At last year’s Fan Faire, Leko, champion of PvP balance, stood up after Mercenaries were announced and asked “Will Mercenaries work in PvP?” and then a series of questions about how they would be balanced, tested, etc. Well…better late than never.

From Gninja:

While I can’t really address everything being said in this post right now I can say we have been taking a look and we have a plan on how to make mercs not quite as overpowered in PVP combat as they are currently. Once we get the fix in place and we can accurately test it I can lay out the plan for you guys.

If you die to a merc you should not take damage to your gear. This will be addressed asap and we should be getting some power tweaks for them out to you as we can.

Here are your update notes for January 10, 2012 from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where you would have to recast buffs on group members every time you zone.

• Fixed random lighting bugs on characters and environments.

• Players will now receive achievement credit for earning hall of fame status if they are offline when awards are processed.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Sense of Urgency: Debone Bonewing should correctly update when defeating the zone boss in under 30 minutes from zone in.

DUNGEON MAKER

• Dungeon Maker creatures will no longer temporarily reappear when defeated while under the effect of a tier-adjusting object.

• Dungeon Maker adventurers should now show up in the Marketplace preview tab.

• Fixed a UI bug with the Dungeon Maker create window.

BEASTLORDS

• Fixed an issue that allowed “a drakonine guardian” to be tameable.

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The Vox and Bazaar server merges have been rescheduled. From the EQ2 Forums:

We have an update for players on Vox, Nagafen, The Bazaar and Freeport servers! Originally, we had planned to start server merges on Friday, December 16, 2011. In order to minimize complications as much as possible, we have decided to delay the merges. Below is a schedule of the planned server merges:

• Vox will be going down on December 18, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST.
• Nagafen will go down on December 19, 2011 at 5:00 AM PST.
• The Bazaar and Freeport merge is scheduled for December 21, 2011 but we do not yet have an exact time for this.

The server merges will take approximately 24 hours to complete once they have started. We will of course update you as we get any more information and updates.

**Please note: the times *may* change, I will update you when we have more information!

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From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums:

As Olihin stated on the AoD launch webcast, I will be taking over the development of PVP in EQ2. Now that the dust of AoD’s launch has (mostly) settled, we can start working on what’s next for EQ2 PVP.

The ultimate goal here is to give all PVPers a sick update with GU63. I’ve read through most of your feedback on these forums (including this thread, all 25 pages of it ) and we plan to act on it. We’re in the plan iteration phase now, and I hope to start implimentation of the plan later this week or early next week.

So, what’s the plan? Details change, certain ideas may be altered, improved upon, or scrapped entirely. We’re not ready to discuss details just yet.

Changes and improvements are coming. Your feedback is appreciated, and your patience will be rewarded.

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From the EQ2 Forums:

This is a reminder that if you are a player on The Bazaar or Vox servers, you will need to remove all of your items from the Live Gamer holding area. Items not claimed before December 13, 2011 will not be eligible to be reimbursed or restored. Additionally, server merges will begin around December 15, 2011.

For more information, please check out our FAQ post: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…topic_id=509057.

From the EQ2 Forums:

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!

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From the EQ2 Forums:

BATTLEGROUNDS

• Fixed an issue with queuing for a battleground as a group.

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

Thank you for all the feedback you guys have been giving. I'm sorry I haven’t come back and posted a response before now. I’ve been skimming the feedback and talking it over with other members of the team. The purpose of this post was to get a general feeling from you guys on what we need to look at and address in the future. We’re deep into our expansion cycle right now so it’s too early to give dates about when we can make additional changes, but I wanted to start the discussion as early as possible.

Continue to discuss these issues and know that we are reading your feedback. As soon as we have more info to post we will let you know.
Thanks again for the feedback and thank you for your patience.

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

What are your current concerns with the state of PvP in EQ2?

Separation of PvP/PvE stats?
PvP Mechanics?
Warfronts?
Battlegrounds?
Flying Mounts?
Population?
Something else?

Feel free to prioritize them in a list such as the one above.

