Artist Highlight – Stephanie Young

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing

EQ2Players has checked in with another great Artist Highlight, this time for Stephanie Young. One of my favorite parts of Sentinel’s Fate has been the zone artwork. It has taken everything to another level.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

How did you get started in the industry?

I started out as a graphic artist for a subcontractor to the Office of Naval Intelligence.  Gradually the company started incorporating more 3D simulations into the products we developed and I became the primary developer for the 3D assets used by the engineers.  Eventually though I found it difficult to “love” what I was creating in 3D.

So I decided to get more formal training at the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia so that I could pursue a career in 3D that created, shall I say, art depicting the happier side of life.  After school I landed a job in Lake Tahoe working under contract for a gaming company based in the UK.  It was there that I fell in love with environments both in game and out on the Tahoe Rim trail.  When that company folded I was offered a job here at SOE and I’ve been happily making environments ever since.

What are some of the other areas you’ve done the art for in EQII?

I created Sebilis, Charasis, and Befallen.

   

EQ2 Artist Profile: Tad Ehrlich

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Grouping

Tad Ehrlich is a lead artist on the EQ2 Development team. He was a major part of the creation of the zone art for the beautiful Vasty Deep zones. Some excerpts:

How did you get started in the industry?

I began in comic books and worked as a colorist for Wildstorm, Jim Lee’s comic book company. I was very fortunate to land in an industry that I was extremely passionate about and had amazing people to learn from. My experience there led to me starting as a texture artist at Midway. The rest is history!

What are some of the other areas you’ve done the art for in EQII?

The first instance I did was Nu’roga and then I did all the Guk instances for the last expansion.

Do you draw on elements from the other EverQuest games for EQII?

If the zone is based off a previous zone from Everquest 1 then I make sure to do some research. At the very least I’d like a player who comes in to the zone and has experience in the first Everquest to say “Hey!! I recognize that!!”

Check out the profile and interview with him at EQ2Players.

I’ve fallen into The Hole and can’t get up! (EQ2 Forums Contest)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing

Remember those awesome Player-made Paintings for the 5th anniversary of EverQuest II Timeless Heroes celebration? Brasse has put together a player contest on the EQ2 Forums to win a set of these house items!

The Challenge: We want your best screenshot of (and a brief description of the event) you falling to your death in The Hole. This is inspired by Brasse happily going splat many times in both EQ and EQII!

Deadline: Friday, March 12th 2010 at 10:00am PST
Submissions for this challenge will be accepted until Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 10:00 am US PST. Winners will be announced the week of March 15th.
Reward: The reward for this challenge is a set of the in-game paintings from the Timeless Heroes contest.

Check out this contest on the EQ2 Forums.

EQ2Wire Beta Tour of Sentinel’s Fate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance

EQ2Wire got an invitation to go on a tour of the Sentinel’s Fate Beta with the lovely Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, last month and we’re now able to post some screens and details of that tour. We were able to check out the hub city of Paineel, the sprawling open dungeon the Hole, the Vasty Deep Conservatory, and the Erudin Library.

EQ2_000097x EQ2_000059x

I believe the most stunning aspect and lasting appeal of Sentinel’s Fate will be the artwork.

EQ2_000494x The Shadow Odyssey artwork was not my favorite. I found the “void” look of purples, greys, and sharp edges just didn’t appeal to me. Also it seemed that many of the NPCs and monsters in these zones were not entirely new.

If you ask many players, I think they will tell you their favorite artwork in the game’s zones have been Kingdom of Sky and Pillars of Flame.

I think fans of that design will be thrilled to see Sentinel’s Fate make a return to the bright color palette and rich zone design of the past, while at the same time not simply recycling what we’ve seen before. The Conservatory is an eye-popping visual feast. As we saw at Fan Faire, the developers have been working hard to add completely new monster and NPC appearances.

One of my favorite parts of the Sentinel’s Fate zones I’ve seen so far is the influence of housing on zone design. Most dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate were laid out in a very “down to business” fashion. Long corridors full of monsters that need killing RIGHT NOW.

