Sentinel’s Fate Group Dungeon & Raid Zone List by Difficulty

Difficulty Rating Key

Easy
Easy to Moderate
Moderate
Moderate to Hard
Hard

The Hole contested (82-90)

Sprawling dungeon with 3 wings of difficulty, most content tailored for 2-4 players.
Old Paineel
Dartain’s Fortress
Tower of Serilis

The Hole instances

Demitrik’s Bastion (85+)
The Outer Vault (88+)
Spirit’s Resonance (88+)

Vasty Deep

The Conservatory (86-88)
The Abandoned Labs (90)
The Vestigal Cella (90)

Erudin

Erudin Library (87-89)
Erudin Research Halls (90)
Erudin Royal Palace (90)

The Vigilant

The Vigilant: Incursion! (90)
The Vigilant: Infiltration! (90)
The Vigilant: Rescue! (90)

Sentinel’s Fate x2 Raids

The Vigilant: Final Destruction (x2)

Sentinel’s Fate x4 Raids

Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4)
Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4)
The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4)

While we don’t have all the details on what perks will be available to Guilds reaching the new level 90 cap, we know that Game Update #55 will add 2 new Guild Hall Amenities.

The first is pretty straightforward. It’s a Wizard Portal NPC with all the destinations available from the Ulteran Spires. It does not include the Kingdom of Sky zones of Tenebrous Tangle, Barren Sky, or Bonemire: Realm of Dawn. You’ll still need that amenity if your guildies are making regular use of these zones.

The second new Guild Hall Amenity is the Guild Standard Bearer. If you’ve ever been on a group or raid and just didn’t have the right setup. If only you had a little more oomph, more defensive stats, more DPS, etc. you could clear the zone and claim your reward.

The Guild Standard Bearer is a bit like a vending machine, selling (at a steep platinum cost) zonewide buffs to your allies within a group or raid instance. No doubt there will be more items added to this amenity over time.

Guild Standard (Click to Enlarge)

Updated Notes from Beta (added Friday, Feb 5th)

• These are only usable in Instances.
• They are not usable in Battlegrounds.
• We can expect more Standards to be added.
• Only one can be active inside a group dungeon or raid zone.
• Hopefully before Sentinel’s Fate launches, the descriptions for these items will contain specific numbers such as amounts of bonuses, etc.

And just to bring out tour of the UI improvements in Game Update #55 full circle, the lowly Zone Timers (Lockouts) window has been the bane of many a raid leader, as they remind players over and over to reset their group/raid persistent zone timers.

While I didn’t see a /resetallzones command (there might be one, I’m just not aware of it), the new Filter function at the bottom of the Zone Timers window should help considerably at raid time.

We’re a bit late on this, but EQ2Players has the latest preview leading up to the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, this time covering the 3 parts of the airship Vigilant. All three of The Vigilant instances (the Incursion, the Infiltration, and the Rescue) are geared for adventurers level 90+. EQ2Players Preview of The Vigilant.

As we now know, EQ2 will be getting Battlegrounds in Game Update 55 in February to coincide with the release of the Sentinel’s Fate expansion.

If you are wanting a closer look at the Maps of the 3 Battlegrounds zones, look no further than this EQ2Players writeup.

Battlegrounds are NOT intended as “end-game” or high-level only content. Although at launch they will be limited to level 80-90, there will be continuing effort to make Battlegrounds available to lower levels, complete with unique armor awards for these level ranges. Kiara posted about it here.

Kander brings us news that Emperor’s Athenaeum and Kurn’s Tower: Breaching the Void have been added to the Hot Zone rotation. Post on EQ2 Forums.

EQ2Wire is back in town and brings you some Hotfix notes.

October 28 Hotfix

ACHIEVEMENTS

• New Achievements have been added! Test your skill with three new types of Achievements: Flawless Victory, Sense of Urgency and Shorthanded Victory achievements have been added to Rise of Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey zones.

ITEMS

• Equipment with pet buffs should no longer experience stacking issues which cause the cancellation of multiple pet buffs when removing a single piece of armor.
• Jewelry items purchased from Lavastorm and the Moors of Ykesha are now heirloom attuneable.
• Jewelry items acquired with Void Shards is now Heirloom.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now be placed as a red puzzle cube then after placed should retain its fog effects.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now change into a red puzzle box when turned off by the defogifier.
• The Necklace of the Plague has been increased to 12% base damage.
• Hallow’s Gallows now grants ranged crit.
• Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now give larger gains when stacked.
• The appearance of the Ceremonial Robe of the Brethren has been corrected.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• Miragul Encounter (Hard mode) : Miragul’s Arcane impairment now only affects spells. Miragul’s Physical Impairment now only affects auto attack and combat arts.

USER INTERFACE

• The placeholder detriment icons were removed from the raid window.
• The raid window’s font-size was decreased and the overall window is a little more compact.

