The big news yesterday about the new Prowler mounts available via StationCash in the Marketplace is being discussed in the First Ever Mount on the Marketplace thread on the EQ2 Forums.

But as part of the introduction of these SC mounts, the Highland Stalker mount which was included in the Sentinel’s Fate CE retail box has gotten some tweaks as well.

• First, the run animation created for the SC Prowler has been adapted to the Highland Stalker.

• Second, the gigantic, and I mean Sir Mix-a-lot sized rump on the Highland Stalker has undergone plastic surgery.

Some players find the new animation smoother, others find it more jarring. Go figure!

About That Featherfall

Marketing apparently unintentionally embellished one characteristic of the SC Prowler mounts. They do not, in fact, have Featherfall.

And I promise I won’t use the words apparently, unintentionally, and embellished all in 1 sentence ever again. Well, after that last one. Promise.

Previous EQ2 Senior Producers Alan “Brenlo” Crosby and Bruce Ferguson rarely responded directly to player inquiries. Thus we featured their posts here on EQ2Wire in separate posts.

However Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has been tearing up the EQ2 Forums in two threads:

• Suggestions and requests for the new Senior Producer
• First Ever Mount on the Marketplace

If you’re wanting to hear it from the horse’s (or battlecat’s) mouth, look no further than artist Covic‘s EQ2 Forums post who designed the Prowler mounts now available for 2500SC.

In preparation for Game Update 56, some of the art assets (and likely music) for Game Update 56 are being pushed in an update today. This update is approximately 200MB. From EQ2 Senior Producer “SmokeJumper“:

[Today’s] update includes a lot of the files needed for the upcoming Halas feature set. We’re splitting the download into two parts so that the pain is a bit less each time.

From EQ2Players:

Introducing the Etheral, Sinister, and Ulteran Prowlers!

Each mount comes in your choice of one of the following versions: Fierce and Arcane. The Fierce version increases Slashing, Aggression, Ranged, Piercing and Crushing of caster by 5, while the Arcane version increases Focus, Ordination, Disruption, Subjugation and Ministration of caster by 5. Both versions of the mount reduce the maximum falling speed of your character and have a 65% run speed.

The Prowlers are guaranteed to be available for at least one month and adventurers can now purchase these new mounts for 2500SC from the Marketplace. These are the first Station Cash items of their kind and are immediately available in-game, upon purchase.

UPDATED Commentary

Close inspection of these three mounts indicates they are NOT a reskin of an existing mount (such as the Highland Stalker in the SF retail box) but something unique.

For 2500 you are getting a single heirloom* 65% runspeed mount with either +5 to all mage skills or +5 to all melee skills. 2500 is $25 ($12.50 if you took advantage of a Double StationCash weekend).

It’s interesting to compare this to the Highland Stalker mount in the Sentinel’s Fate: Collector’s Edition which for $30 gives you a 65% runspeed mount for up to 12 characters on your account.

And I’m sure some of you noticed the “available for at least one month“. So after that what? They go back into the Disney vault for 20 years?

*NOTE: These Prowlers were intended to be flagged HEIRLOOM and will be after next Tuesday’s update.

A prelude quest leading up to Game Update 56 and the introduction of the city of New Halas has been available for some time now, if you could find a Guide or in-game GM or CM. But now in the last week leading up to this update, NPCs have been added throughout Norrath for those players who want to do this quest.

This quest is A Vision of Valor. Follow the link for a list of NPCs and locations.

EQ2Players has a preview up for one of the two new raid zones coming with GU #56: Icy Keep: Retribution.  This one was designed by Carlos “Gninja” Mora with help from Cyndi “Xadrian” Johnson.

From the Gninja:

Which raid zones are of a comparable difficulty?
The difficulty should be aimed at the same difficulty as Lair of the Dragon Queen or slightly tougher in the later areas.

How many named mobs are there?

There are ten normal encounters and one challenge mode encounter. However some encounters might have to be unlocked in order to gain access to them through the questlines or various puzzles in the zone.

What do you think is the most impressive part of the zone?

The Chessboard by far is the most impressive. The art team did a fantastic job really capturing what I was going for in there.

Read the entire article at EQ2Players.

