From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Veeshan: The Dreadscale’s Maw

• Zoning a raid force into the zone should no longer put players into their own separate instances.

Izshrah’Khar: Stratum of the Protectors

• Shazzak now only spawns five Fragments per phase in order to address an issue that was causing certain characters to crash to character select. The Fragments’ damage has been increased to compensate for fewer Fragments.

ITEMS

• Experience gain on the Tear of Veeshan Spiritstones [ed. note — green adornments] has been tripled.

Servers will be coming down for an update – from the forums:

The US EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on May 13th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately one hour.

EU servers will come down beginning at 9:00 PM PT (6:00 AM CET May 14th, 2014) for the same update. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 2 hours.

Patch notes after the jump.

Reddit, that last bastion of 1990’s internet look-and-feel, hosted an “Ask Me Almost Anything” with the EQ2 developers and designers this morning and Cyliena of EQ2 ZAM has summarized the most interesting questions which received responses from the team. Here are a few of the more interesting responses:

Q: “Any hints on the next expansion’s theme? Will the level cap finally raise to 100 with it?”

A: “You may want to tune into the next EQ2 Insider livestream on http://www.twitch.tv/everquest2. 😉 It’ll be May 7th, 2014 at 2PM PDT! (We’ll have a YT vod up if you can’t watch it live.)”

A: “We gave you hints last year at SOE Live! We showed pictures!”

Followup: The teaser pictures shown during last year’s SOE Live expansion panel were of dinosaurs(another here from the art panel).

and..

Q: “Hello, can you give an update on the improved Dungeon Finder / Group Builder? Including when it might make its way to the live servers?”

A: “As I mentioned above, we have Dave Kish working on the matchmaking code now. The first task was to create an environment to adequately test and evaluate the issues that are reported on Live and we have tracked a lot down. We will let the community know anytime we have something to report, like when we’d help to test new code on Beta, etc. This is one of our highest priorities.”

Continue reading EQ2 AMAA on Reddit Notes at EQ2 ZAM for a whopping 7 pages of questions and answers!

Coinciding with today’s transition of all Gold subscribers (either Krono, 30-day Game Cards, or with recurring credit card) to All Access, there are also a number of update notes for EQ2:

HIGH KEEP
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested] is now live and offers new challenges for groups of heroes brave enough to explore its halls! This contested version of High Keep can be accessed through the portal on Karak Peak in Vesspyr Isles. This zone is exclusively available to [All Access] members until May 13 2014.

Heritage Quest
Blood lines the hallways of High Keep, much of it the result of one man. Was he a hero or a traitor? Learn the truth and re-acquire a bloody weapon lost to the annals of time in the new heritage quest found within High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion!

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Zordakalicus Ragefire, the Dragon Ancestral Champion, now drops rare items from any current heroic zone boss, in addition to his normal loot.

Accursed Sanctum

• The minimum lockout has been reduced from 5 days to 3 days. The maximum lockout has not been changed.

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• The power damage shield on Kelana in the Fire & Ice dragons encounter should no longer affect fighters.

Chelsith

• Ground mounts can now be used in Chelsith.

On Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014 at 2:00 PM PDT, EQ2’s new community manager Margaret “Luperza” Krohn (aka PurrfectStorm), hosted the first EverQuest II Insider livecast on Twitch. This 1 hour broadcast included EQ brand manager Adam Key, Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Chris Garlick, Gary Daugherty, and Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall.

Alas, a recording of the livecast was not preserved either by SOE or Twitch (due to a settings glitch), so this episode joins Doctor Who and other vital shows as missing presumed wiped.

