Some breaking news for you!

As we’ve reported, in Game Update 53, almost all LEGENDARY and FABLED instance dungeon/raid loot except patterns will be picking up the new  LORE-EQUIP flag which, along with the HEIRLOOM and ATTUNEABLE flags will allow instance Fabled and Legendary loot items to be looted and transferred to alt characters on the same account. timetravelling clarifies:

-We do not currently have plans to change the looting options (by adding an Alt Need option between Need and Greed). However, it is something to monitor and we’ll keep an eye on it.

-This change is intended to grab nearly all instance, overland, and contested loots. But not items you can only ever get once such as epics, quest rewards, armor gained from patterns, LoN rewards, Station Cash items, etc.

We would greatly appreciate any feedback y’all have of items that may have been missed or flagged and shouldn’t have been! If you hadn’t noticed, EQ2 has, um, kind of a lot of items and we’d like to be as thorough as possible! =)

I know I’m very excited about this, as are many others. It will streamline what is currently a very tedious logout/login/zone out/zone in/loot process we curerntly do to give loot to alts. However there have been two limitations worth discussing:

Many folks have more than one account. Whether this is husband-and-wife paired accounts, dual- or multi-boxing, or simply because 7 or 12 character slots is just not enough, this is something that has grown increasingly popular. However there is currently no means to transfer any items between accounts. Folks with shared accounts wouldn’t benefit from this new LORE-EQUIP flag.

Second, there is a small and growing market for StationCash and Legends of Norrath items. However these items have always been flagged NO TRADE. In the past, requests to make these items tradeable have not gotten an affirmative from the team.

timetravelling has posted some great news on the EQ2 Forums. Keep in mind that this is future planning and we should not expect any of this in Game Update 53:

Y’all have given some great feedback, and brought up two of the main issues internally and wanted to give you updates:

Linking accounts:  I spoke with several of our coders and while there are limitations that prevent us from implementing it immediately, they thought it sounded feasible. We will keep it in mind and hopefully add it at some point in the future. No timetable promises, but hopefully we’ll be able to get the feature in for those of you with multiple accounts. It may even open up the possibility of some other features as a cool side effect!

LoN and SC items: Ye hast swayed us! Or…in less broken english, I am going to be going through our LoN and StationCash items and–where appropriate–adding the Heirloom flag.

A couple of examples of “where appropriate”:

• Items that have charges–such as the potions
• Items that must be equipped–such as appearance armor
• NOT items that can be used from your inventory–such as mounts

As always, stay tuned for more information about these late-breaking developments.

In a previous post, I postuled that the the EQ2 Achievements system is “just the beginning”. While it may be, when I checked out the Achievements listed over on Test for my account, I saw only the low numbers — 25 Werewolves, 20 Heritage Quests, etc. Turns out, these are just the lowest numbers in each series.  Rothgar has chimed in on the EQ2 Forums to inform us that the Achievements go up to 10,000 kills for Slayer titles, 50 Heritage Quests, etc.

The slayer quests do go up to 10k for all types.  Since the slayers are all part of an achievement line, you’ll only see the next one in the line that you’re working on.  Otherwise there would be 184 achievements in the “Slayer” category.  That would be a lot to sort through!

There’s no reason for a slayer poster now that you can just access your counts from within the journal.

There is a lot of info to absorb with Achievements, and I expect we’ll see consistent additions of dozens of them added each update going forward.

Kudos to Xalmat who worked overtime the moment Gu53 hit the Test Servers to create an Comprehensive Guide for the new Achievements system that EQ2 will be receiving.

As mentioned, this will be a way to track all kinds of in-game tasks such as killing 10,000 undead, completing 20 Heritage Quests, clearing Veeshan’s Peak, crafting 1,000 combines, Discovering all the locations in Lesser Faydark, etc. For some of them, the journey is the reward, for others there are more concrete rewards like Titles, Clothing, House Items, etc. This is also a replacement for the Slayer Title system.

P.S. This is the new Achievements system as part of Game Update 53 which will go live in late September. Not to be confused with the Alternate Achievements (AA) system which has a current limit of 200 points of character advancement points.

Within hours of our reporting on some drawbacks to the otherwise fantastic revamp of housing throughout Norrath, Haohmaru chimed in indicating that he agrees with some of the concerns folks had both with the size of the Qeynos addition, as well as the loss of space in the Kelethin acorn. He’s already posted screen shots of some additional changes he’s made on the EQ2 Forums.

The additional room in Qeynos is quite nice, and the changes in the Kelethin 3 room acorns should go a long way towards addressing some of the issues. Sorry I didn’t get this posted sooner, as the changes happened in a remarkably short time after Gu53 was pushed to Test.

There have been mixed reactions to the additional rooms which have been added to housing throughout Norrath. They say no good deed goes unpunished.

Seriously, I do understand the plight of owners of 3-room acorns in Kelethin who took advantage of the unique geometry of these houses to craft some truly fantastic homes who are now affected by how the 4th room was added. Specifically, the ceiling was lowered, and a ramp was added where there was previously space. Fortunately, Art Lead Haohmaru has been quick to respond on the EQ2 Forums that this is something he will look into as it was not intentional to block areas which were previously open.