Rothgar’s thread has also served as a great literacy test. Most players have responded with novel-length feedback.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”
UPDATE NOTES

A GENERAL SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN GAME UPDATE 61:

• All dungeon and overland loot items have been re-itemized. What does this mean? It means loot everywhere should be legitimate for the level it drops for, no matter where you go now. Go explore some nooks and crannies you haven’t seen for a long time and get off the Golden Path! The loot’s good again.
• The Velious saga continues as you journey past the Citadel of Drunder to the Plane of War itself in a new dungeon and raid, and a continuation of the Signature quest line.
• New dynamically-scaling dungeons have been added. These scale to your group between levels 60-90 and are designed as new single group heroic content that’s more re-playable. We’ll be watching your reactions to these initial two dungeon experiments and improving on these in the future!
• The new House Rating System lets you publish your house so other players can rate it, as well as adding house leaderboards, easy access to housing, and more! (And we increased House Ownership limits to 20, instead of 10!)
• If you ever wanted to show EQII to your friends, it’s now very easy. Push a button, record, and post your footage to YouTube with our new Video Capture system.
• The Eastern Wastes area in Velious now has a lot more overland content added to it (the new quests start at the Ry’Gorr keep).
• A big revamp of the class AA tree so that it’s easier to select the AAs you want, and adding more utility to the AAs that were weak previously.
• Many stats have been un-capped so that they have meaning as your characters progress. This doesn’t result in massive power increases, but it does let all stats continue to have meaning as you earn new items and power. Additional mechanics changes were made to increase power for many classes. (See below for things like spell auto-attack, flurry improvements, etc.)
• Tradeskillers now have their own AA tree to chase!
• And yes, Fae and Arasai now have a level 85 quest that can unlock their ability to FLY!

After the jump, the full detailed Game Update 61 “War of Zek” Notes…

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In response to a thread about the lack of Battlegrounds activity, SmokeJumper had this surprising comment:

We hope to roll out solutions for the [Battlegrounds] matchmaking at the same time as the Dungeon Finder roll out next week (which also uses the matchmaker). If the fixes don’t go in then, they will roll out (very) shortly thereafter!

Hot off the presses, er patcher, here are the Game Update 61: The War of Zek Update Notes from the Test Patcher. Game Update 61 is expected to reach the Live servers near the end of August.

Game Update 61: “The War of Zek”

PLANE OF WAR

The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders and rocks as a massive planar portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of war echo through its halls as the God of War himself prepares his innumerable armies to march across the frozen face of Velious and seize control of the lands of Norrath for all eternity.

The Plane of War is a normal and challenge mode raid.

Elements of War is a normal and challenge mode heroic experience.

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Here’s our sixth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Mechanics”.

If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #5 – Mechanics writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.

Today’s July 27, 2011 update notes address issues with the Spires and Dragon Ring Events on those servers where the events are still running. This update does not yet include a fix for servers that have already completed the events and those affected players who were present but didn’t get credit due to crashes, not having the right quest, or their mob despawning.

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Starting the EverQuest II: Itemization, Class Balance, Mechanics panel…

Salim “Silius“, Carlos “Gninja” Mora, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz

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Today brings a substantial update with lots of fixes, tweaks, as well as the much-lauded introduction of Leaper and Glider mounts to EQ2 at levels 30 and 60. In a perplexing move, Ground, Leaper, and Glider mounts will all travel on the ground at speeds of up to 150%, making them as fast as any of the current Flying mounts, only lacking the differentiating ability of flight.

All servers will come down for an update at 7am PDT (3pm BST / 4pm CET) on Friday, June 24, 2011. U.S. servers are expected to be down for one hour. International servers should expect a two hour downtime.

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Due to a bug which is robbing Raid mobs of their Crit Bonus, most of them have been permakilled on PvP servers until a bug fix can be rolled out. [EQ2 Forums]

UPDATE: You can read more about this issue in a thread started by Silius EQ2 Forums.

We have found the problem and will be hotfixing it as soon as we can. There is an issue on PVP servers causing NPCs to get 0 crit bonus benefit resulting in an unintended reduction in challenge. As a result of this discovery we will be permakilling all current content raid mobs on the PVP servers until the fix is patched to live.

We currently plan on pushing this fix live tomorrow along with some balance adjustments for the all servers. Once again we are sorry for the inconvenience.

From EverQuest2.com:

The Children of War update brings changes to the Player versus Player gameplay style available on our PVP servers, a new battlegrounds lobby, as well as a new battleground scenario.