This is a placeholder article.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Check it out folks! We’ve got a new Calendar here on EQ2Wire.

I’ve put in a list of upcoming events (currently set to 45 days, I can adjust this easily) in the Sidebar, including tentative dates for certain events based on 2009, and if you click the EQ2Wire Calendar header there, you can jump to a monthly calendar of EQ2-related events.

If you have any suggestions for events that should be on this calendar, please post a Comment and we’ll see about adding it!

After Game Update #56, you may wonder why your mount is disappearing during combat.  As reported earlier, there’s a new setting coming to the game.

In Options -> Display -> Animation, there will be a new setting called “Render Mounts”.  This has three options:

• Show mounts always
• Hide mounts during combat
• Never show mounts

Hide mounts during combat is the default which may lead to some confusion on launch day.  If you want it to work the way it used to, just set it to Show mounts always.

Game Update 56 next Tuesday will include a new scenario specifically for the PvP servers. Antonica and Commonlands will become home to Warfields, a scheduled PvP campaign with specific rewards. Here’s PvP developer Olihin‘s update notes:

PvP WARFIELDS

• Antonica and Commonlands have once again become hotbeds of conflict! Will your lands be overrun or will your forces prevail against the siege?

• Warfields are Good vs. Evil faction based.

• Rewards will be Discord Tokens with a higher quantity to the winning team.

• The event will stagger between Antonica and 2 hours later in Commonlands and last for 30 minutes.

• The Antonica and Commonlands zones have been CHANGED to 10 level ranges from 4 to allow a wider range of skirmishes.

An interesting topic has popped up on the EQ2 Forums asking the question:

Is there Raid Progression for Small Guilds?

The Shadow Odyssey ended up offering many choices for Casual Raid Guilds. Sentinel’s Fate has not been quite so generous with such progression choices. Game Update 56 will add two raid zones, but both are intended for 24-person raids. We compare the expansions in today’s commentary.

Tired of getting a swift kick or a punch in the mouth from the surly and unwelcome Thexian and Dreadnaught goons occupying parts of Freeport?

Did you know…

• Killing Thexian and Dreadnaught “guards” in Freeport does not affect your faction with Freeport?
• If you kill enough Thexians and Dreadnaughts (about 10 of each), they will grow afraid of you and STOP WITH THE BEATINGS ALREADY?

Fun Facts from the EQ2 Forums

Just prior to Sentinel’s Fate, two different web designers set out to produce an updated AA calculator. We kept our eye on a really smooth one (but which had not been updated for Sentinel’s Fate) by Beetny.

We were stoked to find out that Beetny’s AA Calculator has been fully updated for Sentinel’s Fate.

This AA Calculator lets you browse, experiment, and spend AA points in all 3 AA trees for your character class without logging into EQ2. Also, you’ll notice there is a URL at the top so you can share your suggested AA setups with other players. I predict we’ll see extensive use of these special URLs along with tinyurl.com to easily share AA setups with other players.

Also, Brett has been quick to fix bugs and correct oversights, so if you see any problems, please be sure to e-mail him!

When Brasse went to work for SOE, it was not surprising that her awesome AA Calculator (which set the gold standard) would eventually go out of date. But now we have this great functionality available to us again!

The Underfoot Depths from EQ2Players:

Halas Reborn, scheduled to launch at the end of May, brings us two new raid zones. The first of which is the Underfoot Depths, accessed via The Hole.

Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert gave EQ2Players a brief interview about this new raid zone.

Players have cleared all of Sentinel’s Fate’s normal-mode encounters and all but one of the challenge-mode encounters…just in time for us to add 20 more normal-mode encounters and eight more challenge-mode encounters (which practically doubles the raid content available at level 90). I am very excited at the chance for players to test their mettle against both the Underfoot Depths and the new Icy Keep raid!

Game Update 56 will contain minor tweaks to Betrayal and changing one’s Citizenship.

Changing citizenship is being streamlined, as some cities require more busywork from players than others to switch between cities of the same alignment. Contacting one of the new Ambassadors in each city is your first step.

