Bunji wrote over on the EQ2Players forums:

 Test needs another update before the token exchange will be working correctly.  This should be in the next Test update:

You may now exchange your Gears, Ganak and Smuggler’s tokens for Battleground tokens by speaking to the Sisters of War.

I’ll try and update Test again tonight.

Platinum Memberships are now available for EQ2X players!

With the Platinum Membership, players can enjoy a robust experience in the world of Norrath. Platinum members will get full access to all 19 standard character races, all 24 classes, all spell tiers and equipments grades. They can play up the the current maximum level (level 90) and get 10 character slots for making a variety of characters.

In addition, Platinum members will have six bag slots, an unlimited coin allowance, and can send and receive in-game mail. This level of membership allows unlimited use of the broker system, voice chat and in-game chat, joining and creating guilds, and the use of eight bank slots and 75 active journal quests.

Platinum members get full customer service support and won’t see any in-game pop-up advertising. As an added bonus, they’ll receive 500 SC per month.

For pricing and more details, visit the EverQuest II Extended Membership Plans FAQ and view the Membership Matrix.

Update: Or are they? This has been posted under This Months News on the EQ2Players.com website and is also on the login page for EQ2X but hasn’t made it to the main page and reports are that it isn’t quite live yet.  Will it launch today?  I guess we’ll know soon.

Update 2: It’s now linked on EQ2Players.com and has been announced by Kiara.  Pretty sure that means it’s a go.

This just in from Smokejumper on the EQ2X Forums:

If you are a Bronze or Silver member, there are two new features available to you!

Classes, a la Carte!

You can now purchase individual classes for 750 SC each. You can either purchase them in the marketplace or at the time of character creation. All classes outside of the original eight free ones are available for purchase.

(Gold and Platinum members, this doesn’t affect you since you have always had access to all the classes.)

Broker Credits!

If you wish to interact on the Broker system (either listing an item for sale or purchasing something for yourself), you can now do so. A pack of 10 Broker Credits is available for 150 SC. Each time you list an item or purchase something, you expend one credit.

(Again, Gold and Platinum members don’t need these since they have open access to the Broker at all times.)

A fix for this has crept its way onto the test server which is lowering the mitigation of most tanks.  So, on the test server, if you have any of this gear and yesterday you were barely able to survive during a given fight, chances are, today you’ll go splat.  Xelgad posted an explanation on the EQ2players.com forums.

Xelgad says that they aren’t in a rush to get this to live and that they will take the time to get it working right.  Hopefully this means tweaking other things if needed, like mob damage output.  Xelgad writes:

You may have noticed that currently on test mitigation numbers seem lower. There was no notes in the Test Update notes because it was pushed to Test a little sooner than we expected.
 
We’ve been evaluating all of the systems in the game to find out what is working and what is not working correctly. During this investigation, we found that there was a bug with the blue stat “Mitigation Increase” causing it to give noticably more than the listed amount of mitigation. This bug has been fixed and is currently on the test servers.
 
A mitigation increase of 10% was increasing plate mitigation by about 30% and leather mitigation by about 54%. This has been fixed so that the mitigation increase that says 10% will increase your mitigation by 10%. The addition of mitigation to the brawler self buffs was to be in tandem with this bug fix. This change is important because reaching the cap on mitigation causes some abilities, advancements and gear options to become irrelevent. That is obviously detrimental to gameplay and it can be detrimental to balance as well. If some classes have been balanced around having abilities to boost their mitigation and players end up capping out that stat then that element of balance is lost.
 
This bug has been in the game for a long time so the fix will reduce the mitigation of most tanks. For the sake of being able to balance the tanks in the future, we needed to correct the formula that was used to calculate the effectiveness of “Mitigation Increase.”

We’ll try to address questions and concerns regarding this fix and we aren’t in a rush to get this change to Live. If it looks like there may be problems with it, we’ll take the time to get it working right.

EVERQUEST II EXTENDED

• Classes can now be purchased individually off the Marketplace and through character creation.
• Armor crates have been added to the Marketplace selling sets of armor for all levels.
• You can now purchase Broker Credits from the marketplace!
• Broker Credits can be used for a one-time purchase or sell action on the broker for Bronze and Silver members.
• Selling and purchasing stacks of items count as a single broker credit so use them wisely!

