Amnerys has posted the complete Game Update Notes for Game Update 58: Arcanum Revealed on the EQ2 Forums.

Here they are after the break:

Posted on the EQ2 Forums by Kaitheel:

The Heroes’ Festival has begun! A call has gone out to all Norrathian adventurers to commemorate the six years of questing, raiding, tradeskilling, house decorating and socializing. Celebrators, happy to share in the festivities, can be found in North and South Qeynos or West and North Freeport.

You may spot some odd things, due to the overlap of both the Nights of the Dead and Heros’ Festival running at the same time, right now. But keep in mind that this will not be the case when it goes live. Currently, the event is scheduled to run on live servers, 11/19/10 through 11/30/10.

If you have any feedback or bugs, please post it in this thread so that we will be sure to see it. Thank you!

No word yet on whether the player-submitted paintings (which were available last year for just 6 days) will be available again this year.

If you’re an officer or leader of a small guild, odds are there have been times late at night, or really any time when you have been the only one logged in, yet wanted to invite your own alts to the guild. Previously, you’ve had to wait until another officer or leader of the guild signed on, or signed in another account, to invite your alts.

File this under M for Maybe, but that Guru of GUIs, Rothgar, has had a brainstorm on a possible solution. There is no announced date, and there may be unforeseen issues, but it’s worth a look.

Dethdlr brought us the news from Rothgar that Game Update 58 will indeed contain some changes to the Call of Veteran reward which many of us have a love-hate relationship with.

When it works, it’s great, as it can summon your friends to another zone, even into an already established instance, speeding up gameplay as a reward for being an EQ2 veteran for many years. However, the reasons this item may fail are almost too numerous to mention. I have personally seen messages indicating that I had not yet harvested the druid ring bush in a zone so could not travel there, or I did not meet some nebulous zone ‘requirements’ to enter that zone.

Here’s Rothgar‘s welcome comments:

Several fixes for CoV are coming out with GU58. I can’t guarantee that all bugs with it are gone, but it should be a big improvement. We’ve streamlined the process and added more error messages when things don’t work correctly.

We still have a few more changes to make that we might introduce in a later hotfix, but I think you’ll see an improvement in GU58.

The Legends of Norrath: Dragonbrood – The Anarchs website has been updated with screen shots of the new EQ2-applicable loot cards, including a Legends of Norrath loot card for EQ2 called the Gnom-o-matic Equipment Unattuner. This card will allow players to unattune (and thus transfer items to other characters on their account) up to 3 items.

The Legends of Norrath website and forums have alternately described the Dragonbrood expansion (LoN’s 11th expansion) as ‘Coming Soon’, available ‘This Fall’, and arriving in ‘October‘. Sources suggest the Legends of Norrath: Dragonbrood expansion will coincide with the release of Game Update 58.

Game Update 58 is looking to be a massive update, not so much in content, but in changes large and small to the game, and its User Interface.

Game Update 58 includes:

• A level 90 dungeon – Zraxth’s Unseen Arcanum
• New bosses in the Vasty Deep dungeons with new loot
• Spell Animation and Sound Effect tweaks
• Click-to-Cure
• Mounts and Currency tabs
• Numerous UI tweaks
• Outdoor Balconies have been added to 6+ room houses, making them feel a part of the city they belong to.
• House item limits have been increased, and Moving Crates now count independently of house item limits.
• Additional house items have been added to Moonlight Enchantments, City Festivals, and of course Nights of the Dead
• The adventure Vitality XP bonus remains effective at level 90.
• Betrayal now suspends your access to spells and spell upgrades you are no longer permitted to use, but does not totally reset them. Should you betray back to your original class, your spells will be restored including any spell upgrades you have purchased or researched. Changing your alignment or citizenship without changing class no longer resets your spells.
• Numerous Tradeskill tweaks

We have been unable to confirm if we can expect:

• New loot for Marks of Manaar

Update: We’ve been able to confirm this feature of Game Update 58:

• A fix for the Call of the Veteran to reduce some of the problems, and better messages when it doesn’t work.

Our more detailed preview of Game Update 58 after the jump…

In recognition of the relative lack of in-game paintings available in EQ2 to decorate the ever-growing variety of housing, including the new Mistmoore Crag Estate, we are happy to see more contests that encourage players to create their own artwork or otherwise contribute content which becomes part of the world of Norrath.

