So far, at least from the in-game comments I’ve seen, Altar of Malice has been well-received. Not everyone agrees about the difficulty of the heroic zones, but there’s a clear progression that players can strive towards. With any expansion, there will always be balance tweaks needed and a bug fix or two. We saw such a fix just last night with the missing textures in Zavith’loa zones turning parts of the zone black or white. This has been addressed with a client patch. Some other fixes and features coming up soon:

• Scout Poisons overwriting each other
• Weekly Heroic/Raid Gems
• Heroic Green Adorns (Spirit Stones)
• More Level Agnostic Dungeons

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Raid encounters that dropped 2 armor patterns and 1 accessory or 1 armor patterns and 2 accessories will now always grant 2 armor patterns and 1 accessory.

Ossuary: Cathedral of Bones [Raid]

• Sacrificer should once again react to players who have the “Sanguine Spray” effect on them.
• The Marrow Sapper has had its health decreased.

Ossuary: Choir of T’Vyl [Event Heroic]

• Legion of Many should no longer retain his increased damage when he resets.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday January 15, 2015 at approximately 7:00AM PST. Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, January 15, 2015 at approximately 7:00AM PST. (Approx. 3:00PM London Time on January 15, 2015)
Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

and:

HEROIC CHARACTERS
Heroic characters now start at level 90 with 320 AAs!

For more information:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/heroic-characters-level-up-to-90.556133/

From the EQ2 Forums:

ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT SYSTEM CHANGES

• Up to 280 AAs will be granted as part of leveling up. Every level after 10 until level 90 characters will receive 3 AA points. Every 5th level characters will receive an additional 2 AA points, for a total of 5. Once a player reaches 280 AAs, all AA grants will cease. If characters are not at 280 AA points upon reaching level 90, they will receive additional points to reach 280.
• All existing characters will be grandfathered their missing additional AA points. For example, in the new system a level 25 character would have been granted a total of 56 AA points, so all level 25 characters will be granted an additional 56 AA points. This AA grant won’t set a character’s AA count above 280.
• Touch of the Steward, the AA bauble from Chains of Eternity, is now usable starting at level 10 instead of level 90.
• The Marketplace AA bauble, Untapped Achievements, will now grant 320 AA points instead of 280 AA points. All existing Untapped Achievement baubles will be automatically exchanged for the new version.

Have you taken the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion survey? If not, head here:

Personally as someone who has dedicated some time to writing good survey questions, this has to be one of the most generic surveys I’ve seen. On one hand, there is an entire page dedicated to the six raid zones in the expansion, yet the entirety of the tradeskill and heroic content are each distilled down to a single 1-10 rating question. What if you love the zones, animations, populations, humor, and the music, but you dislike difficulty, how would you rate that?

It’s pretty clear that Marketing largely referenced the expansion’s press release without much (if any) consultation with the EQ2 team. I wonder what if anything SOE will learn from this survey. I feel that the way the questions are written is prone to lead to invalid conclusions.

It’s Bug Bash (and Altar of Malice heroic zone rebalancing) time!

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL — BUG BASH WEEK

• Fixed an issue where you could lose your grandmaster spell if you betrayed.
• The tooltip and examine window information will now correctly display the damage type of missile weapons.
• Rejoice! Exiles can now use the shared bank!
• Exiles can now change suffix titles!

• SOE Live Request: Added the command /dump_items_to_log, which, true to its name, will write the contents of your inventory to your log. Please note that only items known to your game client will be logged; as such, the output may vary depending on whether you’re in a house zone or not.

• SOE Live Request: Players may now drag game commands such as “Summon Mount,” “Melee Attack,” “Ranged Attack” etc. into the Edit Macro window to create a step with the appropriate command.

Implemented support for mouseover macros. By specifying %v (similar to the usage of %t) as the target in a macro, the player name under the mouse cursor will be used as the target of the spell cast. This only applies to the following UI elements:

• Your own character info window (found in the upper left corner with the default UI)
• Target Window
• Implied Target Window
• Group Window
• Raid Window

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, December 3, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST. Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, December 3 , 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on 12/04/2014). Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where mercenary names would show as gibberish on non-english servers.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Zavith’loa: The Lost Caverns [Advanced Solo and Heroic]

• Fixed a bug that caused Beastmaster Kau’mua to heal for more than intended.
• Fixed a bug that was rarely causing Ceracuspis to get stuck in his charging animation.

In order to institute Quality of Life tweaks and changes to Itemization, Class Balance, and overall gameplay, the EQ2 team launched Focused Feedback threads a few weeks back on a number of topics. We still have time to post our comments in these threads:

• Focused Feedback – Fighters
• Focused Feedback – Priests
• Focused Feedback – Mages
• Focused Feedback – Scouts
• Focused Feedback – Tradeskills
• Focused Feedback – Itemization
• Focused Feedback – UI and General Gameplay
• Focused Feedback – PvP

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums:

Update: We will be keeping all focused feedback thread open until January 5th, 2015 at which point we will be locking the threads to move onto the next phase.

