From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Cobalt Scar

• Kelorek'Dar no longer stuns or interrupts players as a damage shield. He will instead damage player's power pools slightly at the same frequency.
• Collections - Collectibles in Cobalt Scar should be more readily available

Chelsith

• Kuom'Ziki will no longer continue to speak when he is dead.

Jarsath Wastes

• Fixed a spawn point for collectible shinny that was below the surface at location -1619 183 1116.

Blackburrow

• The “Sabertooth Champion" should start spawning again. The respawn for him is around 20 minutes.

Sleepers Tomb

• Sleepers tomb raid – challenge mode ancient sentinel no longer heals itself with Touch of Velium II spell.

Nektulos:

• The Travelling Augur is adjusted to prevent the possibility of him falling beneath the dock.

Siren's Grotto: Dissension

• The second respawn location should not be available until the doors to the second half of the zone are unlocked.

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Hopefully today's update will finally and completely put the EQ2 Platocalypse to bed:

From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where not all of your points spent would load from an AA mirror.
• Granted a free respec on all trees to all players.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Sirens Grotto Raid

• Caella the Pearl encounter - Siren Controllers are slower to react after spawning and have less health. Entrancer Lisha now waits a while after casting Numb Senses to cast her Consume Vitae AOE.
• Entrancer Lisha will no longer charm pets with Siren’s Melody.

Siren’s Grotto: Alluring Embrace [Heroic]

• Health has been reduced on a number of NPCs.

Drinal’s Castle Raid

• Fitzpitzle should now properly advance to his rooms when defeated.

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From EverQuest2.com:

All EQ2 Servers will come down on Tuesday, April 30, at 7:00 am Pacific Time* for Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened. The expected downtime is three hours. Part of this maintenance will occur at the same time as a SOE-wide maintenance.

Game Update 66: SCARS OF THE AWAKENED
Update Notes

Ever vigilant, Norrathians march united under the banner of the New Combine army, deeper into the perilous continent of Velious.

Finally, the army breaches the borders of a region known as Cobalt Scar - a majestic, lush, but tormented region. And from within dark passages in the surrounding mountains, the inhabitants of Sirens Grotto beckon to all.

The first news heard from Cobalt Scar concerns tribes of Othmir that succumbed to an unfortunate fate that now threatens everyone. Further examination into the area will reveal a foreboding presence of the Awakened Legion, a force of evil that decimated dragonkind in the legendary city of Skyshrine.

Nearby, in the watery depths of Sirens Grotto - unseen by landwalkers for the ages – it is said that the caverns hold secrets of their own. And the beguiling siren coven known as the Darkwater Sisters will not give up those secrets easily.

All the while, the Ages End Prophecy looms with its promise to see Kerafyrm - Norrath's most evil, powerful dragon - bring a violent end to the world. Heroes from every corner of Norrath are called to explore this new land in Velious and fight for a future for all.

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Wednesday's sprawling two hour Critical Hit podcast with Nathan "Kaitheel" McCall is absolutely worth listening to, as Nathan goes into the best uses of design hours, what it takes to revamp zones such as Qeynos and Freeport, why the starting islands were removed, the importance of storytelling, and more.

But if you are a raider or otherwise into the mechanics and itemization of EQ2, and you listen to only one EQ2 podcast this month, it should be EQ2Talk Episode #63 with Kyle "Kander" Vallee. He goes into a lot of the thinking behind the upcoming update (and this fall's expansion), has some refreshing vision towards the future of EQ2, itemization and content design, and is very candid about some of the missteps in Chains of Eternity as well as other past changes.

All comments below are paraphrased from Kander's comments in the 1 hour 40 min podcast. Any errors in meaning are the fault of the editor.

Stat Consolidation

• If there is one thing Kander could go back and change about EQ2, he would never have gone along with Stat Consolidation (where each class has just one primary stat and then Stamina for increasing health).  The different benefits you got from each stat were some of the "meat and bones" of EQ2 and chasing different stats and having to make choices on which gear you equip added a lot of depth. We had a lot more choice itemization-wise. For example, building up Intelligence to increase poison damage for scouts.
• As far as Stat Consolidation, we're actually planning to head back in that direction as far as the next expansion to provide more choices. Right now, itemization feels a little bit stale. Players should need to think about their gear.

More after the jump...

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The EverQuest II servers send a lot of data to the game client, especially when a player is grouped with 23 others, all decked out in top end gear, adornments, and running potions, all triggering and multiplying heals, damage, and so forth. Years ago, this came to a head with Procs (built-in effects on items). They were critting, magnifying each other, and just creating a cascading mess of combat events which put a strain on servers and player's computers alike.

Fast forward to 2013 and while Procs have still been largely kept in check, the addition of more AAs, more Prestige abilities, and just more of everything has once again put us in a situation where the more powerful the raidforce, the more their computers choke on thick data milkshake of endless combat events.

