After people started wondering where oh where has the Shady Swashbuckler gone, Gninja had this to say on the EQ2Forums:
Shady is currently permakilled for an exploit he will be returning tomorrow after the update. Sorry for not letting you guys know.
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This just in from Smokejumper on the EQ2 Forums:
There are a number of things that we’re going to revisit on items:
a) The green stats matter. Progression of green stats will be attended to in the new pass.
b) There will be more variability between the value of stats on items. This was removed erroneously at the last minute. It will be returned. (Getting rid of the “all items have +29 STR on them in the same zone” effect.) There will be more “min/max-ability” on the items.
c) The dev team will be playing a lot over the weekend to assess item strength in the earlier zones. (Complaints we see are that low-leveled items are now overpowered.) Those zones had such outdated itemization previously that players are now seeing a huge increase in power in drops…we *think* at least partially because the items have been changed to be actually useful now. However, we’ll be assessing this over the weekend and then meeting first thing next week to discuss what will be done, if it’s out of adjustment.
NOTE: The items a, b, and c above will not affect the discussion of the balance of power between raids and the new heroic content. (Although “a” will have some affect on that.) That’s a separate discussion mostly.
ALSO PLEASE NOTE: These items will go to Test first. They are likely to be on Test before the end of the week (possibly even tomorrow). We *will* be listening to comments about them on the “In Testing” forum and responding to comments. Please *do* post if you test on that server.
From the EQ2 Forums:
GENERAL
- Fixed an issue with Guild Halls.
- Fixed an issue causing the streaming client to use old assets.
- Fixed an issue which could cause the streaming client to crash on startup.
- Fixed a disconnect bug where some characters would get dropped to character select upon login.
Players will now be prompted for a one-time, free item unattuning:
- If you answer yes, all items will be immediately unattuned. Any equipped items will be popped into overflow.
- If you answer no, items will not be unattuned and you will not be asked again.
I could write 50,000 words about the disappointing Game Update 61, with referenced links to the nearly 100 forum discussions about its flaws, plus countless player and developer quotes. But what difference would it make?
Despite a 2-day delay, and despite pushback from both Developers and Testers warning that the update still needed weeks, possibly a month of work to meet any reasonable measurement of build quality, Game Update 61 was released Thursday, August 25th.
It was clear on Monday the 22nd that there was no way the Reitemization of EQ2 would be completed in time for Game Update 61’s launch. Not only were thousands of items still in a bugged or unusable state on the Test server, but the scope of the project seemingly kept growing. Despite the incredible time pressure of trying to re-do 50,000 items in a span of 2 months, the project grew as the release deadline loomed. We were more alarmed than impressed by news that Sentinel’s Fate had been added to the already overwhelming slate.
Double XP Weekend
Although it wasn’t included in the announcement of the Back to School Bonanza Double StationCash e-mail blast, visitors to the SOE.com website discovered that in addition to Double StationCash, EQ2 players can expect Double XP through the duration of the event.
The EverQuest II Double XP weekend should last during these times:
Due to the widespread changes to Itemization in Game Update 61 for level20-90 items (including both Sentinel’s Fate and Velious items which were rushed for inclusion), a complementary Global Unattune was provided.
This was supposed to include every item including Equipment, Appearance, Inventory (bags), and your Bank. However this did not quite work out that way, at least not permanently. Players have discovered that when they login for the first time, most or all of their items are Unattuned, but if they log out that character and log back in, all Bank items get Reattuned. Why?
Rothgar explains:
The issue is that there’s an in-memory representation of an item and a database representation of the item. The bug lies somewhere between the in-memory item getting unattuned but the database update is failing. Unless you do something to force the item to be saved, which doesn’t happen unless you modify an item (damage/repair, use a charge, etc) then the item [won't stay unattuned]
So when you login, the script is telling your computer that the items are unattuned in your Bank. But nobody’s telling the database server. So the next time you fetch your character, everything’s all attuned again. Clear as mud?
After weeks of testers reporting getting stuck in their Guild Halls, or being unable to zone into their Guild Halls, especially Tier 2 halls in South Qeynos, this bug went live with Game Update 61, and was not corrected with today’s update.
Your only recourse is to file a Petition with Customer Service with a status of “Stuck” and see if they will Reset your Guild Hall instance. Good luck!
