Calthine over at ZAM posed a challenge on the forums. Can you level a character from 1-80 in a day? The surprising response was a demonstration that a character could be leveled from 1-80 in 5-7 hours.

Check out this article over at EQ2 ZAM.

EQ2Players has as new preview available of The Sundered Frontier, which is one half of the overland area of Odus. This includes some screen shots and an interview with gninja, leader designer of this zone. You can also find some wallpaper sized screenshots which have not previously been posted. All of this after the jump:

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EQ2Wire is thrilled to present some more screen shots from the upcoming Sentinel’s Fate expansion. These images are taken from the first part of Odus players will encounter, the Sundered Frontier.

It seems many things have changed, and many others have stayed the same. Odus seems to have been scooped from out of the earth and is now scattered across the Norrath sky. Visitors will likely arrive by Spire or Airship!

Check out these screen shots (Scroll down to get a clickable grid of thumbnails):

Also check out this exclusive Sundered Frontier screen shot available only on EQ2Wire:

EQ2Wire Exclusive Screenshot (Large Version)

The complete set of images available in this round of screen shots is available below:

Hope you enjoy these great snapshots!

There have been a lot of reactions to the clarification of just what types of multiboxing are permitted in SOE games and which aren’t. What most of these reactions have lacked is perspective.

A careful read of the key pards Kiara’s post in another thread on the multiboxing subject:

That is what allows us to nuke the farmers and plat sellers that we all loathe so much.

If you’re not doing something you shouldn’t be doing, multi-boxing is fine.

People are over-reacting and troll-feeding.

Please stop trying to read into it anything that says we’re going to start nuking our legitimate players for playing more than one account at a time.

along with past history suggest to me that SOE does not see any benefit in wholesale banning of players. Players are typically banned for disruptive behavior, and typically get several warnings.

Let’s look again at some significant exploits which have happened in past expansions such as item and plat duplication, profiting from item buyback, grey void shards, and instance reuse for shard updates. Very few consequences came out of these exploits.

Also, every discussion about this multiboxing issue seems to have referenced a single petition replied to by a single GM. However one person does not make a policy. It is certainly possible that this GM was being perhaps a bit too understanding, or suggesting (and not communicating) that what matters more than anything is to not be a nuisance or a disruptive player.

• If you are dominating content that others wish to play, or are preventing other players from getting updates, then that is disruptive behavior.

• If you are using software like this to flood a server’s economy with tradeskilled goods, etc. then that is disruptive behavior.

• If you are causing server lag due to inefficient macros causing tremendous amounts of keypresses being sent to the server, then that is disruptive behavior.

If, however, you are multiboxing just to see what kind of heroic content you can tackle all by yourself, especially instanced content, I don’t think it really hurts anyone and I doubt anyone is going to go out of their way to remove you (and your additional subscriptions) from the game. In short — don’t be evil.

The biggest loss of functionality on EQ2Players for many viewers was the ability to lookup Alt characters. This is used by guild recruiters to weed out players with a known history of troublemaking and guild bank plundering. So we’re happy to report that this functionality has been restored to EQ2Players.

DarkViper has been reporting steadily on fixes to the site:

The team is actively working on adding in quite a few new features, they’re just not ready yet The community team will be posting a list of the features soon with when you can expect them.

Players are asked to do a hard refresh (Ctrl-F5 or Ctrl-R) to make sure they are not viewing a cached version of the page.

Players who wish to hide their alts can do this in their Settings area. Platform are looking at the possibility of adding a way to apply this setting to all your alts.

DarkViper, from SOE’s Platform (websites, forums, etc.) department has responded to widespread criticism of the EQ2Players revamp which went live last week:

Everyone, thanks for the feedback on the web site. With Station Players becoming a free service, I hope you’re checking out all of the sections of the site if you’ve never had access to it. It’s important to keep hearing this feedback so we can continue to evolve the site.

