Fr0m SmokeJumper in a thread titled Are you good enough (and crazy enough) to work here?:

We’ve had a lot of luck in the past with hiring from our player community, so we’re giving it a go again with two new positions.

• We have an opening on our environment team for an artist that’s great with Maya and Photoshop and has the desire to help build Norrath, one poly at a time. http://tbe.taleo.net/NA12/ats/caree…=1&rid=3605
• We’re also making a change in the Tradeskill area and we’re looking to hire outside the company and bring in some fresh ideas. Can you be passionate *and* logical about Tradesklling? If so, then http://tbe.taleo.net/NA12/ats/caree…=1&rid=3606

Please be sure to read any job requirements before applying and if you do apply…then thanks for your desire to help us build your world!

EQ2Wire wants to know…

• So how many AAs or Levels have you earned this weekend?

• Are you focusing on Tinkerfest?

• Are you checking out Game Update 61 on the Test servers?

Hot off the presses, er patcher, here are the Game Update 61: The War of Zek Update Notes from the Test Patcher. Game Update 61 is expected to reach the Live servers near the end of August.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”

PLANE OF WAR

The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders and rocks as a massive planar portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of war echo through its halls as the God of War himself prepares his innumerable armies to march across the frozen face of Velious and seize control of the lands of Norrath for all eternity.

The Plane of War is a normal and challenge mode raid.

Elements of War is a normal and challenge mode heroic experience.

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Bunji dropped the news that Game Update 61 is hitting Test today:

We plan to push the current GU61 content to Test tomorrow morning.

GU61 (or most of it) is scheduled to hit Test around 7-8am PST tomorrow morning, 7/28.

What’s in Game Update 61?

• Dynamic Dungeon: Silent City [60~90]
• Dynamic Dungeon: Djinn Master’s Prism [60~90]
• Plane of War: heroic dungeon (normal and challenge)
• Plane of War: x4 raid (normal and challenge)
• Reitemize Level 20-90 dropped, quested, and crafted Items
• Alternate Advancement (AA) Revamp, especially Subclass (Monk, Templar, Paladin, etc.) tree.
• Tradeskill AAs [25 pts]
• House Rating System
• Dungeon Finder – Dungeons of any level, same-server only
• Fae/Arasai Flying
• New content in Eastern Wastes
• Beastlord Prelude Event for Good or Evil (Exile may choose one)
• Velious Signature Quest continues

The disclaimer above makes it clear that not all of Game Update 61 will be on Test today, but we’re anxious nonetheless. Read more about Game Update 61 in the Fan Faire EQ2 Panel.

Note: The Freeport Revamp, Tradeskill Apprentices, Item Reforging, Mercenaries, Design Your Own Dungeon, Beastlord Class, etc. are all part of the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion to be released this November.

Despite their having hardly left the drawing board, players have drawn some conclusions about the upcoming Design Your Own Dungeon feature, based on how similar features have been implemented, and how they’ve fared–mostly unsuccessfully–in other games. Speculation, as they say, has been rampant.

However Rothgar isn’t willing to yield the “DYOD will be abandoned just like Arenas” ground just yet. From the EQ2 Forums:

The arena argument doesn’t work, sorry. You can also play arenas using your normal characters and people don’t do that anymore either. There are several other reasons why arena’s didn’t work, but that’s a discussion for another thread. If it were simply because of the avatar system, people would still be playing them with their own characters, but they aren’t.

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Here’s our sixth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Mechanics”.

If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #5 – Mechanics writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

From EverQuest2.com:

This coming weekend, from 12:01 am PDT on Friday, July 29, until 11:59 pm PDT on Sunday, July 31, we will be running a true Double XP promotion (+100% XP). Take advantage of these three days and watch those XP bars fill up!

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!

Double XP Weekend Dates and Times:

• Friday, July 29th 12:01am PDT ~ Sunday, July 31st 11:59pm PDT
• Friday, July 29th 3:01am EDT ~ Monday, August 1st 2:59am EDT
• Friday, July 29th 8:01am BST ~ Monday, August 1st 7:59am BST
• Friday, July 29th 9:01am CET ~ Monday, August 1st 8:59am CET

If you have been hoping for an empty lot to build a house from the ground up, that moment has finally arrived, with the Tenebrous Tangle Island Refuge! She’s not much of a looker unadorned, but with a soft item limit of 800, and a hard limit of 1,100 items with both expanders, it will be interesting to see what players come up with. Although there’s been nothing official, we suspect that the Felwithe Mansion will land in the next week or two.

From EverQuest2.com:

Ready to move on up? The Tenebrous Island Refuge lets you live on your own private island in the skies. A tiny island hovers above and provides a beautiful little waterfall into your own private pond. The grounds are lush and ready for you to build on! It’s rent-free, but remember that adventurers may only own one Tenebrous Island Refuge per character. Pick up your Deed of Ownership today for 1350 SC on the Marketplace.

Today’s July 27, 2011 update notes address issues with the Spires and Dragon Ring Events on those servers where the events are still running. This update does not yet include a fix for servers that have already completed the events and those affected players who were present but didn’t get credit due to crashes, not having the right quest, or their mob despawning.