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From the EQ2 Forums:

Last week, you got an inside look at Cobalt Scar on a tour with Haohmaru, ttobey, and Kaitheel. This week, we bring you an early look at the Siren's Grotto! Join Tim "Haohmaru" Heydelaar, Chris "Chrol" Garlick, and Christopher "Phatkins" Atkins as they take you through this new dungeon, coming with Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened, which will be released on April 30.

From EverQuest2.com:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Harrow's End [Raid]

• Drinal should no longer have a chance to cast more than one curse on the raid force at the same time.
• Drinal should no longer drop hate on targets in the first half of his encounter.
• Spiritual Exhaustion should no longer hit the entire raid 4 times. Instead the person in group that has to react will affect only their specific group with the damage. This damage has been made unable to be AE blocked.
• Concussive Mindmeld can no longer be AE blocked.
• Drinal should no longer occasionally cast spells on dead players.

From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums:

Just thought I would drop a few notes in here before everyone starts asking.

Q: How can I access the new raid zones?
A: The raid content in this update is closed beta. You will not be able to access this content as general population.

Q: How can I join the closed beta?
A: Feel free to shoot myself or one of the other developers a private message on what sort of raid content you would like to test and what you can offer in terms of times and players/classes. If we feel you are good fit we will extend the invite. Keep in mind not everyone will be accepted.

Q: Are the any X2 zones in this update?
A: Short answer, no. Long answer, There are two contested X2 encounters out in Cobalt Scar but no full X2 zones.

UPDATE from Gninja on why Siren's Grotto Raid Beta Testing is private, and a count of the number of names within the zone:

There are 7 main bosses and 2 sub bosses. Yes trash drops loot. The zone buff packages are tougher then normal mode stuff in CoE all the way up to hardest in game for the challenge mode (of which there are 3) We are limiting this to invite only because we do not want folks in there just learning the fights. Instead we will be testing the different aspects of the fights with different guilds to make sure everything is working.

Logo Mockup by EQ2Wire

In addition to the new content in Game Update 66, which hits Beta today and will go live on April 30th, there are numerous class tweaks. But instead of class balance (although there is some of that), the overriding theme of the class improvements in this update could best be summed up as "What Bugs Your Class Most?" All those things about your class that drive you crazy, like having to be directly behind the mob to use your biggest hits as a Dirge, or having to be exactly 5 meters from the mob to do both your Melee and Ranged CAs as a Ranger.

Read over the notes and give us your take. Are these great, long overdue changes, or does it almost go too far, making things a little too convenient? As a Ranger, I'm excited about the changes, but will I become even lazier now that I can stand pretty much anywhere in the room and do my maximum DPS? I certainly applaud a number of the changes which were things that "didn't make sense" which have now been fixed.

After the jump, Game Update 66's Beta Notes...

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Not everyone has the time to watch a Twitch or Youtube video talking about upcoming Game Updates, Expansions, Features, etc. Some are not able to watch videos at work and would rather read a transcript. And there are a number of EQ2 players who are hearing impaired. So for you guys, I am happy to present another EQ2Wire exclusive Transcript of an SOE Webcast. This week's session is about the upcoming Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened which lands on the Beta server next Tuesday and goes live April 30th.

Inside this transcript, you'll find out...

• The Othmir make their way to Cobalt Scar to see what's left of their homeland.
• New Tradeskill quest line.
• New Tradeskill Apprentice recipes.
• New overland zone with numerous quests at Advanced Solo difficulty.
• New Heroic zones. New Advanced Solo zones. New raid zone with internal progression.
• Itemization is an overlay for Chains of Eternity, not a gear reset.
• Gear upgrades will be in 7-8 slots and there are clear upgrades for all gameplay levels including solo, group, and raid.

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From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

From EverQuest2.com:

MEMBERSHIP UPDATES
The following restrictions have been removed on Free and Silver accounts:

• Class selections (Beastlord still requires Age of Discovery)
• Race selections (Freeblood still requires purchase)
• Bag slots
• Shared Bank slots
• Active journal quests allowed

GENERAL

• There is no longer a broker fee for buying Krono from the broker.

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Logo mockup by EQ2Wire

From Holly "Windstalker" Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

To all Norrathians,

The Velious saga continues! New lands and adventures will be uncovered on April 30 with Game Update 66 entitled EverQuest II: Scars of the Awakened!

Ever vigilant, Norrathians march united under the banner of the New Combine army, deeper into the perilous continent of Velious.

Finally, the army breaches the borders of a region known as Cobalt Scar - a majestic, lush, but tormented region. And from within dark passages in the surrounding mountains, the inhabitants of Sirens Grotto beckon to all.

Read More»

From the EQ2 Forums:

NEW RAID ZONES

• New x2 raid zone Wurmbone's End: Nox Incessit (with normal and challenge versions). Entrance located in Jarsath Wastes.
• New x4 raid zone The Dreadcutter: The Pirate Kings. Entrance located in Obol Plains on the dock.