To address the browser crashing:

We’re already planning on making a version of the site that is ‘lighter’ for the in-game browser. It has always been the plan, but we could not get that version of the site done in time for this release. We’ll investigate why it’s crashing, though I have heard that other sites (not just EQ2’s) have crashed in the past as well so it’s not something I can guarantee that will be in our control to fix before the in-game version of the site.

Re: Guild Chat visibility:

We’ll improve the placement for this, we agree that we need other entry points to this beyond just the profile pages. In fact, the profile bar is planned to be accessible via the entire site.

Re: Search functionality

We’re re-tooling this after much feedback to be more intuitive and accessible.

Re: Speed of loading

We’ll investigate this. It loads fast on all machines we’ve tested, and loads relatively fast even on the iphone. This could be browser version specific so we’ll have our lab here see if they can replicate this one.

A few additional comments:

Re: Alts

We’re adding this back in next build of the site.

Re: Guild Roster

Agreed, 5 is too low, we’re tweaking this next build.

Re: Best in Class Leaderboard

We’re adding the update in the next build of the site.

Re: Login remember me

We’ll speak with the teams responsible for this functionality and will hopefully have a fix in place soon.

Re: RSS Feeds/CSV functionality

We’ve been working on making this more accessible for folks and are looking into ways we can get you guild data for your use whether it be for web sites or not. We’ll have an update soon for this.

Please keep sending the feedback, we’re listening and addressing it. If you run into any problems (i.e. errors), please PM me or post it and we’ll get someone looking into it.

>> Download Highland Stalker Preview HD Video [22.5MB WMV]. <<
>> Download Highland Stalker Preview SD Video [13.8MB WMV]. <<

Guarding of the Reasoned and Guarding of the Learned

The Guarding of the Reasoned (right) comes with the retail boxes
The Guarding of the Learned (left) comes with the digital downloads.

It Started with /Follow

Since the first time someone discovered the /follow command in EverQuest II, ingenuous players have been fascinated with the possibilities of building a force of players all under their control. Naturally, it started with having a healer tag along to spot heal mobs that were too challenging to solo. Then players realized they could handle 3 or even 4 toons on separate accounts playing simultaneously with multiple keyboards and strategically arranged hotbars.

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Please take this Multiboxing/Dual boxing survey, even if you do not multibox/dual box. Results will be posted soon.

SOE is bringing back Double Station Cash for nearly two weeks just in time for Christmas.

Starting December 23, 2009 and lasting through January 3, 2010, redeem any StationCash card for double credit. Cards may be purchased anytime in advance, but must be redeemed successfully during the promotional period in order to receive the bonus.  These are currently branded as FreeRealms Station Cash cards but are applicable to all SOE games. Points can be redeemed at FreeRealms.com or the Station website.

Starter and Month Subscription cards do not count.

Press Release at EQ2 ZAM

Some of you may be interested in these Frostfell-themed items coming to StationCash Marketplace on December 22, 2009.

Red Baby Dragon Plushie and Merry Frostfell Backpack

Posting on EQ2Players

The phase of the moon is just right and the mushroom rings will be active again for a short time.

There are more house items and other rewards than ever for the Moonlight Enchantments event this time around.

The event will turn on at 12:01am PDT on December 20th and run until 11:59pm PDT on December 21st. These times apply directly with no time conversion to all servers.

EQ2Players has undergone a revamp and the results went live this morning. Actually, it’s more than just a revamp. All trace of EQ2Players has been wiped away! This is now the main EverQuest2 website.

Searching

The first thing we noticed is that to Search for Characters, Guilds, or Items, you must either be on the Home page, or click the Search link in the upper right corner. It used to be possible to search from anywhere on the site. We also noticed that simply typing a character name and pressing Enter no longer works. You must now specify Character, Guild, Item, or Forum.

Performance

We’ve also noticed that the site renders noticeably slower. Perhaps with some tweaks to the Javascript code (which is now used throughout the site) can speed up performance.

Guild Searches

• When browsing a Guild Roster, now only 5 members of that guild are displayed at a time and the viewer must page through roster.
• It is no longer possible to click on a member of a guild to view their profile page. One must backtrack to the Search page and type in a character name and perform a new search.
• There is no header table in the Guild Roster, so it is unclear what some of the numbers represent.
• The graphics indicating tradeskill and adventure class are gone, replaced with text only (Dirge, Weaponsmith, etc.).

