NOTE: Originally, Double XP was scheduled to run through January 2nd.  Apparently it’s now January 3rd.

From Isulith on the Official EQ2 Forums:

This coming weekend, from 12:01 AM PST on Friday, December 30th and ending at 11:59 PM PST on Tuesday, January 3rd, EverQuest II will be running a Double XP promotion (+100% XP). Take advantage of these four days and watch those XP bars fill up!

The bonus applies to AA, tradeskill, and adventure experience gained this weekend. Our French, German, Japanese and Test servers will also be enjoying the increase in XP gain.

Happy New Year and happy adventuring!

Time Zone Conversions

• PST: December 30 @ 12:01AM ~ January 3 @ 11:59PM
• EST: December 30 @ 3:01AM ~ January 4 @ 2:59AM
• GMT: December 30 @ 8:01 ~ January 4 @ 7:59
• CET: December 30 @ 9:01 ~ January 4 @ 8:59

News will be a bit light over the next few days, so we wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Whether you’re spending time with friends, family, or your in-game family, we hope you have a good holiday.

EQ2Wire has a huge year planned, including tackling the Dungeon Maker, delving further into Beastlords and Mercenaries, covering the new Velious content in February and May 2012, building a new site on the Data Feeds, and more.

Remember Double StationCash is still running through tomorrow and Double XP is December 30th to January 2nd. Frostfell runs through January 3rd.

Cartoon courtesy Bill Watterson

If you’ve been wondering just what percentage of StationCash is spent in EQ2 (and FreeRealms) on Mounts, vs. Appearance Armor, vs. other consumables, SOE has released a rare infographic laying out some of these details. We first picked up this story from Massively.

Also on Massively this week, Karen Bryan looks ahead to “phase two” of EQ2. Now that the Age of Discovery crunch time has passed, we are cautiously hopeful that the team can step back for a moment and take a look at the bigger issues in the game which are really holding it back. Basic mechanics like Pathing, Line of Sight, Stats Imbalances, Itemization, etc. have to be right before you can build on that foundation.

Here’s that infographic:

From the EQ2 Forums:

Frostfell has come to Norrath and we’d like to celebrate it with you!

Hang out with members of the EverQuest II Community Relations team on select servers during this merry Frostfell season! We will be greeting players and handing out festive goodies on the following servers:

• Oasis – Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 5:30 PM PST
• Unrest – Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 6:30 PM  PST
• Permafrost – Friday, December 23, 2011 at 4:30 PM  PST
• Butcherblock – Friday, December 23, 2011 at 5:30 PM  PST
• Guk – Friday, December 23, 2011 at 5:30 PM  PST

The servers chosen for this event are ones that did not have a Nights of the Dead party back in October.

Have a happy holiday – one and all!

UPDATE: On the servers not listed:

Yes, we’ll open the lounge for the other servers. Check for the portals in Sinking Sands!

Read More»

Test Update Notes from the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

• Mystic Guardian avatar for Dungeon Maker has had the zombie scare attack changed.

• Fixed an issue with avatar power consumption rates. (also on Live as of Dec 22nd)

MERCENARIES

• Ten new mercenaries can be found within the major cities of Norrath. This includes Freeport, Qeynos, Neriak, Gorowyn, New Halas, and Kelethin!

• Gaeri Tallspire [Warlock] and Firus Scorchtouch [Wizard] have returned to their normal hangout and can once again be hired! They have been rebalanced a bit to do less spike damage but in some cases might do more DPS on sustained battles! Gaeri is now more encounter based where as Firus is more single target based damage.

Read More»

Here are your Update Notes for December 21, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

• Fixed an issue with avatar power consumption rates.

QUESTS

Beastlord Epic

• Ralissk should now properly speak to beastlords on all steps of the quest “One Door Closes, Another Door Opens”.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Since the holidays are upon us, we wanted to drop you a note so you could plan.

We’ll be running Double XP days from Dec 30th through Jan 2nd 3rd!

This is way more advance notice than we usually give, but well…we’ll be celebrating the holidays too, so we wanted to tell you now.

Time Zone Conversions

Barring any unforeseen changes, the Double XP weekend would be:

• PST: December 30 @ 12:01AM ~ January 3 @ 11:59PM
• EST: December 30 @ 3:01AM ~ January 4 @ 2:59AM
• GMT: December 30 @ 8:01 ~ January 4 @ 7:59
• CET: December 30 @ 9:01 ~ January 4 @ 8:59

The following graphic appears on the EverQuest II launcher:

It looks like SOE is going to double the value of any Station Cash card redeemed between December 24 and December 27, 2011. These are only SOE Pre-Paid Game Cards available in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Time Zone Conversions

• PST: December 24 @ 12:01AM ~ December 27 11:59PM
• EST: December 24 @ 3:01AM ~ December 28 2:59AM
• GMT: December 24 @ 8:01 ~ December 28 7:59
• CET: December 24 @ 9:01 ~ December 28 8:59

Here are you last scheduled update notes for 2001, from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• You may now use the command “/republish_house” to update the name of your currently published dungeon or house.

• Note: The ability to update your currently published image using this command may not be functioning at the time of this update.