That said, a few resourceful players who watched the Livecast were good enough to take notes and so we can paraphrase them below:

• Holly and Akil talked about current topics including Bristlebane Day, as well as previewing some Player Studio items that will be coming soon, including a very nice looking yacht or fishing boat with oars and other gear. Luperza mentioned that Player Studio topics will be covered in their own livesteam.
• We got to hear the ‘April Fool’s intro music’ (archived for posterity on Zam) and the new meatbeast vid was also shown (if you haven’t seen it then look here).
• Holly talked a little about All-Access (subscription, Krono, or Prepaid cards)
  • All Access players will get access to new zones / heritage quests 1-2 weeks earlier than other players.
  • Those with new All Access account will have double xp weekends.
  • More All-Access exclusive items on the loyalty merchants.
• The schedule for updates will be more public so that we can see how Smokejumper’s weekly/monthly update idea is working.
• EverQuest II Roadmap/Blueprint — Upcoming plans for EQ2 with feedback from players.
• Contested HighKeep Previewed
  • new skeleton models like crawling, one legged and some even use their head as weapon [IMG]
  • quests: drop quests, quests from items, daily missions for etyma (2 mission givers: 1 at entrance, 2nd at the entrance to picklaw part)
  • plunderable loot which you can place in your house
  • some items might be marked with our name (there is special achievement for marking all of them: Vandal title)
  • achievement for killing all nameds in the zone
  • hidden rare trophies in the trash – if you gather all you get Body Snatcher (?) title
  • new armor appearances
• New High Keep Guild Hall
• Player Studio will open up (later this year) to submissions from Germany, UK, France for players with an SOE Station account.
• Developer picks for Housing Leaderboards — returning soon.
• New Raid zone (ToV Wing 3) — Next Month
• 10 More AA points (requires level 95)– next week.

Thanks to Sambril, Kinya of Babagra Polish EQ2 fansite, and Errrorr for their note-taking!

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• Klandicar should no longer cast Chaos Bolt more than intended.

Temple of Veeshan: Halls of the Betrayer

• Corrected an issue that would sometimes cause the doors behind Grendish to not open when they should.

PvP

• Converting a mount to a house item must be done within a house on PvP servers.

 

From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

All EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on March 20th, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT for an update. The expected downtime is approximately two hours.

WEEKLY FEATURE
Two new Heritage Quests are now available for players to pursue:

• Speak to Loremaster Dorondal in icy Thurgadin. He has many treasures to offer, and among the most valuable lies Zlandicar’s Heart. If you can find what he’s looking for, the Heart will be yours!

• High among the cliffs of Steamfont, a gnome sits, wondering at his fate. Unable to descend the sheer rock wall, he puts pen to paper to ensure his story is told before the elements – or worse – take him from this world. To follow in his footsteps is to put oneself in grave danger, but the pull of the Hero Bracers cannot be denied!

Note: Portions of these quests will require the Tears of Veeshan expansion to complete.

Editor’s Note: These quests can be completed through grouping, although raiding may provide a chance at a better version of the reward.

From the EQ2 Forums:

All EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on March 11th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately two hour.

Time Zone Conversions

• PDT: March 11 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am
• EDT: March 11 @ 10:00am ~ Noon
• GMT: March 11 @ 14:00 ~ 16:00
• CET: March 11 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00
• AEST: March 12 @ 12:01am ~ 2:00am

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Weapon Damage Bonus and Spell Weapon Damage Bonus are now displayed under the Autoattack category in the character sheet window.
• Max Health % is now displayed in the tooltip for Health in the character window.
• Physical Damage Reduction % is now displayed in the tooltip for Mitigation in the character window.
• The Etyma Merchant Delvakin in Falinpol has several new consumables that may be purchased to assist you on your adventures.
• Those that have completed the quest ‘Putting the Rage in Ragefire’ may now purchase upgrades to some crafted consumables from Delvakin in Falinpol area of Vesspyr Isle.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL
Fixed an issue where gaining AA experience could display an invalid message.

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• Spirit of Malice adds in the Zlandicar encounter should no longer hit players once for each player they hit with their “Bone Slice” spell.

From the EQ2 Forums:

All EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on March 4th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately two hour.

