Here is the message for the patch today. It was the addition of the ability to play EQ in a window that prompted the 10 hour estimate for this patch!! (Heh heh! Scared myself on that one!) The message...

---

January 9, 2003 3:00 am ------------------------------ ** Demise of the Classic/Velious Interface ** Over the last six months we have been keeping the Classic EverQuest interface as well as the Velious interface working through all of the features that we have added (built-in MP3 player, item links, compass, enhanced /bug reporting tool, and others). However, with the release of some of the new features in this patch, such as running EQ in a window, we must now say goodbye to the older interfaces. They have been disabled as of today. They served us well. ** EQ in a Window ** EverQuest can now be run in a window. To place EverQuest in a window, simply press Alt-Enter. You can also switch out of EverQuest to another program by using the familiar Alt-Tab. It is important that you do not do this until you are in-game, do not do this during the login process. It is important to note a few things. Running the game in a window may reduce game performance a bit. And, as always, the more programs you have running at the same time the more resources they use. At this time, due to some changes that need to be made on the front end, it is not possible to run two instances of EverQuest. We will be working to make the necessary changes over the next few weeks. ** Songs Window ** We have added a new window to the interface along with new game functionality. The Songs window is a new buff window that holds up to 6 bard song buffs. This increases the potential maximum effects that a character can have to 21 (15 standard and the 6 new ones). The new window only holds certain bard songs (generally the 3-tick songs). Only beneficial songs will qualify for the new buff box, and not all of those. Any buff in the new Songs window is considered temporary and will not be saved when you zone. Songs that qualify to go into the new window will go into that window first. Any qualifying songs over six will be rerouted to the main Effects window. Cancel Magic effects will see these new buff slots as buff slots #16-21. Note for User Interface skin creators: The Label EQTypes 80-85 are the Songs window song names. - Some magical effects on Planar class armor have been altered. In most cases the effects were upgraded, but a few items were given weaker effects that were more in line with the difficulty of obtaining them. - Fixed a bug that was causing a few Planes of Power NPCs to take too long to respawn. - Wu's Attack should now work correctly. - Incoming damage now interacts with Wrath of the Wild and other rune-type spells in their proper order. - Pact of Shadow and Shadow Compact will once again heal player characters. - Charmed Pets will no longer remain charmed after the owner dies. - Sending special characters (such as < and ") via EQIM will no longer freeze the game. - Hitting Autoattack when in explore mode at Character Select will no longer cause the game to crash. - The Loadskin window will now load skins other than the default properly. - Fixed and issue that caused some NPC's text to be cut short. - Fixed (but did not rename) the Broken Golem. He should no longer be hated in Fear, just feared... -Lowered the duration of calm-type spells that effect creatures level 50 and over. ** User Interface File Changes ** ShortDurationBuffwnd.xml - NEW EQUI.xml BugReportwnd.xml Lootwnd.xml Selectorwnd.xml PetInfownd.xml Window_ Pieces04.tga