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

After installing 14 gigs worth of game files (for those that didn’t choose the streaming client) they headed to the character select screen.  That’s when they were kicked in the teeth.  Unless they got really lucky and picked a race/class combination that was free, they were staring at a list of locked characters.  In order to play, they would have to pay for race/class unlockers.  If they wanted to create a new character, they would have to delete all but three of their old characters since silver membership only has four slots.  The only other choice was to create a new account that wouldn’t have silver access.  This was not a good way to welcome back returning players.

SmokeJumper agreed.  Today this announcement was posted:

Hi, folks,

We’ve been listening to you since we launched the Free-to-Play service across all servers. One of the most frequent issues is from folks that used to play EQII Live and are now coming back to the Silver membership level and becoming very confused because they’ve never played under those restrictions. “Why can’t I play my characters? Why are they locked?”

Of course, the reason is because those players are returning to a Silver membership (which is free of charge) and those older characters are often locked behind the Silver membership race/class restrictions. There are two easy ways to get around those restrictions: Upgrade to Gold, or buy the race/class packs.

But, we don’t really want to force those decisions on returning players. It’s not a fun experience to come back to something that seemed exciting (F2P) and then get hit with a bill as soon as you arrive, just for the privelege of using your current characters.

So here’s what we’re going to do.

*Every* character that was created before 12/06/2011 at 12:01 am will be grandfathered in without race or class restriction. This means that regardless of your membership level, you will be able to play any character created before 12/6 without paying for race- or class-pack unlocks.

For any player that previously subscribed to EQII Live servers, or as a Gold or Platinum member on EQ2X, we will also refund all the class/race pack purchases made after 12/06/2011 at 12:01 am and before the time of this posting (12/08/2011, 4:30pm) so that no one loses any SC due to this change.

Of course, this doesn’t affect new characters created from now onward. If you are playing at Silver or Free membership levels and want to create a *new* character, you’ll still be subject to the regular membership class and race restrictions.

We think this should make a lot of folks happy and we’ll get this done as soon as humanly possible, either today, or first thing tomorrow.

See you in-game! Enjoy!

Personally, I applaud Smokejumper for doing the right thing for our returning players. -Dethdlr

Jump to EQ2Wire’s Beastlord Warders Guide >>

This Guide is would not be possible without Whilhelmina’s fantastic Beastlord FAQ she wrote during Beta.

Introducing Beastlords

Beastlords really are a very different class, which means we get a whole new set of UI elements. This includes a Beastlord Bar, a Savagery Bar, a new tab in the Character window for keeping track of all your Warders (pets), and a large blue Weakness paw icon which comes up whenever your Warder pet is ready for you to fire off an coordinated attack.

If all of this were available at level 1, you’d be overwhelmed, so these features are unlocked as you level up. There’s also an in-game tutorial specifically for Beastlords.

At level 1, you get your first warder (based on your race). At this point, it really just acts as a basic pet and you can’t do any special abilities with it.

Taming a Warder

At level 10, you gain two new abilities: Tame Warder and Stare Down. As soon as you spend your first point in the Animalist AA tree, you also gain the ability Beastmaster’s Sight.

How do you know that an animal can be tamed?

When you cast Beastmaster’s Sight, you will see every potential warder in the vicinity start glowing blue. You will also see a list of nearby creatures which can be tamed posted in your chat window, as well as which family of Warder they belong to.

Once you decide which creature you want to tame, you will need to fight it and bring it to below 50% health. Now I don’t know about you, but ths type of gameplay drives me crazy.

Tame Warder is an extremely slow casting ability, and it is very likely that the mob will interrupt you. Once you bring the mob below 50% health, you should use the Cheap Shot scout ability to temporarily stun the mob and then cast Tame Warder. While you are casting Tame Warder, use the Stare Down ability to stun the mob for another 2 1/2 seconds. Cheap Shot and Stare Down both increase your chances of successfully taming the mob.

Once you are successful, you will gain a new ability called Summon Warder: and the family of Warder you tamed. If you already have a warder of this family, you’ll just update the appearance of your warder. For instance if you already had Summon Warder: Feline with a tiger appearance and you tame a leopard, you will simply replace the appearance of your Feline pet with that of a leopard. This change does not affect the level or skill of your warder.

Tip for Taming Low Level/Low Health Warders: This can be very tricky especially if your character is a much higher level than the creature, or the creature is a very low tier with minimal health. There are a few things you can do here. You can strip off all your gear except for your main weapon. You can also turn off any buffs you have which do damage. Finally, you need to cancel your current pet so that you can create a new one.

Warder Families

There are 16 families of warder : 12 normal and 4 exotic. You gain the ability to tame normal warders at level 10. Pets are either offensive or defensive types. Exotic warders become available at level 80 once you have spent enough points in the Beastlord AA tree to get the bottom end line ability “Tame Exotic Warder“.

