Talk:Anniversary

13th Anniversary (2012)
We're celebrating EverQuest's 13th birthday! Beginning at 12:01 AM PDT on Friday, March 16, 2012, we will be launching EverQuest Free to Play. Your Way. This year we are combining it with one of the most exciting things to happen in the history of EQ. Mark your calendars and get ready for one huge celebration, with 13th Anniversary events and the transition to free-to-play both coming on March 16!

To celebrate EverQuest’s 13th birthday, players will be able to embark on anniversary missions and quests. Stop by the Plane of Knowledge to join the celebration. Just look for the festive anniversary décor to get started.

There are thirteen new themed quests, including a spectacular mission as some of the greatest villains of EverQuest, a raid to stop a familiar face from gaining ultimate power, and over 40 events from past anniversaries.

In addition, there will be some bonus xp and increased rare spawn rates. It appears that the bonus xp will be an additional 30% and that both the bonus xp and rare spawn rate increase will be from 3/16/2012 through 3/31/2012.

The 13th anniversary events this year [2012] last for 13 weeks. The older events should last 1 month. The usual reason for the extension is when there are gating [sic] bugs. Those were fixed for previous ones. We of course hope we have none for the new ones.

14th Anniversary (2013)

 * SOE EverQuest Community News: Get Ready to Celebrate EverQuest’s 14th Anniversary

14th Anniversary - New missions, many created with player help at SOE Live 2012, are available starting March 15th, 2013, and lasting an additional month, through May 26th through June 26, 2013. The Mechanical Fortune Teller in the Plane of Knowledge will be happy to help players locate quest givers for the new quests.

The 2013 EQ 14th Anniversary Celebration began on Friday, March 15, 2013 and ran until April 26. The new 2013 anniversary quests ran until May 26 June 26 July 26.

On March 16th, EverQuest is turning 14 and we have a few cool things to share with you.

At SOE Live in Las Vegas last October, we had a “Design a Mission” panel where we divided everyone up in smaller groups to work with a Designer on the EverQuest team. The goal of that panel was to have everyone participate in designing a mission that could be experienced by players of varying levels. We have had this panel in past years and the hope has always been to put them into game quickly for everyone to play. We’ve succeeded at times but other times, it takes us a while to fit them into our schedule. I’m happy to inform you that we will be launching several of these player-designed missions during our March Game Update to help celebrate our 14th Anniversary.

A couple years ago, we had an intern join our team and at one point, we let him work on some content just to fill out his remaining schedule and to see what he could do. Well, the content that he created was full of nostalgic Class-specific connections into the world of EverQuest. Some time ago, we placed a few of these missions on the test server for players to run through and they received rave reviews. So without further delay and after the Anniversary Game Update, anyone that has finished their Epic quest for 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0, will be able to test their knowledge and skills by traveling to historic locations in Norrath to earn an Epic Weapon Ornamentation to use on another weapon. We will reveal more information soon, but how can you argue against the ability to Burn Down Freeport and get rewarded for it?! J

Tradeskillers, you’ll be happy to hear that we will be putting in some new recipes to create some Hero’s Forge Armor in March. We have several new animal-themed hats that will immediately take your thoughts to the famous Barbarian Polar Bear hats in Everfrost. Norrathians can find all the items for the recipe but they will need help from their fellow Tradeskillers in order to receive the final product.

We’ll also turn on all past Anniversary events so mark the calendar for cool events to kick-off in two weeks!

For 2013, in addition to the anniversary events, the following special events were added:


 * March 8, 2013 – March 17, 2013: Rare Mobs and Faction Gains/Losses will be dramatically increased.
 * March 11, 2013 – March 17, 2013: Lockout Timers will be reduced by 30%.
 * March 15, 2013 – March 17, 2013: It's Double XP time!

Problems, extending date Here's the scoop:

Past years' anniversary events will still be ending on April 26th. The content that is specific to the 14th anniversary had been scheduled to end on May 26. It will be pushed out to June 26.

Technically Piestro's Day Off and Big Gnomes Big Problems should not be currently available. However there is a potential issue that could have caused them to re-appear. Piestro's Day Off will return with the Shadow of Fear patch with significant changes to improve the overall quality of the mission. We don't have an exact date for Big Gnomes yet, as there are a few minor issues we'd like to address with that mission.

I hope that clarifies everything,

Hey guys,

My apologies for not keeping you better informed while we work out the issues with this mission. As most of you know, the mission was disabled due to technical issues. It took some time (and some intensive code browsing) to uncover exactly what was causing the problem, but we believe we've found the offending bits and solved them.

