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.

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.):

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:

• The Alternate Advancement Guide explains everything a new player needs to know about how Alternate Advancements work, what the trees are, what the slider does, etc.  A very good resource for new players.
• The Lore and Legend Hot Spots is a very nice hunting guide for where to go to kill mobs for L&L pieces.  42 L&Ls are listed in alphabetical order to make it easy to find the best place to hunt these creatures.
• The Recipe Books guide tells you everything you ever wanted to know about where to go and how to get recipe books.  It covers where to get the basic and advanced recipes for each tier, shard recipes, mark recipes, battleground gear recipes, even includes the recipes out of unrest and many many more.
• The Betrayal and Citizenship guide tells you what you need to know to change cities or alignments.  It has been updated as of GU56 and includes the new neutral classes as well as the city ambassadors.

Stop in and take a look when you have a chance.  They’re doing great things over there.  🙂

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:

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.

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:

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).

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.

Here are your hotfix notes for September 1, 2010 after the break:

The previously reported rumor of bonus XP has been officially confirmed on EQ2Players.com.  Those playing during Labor Day weekend will be enjoying Double XP:

This coming weekend, from 10:00 am PDT on Friday, September 3rd, until 10:00 am PDT on Tuesday, September 7th, we will be running a true Double XP promotion (+100% XP).

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!

If you’re familiar with the Battlefield of Ganak, the Capture-the-Flag arena for PvP/Battlegrounds, you’ll know that players have demonstrated an uncanny ability to collect the opposing team’s flag and then hide somewhere that the other team cannot reach. Various tools have been used, from in-game tinkered spring shoes, to 3rd party jump/hack/positioning software.

There was a thread soliciting feedback on how the EQ2 team could solve this problem.

Already, there is a Truancy system in place, where if enough players vote that a player has gone AFK simply to collect Battlegrounds tokens.

So how could this new problem of out-of-reach flag holders be resolved? Many solutions were proposed. As of last week, we have our answer:

If a player holds the flag beyond a designated amount of time without entering melee combat, they will see a message flash in red characters at the top of their screen “Get into Combat or be Banished!!“.

If you’d like to read player feedback on this issue and solution, check out the thread on the EQ2 Forums.

EQ2 Extended (Free-to-Play) may seem to be “set in stone”, but in fact, changes are still being made and considered during its Public Beta/Soft Launch. Of particular discussion have been the price of race packs and just how limiting the lack of broker access is on the Bronze level. A possibility is to sell races individually, and looking at other options for in-game economy.

What’s on Test this weekend? Here are just a few items:

• UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
• UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
• UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
• UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
• Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
• The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
• Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
• Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
• The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

One aspect of the EverQuest 2 Live vs. EverQuest 2 Extended (Free-to-Play) debate has been how Station Access fits into the picture. Many Station Access players are using the account not to play multiple SOE games, but for the extra 5 character slots.

With the “EQ2 Subscription Perks” announced by SmokeJumper for monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscriptions, designed to offset and contrast against the EQ2 Extended servers, Station Access players have been feeling left out.

In a thread entitled “Station Access Accounts – No Multi-Month, No Extras, No Nothing“, SmokeJumper has hinted at some possible changes going forward.

As we posted earlier this week, players have been experiencing an issue with hotbar icons being replaced in random ways as they level. Abilities on hotbars have been replaced with different spells entirely, for instance a group heal being replaced by an apprentice combat spell.

After the jump, the latest update on this frustrating bug.