Offensive

• Reptile: lizards
• Rodent: rats, armadillos, beaver, badger
• Bat: bats
• Canine: wolves, hyenas
• Feline: tigers, cats
• Avian: vulrich, falcons
• Amphibian: turtle, frogs

Defensive

• Bovid: dear, cow, sheep, camel
• Bear: bears
• Simian: gorillas, monkeys
• Aquatic: crocodiles, crabs
• Boar: pigs
• Age of Discovery: CE Warboar

Exotic (Offensive)

• Dire: raptors, panthers, sabertooths, dire bears, dire wolves, sasquatch, yeti
• Enchanted: hellhounds, lashers
• Drake: drakes
• Mystical: manticores, cockatrice, displacer beasts

Warder Skills & Abilities

How do you find out how fast your pet is skilling up, or what combat arts your pet has, or what your stored pet looks like? Open your Character window and click on Warders. At the top of the window, you can pull down a menu to view each of your 16 Warders.

Just below the Warder selector menu, there is a progress bar which is the Warder’s Affinity or XP bar. Your Warder will slowly gain experience as it combats alongside you and will skill up from Apprentices to Grandmaster. Once your pet reaches Grandmaster level, you will gain the Primal ability shown to the right which you can use on all your warders.

NOTE: Warders do not start gaining Affinity until your beastlord reaches level 30.

In the Warder tab, at the bottom, you can see the Combat Arts and Spells which your Warder will automatically use during combat. You have no control over these, but you can upgrade them by spending AAs. If you click “Stats” while viewing a Warder, then the Stats flyout on the right side of the Character window will reflect those of your Warder.

Beastlord Bar

At level 18, you gain access to the Beastlord bar. On the LEFT side of the Beastlord bar are 4 slots which hold Advantages. During combat, your pet will open up Weaknesses in the enemy, which is indicated by a warbling sound and a large blue paw icon to the left-of-center of the screen. Once a Weakness opens up, you have a few seconds to click an Advantage which can do direct damage, provide a group buff, or debuff the enemy.

At level 20, you will see another part of the Beastlord UI called the Savagery bar. During combat, you will start to build up Savagery by fighting alongside your pet.

On the RIGHT side of your Beastlord bar are 6 slots that hold Primals.  Casting a Primal ability requires a certain amount of Savagery to have been built up. Primal abilities get more powerful the more Savagery you have built up. Using Advantages quickly builds up Savagery, but Savagery then slowly decays when you are out of combat.

Hiding/Showing the Beastlord Bar

If your Beastlord bar doesn’t show, try typing /togglebeastlordwindow. If you find the window to be too wasteful of screen space, you can right-click it and choose Minimize to reduce the Beastlord Bar down to the appearance of a standard hotbar. If for some reason your Savagery bar is missing, type /togglesavagerywindow .

Pet Window Note: for those not familiar with pet classes, when viewing the Pet window, the green bar represents health, blue is power and yellow is threat. You can also name your pet by right-clicking in the Pet window and choosing Pet Options.

Spiritual Stance

Now so far, everything we have been talking about takes place when your Beastlord is in an Offensive or “Feral” Stance. The Advantages and Primals you’ve been using so far are also “Feral” in nature.

At Level 30, the Spiritual Stance becomes available. If you are in a situation that calls for more healing or otherwise a defensive stance, you may switch to your Spiritual stance. The first time you enter a Spiritual Stance, you’ll need to change out the Advantages and Primals on your Beastlord Bar with Spiritual ones.

When you are in Feral Stance, only Feral Advantages and Feral Primals will work. When you are in Spiritual Stance, only Spiritual Advantages and Primals will work.

Rather than fishing around in the Knowledge book, you may customize your Beastlord bar, by right-clicking on any Advantage or Primal. A popup should appear which shows you the other Advantages or Primals that will fit into that slot. Fortunately, the game remembers which Advantages and Primals you’ve picked for each stance and will swap them out as you switch stances.

NOTE: Certain abilities will only go in certain slots on your Beastlord bar. You’ll find that there are Slot 1, Slot 2, Slot 3, and Slot 4 Advantages. The same arrangement applies to Primals.

Summon Spells: Rather than having an entire hotbar filled up with Summon spells for each of your warders, you can place a single Summon spell on your hotbar, and when you right-click on it, you’ll get a popup that shows all the pet families you’ve unlocked.

Skills and Specialization

At level 30, your pet will start to gain Affinity. While your Warder pet is always exactly the same level as you are, when you first tame a Warder, their abilities are only at Apprentice level. Only through adventuring with your pet can you hope to increase that pet’s skills from Apprentice, Journeyman, all the way to Grandmaster. This is a slow process, and the goal is not that you can have all 16 of your Warders Grandmastered out in a few days.

