Want some Battlegrounds items but can’t stand some of the zones?  Having trouble getting into some of them as often as you’d like?  If so, then changes may be coming your way soon that will solve those problems.  It looks like soon you will be able to exchange your tokens for “Battleground Tokens” which can be used to purchase items instead of the three different types. 

Bunji wrote over on the EQ2Players forums:

 Test needs another update before the token exchange will be working correctly.  This should be in the next Test update:

You may now exchange your Gears, Ganak and Smuggler’s tokens for Battleground tokens by speaking to the Sisters of War.

I’ll try and update Test again tonight.

From EQ2Players.com:

Platinum Memberships are now available for EQ2X players!

With the Platinum Membership, players can enjoy a robust experience in the world of Norrath. Platinum members will get full access to all 19 standard character races, all 24 classes, all spell tiers and equipments grades. They can play up the the current maximum level (level 90) and get 10 character slots for making a variety of characters.

In addition, Platinum members will have six bag slots, an unlimited coin allowance, and can send and receive in-game mail. This level of membership allows unlimited use of the broker system, voice chat and in-game chat, joining and creating guilds, and the use of eight bank slots and 75 active journal quests.

Platinum members get full customer service support and won’t see any in-game pop-up advertising. As an added bonus, they’ll receive 500 SC per month.

For pricing and more details, visit the EverQuest II Extended Membership Plans FAQ and view the Membership Matrix.

Update: Or are they? This has been posted under This Months News on the EQ2Players.com website and is also on the login page for EQ2X but hasn’t made it to the main page and reports are that it isn’t quite live yet.  Will it launch today?  I guess we’ll know soon.

Update 2: It’s now linked on EQ2Players.com and has been announced by Kiara.  Pretty sure that means it’s a go.

EQ2Wire reported last week about individual classes and broker access being available for purchase on EQ2X in the near future.  The future is now.

This just in from Smokejumper on the EQ2X Forums:

If you are a Bronze or Silver member, there are two new features available to you!

Classes, a la Carte!

You can now purchase individual classes for 750 SC each. You can either purchase them in the marketplace or at the time of character creation. All classes outside of the original eight free ones are available for purchase.

(Gold and Platinum members, this doesn’t affect you since you have always had access to all the classes.)

Broker Credits!

If you wish to interact on the Broker system (either listing an item for sale or purchasing something for yourself), you can now do so. A pack of 10 Broker Credits is available for 150 SC. Each time you list an item or purchase something, you expend one credit.

(Again, Gold and Platinum members don’t need these since they have open access to the Broker at all times.)

For a while now, there have been items that give a bonus to mitigation.  These bonuses are shown as the blue stat on gear that says +x% Mitigation Increase.  Apparently, for a long time now, there has been a bug with how this bonus is calculated which has been granting more of an increase than intended. 

A fix for this has crept its way onto the test server which is lowering the mitigation of most tanks.  So, on the test server, if you have any of this gear and yesterday you were barely able to survive during a given fight, chances are, today you’ll go splat.  Xelgad posted an explanation on the EQ2players.com forums.

Xelgad says that they aren’t in a rush to get this to live and that they will take the time to get it working right.  Hopefully this means tweaking other things if needed, like mob damage output.  Xelgad writes:

You may have noticed that currently on test mitigation numbers seem lower. There was no notes in the Test Update notes because it was pushed to Test a little sooner than we expected.
 
We’ve been evaluating all of the systems in the game to find out what is working and what is not working correctly. During this investigation, we found that there was a bug with the blue stat “Mitigation Increase” causing it to give noticably more than the listed amount of mitigation. This bug has been fixed and is currently on the test servers.
 
A mitigation increase of 10% was increasing plate mitigation by about 30% and leather mitigation by about 54%. This has been fixed so that the mitigation increase that says 10% will increase your mitigation by 10%. The addition of mitigation to the brawler self buffs was to be in tandem with this bug fix. This change is important because reaching the cap on mitigation causes some abilities, advancements and gear options to become irrelevent. That is obviously detrimental to gameplay and it can be detrimental to balance as well. If some classes have been balanced around having abilities to boost their mitigation and players end up capping out that stat then that element of balance is lost.
 
This bug has been in the game for a long time so the fix will reduce the mitigation of most tanks. For the sake of being able to balance the tanks in the future, we needed to correct the formula that was used to calculate the effectiveness of “Mitigation Increase.”

We’ll try to address questions and concerns regarding this fix and we aren’t in a rush to get this change to Live. If it looks like there may be problems with it, we’ll take the time to get it working right.