Sentinel’s Fate, as far as I have explored, seems to have a more “lived in” feel which I find very appealing.

Armor Appearances

This was not part of the Beta Tour, but we thought I’d throw in some screens of some of the armor I’ve seen in game. These are mostly the Raid armor sets from Sentinel’s Fate.

armor001x armor002x armor003x

Beta Tours Around the Interwebs

EQ2Wire is all about newsworthy rumors, scoops, announcements, and breaking news. But if you’d like to read a much more extensive Beta Tour, it’s worth checking out the Beta Tour at EQ2 ZAM by Calthine and Kain. Each of us have exclusive screen shots of Sentinel’s Fate.

Niami has also started to post her Beta Tour and Sentinel’s Fate Info. I know she has been working diligently to document all of the tradeskilling there is to see on the Sentinel’s Fate Beta and will continue to make EQTraders your one-stop shop for Tradeskill info.  Check out the screen snapshoty goodness Niami has posted so far at EQTraders.

City Festival Feb 1-7: Gorowyn

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance, Tradeskill

Last month, the first ever City Festival camped outside the Kelethin gates and provided a selection of both local and traveling rewards, house items, and temporary costumes (I want that Gi as a permanent item!!).

When it pulled up stakes, we had no idea where it would end up next. Early this morning we caught wind of the news that the traveling City Festival had arrived in Gorowyn. The theme for Gorowyn seems to be all things in a deep crimson. Here’s a sneak of what you can purchase with City Tokens for the next week, before the event rolls on to the next city.

cityfestival_gorowyn

While the City Festival is running, City Tokens can be earned for doing tradeskill and other tasks for the event hosts. City Tokens can also be earned any time just by doing City Writs.

If you are going to plan out your Guild Hall or house, there is no better place to lookup Furniture, House Items, etc. than EverSeek.com. Expect them to have the updated Gorowyn city fest items soon!

January 13 Hotfix — Magic Mirror

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance

Today’s hotfix notes bring news that your player appearances (including illusions) can now be set in-game using a Magic Mirror type tool. Update Notes from EQ2 Forums:

ITEMS

  • Appearance customization items have been changed! This affects these items:
    • – Shave and a Cut, Makeover (combined into the same item)
    • – Nalana’s All-Natural Cosmetic Balsam
  • When used, these items now open a window that allows you to customize your appearance in-game instead of returning to the character select screen.
  • In addition, Shave and a Cut and Nalana’s All-Natural Cosmetic Balsam now affect your current illusion if it is that of a player race (such as Erudite or Dark Elf). If an illusion is active, then the item will affect the appearance customization settings for that race. Once done, these will be saved and activated whenever you activate that illusion! In this way, you can create customizations for each of your player-race illusions!
  • You can now preview appearance backpacks in the dressing room.
  • Unequiping an item with a set bonus now cancels casting.

PVP

  • Signet of Devouring is now purchasable with tokens.

TRADESKILLS

  • Tinkered portable workstations can now be used from level 10 up.

Tumbling Down the (Rabbit) Hole

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News

A zone I have been anxious to get a look at is the contested “The Hole” which will encompass an area over twice the size of Sanctum of Scaleborn, and a level range from 82 all the way to 90. We are thrilled to present the first screen shots of this zone:

Around the web, others have posted new screen shots this evening including:

EQ2 Zam | EQ2 Traders | Ten Ton Hammer | MMOQuests | Shattered | MMORPG-Infokithicor.org | LoreLibrary | Archive of Ik | EQ2 Daily | TheBrasse.com | EverSeek.com

No Not That Tiger

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Commentary

cartoon_01_mount
illustration by Dozer

Mount Up

EQ2 has yet to fill out its stable of player mounts with the variety available in other MMORPGs.  The hygiene-challenged Wargs and motion sickness-inducing Rhinos weren’t my up of tea. When I heard that EQ2 were getting Dire Bears, I was thrilled, until my hopes were dashed when the Sabertooth/Werewolf-like mount was revealed.