BEASTLORD

• The warder granted Primal “Silent Talon” is now level 30.

DUNGEON FINDER

• Adventuring in a DF group for 20 minutes will now grant you a reward once a day!

Read More»

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Merry Frostfell, Norrath!

The team is about to fly off to their families, great food, and probably a hangover after the new year.

But before we go, we wanted to leave you all with a couple more updates (today and tomorrow) with some really good stuff in it.

Here’s the goodies, broken down by feature.

Dungeon Finder

• We are adding Contested Dungeons to the Dungeon Finder feature from levels 20 to 89. (Level 90 contested dungeons are *not* being added to DF because of itemization concerns.) You should see a lot more dungeons available to you now at the various levels of play.
• (The following update is occurring on Wednesday, 12/21) We’re increasing the rewards for using the Dungeon Finder system. We’re adding a daily quest you can get that pays out after you play with a Dungeon Finder group for 30 minutes or more. The mystery crates are the same type of crates offered as rewards in the Dungeon Maker marketplace category, so the rewards found there are great stuff!

Read More»

Here are your Update Notes for December 20, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON / PLAYER HOUSING RATINGS

• The house and dungeon leaderboards have now been converted from the previous 5-star rating system to a new “Like” system.

• When visiting a house or completing a dungeon maker zone you now have the option to “Like” the zone in either of the two categories.

• The leaderboards are now based on the accumulation of likes.

• Awards continue to work as before and are given to the players at the top of the leaderboard.

Read More»

From EverQuest2.com:

Here is another opportunity to get a great deal on Station Cash!

Tomorrow will be the 8th day of SOE’s 12 Days of Holidays celebration! We’re happy to be able to give you double when you buy Station Cash anytime on December 20, 2011. Just buy Station Cash in-game, via your Station Account or redeem an SOE Pre-Paid Game Card and you’ll get Double Station Cash!

But hurry, this offer is only valid 12/20/11, from 12:01 AM PST to 11:59 PM PST!

Plus, don’t forget to login to participating games throughout the SOE 12 Days of Holidays to see what the daily special offer or activity is!

*Station Cash offer valid on 12/20/11, from 12:01 AM PST to 11:59 PM PST; excludes mobile/SMS purchases.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Starting in the next couple of days (on Test server only) you’ll be able to play any of your characters in a player-created Dungeon Maker instance.

This doesn’t invalidate playing as an Adventurer, but you can also play as your regular characters, regardless of level. (Well, okay, you still have to be at least level 20 to play a DM instance, but you can play any characters from 20-90.)

We have still code to create, but we’re excited enough about getting this to work that we’re putting it on Test over the holidays so that we can get your feedback on this cool new addition to Dungeon Maker.

Please play a bit on Test over the holidays, if you’re so inclined. We’re eager to get your feedback when we come back for 2012 so we can tear into it and make it great for you! This is going to be awesome. The creativity of this community is unparalleled, and if you can play your own characters in those dungeons, then the sky’s the limit!

Here’s a few bits of info about the feature as it is on Test:

• You still have to be level 20 to play in a Dungeon Maker dungeon, but any character that’s level 20+ can be used.

• You can *also* still play as an Adventurer if desired.

• For this test, player parties have to be composed entirely of either all Adventurers, or all regular player characters. Mixing of Adventurers and real characters is not currently allowed in this version.

• Dungeon Mark rewards are turned off while on Test. (Until we balance the feature further, we can’t reward Dungeon Marks.)

• This feature is not finalized. It’s on Test because we want your feedback on it so that we can then tune it to a finalized state after the New Year.

Enjoy! This will be coming to Live servers as soon as we can finish it up after the New Year!

and this note from Rothgar:

The dungeons scale to the group level. Currently this uses the same scaling code that we use in other scalable instances. We can tweak as necessary after some testing.

From RadarX on the EverQuest2 Facebook page:

To our valued Steam customers: We sincerely apologize that Station Cash purchased via Steam during our Triple Station Cash promotion today was not properly credited. We are working with Steam and want to ensure those affected that we will automatically credit the additional Station Cash earned during today’s promotion. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Customer Service via http://www.soe.com/en/support/. Thank you again for your patience and understanding. [RadarX]

From EverQuest2.com:

This offer is only valid on December 17, 2011!

Celebrate the holidays with Triple Station Cash for one day only! Buy Station Cash in-game, via your Station Account or redeem an SOE Pre-Paid Game Card and you’ll get Triple Station Cash!
But hurry, this offer ends December 17, 2011 at 11.59 pm PST!

Plus, don’t forget to login to participating games throughout the SOE 12 Days of Holidays to see what the daily special offer, sale or activity is!

*Station Cash offer valid on 12/17/11, from 12:01 AM PST to 11:59 PM PST; excludes mobile/SMS purchases.

Read More»

If you’ve still got a bitter taste after Goddess Erollisi Marr’s departure from the mortal world, don’t give up hope! There may yet be more more you can do…

Today opens a followup chapter to the Shard of Love and Erollisi Marr storyline. It takes you to a new version of the Shard of Love zone where many things have changed!

