We have gone ahead and pulled an article we had posted about the possibility of transferring from a PvP to PvE server by way of using a Server Transfer Token while logged into Battlegrounds.
We have not been able to substantiate reports that players had been able to perform such a transfer.
It seems that the Antonia Bayle EQ2 server is experiencing some kind of database corruption and is undergoing an emergency downtime at the moment. Details remain elusive at the time of this writing, but we’ll be watching this thread on the EQ2 Forums:
We have pulled this story until we can get further confirmation and corroboration.
It seems that in the avalanche of myriad mysterious hotfixes with no hotfix notes on Thursday and Friday may have introduced some unintended consequences regarding Battlegrounds which were discovered over the weekend.
It seems that Server Transfer Tokens may have been enabled on Battlegrounds servers.
We already reported on the item duplication exploit, namely transmuting or consuming items on BG and then getting the items back when you are returned to your own server.
But we have subsequently learned that players have successfully transferred from PvP to PvE servers by claiming Server Transfer Tokens while logged into Battlegrounds servers.
I guess where there’s a will (or a determined enough player), a way will be found. 😉
Brewday returns to Norrath from March 11th through the 22nd! Come on out and celebrate Brell Serilis! It may be a holiday started by dwarves, but everyone is welcome!
Battlegrounds are currently closed due to a Transmuting exploit which has allowed players to duplicate items. In short, items which you transmuted or scribed on Battlegrounds were returned to you upon exiting Battlegrounds.
In our March 5th End-of-Week News, we neglected to post a link to the thread discussing Raid Mob Damage Output and some fine-tuning that will be happening to mobs as a result. From Rothgar:
This sounds like it was maybe due to another bug fix. Sometimes when we find a bug with a profession spell and fix it, the fix also “fixes” bugs that were on NPC’s that we didn’t know existed. It may have been possible that those NPC’s were bugged too and during beta tuning they were made harder and harder because no one knew that a spell wasn’t critting properly or something wasn’t procing correctly.
I’ll pass this info along so they can take a look at it. The proper fix may be to go back through the mobs that were affected and tune them down.
And a report from Sinat:
The AE’s themselves seem to be doing more damage, even on noncrits. If I compare it on something with virtually no mit, like my spiritual circle, the noncrit of AE’s were higher on it Thursday than it was on Tuesday. Even examining the AE spell information it’s much higher Thursday than what it was on Tuesday. It’s possible the crit bonus is higher as well, but the AE’s, at least on Maalus, appear to be doing more damage regardless.
I guess using /bug does pay off, even if you are a dragon. 😉
The elusive SOE Marketing Dept. took a moment today to pat itself on the back for its “successful launch” of EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate. They also made a point of thanking “our great fans have responded with overwhelming support“. It is unclear what aspect of the Sentinel’s Fate launch players give “overwhelming support” to, but no doubt this will be a key point on a Powerpoint presentation somewhere soon.
EQ2Wire does not think it is too soon to start our campaign for NO retail launch of the next EverQuest II expansion. It costs too much money, diverts too many resources, and ultimately confuses and frustrates players to have retailer exclusives, head starts, and regional lockouts on who can buy the Digital Download when and where.
Did the Retail Push Work?
Marketing will point to retail figures saying “It worked!” but the reality is, these are customers who felt forced to buy the product in a certain way, at additional cost and hassle, just to get the same customer experience they have had in past years with a Digital Download.
There is such a thing as a false economy here regarding players who would have ordinarily purchased the Digital Download over a span of the next 2-3 months, as they had completed all the content they desired to in the previous expansion converted to the new product. No doubt some of these players felt pressured into buying Sentinel’s Fate retail version on launch day, so as not to be left behind, or to get the best possible game.
It just seems to us, although we have no sales figures to back up our theories, that making loyal customers jump through hoops just to add a few boxes on retail shelves is not worth it in the long run, and we feel that a true cost-benefit analysis of how the Sentinel’s Fate retail launch played out (provided it is not merely a self-serving exercise) would bear this out.
And there is no tangible way to measure the ill will created in the European community by the Sentinel’s Fate launch lead up chaos, missteps at DLGamer and Steam, and now almost daily Hotfixes during primetime Europe hours. These players have a right to be doubtful.
I have had some very harsh words for the SOE Marketing Dept, yet I feel like I am on pretty solid ground with my opinions. So far, this department has demonstrated that it does not understand its customers, does not value their feedback, and further, has gone out of its way to insulate itself from criticism.