In lieu of a desirable fluffy travel companion, I’ve limited myself to running barefoot. I’ve long since outgrown the 40% speed of the venerable Carpet of El’khazi, wrangled from the ever-sarcastic flying carpet dealer in Sinking Sands, the 48% upgrade in the Mage tower, and the 55% inferno version offered in Lavastorm. I’ve flirted with the impressive Order of Rime ice mare as well as the Refer a Friend mounts but just haven’t had the persistence to get them. I really want a NEW attractive mount!

I waited with trepidation to check out the new Highland Stalker shipping with the Sentinel’s Fate expansion collector’s box. Rumors persisted that the mount was in fact a Lynx. One of the smaller cats out there, I was curious how EQ2 artists would handle this.

No matter what an artist produces, he or she will always be challenged, questioned, and criticized. Create a sculpture, painting, or 3D model based off a real creature, and you will be criticized for not making something more creative and stylized. Create something stylized, unique, and exaggerated, and you will be criticized for not making it real enough.

Having seen the Highland Stalker (Lynx), I personally feel that with some adjustments to the size of the head and perhaps the look of the eyes, we will have a very good looking mount, whether you choose the saddle-only version, or pick up your stalker fully loaded with head-to-toe armor plating.

In case you haven’t had your fill of Tiger-related controversy, check out the Highland Stalker Video and Highland Stalker Sneak Peek threads on the EQ2 Forums for further discussion. If you would like to read some developer comments about the proportions of the Highland Stalker, check out this post by covic. This may or may not be the finalized mount. Since the pictures and videos were taken, additional adjustments based on character race/size vs. mount size have been made.

Dozer Joins the Team

Speaking of the challenges of artists face, you may have noticed the illustration presented with today’s writeup. We are proud to present the first of what we hope to be a regular series of EQ2-inspired cartoons by Dozer. Some of you may have already seen his fine work around the interwebs and we are thrilled to be working with him. Look for a Portfolio section featuring Dozer’s work soon. Welcome!

First Screens of The Sundered Frontier

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News

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!

Sentinel’s Fate In-game Armor and Highland Stalker Video!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News

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

robes_learned_and_reasonedGuarding 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.

Moonlight Enchantments

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Live Events

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.

Game Update 54, Frostfell, City Festivals

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events, Tradeskill

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

Will of a Tyrant
(Game Update 54)
Weduesday, December 9

PRELUDE EVENT

  • Freeport has been rocked by the sudden destruction of Dethknell Citadel.  What was once an ever-present reminder of The Overlord’s power and will floating above the city has collapsed, and the tenuous peace held within the city by the watchful and ruthless Overlord has been obliterated. Something has obviously befallen Lucan D’Lere, the Overlord of Freeport! Start your investigation into these mysterious events in West Freeport by speaking with Sir Tallen Yevix.
  • The destruction and chaos in Freeport has not gone unnoticed by the Qeynosians, but they, too, have encountered some clandestine acts committed against their leaders, the royal house of Bayle.  Help Qeynos recover some stolen texts relating to the history of Enoxus and the Bayle bloodline by speaking with Royal Librarian Brinn in Qeynos Harbor.

BUG BASH

  • A great deal of effort was put forth in this update to fix as many old, annoying bugs as possible.  Players will notice many existing issues once thought perhaps forgotten are now fixed. All told, nearly 800 bugfixes are in found within GU54, which should help provide a much more polished and streamlined gameplay experience for existing content. As a result, players will notice the patch note section below is significantly longer than in updates past.

Complete Update Notes at EQ2Players

Additional GU54 Unofficial Notes:

  • The Spires event comes to a close with GU54. The quest givers will be removed from Norrath, with only the Merchants remaining. Only those servers that successfully completed all 9 spires will see those Ulteran spire assistant Titles on the merchant (for 50 tokens).
  • Rangers will have to wait until a later hotfix for that “set-it-and-forget-it” Autoattack setting of Default, Melee, Ranged, or Auto.
  • It’s worth reading over the complete list of bugfixes as there are fixes far and wide, including fixing Silverwing in Veeshan’s Peak, and tweaks in nearly every zone.

