Update Notes: Thursday, July 30, 2015

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

From the EQ2 Forums:

PVP General

  • Fixed an issue where players could mentor below the minimum PvP mentor level while inside PvP exempt zones.

Time-Locked PvP

  • Pumice stones are now available from gratified merchants.
  • Qeynos and Freeport now correctly flag opposing faction players for PvP.

ABILITIES PvP

  • Evac spells will no longer work on characters that are in PvP combat.

ITEMS

  • [eq2u]Spirit Totem of the Wolf[/eq2u] will now grant a small “in combat” speed bonus.
  • Fixed a bug with personal depots that increased status and coin rent for the houses they were placed in.

MARKETPLACE

  • Increased the size of the depots on the Marketplace. Their description now displays how many items they will contain.
   

EQ2U Leaderboards Extended to Include PvP Stats, More to Come!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, EQ2 Data & EQ2U, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

We’ve had Leaderboards functionality on EQ2U for about a year now but we didn’t provide PvP leaderboard tracking…until now! In honor of the new Time-Locked Expansion Deathtoll PvP server which has so far been incredibly popular, we’ve added City Kills, Wild Kills, and Deaths for PvP servers on our Leaderboards. We’re also working with the EQ2 team to add some additional stats to track.

eq2u_leaderboards01

Examples:

If you haven’t checked out our Leaderboards feature, we show the top 100 characters on each server and worldwide for a variety of stats for die-hard crafters, questers, harvesters, collectors, and achievement-chasers!

Update Notes: Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

Here are the update notes applicable to all servers from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

  • Fixed a bug where occasionally an entity would spawn and show an incorrect name for a moment before switching to the proper name.

PVP

  • The infamy progress bar has been removed.

ITEMS

  • Ankh of Ydall will now correctly apply its crit bonus to the group.

Here are the update notes applicable to Time-Locked servers:

Stormhold (PvE) and Deathtoll (PvP) Servers Open Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

From the EQ2 Forums:

Are YOU ready for the new Time-Locked Expansion servers? Stormhold (PvE) and Deathtoll (PvP) Servers open on Tuesday, July 21, 2015!

[IMG]

 

Play on NEW Time-Locked Expansion servers and get a fresh start in EverQuest II. Be part of a vibrant community from the start and have your voice be heard as you decide each server’s destiny.

These are special servers that are only available to All Access members. If you aren’t already an All Access member, sign upand begin your adventures in Norrath… again!

Want to get a sneak peek of these servers? Our Time-Locked Expansion Server beta is still available so you can test out these servers and give us YOUR feedback. Find out more about the beta here.

Update Notes: Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding

EU servers are now 3 hours late patching and Holly has an update that it will be another 2 hours before EU servers are back up. That’s 2pm PDT, 5pm EDT, 22:00 GMT, 23:00 CET.

Original article follows…

ZAM @ E3: EverQuest & EverQuest II Progression Servers

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

everquest_painting

ZAM’s outgoing Managing Editor Cyliena checked in with Holly “Windstalker” Longdale at E3 with questions about Progression servers in EverQuest and EverQuest II. From EQ2 ZAM:

E3 doesn’t stop when its doors are closed for the day. We snagged Executive Producer Holly Longdale at this year’s Daybreak after-party (and again this week in a follow-up), chatting about some recent changes that hit EverQuest‘s progression servers as well as the upcoming progression servers and merges for EverQuest II.

With EverQuest II, the upcoming progression servers will be a first for the game. In-game voting for time-locked and marketplace options has already come and gone, and for a short time players can still get their votes in on server names. For those not familiar with what a time-locked progression server is, Kander has posted a thorough FAQ on the forums.

Read more at ZAM.

Kander’s Candor – Fabled Echoes of Faydwer and More!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding

From EverQuest II Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallée on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Fellow Norrathians!

Just stopping in to give everyone the low down on the new Fabled Echoes of Faydwer zones we will be releasing today.

fabled_eof_1

People are asking what zones will become Fabled and what play styles will be covered. The answer is we tried to cover as many as possible with this release. We have 3 Fabled Echoes of Faydwer heroic zones: The Acadechism, The Court of Innovation and the Crypt of Valdoon. We also decided to make an advanced solo version of each of these zones for our solo players and are releasing the Fabled Freethinker Hideout raid zone in two flavors, Normal and Challenge.

  • The Fabled Acadechism [Heroic]
  • The Fabled Acadechism [Advanced Solo]
  • The Fabled Court of Innovation [Heroic]
  • The Fabled Court of Innovation [Advanced Solo]
  • The Fabled Crypt of Valdoon [Heroic]
  • The Fabled Crypt of Valdoon [Advanced Solo]
  • The Fabled Freethinker Hideout [Raid]
  • The Fabled Freethinker Hideout [Challenge Raid]

Name the PvP and PvE Time-Locked Expansion Servers!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, EQ2, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

Kander has started two threads on the EQ2 Forums asking players to suggest names for the new TLE servers:

Here’s the announcement:

What do you want your PvP/PvE TLE-Server to be named? Propose the names you’d like to see for the launch of the Time Locked Expansion Server for PvP/PvE.