EQ2Wire is extending an open invitation to any member of the SOE Marketing Dept who wishes to grant an interview on these and other subjects.
EQ2Players has checked in with another great Artist Highlight, this time for Stephanie Young. One of my favorite parts of Sentinel’s Fate has been the zone artwork. It has taken everything to another level.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
How did you get started in the industry?
I started out as a graphic artist for a subcontractor to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Gradually the company started incorporating more 3D simulations into the products we developed and I became the primary developer for the 3D assets used by the engineers. Eventually though I found it difficult to “love” what I was creating in 3D.
So I decided to get more formal training at the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia so that I could pursue a career in 3D that created, shall I say, art depicting the happier side of life. After school I landed a job in Lake Tahoe working under contract for a gaming company based in the UK. It was there that I fell in love with environments both in game and out on the Tahoe Rim trail. When that company folded I was offered a job here at SOE and I’ve been happily making environments ever since.
What are some of the other areas you’ve done the art for in EQII?
I created Sebilis, Charasis, and Befallen.
Here are some end-of-week news items which I’ve noticed on the EQ2 forums that readers may find useful…
Scale of Flame
Players have been having trouble advancing/completing the quest Scale of Flame. In response, Gninja has responded:
I found the issue causing the spirit to not spawn and have corrected it. You should see it come to live server early next week with our next build.
Breaking Combat on PvP/Battlegrounds
Rothgar has made some further adjustments in how combat is broken on PvP/Battlegrounds. It has been tweaked so that you must be at least 1000m from the other player as well as a timer based on activity.
Raid Mob Damage Calculations
There has been some wonkiness, to say the least, in how raid mobs have been putting out damage. Players have noticed these issues and been reporting in this thread on the subject. Rothgar has provided an update:
Yesterday’s patch fixed a bug that was causing many of a mob’s special abilities to not be applied correctly. So technically the code is working as it should be now and all buffs are being applied to the mob. However, this bug has only been in since the first hotfix after the 24th of February. So the mobs should be the same as they were on release, but unfortunately no one was probably raiding them that much during the first week or the people that did expected them to hit this hard.
I’ve spoken with our raid designer and he’s going to take a look at the mobs on a case-by-case basis and determine what needs to be changed. We don’t have any ETA’s on changes yet, but please continue to post your feedback on the ones that you think are way too hard.
Keep in mind we’re only a few weeks into the expansion and that mobs SHOULD be pretty tough until people get caught up on gear, levels and AA’s.
Battlegrounds Cloaks for Testers
For those folks who tested out Battlegrounds, there was an announcement that these players would be getting an appearance cloak. Kiara weighs in on the status of this item:
It hasn’t been entitled yet. Yes it will be very soon. The department that handles this particular sort of situation has been swamped under with another project.
Itemization Issues
We are continuing to follow a story about Itemization issues with the new EQ2 expansion. Players are reporting that Battlegrounds armor is far better than shard gear (Marks of Manaar), quest items are far better than Mastercrafted gear, and most notable, jewelry and charms from the Vigilant x2 raid zone have so far been far superior to the 24-person raid zones and contested x4 raid mobs introduced with Sentinel’s Fate.
We will be tracking this story to see how this all shakes out.
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.
From the EQ2 Forums:
Join Sony Online Entertainment at Bally’s Las Vegas, from August 5th through 8th, for three days of fun and games at Fan Faire 2010. If you’ve never been to an SOE Fan Faire before, this is the time to make the trek to Sin City! Fan Faire is a great place for gamers to mix, mingle and meet with some of the faces behind their favorite SOE titles.
- Special announcements and sneak peaks of upcoming SOE titles
- In-game tournaments and live, game-themed competitions and quests
- Developer forums and roundtables
- Cool giveaways and other fun items!
And that’s just the beginning! Visit the Fan Faire website at www.soefanfaire.com for up-to-date information on registration, pricing and schedules. Tickets are expected to go on sale early this spring.
Hotel costs are looking fairly reasonable:
The special SOE rate at Bally’s Las Vegas is currently $65 plus tax on Thursday night, and $85 plus tax on Friday and Saturday night, while supplies last.
We noticed that a new Platinum package has been added at the $139 level:
- Second Fan Faire in-game item for your primary game! Yes, this means you get two with a Platinum Pass!
- Unlimited green screen photos with the backgrounds of your choice!
- VIP Check-In Lounge for Platinum Pass Holders only!
