GU45 is another large update, even when you trim it down to just the items of special interest to crafters. Some of the items included below are not part of the current Test patch notes for this update, but are various features that have been found during the testing phase. (Edit: GU45 has been pushed to Live Servers as of May 13, 2008).

Before I dive into the preview, I want to note that all weapons pictured on this page are bronze and alder (tier 1) versions of the items, so may not be as shiny as what you'd see in later tiers.

Quick Summary

• More bank space!
• Pack up your house
• Lore flags removed from many furniture items
• Potions/poisons stack to 100
• DFC armor sets to get a small stat boost
• House item book changes
• Guild status rewards fixed for level 69 & 70 writs
• New rewards for harvesting quest
• Crafting class/level on character select
• Advanced artisan volume 1 added
• Gorowyn portal to Kylong - now allows crafters
• Shuriken and other thrown weapon love
• Many, many other crafted weapon changes

A Deeper Look

More bank space!

Unable to fit everything into shared bank that you want to share among your many crafting alts? Tired of having alts mail cash back and forth? Frustrated with the creative dances of passing items from your good to your evil folks? The developerss have listened to our whimpers, and are adding many more bank enhancements with this update. Each character will get 4 more personal bank slots (increasing the total to 12). You will also get 4 more shared bank slots (increasing the total to 8), as well as the ability to share coin with other characters on the same account. Time to start stocking up on strongboxes!

There are some special situations for sharing, based on your server type and exile status, so here are a few extra details:

Normal (PVE) servers: if you have items/boxes in your 4 shared slots on the good side, and stuff in all 4 of your shared slots on the evil side, never fear, everything will slide right into place in your new 8-slot shared bank space. Items and coins can be happily shared between any characters on your account with no worry about good/evil.

PVP servers: you do NOT share bank space or coin between good and evil characters on the same account. You will, however, have 8 shared slots per alignment (i.e., 8 when you're on your good folks, a different 8 when on the evils), and you will be able to share coin with characters on that account of the same alignment.

Exiles (any server): You still will not be able to share bank space with other characters on your account.

Pack up your house

Are you a compulsive redecorator? Have you ever wanted to simply pick up everything in your home, and re-place it all without packing up and moving, but don't have enough bag space to do so? There's a new option on the housing control panel called "Pack Contents" that allows you to have everything in your home dumped into a moving crate. This will allow you to drag the crate around your house, removing and/or placing items as desired. When you click this button, it will pop up a confirmation box, so there's less chance of you accidentally packing up your 500-item home decorating masterpiece!

Lore flags removed from many furniture items

As promised a while ago, the lore tags have been removed from many house items. This includes many things like snowglobes, status and faction furniture, quest rewards and the like. I don't have a full list, nor access to a wide enough variety of items to personally test all this, but I did a quick check of many items around my home, and couldn't find anything still lore. Yayy!

Potions/poisons stack to 100

This is one that hadn't been documented in the Test patch notes, at last check, but is quite nicely working on Test. Crafted potions and poisons are now quite happily stacking to 100, instead of 20. This will be wonderful news for many scouts out there, as well as those of us who are potion addicts.

DFC armor sets to get a small stat boost

This change was to put it more in line with the recent changes to mastercrafted armor. Like many of the dropped armor sets out there, the main benefits are from the set effect, not the stats on individual pieces, but every little bit helps! Note that any of the DFC (Deathfist Citadel) armor that was made before GU45, will automagically update with the new stats.

House item book changes

Those of us with in-home libraries know that it can be a pain when many of your books count towards your house item count. Sages in Qeynos and Freeport now have versions of many more books for sale that do not count towards your item count, provided that you meet the requirements (i.e., finished the quest that awarded it, etc.) Of course, the idea here is to obtain the new version of the book from the NPC, and then get rid of the old version, to trim down your house item count, NOT simply expand your book collection even more. ;)

Note that while the books will be easy to find on the merchants (they will be the ones he will sell you for 1 copper), once you have them in your hot little mitts, it will be hard for you to tell which are the old copies and which are the new, so plan some system for sorting them all out in advance. :)

Guild status rewards fixed for level 69 & 70 writs

There were issues with how guildstatus was computed between level 69 and level 70 writs. This has led to what many have complained of - that your level 69 crafting writs were offering you more status than the level 70 crafting writs. This is being fixed with GU45, so that you get higher status awards for higher level writs.

New rewards for harvesting quest

A halfling dockworker at the Thundering Steppes docks has been offering up some of his dishes in return for food harvests from varying zones since GU41. With the arrival of GU45, he adds some new rewards to the existing quests, and also adds a new quest for "food and firewood" from Sinking Sands. Rewards include silverware, a place setting, a wooden bowl, and some teir'dal stemware. Screenshots of the new rewards can be seen in the EQ2TC writeup for Feeding Duggin.

Crafting class/level on character select

Another as-yet undocumented new feature in GU45 is that, at character select, your highlighted character displays not only adventuring level and class, but also your tradeskill level and class. What a lovely little surprise for those of us who sometimes have problems keeping track of the crafting levels of some of their alt army!