We will be keeping score and using the top names to poll for final names so post even if your’s is a duplicate.

Names must be something within the lore of the EverQuest world. Preferably a notable NPC. Anything that is not will be disregarded.

NOTE: Names that come in second or third will have the possibility of being used when we add additional TLE servers.

 

PvE and PvP Time-Locked Expansion Server FAQ (June 16)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Grouping, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

time_locked_expansion_server_BTTF3

Next month, we’ll see two new Beta servers open to test PvP and PvE Time-Locked Expansion (TLE) Servers. While we’ve already been informed on several occasions that restoring the EQ2 codebase back to a launch or near-launch state would be nearly impossible, but the EQ2 team want to offer players some of the “uphill both ways in the snow” experience that early EQ2 adventurers encountered. So the team are developing Time-Locked Expansion Servers which will be a sort of hybrid of some of the modern conveniences we have now, but with certain design decisions reverted or changed to provide more challenge and social interaction.

To decide what restrictions should apply to these new challenge servers, the EQ2 team have already been seeking feedback from players in discussion threads on the forums. This feedback is already shaping what we’ll see in Beta, which will then further shape the final form these servers take when they launch later this year. We’ve been told to expect several in-game and on-forum Polls for players to vote on which features they think should be removed outright, time-locked, or freely allowed. To sketch out some of the team’s current subject-to-change ideas for how these TLE servers will differ from what we see on Live servers, Kander has posted TLE FAQ dated June 16th on the EQ2 Forums.

Greetings Fellow Norrathians!

We wanted to make a post this week and give you a glimpse of what we are planning for our Time-Locked Expansion Servers and what you can expect to see here in the very near future.

Our current plan is to launch 2 new TLE Servers, a PvE and a PvP version. Both of these servers will have back up servers in case we need them. I am going to go over the current iteration of how they will be launching and what our plans are with them, and also list what we are considering, which we will give you, our player base, a chance to vote on with in-game polls. More on that later.

What can we expect to be in place with the launch of the Time-Locked Expansion servers?

Update Notes: Tuesday June 16, 2015

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Precipice of Power [Raid]

  • Tribunal adds should despawn even if you do not kill the original copy of the Tribunal boss.

Ossuary: Cathedral of Bones [Raid]

  • Villadre’s adds should now despawn when she resets or is defeated.

ABILITIES

  • Consistent Strike and Consistent Smite will now do damage at low levels.

PVP

  • Kylong Warfields will now grant Marks of Bloodshed to players over level 95.

BATTLEGROUNDS

  • Battleground of Theer tiles will no longer apply buffs or debuffs to players on the tiles, with the exception of the Order tile which will still damage those upon it.
  • Battleground of Theer will now kick players who have hidden in the protected spawn points for an excessive amount of time.

ITEMS

  • Several Altar of Malice weapons that had an erroneous extra white adornment slot have had them removed.
  • Gemstone of Scornful Malevolence may now be used to upgrade new block armor.
  • Ethereal Expertise will now message when it is applied, as well as when it is consumed.
  • Ethereal Expertise will no longer break swarm pets.

TRADESKILLS

  • Zander’s Choral Rebuff II (Grandmaster) may now be crafted.

QUESTS

  • Zikana Sly’ssar will now offer his quests to Aerakyn.

Time-Locked PvP and PvE Beta Servers Coming in Early July

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

spellbook

With the success of EverQuest’s recently launched Ragefire progression server, the idea of something similar in EverQuest II seems to have magically gone from “probably not” and “extremely unlikely” to “We’re doing it!” Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but last week, EQ/EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale surprised the hell out of everyone by announcing that PvP and PvE Time-Locked Expansion Beta servers (Yes that’s plural!) were coming to EverQuest II.

How soon you might ask Kander?

Sooner than you think. /wink

Ok really… How soon?

Its coming sooner than you think. Announcements are being trained to zone…

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale unpackaged the feline on Twitter.

Happy day!! We're preparing TWO Time-Locked Expansion Beta servers for #EQ2 in early July — one for PVE and one for PVP! Details soon ™!

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) June 10, 2015

Producer’s Letter: New Fabled, Ethereal Items, PvE & PvP Time-Locked Progression Servers, and More!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, TLE/Prestige Servers

From EQ and EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

What’s Up for EQII?

We have a lot in store for our intrepid Everquest II players. We’re excited to be discussing the launch of two new Time-Locked Expansion Servers for PvE and PvP sometime this year.

