Massively is giving away fifteen 30 day gold subscriptions to EQ2X. Check out the article at Massively.com and post a comment. Fifteen people will be randomly chosen to receive the 30 day gold subscriptions.
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The folks over at Massively.com have posted an interview with SmokeJumper. In it, he talks about F2P, comparisons to other MMOs, the possibility of a dungeon finder, and the class balance manifesto. Interesting read.
I remember several years ago preparing to raid Deathtoll.
The first thing I did was ride a cloud up on Bonemire and jump off at just the right spot so I could land on the floating island containing Arbiter Selek. But before I could talk to him, I had to speak Draconic. That’s right, first I had to do the quest Speak as a Dragon that started with a raid and then sent me all over Norrath looking for items.
This just in from SmokeJumper on the official forums:
We’ve solved some technical issues recently and we can now offer character slots for sale. (Something previously unavailable.)
So as of October 5th (Tuesday), character slots will be available for purchase in the marketplace.
Here’s a couple quick facts to answer obvious questions:
- Slots are permanent. You pay for them once and they stay on your account forever.
- You can purchase any number of character slots. There is no limit. You want 20, 30 or even a bajillion character slots? Go for it.
Regarding Station Access subscriptions:
- Character slots sold are *in addition to* any slots you are getting by being an SA subscriber. (Example: If you had 12 slots available as an SC subscriber and you purchase two more slots in the marketplace, you’ll now have 14 slots available.)
- If you cancel your SA subscription, and then buy slots to replace the slots you were getting, your characters *will* still be present in those purchased slots (they won’t get deleted during the swapover).
Character slots will be available in the in-game marketplace for 1000 SC each.
This also applies to EQ2 Extended as well.
SmokeJumper is looking for feedback on placing F2P marketplace items on the test server. He posted this on the official forums:
Hey, folks,
We don’t have a big enough population on the Test server to run two different Test servers (one for EQII Live and one for EQ2X), and we’d like to get your feedback on whether you think it’s appropriate for us to allow the EQ2X marketplace items to show up on Test.
Since the items are optional, it shouldn’t make much of a difference in your play style, but it would allow us to test them on a real server before they go Live.
Additionally, for anyone interested, they’d probably help leveling a bit, which is always somewhat of a hurdle on this lower-population server.
What do you think?
Thanks for your feedback.
Commentary:
I personally agree with many of the other posters that have already replied who think this would work much better if done on Test Copy. Test Copy gets wiped periodically anyway and gives unlimited station cash. This would seem to be the perfect place to “test” marketplace items.
EQ2X is no longer in beta. From the ashes of the EQ2 Live servers comes the newly launched F2P server. At least that’s what seems to be implied by the free “Staff of the Rising Phoenix” available for a limited time on the EQ2X server. From Everquest2.com:
It’s official! SOE has removed BETA from the logo and is proud to announce the official launch of EverQuest II Extended.
To celebrate the launch, EQ2X players can claim their free Staff of the Rising Phoenix from the in-game Marketplace on the Freeport server. The staff is an appearance-only item, depicting a phoenix engulfed in glowing flames, and will be available for a limited time only, so be sure to claim yours before 11:59 pm PDT on Sunday, October 3rd.
Read the full article at Everquest2.com.
First off, my appologies for taking so long to post this information but it took me until a few hours ago to understand what was actually going on. It’s been a bit confusing. Here’s what’s happening.
In celebration of Oktoberfest, the EverQuest II Community Team will be hosting in-game parties in the Community Lounge. Come socialize, dance, have pillow fights, drink, and be merry. You’ll also be able to tip the barkeeps for some special trinkets!
The international servers Valor, Innovation, Storms, and Sebilis had their parties last week. The US/UK/Extended servers are having parties, but nobody from the Everquest II Community Team is going to show up. Instead, they are having four parties on the Test Copy server which will be attended by members of the Everquest II Community Team (one was last night):
When it’s time for the party to start, we’ll drop a portal near the carpet at the docks in Sinking Sands. Just look for the glowing spot, click, and you’ll be ported right to the Community Lounge.
Again, sorry this info is so late. It didn’t become clear to me what the real details were until this post from Amnerys:
First party on Test Copy server was a lot of fun! And all the portals are up on the US servers. Just going to drop them on the UK servers here in a few, and that’ll be tonight’s festivities.