November 3 Hotfix

ITEMS

• The Collar of Ice is now Heirloom.

Here are your Hotfix Notes for October 21, 2009:

GENERAL

• Nu’roga now has plunderable loot!
• Malicious Thoughts and Icicle Explosion now trigger on ranged and melee attacks.
• Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now correctly modify each other’s damage.
• Purifying Persistence should properly modify the caster’s heals rather than the targets.

LoN

• The Cloak of Crystal Shards, Assassin Master’s Cloak and Cloak of Runes returned from Collector Rattelis are now Heirloom.

ITEMS

• Icy Prison now has 3 shield effectiveness to match its deflection chance.
• Charm of Solusek Ro once again triggers multiple times on AE casts, however its effect is now limited to 5 targets.

Miragul’s: Crucible

• The Master’s spell reflect percentage has been greatly reduced.

Miragul’s Planar Shard

• In the final hard mode fight with Miragul, his Brilliant Adepts will no longer stun/mez players within a second of initially spawning, but will wait 3-6 secs after spawning to start casting.
• The Miragul encounter (Hard mode): Miragul will now cast Curse of Confusion on up to 2 players per cycle, rather than 3.

MISTMOORE’S INNER SANCTUM

• The Vampiric Protectors that spawn during the Mayong encounter will now respawn in the center of the room if they break, rather than rapidly spawning and despawning near the point where the encounter broke.

MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION

• Certain items that drop from Munzok have become slightly more powerful.
• Overlapping unstable void protrusions should provide protection from Munzok’s edict as expected, and no longer conflict with one another.  Additionally void protrusion protection now more closely matches the sphere’s size.
• Munzok’s max health has been reduced.

NIGHTS OF THE DEAD

• Altius Volfban in the Hollow Hedge should be much easier for mage classes to handle.
• The Headless Horseman now spawns somewhere near his tree instead of just in the same spot every time. He also requires someone offer him the necklace instead of simply taking the necklace near him to activate. His respawn has also been lengthened slightly.
• The Nightmarish Ceremonial Armor has gotten a slight change to color.
• The Nightmarish Ceremonial armor should now all have an equal chance of dropping.
• Altius Volfban now has a chance to drop a piece of the Nightmarish armor when killed.
• The Blanket of Fog now comes with a remote so you can turn them on and off. In the off state it should be much easier to tell where they are!

USER INTERFACE

• The option to always show the threat window has been moved from Game Features to Options->User Interface->Game Windows.

Spoilers ahead…

Maze

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

Fog

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

Headless

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

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

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

Nights of the Dead is now live! The event runs through November 9th. The zones were not available first thing this morning, but this issue has been addressed.

If you have been following the increasingly train-wrecky Legends of Norrath Affects Gameplay topic on EQ2 Forums, you know that the Legends of Norrath card game is on the cusp of making powerful items available within the EverQuest 2 universe.

Already, by purchasing booster packs of cards (at $2.99/ea) and/or playing the LoN card game, one can acquire cloaks, mounts, appearance items, potions, and other items within the EQ2 world. So far these items have drawn the line at being comparable to dungeon/raid drops.

Many have argued that EQ2’s $15/month subscription + $50/year expansion cost should be more than adequate for Sony Online Entertainment to cover their costs. The latest subscriber estimate is 250,000 players. Considering 6 months a year and 25% expansion buyin, that’s $26 million revenue per year.

Yet increasingly, in-game items have been made available through StationCash (funded with a credit card, items have a fixed price) and Legends of Norrath (player must purchase an unknown number of card packs until they find the loot card they desire, trade with others, or buy such cards at an extreme markup on such sites as LoNLoot.com).

Today marks the launch of the 8th expansion: Legends of Norrath:Travelers. It was announced 2 weeks ago including this controversial passage:

Incredible loot cards, including exclusive new quests in EverQuest^® and EverQuest^® II that open all new chambers and rewards of loot and XP!

Starting today, players can acquire a Legends of Norrath loot card “Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key” ( \aITEM -691738313 583949373:Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key\/a )

• This key will unlock a unique level 80 combat instance for the holder and his/her group. One use only.

Examining the key offers the quest Repulsing Repuuli.

• After receiving a location of an up and coming threat to all of Norrath, you are sent to destroy Repuuli the Destroyer within the Moors of Ykesha.
• Find and enter the Destruction Chamber near the Obelisk of Ahkzul in the Moors of Ykesha.

EQ2Wire went on safari to The Moors of Ykesha to get the facts. Upon entering the portal (which is a short distance from the Obelisk entrance), the surroundings immediately seemed familiar.

Indeed, I was greeted with the sight of the last room of Obelisk of Ahkzul.

After defeating four roaming 80^^ void beasts, Repuuli the Destroyer (82^^^) became interested in my presence. Defeated as easily as Executor Vark in the Obelisk, it is then that the true nature of this Legends of Norrath tryst was revealed. Although housed in an unassuming Ornate chest, the rewards found within were anything but ordinary.