In other news, those who are lucky (or affluent) enough to have taken up lodgings in the 4 room Maj’dul housing (this requires warmly faction with one of the Courts) will notice some upgrades to their desert-based digs. Specifically, a skylight which provides a splendid view of the Tower of the Moon:

And as you may have already seen, the view from the windows in the Kelethin acorns is breathtaking:

- Shards of Destiny Housing Preview -

With the Racial Trait changes in Game Update #53, each race is consigned to being the best at one or two specific class archetypes. Aeralik has weighed in on EQ2 Forums exactly which race corresponds with which archetypes:

Scout package – Arasai, Fae, Dark Elf, Wood Elf,  Gnome, Ratonga, Halfling

Mage Package – Arasai, Dark Elf, Gnome, Ratonga, Iksar

Priest Package – Fae, Wood Elf, Halfling, Dwarves, Froglok, Ogre, Barbarian, Toll, Sarnak

Fighter Package – Sarnak, Ogre, Troll, Barbarian, Iksar,  Froglok, Dwarves

Well Rounded Pack ( combination of all 4 ) – Human, Kerra, Half Elf

Priest/Mage Specialty( specialized priest/mage pack without doubling up on bonuses ) – High elf, Erudite

Think you’ve seen all there is to see in Antonica? Think you’ve explored every ice floe of Everfrost? Now you can be sure! The new Achievements system coming with Gu53 will allow you to, at-a-glance, determine if you have discovered every Location there is to discover in Norrath. This is broken down by Zone.

One of my top requests over the years has been a means to figure out if we have already toppled the reign of a specific enemy, or named monster. We saw improvements here, with the addition of a white star above the name of any targeted named encounter that we have never been victorious over.

The new Achievements system adds to this, by listing the major named creatures (and sometimes groups of named) by Expansion, and whether we have killed them.

There is one issue that those fastidious players who have already reached 200 AAs will face with the new Achievements system. Because named kills are not tracked for characters who have reached the current cap of 200 AA points, there is no way for those Achievements to be retroactively recognized until the Achievements system is in place. You’ll need to repeat any of those kills after Gu53 to get the Achievement for it.

If you have not read the EQ2 forums much, you might not know Rothgar. He has been working very hard on improving the User Interface of EQ2. Specifically cleaning up and improving windows.

It was a pleasant surprise to me that the oft-forgotten Claim window has been rebuilt using existing assets, namely the Station Marketplace. It’s a lot easier to navigate and can be browsed by Expansion, special Events, and you can easily view which Claim Items you have already acquired.

New Claim Window

Although some alternate User Interfaces have existed which provide a more advanced Quest Journal such as ProfitUI, Fetish, etc., it is nice to see a two-paned Quest Journal arriving in EQ2. Using tabs at both the top and bottom, the window becomes more vertically space-efficient. The Quest Journal is also home to an exciting new feature in EQ2 — Achievements.

Quest Journal

Not to be confused with Alternate Achievements (AA), Achievements are game tasks such as:

• Defeating Venril Sathir
• discovering every Location in Greater Fay
• Rolling a 100 in a Need Before Greed loot roll
• Acquiring a 400 skill in Alcohol Tolerance
• Slaying 25 Werewolves
• Obtain 400 Transmuting

and then further achievements for clearing all the achievements in a particular Expansion or Zone.

Achievements Window

Looking at the Achievements currently in place, it is clear that while this is just the beginning, the sky is the limit on possible Achievements that can be added. On Test, there are achievements for killing 25 Gnolls, or completing 10 Heritage Quests, or 100 Quests. I expect we’ll see many more Achievements added by the time Gu53 goes live, as it is intended for this system to replace the Slayer Rankings.

I should add that while not every Achievement has a reward (sometimes the journey is its own reward), a select few do have some very nice rewards, including Titles (replacing the Slayer Poster/Title system), a teleportation device, as well as some exceptional clothing and armor appearances.

Alrighty, you want it, we got it. Here are the Racial Traits we will be seeing in Game Update 53. It’s a huge change, and provides a ton of options. Everyone gets a free respec, and honestly, we’ve gone from traits that make each race have an obvious class associated with it, to being perhaps a little too Cut-and-Paste and not daring enough.

I know some people will always choose race for lore reasons. They like ratongas, they like high elves, etc. Just like min/maxers will always choose race for the bonuses (and then use illusion totems). So I think the differences between the races could have been a bit bigger without hurting anything. Not a lot bigger, but a bit bigger. I’m also rather sad that Ratongas lose Pitiful Plea. This extra Detaunt was quite useful.

Good

Fae | Dwarf | Froglok | Halfling | High Elf | Wood Elf

Neutral (in progress)

Barbarian | Erudite | Gnome | Half Elf | Human | Kerra

Evil

Arasai | Dark Elf | Iksar | Ogre | Ratonga | Sarnak | Troll

UPDATE: The bonus for your primary stats (STR, INT, WIS, STA, AGI) is 2.7 at level 1 and 33 at level 80. The Out-of-Combat Health and Power Regen also scale with tier. Also, the 50% runspeed and 50% in-combat runspeed are short-term boosts (36 seconds).

UPDATE 2: Gnome has been corrected with the Mage rather than Priest package.

