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

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

The bonus applies to AA, tradeskill and adventure experience gained this weekend. Our French, German, Japanese, Test and EQ2 Extended servers will also be enjoying the increase in XP gain.

Happy adventuring!

Today marks the introduction of Game Update 57 to the live servers. Key features of this update include:

• The EQ2 User Interface has received a facelift, with a new toolbar, a refresh of various windows, and a merged Character/Inventory/Profile window. The default theme is red, but easily switchable to blue by typing /loadui and choosing the Blue graphic set.
• More character classes are now neutral and may start in either good or evil cities.
• Spell animations and effects have been revamped.
• Intrazone travel now supports path linking. Travel within Kingdom of Sky has been improved.
• Erudin group instances (level 86-90) are now easier to reach.
• New tradeskill quests have been added in the level 10, 20, and 30 tiers. These quests reward a mount as well as access to what have previously been overpriced Advanced recipe books.
• Starting areas in Greater Faydark and Darklight Wood have received substantial revamps. Gorowyn has received further architectural rebuilding to improve navigation.
• All classes have had some group-specific spells postponed until later levels to reduce the number of spells new players get in the first 20 levels.
• Fighter heals will no longer critically heal.
• The “Notable Norrathian” contest winning paintings are now available within Norrath but only during the monthly City Festivals (next is Sept 1-7). They are guild hall placeable.
• Lucan D’Lere has returned to Freeport.

• Today’s update contains no new dungeons or raid zones.

EQ2X

Also going live today is the public beta for EverQuest II Extended, the Free-to-Play alternative to a monthly EQ2 subscription. Game Update 57 will arrive simultaneously on both servers. EQ2X, as it’s being abbreviated, may be discussed on the separate EQ2X Forums.

continue reading Game Update 57 Notes…

From Amnerys:

All U.S. EQII servers are scheduled to come down on Wednesday, August 18 at 5:00 AM PDT for Game Update 57. Servers are expected to be offline for around 4 hours, coming back online around 9:00 AM. The UK servers will be updated according to the usual schedule.

Notable Norrathians Paintings

What about those Notable Norrathians paintings? Kaisha has dropped some hints regarding how the 10 winning paintings will become available. If our interpretation is correct, it looks like they may be available from the City Festivals for 10 city tokens each.

Tribute to the Huntress and Druid Reconstruction Live Events

The Tribute to the Huntress quest has been confirmed to end with the launch of GU57, but the Druid Ring Reconstruction event has been extended to last until GU58. (from EQ2 ZAM)

Whence Update Notes?

We’ll post the Game Update notes when they become available (assuming we’re awake!).

Apologies for any typos. They jacked up the AC in here!! Remember folks, lots of EQ2 t shirts, hoodies, and polos.

continue reading Live: EverQuest II Q&A Panel #2…

Live blog from Fan Faire with q&a on EverQuest II.

continue reading Live: EverQuest II Q&A Panel #1…

Here are your update notes for Wednesday, 28 July 2010:

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• Energized Taehric Construct (challenge mode): The Construct will try and cast Crippling Judgment on his main target whenever possible, rather than a random fighter.  The construct will try and cast Curse of Befuddlement on priests in separate groups, whenever possible, avoiding casting it on two priests in the same group whenever possible.

ITEMS

• The Twisted Alloy Wristlet’s proc, Torturous Paths, has had its damage increased and its proc chance raised.
• Many mage items within Underfoot Depths have received pet effects.

TINKERFEST

• The Tinkerfest quest “Great Balls of Fire” cannot be completed more than 25 times.
• The Tinkerfest titles awarded by the repeatable Tinkerfest quests can now be purchased from the Tinkerfest merchant if you have earned them but did not receive them.

We’ve got Live Coverage of the SOE Block Party by Serianna of Crushbone!

If you couldn’t make it to the SOE Block Party, you can still keep up with what’s going on! Serianna is sending us updates and photos from the ground.

continue reading Live Coverage of the SOE Block Party (July 24, 2010)…

Tinkerfest is a wonderful time each year that players get to experience the zany background of the gnomes and their kooky inventions. What will go boom this time, who will be the new victim or merciless tests with flaky machinery!? When will the madness end?

Starting Friday July 23rd at 12:01am PDT Tinkerfest will be in effect. Bringing to you several quests, lovely house items and fluff and yes, the shinies are back! Be quick to jump on this upcoming weeks event as it will only be available for a short time, ending on August 2nd at 11:59pm PDT this event will wrap up like one of Cinderella’s pumpkin carriages and vanish till next year!

For a complete quest/event list there are writeups at EQ2 ZAM and EQ2Traders.

From EQ2Players:

There’s still a short time to register for Fan Faire 2010! Registration will be closing at 11:59 pm PDT on Friday, July 23. Platinum passes are sold out, but a limited number of Silver and Gold passes are still available.

As always, Fan Faire registrants will receive some special in-game items. Depending on the level of pass you purchase, you’ll get either one cool EQII item, or two cool EQII items. We wanted to give you a sneak peek at the these items, so scroll down to see the goods.