Advanced Artisan Volume 1 added

Advanced Artisan Volume 1 has been added to crafting trainers around Norrath. This new book includes bronze and alder mastercrafted weapons, as part of the crafted weapon revamp discussed below.

Gorowyn portal to Kylong - now allows crafters

Shuriken and other thrown weapon love

Shuriken recipes have been re-added to several tiers (tiers 2 and above), that had been removed around the time of GU24 or so. In addition, weaponsmiths will be able to make throwing weapons of all types. (This is in addition to woodworkers being able to make them, not a removal from one to beef up the other.)

Many, many other crafted weapon changes

I'm not even sure where to start on this one, and will likely work on a slightly more in-depth look at it in the next few days. There's a lot going on here, even with just a light skimming through it, and it is a lot to take in all at once. I will not, even in the more in-depth look, give you a listing of all the new weapons, damages, delays, stats, etc., as more than one person seems to expect. This is a few hundred items, when you add up the various tiers, imbues, and so on, and that is a totally unrealistic use of my time for items that can change during the testing phase. I will, however, attempt to give you a few examples, so you can get a feel for the changes. Now, if someone else has many hours of spare time and is bored, they're more than welcome to do up a chart for all the new common and rare weapons in all tiers, but ...

Many will admit that crafted weapons needed love, badly. The crafted weapons changes in GU45 is an attempt to give them some of the attention that they deserved. Included in these changes are all melee (primary and secondary) handcrafted and mastercrafted weapons from weaponsmiths and woodworkers. It does not include bows, thrown weapons or ammo, which had some work done on them recently.

New Weapons, New Imbues

These will be totally new weapons and revamped recipes - new item IDs, new stats, new damage/delay ratios and so on. In some cases, weapons that were only available in a few of the later tiers have been made available all the way down through to tier 1. In other cases, you will find totally new crafted weapon types, which should allow for a lot of lovely options with regards to weapon types and stats.

This will mean lots of fresh pristine bonuses for woodworkers and weaponsmiths, but it will also mean some possible confusion between the old and the new weapons. The old ones will stay as-is, including the "pristine forged/conditioned" blah-blah-blah names they have now. (By stay as-is, I mean they keep the same stats that they currently have, the same names, etc. Any weapon made before GU45 also will not be able to be imbued if you delay on it until after GU45, since the items are totally changing.) The new ones will not have "pristine" in the name, and each has two imbue versions - a "blessed" version that is good for healers and casters, and an "imbued" version for melee-types.

The blessed version has a chance to increase your damage or healing done by spells any time you cast a spell while wielding it. (Note that this is specifically for spells, not for combat arts.) The damage increase buff from this proc currently lasts for 12 seconds.

The imbued version has a damage proc, just as we've been accustomed to in the past, but also adds a second effect based on your position in relation to the mob. If you're in front of the mob when you proc the weapon, you will have your threat increased. If you are behind or flanking the mob, your threat will be reduced. This will allow scouts that are trying to be stealthy a chance to dodge a bit more aggro while the tanks have a bit better chance at holding the aggro.

Recipe Changes - Weaponsmiths

The amount of resources required by weapon recipes has been reduced quite a bit (including waving goodbye to roots!) Instead, weaponsmiths will be using a small amount of common gemstones in their crafting, and will use a bit more fuel for tiers 1-6. (Think of it as adding a bit of ornamentation to your weapons, if it helps you wrap your brain around it better.) As an example, a tier 5 fulginate weapon that used to take 5 fulginate, 3 strengthened leather, 2 ashen roots and 6 fuel, might take 3 fulginate, 1 strengthened leather, 1 bloodstone and 9 fuel. Since fuel is easier to obtain, and often cheaper than the ore and roots many tiers, this seems to me to be a good tradeoff.

Recipe Changes - Woodworkers

As with weaponsmiths, so it is with woodworker-made melee weapons, with a minor tweak. Less resources will be used, fuels will be increased for tiers 1-6, and that tier's soft metal will be required. In large part, you'll be saying goodbye to ore and roots as well, but again, this is just for the wooden melee weapons. Recipes for other items that woodworkers craft will not change. As an example, T7 mastercrafted wooden weapon recipe would change to take 1 rare ebony lumber, 3 rosewood, 2 azurite, 1 horned pelt.

The Fuel-Thing

Note that at last check, the fuel changes for these melee weapons (both classes), were NOT expected to go live, and fuel costs should be the same as they currently are on live servers. (Test has not yet been patched with the fixes to fuel, but it is expected "soon".)

More Details?

I hope to do a slightly more in-depth analysis of the weapon changes for next week (the first full week of May), but again, I won't be gathering a huge ton of hard examples, since they may be subject to change while on Test. There should be plenty of other people number-crunching, picking apart damage and delay, and which weapon types are best for what class with which AA lineup, and I'll happily leave them to it.

For those of you concerned enough about the changes that you've done a /testcopy of your weaponsmith or your woodworker, and so on, please do remember that polite /feedback while on Test or Test_Copy regarding any specific issues/concerns that you have are the route to take for anything that isn't an outright bug. :)

One of the bronze weapons. If you use your imagination, this is a perfect weapon for Niami - a loaf of battle bread on a stick!