Here are your hotfix notes for September 1, 2010 after the break:

continue reading Hotfix Notes – September 1, 2010…

The previously reported rumor of bonus XP has been officially confirmed on EQ2Players.com.  Those playing during Labor Day weekend will be enjoying Double XP:

This coming weekend, from 10:00 am PDT on Friday, September 3rd, until 10:00 am PDT on Tuesday, September 7th, we will be running a true Double XP promotion (+100% XP).

The bonus applies to AA, tradeskill and adventure experience gained this weekend. Our French, German, Japanese, Test and EQ2 Extended servers will also be enjoying the increase in XP gain.

Happy adventuring!

If you’re familiar with the Battlefield of Ganak, the Capture-the-Flag arena for PvP/Battlegrounds, you’ll know that players have demonstrated an uncanny ability to collect the opposing team’s flag and then hide somewhere that the other team cannot reach. Various tools have been used, from in-game tinkered spring shoes, to 3rd party jump/hack/positioning software.

There was a thread soliciting feedback on how the EQ2 team could solve this problem.

Already, there is a Truancy system in place, where if enough players vote that a player has gone AFK simply to collect Battlegrounds tokens.

So how could this new problem of out-of-reach flag holders be resolved? Many solutions were proposed. As of last week, we have our answer:

If a player holds the flag beyond a designated amount of time without entering melee combat, they will see a message flash in red characters at the top of their screen “Get into Combat or be Banished!!“.

If you’d like to read player feedback on this issue and solution, check out the thread on the EQ2 Forums.

EQ2 Extended (Free-to-Play) may seem to be “set in stone”, but in fact, changes are still being made and considered during its Public Beta/Soft Launch. Of particular discussion have been the price of race packs and just how limiting the lack of broker access is on the Bronze level. A possibility is to sell races individually, and looking at other options for in-game economy.

continue reading EQ2X: Races and Broker Access — Flexibility?…

What’s on Test this weekend? Here are just a few items:

• UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
• UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
• UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
• UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
• Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
• The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
• Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
• Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
• The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

continue reading What’s on Test? Guardian changes, UI tweaks, and More…

Players have been advised about The Dangers of Buying Plat and/or Power Leveling services for a couple of years now, including the consequences such as compromised accounts.

However this July, SOE became aware of a more insidious and direct attack upon the EQ2 playerbase. We’re talking about an Account Phishing Scam that encourages players to login to an official-looking website using their SOE Station credentials. Personal information including logins, passwords, e-mail addresses, account names, are logged and eventually used to strip characters and otherwise compromise accounts for plat and item distribution within the game.

In the Account Fraud panel at Fan Faire, as well as some discussions with SOE staff, we have determined some sobering data points.

continue reading Protecting yourself from Account Fraud…

SmokeJumper dropped this hint in response to the question…

*whistles innocently*

Check back Monday’ish.

One aspect of the EverQuest 2 Live vs. EverQuest 2 Extended (Free-to-Play) debate has been how Station Access fits into the picture. Many Station Access players are using the account not to play multiple SOE games, but for the extra 5 character slots.

With the “EQ2 Subscription Perks” announced by SmokeJumper for monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscriptions, designed to offset and contrast against the EQ2 Extended servers, Station Access players have been feeling left out.

In a thread entitled “Station Access Accounts – No Multi-Month, No Extras, No Nothing“, SmokeJumper has hinted at some possible changes going forward.

continue reading Possible Improvement to Station Access?…

As we posted earlier this week, players have been experiencing an issue with hotbar icons being replaced in random ways as they level. Abilities on hotbars have been replaced with different spells entirely, for instance a group heal being replaced by an apprentice combat spell.

After the jump, the latest update on this frustrating bug.

continue reading Hotbar Icons Replacement Issue…

SmokeJumper posted on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey, folks,

Just wanted to let you know that we recorded all the sessions at Fan Faire, transcribed all the questions, and the team leads have spent the last couple of days pouring over the lists and prioritizing them for action.

We’ll be spending several weeks making fixes and changes based on the feedback we got there and then update the game with those fixes in mid-October.

We’ll post the list of what’s changing much closer to when we launch so that we don’t accidentally overcommit, but we think you’ll be pleased with a lot of the fixes.

Thought you’d be interested to know this is happening. More later!

When you target another player (say your group’s tank, or the raid Main Assist) to channel your damage through, it is sometimes helpful to not only see the Target Arrow (who you have selected), but the Implied Target Arrow (the enemy which your target has chosen). This can be especially important for scouts.

So players have asked for a way to customize or more easily distinguish the color and opacity of the Implied Target Arrow.