Inside the Ornate chest is an item container called A Void Cube. One player per zone visit gets to loot this container.

The recipient must then choose between 7 items. Make no mistake folks, these items are comparable to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

• Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior ( \aITEM 1363089210 -1153524204:[Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior]\/a )
• Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker ( \aITEM -29585155 -1544401326:[Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker]\/a )
• Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin ( \aITEM -932311402 966076848:[Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin]\/a )

• Portal Bangle of the Void Knight( \aITEM -1348074215 2070418077:[Portal Bangle of the Void Knight]\/a )
• Portal Binding of the Voidcaller ( \aITEM 935669575 190604106:[Portal Binding of the Voidcaller]\/a )
• Portal Brace of the Void Warder ( \aITEM 552342734 -2044085964:[Portal Brace of the Void Warder]\/a )

• Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest ( \aITEM -1900203042 2008289082:[Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest]\/a )

How Does Legends of Norrath Affect Me?

Legends of Norrath is a game I was never interested in, that I’m forced periodically to wait for it to download updates. It has never appealed to me. So far I’ve been able to ignore it other than checking to see if I get any loot cards. I’ve gotten a few cloaks. I got the heal potion.

And I bought some StationCash when it was half price. I’d probably use it for appearance gear or name changes. Maybe even a vitality potion to level a 5th tradeskiller to 80.

So I’m not like “Mr Furious” about RMT/SC/LoN. But I know others are, so LoN affects my gameplay if others want to quit EQ2 because of LON getting further and further entrenched in the game.

How does one level from 1-80 in EQ2 these days?
How does one get geared up in EQ2 these days?

Right now, I think a lot of folks solo quest from 1-80, missing the entire content of this game. Then they transfer plat and HEIRLOOM gear from their main to twink out their alt. They might even run a few Mentored (grey) Shard Runs to gear up their alt.

Without having ever stepped in a 1-80 dungeon, people feel they need to gear up alts just to have a chance — just to get a group. Imagine if you are a level 80 character these days and go LFG (Looking for Group) and show up in mastercrafted/quest gear and adept 1 spells? You will be laughed out of the building (and dropped from the group). When I started playing EQ2, grouping from 1-70 was prevalent. I feel sorry for the players now who will never know this content.

I am lucky that I was level 80 when The Shadow Odyssey was released. I already had the best Kunark group gear available to me, and started the first night earning as many void shards as possible. It’s just expected now to get a group you have full T1, possibly T2 gear, fabled weapon, etc.

Hand Me Downs

It’s easy to earn plat in this game. So easy that the plat farmers aren’t doing as well as they used to. With a few hundred plat, you can gear up with some significant jewelry and even T4 bracer/boot pattern to a toon that’s never fought in a dungeon let alone a raid zone. If you are raiding 4 nights a week and getting all kinds of patterns that everyone already has, then your alts are going to be built to the hilt.

When my Dirge dings 80, he will have full Tier 2 Void Shard Armor, with Tier 3 (Ward of Elements) boots, and pretty substantial jewelry. Who knows, he might even have Tier 4 FABLED bracers by then.

If some idiot really wanted to pay a few hundred bucks to acquire a few thousand platinum pieces and spend it on T4 raid patterns (The T4 chestpieces go for 1200-2000p on BB right now), they could. They could even pay for group updates on their Fabled epic, and then pay more for VP updates for their Mythical. In short, with a few waves of the credit card, I can build a toon in full Tier 4 FABLED gear, jewelry, and Mythical having hardly ever DONE the content.

People gear up alts with plat (earned or bought) and shards (earned or greyed out). Enough people view this as shady that there is still some sense of dignity maintained. Some folks still take pride that they built their characters without the aid of a powerful main character supplying them shards, gear, and plat.

I am NOT advocating stopping loot rights. It’s just a somewhat dysfunctional reality that I too have benefited from (I got the Ethernauts Roundshield of Ranger Pwnage for 120p). I think grey shards screwed them up and should have been stopped it.

So I think by putting FABLED-like gear into Legends of Norrath, SoE are legitimizing this process. It is a signal to a lot of players that SoE does not care how you build your toon. In combination with all gear getting the HEIRLOOM tag, it sends a message that rules can be bent and/or broken. You can build up your toon however you want, either by playing the game or swiping your credit card.

So I stand on principle and say that I will not use my credit card to get Legendary or Fabled gear and build out my character. I will not buy Legends of Norrath cards to get access to some significant loot. Already, so many barriers have been broken down in how characters are geared up in such a short time, I wonder how it will affect the future of the game. I think it will inevitably kill it. The thrill of the chase, the actual PLAYING of the game is diminished. Why learn the encounters and play the game when you can just put in a few bucks and get to the same destination?