Now that the Norrathian Health Department has certified that beasts of burden may be housed in Guild Halls and Personal Homes alike, many citizens have been having a tough go at corralling and feeding their 4 legged friends. Fortunately, carpenters have discovered a variety of recipes that will aid in this endeavor and perhaps keep the mess to a minimum.

Shards of Destiny (Gu53) appeared on Test just moments before midnight last night. This update is expected to go live in late September (the initial date was September 22nd, but this was an internal target). Here are the Test Update Notes:

Test Update August / 27 / 2009

FEATURED

Achievements

The new achievement system gives players a fun new way to track their accomplishments!  Most achievements will award players with achievement points that can be used to compare their progress against other players.  Some harder to complete achievements will offer non-stat item rewards.  The basic categories are General, Quest, Exploration, Combat, Slayer, Tradeskills and Triumphs.  Triumphs are large scale achievements that combine multiple achievements into one large one.  An example of this would be to do all of the combat, quest, and exploration achievements in a specific area.

Chronomagic

A number of mysterious erudites have set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin. Any player level 20 or higher can speak to them and for a small fee temporarily lower their adventuring level.

This works very similarly to mentoring except:

• You do not need a mentoring target.
• You can only choose levels in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc).
• You do not receive the bonuses granted from mentoring other players (currently you receive a very large bonus to AA gain while mentoring another player, this is not granted by the Chronomagic system).

The chronomagic will last until cancelled (right-click on your nameplate or /unmentor). Once cancelled, you must return to any Timeless Chronomage to reactivate the effect

Additionally, 37 new missions have been added that work similar to The Shadow Odyssey’s daily doubles. They task players with slaying various bosses within zones of all levels throughout Norrath  And, of course, these missions reward players with an array of exciting new items!

Chronomagic works the same on PvP servers as it does on PvE servers. However, it also has all the same restrictions as mentoring—namely that you cannot engage in PvP combat while the chronomagic effect is on your character. This makes it quite a bit more dangerous on PvP servers, so good luck and be careful!

Bosses and Events

As part of the chronomagic initiative, a pass was made through old-world overland and contested dungeons to greatly increase the frequency with which bosses and events spawned or occurred. Many placeholders and placeholder ring events were either removed or weighted much more heavily toward actual bosses spawning. Some of the notable highlights include placeholders being removed from:

(Note: These are all from forum feedback)

• Crypt of Betrayal – Specter of Ire
• Enchanted Lands – Chomper
• Everfrost – Chieftain Iceburn
• Feerrott – Screaming Mace HQ targets Agony, Hukulan, Kaxor, Xilarga, and Tzugaax. Also Bouncers Prud, Hurd, Fug, and Flerb who were also changed to no longer despawn
• Greater Faydark – Crushbone Expedition Leader, Chef, Weaponsmith, and Planner
• Lavastorm – Fire Toad, Magolemus
• Nektulos – Dannian Blackleaf – removed respawn time and despawn time, should always be up now
• Obelisk of Lost Souls – Mediums of Dyrt, Cron, Iza, Odris, Norrath, and Lysys, Soul Harvesters Kul, Na, Gron, and Zej, Avulsor
• Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently
• Zek,  Orchish Wastes – Sentry Goorlux
• Palace of the Awakened – Skylord Stormclaw, Advisor Soliddar
• Rivervale – Willowmaw the Rotting
• Ruins of Varsoon – Weavemaster Esh’rax, Tome of Life, Tome of Death, The Creator
• Solusek’s Eye – Enforcer Maj’Fahd, Soulslaver Djar’veh, The Speaker of Fates, The Castigator, Lord Crana, Onyxlam
• Steamfont – Bulka Bloodhorn, Digmaster Pechpooka, Slave Pechmooka, Scout Pechyooka
• Thundering Steppes – Stiletto, Bloodtalon
• Stormhold – a caveroot horror, Battlepriest Alexandria
• Stormhold – The Scions – Archiovianix, Hephinntari, Qelinatias, Tumarinan
• The Vestibule – The Medium of Hykor
• Tombs of Night – The Leucous Maw

There are a large number of ring events that work similarly in the zones: Antonica, Commonlands, Everfrost, Sinking Sands, Enchanted Lands, Feerrott, Nektulos, Orcishwastes, and Thundering Steppes. They had a very high chance to spawn a placeholder, a small chance to spawn a boss, a small chance to spawn a shrine that buffs the player, and a small chance to spawn a number of different merchants. The chance to spawn a placeholder was greatly reduced and there is now a very high chance for one of the ‘events’ to occur. The merchants were all combined into the ‘rare’ merchant, who will now always spawn for that event. They also have a much larger merchantlist, and will buy, sell, and repair your gear! Contested Epic spawns in lower level zones were lowered to spawn every three days (with a large variation) instead of once a week.

A number of x2 and x3 contested mobs were downtiered because they had a 0% chance to drop fabled gear. They were lowered to triple-ups and their spawn times were adjusted accordingly. The contested epic mobs who did have fabled loot were given a 100% chance to drop at least one fabled item each time they are slain. Some of the mobs changed include:

• Allidax the Ancient
• Alrendi Thoughtsong
• Broog the Banished
• Commander Nagrat
• Cragshell
• Cyenadros, Lord of the Sanctum
• Doomsquall
• Equestrielle
• Grimfeather
• Haraghur the Deathless
• Haywire Opticron (lowered to one-up and added loot)
• Lavin Dusk
• Mangler
• Meathooks
• Scytheclaw
• Spiregazer
• Ssilth Rageclaw
• The Unseelie JumJum Thief
• Vox

In general, most named mobs (with some exceptions) changed by this pass have a very high chance to drop treasured. Those with rare fabled items had their chances to drop raised significantly as well.