There is a series of six quests you can complete with your Beastlord which can give a major jump in the Affinity of your pet.

When you open your Alternate Advancement window, you’ll notice a Warder tab named for your pet’s Warder family (Avian, Simian, etc.). Although this tab appears in your AA window, you don’t spend AA points here. Instead, at level 22, you start gaining Warder Specialization Points to spend in the Warder tree. You gain one Warder Specialization Point for every 2 levels from 22 to 90. At level 90, you can spend 35 Warder Specialization Points in each of the 16 pet trees.

NOTE: Warder Specialization Points are not “shared” between pets. Each of your 16 pets can have up to 35 points spent.

Beastlords At A Glance By Level

The Beastlords change a lot with the level, so here’s an at-a-glance view:

• Level 10 : Tame Warder – ability to tame regular warders
• Level 18 : Weakness & Feral Advantages – When attacking with warder, you’ll see a blue paw. While active, you can use one of your feral advantages (left part of BL bar). You’ll need to have your Feral Stance active.
• Level 20 : Savagery & Feral Primals – using an advantage will up your savagery bar. Enough savagery will allow to launch a Feral Primal (right part of BL bar)
• Level 30 : Spiritual Stance, Spiritual Advantages and Spiritual Primals – You gain another stance, which is a healing stance. Launch it and then right click your advantages and primals to set them to spiritual advantages and primals.
• Level 30 : Pet Skillups : you’re pet will start to skillup from Apprentice to Grandmaster when you use Primals.
• Level 80 : With 31 specialization points, you’ll be able to choose a 5th slot Primal ability.

Warder Combat Arts/Spells

Note this information is from Age of Discovery Beta and may have changed:

• Amphibian :
  • Poison secretions : direct poison damage + noxious debuff
  • amphibian consumption : direct piercing damage + small pet heal
  • Noxious emission : direct group poison damage + deflection, parry, defense debuff
  • Leaping Lurge : direct crushing damage
• Aquatic :
  • Aquatic Regeneration : group heal
  • Crushing force : crushing group DOT
  • Impenetrable Hide : deflection, parry and defense group buff (short duration)
  • Wild snapping : direct crushing group damage
• Avian :
  • Bird’s Eye : chance to hit with a weapon buff for group (short duration)
  • Swarming Dive : direct group piercing damage
  • Sky’s Restoration : group heal
  • Vicious Talons : Piercing group DOT
• Bat :
  • Moonlight Dive : direct piercing damage
  • Piercing Fangs : direct group piercing damage + arcane debuff
  • Sonic Precision : crit bonus buff for group
  • Sonic Shriek : Piercing group DOT
• Bear :
  • Crushing Paws : Crushing DOT
  • Hibernating Restoration : group heal
  • Fierce Growl : physical mitigation group buff (short duration)
  • Maul : direct crushing group damage
• Boar :
  • Feral Consumption : direct piercing damage + small pet heal
  • Frenzied Feeding : group heal
  • Rampage : piercing DOT
  • Wild Charge : direct crushing damage + attack speed debuff
• Bovid :
  • Crushing Hooves : crushing DOT
  • Nurturing Presence : increases healing received by group
  • Territorial Regeneration : group heal
  • Weighted Charge : direct crushing group damage
• Canine :
  • Charging bite : direct piercing damage
  • Crushing Maw : direct crushing damage + physical debuff
  • Moon’s Howl : direct piercing group damage + slow
  • Vicious Charge : crushing group DOT
• Feline :
  • Batter : direct crushing group damage
  • Feast : direct piercing damage + small pet heal
  • Feline Nurturing : group heal
  • Throat Bite : piercing group DOT
• Reptile :
  • Debilitating Venom : direct poison group damage + noxious debuff
  • Poisonous Fangs : poison group DOT
  • Reptilian Vigor : potency group buff
  • Venom Spray : direct poison group damage
• Rodent :
  • Ankle Bite : direct piercing damage + slow
  • Consume Flesh : direct piercing damage + small pet heal
  • Rabid Bite : direct piercing damage
  • Rabies : disease DOT
• Simian :
  • Furious Swipe : slashing DOT
  • Simian Restoration : group heal
  • Simian Siphon : direct slashing damage + small pet heal
  • Spinning attack : direct slashing group damage
• Dire (Exotic – offensive)
  • Enhance:    UncontrolledRampage : Group Crushing + decrease mit vs all dmg
  • Enhance:    Dire Drain : DD crushing + pet heal
  • Enhance:    Savage Mauling : DD crushing + decrease mit vs all dmg
  • Enhance:    Crazed Roar : DD mental
• Drake (Exotic – offensive)
  • Enhance:    Wing Beat : DD crushing
  • Enhance:    Fire Breath : Group heat + group dot
  • Enhance:    Draconic Flames : Group heat + decrease mit vs elemental
  • Enhance:    Draconic Alarcrity : Group buff increase multi attack
• Enchanted (Exotic – offensive)
  • Enhance:    Enchanted Eyes : DD magic + pet heal
  • Enhance:    Magical Pyre : DD magic + decrease mit vs arcane
  • Enhance:    Arcane Affliction : DD magic + DOT
  • Enhance:    Mystic Burst : DD magic
• Mystical (Exotic – defensive)
  • Enhance:    Mental Intrusion : Group mental + DPS debuff
  • Enhance:    Mental Blast : DD mental
  • Enhance:    Psionic Destruction : Group mental DOT
  • Enhance:    Psychic Assault : DD mental + weapon attack on multiple targets debuff