.

Frostfell
Thursday, December 10, 2009 ~ January 7, 2010

If you want to avoid missing any part of Frostfell, check out these writeups:

.

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.

5th Anniversary Paintings

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Live Events

Available for Thanksgiving week only, there are 10 new paintings available in Norrath from the City Merchants in Qeynos and Freeport. As I was writing this article, I discovered a writeup at EQ2 Wiki with the names, screen snapshots, and descriptions of each painting. A merchant window retouched to show the 10 winning paintings:

winningpaintings_merchant

winningpaintings_destroyer
The First Prize winning “Destroyer of Ordanach” by Citadelli.

winningpaintings_prayer
One of the nine Second Prize winners “Prayer of the Righteous” by Enna.

All 10 paintings can be viewed at your local City Merchant or at EQ2 Wikia.

These items may be available later on, but for the time being, they are only intended to be available for this 5th anniversary celebration week. Join the Discussion on EQ2 Forums.

   

A Bibliophile’s Guide to the Books of Norrath

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing

A Bibliophile’s Guide to the
Books of Norrath

We’ve been following Aurelis‘ progress on documenting every book currently available in the world of Norrath. She has now posted the results of her extensive research.

Some facts and figures she discovered:

  • 428 confirmed books
  • 2 unconfirmed books
  • 20 books that exist only in the database and have never been discovered
  • 1 book that was once a house item and is kept on the list in memoriam of its untimely demise.

Of course these are subject to change if someone out there finds another book! Please see her full announcement.

A Bibliophile’s Guide to the Books of Norrath

Game Update 54 Crafting & Event Preview @ EQTraders

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events, Tradeskill

Niami DenMother and Kaisha of EQTraders.com can always be counted upon to provide excellent coverage of Crafting and Live Events.

There are 3 articles worth checking out, and they are still being updated as more items are discovered, so be sure to check them out again at the end of the month to see anything news! From Niami:

Check out the EQ2TC GU54 Crafting Overview for more details – it already has the furniture shots for the first City Festival event (clothing shots will be incoming as time permits), as well as a page showing both the returning and the new Glacial Furniture from the Icy Keep vendor in Frostfell.  Mmmm, love that bed!

and a word about the Quellthulian Spires event which will end with the launch of Game Update 54 slated for early December:

Finish your work on the spires event now, get your shopping done, earn your title, finish up any incomplete spires, etc. When GU54 goes live, you will no longer be able to quest and earn tokens.

Note that, by popular demand,  Titles were added to the Quellthulian Spires Merchant, but these are still only on Test. Hopefully these updated Merchants are available on the live servers long enough for everyone who is sitting on a stack of Tokens to get them.

Shader Shader Shader

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance

We’ve been closely monitoring the progress on the development of Shaders 3.0. This is the graphical revamp which will improve the lighting, reflections, and other effects on 99% of the textures in the game. So far, we know that Shaders 3.0 is running very well on certain systems, but has significant performance problems on other systems. As a result, it’s not yet on Test, and may not be released until after Game Update 54.

In response some pithy comments that Shaders 3.0 has slipped to the February expansion and will now be used as a selling point of said expansion, Rothgar has chimed in with this update:

This is not the case.  In fact, we can’t really use something as a selling point for the expansion when everyone gets it for free without buying the expansion.

We’ve been doing some internal benchmarking on the Shader 3.0 implementation and we still have a few major challenges with the lighting system.  The new shader system looks great and it performs very well in certain circumstances.  However, there are still common situations that players would run into where the framerate takes a significant dip compared to Shader 1.0.  We know why and we know how to fix it.  So that’s the good news.  The bad news is that it will take a little more time to do it right.

The lesson we’ve learned here is that we shouldn’t communicate a release date on such a large project, so far from completion.  But we’ve also learned from past issues that we don’t want to release something that doesn’t meet our own expectations.  We’ll certainly keep you informed in regards to our progress.

More news as we have it.

Game Update 54 “Will of a Tyrant” Test Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

We know what’s in Game Update 55, which will coincide with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate in February. It’s the new good starting city of New Halas.