And remember, Silver, Gold and Platinum attendees will get in-game items for every eligible SOE game they have an account for! To see the full list of this year’s items, visit the SOE Fan Faire FAQ page.

continue reading Fan Faire: Registration Ends Friday & In-Game Item Preview…

We have not been posting individual announcements about the recurring Moonlight Enchantments and City Festivals because we have that information in our new Calendar which appears in the left sidebar of EQ2Wire at all times.

Due to a glitch in the activation of the Moonlight Enchantments event, the event has been extended to July 22nd.

Also, yesterday, I tweaked the sidebar Calendar to display multi-day events just once per month. As a result, I have been able to correct the dates on upcoming recurring events.

Zraxth’s Unseen Arcanum is a new challenging one group dungeon which will make its first appearance at Fan Faire this August.

continue reading EQ2 Tournament at Fan Faire: Zraxth’s Unseen Arcanum…

Tinkerfest opens this weekend, and what better place to find information about this event then at EQ2Traders?

Niami Denmother’s ever thorough writeup of this event includes all the new quests, collections, and new house items available. Among the many new crafting additions include both diamond plate and hammered steel deck plating. Perfect for adding a small factory or work area to your house or hall.

Tinkerfest will be a limited duration Live Event. It is currently expected to be available from July 23 starting at 12:01 a.m. PDT, through August 2, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. We’re waiting for an announcement from EQ2Players to get confirmation on the end date for this event.

Will you be in the San Diego, CA area on Saturday, July 24th?

The SOE Block Party at SOE Studios in sunny San Diego, CA brings a day you will never forget. Join fellow gamers and developers from SOE for music, food, tours, game previews, giveaways, raffles and much, much more.

SOE will offer activities for the young ones, so bring everyone in the family! Attendance is free!

The SOE Block Party is Saturday, July 24th, 2010, from 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm at the SOE Studio (8928 Terman Ct, San Diego, CA, 92121.). Shuttle buses are scheduled to travel round-trip to SOE from Comic-Con every 30 minutes from 4:00pm-6:00pm.

You can read more information including how to RSVP in the full EQ2Players announcement.

From EQ2Players:

With just over a month left until the big event we thought it would be fun to give you a behind the scenes look at Fan Faire!  What goes into planning such a big event you may ask?  When do we start?  Just how many pallets of stuff are shipped to the event, and how many rolls of shrink wrap does it take to keep everything together?  Look no further folks—we have all of the answers right here!

In our quest for insider information we looked to the experts, the Events Team!  Three wonderful ladies make up this team: Jen Belfield (Manager, Marketing Services), Lauren Zeiger (Marketing Events Manager) and Dawn Wilson (Marketing Coordinator Services).

Read More at EQ2Players…

Oh hey, we had a hotfix! The July 7, 2010 Update Notes include several fixes to raid targets and live events. After the jump…

continue reading July 7th Hotfix Notes…

From the EQ2 Forums:

This weekend, from 4pm Pacific on Friday, July 2nd (23:00 GMT) until 10am Pacific on Tuesday, July 6th (17:00 GMT), we will be running BOTH a Double Station Cash promotion *and* a true Double XP (+100% XP) promotion.

We’ve gotten clarification that this is:

Double Adventure XP

Double Tradeskill XP

Double Alternate Advancement (AA) XP

Double StationCash

A StationCash Card Reminder:

The only StationCash cards currently available for purchase are branded as FreeRealms cards with StationCash value. Do not buy EverQuest II gameplay time 30 day cards (if you can even find them), they will not work.

StationCash Instructions on EQ2 Forums

Also, it appears there is a glimmer of hope that we may finally see some movement on European solutions for StationCash cards.

Here are your June 22, 2010 Update Notes:

DRUID RING EVENT

• The druid rings in Feerrott and Loping Plains are now safe destinations for newbies to zone in.
• Kurista, Elwe, Dalarim and Tolla Clorto no longer change appearances every time they zone.
• The Defender of Growth guards are now much more powerful, to better protect the druid rings.
• A couple harvest nodes near the Stonebrunt Highlands druid ring were left floating when the terrain was adjusted. This has been fixed.

PVP WARFIELDS

• Antonica will once again broadcast the call to arms.

PVP ITEMS

• Fallen Foe Charms can now be used by Wardens.

PVP POPULATION

• The Priest of Discord in New Halas now resides closer to the PvP merchants.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• Vaclaz Encounter: Crippling Nausea no longer stuns players.  Instead it causes their actions to have a chance to impede those around them.  Players hit with keen insight no longer can be hit with crippling nausea.  Players with crippling nausea will never be picked to handle the keen insight adds.  Roekillik beastmasters now have more health.
• The Taehric Construct and Vaclaz no longer debuff player’s physical and Noxious mitigation levels.
• Rathgar will now hit players with Deathblow once per 55 secs rather than once per 45 secs.
• Master Syfak’s Roekillik Deathbringers will not cast festing plague as quickly as they did before.