When Legends of Norrath was launched, several promises were made by John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. It seems the expression “Time changes everything” is never more true here.

How Good Is the Loot?

The following diagram compares the LoN rewards with equivalent or similar items elsewhere in Norrath. It is disturbing to me that some of the rewards are similar to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

LoN Item Comparison

The truth, as they say,  is out there.

This week’s hotfix will be hitting today, October 13th (not the date on the Update Notes announcement).

EMPEROR ATREBE’S LABORATORY

• The zone boss, Ka’El Ka’Vrish, should now reset properly in Kor’Sha.

ITEMS

• Fists of Judgment will no longer indicate that they have a duration.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• Tuskers will now stagger his memwipe effects.
• Enraged Haladan no longer gets an AE auto attack buff when he goes berserk, but will instead proc Haladan’s Fury (frontal only, slash damage AE spell).

PVP

• You may now speak to the Priest of Discord on all PVP servers.
• PVP weapons have been adjusted to bring them more in line with the intended damage for their tier.

USER INTERFACE

• There is a new option to always display the threat window. It can be found under User Interface -> Game Features -> Always show threat window.
• Fixed a bug where the threat window would flash or disappear when it shouldn’t.

We’re keeping our eyes out for any further LoN news, by the way.

From EQ2Players:

The leaves are turning and the air has become crisp in the land of Norrath. Ghoulish activity has started to increase. It can mean only one thing; the return of the Nights of the Dead. Norrath’s annual Halloween celebration will be returning from 12:01am PDT on October 16th and will run through 11:59pm PST on November 9th.

New this year:

• New Haunted Hedgemaze in Nektulos Forest!
• New holiday collection.
• New Headless Horseman in Nektulos Forest.
• New rewards for some of the old Nights of the Dead Events!
• New illusions from the goblins.
• New costume illusions available from holiday merchants.
• New holiday recipe book.

Returning favorites:

• Trick-or-treating in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Haunted house in Qeynos and Freeport.
• Ponchy’s quest line in Antonica.
• Decorations in the cities.
• Goblins who cast costume illusions.
• Haunted Mansion in Loping Plains.
• Candy drops for tradeskilling.
• Holiday tradeskills are back.
• Purchaseable costume illusions.
• Neriak’s clandestine (and smashable) decorations!

Some Nights of the Dead Wallpapers

Here are your EQ2 Update Notes for October 7:

GENERAL

• Legends of Norrath (LoN) cards and booster packs that drop in game are once again tradeable.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• The Maj’Dul Monitor Achievement now accepts quests completed in the Courts.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• The dire and alpha snowbeasts associated with Enraged Haladan now have somewhat less health.
• Hard Mode: Brilliant Adepts have less health.  Boreas and Argos should no longer cast Trio of Teeth on players while they are leashed.  Curse of Confusion now lasts 18 seconds rather than 30 seconds.

PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE

• Anashti Sul will no longer reset her ring event (the Manta Ray) when raids wipe to her (after the ring event was completed).

Player vs Player

• Novice of Discord ward will no longer place you into combat when hit.
• You may now purchase the Crystal of Discord from the general merchant.

QUESTS

• Quests now sort properly by name.
• The section of the heritage quest for the dark mail gauntlets, Tie up Some Loose Ends, should now update properly upon entering Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible.

SPELLS

• Spell Trainers will now provide you with the latest information about spells.

SPIRES EVENT

• The Magic Mouth now can be placed in guild halls, as originally intended.
• Boss encounters will once again spawn for full groups in The Ethereal Rift.
• The quest “Connecting Threads” should now be a little less confusing.
• The Ethereal Rift would sometimes be empty if the player entering it was very lagged. This should no longer happen.

VEESHAN’S PEAK

• Magics in Veeshan’s Peak are no longer able to restrict players from entering certain wings of the stronghold!

Memory Issues

Despite the updated EQ2 Client, some players are still reporting issues with running out of memory in EQ2.

One workaround users are reporting, is to periodically minimize and then maximize the EQ2 application. This seems to reclaim some memory. The EQ2 dev team continue to search for the cause of these issues and intend to release another updated EQ2 client in the next few days.

Chronomage Missions

Thanks to Atan for testing out and reporting back on the Chronomage Missions. If you read EQ2Wire, you know that 3 new NPCs have been added in East Freeport (on the Inn patio) and Qeynos Harbor (across from the docks) to encourage playing level 15-70 content and provide additional rewards.

• The first of these Quellthulians NPC will mentor you down (without another player present) in 5 level increments from level 10 to 75 for a small fee (5 g and 100 status).
• A second NPC offers one of 37 Chronomage Mission quests to go back and explore a dungeon ranging from level 15 to 75.
• The third NPC offers Rewards including some appearance armor (requires 10,000 faction with the Quellthulians) but more importantly, a house item related to the aforementioned zone. There are presumably 37 different house items you can claim by completing these missions.