What is Game Update 54?

Game Update 54 (slated for release the first week of December) addresses the most annoying of beasts in EQ2: the bug. That random inconsistency in a item description. That bizarre issue in a quest that makes it impossible to complete. The unexpected roadblock in a zone. The mob that just doesn’t work right.

Game Update 54 contains a gob-smacking 304 BUG FIXES covering both recent and long-standing issues throughout the game. EQ2 developers have addressed hundreds of bugs, large and small, throughout the world of Norrath.

Game Update 54 also officially marks the availability of the EQ2 Streaming Launcher. As we’ve been talking about here on EQ2Wire, this launcher will allow new players to jump into Norrath in as little as 10-15 minutes instead of the current 6-10 hour download.

Not part of today’s Test Update, but soon, we’ll also see the updated Frostfell festivities on Test. I’m looking forward to new quests, new loots, and more things to do.

Shaders?

You’ve probably noticed something conspicuously absent from these Test Update Notes. What I know so far is that Shaders are “done and working” on Ryan’s development box. If only we all had Ryan’s development box, we could have Shaders tomorrow. However, Shaders has to work on all sorts of different configurations. From what I hear, Shaders are still undergoing Performance tuning and I hope to bring you some news soon about the results of this tuning.

Because the list of fixes in Game Update 54 is extensive, please click the Read More link below to view the notes.

Do a Little Dance, Run a Couple Quests

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance

EQ2 Producer Brenlo has Twittered a couple of interesting sneak peaks into the future of EQ2.

New Dance Moves

First up, if you’ve been thinking that what Barbarians really need is some new dance moves, you might enjoy this new video. No word on when we can expect Guitar Hero: EverQuest edition. 🙂

New Barbarian dance on YouTube

You can safely infer that since this dance is specific to male Barbarians, that EQ2 is getting a bunch of new dances unique to male and female members of each race. I wonder if they will all be pop culture references. 🙂

Quest Helper

And if you have been longing for the Quest Helper window that other MMOs have been enjoying, you’ll be thrilled to know that a Quest Helper is now coming to EQ2 as well. Check out all those stacked up quests on the right side.

quest_helper

It is unknown if this will be part of Game Update 54 or Game Update 55/Sentinel’s Fate in February.

Speaking of Game Update 54, it should be going on Test Server soon enough, and we’ll have those notes for you as soon as possible.

EQ2Wire On the Road

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance

EQ2Wire is on the road this week, so updates will be a bit less frequent.

Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge

The Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge was completed Friday night. We’d certainly like to hear comments from folks on what the new 64-bit server experience is like (I know Butcherblock is a lot snappier with the new hardware), as well as having more folks to kill. 🙂

Issues with using the Broker, Banker, and World Chat channels were all related to the last stages of this merge, and should long have since been resolved.

New Shaders 3.0 Snapshots

Imago-Quem (Ryan) surprised us over the weekend with the news that Shaders 3.0 is getting very close to completion now. He also posted some new screen shots. Hopefully there will be enough time to get Shaders 3.0 onto the Test server and for everyone to test them out before Game Update 54 now slated for early December.

All 416 zones and 29,000+ objects have been converted over with a very small set of exceptions, those I am working on and those that will stay 1.0.  There’s about 1% left in the game that is still shader 1.0.  Right now I’m working on remaining bugs and optimizations for better performance.

EQ2_000398 EQ2_000403 EQ2_000411

EQ2_000414 EQ2_000417 EQ2_000423

EQ2_000425 EQ2_000426 EQ2_000430

EQ2_000434 EQ2_000438

When can we expect to see Shaders 3.0?

The plan is to have it out on Test first thing November and on Live with GU54 on December 1.

I’m working my very hardest to get all the major bugs out right now.  I’ll continue working on bugs and performance over the next month or so.

EQ2 Streaming Client

Testing continues on the EQ2 Streaming Client. This, along with the EQ2 Complete Collection ($19.95) now in stores, are our best opportunities to get new players into EQ2. The Streaming Client will allow new players to get into EQ2, create a character, and get started in the newbie area with as little as 10-15 minutes of downloading. Compare this to the current digital download option, which is a 6-10 hour download.