Rothgar’s comments after the jump…

continue reading Implied Target Arrow Feedback Sought…

From Silius on the EQ2 Forums:

Hello again,

I just wanted to update everyone on the situation. We will be unable to get this fix live until Tuesday. Once again I am sorry for the inconvenience but I offer some assistance. If you are unable to get into the same instance please do the following:

1. Have your raid leader petition so their is only one petition generated for the raid.

2. Place the petition in the stuck character category.

The CS team is aware of this issue and they will do their best to promptly assist by pulling everyone into the same instance. There is no guarantee that they will be able to get to you quickly so I ask that you please be patient. While not an ideal solution, I hope that this is a satisfactory compromise and that you will extinguish your torches and lay down your pitchforks.

The hits keep coming for GU57, and we don’t mean critical heals. Some quick updates on GU57 from the overnight dev responses all in one handy post…

continue reading GU57: Roehn Theer, Spell Effects, XP Calculations, Quest Journal, and GPU Shadows…

Players on a variety of servers (in two different threads) have reported that yesterday’s change to how players reach the Palace of Roehn Theer, requiring each player to individually click on the zone-in, instead of a raidwide zone-in, is resulting in multiple separate instances.

Currently there seems to be no fix, as even players who zone in one-at-a-time are still ending up in separate instances and must wait 30 minutes before their timers reset.

From the EQ2 Forums:

This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on the 08/25/2010. The estimated downtime will be 2 hours.

- SOE Operations team

then…

Runnyeye and Splitpaw are being kept offline a little longer while the team inspects an issue that has, well…several NPC’s seem to have forgotten to get dressed when they woke up from the downtime! /blush

We apologize for their indecency and the fact that the servers will take a little longer to be brought back online.

and then:

I don’t have an official up time for the server, but based on the emails I’ve seen, it seems like it might come up around 2:00 am PDT, which would be around 10am London time, if I’m calculating correctly. Around three hours after the original planned up time.

I’m very sorry about the delay, everyone. Fingers crossed that the NPCs decided to finally get dressed and everything else is right as well.

You can follow the humorous discussion on the EQ2 Forums (until it gets locked).

continue reading Runnyeye and Splitpaw Maintenance Stretches to 9 1/2 Hours, Commerce/Account Maintenance Today…

Remember when Player-vs-Player was the red-headed stepchild of EQ2? Remember when there wasn’t even a PvP developer, but instead those tasks were delegated to developers who already had a full workload? Fast forward to today and one of the areas of the game getting the most attention is the PvP side, including those issues that extend into Battlegrounds.

So let’s go down the list of responses so far from PvP developer Olihin…

continue reading Olihin Addresses Raft of PvP Questions, Issues…

Players on standard EQ2 accounts with more than 7 characters in a region, or players on Station Access accounts with more than 12 characters in a region were locked out of accessing these “hidden” characters with a change in Game Update 57. Although intended to close an exploit, the primary motivation for this change has been to protect the monetization of character slots, which are for sale on EQ2 Extended servers.

Note: This change has been rolled back as of Tuesday, August 24th, to allow players to “get their house in order”. On Tuesday, August 31st, players who have more characters than are allowed by their account type will only have the option of deleting characters to access “hidden” characters. The /camp command will not load any character not visible on the character select screen, and changes to the character list INI file will be ignored.

If you have no more than 7 EQ2 characters on your EQ2 account, or no more than 12 EQ2 characters on your Station Account, you do not need to do anything.

continue reading Over Your Character Slot Limit? You Have 1 Week to Fix it!…

If you haven’t read the Game Update 57 Feedback thread, it’s a real eye-opener, let me tell you.

I have always seen players who manage find a silver lining in every cloud, and always find something good in each Game Update, even the relatively content-light Game Update 54 “bug stomp” from last fall. However I have never seen such universal negativity as that directed towards Game Update 57. Players have overwhelmingly expressed their distaste for many policy initiatives included, and content excluded in GU57.

continue reading Game Update 57 Reactions…

One of the changes in today’s hotfix was that some Mastercrafted items now also show a Fabled or Legendary tag. Domino gives us further explanation.

continue reading Mastercrafted + Fabled? Why the extra tag?…

EQ2 Lead Designer Rich Waters is seeking player feedback on why players stick with Exile despite the huge disadvantages. He posed the question:

Exiles were definitely a side-effect of the betrayal quest, and not an intentional feature. Some support was given to them in the past, but I wouldn’t plan on anything new.

Other than a wider deity choice, what motivates players to stay as exiles on the PVE servers?

From Xelgad on the EQ2 Forums:

As a quick update, internally, we have changed Crane Twirl to grant a total of 20% AE Auto-Attack in addition to the proc it currently grants.