From an e-mail I just received:
Back to School Bonanza
Double StationCash
and Double XP!!
September 2-5, 2011Purchase StationCash in-game, via your Station Account, or redeem an SOE Pre-Paid Game Card at http://www.soe.com/gamecards/ (between 12:01am PDT Sept 2, 2011 and 11:59pm PDT September 5, 2011) to get Double StationCash. EverQuest II players also get Double XP during this weekend.
Purchases made via SMS are excluded from the promotion.
The first Flying Squirrel mount, first premiered at Fan Faire, has been introduced to EverQuest II. It’s been added to the StationCash Marketplace for 1950SC ($19.50 or $6.50 if you stocked up during a triple SC weekend). Despite the name, the Flying Squirrel is a glider and thus available at level 60. We presume that there will be other color choices in the future, perhaps a darker brown, red, or even silver.
According to Tom “ttobey” Tobey, this mount was modeled by Steve Merghart and animated by Chris Myers.
After the jump, a bit less fanciful screenshot of the Brown Tree Glider mount.
Here are your Update Notes for today, August 26, 2011. The US update will be at 7:00am PDT and last approximately 1 hour. That’s 10:00am EDT, 15:00 BST, 16:00 CET. The EU update will be at 5:00am PDT (13:00 BST or 14:00 CET) and last 2 hours.
From the EQ2 Patcher Notes:
GENERAL
- Due to an issue with GU61, all characters will have their items unattuned and adornments on equipped gear refunded once again. In addition, all AA trees should reset upon login.
- The LoN prestige house Residence of the Blades no longer gets confused if you own an Everfrost Summer Home also.
The complete notes after the jump…
Apparently, two additional days wasn’t adequate to fully test everything coming in with GU61. Who could have guessed? There are reports that gear is randomly re-attuning itself when you zone or log off. There is also some strangeness going on with AAs. Rothgar has posted this on the official forums:
We will be hotifixing this bug tomorrow. The downside is that all of your items will become unattuned again and we will refund adornments applied to any equipped gear.
After this runs tomorrow, the items should remain unattuned until you decide to attune them again.
Tomorrow’s hotfix will also include a fix for the AA trees not resetting properly or resetting at incorrect times.
Smokejumper has also chimed in on the issue:
Tomorrow’s hotfix will reset *all* AAs as originally planned. If you reassign AA points today, they will be reset again tomorrow, so feel free to experiment with settings today. You’ll get to reassign them again tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s hotfix will also properly unattune *all* items, even the ones in your bank. So you’ll need to reattune and empty out your overflow again tomorrow.
So I wouldn’t bother going through all your toons and making sure everything is set just right since tomorrow you’ll be thinking it’s GROUNDHOG DAY!
Note that the trailer mentions the Dungeon Finder which is not currently available. When the Dungeon Finder goes live, it will be specific to each server/realm at first, and won’t be cross-server, which may take months/years to implement.
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From SmokeJumper on the EQ2X Forums:
We’re going multi-pronged on this.
1) We’re spending money again on ads. You should start seeing banner ads.
2) We’re doing a winback campaign to reactivate interest with old players after Dungeon Finder rolls out, and pushing even harder when Freeport and the Age of Discovery launch later this year.
3) We added the video recording feature so that word spreads organically as you post any videos you think are interesting.
There’s more than this planned, but these are a few of the things that should be most effective.
To record a YouTube video, the default key is Ctrl-PrintScrn. Some players have reported error messages which may get fixed in today’s Hotfix. Note that this is not intended to take the place of FRAPS or other screen recording software for more advanced users. It’s a feature allowing anyone to record and post a video of EQ2 online.
Rothgar has encouraged players to post their videos of EQ2 in this thread on the EQ2 Forums.
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If you’ve ever wondered why EU patches and Game Updates always seem to take twice as long as US ones, you’re not alone. We’ve never been able to understand why the files aren’t sent earlier, or some steps taken ahead of time to make the update more quickly. Apparently there is some work being done.
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:
The international team has developed a way to parallel process some of the update in the future, so we should hopefully see an update speed increase for non-US servers.
Taylen of Splitpaw asked:
Does that mean we would go live at the same time, or just our down time would be shorter?
which elicited this response from SmokeJumper:
Down time shorter with the eventual objective of simultaneous.