Read more at EverQuest2.com.

Multi-attack Not Working on Offhand Weapons

In a two different forum threads, players reported that Offhand Weapons are not multiattacking unless their timing is staggered (use a combat art to interrupt one, or use weapons with two different delays). Zoltaroth’s response:

We found what is causing this and are working on a fix. Most likely the fix will be in the next hotfix after tomorrows (ie: not tomorrow).

Battlegrounds Tokens for 2 Gold

For testing purposes, Battlegrounds Tokens were placed on the PvP Vendor for 2 gold a piece on Test Copy. Unfortunately, these cheap tokens made their way through to live and as a result, some players on Nagafen have stockpiled thousands of tokens. Some players have even transferred from other servers to Nagafen just to buy them. Olihin says this will be addressed:

This was not intended as stated and we are taking steps to resolve the issue. We appreciate the report and patience while this is resolved.

We thank those that had the restraint to NOT buy the tokens, since it was a bug that the token was there to begin with.

As of about 30 minutes ago, an in-game message was received indicating that Battlegrounds have been restored to service. More as we have it…

Customer Service are still in the process of handling all those Petitions and support requests to un-stick characters that got stuck in the Battlegrounds Lobby.

Battlegrounds Disabled, Characters Stuck in Lobby

From the in-game EQ2 MOTD:

The Battlegrounds are temporarily unavailable. Attempting to zone into the BG lobby will cause your character to become stuck. Please refrain from going to Champion’s Respite until the battlegrounds are available once again! If you are currently stuck, please petition a GM. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Battlegrounds Tokens 2g on PvP

Players are reporting a bug that made it to the PvP servers (Nagafen and Vox) from Test causing Battlegrounds tokens to cost just 2 gold pieces on PvP servers. Who knows how many players will transfer to Nagafen for the nearly-free gear.

AA XP Display Bug

Players are reporting receiving the message “You convert 1 experience into AA experience!” with their AA slider set to 100%. This would seem to be a display error as I personally tested killing a few mobs and received the normal amount of AA XP (about 1/3% for a group of 3 mobs in Velious).

New Adornments System

So far, the new Adornments display is receiving mixed reviews.

New Public Quest in Eastern Wastes Postponed

During Destiny of Velious beta, there was a third Public Quest in Eastern Wastes. As it did not appear today with Game Update 60, we must assume that it has been delayed further.

From Piestro on the EQ2 Forums:

In applying Game Update 60 we have found an issue with Battlegrounds affecting our International and EQ2X players. Battlegrounds have been temporarily disabled for these players as we address this issue, and we will let you know when we have it resolved.

After the jump, your full Game Update 60 Notes for today, May 31st, 2011…

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Today, arguably the largest Game Update we’ve seen in years hits the live servers. Game Update 60 adds 4 new dungeons, 4 new raid zones, more crafting, more quests from a solo shard quest to a Heritage Quest, major changes to PvP from gear to itemization to mechanics, not only a new Battlegrounds lobby, but a 4th Battleground 18 vs. 18.

We are still waiting for the full list of Game Update Notes, but in the meantime, here’s just a quick bullet point list of what we can expect:

New Level 90 Dungeons and Raid Zones

The Crystal Caverns will naturally be familiar to those who adventured through Velious in EQ1.

The Fortress of Drunder consists of 3 new group dungeons, 3 new x4 raid zones with both regular and challenge modes, a new x2 raid zone, as well as a crafting zone. Drunder zones are only accessible via flying mount.

• Drunder: Spire of Rage (group)
• Drunder: Strategist’s Stronghold (group)
• Drunder: Tower of Tactics (group)

• Drunder: Citadel of V’uul (x2 raid)
• Drunder: Sullon’s Spire (x4 raid)
• Drunder: Tallon’s Stronghold (x4 raid)

• Drunder: Vallon’s Tower (x4 raid)

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From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

Just a heads up on the change coming with GU60.

You will now be able to change your spoken language on Nagafen (and Vox). This will enable you to communicate to the other team via /shout and /say commands. By default, your language will continue to be Lucanic (evil) or Antonican (good). If you don’t change your language, the other team will not understand you.

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