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Niami Denmother has turned in another entertaining preview of this year’s Tinkerfest Event. More recipes, more quests, and more house items adorn this perennial favorite. Check out her writeup at EQ2Traders.

Tinkerfest 2011 runs July 29th through August 8th.

From the EQ2 Forums:

This week on the Jethal Silverwing Show.. Jethal and Elquin either have the show of their dreams, or get their accounts banned for life, as they are joined by Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley!  Do YOU have a question for The Smed? Leave your question Here and we’ll make sure to get the answer you’re lookin for!

Tuesdays at 10pm Eastern, 7pm Pacific
As Always, Join us IN GAME by typing /join antonia_bayle.ogr

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As borne out in several different threads on the EQ2 Forums, starting with the original Dragon Ring and Wizard Spire Event Feedback Testing thread created on May 15th, all has not gone smoothly during the Spires and Dragon Ring Events. These events are still running on most servers, although the lucrative Spires event has been completed on many. So what were the biggest problems? Let’s spell them out and address them one by one.

Dragon Ring: Hiding A Serious Raid Mob?

Once our server (Butcherblock) reached 99% Spires completion, we got a 10 minute warning that something big was coming. For us, this coincided with the regular hourly Spires event, so we got to fight the regular “x4″ event, and then the final “super x4″ a few minutes later. This new epic x4 boss Ulbrow, nicknamed the Unibrow, appears, along with all of the previous bosses of the x2 and x4 epic stages of the Spires, all at once. There wasn’t anything too tough about this event other than server lag, players crashing to desktop, and knockbacks. Ultimately, we killed the encounter without too much difficulty.

What took many people by surprise is the final stage of the Dragon Ring…

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Here are your update notes for July 26, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug that would cause /camp login to sometimes go to character select even if a character was given.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Sullon’s Spire and Tallon’s Stronghold x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode)

• Several of the encounters in these zones have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards.

QUESTS

Heritage

• It should no longer be possible to create a situation where the Head Usher in the Tower of Frozen Shadow cannot be spawned for the Skinning Knife subquest Unhappily Ever After.

The Fanged Sea

• The valkyrie event in The Fanged Sea can once again be completed.

LIVE EVENTS

Dragon Ring Rebuild Event

• Kreegar Krikneck should no longer require challenge mode debuffs to complete the encounter.
• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

Wizard Spire Rebuild Event

• Attacking NPCs should no longer despawn while in combat.

Here’s our fifth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “Programming for MMOs”.

If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our Geek Panel: Programming for MMOs writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

EverQuest2.com has taken a moment to recognize the MMO and EQ2 Fan Sites which were on the ground covering this year’s 2011 SOE Fan Faire. EQ2Wire.com covered all 7 EQ2-specific panels, plus the MMO ‘Geek’ Panel with EQ2 devs. Coverage of the rest of Fan Faire, including live webcasts, podcasts, the Tournaments, Live Events, and the Costume Contest were covered by a variety of websites.

If you missed Fan Faire this year, we’ve got you covered. Because EQII has the best fansites and podcasts around, we have a ton of links to share with you, both from our in-game media friends, and some bigger gaming media sites who joined us for the weekend.

It’s been just over a week since we were all in Vegas, celebrating our favorite games, getting down to the nitty gritty with the Dev Teams, and meeting our fellow players from all over the world. Though some of the news is still pouring in, here’s everything we could find so far.

We’ve also got a place you can share your photos! (Thanks to Cyliena for starting the thread.)

Visit EverQuest2.com.

Here’s our fourth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Questions and Answers #1″.

If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #4 – Questions and Answers #1 writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

Here’s our third video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Tradeskills and Housing”.

If you’d like to view the Slides from this panel in higher quality, check out the updated EQ2 Panel #3 – Tradeskills and Housing writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

We’ll be back tomorrow with a post-game analysis of the Spires and Dragon Ring live events which are now complete on many servers. But in the meantime, here’s a response from EQ2 Associate Producer Domino on the EQ2 Forums:

Hi folks

The first servers have completed both events, congratulations! And as you’re aware, there were a number of unintended issues that occurred. We’re sorry that this event didn’t run as smoothly as we would have liked, and apologize for your understandable frustration. We didn’t want to postpone this anticipated event any further, especially as we had already planned another bonus event for next weekend (more details to come next week), but this did mean we weren’t able to fix some bugs before they affected you.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we’re watching the events closely this weekend and will be meeting up on Monday to discuss the best way to address the issues that have come up. We won’t have full details to share until we’ve had that discussion; however, we are definitely aware that a number of people did not get to update some of the quests, and we want to reassure you that we’ll be doing everything we can to ensure that nobody who participated misses out on those updates.

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Butcherblock x4 Spires Raid

Just over 17 hours after the Spires and Dragon Ring Rebuilding events were restarted on all servers, the Freeport (EQ2X) server has now completed their Wizard Spire rebuilding. These overachievers now turn their attention to rebuilding their Dragon Ring (already at 69% completion). Not that it’s a competition, but the presumed frontrunner Antonia Bayle server is currently at 97% completion on their Spires.