First up, starting at 10:00am PST tomorrow (1:00pm EST, 18:00 GMT, 19:00 CET), Free-to-Play EQ2 players will be able to buy and start playing the Altar of Malice expansion.

Now for the downtime announcement…

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST.
Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Aprox. 5:00AM London Time on 11/26/2014)
Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

All accounts will also be able to purchase and play our new expansion, Altar of Malice, at 10:00AM PST.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST (15:00-16:00 GMT). Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST (19th Nov 5:00~7:00 GMT). Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Elite mercenaries Kenny, Matri Dut, and Perrin should now despawn after 5 minutes of being first hired.
• Fixed an issue where Kylong Plains was at the wrong location on some Fast Travel Maps.
• Removed the Burned Woods entrance from the travel map.
• Resolved an issue where specifying the name of a mercenary in a macro resulted in a “not found” error.
• Fixed a bug where you would not be able to see your bags in your inventory or house vault when inside a guildhall or house and you have a lot of stuff.

UPDATE: EQ2 Servers are back up and accessible after just 40 minutes of downtime. Go play!

Assuming we don’t have three hours of company-wide firewall shanigans like we did yesterday…

US EverQuest II US Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, November 13, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST. Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II EU/RU/JP Live Servers will be brought offline on Friday, November 14, 2014 at approximately 5:00AM GMT. Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

and from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Aerakyn Beastlords will be granted a Reptile Warder when logging in and during character creation.

EQ2Wire was fortunate enough to interview EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallée for today’s Altar of Malice expansion launch to talk about a broad spectrum of topics including:

• The building blocks of MMORPG content design and how collaboration between artists, animators, musicians, and designers makes it possible for a cohesive expansion with a strong theme and storyline.
• The new Altar of Malice zones as they fit into Solo, Adv Solo, Heroic, Event Heroic, and Raid playstyles
• How Altar of Malice builds on the Itemization bedrock laid by Tears of Veeshan
• A hint of what we can expect in next year’s content-focused updates.

Download the EQ2Wire Altar of Malice Kander Interview [50:27]

This is my first (and possibly only) podcast recording so please be gentle. I’m not an old pro at this like Dellmon, Aliscious, and Osgz of EQ2Talk. 😉

Table of Contents

• So what’s new in the expansion?
• How do I jump into the new expansion content?
• Why am I not gaining levels?!
• Are the new overland zones and dungeons re-skinned/re-textured versions of existing zones like we got in the past?
• Is there a new harvest tier for the expansion, or does level 90-100 become a tier?
• What material do I use to make Grandmaster spells?
• Are there new Alternate Advancements (AA’s) or Prestige Points in the expansion?
• What’s up with the new Ancient spells? How much better than Grandmasters are they?
• What new Contested Heroic zones can be found in the Altar of Malice?
• Can’t I just go grind levels 96-100 in Skyshrine, the Hole, High Keep, or Kael Drakkel?
• Why do I no longer have 20% bonus to XP for each of my Veteran characters?
• What new Heroic zones can be found in Altar of Malice?
• What about Solo or Advanced Solo dungeons?
• What Raid content is there in Altar of Malice?
• How do I get into Castle Highhold?
• Help! There was some really important information on the Altar of Malice beta forums but they’ve disappeared!
• What itemization changes have there been in the expansion?
• What about Critical Chance/Critical Avoidance?
• If I buy the Altar of Malice expansion (either standard or collector’s edition), Do I Get All Past Expansions (Chains of Eternity, Tears of Veeshan)?
• Do Guilds get any new Guild Hall Amenities for levels 96-100?

Q: So what’s new in the expansion?

• Adventure, Tradeskill, and Guild levels can now all go to 100.
• 100 new Quests including new Signature line for the expansion
• All new level 96-100 harvestables, spells, recipes, armor, weapons, etc.
• Two new Tradeskill questlines by Domino
• Two new Overland zones (The Phantom Sea and The Tranquil Sea).
• Ten new Heroic zones with 4-5 bosses per zone.
• Five new Event Heroic zones with a single ring event and boss (10-15 minute zone!)
• Two contested Heroic zones for leveling from 96-100 (if you prefer to grind).
• Six raid zones, many of which are tuned for entry-level raiding
• Avatars of the Gods gets 4 more Avatar raid fights
• New PvP Gear
• Nearly all spells can be upgraded to Grandmaster from level 1-100.
• New “Ancient” spells/combat arts.

UPDATE from Afista on the EQ2 Forums:

These are the correct scheduled server down times for each server. I am looking into why there was a delay and will update you all whenever I have the information.