• Named mobs in New Tunaria should have a 100% chance to drop legendary gear, and a much higher chance to drop Cloak of Flames pages now!
• A new boss has found his way into Sebilis.
• Bosses in Sebilis and Chardok should match Karnor’s Castle and spawn every 45 minutes + variation.
• The despawn timers from all of Kylong Plains’ rare mobs have been removed.
• The Fiery Apparition in Lavastorm should spawn once again

Note to testers:
Because of the size of Norrath, a number of placeholders may have slipped through our net. Please /feedback these with two pieces of information:  the full name of the zone and the full name of the placeholder-challenged named mob.

Shard of Love (heroic zone)

The Sisterhood of Erollisi has returned to Antonica with grave concerns! Adventurers interested in helping them should seek out a Disciple of Love in Antonica, Kelethin or Gorowyn. Those with more devious intentions should seek out Disciples of Hate within The Commonlands, Neriak or Gorowyn.

GENERAL

Illusions cast from petamorph wands will now last for two hours and persist through zoning.

Melee, defense and casting skills should now be easier and more straightforward to level up.

Swimming will now skill up faster.

You can now buy the Translocate and Druid Portal spells from the trainers.

Racial choices have changed.  As a result, your character development choices have been reset.

Adventure writs are now offered to a player’s effective level, so that mentored players can complete adventure writs at any level!

You can now convert adventure experience into the achievement pool from level 10 and higher by adjusting the slider in the achievement window.

Examining a ranged combat art will now display the ranged critical bonus properly.

Fixed an issue where items might trigger when they are restricted to a certain damage type.

The /auction channel is now server wide!

You will now receive chat feedback for dispels and cures.

Scouts will automatically disarm chests now when attempting to open them.  As a result, the disarm verb will no longer display.

Pets will no longer be hit by AoE autoattack unless they are considered in front of the attacker.  This should in turn make it easier to position pets to avoid it since the avoidance range for them is now flanking or behind instead of just behind.

Beneficial Poolburn effects will now display to the chat log.

Target locking abilities will now terminate if the locker is no longer a valid target.

Triggered Spell based effect tooltips will now update appropriately if your intelligence or strength change.

Player-written books will now be editable when transferring to another server.

Fixed a bug where when sometimes editing a very large player written book some text would be lost when closing and reopening the book.

Zoning into a new raid instance will no longer clear your raid looters.

Turning the avatar autoface option ON and the camera autoface option OFF will keep your character facing the target regardless of what direction your character is moving while autoattack is turned off. Toggle autoattack off to toggle off autoface if you just need to turn and run and toggle it back on again to make a final stand.

CHARASIS

• Players who leave Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep and return later will no longer find their progression blocked.

GOROWYN

• Players will find that Gorowyn has become a good deal easier to navigate.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD (x4)

• A quest has been added to assist with certain progression within Miragul’s Planar Shard!
• Items that can assist in certain elements of the Planar Shard fights are now random drops in the Miragul’s Phylactery group TSO zones.

MUNZOK’s MATERIAL BASTION

• Umzok and Ozyk now drop the less specialized cloaks and charms more reliably.
• Certain items in Munzok’s Material Bastion have become slightly more desirable.

NEKTULOS

• The Nerius pirates camping along Nektulos beach are now armed (and still) dangerous.

THUNDERING STEPPES

• Turgen Bremhurst now offers a more interesting way for you to earn the key to the gates of Bridge Keep.

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT  (formerly Achievements)

• Ooze Crawler will now benefit from Wrath of the Undead Servant

Mystic

• Spirit of the Ancients will apply properly to Ancestral Sentry when another player is targeted.

Summoner

• Pet Achievement Spells now have a higher priority when casting.

Warden

• Fixed Shattered Infections to cure the correct person.

Warrior

• Cry of the Warrior will be resisted less often now.

ITEMS

The Heirloom flag has been added to a large number of items in the game with the exception of quest items, heritage items, PvP items, and items gained from patterns (but the patterns themselves were flagged as Heirloom). This will allow players to join groups with the character that can help the group the most without the worry of not being able to gear up the character of their choice! As a side effect, items affected by this change will unattune and be sent to overflow initially upon first login.

Fixed a case where some item based triggered effects would begin to critical.

The Brethren of Night quartermaster by Soul Eater Falls in Nektulos Forest has improved the appearance of the armor and robe he sells.  (Existing armor purchased from him previously will not be affected.)  The Hand of Marr quartermaster in the nearby camp has also begun stocking a robe.

The Cudgel of Obviation’s Spirit Tap Effect is now unresistable.

Old Telescopic Lens (quest starter for The Staff of Observers) drops much more frequently.

Volcanic Knight’s Tempered Helm now has spell and heal crit chance to match its melee crit.

The ‘Deception’ effect on the Bracelet of the Trickster no longer affects fighters.

Unbound Elemental Essences from Lavastorm are now heirloom and the items that are purchased with them are now easier to obtain.