None of us will be present in the lounges this evening. To hang with us, you gotta join us on Test Copy. Once the Test Copy parties have wrapped, the lounges will be open on the US/UK servers for around 6 hours.
We decided to try it this way this time around, since there are so many servers… it takes over three weeks to visit every single server for their own party. Phew! We’ll evaluate afterward and see if it’s something we want to do again.
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Here are your update notes for 28 September 2010 (since we cover EQII Live and EQ2X, the link is to the EQ2X forums where the full update notes are posted):
EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED
- Going to Battlegrounds on EQ2 Extended should no longer cause your items to set to 1c sell value.
UNDERFOOT DEPTHS
- There is now a new respawn location right by the entrance to the Underfoot Seal chamber where Master Yael spawns. In order to activate this new respawn location, players will need to defeat fire elemental encounter “Saalax” before it can be accessed.
Search Engine Rankings
Internet search engines use many different methods to rank the results of searches. One method of choosing which page to show first is by counting up the incoming links from other sites. The theory is that the more sites that are linking to a given page, the more likely it is to be useful. But what if you just want to show ads on your site and trick people into visiting? How to you get a higher ranking in the search engines? One method is to use programs that go out and post comments on websites that include links to your site. Then when the site is indexed by the search engines, they will see these links back to your site which will increase its ranking.
EQ2Wire Spam Comments
EQ2Wire.com receives its fair share of spam comments that are automatically marked as spam by the filters in place (over twenty thousand and counting). Some of them though are worded in such a way as to make it through the filters. These are the ones that the moderators here at EQ2Wire have to read through and approve or mark as spam manually. It’s usually fairly easy to tell the spam from the actual comments, especially when you look at the sites in the links. In the six months or so that I’ve been here at EQ2Wire, there have been a few that have caught my eye. Here are some highlights for your amusement from the 120+ from September 2010 after the break (links have been removed from the original pieces o’ spam.):
Remember that contest that SOE held prior to Fan Faire? The one where the winners would get a Bloggie camera to record things? Well SOE has announced the winners and uploaded their footage to YouTube. Details and links after the break.
Domino posted this heads up for the test update notes on the official forums. This is scheduled to go live with GU58:
The fuel that I’ve made since joining the team has had more standard names that I hoped would give some direction as to the level range, but the old fuel names were not easy to guess the appropriate level from the name. Although I realize it’s going to require some work updating notes, web sites, and habit, I think it’s worth while in the end to rename the fuel to a standard so that it all uses the same adjective.
Consequently, if all goes well this afternoon, by this evening on Test server you should see all the tradeskilled fuel convert to using the name of the imbued material for that level range (and the level 1-9 fuel is called “basic” so it will be listed right at the top of the list). Example names: glowing candle, glowing coal, glowing kindling, lambent candle, lambent incense, luminous candle, luminous coal. The examine descriptions on the fuel have also been standardize to say the level range they are used in. Nothing else has changed about the fuel, prices etc. are all the same, and if you have any fuel in your inventory it will simply be automatically renamed when the update hits. I hope that overall this will solve more confusion than it causes, but if you come across any NPC dialog or quest text that specifically references the name of a fuel that no longer exists, please do /bug it or post here so I can get that changed.
The fine folks over at Zam have recently published several really nice guides to make your life in Norrath a bit more pleasant:
Stop in and take a look when you have a chance. They’re doing great things over there. 
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Here are your update notes for 21 September 2010:
ITEMS
- Torrent and Pestilential Rain no longer gain damage from attributes.
PALACE OF ROEHN THEER
Roehn Theer will now lock you into your rune choice should you lower his health below 75%.
Everquest 2 is holding a forum challenge for Oktoberfest! An in-game screenshot, modified in-game screenshot, or artwork of your character celebrating Oktoberfest should be submitted by Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 10:00 am PDT. First place submissions will be made into in-game paintings and will also receive the Commemorative Trophy. Honorable mentions will receive the Commemorative Trophy.
Full details after the break:
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Here are your update notes for 15 September 2010:
GENERAL
- Fixed a bug causing some zones to not be available for zoning.
- Fixed a bug were Experts and Masters of the previous tier could be automatically overwritten in your hotbar by an Apprentice spell.