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When one creates a character in EQ2, even for the sole purpose of tradeskilling, they must first select an Adventure class. There are a surprising number of characters out there which are max level Tradeskillers who have explored and completed every Tradeskill aspect EQ2 has to offer. Later on, they realize that they may have chosen their Adventure class hastily. These are not players who wish to respec their Adventure class and keep their AAs or quest discoveries (except Tradeskill-specific ones). Even though such a feature is intended for crafters, it would of course also be available to adventurers, but they must understand they would likely be reset to level 1 or 10, their completed and in-progress quests would be reset, and they would lose all AAs.
The request for Adventure Class Reset came up on the forums over a year ago, and the functionality actually briefly appeared on the Test server, with an NPC who could be hailed to instantly become an Inquisitor. This NPC was removed and since then, we haven’t heard much on the subject. Until today…
From Domino on the EQ2 Forums:
This hasn’t fallen off our radar, however we have a lot of big features for the upcoming expansion that do need to take priority. So as much as we’d like to, we can’t give you an exact date because this will depend on what other more urgent issues arise needing the attention of the team. We do still intend to make this happen, but it would be safest to say it won’t happen before the expansion. When we do have a better date estimate, we’ll make it known.
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After some issues with extended downtime (6 hours, but it took 3 hours for any explanation) on the EU servers, Game Update 61 has officially launched. From EverQuest2.com:
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 as a massive portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of battle 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.
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PC Gamer has landed a time-lapse video of SOE production artist Nate Temple conceptualizing the Raptor mount recently added to EQ2. He takes the raptor from a blank page to full color concept art which was then passed off to the 3D modeling and texturing team.
ZAM’s Cyliena, who has taken a larger role handling in-depth coverage of EQ2 and specifically Game Update 61, took a moment to appear on the Jethal Silverwing Show this week. She joined Jethal and Elquinjena to talk about EverQuest II’s Game Update 61 and more.
Download Jethal Silverwing Show for August 23, 2011 featuring Cyliena
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Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”
UPDATE NOTES
A GENERAL SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN GAME UPDATE 61:
After the jump, the full detailed Game Update 61 “War of Zek” Notes…
The War of Zek, or Game Update 61, will go live on Thursday, August 25, 2011. The US servers will be offline at the usual update time of 7:00 am PDT and are expected to be back online around 10:00 am PDT. UK worlds will be updated at 3:00 PM London Time. The estimated downtime will be 3 hours.
We will post the Game Update 61: Update Notes as soon as we have them.
One year ago, the EverQuest II Extended “Free-to-Play” service launched. In its wake, the EverQuest II Free Trial was unceremoniously discontinued. At Fan Faire, we learned that the Trial was coming back, and today it has.
Past trials have been very limited:
Unlike those past trials, this one is a full 14 days and allows starting in any of the four current starting cities, as well as providing players access to every expansion except Destiny of Velious.
So perhaps you’ve skipped a few quests, or clicked through the dialogue of yet another quest NPC standing between you and phat loots. Or you just haven’t gotten into the necessary groups or raids to experience the continuing storyline. Point is, there is an overarching storyline about the Swords of Destiny (the Qeynos Claymore and Lucan D’Lere’s Soulfire) that carries from Echoes of Faydwer. And leading up to Game Update 61, the EQ2 Lore designers have shared a comprehensive overview of what’s going on in case you missed it.
Check out the writeup at EverQuest2.com.
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Summoners, Enchanters, and Shamans have been curious at exactly how Shared Pet Stats work. Fortunately some details have been provided by Maevianiu on the EQ2 Forums:
NOTE: Any buffs that affect a group/raid do not transfer from the owner to the pet (that would be doubling up) but single target ones that grant the stats below should go to both the owner and the pet when cast on the owner.
The following stats are copied from the owner to the pet:
Attributes, potency, ability mod, crit bonus (pvp and pve), crit chance, toughness, doublecast chance (pve and pvp), ability casting speed, Ability Recovery Speed, Ability Reuse Speed, Spell Reuse Speed.
From Amnerys on the EQ2 Forums:
Hail, friends!
In order to make sure that Game Update 61: The War of Zek gets ample testing time, we will be launching this update on Thursday, August 25th.
We look forward to sharing the new features and content with you, and will have more specific information on the downtimes for the update later in the week.
Ready or Not, Game Update 61 is going live tomorrow, August 23rd, 2011 Thursday, August 25th, 2011.