Balanced Ayr Stones may now be applied to fist weapons of any damage type.

Saita’s Glowing Gem will automatically cast on the user when activated. Amazing Presence now shows up in the Maintained Spells window.

The Bangle of the Spiteful now slightly increases spell crit bonus.

Anashti Sul and Ykesha now have a chance to drop new items for Mages.

The descriptions on Petamorph Wands and their spells now declare that they will only affect combat pets and not cosmetic pets.

MAIL

• Going linkdead while accessing your mailbox will no longer cause your mail to be inaccessible if you log back in before your character leaves the world.
• After sending a guild mail or ranks mail the “to” text box will no longer have a random guild member name in it.

Player vs Player (PvP)

The Priests of Discord have returned.  Reports state that they are currently teaching young adventurers the path of discord.

New Shattered Lands, Faydark, Kunark and Void Discord tokens have been created.  The Discord tokens will now replace all previously used currency.

Faction merchants have agreed to reduce their status and faction costs!  In return, their items have been enhanced to be more desirable to prospective buyers.

EoF, RoK and TSO Faction items have been enhanced to be more desirable by prospective buyers.  All previously purchased items have gained the attributes as well.

Writ givers are eager to see more adventurers in battle and are willing to ignore previous requirements for their job completion.

Spawn location near Dreg’s Landing and Teren’s Grasp have been moved to be favorable for all factions.

The Kylong Plains writ giver has moved to Teren’s Grasp from Dreg’s Landing.

The dirge epic triggered effect (Intrepid Strike) will no longer force an attack to inflict maximum damage while in PvP combat.

Hate will now age faster while you are on a server controlled mount.

You will no longer gain immunity while on balloon platforms.

Reactive should no longer trigger incorrectly.

PLAYER HOUSING

Player houses have been given an extra room! Note to testers: Currently homes in Qeynos and Freeport will be unable to customize the new room. This will be updated shortly.

Players can now save and restore their house item layouts.  Use the commands save_layout <filename> and load_layout <filename>.

House layout files can only be loaded in houses of the same type.  This also works in guild halls!

QUESTS

Creature mastery quests (Lore & Legend) now use a system of progressively increasing luck that eventually guarantees an update.

The third scout for “Connect the Dots” in Kylong Plains is now easier to find.

The quest “A Strange Gem” Has been re-introduced into Antonica.

The quest “The Final Report” from the Qeynos Claymore progression in Kingdom of Sky should now allow citizens of all evil and good aligned cities to obtain the quest.

The quest “Aelia and the Butcher” can now be completed properly in North Freeport.

The respawn time on a named needed for the Screaming Mace quest within Temple of Cazic Thule has been shortened.

The difficulty of the waves of orcs that spawn at the beginning of Bloodskull Valley has been lowered to be more in line with the difficulty intended for Return of the Light Heritage quest.

SPELLS

Cheap Shot will now last the full four seconds on single up arrow NPCs.  Higher difficulty NPCs will remain at two seconds since they are not typically used for solo encounters.

Group and self targeted buffs which do not expire will persist through death.  This does not apply to pet spells.

Deity Spells now have a two second casting time.

Ranges have been adjusted to many spells to more consistent.

Maintained spell descriptions from cast items will now look like if you examined the item directly.

Spells that are hostile and beneficial will now apply their beneficial effects to anyone in the group with an AOE avoidance spell on them.

Conjuror

• The Earthen Avatar line will now break invisibility spells when cast.
• Communion should inherit the proper names from Fiery Magician now and use the appropriate Hydromancer appearance.

Druid

• Druid Portal spells have been consolidated into one spell and now work similar to the druid guild hall amenity.

Inquisitor

• Inquisition will now overwrite existing copies of the spell properly on a target.

Paladin

• Amends 3 has been removed from the Paladin Training choices like it was prior to GU51.

Shadowknight

• Miss your old skeleton pet?  Then visit your local Shadowknight trainer and get your new skeleton pet today!  Scrolls are going fast so hurry up and get yours today!

Sorcerer

• Sorcerer translocate spells have been consolidated into a single spell that works similar to the druid guild hall amenity.

Warden

• Faerie Ally will no longer attempt to save dead people.
• Tunare’s Watch will now scale by level since it is not upgraded at higher levels.

Wizard

• Rays of Disintegration will no longer interrupt the group and is now only cast by the wizard.  The casting time is slightly less while doing a bit more damage now.

TRADESKILLS

The tradeskill society tutorial books now have an improved appearance.  If you do not have a copy and would like one, visit your local tradeskill society merchant.

The recipe for the Flame Tapestry found in Najena’s Forge is no longer limited in uses.

Carpenters can now provide a few essentials for those stabling their mounts in their homes.

Byproducts from tradeskilling will no longer have the crafter’s name on them.

Tradeskill level will now count for purchasing racial traditions.

USER INTERFACE

The recipe window now auto adjusts to fit very long recipe names.

Title lists on the Details tab of the Persona window are now sorted.

A new user-interface has been wrapped around the mentoring system.

Type /mentor to display the mentoring window.

You can also use the /unmentor command to cancel mentoring.

The mentoring window will be displayed when you join a group if your level is too high to allow all players to earn XP.

The Welcome screen now shows the number of unopened LoN booster packs you have.