A few (22) hours behind schedule, EverQuest II has launched their Age of Discovery expansion, which includes the Beastlord class, Item Reforging, Tradeskill Apprentices, Mercenaries, and the Dungeon Maker. Today also marks the introduction of a revamped Freeport, with new questlines starting at level 20 and every 10-20 levels until level 80. Also, EverQuest II has now gone entirely free-to-play. The Freeport server joins the other EQ2 servers as a regular server, and players can start on any server they like, either at the Free, Silver, or Gold levels. Heck even Frostfell goes live today.

If you are an EQ2 subscriber, then NOTHING changes for you.

LAUNCHERS: If you are using any of the older launchers such as the original EQ2.exe launcher in the Retail box, the blue-grey Station Launcher, or Launchpad 3 (either regular or streaming), you must upgrade to either the regular or streaming version of Launchpad 4 before you can patch in and play EverQuest II. If you point the installation at your current EQ2 directory, you will only need to download approximately 2.4GB of data. See our Launchpad 4 Patcher article for more info.

VETERAN REWARDS: If you are not able to see Veteran Rewards in your Claim windows, this will be fixed in tomorrow’s hotfix!

GUIDES:

• If you are looking for guides to the new features in Age of Discovery, or where to find all the new quests in Freeport, check out Cyliena’s helpful guides at EQ2 ZAM.
• Niami Denmother has posted her Age of Discovery Preview as well as her Frostfell 2011 Guide.
• If you have reached level 10 on your new Beastlord and are looking for a new pet, look no further than EQ2Wire’s Beastlord Warder Guide.
  

See you in the game!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Trolls…

We have just evaluated the status of the current update and have come to the conclusion that we can either unlock servers and risk broken content, or ensure that we provide the best experience possible and delay the update to tomorrow morning.

We have to do it RIGHT. For all of you and for all of us.

So please, bear with us, relax overnight, and let us sortie into the new day together. Community will be in office at 7:00am PST and will immediately review status and give you all an update. We are aiming for morning and working as hard as we possibly can.

Yer faithful Dwarf,

Brasse

Update:

Friends,

A final update this evening… Smed would like us to share that with the Platform Team working all night to complete the maintenance, we expect to be up at 10:00am PST.

Again, the Community Team will be in at 7:00am and will get you a status update.

Thank you, once more, for hanging in there with us. We are honored and appreciate your support of our efforts to make Norrath more enjoyable for all!

Brasse

We have an update on the server status: we are unlikely to launch until 8:00 PM PST or later. We are terribly sorry that this maintenance has taken so long and we greatly appreciate your continued patience!  - Isulith

While EQ2 servers are down or being merged, join us in Zam’s chatroom. Click one of the buttons below to chat with us during the downtime. There’s always someone in the chatroom during US or EU-friendly times.

For instructions on how to connect to the chat using mIRC, Trillian, or other chat client, check out the detailed instructions at EQ2 ZAM.

If you are not able to run chat software at work, or you just want to jump into the chat through your web browser, you can chat here using the Java applet.

Dethdlr here. No news to report but if you’re looking for something to do during the downtime, check out the web series Journey Quest. Watch all seven episodes for free. Pretty funny stuff.

NOTE: We can assure you, there is NOTHING in this Producer’s Letter that has not already been publicly known and widely discussed.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Hello again, Norrathians!

It gives me great pleasure to raise the curtain on a new chapter in our game’s history.

Today, we stop requiring any sort of payment. There are no upfront download costs and memberships are no longer required. Everything is voluntary now. If we’re doing a good job of entertaining you, then you can help support the game you love with purchases or memberships, spending as much or as little as you choose to spend as you play.

We have a fired-up dev team. We believe that EQII is the best MMORPG in existence and we intend to keep making it better so that everyone else has to admit it. What we’re doing today keeps us on that path.

This is your world, and we’re committed to making it more and more your world as we keep growing.

Today, every one of you can walk into “Freeport Reborn”. Lucan D’Lere has returned to kick his city into gear and reassert his dominance across the map. And to show how much his desire for power has affected the city, Freeport has been given a huge aesthetic facelift, combining North, South, East, and West Freeport into a single city without zones, and retexturing and improving the impressiveness of the city.