Time Zone Conversions

• PST: March 4 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am
• EST: March 4 @ 9:00am ~ 11:00am
• GMT: March 4 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00
• CET: March 4 @ 16:00 ~ 18:00
• AEST: March 5 @ 12:01am ~ 2:00am

Here are the update notes:

From EQ2’s new community manager Luperza:

The US EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on February 27th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately one hour.

EU servers will come down beginning at 9:00 PM PT (6:00 AM CET February 27th, 2014) for the same update. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 2 hours.

JP servers will come down beginning at 5:00 PM PT (10:00 AM JST February 28th, 2014) for the same update. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 2 hours.

And no I didn’t add all those time zones. They were included in the announcement!

Here are your update notes:

NEW TUNARIA WARZONE

• Maximum players per instance has been increased to 48.
• Contested encounter health has been reduced by 50%.
• Contested encounter AoE spells will no longer hit pets.
• Contested encounter AoE spells have been reduced to a 75m area, down from 100m.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• The maximum damage on Cognitive Evisceration has been lowered slightly.
• Destruction of the Wastes can no longer be area effect blocked.
• Aerakyn Blackbows now only spawn one at a time.
• The Sky Barriers from the Aerakyn Blackbows should be more reliable.

Oh hey, there was an update today. A big one for PvPers. Got some personal stuff going on but will be back to 100% soon enough.

From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE
Loyalty Merchant

• Noble Tark Validus has a new item to assist gold members who wish to change their city alignment or betray their adventure profession.
• Noble Toowik Mclure has new adventuring equipment available for sale.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
The Fabled Halls of Fate

• Knockbacks should occur much less frequently.

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Ediface [Raid]

• Corrected a bug in the Pyrelord and Controller fight in which the same target was selected every time for the red and blue ground AEs. Targets are now selected randomly, as intended.

TRADESKILLS

• All Player crafted Round Shields should once again be scout usable and grant agility.

ITEMS

• Uplifting Procs no longer clear off the entire raid when a user dies or removes the item.

PVP

• Legacy PvP adornments can now be used in PvP combat again.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Fabled Laboratory of Lord Vyemm
Fanning the Flames should no longer hit quite as hard when hitting 24 players.

PVP
PvP charms can once again be used within PvP zones.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL
New Achievements available for dedicated collection hunters!
Health Percentage will now show with the Detailed (Arrows) version of the target window if you have the option turned on.
Players’ preferred auto attack mode will now be restored after their possession of a target has concluded.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The Target Window now has an optional Health Percentage numerical display that can be toggled in Options > User Interface > Name and Chat Bubble > Show Health Percentage of Target.
• The bonuses granted to Spell Doublecast and Flurry chance obtained by exceeding the Ability Casting Speed and Attack Speed caps will now be displayed in the tooltips for the relevant stats in the character sheet window.
• Added option User Interface > Game Features > Default Double Click to Examine Effects to allow you to bring up the examine window of effects by double clicking on their icon.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Ancestral Champions

• Zordakalicus Ragefire – Adds have had hit points lowered. Bolt of Storms now does substantially more damage.

From Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson on the EQ2 Forums:

Hail, Fellow Norrathians!

We’d like to talk to you about how we’re delivering new adventures and new features into your worlds in both EQ and EQII.

We’ve listened to you on the forums, across social media, and face-to-face at our many events. There have been some common topics that come up about the things you like and don’t like with what we’ve been doing, and we’re using that information to customize our new direction.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• Corrected an issue that would occasionally prevent Tavekalem’s buff, Relentless, from decrementing to zero and wearing off.
• Added messaging explaining the bloodlust ability for Harin, Merig, and Gerid.
• Harin, Merig, and Gerid should give slightly longer time to react to their bloodlust ability.
• In the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter “Bloodlust” has been made more damaging.
• In the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter “Advanced Tactics” should no longer be quite as damaging.
• Orbs of Lethality in the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter should no longer require as much critical chance to get normal hit rates.
• Add corpses in the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter should disappear after they have been killed.
• Members of the Commanders Ring Event encounter should no longer lose their encounter targeting rings.
• Kigara and Kelana should no longer keep trying to apply their damage shield once one of the dragons has been slain.
• Kigara and Kelana adds should continue to summon the correct adds once one of the dragons have been slain.