- Premium Gift Bag with special giveaways (to be announced)
- Private VIP events for Platinum Pass Holders only! You don’t want to miss out on this! Details to follow!
Schedule
Although an official schedule has not yet been posted, and probably won’t be for another month or two, for those needing to make hotel and flight arrangements as early as possible, here is an outline of the schedule we’ve seen for the last few years:
NOTE: There is no guarantee they won’t change the schedule for this year.
For more information, and for the promotional code to book your hotel, check out the official SOE Fan Faire 2010 Website.
Brewday is coming to Norrath, with all new rewards, quests, and recipes. As always, the best previews of these live events can be found at Niami’s EQTraders site. Here’s her Brewday 2010 Preview. Brewday shall run from March 11 – 22nd this year. Check out that awesome backpack!!
Players have been reporting an issue with being able to escape combat *very* quickly on both PvP servers and Battlegrounds, and then being able to join a Battlegrounds match while seemingly still in PvP combat (on Nagafen). After some discussion and diagnosis in this thread, Rothgar posted the backstory on the issue and presented a change that will be made to address the issue:
Prior to battlegrounds the only way you got out of combat was for your hate to degrade over time. So the more hate you built with someone, the longer you’d stay in combat.
When battleground development began, a new method was added to remove you from combat if you got far enough away from your attacker and hadn’t had any aggressive action with them in a period of time. (4 seconds) The aggressive action goes both ways, you attacking them or them attacking you.
This new check was enabled for all PvP, not just battlegrounds. We’re going to increase this timer from 4 to 10 seconds and see how that goes.
The old rule is still in effect. If your hate degrades to almost nothing, you’ll be removed from combat. But in addition, if you run 20 meters away and neither of you have attacked each other in 10 seconds, you’ll also be removed.
Xelgad has posted that bugs with the AA abilities Luck of the Dirge, Cleansing of the Soul (Templar), Poison Mastery (Assassin), Killing Fury (Assassin), Shadow Step (Assassin), have been fixed internally and should be hotfixed on March 4th.
There were some additional issues with the EQ2 servers today. The servers were set to come down for a hotfix, then that hotfix was delayed, but the automated scripts in place to prepare for a Hotfix continued. This resulted in there being no way to create new instances (visit dungeons, guild halls, cities, etc.). From Rothgar:
Due to an unrelated network issue this morning, the hotfix was not able to happen at the normal time. Since the servers were scheduled to come down but never did, this caused new instances to not be created. This is normal procedure for taking down servers but its normally resolved when they come down and then start back up.
This hotfix contains some performance changes necessary for battlegrounds to be more stable as well as some major bug fixes so we decided to bring the servers down now rather than delay the hotfix an entire day.
Then later, the servers were fixed so that instances could be created.
And then Kiara announced that the Hotfix was indeed pushed back until March 4th:
Update!
The US server hotfix is being pushed back a day to the morning of Thursday, March 4.
It will go ahead as planned for Runnyeye and Splitpaw this evening at 9pm PST March 3 (5am GMT March 4).
All of this is on the EQ2 Forums.
Today’s Hotfix addresses those players who have been Queueing up for Battlegrounds and then intentionally going AFK. Players who join a Battleground but lose still earn 1 token. But by neither fighting, or contributing to their teams, these AFK players have largely been dead weight. The hotfix introduces an AFK Voting system:
BATTLEGROUNDS
We’ve implemented an AFK voting system into battlegrounds in order to report teammates that have gone AFK in a match. A player can only be voted AFK if they haven’t had any recent activity. If they receive 3 unique votes for AFK’ing during a match they will be removed from the match and will not receive a reward. Players removed this way will also receive the Truancy debuff. To vote a player AFK, right-click their avatar and choose “vote afk”.
The complete Patch Notes for March 3, 2010 are after the jump…
Players have noticed a de-targeting bug in Battlegrounds and PvP open world environments were players can become difficult to target.
Thanks for all the info about the targeting issue. You guys provided enough clues to piece together reproduction steps for this sneaky little bug.
While I won’t tell you how to reproduce it (since it’s obviously exploitable in pvp) I can give you a workaround. When you have a valid target but start getting all these targeting errors, hit escape really quick and clear your target, then click your enemy again. This will clear out the bugged UI state so you can attack normally.
Unfortunately it looks like a code issue is behind all this, so I can’t fix it personally. It’s been forwarded along to Rothgar.