Domino was surprised at the pace of this Live Event:

Looks like the first servers are likely to finish the first rebuilding event today (my goodness, some of you are working hard!)

If you’ve had it with mobs ‘warping’ around during fights due to the 5 meter melee range changes introduced with Destiny of Velious and recent attempts to fix it, there’s a thread for that. While I was initially happy to see the minimum melee range on mobs changed from 2 to 5 meters, allowing me to use all my ranged combat arts at melee range, the downside to this sweeping change quickly became apparent.

Mobs started dancing around, unable to attack me. Later fixes to try to eliminate the dancing effect made mobs more likely to warp around. With each ‘fix’, it has become harder and harder for tanks to control mobs, park them where they need to be, and keep them positioned correctly during fights. Since Velious was launched, tanking, especially large mobs like Dragons, Giants, etc. is downright unpleasant.

When this issue was raised at Fan Faire, it was initially dismissed as a case of Client or Server Lag. However we have watched this problem start with the change in melee range and grow progressively worse as attempts have been made to fix it. My recommendation is to roll back all of these changes and reduce the minimum range on all ranged combat arts to 2 meters. This would allow Tanks to position mobs without having to run around entire rooms, it would get rid of ‘dancing’ and ‘warping’ mobs, and it would bring Scouts what we’ve been wanting for a long time, not having to ‘kite’ to do DPS.

Submit your Comments on Mob ‘Warping’ on the EQ2 Forums

The Spires and Dragon Ring Rebuilding events have relaunched, albeit reluctantly on some servers. For servers that had already surpassed 50% progress when the event was taken offline last week (Antonia Bayle and Freeport had reached 99%), they were rolled back to 50% to give other players on the server a chance to complete it. But it looks like this week’s changes to the events may not have done enough. After 12 hours, Antonia Bayle has already reached 69% completion on Spires.

So what changes were made to these events while they were offline?

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When SmokeJumper unveiled Build Your Own Dungeon at Fan Faire, it took the audience about 0.3 seconds to notice that a key item on the announcement Slide: Players would drive Adventurers or avatars through these Player-built Dungeons, rather than playing their own characters.

From the look on SmokeJumper’s face when he read this line, the collective unrest from the audience was not unexpected. Since the announcement, there has been plenty of discussion on the EQ2 Forums foretelling the feature’s doom, using the abandoned Arena system as an example. Players want to play their own characters in DYOD designed dungeons, but the EQ2 team have expressed trepidation about balance.

Rothgar went into further detail on Friday with the team’s thinking on why Adventurers, which you will pick up and ‘collect’ via quests, rather than player’s own characters will be used in DYOD:

There are several reasons why we chose to use avatars rather than your actual character. And of course, everyone won’t agree with these ideas.

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From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums:

The event will be turned back on Friday at 5pm PDT.

That’s 8pm EDT, 01:00 BST, 02:00 CET.

As previously stated, the events will be reset back to 50% complete per server if they’d reached that point. We’re hoping that the event will run for a few days at least so that players get a chance to participate. While the event is running, there are different quests and events to acquire tokens. Once the event concludes, I believe the only way to get tokens between then and Game Update 61 will be a handful of ground spawn harvests.

Those guilds which had participated in epic encounters near the end of this event but couldn’t complete it due to a bug in the encounter got this news from Gninja:

Unfortunately we won’t be able to give retroactive updates. Since the encounter never actually completed we can’t give credit for the kill. We did however roll back the progress on most servers to give ample time for players to take part in the event. The event will not go by as fast as it did before so players should get a chance to participate.

If you happen to not be able to, the event merchants will stick around until GU61 and they will have the teleportation bauble as well as the title on them as purchasable. The only thing you will miss out on is the extra tokens when you completed the last quest.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Hmmm…Valor didn’t go off as planned and we got a hitch in our plans for the other US servers. But the upgrades are still coming!

Valor should be upgraded next week (in other words, before the end of July).

We’re still getting info back from the hardware folks for the remaining US server upgrades, but it shouldn’t be too long after that. More info soon.

Today’s update changs the flag on the new Incandescent Swiftwing (Phoenix Gryphon) to HEIRLOOM, restores the ability to switch accounts without completely closing the EQ2 client (previously ProfitUI users had been using /camp) with a new command /camp login, as well as a couple of other fixes in Zek and Drunder.

From the EQ2 Update Notes:

GENERAL

You can now use “/camp login” to get back to the client login screen.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Rallos Zek [Challenge]

• The Idol of Rallos Zek’s falling debris should work normally now.

ITEMS

• The Heirloom tag has been removed from a few crafted Drunder weapons.

• The Incandescent Swiftwing is now flagged as heirloom.

QUESTS
Tower of Tactics

• The Art of War: It should no longer be possible for one of Vallon’s maps to spawn in a ledge in Lady V’uul’s room that is inaccessible.