Fabled Laboratory of Lord Vyemm

• The “Spiny Protection” buff from the Corsolander should now correctly apply ae auto-attack avoidance.
• The Corsolander should no longer attempt to engage already defeated players.
• Lord Vyemm and Alzid Prime are now part of the same encounter instead of two separate encounters.
• An achievement and guild achievement are now available for defeating Lord Vyemm and Alzid Prime.

From the EQ2 Forums:

NEW FABLED ZONES
Contested

• The Fabled Sanctum of the Scaleborn

Group

• The Fabled Den of the Devourer
• The Fabled Halls of Fate
• The Fabled Vaults of El’Arad

Raid

• The Fabled Laboratory of Lord Vyemm
• The Fabled Mutagenic Outcast
• The Fabled Three Princes

GENERAL

• Updated sorting order of the Guild Event Filters in the guild window.
• A “Reset All” button has been added to the Persistent Instances tab of the Zones window.

Looks like today’s press embargo dropped around 1:30pm EST as ZAM, Massively, MMORPG, and a number of other sites dropped their articles about what we can expect from EverQuest and EverQuest II in the first 3 months of 2014, as well as a pointlessly brief tease of EQNext Landmark.

Despite being just NINE days from SOE President John Smedley’s self-imposed “end of January” deadline for EQNL Alpha to begin, the team remains coy about what the actual day will be. We’re banking on January 31st, which is also the day when hundreds of players will fly in from around the world just to play a 15 minute demo. Now that’s dedication!

• ZAM: SOE Talks about the Year of EverQuest

Some quotes from the ZAM article after the jump…

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale recorded (along with the Producers for EverQuest and EverQuest Next Landmark) a video talking about upcoming features this year. After the jump, our bullet-point list of what Holly talked about.

From the EQ2 Forums:

MERCENARIES

• In response to player feedback, we have revised the Mercenary user interface in the Character panel to add summon/suspend functionality and clarify the features overall.
• As a reminder, mercenaries (normal and rare) may be resummoned after 60 seconds from when they were last suspended.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Vesspyr Isles

• Fixed an issue that was preventing Draazak from being spawned when the correct items were turned in.
• The red shinies on Aeterna Gardens have been moved a bit further away from Wuoshi.

Underfoot Depths

• Regulus and Regulas should no longer reset a few seconds after they are triggered.

From the EQ2 Forums:

From Kyle “Kander” Vallée on the EQ2 Forums:

We are opening a new area here on the forums for the sole purpose of getting raid feedback quickly and easily in order to assist us to make changes, tweaks quicker and more effectively and vastly improve future raid content.

This area will be by invite only and will be for raid leaders and raiders who are participating in the upper echelon of raid content. This is area will be a direct link to the development team. We want it to feel open and constructive.

The goal is to have a limited amount of participants so we can moderate it and post frequently without having to dig through tons of threads and posts. So we will have limited slots.

If you are interested in participating in this forum and wanting to contribute to the betterment of all raid content, please contact me directly with your in-game name, guild, raid position and current raid progress.

kvallee (at) soe.sony.com

Commentary

You may ask why a raid council like this is needed. Raid guilds tend to be guarded about their strategies, as for them, competition is important. And game developers tend to not want to give away entire strategies of fights, as players are supposed to be figuring this out. Such an invite-only forum will allow a level of honesty and brainstorming not possible on a public forum.

Also, all the information will be in one place, so it will require less digging by developers and so should result in a net gain in development time on raiding AND other forms of gameplay.

This is not an elevation of one playstyle over others, as these days, the raid content is adapted so that soloers and groupers get to experience it, rather than entirely separate content being developed for all 3 play styles. Even so, I predict people will flippantly ask for a Solo Council, Tradeskill Council, or Group Council in the comments.