Seek out Aaronolis Swornlove in New Halas to get started on your journey and perhaps learn the truth of what happened to the Goddess of Love, Erollisi Marr!

Read More»

The Vox and Bazaar server merges have been rescheduled. From the EQ2 Forums:

We have an update for players on Vox, Nagafen, The Bazaar and Freeport servers! Originally, we had planned to start server merges on Friday, December 16, 2011. In order to minimize complications as much as possible, we have decided to delay the merges. Below is a schedule of the planned server merges:

• Vox will be going down on December 18, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST.
• Nagafen will go down on December 19, 2011 at 5:00 AM PST.
• The Bazaar and Freeport merge is scheduled for December 21, 2011 but we do not yet have an exact time for this.

The server merges will take approximately 24 hours to complete once they have started. We will of course update you as we get any more information and updates.

**Please note: the times *may* change, I will update you when we have more information!

Read More»

UPDATE #2 from Bunji approx 6 hours ago:

The US patchers have finished updating. If you repatch you should receive the updated files for this zone. The international patchers are still updating (they may not receive the updated files until their scheduled Hotfix times).

Read More»

Paying for your EQ2 subscription has gotten more flexible over the years, leading many to migrate from providing their credit info to SOE to using 30-day game cards. But before you make the jump, realize there are a few drawbacks to consider:

• First, month-to-month players don’t get the 500SC monthly stipend which is now given to all Gold subscribers.

• Second, to use the in-game Character Transfer Tokens require an account to be on a recurring subscription.
• UPDATE: You can /petition customer service to initiate a Character Transfer.

• Third, if perchance you forget to renew your subscription at the end of the month, instead of receiving e-mails warning you that your subscription is about to run out, you might wake up to find your account at Silver. It could take some time in e-mails, petitions, or on the phone to sort out the problem. We’ve only heard this from 2 players but it’s a potential problem.

• Fourth, prior to the Destiny of Velious release, a variety of rewards were made available to recurring subscribers. Players with 30-day cards eventually won those rewards back, but it didn’t happen overnight.

So if you are on the fence about using a credit card or 30-day cards, think about whether you want the hassle of entering a card number every month, or dealing with the above limitations.

We can only speculate on why month-to-month can be a problem for SOE over the traditional recurring subscription, but spammers, scammers, and farmers are always looking for avenues to separate players and their money through fraud.

From the EQ2 Forums:

UPDATE: Although not included in the notes, some of the Scout war runes have now been flagged to support Beastlords as per this post.

GENERAL

• All Membership levels may now claim Veteran rewards.

• Fixed a bug where expertise AAs would not load properly from a mirror.

• When using an AA mirror to switch profiles you will no longer be spammed with onscreen messages or having icons autopopulate into your hotbars.

• Fixed a bug where the character tree would not show in the respec window when attempting to purchase AA respecs.

PLAYER HOUSING

• Prestige house portals should no longer disappear when placed.

Read More»

A few bits and bobs we wanted to bring attention to…

Throwing Weapons

Cyliena took the lead on some random changes with Game Update 62 affecting a variety of thrown weapons (sheaths, pouches, bandoliers, and satchels) which use throwing daggers, shuriken, and other such ammo. Some items were flagged Beastlord-only, some flagged anything-but-Beastlord, and yet others flagged Fighter, Priest, and no Scouts at all.

After some communications with Rothgar and Silius, this is going to be ironed out in the next update:

Just a heads up I that I have fixed the thrown items. Should be live with the next hotfix. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Read More»

We promise we’re not late on posting this! The video appeared on Youtube on December 6th but it was not promoted on EQ2’s Facebook page until last night…

Note: Contrary to the video’s implication, you cannot tame elephants.

From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums:

As Olihin stated on the AoD launch webcast, I will be taking over the development of PVP in EQ2. Now that the dust of AoD’s launch has (mostly) settled, we can start working on what’s next for EQ2 PVP.

The ultimate goal here is to give all PVPers a sick update with GU63. I’ve read through most of your feedback on these forums (including this thread, all 25 pages of it ) and we plan to act on it. We’re in the plan iteration phase now, and I hope to start implimentation of the plan later this week or early next week.

So, what’s the plan? Details change, certain ideas may be altered, improved upon, or scrapped entirely. We’re not ready to discuss details just yet.

Changes and improvements are coming. Your feedback is appreciated, and your patience will be rewarded.

Read More»

From the EverQuest2 Facebook page:

The LaunchPad is not currently working! We apologize for the inconvenience and are trying to fix it as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience. [Isulith]

UPDATE: The Launchpad came back up after approximately 30 minutes.

From Domino on the EQ2 Forums:

For twelve days of Frostfell, we’re picking one top selling item per day and putting it on sale at a huge discount for that one day only.  The items will change over around 10-11am (pacific time) each morning from now until the 24th of December.  Be sure to check in each day to see what’s on sale.

And on the first day of Frostfell… pick up the beautiful original Pegasus mount for only 600SC!

Check out the “sale” tab in the marketplace to find it; only till tomorrow morning, so don’t miss it!  Watch this forum or log in each day to see the new sale items.