I tested a new version of the mission on Friday and it seems to be working within acceptable parameters (aka not stealing CPU power from the rest of the server). It is going to QA today for stress-testing, and if it passes inspection, we'll be pushing it to the test server first, then live servers if it works well there.

I don't have an ETA currently, but we're optimistic it will be back soon (tm). We know that it is a big problem (get it?) that this mission is not currently active, and getting it back on live is one of our top priorities atm.

EDIT: I should also note that a few of the mechanics have changed in the mission as a result of these tunings. They should all be accompanied by messaging in-game to help ease the transition. The biggest change is that there can only be 3 gnome skeletons at a time, and they only apply the damage debuffs to the giant skeleton that summoned them, not all skeletons within range.

In the June 19, 2013 patch, it was announced that the 14th Anniversary quests would be extended to July 26, 2013.

15th Anniversary (2014)
Beginning in 2014, SOE announced that they would begin rolling out past years events in late February, rather than beginning in March as in past anniversaries.

It began on February 26 with the release of all anniversary content offered originally between 2004 – 2008 (5th – 9th).

For 2014, the celebration began February 26 and ended June 18.


 * SOE Official forum announcement "Fabled Mobs and Anniversary Content"
 * SOE Official forum announcement "Anniversary Scavenger Hunts, Missions, and More!"
 * SOE Official forum announcement "The Return of the 14th Anniversary Player Missions!"
 * SOE Official forum announcement "Are You Ready for New Player Designed Content?"
 * SOE Official forum announcement "Are You a Challenge Worthy of a Zek?"

16th Anniversary (2015)
For 2015, the 16th Anniversary events began unannounced on February 25th with the quest "War Games". Further events went live in March and April. The 16th Anniversary events ended on June 10. Some events returned the week of June 17 and remained until July 15.

EverQuest's 16th anniversary celebration is nearly upon us! Though, it may be more accurate to say that it's already begun. You can get a head-start collecting anniversary currency by tackling the "War Games" mission in the Plane of War, which may not be a bad idea, as the (Special Celebratory Goods) vendor has a few new unique wares to offer. The main event, seven new Player-Designed Missions, kicks off on the 16th. Like the other anniversary events, these missions reward currency, but there are rumors of hidden bonus rewards if you approach the missions in a certain way or accomplish a side goal...

Extension
The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, & 13th Anniversary Missions were affected by a bug that would send people to the wrong instance zone. As a result, Daybreak announced they would return (fixed):

We've extended the 5th-13th Anniversary Events to July 15th (7/15). They should re-enable after the June update next week [June 17].

17th anniversary (2016)
For 2016, the 17th Anniversary events began on February 24th with the quest "War Games". Further events went live in March and April. It ended on June 8.

Daybreak announced some new things for the 17th Anniversary.

Extension
"'The end date on the Player Designed Missions' anniversary events has been extended 2 weeks to June 8th.' &mdash; Hotfix Notes: May 24, 2016" It is unclear exactly which missions this refers to, but it was assumed to mean the 14th, 15th, & 16th Anniversary Player-Designed Missions.

18th anniversary (2017)
For 2017, the 18th Anniversary events began on Thursday, March 16 at 12:01am Pacific (USA) Time with the 14th through 18th anniversary quests. The 5th through 13th anniversary quests went live on Wednesday, April 12 at 12:01am Pacific (USA) Time. It ended on Wednesday, May 10 at 11pm Pacific (USA) Time. There was new content for the 18th anniversary.

Daybreak had an 18th Anniversary livestream broadcast on Facebook on March 16. You can watch it on YouTube.


 * Daybreak Community News: What’s New for the 18th Anniversary?

For Progression servers, the following anniversary content was available on the dates listed above:


 * All anniversary events from 5th–13th anniversaries, such as fabled, the scavenger hunts, tasks, and raids will be available if Veil of Alaris unlocked on server.
 * All Player Designed Missions from the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 18th anniversary will be available if Rain of Fear unlocked on server.
 * Plane of War Mission "War Games" from 15th anniversary will be available if Call of the Forsaken unlocked on server.
 * Gnome race from the 17th anniversary will be on all servers no restrictions.
 * Hate's Fury Raid from the 17th anniversary will be available if The Broken Mirror unlocked on server.
 * 18th anniversary content will be available if Empires of Kunark unlocked on server.