For Oktoberfest, contest entries took the form of in-game screen shots of players celebrating and otherwise partaking of festivities in the taverns, bars, and pubs of Norrath. The winners of this contest should make for great decorations in your own celebration chambers.

Read More @ EverQuest2.com.

EverQuest2.com has been updated with the first of several previews of Tuesday’s Game Update 58, named “Arcanum Revealed”. A news item has been posted which says that each time a new instance is created, there is a chance of an additional named spawning in each of the Vasty Deep zones. Check out the original news item for pictures of each new named.

Have you accidentally attuned a piece of armor, jewelry, or weapon to a character? On first thought, this might seem a perfectly reasonable Customer Service request to Unattune items and move them to desired characters. But, this is one of those innocent requests which is subject to abuse.

Recent unconfirmed boasting suggests that players have  successfully transferred attunable gear from one character to another via CSR requests. While the idea of transferring gear that’s no longer available (Those few T7 or T8 avatar items which are still valuable) is a tempting one, the thought that someone might be contacting multiple Customer Service reps at different hours of the day, plaing “CSR Roulette” to make an end-run around the Attuning mechanism is appalling.

But we have received reassurances that SOE Customer Service reps have had a policy for some time now to not honor such Unattune requests. In fact this is now posted in the Message of the Day:

Niami Denmother over at EQ2 Traders has put together some excellent previews of some upcoming crafting updates.

Check out the Game Update 58 Crafting, Housing and Event Preview and the Nights of the Dead 2010 Crafting Preview.

Here are your update notes for 5 October 2010:

EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED

• Bronze members will now be able to view chat channels (Silver or higher is still required to participate in chat).
• You can now purchase Gold memberships directly in game.

MARKETPLACE

• You can now buy extra character slots in the marketplace!
• You can now redeem station cash cards directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Station Cash Card.
• You can now add a credit card to your file directly in game by going to: Marketplace – Add Funds – Credit Card – Add New Card.
• Check the marketplace for “New” and “Hot” items!
• Marketplace items that are discounted from normal price will now show “SALE” on the icon in both the welcome window and the marketplace window.

PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY

Homicidal Madness (the charm spell) no longer affects fighters.

SmokeJumper just announced some changes to the bronze level chat channel restirctions on the EQ2X Forums:

As of Tuesday, October 5th, the chat restrictions for Bronze players will be eased somewhat.

Bronze players will now be able to *see* the chat that’s occurring in broadcast chat channels (like /auction, /Level 1-9, etc.).

However, they will still be unable to *send* chat in those channels.

In theory, this allows Bronze players to hear what’s going on in the world, and opens up a huge pool of potential customers for Silver and Gold players that are /auctioning items in chat. (Bronze players can /tell back to the auctioneer if they’re interested in the item.)

The world should feel a bit more filled with people for Bronze players now, as well.

EQ2Players.com has a news item up announcing the new 7 year veteran reward, your very own Mistmoore Crag Estate!

It looks like it’s going to be quite impressive.  More pictures are available at EQ2Players.com.

There was quite an amusing thread with several devs posting screenshots and info over the past week about this new housing.  All of it false of course but pretty humerous.  Definately worth a read.  It includes comments like this from Haohmaru like this:

Hey all!

We’ve decided to give a sneak peek of the Mistmoore Crag Estate. After much deliberating and rock paper scissors, we decided on…

A Boat!

But, should we just do a boring old boat? Would that even be interesting? What else could we do to make it unique and unlike anything seen before? So then we got to thinking… and thinking… and then, EUREKA!

Ladies and Gents – I present to you, the Mistmoore Crag Estate. Your very own floating coffin. And yes, for those wondering, the lid does indeed close during the day locking you and your friends inside. TELL ME THAT DOESN”T ROCK!

Even includes screen shots of the coffin.   Kinda makes you wonder who spiked the coffee at SOE last week.  🙂

Massively is giving away fifteen 30 day gold subscriptions to EQ2X.  Check out the article at Massively.com and post a comment.  Fifteen people will be randomly chosen to receive the 30 day gold subscriptions.

The folks over at Massively.com have posted an interview with SmokeJumper.  In it, he talks about F2P, comparisons to other MMOs, the possibility of a dungeon finder, and the class balance manifesto.  Interesting read.

I remember several years ago preparing to raid Deathtoll.