USER INTERFACE

• The XP bar will now stay put through relogging.
• The bonus xp from max level characters now displays properly at character select.
• Your UI settings should now be restored after using the /loadui command.
• The mini-map zone name will now display correctly after using /loadui.
• Fixed a bug where using /loadui while banking would keep you from using the banker until you zoned or logged out.
• Fixed a highlight bug on the city selection page of character create.
• Parts of the achievement interface and all of the paperdoll windows that were red will now be blue when loading the “Default Blue” skin.
• The background color of the paperdoll is now exposed to the UI files via the PaperdollBackgroundColor property.
• Fixed a bug causing coin to not be draggable to the coin section of the Character window.
• The Character window has undergone a few changes:
• The Auto-Inventory area has returned.
• The stats dropdownbox has been replaced with buttons
• The main tabs were moved back to the top of the window, sub-tabs were moved to the bottom.
• Your character’s name was moved to the titlebar.

WELCOME WINDOW

• The item of the week will display the item of the week description rather than a copy of the message of the day.
• The Sentinel’s Fate Daily Mission now appears on the Welcome screen.

QUESTS

• Adventurers looking to worship Anashti Sul and on the quest “Gathering Feathers” should now be able to locate the necessary scroll within Gorowyn’s Grand Atheneum.
• Darklight Wood: You can now defeat ghoulish Nerian to update your quest.
• Feral Citizenry: Ghoulish Nerians should no longer remain in an “unattackable” state after being exposed to the Strobe of Innoruuk.
• The statue of Razorwing Steeldown within “Ascent of the Awakened” will now grant a replacement “Totem of Aaryonar” to anyone who has lost it and completed the quest “The Riddle of Razorwing.”
• The “Totem of Aaryonar” is no longer removed upon completion of the quest “Feeding the Flames.”  It is now removed upon completion of the quest “A Final Froglok Word.”

ITEMS

• Troubadors who have completed the quest “An Ayonic Journey” can now read all of the pages within the book, “The Case of the Lost Lute.”
• The wicked wand of malice has been altered. The effect attached to the wand is now an on equip effect. The 10% cast speed on hostile spells has been changed to a generic 10% cast speed mod attached to the item.
• Roehn Theer: Godslayer Breastplate rewards have been made more in line with the challenge.
• Shroud of the Faithful is now claimable one per character.
• Fixed a rendering issue with Dendroxa the Envenomed.
• Stigmatic Frenzy now correctly triggers on the caster’s group.

ABILITIES

• Damage Reflection abilities can no longer do more than 300% of the max health of the caster before Crit Bonus and Potency.

Inquisitor

• Chilling Invigoration is now correctly modified by the Inquisitor’s stances.

POPULATION

• Stonebrunt Highlands: NPC Combatants found outside of Quel’ule should no longer fly up into the sky.

ASCENT OF THE AWAKENED

• Drop rate of the “Ornate Winged Eye” has been increased and should now drop even if mobs are grey.

THE VIGILANT: INFILTRATION

• There should now be a new respawn area in the beginning section once the first two groups of Zeklings have been defeated, thus keeping the circle of death from occurring.

ICY KEEP: RETRIBUTION

• Kastus & Odaufe should no longer one shot players with their respective frostbite damage shields. It is still recommended players not hit them with the wrong damage type however as they can still easily kill players with them.
• Kastus & Odaufe should no longer regain their damage shields if not killed quickly enough after being hit with the ice axe.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• Mosaasus now has a smaller hitbox area.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY

• Players now have more time to get to the platforms to prevent his adds from coming to life.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER

Zone-in issue has been fixed.

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

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

Happy adventuring!

There was a thread soliciting feedback on how the EQ2 team could solve this problem.

Already, there is a Truancy system in place, where if enough players vote that a player has gone AFK simply to collect Battlegrounds tokens.

So how could this new problem of out-of-reach flag holders be resolved? Many solutions were proposed. As of last week, we have our answer:

If a player holds the flag beyond a designated amount of time without entering melee combat, they will see a message flash in red characters at the top of their screen “Get into Combat or be Banished!!“.

If you’d like to read player feedback on this issue and solution, check out the thread on the EQ2 Forums.

From Rothgar on the EQ2X Forums:

Its not set in stone, but we are looking at selling all classes as individuals, not as packs. This means we might have to put a restriction on betrayal if you don’t own the other class. But this should be preferable to charging double the price and giving you an extra class that you may not want. Then you’d only have to buy the other class if you wanted to betray.