Character Searches

• When you do a search for a Character, it shows a list of characters matching that name. However the Guild link next to each character brings you to an error page. You must click on a Character to bring up their Character Profile and then you can click the link to their Guild.

Character Profiles

• It appears all of the Paper Doll graphics have been reset, so everyone’s Character Profile image is blank. If a characters wants an image of their character on their Profile, they will need to upload a new image.
• While it’s more a design decision than a bug, we’re sad to see that the Alternate Advancements page when viewing a Character now has just about the minimum information possible.  Information about each AA is not available. No graphics are used. And it is impossible to tell at-a-glance, how many AAs are used in each tree. Hopefully this is just a placeholder until the expansion when AAs are getting tweaked and new lines.

Right now, the EQ2Players site, or I guess I should start calling it the EQ2 site, is a step backwards for usability. But hopefully with some tweaks, these nagging issues can be resolved.

While there is still a lot we don’t know about the PvP Battlegrounds feature first mentioned in October and slated for inclusion in the Sentinel’s Fate expansion in February, we have sussed out a few details.

Battlegrounds will be cross-server. Specifically a shared instance or instances accessible by players from different servers where you can meet in battle.

Battlegrounds will be available on both PvE and PvP servers.

It is currently unknown if these Battlegrounds will be the full PvP Ruleset (which is quite different than dueling on PvE) or a hybrid. PvP gear is quite powerful compared to the PvE gear that most players have.

It is currently unknown if these will be free-for-all or include campaigns such as capture the flag, etc.

It is currently unknown if European, Russian, and North American servers will be able to connect together, as they often have different Game Update schedules.

Brenlo reports in with this preliminary info:

This is still going through mid development so we are locking down details.  We are working on maps, rewards, gameplay styles etc. . . We will have lots of details soon. However just one quick note.  This will be for all servers, not just PVP.

Yes it will be cross server. =)

Hotfix Notes for December 15:

ACHIEVEMENTS
The Butcherblock Bloodhound achievement will now acknowledge players that had previously completed the Butcherblock quests: “Silent Beckon”, “A Dim Light”, “For the Dogs”, “A Mind Of My Own”, “Sarnak Sympathizer: Part 2″, “Dark Tides”, “Picking up the Pieces”, “Ain’t No Monkey Business”, “Simple Grunt Work”, “When You Mess With An Angry Dwarf” and “Solid Foundation”.

QUESTS

• The intended pages of “Hrath’s Journal” are now readable while on the quest “Hadden’s Earring”.
• Learning the Path quest should now update correctly when completing a PVP writ.
• Sinking Sands quests should now scale to the difficulty of the zone.
• The Freeport Emissary in Highkeep for the Qeynos Claymore quest line should now spawn in Tenebrous Tangle near the Norrath portal.

SPELLS
Call Servant spell is now instant cast.

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby has posted on his Twitter (specifically at TweetPhoto) a couple of screenshots of a saddle-only version of the Highland Stalker.

Download

I know I have been interested in a non-armored version and glad to see this.

Since the official announcement of the Collector’s Edition includes specific verbiage indicating that the only way to get the Highland Stalker will be in the Collector’s Edition, a safe assumption would be that there will be a choice in the box. More info as we have it.

Game Update 54 included a change to the appearance of cure potions. Instead of Arcane, Elemental, Noxious, and Trauma cure potions all having a green appearance, Gninja changed them to use different colors. These aren’t new graphics, as this would require an art build, but the change was much appreciated. However, the four types of cure potions now share the graphics of several other potions in the game.

EQ2Wire tinkered around in Photoshop for an hour and came up with some totally new cure potion icons and posted them on the EQ2 Forums to gauge player reaction. There was an overwhelming response requesting our icons!