The first thing I did was ride a cloud up on Bonemire and jump off at just the right spot so I could land on the floating island containing Arbiter Selek. But before I could talk to him, I had to speak Draconic. That’s right, first I had to do the quest Speak as a Dragon that started with a raid and then sent me all over Norrath looking for items.

This just in from SmokeJumper on the official forums:

We’ve solved some technical issues recently and we can now offer character slots for sale. (Something previously unavailable.)

So as of October 5th (Tuesday), character slots will be available for purchase in the marketplace.

Here’s a couple quick facts to answer obvious questions:

1. Slots are permanent. You pay for them once and they stay on your account forever.
2. You can purchase any number of character slots. There is no limit. You want 20, 30 or even a bajillion character slots? Go for it.

Regarding Station Access subscriptions:

1. Character slots sold are *in addition to* any slots you are getting by being an SA subscriber. (Example: If you had 12 slots available as an SC subscriber and you purchase two more slots in the marketplace, you’ll now have 14 slots available.)
2. If you cancel your SA subscription, and then buy slots to replace the slots you were getting, your characters *will* still be present in those purchased slots (they won’t get deleted during the swapover).

Character slots will be available in the in-game marketplace for 1000 SC each.

This also applies to EQ2 Extended as well.

SmokeJumper is looking for feedback on placing F2P marketplace items on the test server.  He posted this on the official forums:

Hey, folks,

We don’t have a big enough population on the Test server to run two different Test servers (one for EQII Live and one for EQ2X), and we’d like to get your feedback on whether you think it’s appropriate for us to allow the EQ2X marketplace items to show up on Test.

Since the items are optional, it shouldn’t make much of a difference in your play style, but it would allow us to test them on a real server before they go Live.

Additionally, for anyone interested, they’d probably help leveling a bit, which is always somewhat of a hurdle on this lower-population server.

What do you think?

Thanks for your feedback.

Commentary:

I personally agree with many of the other posters that have already replied who think this would work much better if done on Test Copy. Test Copy gets wiped periodically anyway and gives unlimited station cash. This would seem to be the perfect place to “test” marketplace items.

EQ2X is no longer in beta.  From the ashes of the EQ2 Live servers comes the newly launched F2P server.  At least that’s what seems to be implied by the free “Staff of the Rising Phoenix” available for a limited time on the EQ2X server.  From Everquest2.com:

It’s official! SOE has removed BETA from the logo and is proud to announce the official launch of EverQuest II Extended.

To celebrate the launch, EQ2X players can claim their free Staff of the Rising Phoenix from the in-game Marketplace on the Freeport server. The staff is an appearance-only item, depicting a phoenix engulfed in glowing flames, and will be available for a limited time only, so be sure to claim yours before 11:59 pm PDT on Sunday, October 3rd.

Read the full article at Everquest2.com.

First off, my appologies for taking so long to post this information but it took me until a few hours ago to understand what was actually going on.  It’s been a bit confusing.   Here’s what’s happening.

In celebration of Oktoberfest, the EverQuest II Community Team will be hosting in-game parties in the Community Lounge. Come socialize, dance, have pillow fights, drink, and be merry. You’ll also be able to tip the barkeeps for some special trinkets!

The international servers Valor, Innovation, Storms, and Sebilis had their parties last week.  The US/UK/Extended servers are having parties, but nobody from the Everquest II Community Team is going to show up.  Instead, they are having four parties on the Test Copy server which will be attended by members of the Everquest II Community Team (one was last night): 

• Tuesday, September 28th, 6:00pm to 7:00pm PDT, Test Copy
• Tuesday, September 28th, 8:00pm to 2:00am PDT, US/UK/Extended servers (aproximate times)
• Wednesday, September 29th, 1:00pm to 2:00pm PDT, Test Copy
• Wednesday, September 29th, 3:00pm to 9:00pm PDT, US/UK/Extended servers (aproximate times)
• Thursday, September 30rd, 1:00pm to 2:00pm PDT, Test Copy
• Thursday, September 30rd, 3:00pm to 9:00pm PDT, US/UK/Extended servers (aproximate times)

When it’s time for the party to start, we’ll drop a portal near the carpet at the docks in Sinking Sands. Just look for the glowing spot, click, and you’ll be ported right to the Community Lounge.