The examine recipe window will now use multiple lines for very large recipe names.

The threat window now has an improved tooltip and will only show when it is relevant.

Timers on quests in the group quest window will now have correct times.

Double clicking an item in the Marketplace section of the welcome window will now open the Marketplace window with that item pre-selected.

You can now alter the hotkey for the zone reuse timer window in the options window.

The confirmation box for destroying a player written book with special characters in the title will no longer displayer gibberish.

EQ2Players.com

Critical damage will once again be tracked properly.

EQ2 Housing is getting an upgrade! The biggest changes include the Faydwer acorns  which have received a nice window which looks out into Kelethin. And the Maj’dul apartments which have been lacking in charm have really opened up with skylights and the like.

Here at EQ2Wire, we’re anxiously awaiting Gu53 being pushed to Test (scheduled for today) so we can go grab screen shots of all the new housing options. There have been some unconfirmed reports that existing spaces were reduced to make room for the new areas. We’ll be checking this out

Preview at EQ2Players

An unintended effect of the August 26th Hotfix is that Quest Sharing is now completely broken. With the exception of daily Missions, quests of any kind and any level cannot currently be shared. The window appears for the other player, and they can click Accept, but the quest never gets added to the Quest Journal.

Alan “Brenlo” has chimed in on the EQ2 Forums with the news that GU53 will be appearing on Test servers tomorrow. He’s also spilled the beans on Hot Zones and what this means for you.

Tomorrow morning, Shards of Destiny is going to the Test server!  Woo Hoo!  We hope you are as excited as we are to see the new content and try it out for yourselves.  I encourage you, if you have time in your busy schedules, to jump onto Test and try the new content out.  We would love to hear your feedback and the more people that take part, the more solid we can make sure this update releases.

One thing you will notice missing from the update notes are the Shader 3.0 changes.  Unfortunately the work is turning out to be a little more time intensive than our initial estimates.  We did not want to rush it out, as it is a far reaching change that can impact many players and systems, so we are going to let it bake a little longer.  Working with it and testing it internally on as many system configs as our compatibility lab can put together, and they can put together a TON, to make sure it causes as little disruption as possible.  We want everyone to enjoy the vibrant lighting and shader changes this brings to the game and we hope you can be patient as we continue to tweak it until the next game update, which is tentatively scheduled for early December.

One of the new systems we are really excited about is the Chronomagic, formerly Auto-Mentoring, system.  This allows you to level down your character and experience lower level content that you may have missed, want to play over, or experience with new friends.

Houses are getting room upgrades! How exciting is that?  Most housing will soon have at least one additional room added to their architecture.  Maj’Dul housing gains multiple new rooms, I may finally up and move there.  Along with the new rooms, there is a modest increase in the number of items a house can hold, so we hope that you decorators out there make good use of the added space.  If you are a decorator and have something to show off, we encourage you to show images on the forums or even send them to us as we love to see the imaginative things you create.

There are a good deal of additional features and content pieces coming too, so check out those Test update notes and let us know what you think.

You may have noticed a hotfix this morning with a couple of small code changes.  One of which was a small change to the Welcome Screen.  Nothing huge, just a single new field in the lower right corner.  The welcome screen now displays each days Daily Mission!  A welcome and useful change I hope!  Above that you will see a new field that simply says Hot Zone.  “What is that Brenlo?” Well I am glad you asked!  Our brilliant coders and designers have come up with a new feature that each day increases the fabled drop rates in one dungeon.  The welcome screen will display which dungeon currently has the increased drop rate.  “But Brenlo, right now it says None!  I want my Hot Zone!” Do not fret my friends, we will be turning it on soon.

In fact. . .  Because we were unable to provide our European and Japanese players with GU 52 at the same time as our North American servers, we will be turning the Hot Zones on for those servers this weekend!   Look for an announcement from Kiara on the specific time it turns on and then watch the welcome screen.  For our North American servers, you will get this new hotness, yes I just said new hotness, let the hate mail begin, the following weekend.  Just in time for Labor Day.

We have lots going on here in the EQII laboratory so we will continue to keep you updated and keep that feedback coming as we love to hear from you.  Well most of you, you know who you are . . . Kendricke.  =P

I hope to see you in Atlanta at Dragon Con.

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby
Senior Producer EverQuest II

We’re now less than 6 months from EverQuest II’s  Sentinel’s Fate expansion and Domino, EQ2 Tradeskill Developer, is starting to dig deep into Transmuting. If you’d like to see her preliminary ideas and give feedback on the EQ2 Forums, you should check out the EQ2 Tradeskill forums.

And here’s a completely unrelated Fan Faire photo:

Rothgar brings us an update on Game Update 53. The EQ2 Team wants to get Gu53 on the test server soon, to allow 1 full month of testing. However Shaders 3.0 won’t be ready within the next few days. As a result, Shaders 3.0 are slipping to Gu54 expected in November.

If you attended our last Fan Faire or have been following the forums you’ve probably heard about a major overhaul to the EverQuest II rendering engine where we are upgrading all of our existing shaders from version 1.x to version 3.0.

This upgrade will result in a performance gain for many of you with a Shader 3.0 compliant graphics card.  In addition, you’ll notice a visual improvement in just about everything from zone geometry to character armor.