When Game Update 53 went live, once you completed one of these missions, you were locked out from picking up any others, no matter how many days you waited. Today’s Hotfix corrects this, and each quest is deleted at midnight, allowing you to do a new quest each day.

Just remember that now that the quests are being deleted each night, you should return to the Quellthulians immediately after completing each mission and pick up your decorative house item (if you want it), because it will not be available after the quest disappears from your quest journal.

It’s too bad EQ2 developers don’t really talk to the players about Live Events and instead make assumptions.

Over 2 years ago, the first Spires were being rebuilt. Tradeskillers did all the work, and then when the spire reached 100% completion, an Epic x4 dragon appeared, killing them all. Raid guilds swooped in and battled it out for the contested win. Some even swarmed the various zones by logging in dozens of alt characters to intentionally lag out other players to prevent them from successfully taking down the mob. In the end, the raid guilds got Titles and all the credit, and the tradeskillers, the ones who had done the work of building the Spires, got nothing but a bitter taste in their mouths.

This time around, I do believe the event developer wanted to make sure there was not a repeat of these hard feelings. Certainly, there were many precautions taken. First, participation in the Spire Rebuilding came in the form of solo quests, small group quests, harvesting, and tradeskilling. Second, there are a huge variety of awards available on the merchant, more than have ever been offered for a live event. Third, the quests varied depending on whether you were rebuilding a spire or attuning a spire.

With all of these precautions, I thought for certain that we could now safely and fairly have this Grand Finale when each spire neared completion. What with the event now encompassing 9 spires instead of 3, I thought more guilds would have a chance to participate in the event. And every player who had the smallest part to play in the event still got something.

I’ve taken a small part in these events myself. Not only the repeatable quests, but  when the spire in Zek reached 30%, a cry of frustration rang out from other players who gave up and moved on to other spires. Four of us grouped up and defeated the 84^^^, allowing the Zek Spire Rebuild to continue. So I had been looking forward to dealing with the forthcoming x2 mob, and eventually (presumably) a x4 raid mob.

.
So I was disappointed to read this account from Hellswrath of the Alliance Guilds of Blackburrow and how their completion of the Everfrost Spire turned out:

First, I would like to say a big congratulations to everyone in the Blackburrow Guild Alliance for their hard work over two days in first building the Everfrost spire to 100%, and then starting all over and aligning it to 100% too!  An awesome job and a lot of hard work for two days straight!  Also, thank you to everyone else who helped on the spire, even for a little while!

Next, I’ll give a quick breakdown of the spire event to all those who are wondering what goodies these spires hold for those willing to put in the effort to complete them!

As most know, the spires in Zek, Everfrost, Lavastorm, and Loping Plains need to be built while the ones in CL, ANT, EL, Feerrott, Nek, and TS are already built and need to be aligned.

While being built, the spire in EF spawned a lvl 84 ^^^ heroic mob at 30%.  The mob killed all npcs and most low level alts doing the spire quests until he was taken down.  The reward for killing the spawned heroic was a small chest that gave 20 spire tokens to each group member.

The spire progressed as normal until it hit 90%, when it spawned a x2 epic.  It was a mob that looked very similar to the heroic, and gave 50 spire tokens to each raid member for killing him.

At 100%…….the spire reset back to 0%.  lol, yes, after all that work we needed to start all over again.  So we picked up again the next day and ground it out again.  While we expected another spawned mob or two, nothing happened by 70%, so we figured the next one would be a logical progression to an epic x4.  By the time we approached 100%, we had a full raid of people who had all been spending time building this spire.  The lowest contributor was a couple hours, the highest was somewhere well over 20 active hours.

It was the way it should be, with most of the people who had spent all their time to build the spire being the ones to get the epic pull and the credit.  Even the people from other guilds who came to look at getting in on the kill were gracious about being politely turned away.

We hit 100%, the spire completed, and . . . . . nothing happened.

Not a thing.  We stood around looking for a mob, checked track, checked the quest npcs and the spire itself to see if we were missing something.

Nope.  There was simply no point to completing this live event.  I must say that a full raid of great people (and many who were cheering on from the sidelines who had helped as well) went away feeling dispirited about the complete lack of reward for all this work.

That being said, thanks again to all those from Alpha Legion that entertained this crazy notion and stayed with us for a ridiculous amount of time to finish this event!  And a huge thanks to everyone who joined us from Casual Alliance, Wayward Waifs, Vainglory, Solace, and everyone else in the Blackburrow Alliance (and outside, too) who took their time to come hang out and grind out this spire to completion!  Awesome job!

I believe if, during Testing, or even the planning of the event, a dialogue had been opened with players asking what they felt was Good or Bad about the past Spires event and how these concerns could have been mitigated, watering this event down would not have been necessary.