The Vigilant: Rescue

• Amahn Prime Nirel now summons flames and fire more quickly during the fight.

We’ve got a rollup post of news from the weekend on a few different topics.

UK-US Battlegrounds might be finally getting the necessary kick in the butt to start working tomorrow. There might be a solution in the pipeline for players on distant servers unable to acquire Smuggler’s Den Tokens. Tinkerfest is coming to Test with new quests and rewards. And finally, a new Class Mechanics forum has mysteriously appeared on the EQ2 Forums.

continue reading UK-US Battlegrounds, Tinkerfest, Class Balance…

EQ2 Servers will be coming down tomorrow morning at their usual time for the Tuesday hotfix. After the jump, check out the Hotfix notes for June 15, 2010:

continue reading June 15, 2010 Hotfix Notes…

Several people have reported on the EQ2Forums that the progress bushes aren’t spawning in the Jarsath Wastes and Sinking Sands druid rings.  Windslasher chimed in with this update:

Drat!

I goofed with the spawns in Jarsath and Sinking Sands, so the progress signs aren’t appearing in those two zones. Unfortunately it’s not a server-specific thing or a setting that I can just change on the fly, so even though I have the fix in the pipeline I can’t tell you how soon it will be on the live servers, yet. It’ll be fixed as soon as possible.

Update: According to the update notes, this should be fixed with the hotfix going in tomorrow morning.

Here are your hotfix notes for Thursday, 10 June 2010:

continue reading Thursday, June 10, 2010 Hotfix Notes…

From EQ2 Players:

Spring blooms, Antonica beckons! Good people of Norrath, bring your sons, your daughters, and join in a week-long celebration of life, love and friendship.

The full schedule for this player-run event on the Antonia Bayle server can be found on this GuildPortal site.

Here are your hotfix notes for June 3, 2010:

GENERAL

• Effects can once again proc on an AE autoattack.

DRUID RING EVENT

• Tunarian supply officers will now buy items for coin, like many other merchants.
• The druid portal to Nektulos Forest now lands adventurers closer to the druid ring.
• An issue preventing players from harvesting magiliths after they died has been fixed.
• The bug that prevented looting A Floret of Growth with certain group loot settings has been fixed.

SPELLS

• Ancestral Sentry can once again be cast on raid and group friends.  It can no longer be cast on pets or NPCs.

ROYAL PALACE OF ROEHN THEER

• Plane Cracker should no longer occasionally cast if Approaching Equilibrium is slain before reaching Roehn Theer.
• Approaching Equilibrium should now despawn almost immediately upon being slain.
• Void-charged Soul and Star-charged Soul should now correctly be dispelled from both players when they successfully reach each other.
• Void-charged Soul and Star-charged Soul now have a 3s delay after being applied before they begin reacting to other nearby charged souls.

BATTLEGROUNDS

• Hook arrow will no longer cause the victim to drop the flag.

Today’s Hotfix (Patch) fixes a bug in the Druid Ring Live Event, and includes tweaks to itemization, the new PvP Warfields, and numerous bugs in the Icy Keep raid zone. We also include the hotfix notes from May 27, 2010 which somehow got left out.

May 27th’s hotfix notes make mention of a change to Procs which were not working on spells. However, this change resulted in certain procs, specifically Pestilential Rain and Torrent, no longer working properly for melee. You can read more about this issue on the EQ2 Forums. Xelgad has responded:

Thanks for all of the information. We’ll take a look and see if we can’t get this working.

Players noticed that the cap on Arcane, Noxious, and Elemental Resists was seemingly lowered from 80% to 75%.  Xelgad has clarified this change:

The cap was always 75%. The 80% you all were seeing when your resists were high enough in the persona window was a display error. The display error has been fixed, so it is now showing 75%.

Do note that that 75% is against a target that is your level. A higher level target will require higher resists to reach the 75%. Also, some spells are harder to resist than normal (you should see this effect in the spell’s description) and will need even more resists to get to 75%.

continue reading May 27 and June 1st Hotfix Notes…

Inside SOE Broadcast on Ustream

From EQ2Players:

Join us on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, at 1:30 pm PDT, as we take a look behind the scenes in this edition of the Inside SOE Broadcast on Ustream! We’ll be in the SOE Ustream channel! The event is expected to last about 30 minutes.

1:30pm PDT | 2:30pm MDT | 3:30pm CDT | 4:30pm EDT |9:30pm GMT | 10:30pm CET

Activities include:

• Live Chat and Q&A! – Attendees can chat live and ask questions with members of the Community and Development teams.
• The Agency: Covert Ops and Pox Nora – Join us as we chat with our Tuscon office about these Facebook games.
• EverQuest II – Tune in to chat with the EQII team about the release of Halas Reborn!
• Free Realms – Find out more about the newly released Free Realms goodies!

To watch our live webcasts, you can visit the channel or you can create an account and log in to Ustream to chat via text with the Community Team and our special visitors.

See you on Ustream!

NOTE: The event is now 15 minutes late.