Although we’ve preserved much of the original content and quests in Freeport, we have also added a large amount of completely new content also. The approach on these new quests is unique for this game. For the first time, we’ve focused on race- and archetype-specific quest lines throughout the city so that each time you run an alt through the game, you can experience new content in Freeport. Also, the quest lines added to Freeport dynamically scale in level so that regardless of what level you come into the city, chances are that some of the new quests there will work for your character. With a greater focus on stories and better NPC personas, the city is coming alive like it never has before.

So go be evil. Enjoy Freeport. Revel in the moment of glory that is the beginning of greatness! We bring you to the city via the Golden Path naturally at level 20 (from Butcherblock), but you can go  there at any age and a good chunk of the content will scale to your level.

And that’s just the beginning of what we’re bringing you today!

Today is also the day we launch the standalone, level-agnostic expansion pack, the “Age of Discovery”. This expansion is designed to be available to you at any time during your adventure as an EverQuest II player. It’s a box of entirely new gameplay that opens up wide vistas for players that have experienced much of the original game and want to enhance their adventures beyond the standard game features.

The “Age of Discovery” is aptly named. We focused on customization, collectability, and allowing players to unlock countless hours of new gameplay.

Let’s start with Beastlords. This new player class feels fresh the moment you begin to tame new Warders. The world of Norrath is full of creatures, and Beastlords can tame a huge chunk of them, in 16 different families of Warders, with their own unique abilities and specialization trees (yes, your Warders have their own “AA trees”). Add to that a more active gameplay style where your Warder looks for weaknesses so that you can take advantage of them, and a new charge-up mechanic as your successful use of advantages gives you power to trigger powerful Primal effects. What you end up with is a hugely varied, insanely tweakable, fun-to-play character class that you use to explore throughout all of Norrath.

This alone gets a lot of folks excited, but there’s an incredible amount in this expansion even beyond Beastlords.

We are also bringing Mercenaries to the game. Each mercenary in the world is unique, with abilities and AI traits that are theirs and theirs alone. (A Dark Elf healer may have entirely different skills than a Halfling healer, for example.) You pick the merc you like, hire them on, and the two of you journey out into the world together (as long as you keep paying gold to the merc, that is). You can customize their appearance, change their name, give them tactical commands, and there are even rare-spawn mercs out there in Norrath that you may stumble upon one day…and they are impressively powerful.

Mercenaries have a huge impact on the solo and small-group play experiences. Content that was impossible to achieve without 6-12 players (heroic dungeons and X2 raids) is now entirely possible to explore with only 3-6 players instead. This opens up the world of Norrath to the new player and veteran alike, as even just a few friends can get a group together. Essentially, your potential gaming space in Norrath expands enormously in size once you have a Mercenary at your disposal.

Not done yet. There’s still more. A lot more.

The third of our main features in AoD is Dungeon Maker! Almost every one of us has played a paper RPG in the past. Probably most of us have been a gamemaster in one game or another. Haven’t you always wanted to be able to create content within an MMO for your friends and guildmates? And do it without having to learn some insane scripting language so that it’s actually *fun* to build a dungeon?

That’s what this feature is all about.

You start with a handful of small maps and a decent list of monster spawners and effect objects, but most of the really cool stuff you can use to build a dungeon is “out there” in the world of Norrath. As you explore and defeat the challenges of Norrath, you’ll also find things for Dungeon Maker.

And not just things to use when creating a dungeon, but also things to play when entering a dungeon! The creatures of Norrath (around 50 of them so far) can be possessed when entering a player-created dungeon, each player becoming an Adventurer character with its own abilities and techniques. You decide which Adventurer to play out of the ones you’ve collected every time you enter a dungeon.

Adventurers get XP for playing, of course, but both Builders and Adventurers get rewards when Adventurers finish the dungeon and the cool item and rewards you get can be used for any of your characters. Builders get a small reward the first time each player completes their dungeon, so the more popular your dungeon is, the better the rewards!

Building a dungeon is done with a new, improved housing interface, a cool new Toolbox window, and simple click-and-place mechanics. You can set wander and patrol behaviors, you can customize a ton of text that the monsters say (and even their names) and you can also use easy-to-place and use Effect Objects to change your monster powers and abilities.

It’s an incredibly flexible system and players access it via a Dungeon Maker interface (look for it in the EQII menu!), similar in nature to the existing Housing Leaderboards. It’s incredibly simple to check things out, have fun, rate the dungeon, and get rewards.

This community is fantastically creative. The EverQuest II housing community already makes some stunningly beautiful and inventive creations, so it’s going to be incredibly exciting to see what the community creates when they can make something that’s not only beautiful, but also has compelling gameplay! And did I mention that you can build a dungeon together cooperatively? As far as I know, we’re the first game to *ever* allow that functionality.