Also, I think you guys will be pleasently surprised by the pricing that we’re considering. Classes don’t have to be more than the cost of monthly subscription. As long as the gold plan still has value, selling classes individually will open them up to everyone, even those that would have not gone for the subscription. Mounts can have a higher price tag because they are more of a luxury item that you don’t need. The price of a class shouldn’t restrict people from trying several out, because after all, we want you to find your perfect class and stick with the game.

We’ve also had some interesting conversations about economy and broker access. We’re definitely looking at options. Something we definitely want to see is more of a player economy. The idea of a new “East Commonlands” cropping up would be really cool too. Would even be fun to see players taking out the portable crafting stations and making things for people on demand. We don’t want to eliminate the broker, but bringing the old-school player interaction back to the game would be really fun.

Update – This just in from Smokejumper:

If you are a Bronze or Silver member, there are two new features available to you!

Classes, a la Carte!

You can now purchase individual classes for 750 SC each. You can either purchase them in the marketplace or at the time of character creation. All classes outside of the original eight free ones are available for purchase.

(Gold and Platinum members, this doesn’t affect you since you have always had access to all the classes.)

Broker Credits!

If you wish to interact on the Broker system (either listing an item for sale or purchasing something for yourself), you can now do so. A pack of 10 Broker Credits is available for 150 SC. Each time you list an item or purchase something, you expend one credit.

(Again, Gold and Platinum members don’t need these since they have open access to the Broker at all times.)

• UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
• UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
• UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
• UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
• Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
• The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
• Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
• Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
• The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

The complete Test Server Update Notes for August 25, 26, and 27th as posted by Bunji:

8/25 Notes:

USER INTERFACE
The XP bar will now stay put through relogging.

WELCOME WINDOW
The item of the week will display the item of the week description rather than a copy of the message of the day.

TRAVEL
The residents of Omen’s Call have added a travel globe to their dock.

QUESTS
Adventurers looking to worship Anashti Sul and on the quest “Gathering Feathers” should now be able to locate the necessary scroll within Gorowyn’s Grand Atheneum.

ITEMS
Troubadors who have completed the quest “An Ayonic Journey” can now read all of the pages within the book, “The Case of the Lost Lute.”
The wicked wand of malice has been altered. The effect attached to the wand is now an on equip effect. The 10% cast speed on hostile spells has been changed to a generic 10% cast speed mod attached to the item.

POPULATION
Stonebrunt Highlands: NPC Combatants found outside of Quel’ule should no longer fly up into the sky.

ASCENT OF THE AWAKENED
Drop rate of the “Ornate Winged Eye” has been increased and should now drop even if mobs are grey.

THE VIGILANT: INFILTRATION
There should now be a new respawn area in the beginning section once the first two groups of Zeklings have been defeated, thus keeping the circle of death from occurring.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER
Zone-in should work correctly now.

8/26 Notes:

USER INTERFACE
The Character window has undergone a few changes:
The Auto-Inventory area has returned.
The stats dropdownbox has been replaced with buttons
The main tabs were moved back to the top of the window, sub-tabs were moved to the bottom.
Your character’s name was moved to the titlebar.

ITEMS
Roehn Theer: Godslayer Breastplate rewards have been made more in line with the challenge.
Fixed a rendering issue with Dendroxa the Envenomed.

8/27 Notes (should be on Test around 7-8pm tonight):

USER INTERFACE
[FAN FAIRE FEEDBACK]
The implied target arrow now displays the con color of the implied target.
You can now adjust the opacity of the implied target arrow independently from the main target arrow under Options -> User Interface -> Target Arrow

QUESTS
Feral Citizenry: Ghoulish Nerians should no longer remain in an “unattackable” state after being exposed to the Strobe of Innoruuk.

ITEMS
Stigmatic Frenzy now correctly triggers on the caster’s group.
Two handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased.
Master Yael’s weapons have had their damage ratings increased.

PVP ITEMS
Ranged Weapon auto-attack damage has been slightly reduced in PVP Combat.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Damage Reflection abilities can no longer do more than 300% of the max health of the caster before Crit Bonus and Potency.

Brawlers
Bob and Weave and Inner Calm now give a small amount of physical mitigation.