No changes to the actual betrayal quests are being made (changing alignment ) are being as far as we can tell, but an Ambassador NPC is being added in every city who must be contacted prior to deliberating the Betrayal process. You can read more about these Betrayal changes which have been extensively documented by Domino at the EQ2 Forums.

These changes are likely an additional safeguard to reduce the number of customer service tickets resulting from accidental betrayal.

From EQ2Players:

One of the exciting features coming with Halas Reborn is the revamp of the travel system. Salim “Silius” Grant has made traveling throughout Norrath smoother and took a few minutes to explain in detail some of the changes that adventurers will see.

Today, we reflect on a dungeon that I had high hopes for when it was first announced, but which underwent dramatic changes within 72 hours of its launch. 3 months later, there are no clear answers on the current intended audience of this zone, whether we’ll see any rollback of those changes,  and going into the next expansion — EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious — will these lessons in design and balance be learned from?

From EQ2Players:

We’re making it easier than ever to try out EverQuest II’s most recent expansion, Sentinel’s Fate. For three days, May 12th through May 14th, everyone who doesn’t already have Sentinel’s Fate can try it out for free.

Also, there is a $5 discount off the cost of the expansion for active players, and an additional $5 discount off the cost of the 1st month’s subscription for inactive players.

Finally, all players can claim the Rose Quartz Inlaid Golden Armband for free from the Station Marketplace!

So make sure you log in between now and 11:59pm on May 14th to try out Sentinel’s Fate and to claim your armband.

We can imagine the armband color won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you’ve been looking for a discount off the expansion, or to come back and play for a few days, check out the EQ2Players announcement.

NOTICE: No EQ2 Content

It’s hard to believe that in 3 months we will be covering our third Fan Faire event and entering our third year of wheedling news and previews of EverQuest 2 expansions and game updates. We plan to offer the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the 2010 Fan Faire event.

It’s challenging to come up with news on a daily basis, especially about a game that works in 3 month cycles. Last month, we officially brought a staff writer, Dethdlr, into the fold, who has so far been posting some great updates.

There are a lot of EQ2 fan sites out there that have pushed themselves to stay relevant, and post something almost every day, but there are many other EQ2 sites that have largely stopped updating. We want to stay in that first group, and to do that we need your help.

Today we present a Survey which asks some questions about how you use EQ2Wire and how you think it can be improved.

Here are your hotfix notes for May 12, 2010:

ITEMS

• Summoning Brace of the Wyrmkind now properly adds Molten Carnage IV to the caster’s pet.

THE HOLE

The following mobs will no longer attack you if you have faction points equal to or above -39,999 points with them. The faction point requirement should now be consistent with other standard mobs under the same faction.

• “an animated watcher”

• “a disheveled refugee”

• The “Caetaxian dominator” located on the fallen pillar bridge in the Old Paineel section of the zone.

• Killing “disheveled refugee” should now have an effect on your faction status with “Caertaxian Legion” as well as factions that are against them.

Players were surprised when servers went down at midnight PST last night for a Hotfix. This hotfix is targeted at Performance issues which continue to dog EQ2. From the EQ2 Forums by Rothgar:

Tonight’s hotfix introduced a few changes that have been on the test server for a few weeks. I’d like to hear your feedback to see if any of these performance issues have gotten better after tonight.

First, we made a change to the zoning processes that should hopefully speed it up. In addition we’ve extended our logging in this area to help us better troubleshoot long zoning times. If you’re someone who occasionally hits long zoning times, let us know if you see an improvement after tonight.

Second, we’ve made some changes to the game servers related to the spell system. This should hopefully improve server lag but the amount can be difficult to quantify. Let us know how your lag situation looks after tonight.

These are only the first changes to come. We will continue to look at performance improvements over the next few updates.

Thanks!

As for why the downtime happened at midnight instead of at the usual 6 or 7am time, the cause is related to the Free Armbands promotion which we’ll be posting about momentarily. Rothgar again with the great communication:

Sorry for the miscommunication about the downtime. There was a last minute change to avoid two downtimes in a single day.

Due to a marketing promotion that begins tonight at midnight, the servers needed to be rebooted. Rather than taking them down again at 7am for the hotfix, it was decided that we’d update the servers with the hotfix during the midnight downtime.

