Instability
    • Summary: Some people have reported that the Solteris raid zone continuously crashes during raids.

    • Status: Optimizations have been put in place to improve stability. We will continue to monitor the status of this zone and other instanced zones.