Guardian
“Got Your Back” is now raidwide and has a 50 meter radius.
“Cripple” is now a combat art that deals damage and reduces riposte damage of the target by 75%.
“Call of Shielding” now increases the maximum health of the raid as well as the defense skill.
“Guardian Sphere” now has a 0.5 second casting time. It lasts for 12-20 seconds (based on spell revision) and grants the guardian a 25% (at master) chance to absorb an attack (same as before) but no longer has max triggers of 6. The interpose effect has been changed to a stoneskin proc at 50% at master.
“Recapture” now reduces the hate position of the group members by 1 as well. The reuse is now 45 seconds.
“Iron Will” now reduces snare effects on the guardian as well as increases stamina. (36% at master at 90)
“Plant” now forces targets in Area of Effect to target the guardian and increases the guardian’s threat slightly. The duration has been slightly reduced.
“Enhance: Plant” now improves the duration by 0.4 seconds per point rather than 1.
“Double Attack” is now “Flurry” and grants 3% Flurry chance rather than 9% double attack.
“Bind Wound” now heals the warrior to full.
The “Crippling” line has been changed to the “Aggression” line:
“Enhance: Intercept” also reduces incoming damage to the target of Intercept.
“Enhance: Moderate” now increases the target’s crit bonus by 1% rather than reducing hate gain by 2%.
“Enhance: Rescue” has been moved to slot 4 in the new hate line (formally crippling.)
“Enhance: Reinforcement” has been moved to slot 5 in the new hate line.
“Enhance: Rescue” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call to Arms” which increases the skill bonuses by 7% per rank.
“Enhance: Reinforcement” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call of Shielding” which increases the spell by 5% per rank.
“Enhance: Ruin” is now “Enhance: Provoke” and increases the threat amount by 7% per point.
“Enhance: Concussion” is now “Enhance: Shout” and increases the potency and reduces the resist chance of Shout.
“Enhance: Sever” is now “Enhance: Hatred” and increases the guardian’s threat generation by 2% per rank.
“Cripple” is now “Shoulder the Burdon” and transfers 10% threat from the target group member to the guardian.
“Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense” now trigger threat 100% of the time on a successful block.
“Aggressive Nature” now increases the threat amounts on “Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense.”

Inquisitor
Chilling Invigoration is now correctly modified by the Inquisitor’s stances.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS
Mosaasus now has a smaller hitbox area.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY
Players now have more time to get to the platforms to prevent his adds from coming to life.

However this July, SOE became aware of a more insidious and direct attack upon the EQ2 playerbase. We’re talking about an Account Phishing Scam that encourages players to login to an official-looking website using their SOE Station credentials. Personal information including logins, passwords, e-mail addresses, account names, are logged and eventually used to strip characters and otherwise compromise accounts for plat and item distribution within the game.

In the Account Fraud panel at Fan Faire, as well as some discussions with SOE staff, we have determined some sobering data points.

• Many players create Station accounts for EQ2 using the exact same login/password they use for other games (including WoW), and sometimes even their primary e-mail account, and banking websites.

• Past phishing scams for WoW have netted account information for an alarming number of EQ2 players that used the same credentials.

• Some of these account scammers are incredibly organized, and have years of collected data. Some EQ2 accounts have been compromised with information from 4 years ago.

• Compromised accounts are used for a variety of tasks. We’ve all heard about characters being stripped naked in Qeynos Harbor. But your account is just as likely to be used to distribute platinum and other items from plat distributors to buyers.

• Some players have had the same account compromised 3 times in the same week.

• The number of EQ2 accounts compromised has doubled every month for the last three months since this phishing scam began.

What is Customer Service doing?

Customer Service are currently investing 45 minutes to 1 hour for each compromised account to do more than simply “roll back” the account, but step through event logs and restore the character with all items lost, but without any quest progress lost.

If the same account is compromised again within a short time, then a straight “roll back” is performed.

What can players do?

• Use a different password for your banking information and e-mail accounts than you do for Forums and Gaming accounts.

• Install and maintain up-to-date Anti-Spyware and Antivirus software.

• Do not share accounts or account information with guildies, friends, family.

• If you must share account info (against terms and conditions, but this happens within guilds due to the need for raid looting, raid buffs, and character boxing,) then change the account password to something temporary for that situation, and then change it back on your next login to your account.

Keeping your account secure is your responsibility, and no doubt SOE are looking into the possibility of the type of security fobs used by other security-related sites including employers and, of course, a certain other 10 million subscriber game.

Other things we heard from Customer Service were a drive for GMs to spend more time on-server to interact with players while resolving issues. They realize the value of on-server GMs, even if those GMs are mostly busy handling support tickets.