What Bugs You Most 2009

Players continue to post their ideas in the What Bugs You Most 2009 Edition thread. What is interesting is that unlike the What Bugs You Most thread from Feb 2008, the vast majority of the issues being brought up are not User Interface fixes (which Rothgar is a champ at) but long-term design changes. It’s not known just how many of the issues being brought up will be possible to address between now and the expansion.

Silverwing

Speaking of bugs… Some folks are having trouble with Silverwing in Veeshan’s Peak since Game Update 53. Some workarounds to prevent his massive healing while the issue is addressed have been posted in this Silverwing Issues thread.

12 hour downtime for Nagafen, Butcherblock, and Lucan D’Lere

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events

Sorry for the late post on this but Butcherblock, Nagafen, and Lucan D’Lere servers are currently down to complete the maintenance which was attempted last week. Note that ALL 3 servers are being upgraded at this time. Hopefully at noonish Pacific time, we’ll be running 64-bit and see some significant improvements to zoning time, zone lag, etc.

The announcements on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings all!

This is to let you know that Nagafen, Butcherblock, and Lucan D’Lere will be down from Midnight PDT tonight (October 19th) until Noon PDT Tuesday October 20th, while the team migrates Nagafen (only!) [all 3 servers] to the new DB structure.

As you all know from last week, the migration process did a little wonkiness with some of the longer character files.  In order to prevent this from happening again, Nagafen [the 3 servers] will be migrated by hand.

During this downtime, bonus exp will be enabled on Venekor and our Nagafen players are encouraged to make alts over there to take advantage of the exp boost.  We’ll also look into having the mushroom rings extended on the affected servers so that no one misses out.

The plan is then for the server merge between Nagafen and Venekor to take place on Thursday (more details on that will be forthcoming).

We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience!

and the followup:

Good news all!  We look to be on schedule for noon and from what I understand everything is going as planned.  Butcherblock and Lucan are being migrated as well, now, as things are going so smoothly.  So that means shiny new databases for all three servers SMILEY

As previously mentioned, the Moonlight Enchantment event will be extended for these servers (and others as well because gnomes got into the works!).

Thank you again for your patience while we migrate the databases for these servers and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Note that other servers besides those affected by this upgrade are spitting out various announcements indicating that their server will be shutting down. These can be ignored. Glip the Gnome posted:

Hey all! Between now and 12:30pm PDT today (October 20th) folks across most servers may notice broadcasts saying that the server will be shutting down or restarting — you can ignore these. The only servers that will be affected and be down are Nagafen, Butcherblock and Lucan D’lere and they are still scheduled to be up again at roughly 12:00pm PDT.

So once again, players can ignore the server restart broadcasts and we apologize for any confusion it may cause.

Thanks!

In other news, Moonlight Enchantments got a late start today, so my understanding is it will be active for another full day on all servers.

Nights of the Dead full of Tricks and Treats

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Grouping, Live Events

Spoilers ahead…

Maze

If you have been struggling to complete the Nightmarish Hedge Maze as part of Nights of the Dead, especially as a mage or pet class, you may be interested in this thread on the EQ2 Forums. Of course if you’d rather be challenged to figure it out for yourself, then don’t. 🙂

Fog

Another item as part of Nights of the Dead you may not want to miss may make your head a little more Foggy than usual. Again, if you’d rather figure it out yourself, then don’t visit this forum thread on the EQ2 Forums.

Headless

If you are an aspiring raid of 12 players, or a heavily-armored confident group of 4-6 players wishing to tackle the contested Headless Horseman, there are two things to know:

  • The Headless Horseman is on a 1-2 hour spawn timer.
  • At least one player must have the necklace from the Hedge Maze. Note that every player who has a necklace within range when the Headless Horseman spawns will see that necklace disappear from their inventory. More Info

Have fun out there! We may see some changes to the Headless Horseman on Monday.


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