Along with that, the team is moving forward with a strategy of treating our players as real gamers who don’t need to be handheld for everything they do. What this means is we feel we need to trust our players to learn and achieve things without us having to give you all the information ahead of time. There’s a big difference between “head southwest and uncover the mystery of the green fog” and “go find the green fog that I put on your map for you.” Our players are smart and we want EQII to be a thinker’s and strategist’s game.

Today we release a new Rumrunner home with a décor set for our decorators, a store version of the Zeppelin mount for anyone that likes to float about in style, and new Summer Ethereal items will start dropping in Altar of Malice heroic zones (including Rum Cellar) for our adventurers.

We’re also currently testing Character Restore and Item Restore functionality on Beta which we hope to release soon.

On Tuesday, June 23, we will release Echoes of Faydwer Fabled Dungeons with all new updated loot and fun for level 100. There are 3 heroic dungeons, 3 advanced solos and 1 raid with a challenge version. Here’s the zone list:

· The Fabled Acadechism [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Court of Innovation [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Crypt of Valdoon [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Freethinker Hideout [Raid & Challenge Raid]

Then, in early July, we’ll introduce the ability to quest and worship Erollisi as a god for new miracles and blessings.

We can’t forget Tinkerfest! It will launch on July 17 with new content!

And later in the summer, we’ll see more Ethereal weapon drops.

For those who are curious, we’re doing a fair amount of technical and backend work to help our performance and to move toward cross-server functionality. We also want to address server population issues. We’re focusing on the first part of this work which is adjusting our architecture.

We also have been continuing to work on the content for our release later this year. Toward the end of summer as we head into the Campaign release timeframe later this year, we’ll be releasing some prequel events and designers will be sharing details about upcoming features with you. Today in our Twitch stream, designers previewed an upcoming feature that allows you to increase stats on new equipment. We also have a new item type in the works for this year’s campaign referred to as Relics which are extremely powerful items where only one can be equipped at a time, per character. Kander, Caith, and Kaitheel (yikes!) discussed these features in our livestream today and you can watch the replay here.

We’re enormously grateful for the support of all of our players and we’re excited about what’s coming up for EverQuest II!

Sincerely, as always,

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale
Exec Producer, EQ & EQII

EverQuest II Forums Undergo Streamlining — Guide, Fan Site, Lore, RP, Off-Topic, and PvP Forums Closed

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

eq2forums-burn4

The EverQuest II forums have undergone streamlining today, with the archiving of the following forums:

The PvP & Battlegrounds forums going away is not a surprise, as EQ2 lost our last dedicated PvP developer with the August 2013 layoffs. Although I’ll receive much rage and hate for saying it, I believe that at this point, further PvP/Battlegrounds development is an unaffordable luxury. The EQ2 team is down from 60 staff in the Kunark days to a quarter of that now and it’s just not realistic to expect continued development for the remaining percentage of the playerbase.

However as someone who has administrated successful forums for 12 years, I find the choice of the other forums being shuttered to be completely baffling by any logic I can think of.

   

Update Notes: Tuesday, February 24, 2015 and Daybreak-wide Maintenance

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding

OssuaryofMaliceEntrance

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention players: we will perform a general maintenance beginning at 7:00AM Pacific* on Tuesday, February 24th. The current estimated downtime for this maintenance is up to three hours.

This maintenance may impact the following Daybreak services across all games:

  • Commerce functions, including purchases, for all games
  • Game logins
  • Web and forum logins for all Daybreak sites, including account creation

Time Zone Conversions

  • PST: 7:00am ~ 10:00am
  • EST: 10:00am ~ 1:00pm
  • GMT: 15:00 ~ 18:00
  • CET: 16:00 ~ 19:00

and from the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

  • Altar of Malice [Heroic] Dungeons now have a chance to spawn an extra encounter once the zone boss has been defeated.
  • Hit points for all Altar of Malice Solo, Heroic, and Contested zones have been slightly reduced.

Have You Taken the Altar of Malice Expansion Survey?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, EQ2, Expansion News, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

Have you taken the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion survey? If not, head here:

aom_survey

Personally as someone who has dedicated some time to writing good survey questions, this has to be one of the most generic surveys I’ve seen. On one hand, there is an entire page dedicated to the six raid zones in the expansion, yet the entirety of the tradeskill and heroic content are each distilled down to a single 1-10 rating question. What if you love the zones, animations, populations, humor, and the music, but you dislike difficulty, how would you rate that?

It’s pretty clear that Marketing largely referenced the expansion’s press release without much (if any) consultation with the EQ2 team. I wonder what if anything SOE will learn from this survey. I feel that the way the questions are written is prone to lead to invalid conclusions.

Update Notes: Thursday, December 11, 2014

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, EQ2, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

It’s Bug Bash (and Altar of Malice heroic zone rebalancing) time!

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL — BUG BASH WEEK

  • Fixed an issue where you could lose your grandmaster spell if you betrayed.
  • The tooltip and examine window information will now correctly display the damage type of missile weapons.
  • Rejoice! Exiles can now use the shared bank!
  • Exiles can now change suffix titles!
  • SOE Live Request: Added the command /dump_items_to_log, which, true to its name, will write the contents of your inventory to your log. Please note that only items known to your game client will be logged; as such, the output may vary depending on whether you’re in a house zone or not.
  • SOE Live Request: Players may now drag game commands such as “Summon Mount,” “Melee Attack,” “Ranged Attack” etc. into the Edit Macro window to create a step with the appropriate command.

Implemented support for mouseover macros. By specifying %v (similar to the usage of %t) as the target in a macro, the player name under the mouse cursor will be used as the target of the spell cast. This only applies to the following UI elements:

  • Your own character info window (found in the upper left corner with the default UI)
  • Target Window
  • Implied Target Window
  • Group Window
  • Raid Window

Update Notes: Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, December 3, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST. Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, December 3 , 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on 12/04/2014). Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

  • Fixed a bug where mercenary names would show as gibberish on non-english servers.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Zavith’loa: The Lost Caverns [Advanced Solo and Heroic]

  • Fixed a bug that caused Beastmaster Kau’mua to heal for more than intended.
  • Fixed a bug that was rarely causing Ceracuspis to get stuck in his charging animation.

The EQ2 Team Wants Your Focused Feedback

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, EQ2, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

In order to institute Quality of Life tweaks and changes to Itemization, Class Balance, and overall gameplay, the EQ2 team launched Focused Feedback threads a few weeks back on a number of topics. We still have time to post our comments in these threads:

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums:

Update: We will be keeping all focused feedback thread open until January 5th, 2015 at which point we will be locking the threads to move onto the next phase.

Update Notes: Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

First up, starting at 10:00am PST tomorrow (1:00pm EST, 18:00 GMT, 19:00 CET), Free-to-Play EQ2 players will be able to buy and start playing the Altar of Malice expansion.

Now for the downtime announcement…

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST.
Estimated downtime is 1 hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Aprox. 5:00AM London Time on 11/26/2014)
Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

All accounts will also be able to purchase and play our new expansion, Altar of Malice, at 10:00AM PST.

GENERAL

  • Fixed a bug where general achievements would export to census with “Altar of Malice” as the subcategory.

Altar of Malice Frequently Asked Questions

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, EQ2, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

eq2_aom_eq2wirefaq

Table of Contents


Q: So what’s new in the expansion?

  • Adventure, Tradeskill, and Guild levels can now all go to 100.
  • 100 new Quests including new Signature line for the expansion
  • All new level 96-100 harvestables, spells, recipes, armor, weapons, etc.
  • Two new Tradeskill questlines by Domino
  • Two new Overland zones (The Phantom Sea and The Tranquil Sea).
  • Ten new Heroic zones with 4-5 bosses per zone.
  • Five new Event Heroic zones with a single ring event and boss (10-15 minute zone!)
  • Two contested Heroic zones for leveling from 96-100 (if you prefer to grind).
  • Six raid zones, many of which are tuned for entry-level raiding
  • Avatars of the Gods gets 4 more Avatar raid fights
  • New PvP Gear
  • Nearly all spells can be upgraded to Grandmaster from level 1-100.
  • New “Ancient” spells/combat arts.

Update Notes: Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Written by Feldon on . Posted in EQ2, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL [WEEKLY FEATURE – Ed.]

  • All Access Members can now access the Broker almost anywhere. In the EQII menu, select the “Broker” option, or use the /start_broker_anywhere command.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested]

  • Grulk’s Toxic Submission no longer drains noxious resistance, but instead causes Poisoned Marrow to inflict greater damage.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Summoner

  • Minions Translocation can no longer be cast while under the effects of Carnage Shield.

ITEMS

  • Totem of the Succulent may now only trigger once a second and has increased damage and healing.

BATTLEGROUNDS
Balance of Theer

  • The order logo will now only grant points to your team after you have been on it for three seconds, and every three seconds thereafter.
  • Balance of Theer will now grant medals for victorious matches.

Watch the EverQuest II Q&A #2 panel from SOE Live 2014!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, EQ2, Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Tradeskill

As long last we’ve resumed posting videos recorded from SOE Live 2014. After this, we’ve still got the EQ2 Art & Animation panel, as well as three player panels and the Player Studio panel. Oy vey!

This was the last panel at SOE Live 2014 for EverQuest II — Questions & Answers #2. Due to room acoustics, this recording took an inordinate amount of time to edit and normalize. Fortunately, Audio quality improves around the 3 minute mark when questions begin.


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