I know, I know. This is a long post. But seriously, that’s how much stuff we have for you. It’s a good thing that this is long. Really.

EQII has one of the best and strongest crafting communities of any MMO, and they get a bright new feature this time with Tradeskill Apprentices. Contract your Apprentice from one of several races (you pick), and install your Apprentice in your home. He or she will get to work right away doing research to find new recipes for you that can make some majorly powerful stuff. During that research, your Apprentice will occasionally stumble upon quests that you can do to help him speed his research along. If you do those quests regularly, you can get rare drops and also decrease the amount of time your Apprentice needs. The Apprentice is, of course, appearance and name customizable, and we’ll be releasing new Tradeskill Apprentices in the future, making each of them unique and interesting in their own right as they arrive.

This leads us to Reforging. Reforging is one of those features that is easy to explain, but adds more to the game than its deceptively simple description. Basically, you can change blue stats on a Legendary (or better) weapon and you can also find “decorations” out in the world (such as loot drops or NPC merchants, to start with) and add cool particle effects to your weapons. Simple, eh? But you’ll be surprised how many times you’ll sit at a Reforger contemplating your changes and deciding how you want your gear to look. If you like customization of items, this is good stuff.

And lastly, we’re adding +20 to the AA cap for everyone that activates “Age of Discovery”.

One of the press folks that toured these features in-game with us (from MMORPG) put it best when he said “The Age of Discovery introduces more gameplay as an expansion than many full games launch with originally.” These are good features, folks, and there’s a lot of replayability here.

But, as the late-night commercials say, “Wait! There’s still more!”

Here’s a list of stuff that we’ve kept quiet until now. Why? Because surprises are cool. Surprise!

• www.everquest2.com : Hugely overhauled with a better look and feel.
• Social networking : We already let you upload videos to YouTube from within the game, but now you can post to Facebook or Twitter from within the game also, and you can also turn on Achievements so that your Facebook page or Twitter feed gets updated with EQII achievements. NOTE: We only broadcast a tiny fraction of the game’s achievements. We have no intent for this to be spam. And this can be toggled on/off per character! (But if you’re proud of EQII, we’d love for you to show your colors. The more people hear about us, the more likely it is that your game will thrive!)
• The new Launchpad : Quicker, smarter, cooler-looking than before. And now Flash-less!
• (And it didn’t *quite* make it in time for launch, but look for a stronger, faster, better version of EQ2Players to arrive in a week or so!)

So check out the update notes for details, and enjoy! There has never been a better time to play EverQuest II.

On a personal note, I’m tremendously excited to be working with this game at this time. The team is passionate and SOE is making smart business decisions to support all of its games here. Every company goes through peaks and valleys during its lifetime, but there’s a strong feeling of a new renaissance happening here at SOE that’s electrifying. Work just isn’t a chore when you like what you’re doing and where you’re going.

Every single one of you got a new Welcome Pack of goodies today, so check your /claim windows. And have fun! That’s what it’s all about!

– Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson.

Age of Discovery is the eighth expansion of the groundbreaking EverQuest II franchise.

Age of Discovery offers never-seen-before features including user-generated content and the re-imagining of the Beastlord class from the original EverQuest release.  You can make your mark in-game by creating your very own Dungeon, hire some much needed help for your heroic battles, push tradeskilling research to new heights, customize your weapons at the forge, and of course, play as a Beastlord. There’s a lot to like about this expansion!

DUNGEON MAKER

Ever wanted to build your own dungeon? Now you can with the Dungeon Maker system! Locate and collect a variety of floor layouts and styles, decorate your dungeon, select monsters to fill it, and battle through the content you designed to win new rewards!

Ever want access to tons of new content to play so that you rarely need to repeat the same experience? Play as an Adventurer in Dungeon Maker and win xp and awards for your characters!

To start creating a dungeon, click on the ‘Dungeons’ tab on the ‘Character’ sheet (default hotkey ‘c’).  Here you can ‘Create’ a new dungeon from a selection of layouts, ‘Edit’ any dungeons you have created, or ‘Delete’ any dungeons you no longer need. (This Create screen can also be accessed by clicking the ‘Create’ button on the Dungeon Maker leaderboard screen.)

To view and play through any published dungeon, click on the ‘Dungeon Maker’ button found on the ‘EQII’ menu.  Here you will see a list of all currently published dungeons.  Choose any and click on ‘Enter’ to start your play through!

BEASTLORDS

At last, the Beastlord class returns to Norrath.  Seek out new animals throughout the world to train as your warder pet.  Work with your warder to build up your strengths and exploit your enemies’ weaknesses.  Build up Savagery with your Warder to trigger powerful Primal attacks! In the Age of Discovery, Beastlords walk the lands of Norrath once again!