This is an enormous undertaking that Ryan “Imago-Quem” Favale has been devoting nearly all of his time to for the past several months.  Ryan has shown an amazing level of commitment to this feature and has spent countless nights and weekends working his way through the shader system.  Not only does this upgrade involve the conversion of thousands and thousands of shader files, but we’ve had to modify existing art tools, create new tools and maintain backwards compatibility with the old system.  In addition, each shader must be individually tested by our QA department.

At Fan Faire we announced that this upgrade would go live with Game Update 53 which is just around the corner.  Unfortunately I’m here to let you know that we will be pushing this upgrade back to Game Update 54.  We always hate to push a feature back after we’ve announced it but we feel that this is the best thing for the game overall.  We are making a new commitment to quality and want this feature to be everything that we’ve promised.  Simply put, we need a little more time to complete the conversion and make sure that its as bug-free as possible.  The work is almost completed and we’re very excited about it.

On another note, Game Update 53 is still packed with lots of great content and features that I’m sure you’ll love.  We have a new raid zone coming, auto-mentoring, the new achievement system and so much more.

We’re also aware that some of you are still experiencing client crashes.  The latest version of the client will be delivered to the Test Server within a few days and we expect that some of these issues should be resolved.  Game Update 53 will be available on the Test Server almost a full month before it’s scheduled to go live.  We’ll be listening to your feedback very closely and making sure any new issues are looked into right away.

Again, I’m sorry to have to ask you to wait a little longer on the Shader 3.0 upgrade.  We feel strongly that something of this magnitude should get the time and attention it deserves to be perfect.

Thanks for your understanding and most of all thanks for continuing to play EQII!

Here are your EQ2 Patch Notes for August 26th:

ACHIEVEMENTS

Fury

Enhance: Hibernation should trigger properly when falling below 15%.

ITEMS

The focus effect on the Robe of Shifting Visions will increase the damage properly now.

MISC

The Welcome Screen now lists the current Daily Double.

Also, the Welcome Screen has been updated to include information about the current Daily Mission as well as support for upcoming Hot Zones.*

At the first of every month, the EQ2 forums accumulate questions for developers. Answers to the questions posted around the first of July have now been posted. There’s nothing earth-shattering this month, despite the large number of questions answered. You can read it yourself here:

Dev Q&A 2009.07.01 Answers @ EQ2 Forums

And care of EQ2Players, we’ve got our first screenshot on the Self-Mentoring NPC we’ll be seeing in Game Update 53 (Shards of Destiny). It looks like there will be a small gold (5g for any level) and status cost for using the NPC.

Check out Kiara’s entertaining parable about this new feature of Gu53 at EQ2Players.

Greetings Norrathians! There will be a bonus applied to AA experience this weekend, starting at 1:00 p.m. PDT on Friday, August 21st and ending at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Monday, August 24th.

Happy and safe adventuring!

~from EQ2Players~

It’s the 20th of the month, and that means it’s time for Moonlight Enchantments again!

Some incredible house items and a few unique mounts can be obtained in the Grottos of Norrath.

These mushroom rings will appear in five locations (click the Grotto name for a list of rewards):

• Enchanted Dryad Grotto: [Antonica - Archer's Woods] (-696, -4, 621)
• Enchanted Brownie Grotto: [Darklight Woods - Werewolf area] (16, -32, -236)
• Enchanted Zygomyd Grotto: [Nektulos Forest - Barren Sky spires] (-368, 1, -680)
• Enchanted Naiad Grotto: [Enchanted Lands - Bonemire spires] (-282, 6, 13)
• Enchanted Fay Grotto: [Greater Faydark - Nursery] (-132, -44, -771)

Even though we do not have a specific release date for Gu53 (Shards of Destiny), “late September” has been posited as a timeframe we should be watching for. As we approach the duly appointed time, more information is coming out about what we can expect in this update.

Unless you follow the EQ2 Dev Tracker, you’ve probably missed some salient details.

Skill Up Catch Up

Not every EQ2 player has access to a Guild Hall, specifically the Training Dummy amenity. This is relevant because at the great speed most folks now level up into their 50’s or 60’s, many players find themselves deficient in certain skills such as priest skills (Ordination), mage skills (Subjugation), scout/fighter skills (Piercing, Slashing) and want to “catch up”. So far, the only easy means to do this was to grind kill mobs or fight a training dummy.

You get better at Ranged (126/400).

According to Aeralik, this issue has been identified and in Gu53, if there is a large gulf between your skill level and the maximum, you will skill up faster. From this Dev Tracker post:

If you are really low in skill it will be much easier to level it up and the skill gains will come along much faster.  Then once you get closer in skill to your level you will then slow down to a more gradual level.

AA XP Slider

One of the features I am the most excited about in Gu53 will be the AA XP Slider. On PvE (regular) servers, we will be able to channel up to 100% of our combat XP into AA XP.  PvP servers will allow up to 50% of combat XP to be converted into AA XP (until the AA cap is reached). I intend to roll an alt and see how feasible it is to level from 20-80 entirely by grouping all while earning sufficient AA points.

I am very hopeful that this AA XP slider will encourage folks to group in the level 20-60 range again. Flying through Stormhold, Nek Castle, Runnyeye, Deathfyst Citadel, and getting a solid amount of both Alternative Achievement (AA) and levels will be a great thing. A lot of folks out there are soloing to 80 and have no clue what their character brings to a group/raid.