NEW BAG SORTING, SWAPPING AND DUMPING FEATURES
Bag Sorting:
Open up the Bag Options window from the button on each bag to access the filters that you’d like to set for a respective inventory bag. After setting your options, hit the “Sort” button on your Character window. This will send a command up to the server with “/sort_bags name”.

• In addition to sorting by “name”, you can type the sort_bags command yourself and put “level” to sort by level of the item instead.
• Any option that you set for filtering items will also affect which bag the item goes to upon looting!
• If you’d rather a bag not be sorted, feel free to mark the bag as a “Skip”.

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From the EQ2 Forums:

The update on February 26th was discussed in Podcast #143, as well as in articles about the PvP Updates and Bag Sorting Abilities. Now, it’s time to take a look at two more major features that round out the update: new raid content and guild achievements!

X2 and X4 Raids

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On February 21st, SOE Podcast #143 was posted and it includes a brief interview between Colette "Dexella" Murphy, EQ2's Community Manager, and Kyle "Kander" Vallee, EQ2 Lead Designer, Brian "Omougi" Ferguson, EQ2 Systems Design, and Kenneth "Terrogaunt" Roecks, EQ2 Programmer.

After the jump, we provide a transcript of the EQ2 part of the Podcast including:

• Wurmbone Crag: Nox Incessit [x2 Normal and Challenge Raids]
• Dreadcutter: The Pirate Kings [x4 Challenge Raid]
• Bag Sorting -- one-click sort bags by Level or Name into 14 categories
• PvP Balance -- continued tweaks
• PvP Blue Adornments -- new slots
• PvP Guardian -- buffed!
• confirmation of Cobalt Scar in Game Update 66 at the end of April

Download SOE Podcast #143 [15:31 mp3]

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From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The Legends o Norrath store should be functioning properly again.
• Fixed an issue where false duplicates of items could appear in the claim window.

ZONE PROGRESSION

Harrow’s End [Raid]

• Fixed a zone crash that could happen when a raid force wiped to Drinal.

Although we've already been advised that the era of "Pre-Adorned Items" isn't coming to an end any time soon, we can look forward to a new vendor being added next week in Game Update 65.5 which will allow us to purchase some of the more run-of-the-mill Red and Yellow Adornments for [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u] and [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u].

Greater Spirits -> Obols

If you happen to have an abundance of [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u] but are running short on [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u], you'll be able to trade them in. A [eq2u]Crate of Obols[/eq2u] will also cost 7p and 1 Greater Spirit in exchange for 18 Obols.

NOTE: Greater Spirits drop from heroic zones. Obols drop from any Chains of Eternity zone including overland trash.

Game Update 65.5 Red and Yellow Adornments Vendor

A new NPC named Dulgur Bindmagic is being added next to Drinal's Steward in the village of Cardin Ward in Obol Plains.

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As posted by Praetorian, owner of the Raid strategy discussion site EQ-Raiders, on the EQ2 Forums:

It is now official that EQ-Raiders will be hosting a brand new Raid Guild Progression website.

This new website will have both manual kill submissions (For guilds that fall out of the realm of accurate auto-updaters) as well as automated kill verification updates through a unique RaidHub interface being created by Mecrab, the author of RaidHub. The website is being designed and coded by Mecrab and should be launching this weekend. RaidHub will not be required by any means but with the added capabilities and the already large amount of guilds that utilize RaidHub, it only seemed natural to make that the platform of choice. The website will also take full advantage of kill verifications with the upcoming new SOE Data Feeds that feature guild kill updates as well.

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Holly "Windstalker" Longdale has posted on the EQ2 Forums:

Hello again intrepid Norrathians,

We are inching closer to our February 26 Update and we have some news to share.

In my Producer Letter in our forums on Feb. 5, I listed the features we had planned for our Feb. 26 update. One of them I referred to as a Loyalty Program that centered around daily, weekly, and monthly objectives. We have been working on the feature and don’t feel it’s up to snuff yet. We want more time for testing, feedback, and iteration to ensure it’s fun. That in mind, we are going to hold this back for a while.

That said, we hope to have an unexpected addition to the February Update!

Guilds, take notice! We are introducing Guild Achievements to track and reward your guild’s accomplishments. In the new guild Achievements window, we list raid targets and their point value and we will track -- including time stamps down to the second – the achievements for your guild. And if your guild wants to participate by including its achievements in our data feed, the information will be shared with the community at large. We are working on solutions for displaying the data and sharing this news with the fan sites.

Sincerely, as always,

Holly Longdale
Producer, EQII

I expected fierce responses to yesterday's article about Drinal and the issues raiders have been facing in Harrow's End. I wrote about issues that players have faced since the expansion launched, with a focus on the issues that still seem to exist based on player reports in the two Drinal threads I linked on the EQ2 forums. It was absolutely my intention to push some buttons and try to get some traction on fixing the Boss of the Chains of Eternity expansion. As to whether I went too far, that will be up to the reader.

Let's get some clarifications out of the way...

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UPDATE from Gninja on February 21, 2013:

From the EQ2 Forums: