Starting Islands Being Removed… for Lore Reasons?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Cronyn has jumped into the fray again with some further details about why the Isle of Refuge is being removed in GU56:

Heya folks.  I wanted to clear a couple of things up really fast, if I may.

As I said, we’re not abandoning Freeport and Qeynos themselves.  The existing content that is there will not be different with this change, and we are planning even more things for the cities going forward.  Players with citizenship currently in either city will retain it – we’re not removing housing, guild halls, the suburbs, or the quests that exist there.  They will continue to be hubs for live events, and we are still hoping to add even more reasons to have you visit the two major cities of our game.

For those who do not have citizenship in these cities, we’re making the path to changing citizenship much clearer.  If you want to change your citizenship from one of the starting cities to Freeport or Qeynos, you can speak with one of the <Change of Citizenship> NPC’s, who will offer information and get you started on your paperwork to switch over.  From there, you can use the new travel system to make your way to the city of your choice, then follow the steps to change your citizenship.  The newbie content within the cities themselves will remain, so you should still have access to that content, if you choose to use it.

Also, just to be clear, there is a lore reason for this as well.  The decision to turn off the islands is a functional one, to be sure, but it is also supported by storyline, which is something I am hoping to start giving out to you here soon.  There are NPC’s in place in both cities who should actually be handing out the first clues right now on Test, so if you’d like to start piecing together what is happening, you should be able to get started.

As far as removing content – yes, the Isle of Refuge are being disabled from character select.  However, we consistently add new content to the game, and will be continuing to do so – EverQuest 2 is a much larger game now than it has ever been, and we are looking forward to expanding and adding to the world even more.

   

Qeynos and Freeport Being Deleted? Let’s Calm Down Folks…

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

There seems to be some confusion in the In Testing Feedback thread regarding the removal of Qeynos and Freeport as starting choices. I stand by the original article I posted, but some clarification is worth mentioning.

Qeynos and Freeport Going Away?

Qeynos and Freeport are not being removed as cities. Furthermore to my knowledge, none of the level 6-20 quests in these city zones and surrounding suburbs are going away. Although further testing on the Test Server will be needed to confirm this.

Players wishing to experience the Qeynos and Freeport level 6-20 content would need to create a character in Kelethin or Halas, Neriak or Gorowyn and arrange travel to Qeynos or Freeport to do those quest lines.

It is also worth pointing out that changing Citizenship between Qeynos, Kelethin, and New Halas, or between Freeport, Neriak, and Gorowyn, is approximately a 15-30 minute process. It’s a single quest or short series of quests. It is nothing like Betrayal. Nor is changing your Citizenship required to play this content.

EQ2Wire would prefer if the islands are not removed, but de-emphasized from the Character Creation screen, with more options added on the Departure Boat to port the player to level 6-20 content in all 6 starting cities.

We stand by our belief that removing content is not necessary to improve the experience for new players.

RIP Queen’s Colony (Qeynos), Outpost of the Overlord (Freeport) 2004-2010

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

In February, former EQ2 Senior Producer Alan “Brenlo” Crosby created a thread “What is the Golden Path?” It included this provocative passage:

The golden path is the first step in a larger revamp of our new player experience.   We took a look at the starting areas, other than Qeynos and Freeport as we plan to move away from those, and reworked content so that it had a better flow.  We wanted the quests in Darklight, Timorous and Greater Fay, to give you a better progression path.

When asked in the EQ2 ZAM Dev Chat to clarify this position, Brenlo responded further:

We plan to only allow new characters to start in the newer player areas. Timorous, Greater Fay, Darklight and soon Halas. The new player experience in Qeynos and Freeport are just not up to snuff anymore and do not provide as solid an experience when you enter the game for the first time.

Any hopes that this change would be canceled with the introduction of new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, were dashed with his indication that he would “not be changing anything that was short-term” (short-term plans). So it seems this change was destined to go in one way or the other. Here are today’s Test Update notes which will not apply to Live Servers until Game Update 56 in mid- to late-May:

Test Update April / 27 / 2010
GENERAL

Qeynos and Freeport have been disabled as starting cities.

Halas Prelude Quest Coming Soon

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Leading up to the launch of Game Update 56, there will be a prelude quest “A Vision of Valor” with a storyline leading to the rediscovery of New Halas. When this quest goes live mid-May, before the launch of Game Update 56, you’ll be able to pick it up in one of the home cities.

From Domino on the EQ2 Forums:

You will find NPCs in North Qeynos (at the temple), West Freeport (near the inn), Neriak (by the entrance), Kelethin (near Bayden Cauldthorn), and Gorowyn (at the dock) have a prelude quest to offer.

As this content is currently on Test, if you are interested, you may test this content out, as well as New Halas, on the Test Server.

Game Update 56 Hits Test: Travel Revamp, Warfields, New Raid Zone

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

Game Update 56 is looking to be a huge update, with many tweaks and adjustments throughout Norrath. In brief…

  • a substantial Travel Revamp
  • more quests in Stonebrunt Highlands to hopefully fill that level 87-90 solo questing gap
  • a new Storyline feature
  • a new Icy Keep x4 Raid
  • Shaders 3.0 Graphical Revamp
  • Research Assistants can help all your characters
  • Blue PvP Adornments
  • Yellow Adornments on T9 Mastercrafted gear
  • Level 90 Character Traits
  • PvP Warfields
  • new Training Dummy options in your guild hall (solo, group, raid, and AE group)
  • and of course New Halas

Also of note, is that a vendor has been added to Moonfield Hamlet selling some of the rare Heroic drops from Sentinel’s Fate zones. It will be interesting to see if this is like the vendor added late in the release of The Shadow Odyssey, where only the lesser Fabled items were available, and for a whopping 150 shards/marks each.

With the Test Server being updated nearly a month before we are estimating Game Update 56 will hit live servers, hopefully there will be plenty of time to test out all the changes.

Game Update 56 Bits-and-Pieces: Mount Speeds, Training Dummies

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping

In addition to the bigger content additions, Game Updates always include smaller, but no less desirable changes and tweaks.

Research Assistants Learn to Multitask

UPDATE: Oops! Despite appearing in the headline, this item somehow got left out!

UPDATE #2: This feature is in the April 20, 2010 Hotfix.

Bunji, member of the EQ2 QA Team, has posted this info on the EQ2 In Testing Feedback forums:

With the new Test server build, each character on an account can research a spell at the same time (this should not affect existing research).

Research times are also being tweaked (lowered).

Floating Disc Mounts

In response to a query about the floating disc mounts introduced in Sentinel’s Fate being slower, and with less stats than the Order of Rime mounts, Kander had this response:

I have upped the speed on several of the disc mounts, they now have a few stats as previous. Level 90 guild mounts are now 68%. Will be in with GU 56 or sooner.

As for the question of Appearance mounts, while we can’t expect them in GU56, Kander advised us to keep an eye out:

This is something we really want to do in the future, yes. It’s being discussed for future GU or exp07.

Kunark Blue Shinies Still Lore?

Echoes of Faydwer, the Rise of Kunark, and the Shadow Odyssey all added 20 or so collections. Each collection has historically had a rare item which could be used either to complete that collection, or to help complete separate collections. These are the Faydwer Expert Collection, Kunark Expert Collection, and Shadow Odyssey Expert Collection. The reward for completing each of these collections is a pair of goggles, or glasses, or a ring which then allows the wearer to see blue shinies (which spawn in specific locations, instead of at random) for the appropriate expansion.

The difficulty of collecting these blue shinies is that many of them have been flagged LORE, allowing only one to be picked up at a time, until it’s sold or traded.

In response to a complaint that Kunark shinies are still LORE, even in Sebilis, which at level 90 still has many green mobs, Kander had this news:

I will take a look at making these (Kunark Blues) no longer lore. I think that would be fine!

Training Dummies Go Epic

The Training Dummy Guild Hall Amenity has been very useful, however we’ve only been able to spawn a solo dummy, which has far too few hitpoints for more than 1 player to really test.

Rothgar has heard the call and will be adding Heroic and Epic versions of the Training Dummy:

I’ve already made a change to the dummy chest, it just hasn’t been released yet. You’ll get it with GU56.

You have the option to spawn a solo, heroic and epic dummy. Each will scale slightly larger in size and their hitpoints will be on par with mobs of that tier and level.

So now you can raid a training dummy if you like. These changes should be on the Test server if you want to check them out.

Training dummies don’t fight back, but they provide a useful punching bag for testing spell and combat art casting rotations. No word if we’ll be able to pick the level of the dummy. At level 80, you really want a level 87 dummy to test debuffs, etc. For now Rothgar is leaving them as they are:

The new dummies are exactly like the old ones, so they shouldn’t have any high resists or buff packages on them, just plain-ol-dummies.

Dev Chat Covers Wide Range of Issues, Offers Few Revelations

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

Thursday night saw the first post-expansion developer chat of 2010. Hosted by ZAM, this chat had previously been scheduled for March 4th, but was postponed to March 18th as developers focused on issues with Battlegrounds.

You would have assumed, with the key issues of Battlegrounds and Itemization consuming a great deal of development effort in the month since Sentinel’s Fate launched, AND the 2 week postponement in the EQ2 Developer Chat, that Calthine at ZAM would have received an avalanche of hardball questions. Instead, we saw just a few of these critical issues raised, with the rest running the usual gamut of comfortable questions.

Don’t Forget: Developer Chat tonight at ZAM

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

Y’all are cordially invited to the next exciting EQII ZAM Developers Chat! This chat was originally scheduled for March 4th and then postponed. Members of the EverQuest II Developer and Community Teams will be there, bring your questions! If you’d like to submit questions prior to the chat, send e-mail to Calthine@allakhazam.com (subject Dev Chat).

  • Thursday, March 18 @ 5:00pm PDT (8:00pm EDT; March 19 @ 00:00 GMT; March 19 @ 01:00 Copenhagen)
  • In the #EQ2 channel on ZAM IRC
  • General chat during the actual event will be in #EQ2FFA
  • You can bet EQ2Wire will be there as well!
mirc For instructions on how to connect to the chat using mIRC, Trillian, or other chat client, check out the EQ2 ZAM Chat Instructions @ EQ2 ZAM.
java If you are not able to run chat software at work, or you just want to jump into the chat through your web browser, you can use the ZAMCHAT Portal here on EQ2Wire.

Check out this Time Zone Converter to help you find what time to sign in. NOTE: Due to America being on Daylight Savings early, please double-check your time zone.

source: EQ2 Forums

EQ2 ZAM Developer Chat postponed to March 18th

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

With the server stability and Battlegrounds issues going on over the past 2 weeks, it was not surprising to read that the EQ2 Developer Chat has been postponed a couple of weeks. Fyreflye had already sent word that he would not be able to make it. We will look forward to the EQ2 Developer Chat on March 18th.

In the meantime, continue to submit your questions to calthine{at}allakhazam{dot}com.

EQII Developer Chat March 4, 2010

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

Y’all are cordially invited to the next exciting EQII ZAM Developers Chat!  Members of the EverQuest II Developer and Community Teams will be there, bring your questions!  If you’d like to submit questions in advance, send e-mail to Calthine@allakhazam.com (subject Dev Chat).

  • Thursday, March 4 @ 5:00pm PDT (8:00pm EDT; 01:00 GMT; 02:00 Copenhagen)
  • In the #EQ2 channel on ZAM IRC
  • General chat during the actual event will be in #EQ2FFA

New to Allakhazam IRC?  Instructions here! Or use EQ2Wire’s EQII ZAM Chat portal.

Check out this Time Zone Converter to help you find what time to sign in.

source: EQ2 Forums

Battlegrounds and Test

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

The good news:

Battlegrounds are now enabled on Test and Test Copy.

The bad news:

Test is closed until Battlegrounds have passed their sanity checks and considered “ready to go live”. This may be Wednesday or Thursday. OUCH

It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Folks on Test are used to things being broken, unstable, etc. They can always just NOT go to Battlegrounds if they are buggy. Posted on EQ2 Forums

Game Update 55 Begins Move to Test Server

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

The EQ2 Test Server has just been updated with most of Game Update 55. GU55 will be the free content available to all EQ2 players on February 16th, to coincide with the release of the expansion.

The biggest part of GU55 (with the loss of New Halas, Shaders 3, and the TS Revamp) are Battlegrounds.

Players are being asked to run dungeons, etc. to see what effect combat changes may have had.

Rothgar @ EQ2 Forums

Qeynos/Freeport World Event Activating on Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Live Events

Windslasher brings us news that the Qeynos/Freeport World Event first mentioned a few weeks back will be activated on Test and Test Copy hopefully this evening. This should be the source of storylines and lore expected to lead us into the Sentinel’s Fate (Odus) expansion. As soon as we have more info about this event, and whether it will go live with Game Update 54 (Will of the Tyrant), we’ll let you know!

City Festivals on Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events

Understandably, some players are taking a look at Game Update 54 (aka the Great Bug Stomp) and not seeing a lot of new content. Part of the issue is, normally, we would be just 2 weeks away from an entirely new expansion at this point. However Sentinel’s Fate won’t hit until February. Also, it is now unclear just when we can expect Shaders 3.0, although I’m hopeful that we’ll get it as an early Christmas present.

Of course, we have Frostfell 2009 to look forward to this December. If this year has proven anything, it is that live events get bigger and bigger, with significant new content each year (next year, I figure it will take all 20 days just to complete all the old and new content of Nights of the Dead!!). Seasonal and recurring live events (eg. Moonlight Enchantments) have been extremely popular, so a lot of attention is being focused on them.

And now it turns out that in response to many complaints that Guild Halls and other game design decisions have “emptied” the home cities, a new recurring event is being introduced in Norrath: City Festivals.

From Kaitheel‘s announcement:

The Far Seas Trading Company is proud to introduce a traveling festival for all to participate in! When this event goes live, a different city will be chosen to host a week long event, once each month. Gorowyn, Neriak, Kelethin and Freeport will each get their chance to host their version of the event. On Test and Test Copy the great city of Qeynos is the first to find the traveling caravan outside it’s gates in Antonica. Adventurers will find new quests, collections and rewards, many of which are city specific! And for those of us that don’t want to wait for the festival to reach our city’s gates, we don’t have to. City Tokens are now being given as further reward for completing city writs!

This event should now be available on Test and Test Copy and we’ll report back soon with the details.

Remember, the Spires event is still in-game and some of the rewards from that event may not re-appear in EQ2 for a long time. In addition to the variety of house items, there are some unique items like the Magic Mouth house/guild hall item which can be set up to make announcements to passers-by. And don’t forget in-home teleporters. You buy them in pairs, right-click to name each one, and then you can port between them.

Knapsacks and Wrecked Cities

One perhaps overlooked feature of Game Update 54 is larger Backpacks. The largest size using a rare component (Mahogany) is now a 40 slot backpack with 20% weight reduction. You can read more about these here.

And finally, if you have been on test and wandered through West Freeport, you may have been shocked at what you saw. Norrath is changing in the leadup to Sentinel’s Fate…

   

Game Update 54 “Will of a Tyrant” Test Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

We know what’s in Game Update 55, which will coincide with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate in February. It’s the new good starting city of New Halas.

What is Game Update 54?

Game Update 54 (slated for release the first week of December) addresses the most annoying of beasts in EQ2: the bug. That random inconsistency in a item description. That bizarre issue in a quest that makes it impossible to complete. The unexpected roadblock in a zone. The mob that just doesn’t work right.

Game Update 54 contains a gob-smacking 304 BUG FIXES covering both recent and long-standing issues throughout the game. EQ2 developers have addressed hundreds of bugs, large and small, throughout the world of Norrath.

Game Update 54 also officially marks the availability of the EQ2 Streaming Launcher. As we’ve been talking about here on EQ2Wire, this launcher will allow new players to jump into Norrath in as little as 10-15 minutes instead of the current 6-10 hour download.

Not part of today’s Test Update, but soon, we’ll also see the updated Frostfell festivities on Test. I’m looking forward to new quests, new loots, and more things to do.

Shaders?

You’ve probably noticed something conspicuously absent from these Test Update Notes. What I know so far is that Shaders are “done and working” on Ryan’s development box. If only we all had Ryan’s development box, we could have Shaders tomorrow. However, Shaders has to work on all sorts of different configurations. From what I hear, Shaders are still undergoing Performance tuning and I hope to bring you some news soon about the results of this tuning.

Because the list of fixes in Game Update 54 is extensive, please click the Read More link below to view the notes.

What Bugs You The Most?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

The EQ2 development team is looking to repeat the successful Bug-squashing campaign of 2008. Rothgar has started a new thread to help get this project started. If there is a specific bug, interface inconsistency, or complaint you have about the game interface, please check out the new What Bugs You the Most? thread.

Note that the thread is not for complaints about zones, itemization, or class balance.

More Game Update 53 Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Daybreak Cash, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization

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.

What Does 150 Shards Get You?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization

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.

moorsgu53_150shards

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.

Breaking News: Account Linking, Heirloom on SC/LoN Items?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping

Some breaking news for you!

As we’ve reported, in Game Update 53, almost all LEGENDARY and FABLED instance dungeon/raid loot except patterns will be picking up the new  LORE-EQUIP flag which, along with the HEIRLOOM and ATTUNEABLE flags will allow instance Fabled and Legendary loot items to be looted and transferred to alt characters on the same account. timetravelling clarifies:

-We do not currently have plans to change the looting options (by adding an Alt Need option between Need and Greed). However, it is something to monitor and we’ll keep an eye on it.

-This change is intended to grab nearly all instance, overland, and contested loots. But not items you can only ever get once such as epics, quest rewards, armor gained from patterns, LoN rewards, Station Cash items, etc.

We would greatly appreciate any feedback y’all have of items that may have been missed or flagged and shouldn’t have been! If you hadn’t noticed, EQ2 has, um, kind of a lot of items and we’d like to be as thorough as possible! =)

I know I’m very excited about this, as are many others. It will streamline what is currently a very tedious logout/login/zone out/zone in/loot process we curerntly do to give loot to alts. However there have been two limitations worth discussing:

Many folks have more than one account. Whether this is husband-and-wife paired accounts, dual- or multi-boxing, or simply because 7 or 12 character slots is just not enough, this is something that has grown increasingly popular. However there is currently no means to transfer any items between accounts. Folks with shared accounts wouldn’t benefit from this new LORE-EQUIP flag.

Second, there is a small and growing market for StationCash and Legends of Norrath items. However these items have always been flagged NO TRADE. In the past, requests to make these items tradeable have not gotten an affirmative from the team.

timetravelling has posted some great news on the EQ2 Forums. Keep in mind that this is future planning and we should not expect any of this in Game Update 53:

Y’all have given some great feedback, and brought up two of the main issues internally and wanted to give you updates:

Linking accounts:  I spoke with several of our coders and while there are limitations that prevent us from implementing it immediately, they thought it sounded feasible. We will keep it in mind and hopefully add it at some point in the future. No timetable promises, but hopefully we’ll be able to get the feature in for those of you with multiple accounts. It may even open up the possibility of some other features as a cool side effect!