Because there is no way for us to replace the existing cure icons with these new graphics without the ripple effect of a lot of potions in-game suddenly looking like cure potions, we were stumped. Fortunately Xalmat came through and, with some research on EQ2Interface, EQ2Wire is thrilled to present a technique to replace your cure potion graphics with ours.

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We are getting reports that inactive EQ2 accounts have been reactivated to coincide with the launch of the Will of a Tyrant game update. Folks are reporting that their cancelled accounts are now showing as active for the next 3 weeks.

It’s unknown why this has been kept a secret or not communicated, but we thought it would be worth posting.

The servers are coming back up after scheduled maintenance, patching in Frostfell, and more importantly, fixing some bugs introduced by Game Update 54:

Just FYI, the main 2 reasons people want to travel to the Queen’s Colony, Outpost of the Overlord, etc.  are they want to complete the quests there, or more importantly, they want a decent choice of deity for their class.

The servers are coming down in a few minutes for what will be a 9 hour downtime for some server maintenance, a hotfix to hopefully fix the multitude of bugs introduced with Game Update 54, and of course to patch in Frostfell!!

EQ2Players Downtime Announcement

Servers will be back up at 10am PST or 1pm EST.

It’s going to be a busy week for Norrathians.

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In other news, the Highland Stalker — the Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition mount — will get a speed boost over the previous announcement. Out-of-the-box it will have a runspeed of 65%.

Looking Ahead

On December 20th, we’ll see the return of the monthly Moonlight Enchantments event which takes places in the forests of Norrath. These zones will have several new house item rewards including tiles with the textures of water, clouds, sand, etc.

Also around the first of January, we can expect the new City Festivals to start up. Every month, there will be a city festival just outside the gates of one city for the first week of that month. These offer many house item and other rewards.

We are thrilled to present the first snapshot of the new in-game Highland Stalker mount exclusively available to players who purchase the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition ($69.99).

The announcement from EQ2Players:

This is the Highland Stalker mount! The Highland Stalker will be available to characters from level one through level 90 and will have a 50% 65% boost to run speed. One important thing to note about the Highland Stalker: This mount is exclusive to the Collector’s Edition of Sentinel’s Fate. There will be no other Highland Stalker mounts!

Also, here is a photo of the Highland Stalker (armored lynx) miniature you’ll receive in the Collector’s Edition box:

EQ2Wire Commentary

I think it’s the best-looking animal-based mount EQ2 has ever had. However the 50% runspeed is going to limit its popularity, to say the least. Our latest news is that the Highland Stalker will have a runspeed of 65%. Hopefully devs will provide a way to upgrade it to 70, 75, or even 80% with some stats, say by turning in the in-box Whistle, plus some raid dropped item, and turning it into a new mount.

And for this to be exclusive to the Retail Collector’s Edition would require a complete reversal of what we saw in Kunark/TSO where raid devs, group devs, tradeskill devs, live event devs all get in on the action of putting popular mounts anywhere and everywhere. Within 2 months of The Shadow Odyssey launching, the bear mount was available via grouping and raiding. EQ2Wire predicts that we’ll see this mount again, just with a name other than “Highland Stalker”.

If you are feeling poetic, you might be able to get bumped to the top of the Sentinel’s Fate Beta list. Head over to EQ2 Forums and check out the contest to write a Haiku and maybe get into beta sooner rather than later!

SOE have put out a pretty cool trailer for GU54: Will of a Tyrant update going live December 9th. Check it out:

Will of a Tyrant will contain the second prelude event leading up to the Sentinel’s Fate expansion arriving mid-February. The first event involved Thumore D’armer and was active during Thanksgiving week.

Also, on December 10th we will see the launch of Frostfell!!

Back soon with previews of the Sentinel’s Fate beta and hopefully that Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition in-game mount. All rumors point to it being a lynx, and if they do it right, I might finally sell my Carpet of El’Khazi. No slobbery mounts for me, but a sleek lynx would rock!

Kiara has brought us the great news about the Six Year Veteran Rewards. I have to say these are some great items!! Check out the preview at EQ2Players.

Also, Frostfell is expected to appear in Norrath on December 10th.