To create a new Beastlord character, look under ‘Scouts’ during character creation.

FREEPORT REBORN

The return of Lucan D’Lere to Freeport has given the city new life and purpose. With his iron hand once again on the throne, the citizens of Freeport have been commanded, coerced and dragooned into overhauling the city’s appearance and reorganized to be more efficient and responsive to Lucan’s will. Of course, this is still Freeport, so dissention is always brewing just under the surface, but Lucan’s firm grasp on command keeps most people tentative about their resistance currently.

Storyline Quests

• Players can speak to Serris in the Freeport Militia House to begin doing work for Freeport.
• Players can speak to The Forgotten to continue doing work for Freeport once they are level 40 and have completed the level 20 storyline quests.

Racial Quests

• Sarnak players may wish to visit the Gorowyn Chancery and speak to Ambassador Erazak.
• Half Elves should seek out Thavian Destrus on the docks near Seafarer’s Roost.
• Gnomes should seek out Professor Flimflam located at Inventor’s Outlook.
• Dark Elves should seek out Dyymona K’Vexx located inside The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Erudites should seek out Azreana located inside The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Ogres should seek out Kroota Gukbutcher located in the Dreadnaught’s Plaza.
• Arasai players should visit their new embassy and speak with Ambassador Anttel V’Xeath.
• Freeblood players should seek out Glaria in the Jade Tiger Inn.
• Human players should seek out Derald Walldons on the Overlord’s Perch.
• Iksar players should seek out Zulk Veskk just outside the doors to the Scale Yard.
• Kerra players should seek out Caltuur, just outside the Freeport Block and Tackle.
• Ratonga players should seek out Sneel Valiyn near The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Troll players should seek out Nelik Ulnya on the docks outside of the Freeport Block and Tackle.

Class Quests

• Mages will find quests being offered by Librarian Motius Feldarn at the Academy of Arcane Science at level 20+, and then Foci Tamara Paust at the Academy of Arcane Science at levels 40+, 60+ & 80+.
• Fighters will find quests being offered by Corporal Sergius Mordanticus at the Freeport Militia House at level 20+, and then Grand Duke Lazarus Hazran at the Freeport Militia House at levels 40+, 60+ & 80+.
• Scouts will find quests being offered beginning at level 20+, by seeking out Galla Silverwing, Quartermaster Baile, and Vali’il near the docks of Freeport.  Scouts at level 40+ can then find work with Privateer Twitchwisker, and finally with Captain Siren at levels 60+ and 80+.
• Priests will find quests at level 20+ by seeking out Administrator Frugi, Kenth Lanringe, and Belimee Viperwing at the Temple of War.  Priests at level 40+ can find work with Gisuka Voll, then with Grand Inquisitor Nethal L’tylex at level 60+, then finally with Gisuka Voll once again at 80+.

MERCENARIES

As you travel the lands of Norrath, keep your eyes open for mercenaries who may be for hire. Is your group short-handed? Now you can hire a brave companion to fight by your side, filling a spot in your group or assisting you in a duo. Coin talks, and the mercenaries of the shattered lands are eager to listen. Be sure to watch out for rare mercenaries who may not normally be available, but who will serve you well and faithfully for a limited time.

REFORGING

Ever obtained an item that’s just not quite what you wanted?  Using the reforging system, you will be able to reconfigure your items to change their stats and even add particle effects!

Reforging specialists have appeared in Freeport and Qeynos (look for the tag)!

• These specialists will allow you to tweak stats on your Legendary, Fabled, and Mythical equipment via a new “Reforge” window.
• You can revert the reforging process via the “Restore” tab at any specialist.
• These specialists will also allow you to attach a Decoration to your weapon.

Decorations add particle effects to your weapon.

Decorations are available via various means throughout Norrath.

There are several tiers of decorations.

• The higher the tier, the more elaborate the effect.
• The first tier is available for purchase from Reforging specialists

To add a decoration to your weapon, drag and drop your decoration into the decoration slot in the “Reforge” window.

• Reforging stats and adding a decoration to a weapon must be done at the same time.
• You can revert the reforging process via the “Restore” tab at any specialist.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

Claim your tradeskill apprentice and gain your very own minion!  Put your apprentice to work researching new recipes for extremely powerful items specific to your tradeskill class. Coach your apprentice to make his or her research more efficient; gain XP and rewards as well as recipes as your apprentice gains in skill.

• Tradeskill Apprentices can be found at the major crafting hubs in Freeport and Qeynos.
• You must be a level 10+ tradeskiller to mentor a Tradeskill Apprentice.
• In exchange for a roof over their heads and tutelage, Tradeskill Apprentices will research recipes to share with you.

This research takes a good amount of time, so choose your desired recipe research wisely.

Up to 100 new recipes for each Tradeskill Class, spanning from level 10 to 90.

These recipes produce powerful items, all of them with unique effects, and many with unique appearances!

Additionally, 10 unique Reforging decoration recipes are available for research.

You can mentor your Tradeskill Apprentice once per day to speed up their current research task.

• You can also help your apprentice via a daily quest.  This will further speed up their research.You can customize the uniform and name of your Tradeskill Apprentice.

COMMONLANDS PUBLIC QUEST

The Dismal Rage seek the aid of brave adventurers as they battle the rising undead in The Commonlands (find them near the entrance to the Graveyard).

GENERAL

• On some machines when turning Multi Sample Anti Aliasing to anything other than “None” the UI would disappear until the game is restarted. This should be fixed now.
• New characters will no longer have racial abilities automatically populated in their hotbars.
• Fixed a bug with flying mounts and the cannon in Moors of Ykesha.

HOUSE RATING SYSTEM

• Trial accounts can no longer vote for houses in the leaderboard system.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Den of the Devourer

• Fixed an issue that prevented the hatchlings from attacking in the Den of the Devourer.

Kael Drakkel

• Sorleyt Taskill will hand out Kael Drakkel missions more reliably.

All Drunder x4 raid zones [Challenge Mode]

• All basepop mobs have lower max health.  Boss mobs in challenge mode drunder zones (Sullon, Tallon, Vallon x4 raid zones) do less spell and melee damage.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge and Normal Mode]

• In the General Zevitus fight Combat Madness is now cureable as a curse.  If you cure it it does not go away, but simply jumps to a new player immediately rather than when it would expire normally.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge mode]

• During the Lieutenant Klaatuus fight the aviak trooper adds spawn less often, and Klaatuus will no longer memwipe to players holding or near the totem.

Vallon’s Tower [Challenge Mode]

• During the Gindan Commander Angler fight the Diaku Deceptors spawn less often.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• Players with the Age of Discovery expansion can now earn up to 320 Alternate Advancement points.
• Characters hitting level 10 will automatically be granted 5 Alternate Advancement points. Characters above level 10 logging in for the first time will gain a small amount of Alternate Advancement experience.
• Fixed a bug where spell double attack chance was no respecting values less than 1 but greater than 0.
• Altered the description text on spells that give or take away potency and pvp potency to have a more uniform description.
• You can now buy Singular Focus from your class trainer NPC.  This ability allows you to turn off AE autoattack from melee, ranged and spell weapons.

Coercer

• Medusa Gaze now can complete Arcane Storm.

TRADESKILLS

• Altered the description of the tradeskill AA “Conservation of Mass” to give more information including proc rate and effects.
• The proc rate of the tradeskill AA “Conservation of Mass” now increases as you increase rank.
• The proc “Conservation of Mass” will now only proc when you complete crafting a pristine item, and not while crafting the item.
• Repair Materials and Pristine Repair Materials are now flagged heirloom.

ITEMS

• Many items that were designed to be sold to a vendor can no longer be listed on the broker.  Items like these that already exist on the broker have been taken down and cannot be relisted.
• Petamorph Wands are now toggleable.
• The Station Marketplace casino games can now be played. The result of the spin/roll will be random and all players will see the same result.
• Brute’s Unyielding Hand Wraps, Cenobite’s Unyielding Hand Wraps and Cenobite’s Prodigious Hand Wraps have had haste added to them.
• Fixed a bug where a few items would not properly auto equip when there was already an item in that slot.
• Fighter helms that drop from the Tower of Vuul should now have critical bonus applied to them.

QUESTS

Signature

• The Stormhammer signature quest now spawns Xicotl at the appropriate level for the quest.

Timorous Deep

• Primary Sha’Ki is now more willing to give out The Chain of Command after players have completed work for Ku’Uul.

Chardok

• The Encyclopedias of Mutigenica will no longer tell the whole zone you already have the book.

BATTLEGROUNDS

• Fixed a bug where elemental blast would not work on some NPCs.

For those of you concerned about your account status, character slots, etc., please don’t panic yet. Accounts migrations are still in progress while servers are down.

When servers come back up, if things are not 100% correct on your account, STILL please do not panic.  Proceed directly to our Customer Service team, who will be very happy to help sort things out for you, I promise: http://www.soe.com/support/ (no, not now – see previous paragraph about migrations still in process).

Now, let’s all go back to watching and waiting in antici…… pation.

Brasse

DOWNTIME EXTENSION:

We have encountered some unforeseen issues that we want to address before unlocking Accounts and Commerce, to ensure that we provide the best possible experience for all our customers. At this time, we expect Accounts and Commerce to come back online this afternoon. We regret that the unlock on EQII servers will also be delayed to this afternoon.

While we have no solid eta at this time, we will continue to update you as quickly as we can as more info becomes available!

I know, I know… I want to build a dungeon with my reforged Beastlord of Doom too!

#  Brasse