LoN and SC items: Ye hast swayed us! Or…in less broken english, I am going to be going through our LoN and StationCash items and–where appropriate–adding the Heirloom flag.

A couple of examples of “where appropriate”:

  • Items that have charges–such as the potions
  • Items that must be equipped–such as appearance armor
  • NOT items that can be used from your inventory–such as mounts

As always, stay tuned for more information about these late-breaking developments. 🙂

Tip of the Iceberg

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

In a previous post, I postuled that the the EQ2 Achievements system is “just the beginning”. While it may be, when I checked out the Achievements listed over on Test for my account, I saw only the low numbers — 25 Werewolves, 20 Heritage Quests, etc. Turns out, these are just the lowest numbers in each series.  Rothgar has chimed in on the EQ2 Forums to inform us that the Achievements go up to 10,000 kills for Slayer titles, 50 Heritage Quests, etc.

The slayer quests do go up to 10k for all types.  Since the slayers are all part of an achievement line, you’ll only see the next one in the line that you’re working on.  Otherwise there would be 184 achievements in the “Slayer” category.  That would be a lot to sort through!

There’s no reason for a slayer poster now that you can just access your counts from within the journal.

There is a lot of info to absorb with Achievements, and I expect we’ll see consistent additions of dozens of them added each update going forward.

Lifting the Ceiling on Kelethin Housing

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Within hours of our reporting on some drawbacks to the otherwise fantastic revamp of housing throughout Norrath, Haohmaru chimed in indicating that he agrees with some of the concerns folks had both with the size of the Qeynos addition, as well as the loss of space in the Kelethin acorn. He’s already posted screen shots of some additional changes he’s made on the EQ2 Forums.

The additional room in Qeynos is quite nice, and the changes in the Kelethin 3 room acorns should go a long way towards addressing some of the issues. Sorry I didn’t get this posted sooner, as the changes happened in a remarkably short time after Gu53 was pushed to Test.

The Acorn becomes the Tree becomes the Acorn (Gu53)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

There have been mixed reactions to the additional rooms which have been added to housing throughout Norrath. They say no good deed goes unpunished. 🙂

Seriously, I do understand the plight of owners of 3-room acorns in Kelethin who took advantage of the unique geometry of these houses to craft some truly fantastic homes who are now affected by how the 4th room was added. Specifically, the ceiling was lowered, and a ramp was added where there was previously space. Fortunately, Art Lead Haohmaru has been quick to respond on the EQ2 Forums that this is something he will look into as it was not intentional to block areas which were previously open.

In other news, those who are lucky (or affluent) enough to have taken up lodgings in the 4 room Maj’dul housing (this requires warmly faction with one of the Courts) will notice some upgrades to their desert-based digs. Specifically, a skylight which provides a splendid view of the Tower of the Moon:

housing_majdul4

And as you may have already seen, the view from the windows in the Kelethin acorns is breathtaking:
kelethin_1room_window1_th kelethin_2room3_th

housing_kelethinoutside

– Shards of Destiny Housing Preview –

More on Achievements (Gu53)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Think you’ve seen all there is to see in Antonica? Think you’ve explored every ice floe of Everfrost? Now you can be sure! The new Achievements system coming with Gu53 will allow you to, at-a-glance, determine if you have discovered every Location there is to discover in Norrath. This is broken down by Zone.

achievements_discovery

One of my top requests over the years has been a means to figure out if we have already toppled the reign of a specific enemy, or named monster. We saw improvements here, with the addition of a white star above the name of any targeted named encounter that we have never been victorious over.

The new Achievements system adds to this, by listing the major named creatures (and sometimes groups of named) by Expansion, and whether we have killed them.

achievements_named

There is one issue that those fastidious players who have already reached 200 AAs will face with the new Achievements system. Because named kills are not tracked for characters who have reached the current cap of 200 AA points, there is no way for those Achievements to be retroactively recognized until the Achievements system is in place. You’ll need to repeat any of those kills after Gu53 to get the Achievement for it.

achievements_armor


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