It seems there is a dichotomy within the EQ2 team of what is easy, what is just plain tedious, and what is difficult, and decision after decision proves that these definitions are unclear. There is only one reliable way they’re going to find out how players feel about difficulty and fairness– ask the players. Yet this tool is ignored far too often.

Bonus XP Weekend

To coincide with Game Update 53, we’ve got a 40% bonus to all forms of EQ2 experience weekend! This applies to Adventuring, Alternate Advancement (AA), and Tradeskilling. Kiara posted the announcement on the EQ2 Forums. Remember folks, if you are between level 10 and 79, you can now adjust the amount of combat and quest XP gets converted into AA XP. I’ve found this to be quite lucrative when doing quests which already award a high percentage of AA and quest XP. 🙂

It was quite nice to login and see:

There will be a bonus applied to all forms of experience this weekend, starting at 1:00 p.m. PDT on Friday, September 25th and ending at 10:00 a.m. PDT on Monday, September 28th.

Spire Rebuilding — Do we get Hazard Pay? 🙂

Apparently all this rebuilding and re-linking of the Ulteran Spires throughout Norrath is getting the attention of the creatures who do not want these links re-established! They’ve started to make their presence known around spires which are already at a certain percentage completion. Keep an eye out for Heroic and possibly Epic mobs which seek to stop your progress!

Like any Game Update, inevitably a few bugs slip through. Game Update #53 (Shards of Destiny) had more than a few. Some received attention in Today’s Hotfix:

GENERAL

• /hide will once again hide illusions.
• Discord (PvP) tokens are no longer fabled.
• Saving and Loading house layouts is temporarily disabled for further tuning.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• The Octagorgon Assassin achievement is now located under Dungeons instead of Raids.

ITEMS

• Certain items dropped by Munzok have been upgraded.
• Spirit Drain on the Spirit Draining Wristguard no longer heals the target of the attack.

SHARD OF LOVE

• Regardless of which order you defeat the four bosses in Shard of Love, the doors to the chapel should always open.

RACIAL TRAITS

• Arasai and Fae Glide are now toggled spells found in your Ability book.

SPIRE EVENT

• Sorcerers may now translocate to any Ulteran spire even if they’re already in that zone.

USER INTERFACE

• Vertical hotbars will no longer have the large amount of empty space on the right side.

Other bugs introduced in Game Update 53 persist or are still being discovered. Here are the bugs and issues we’re tracking related to GU53:

1. Anashti Sul‘s Presence of the Void causes double damage and drains twice as much power as it used to. The issue has been identified and a hotfix is forthcoming.
2. When the third named in the new Miragul’s Planar Shard zone (Glaciatus) dies, the chest spawns in the floor and is unreachable.
3. Many players are reporting zonewide crashes on the 2nd and 3rd names in Miragul’s Planar Shard, which reset all of the trash mobs on the first floor.
   
4. Completing Quests seems to make the Quest Helper window randomly disappear.
5. The gloves in the Ro Achievement, Overrealm Achievement, and Faydwer Achievenment armor crates make Sarnak hands invisible.
6. Certain users are reporting that GPU Shadows cause either flickering, or random dark spots on their screens.
7. The Brigand spell “Double Up” is not working properly.
8. Once you complete one of the 37 missions from the Chronomages, the mission cannot be reset, preventing you from picking up another one.
9. Self and Group Buffs Persist on death. Not only are they there when you are revived, but they are functional while you are dead.
10. The Threat/Agro Meter (Ctrl-T) disappears when out of combat and sometimes when in-combat.

Players are continuing to express their frustration at the changes to the Racial Traits. Specifically, that a large quantity of players will need to pay an extra fee just to get racial traits back that they have been using for the last 3 years. Presumably this token (which is not yet in the game) will made available for $10-15 on StationCash.

This is the best quote I’ve seen yet covering Game Update 53. Thanks Fendaria:

Recently the statements were made there was going to be more communication from the developers with the player base.  I believe this was given as one of the reasons for the GU updates to occur less often, to allow for more feedback.  This goal appears to have been largely unachieved for GU 53.  There was minimal, if any response to the feedback provided for the racial revamp.  There was minimal, if any notification or response to the feedback provided about the black shard merchant.

Besides the Achievements system and Spires event, I can’t point to another area of GU 53 which did have good developer communication.  (And please note, the Achievement system is largely considered a positive change by most players, in part due to better developer communication).

The Shard of Love

A lot of folks have been asking me where the Shard of Love is and how to get there.

First, it should be noted that the Shard of Love is not a group zone like any of the other group zones in The Shadow Odyssey or Rise of Kunark.

The Shard of Love is a very casual group zone that can be completed with 3-4 players. It scales to level (50-80) and rewards appearance items, house items, and reusable cast items. It does not reward the typical armor, jewelry, weapons you are used to in other zones. Some of the mobs, you actually heal them instead of killing them. Think of it more like the Haunted Mansion from last year’s Nights of the Dead event, which was just a fun zone for 3 players.

EQ2 Wiki has drawn a blank, but fortunately EQ2 Zam is on the ball here and has a writeup on Shard of Love and a list of names and quests.

The Shard of Love Access Quest

As for how to access the zone, thanks to Kreanne (Butcherblock) for posting this information:

1. This quest is picked up at the North Qeynos or Commonlands gates.
2. Speak with Priestess Annalisa Swornlove in Antonica’s Coastal Grove {-2233, 24, -699} near the druid ring. Harvest a virtuous component.
3. Travel to the Commonlands where the Avatar of Valor spawns (near the Mourned location).
4. Return to the Priestess and give here the valorian bloom. Speak to her again and she will tell you that the arrow has been blessed.
5. Travel to Greater Faydark and find a place that had meaning for Lady Shea. This is around the base of Tunare’s Sapling {-92,0,0}. Find an ethereal arrow the size of a spear and click on it. A Disciple of Hate will spawn and attack you.
6. Find the weakest point between the Shard of Love and Norrath. As Everfrost is the world of the E’ci, this is where you should go. 🙂 Head to the north end of the dock {-57,-9,56} and click on a scatter of rubble.
7. Return to the Priestess and give here the valorious bloom.
8. Return to Everfrost and meet the Priestess there. Once she completes the ritual and opens the portal, you will be able to return here any time to visit the Shard of Love.
9. Don’t forget to speak to the three Disciples of Love.

Rebuilding the Spires

Also some have been asking where the Rebuilding the Spires events are. You can pick up a quest in the Moors of Ykesha, but this is optional. Just head to the ruined spires in Everfrost, Lavastorm, Zek, or Loping Plains and get started.

You’ll be happy to know that the vendors here have a large selection of items, including those Bracers/Epaulets/Leggings/etc of Imperceptible Beauty, which allows you to hide armor and go “au naturel”.

There are adventure and tradeskill quests alike for aspiring Spire Rebuilders.

Exact Locations of the Spires (EQ2 Zam delivers again)

Chronomagic

If you are wanting to relive the glory days and run lower-level group zones for AA or special appearance armor, you’ll want to check out the Chronomages. There is one that mentors you down to level 10, 15, 20, 25…70, 75 for a small gold and status cost. Another one offers one of 37 quests which reward clearing these underplayed old zones. And a third offers some rather… interesting looking plate armor you might be interested in.

The Qeynos Harbor clan are not hard to find, they’re just across from the docks.

However, the East Freeport group has bumfuzzled a few. They’re living it up on the patio of the bar/inn. If you are a recovering alcoholic, you’ll just have to gather your strength and run through the building, or I suppose you could swim…

Exact Locations for the Chronomages (thanks EQ2 Zam)

Streaming Client (the Tiniest Little Dragon)
Some folks have noticed a new Dragon window on their screen. This is part of the Streaming Client we’ll be getting in Game Update 54. You can read more about it on EQ2 Forums.

Shards of Destiny (Game Update 53) goes live tomorrow, Wednesday September 23rd.

Most notably absent from the Game Update 53 notes are whether the Avatar Gear changes are going live, and whether the Racial Traits received any changes based on the significant feedback posted on the forums.

If you want to read the full Gu53 Update Notes you can read them by clicking right there. I did some significant cleanup for readability and a few clarifications. It’s worth a read, even if you’ve read the official notes.

HOWEVER… we do understand that the full Update Notes are a lot to read and some folks might want just the key points. I can’t guarantee it’s much shorter, but maybe it’s more pleasant to read. So we present them here…

UPDATE: Servers will go down September 23rd from 6am to 10am PDT.

And you can read the complete update notes from EQ2Players. However you might want to read my revised notes…

NOTE: I have gone through these notes and slightly improved them for readability specific to issues I’m familiar with. If that bothers you, go and click on the EQ2Players link above.

While we wait the last 1 1/2 hours for the EQ2 servers to come back up, I thought some of you might like to check out a few more tidbits expected to come in Game Update 53 at the end of the month. I’ve focused on new features here. If you want, you can read the full EQ2 Test Update Notes courtesy of EQ2 ZAM.

GENERAL

• Runic Deflection should proc slightly more reliably.
• House layout files now properly save the scaling of an object.
• The save_layout and load_layout commands now properly save and load positions of NPC amenities.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• New crafting Achievements have been added.
• Certain Achievements have had rewards added to them.
• The Antonican Adventurer Achievement should now be able to be completed. The Achievement has been reset.
• The Lavastorm Nomad achievement has been reset to allow completion.
• Some Slayer quests will no longer be added back to your player after converting them to Achievements.
• The guild event for members earning achievements will now show up in the event list.
• Achievements can now be expanded even if they are completed.
• Achievements that give rewards will now display the reward when expanded.  The rewards can be clicked to open an examine window or control-clicked to view in the dressing room window.
• The Commonlands Colonist and Ykeshan Trekker achievements have been reset to allow completion.

CHRONOMAGIC

• The Chronomagi Taskers (quest givers to complete older Norrath content) have moved to be near the Timeless Chronomages [article at EQ2 Zam] (causing them to change zones from Qeynos South -> Harbor and from Freeport North -> East. In Gorowyn and Kelethin, they simply moved)
• When mentoring or chronolocking scaled down item bonuses will now be applied correctly.

ITEMS

• Rare drops from Tradeskill instances (Deadly Mixing Spoon, etc.) have been flagged as LORE-EQUIP ATTUNEABLE HEIRLOOM.
• A large number of the Station Cash and Legends of Norrath items are now HEIRLOOM.
• House items placed in moving crates will now stay in those moving crates, even when you are not looking!

USER INTERFACE

• Tooltips for Books inside of packing crates will now look correct.
• The Threat window now resizes properly.
• The Welcome Screen now displays the name and zone of the Daily Double mission.
• Hotbar windows no longer have as much empty spacing around them making it easier to stack them close without overlapping.
• There are now Save Layout and Load Layout buttons on the /house window to help make it easier to manage your house layout setups! You can save the location and size of all your house items, and restore it later (Frostfell setup anyone?)
• The raid window has been put on a diet and is now slightly more compact.
• The raid window progress bars are slightly larger and more readable.
• There are now placeholder icons for the detrimental icons on the raid window.

Contrary to our last post, Hot Zones (increased chance of Fabled drops in level 80 dungeons) are on a rotation schedule. So far, we’ve seen all 3 Guk zones. It changes out each night at Midnight, so check it out tomorrow on Labor Day. 🙂

The rotation schedule will be up at EQ2 Wiki as soon as the entire rotation has been determined.

We’ve now got more details on the new “Hot Zones” feature. These have been active on the European servers since last week and will be hitting U.S. servers at 2pm PDT (5pm EDT). There is no server downtime expected for this feature to be enabled.

Every day, a level 80 dungeon will have an increased chance of FABLED loot drops. This is on a rotation like the Daily Double. The selected zone will change for all U.S. servers at midnight. Read the Announcement at EQ2 Forums

Just as you have been able to determine the Daily Double by looking in the Welcome Screen, you’ll also be able to determine the Hot Zone by checking in the same place. Type /welcome_info in-game or better yet, Ctrl-L. You may have to switch zones for this window to update once Hot Zones go live.

After running Crucible twice, Emperor’s Athenaeum three times, and Runnyeye 2 in the past 3 days and getting nothing but Ornate chests, I know I am looking forward to this new feature!

So what exactly does 150 Void Shards get you these days?

So you were frugal with your void shards and hired a tradeskiller to make your T1 set [38 shards] and T2 sets [112 shards]. You traded in more shards for Jewelry, Charms, Cloaks, and Baubles. You needed a few more shards for that shiny new T3 pattern that dropped out of Ward of Elements. And after all this, you’ve still got 150 shards or more just burning a hole in your money purse? Have we got a deal for you!

As you may or may not know, almost every named in the 20+ Shadow Odyssey dungeons has rare and semi-rare Fabled drops. These items reward the fastidious, the lucky, the patient, and the rich, but so far, not those who have an overabundance of void shards.

Game Update 53 (appropriately named the Shards of Destiny) will be adding an eighth vendor to the already bustling Void Shard Outdoor Market on the Moors of Ykesha docks. This vendor will be offering some of the Fabled instance drops for a cost of 150 shards.  For folks who have been exceptionally unlucky with the random number generator (RNG), or simply have accumulated a ton of shards among multiple alts, this provides yet another opportunity to quickly gear up.

None of these are particularly rare. They’re not the best items from any zone, and the newer zones like Emperor’s Athenaneum and Kurn’s Tower, as well as the best Palace of Ferzul are not represented at all. None of this is game-breaking stuff folks.

Edric Fyrecog <Elemental Treasure Hunter>

Speaking of… You may remember that one of the Order of Flame disciples never tires of hearing your triumphs over the Void Beasts and conquering the various Elemental Lords contained within the temples. Turns out, the Jewelry merchant on the Lavastorm docks feels that just 15 [Unbound Elemental Essence] will suffice for the wares he’s offering up instead of the previous 30 essences he expected you to part with. Considering you can cleanse 3 temples per day, that’s a mere 5 days to earn these items.

Awnya N’Kval <Najena’s Elemental Jeweler>

This is not a change in Gu53 at all, but just a reminder that if you have picked up any of the nicer jewelry in the Ward of Elements x2 raid, be aware that many of these items have upgrades available from Awnya N’Kval on the Lavastorm docks by merging them with other shard jewelry.