So in essence, you’ve been saved a downtime.

From EQ2 ZAM:

EverQuest II players have long hoped for an expansion returning players to Velious.  Scars of Velious, the second expansion in the original EverQuest, was a favorite of long-time players.  With the appearance of the the icy Order of Rime last summer many players were sure Velious was coming, and were surprised when Sentinel’s Fate took EQII players to the lost island of Odus.
Astute player Vulkoor found some interesting files downloading in April, which included othmir (an otter race from Velious) and Tserrina the near-legendary boss of the original Tower of Frozen Shadow.  The appearance of Coldain dwarves in New Halas (now on the EQII test servers), have expectations high.

Today, observant (and persistant) players found an entry at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Sony Online Entertainment has applied for the trademark on EVERQUEST II DESTINY OF VELIOUS.

While we’re sure SOE will not announce the 7th EverQuest II expansion before they’re ready, we feel confident in predicting that yes, the next expansion will return us to the land of snow bunnies and Thurgadin, frost giants and the Temple of Veeshan.

With the entire EQ2 team now back to work on EQ2 content, hopefully we get the Velious expansion we’d all like to see.

This information was part of our Game Update 56 post on May 4th. However considering the importance of its content, we have reprinted it as a separate article and rewritten it for clarity.

GU56 Travel Revamp

Travel in Norrath has been substantially consolidated. Changes and bugfixes continue to be applied on Test, so this information may change before May 25th.

Worldwide Travel Revamp

• Players may travel from and to nearly every zone in Norrath by using the Worldwide Globe system, which have consolidated all existing bells and gained many unexpected destinations.
• Flying carpets, boats, and airships are now entirely optional means of travel. The destinations offered by these modes of transport have been added to the Worldwide Globe system.
• Individual mariner’s bells which connect to only one or two zones (i.e. Everfrost, Lavastorm, Isle of Mara, etc.) have been removed.
• Travel within cities is maintained through the City Mariner’s Bell.
• Worldwide Gryffons continue to provide travel between Butcherblock Mountains, Neriak (Darklight Wood), and Gorowyn (Timorous Deep), and have gained a new destination — New Halas (Frostfang Sea).
• Druid Rings no longer require players to have visited them prior to use. Rumor has it, a live or prelude event will rebuild additional druid rings and connect them, allowing travel between the Rings.
• Wizard Spires, as rebuilt in a previous Game Update, continue to provide access to over a dozen interconnected wizard spires. With GU56, six additional Wizard Spire destinations have been added that players can travel directly to (previously these spires could only be reached with the help of a Wizard or Warlock).
• All Call of Qeynos, Call of the Overlord, Call of Kelethin, etc. spells have had their cast time reduced to 10 seconds.

Intrazone Travel Revamp

• Sokokar posts within the 4 Kunark zones no longer require having visited each post prior to using them and the sokokar item requirement has been eliminated (players must have completed either the tradeskill or adventure sokokar quest).
• A Gryffon Tower has been added to the Gorowyn Beach so that players may easily reach the newbie area.
• A Gryffon hitching post has been added to the Butcherblock Mountains dock so that players may easily reach the cliffs.
• Gryffon Towers in Thundering Steppes and Nek Forest no longer require your assistance in gathering gryffon eggs before allowing travel.
• Flying Carpets within Sinking Sands and Pillars of Flame have learned all of the intra-zone routes available to them.
• Horses have been added to the Steamfont Mountains, Zek, Feerrott, Enchanted Lands, Everfrost.
• Gryffon Towers in Greater Faydark and Nektulos Forest have been updated with additional destinations.
• Guild Hall decorators will be interested to note that the various (now redundant) Mariner’s Bell amenities have been given unique appearances as a player choice. Choices include a boat captain npc in front of a large steering wheel, and a sculpture of the Worldwide Globe item.

Performance Motivation?

For the last 2 1/2 months, players have been reporting severe delays when traveling from one zone to another. Players have reported 20-30 minute delays when switching from zone to zone, a process normally taking 20-30 seconds. So it seems likely that these changes are being made for player convenience, or to put nearly every zone in the game into the reach of players with just 1 zoning screen!