ALL servers are supposed to be patching at the same time. Here’s the announcement from the EQ2 Forums:

All US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

All EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. (3:00 PM London Time). Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

From buildmaster Bunji on the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL [WEEKLY FEATURE – Ed.]

• All Access Members can now access the Broker almost anywhere. In the EQII menu, select the “Broker” option, or use the /start_broker_anywhere command.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested]

• Grulk’s Toxic Submission no longer drains noxious resistance, but instead causes Poisoned Marrow to inflict greater damage.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Summoner

• Minions Translocation can no longer be cast while under the effects of Carnage Shield.

ITEMS

• Totem of the Succulent may now only trigger once a second and has increased damage and healing.

BATTLEGROUNDS
Balance of Theer

• The order logo will now only grant points to your team after you have been on it for three seconds, and every three seconds thereafter.
• Balance of Theer will now grant medals for victorious matches.

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Balance of Theer [PvP] battleground! A 6v6 deathmatch zone that is set on Roehn Theer’s platform.

GENERAL

• Options to invite a guild member to a party, a raid, or gossip with them via tells about that healer that keeps forgetting to cure detrimentals are now available via the context menu in the Members list of the Guild window.
• Resolved an issue where certain wards did not properly display the amount of damage warded in the effects list of their description tooltips and examine windows.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
The Fabled Deathtoll

• Several minor changes were made to Cruor Alluvium to prevent unexpected damage from the gazer’s damage shield immediately after being teleported by Watery Grave.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrathians,

We’re all charged up and busy after a great time at SOE Live! The team is hunkered down and focused on the expansion, fixes, and updates on the schedule. Here are some details!

When is the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice Beta?

On Oct. 7 we will launch Limited Beta for All Access members. Most of the content will be focused on the Overlands and level increase content. We need your support!

Oct. 14 will be Open Beta for everyone. We’d love you to come check out the content and help us make sure it’s good, clean fun.

When is Altar of Malice Launch?

The expansion launch for All Access members will be on Nov. 11, just a few days after we celebrate our 10th anniversary!

On Nov. 25, the expansion will be available to everyone.

I think these days, most players don’t consider their characters complete, competitive, or at least capable until they have upgraded a significant number of their combat arts or spells to Master level. It was not always so…

Are We Entitled to Masters?

It may be hard to remember, but there was a time before the Research tab and before Research Assistants when the only way to get Master spells was to defeat enemies. At launch, Masters were unbelievably rare and only dropped from Epic names. Over the years, they have trickled down to Epic trash, then to Heroic bosses. At some point, a global loot table was added to any slain non-trivial enemy with something like a 1 in 10,000 chance to drop a level-appropriate Master. Every year, Masters seem to become more widely available.

Because sleep is overrated, EQ2 fan Afista spent the weekend meticulously transcribing the two EverQuest II Q&A panels and has posted them on EQ2 ZAM. Also don’t miss the notes from the all-important Mechanics panel posted by Cyliena as linked below. I got a kick out of hanging out with both of them at SOE Live and seeing what they’re doing for the EQ2 community. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a slacker now… 😉

At SOE Live 2014, the community had questions and the devs had answers! ZAM was there to keep track of what everyone wanted to know. Afista has written a full recap of what happened during the Q&A following the EQ2 keynote, as well as the AMAA Sessions Part 1 & Part 2.

Read the entire Q&A recap over on ZAM!

(also check out our Systems & Mechanics panel recap from last week!)

In the EverQuest II: Systems panel, the EverQuest II team talks about the upcoming expansion, specifically class balance, mechanics, some new features, and takes player questions. On the panel: Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer, and Justin “Jamiss” Michael. We recorded this at SOE Live 2014 in Las Vegas and are happy to be able to share it.

On YouTube:

We recorded the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote, which included about seven minutes of Q&A at the end. We also recorded the EverQuest II Q&A #1 panel and we’ve assembled it into a single video.

NOTE: Audio quality improves at 8:45 as we started using an external mic at this point.

There were some technical difficulties during the first 10 minutes of the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote which was livestreamed from SOE Live last week.  Instead of clearly hearing the producer and designers of our game hyping their hard work, audiences at home mostly heard frustrated AV techs trying to get things working. Fortunately, we recorded the keynote in person and are now able to provide the complete event for those who missed it!

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• The Moonlight Enchantment merchants have new items available! All sorts of trees and shrubbery based on Ethernere foliage can now be purchased. Moonlight Enchantments begin on 8/20!

• With Kerafyrm’s defeat, Freeport and Qeynos have finally broken the Awakened siege, and Luclin – now whole – shines brightly in the skies.

GENERAL

• YouTube integration has been removed due to incompatibilities with Google’s API updates. Options are being explored to return video functionality.

Here are the slides presented by the EverQuest II team specifically the mechanics/systems guys. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer were presenting.