Once again Aeralik chimes in on the EQ2 Forums with the facts:

The aa slider enables at level 10.  Pve players can put all adv xp into aa if they want but pvp players will be limited to 50% while below the current maximum level.

The AA cap only applies on pvp servers and works to keep players relatively close in strength.  We don’t have any plans to adjust this cap because its just a spending cap and you can still earn additional AA levels while capped.

Racial Traits

When racial traits were added after the launch of EQ2, players were surprised at just how good some of the effects were. Specifically, erudites are clearly superior spellcasters, while ogres are the obvious choice for tanks due to their health buffs.

With the upcoming Racial Respec tokens we will be able to purchase with StationCash,  and with certain racial traits being such obviously good choices, there is a concern that all wizards will change to Erudite, all predators to Dark Elves, all tanks to Ogre, etc. As a result, we can expect racial traits to be rebalanced and reshuffled in Game Update #53.

Here are Aeralik’s comments on the EQ2 Forums:

The racial trait changes are staying largely in line with how they have always really been oriented.  Fighter races get some nice fighter bonuses,, caster races get caster bonuses, etc.  This really goes back to the base race design.  The original stats favored certain archetypes for play and usually their racial packages complemented these using effects of the time.  The previous racial update made things a bit more specific with current effect packages but we tried to make each race a bit more unique.

This next race update tries to mix them together so you have a wider variety of choices but the race’s abilities come from common pools.  So if you picked a mage oriented race and play a mage you get some nice choices but nothing really amazing.  If you went off the normal path and chose something like an ogre mage you still get a lot of benefits to yourself but overall dps differences from a mage race will be minimal at best and easily overcome.  In fact the ogre mage is probably a really good choice for a number of playstyles because the fighter package is really nice in some aspects and the priest package shares a lot with the mage one.

Leather & Lace

And I leave you with some leather screenshots to tide you over until the next posting. Toodles!

Tier’Dal Executioner Leather Assassin appearance gear

-available today on StationCash-

Ratwarlock has chimed in with an article covering the appeal and drawbacks of both Instance and Contested Dungeons. It’s worth a read over at his site RatWarlock.Wordpress.com.

Sentinel’s Fate (The 6th EQ2 Expansion expected in February 2010) will ship with one large progressive contested dungeon (reportedly twice the size of Sanctum of Scaleborn, with a progression of shareable quests available as you traverse the depths).

Our Stand

EQ2Wire believes that both types of dungeon have their place. Folks have gotten a bit burned out on having to “stick to the script” each time they group up in the ~20 TSO instance dungeons and repetition over the life of the expansion can be an issue. While the guarantee of named mobs being up every time you run through the zones is a draw, variety is, as they say, the spice of life. Sometimes folks want to experience something unique each time they run a dungeon. That is where contested dungeons come in.

However, some contested dungeons are so target-rich (lots of mobs!) with such a short respawn (as little as 4 minutes) that they are rarely visited at the appropriate adventure level or only for quest updates essential to Epic Weapon and other questlines. The examples that come to mind are Kaladim and Mistmoore Castle.

These zones were designed as “end game” content, expecting multiple well-geared groups to be constantly clearing trash mobs. Now that these zones are not “current tier” content, groups often find themselves without other groups “clearing the way”. Average groups with average gear don’t have a chance at the appropriate level.

Perhaps we might see going forward smart contested dungeons that detect the presence of other groups and scale the zone up and down automatically by spawning additional mobs based on the number of players in a specific area.

Shard of Love Target Audience

Speaking of instances, it was not clear until last week that the Shard of Love would be a scaling instance dungeon for one group of players ranging from level 50~80. Kander provided us with the details.  Let’s hope the XP, AA XP, gear, and rewards from this zone make it desirable for the entire level range. So far, allowing folks under level 75 to do these zones hasn’t really paid the dividends of providing rewarding gameplay for level 50-70 players.

As announced at EQ2Players…

EQII’s next Game Update #53, Shards of Destiny, is slated to go live in late September. We will be bringing some exciting new content to the world of Norrath with Shards of Destiny.

Erollisi Marr’s influence is felt once more in Norrath. Our players will be able to explore the Shard of Love and learn more of the popular goddess’ story. The Shard of Love is a single group zone.

There will also be a new x4 dungeon to test your skills. Miragul’s Planar Shard will continue the story of the powerful mage.

There are several other exciting additions coming with Shards of Destiny!

Auto-mentoring: Revisit content you may have missed!

Housing renovations: Enjoy more space to exercise your decorating creativity, or just more room to store your booty! Several housing types are receiving an additional room.

Achievement System: Killed 100,000 undead? Now you’ll be able to track your accomplishments and earn nifty rewards.

Shader revamp: The changes to the shader system are ready! Enhanced graphics and more realistic-looking shadows await.

If you’ve ever wanted to look at the artwork that goes into conceptualizing or marketing EQ2 or other SoE games, now’s your chance at the new SoE Art Portal.

If this is part of the Fan Faire-announced  plans to provide mail-order high quality posters and prints of this artwork, then I’m rather excited and intend to do some shopping when this next phase becomes available.