Again, sorry this info is so late.  It didn’t become clear to me what the real details were until this post from Amnerys:

First party on Test Copy server was a lot of fun! And all the portals are up on the US servers. Just going to drop them on the UK servers here in a few, and that’ll be tonight’s festivities.

None of us will be present in the lounges this evening. To hang with us, you gotta join us on Test Copy. Once the Test Copy parties have wrapped, the lounges will be open on the US/UK servers for around 6 hours.

We decided to try it this way this time around, since there are so many servers… it takes over three weeks to visit every single server for their own party. Phew! We’ll evaluate afterward and see if it’s something we want to do again.

Here are your update notes for 28 September 2010 (since we cover EQII Live and EQ2X, the link is to the EQ2X forums where the full update notes are posted):

EVERQUEST 2 EXTENDED

• Going to Battlegrounds on EQ2 Extended should no longer cause your items to set to 1c sell value.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• There is now a new respawn location right by the entrance to the Underfoot Seal chamber where Master Yael spawns. In order to activate this new respawn location, players will need to defeat fire elemental encounter “Saalax” before it can be accessed.

Search Engine Rankings

Internet search engines use many different methods to rank the results of searches. One method of choosing which page to show first is by counting up the incoming links from other sites. The theory is that the more sites that are linking to a given page, the more likely it is to be useful. But what if you just want to show ads on your site and trick people into visiting? How to you get a higher ranking in the search engines? One method is to use programs that go out and post comments on websites that include links to your site. Then when the site is indexed by the search engines, they will see these links back to your site which will increase its ranking.

EQ2Wire Spam Comments

EQ2Wire.com receives its fair share of spam comments that are automatically marked as spam by the filters in place (over twenty thousand and counting). Some of them though are worded in such a way as to make it through the filters. These are the ones that the moderators here at EQ2Wire have to read through and approve or mark as spam manually. It’s usually fairly easy to tell the spam from the actual comments, especially when you look at the sites in the links. In the six months or so that I’ve been here at EQ2Wire, there have been a few that have caught my eye.  Here are some highlights for your amusement from the 120+ from September 2010 after the break (links have been removed from the original pieces o’ spam.):

Remember that contest that SOE held prior to Fan Faire? The one where the winners would get a Bloggie camera to record things? Well SOE has announced the winners and uploaded their footage to YouTube. Details and links after the break.

Domino posted this heads up for the test update notes on the official forums.  This is scheduled to go live with GU58:

The fuel that I’ve made since joining the team has had more standard names that I hoped would give some direction as to the level range, but the old fuel names were not easy to guess the appropriate level from the name.  Although I realize it’s going to require some work updating notes, web sites, and habit, I think it’s worth while in the end to rename the fuel to a standard so that it all uses the same adjective.

Consequently, if all goes well this afternoon, by this evening on Test server you should see all the tradeskilled fuel convert to using the name of the imbued material for that level range (and the level 1-9 fuel is called “basic” so it will be listed right at the top of the list).  Example names:  glowing candle, glowing coal, glowing kindling, lambent candle, lambent incense, luminous candle, luminous coal. The examine descriptions on the fuel have also been standardize to say the level range they are used in. Nothing else has changed about the fuel, prices etc. are all the same, and if you have any fuel in your inventory it will simply be automatically renamed when the update hits.  I hope that overall this will solve more confusion than it causes, but if you come across any NPC dialog or quest text that specifically references the name of a fuel that no longer exists, please do /bug it or post here so I can get that changed.

The fine folks over at Zam have recently published several really nice guides to make your life in Norrath a bit more pleasant:

• The Alternate Advancement Guide explains everything a new player needs to know about how Alternate Advancements work, what the trees are, what the slider does, etc.  A very good resource for new players.
• The Lore and Legend Hot Spots is a very nice hunting guide for where to go to kill mobs for L&L pieces.  42 L&Ls are listed in alphabetical order to make it easy to find the best place to hunt these creatures.
• The Recipe Books guide tells you everything you ever wanted to know about where to go and how to get recipe books.  It covers where to get the basic and advanced recipes for each tier, shard recipes, mark recipes, battleground gear recipes, even includes the recipes out of unrest and many many more.
• The Betrayal and Citizenship guide tells you what you need to know to change cities or alignments.  It has been updated as of GU56 and includes the new neutral classes as well as the city ambassadors.

Stop in and take a look when you have a chance.  They’re doing great things over there.  🙂