TRAVEL
- The Stonebrunt temporal pathfinder will now properly zone you into Sundered Frontier instead of leaving you high and dry in the middle of the sky.
ITEMS
Ykeshan Spellbears and Warbears can be used below level 80 and no longer can be combined below level 80.
The 9/14 patch notes contained the following note:
Fixed a bug with and re-enabled new spells replacing old spells in the hotbar if the new spell is more powerful.
Apparently, there was more than one bug. There are reports that it is now replacing the existing spells regardless of whether they are more powerful or not. The good news is that they also snuck in a flag to turn it off. Rothgar posted this on the official forums:
We are looking into the issue, it shouldn’t be replacing more powerful spells with weaker ones.
In the meantime, you have the ability to turn it off right now if you place the following line in your INI file.
replace_spells_on_hotbar false
We will be exposing this option to the Options window soon.
So add that line into your eq2.ini file in your game directory (or create it if it doesn’t exist) and you should be good to go.
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Some people trying to load the game after this morning’s update have been experiencing DirectX errors. Rothgar has posted a temporary fix for this on the official forums and says that an updated file should be pushed to the patcher soon:
After this morning’s hotfix we’ve had reports of a few different issues. So far, the issues that we’ve tracked down are related to an upgrade that we performed internally to bring our development environment up to a newer version.
Some players have reported a DirectX error when launching the game client. This appears to be caused by systems that have not been updated to DirectX 9.0c. If run into this problem, please download the latest DirectX 9.0 installer from Microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/…;displaylang=en
You may also have noticed that some zone junctions don’t appear to be working properly. We’ve found the source of this problem and it will require a hotfix to correct it. We’ve already fixed it internally and are planning on a hotfix Wednesday morning to take care of it.
If you experience any other issues after today that seem to be new problems, please let me know and we will look into them right away.
Thanks!
Update from Rothgar:
Just an update, we will have a fix for the missing DX9 dll later today. This update will not require server downtime and will be fixed automatically when you run the patcher.
Here are your update notes for 14 September 2010 after the break:
Read More»
Here are your update notes for Wednesday, 8 September 2010:
EVERQUEST II EXTENDED
- Fixed a bug causing Platinum subscribers to not be able to use the shared bank.
USER INTERFACE
- Fixed a bug that would cause your AA slider to reset to 50% upon zoning.
- Sort by current zone for the quest journal now properly puts the current zone quests at the top of the list.
- We have disabled the spells from replacing old ones in the hotbar until we can track down a bug regarding it.
SHADER 3.0
- Fixed an issue causing parts of some structures in Halas to show as wireframe.
ITEMS
- Torque of the War Blade and Ring of the Vice Vigoth now have resists added to their stats.
- Runic Deflection on Band of Mreeptahp’s Fury now correctly wards your target.
STONEBRUNT HIGHLANDS
- The King Speleothem multi-stage event in Stonebrunt Highlands should now be fixed. Player should now be able to progress through the stages and fight the end boss.
UNDERFOOT DEPTHS
- Zaalax, Xaalax, Saalax and Yaalax : Seismic shock should strike the correct targets named by Zaalax.
Today marks the end of not only a very lucrative Double XP weekend for both my tradeskillers and adventurers, but also the close of the Neriak City Festival in Darklight Wood.
A selection of paintings from Notable Norrathians and the Heroes Festival.
A key addition to the City Festival were the Notable Norrathians player-submitted in-game paintings. If you have not yet looked at or bought any of these paintings, take your City Tokens to Darklight Wood (druid ring or run from Nektulos Forest). These paintings can be placed in your house or guild hall, and do not have the status cost and guild level requirements of the 5th anniversary Heroes Festival paintings.
Double XP weekend concludes at 10:00am PDT (1:00pm EDT, 19:00 GMT+1).
City Festival concludes on 2010.09.07 at Midnight PDT (2010.09.08 3:00am EDT, 2010.09.08 9:00 GMT+1).
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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.
Update: Xelgad just posted this on the official forums:
As stated earlier in this thread, we’re taking our time with this change. It is looking like it is going to wait all the way until the expansion, and we’ll have the expansion beta to test the changes. Of course, we’ll still be looking into Sentinel’s Fate content, gear and alternate advancements in conjunction with the fix.