Timetravelling created a thread on the EQ2 Forums regarding the Sentinel’s Fate Mechanics Changes. With all the changes to primary stats, lifting of various caps on bonuses, etc. there have been a lot of questions and this thread has started to answer them. Here are some updates:
- Updated the Aggression question with info about other skills (yes, they work the same way)
- Updated the base stat uncap section with more detailed information (new curve starts @ 1200, after that a 30% stat increase = ~ a 10% gain in effectiveness)
- Added several more questions to the end of the post
The list of questions in that thread keep growing and timetravelling is continuing to update the first post in the thread with any answers he finds. It’s worth a read.
Tad Ehrlich is a lead artist on the EQ2 Development team. He was a major part of the creation of the zone art for the beautiful Vasty Deep zones. Some excerpts:
How did you get started in the industry?
I began in comic books and worked as a colorist for Wildstorm, Jim Lee’s comic book company. I was very fortunate to land in an industry that I was extremely passionate about and had amazing people to learn from. My experience there led to me starting as a texture artist at Midway. The rest is history!
What are some of the other areas you’ve done the art for in EQII?
The first instance I did was Nu’roga and then I did all the Guk instances for the last expansion.
Do you draw on elements from the other EverQuest games for EQII?
If the zone is based off a previous zone from Everquest 1 then I make sure to do some research. At the very least I’d like a player who comes in to the zone and has experience in the first Everquest to say “Hey!! I recognize that!!”
Check out the profile and interview with him at EQ2Players.
From Kiara on the EQ2 Forums at 11:40am PST:
The BG’s should be reopening again shortly.
Please make sure to post in the exiting issue threads in the BG’s forum should you continue to encounter problems. We’ll be monitoring them on our end as well.
When you complete a Battlegrounds match, your character is whisked away back to your home server. Some players have been curious if a Battlegrounds Hub had been considered. This would be a lobby area where players can stay put on the Battlegrounds server and immediately jump into another battle if they wish. The issues here are that Battlegrounds servers have many many features turned off including global and guild chat. Adding a Battlegrounds lobby would require additional coding work. From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:
We talked about this idea early on in battlegrounds development but our thoughts were that you’d want to stay connected with your existing guild and friends as much as possible. Due to the communication restrictions between the worlds, if the Battlegrounds world were more of a destination, people would seem even more cutoff from the rest of the game.
However, I’m encouraged by the fact that all of these responses seem positive to the idea and not any negative reactions. But for this to work, we would have to solve many of the communications issues and do a lot more cleanup on the BG world.
We are working on ways to improve the zoning times when you move between the worlds so hopefully that will make zoning faster. We also have plans to try to open up guild chat and some other forms of communication between the worlds but there isn’t an ETA on that yet.
Thanks again for the feedback and ideas.
Battlegrounds Issues
Battlegrounds were taken offline last night due to zoning problems they seemed to be causing on other servers. I want to reiterate that in thousands of Battlegrounds transactions, only a handful of players experienced corruption of their characters, and those are being resolved quickly by Customer Service. Battlegrounds should be brought back online today with Rothgar and other devs closely watching their performance.
EQ2Wire On the Road
EQ2Wire will be on the road today and tomorrow so updates may be a bit slower than usual.
Here are your March 2, 2010 Hotfix notes (after the jump)
The EQ2 Developer Chat is coming up on March 4th. The day after every chat, the EQ2 forums are flooded with people complaining that no “good” questions were asked. If you would like to make sure that the ‘hard-hitting’ questions get asked, you should submit them immediately to calthine{at}allakhazam{dot}com. The more questions Calthine has in advance, the better chance of good questions being asked during the chat.
You are far more likely to get your questions asked during the session if they are phrased in the form of something that can actually be answered. “When are you going to fix Bruisers” is not nearly as useful as “the Bruiser AA ability X just doesn’t stack up against similar abilities from the other tanks. Any chance of this getting looked into?”
Of course which questions can be answered will depend largely upon which developers are present.
In previous developer chats, there has been an open ‘free-for-all’ channel alongside the ‘official’ EQ2 channel so sometimes you can get questions answered there, or insight into why certain decisions are made. No word on SOE President John Smedley being scheduled as a chatroom guest, so questions about how Battlegrounds got bumped to the front of the development line, and/or questions about the international expansion launch, will likely be unanswerable.
Also, no word on if we’ll ever see a return to the monthly Developer Q&A on the EQ2 Forums. I hope that’s not the last we’ll see of them.
The City Festival has rolled into its third destination since these Festivals began in January. The first event was in Kelethin, then Gorowyn. Today, the City Festival arrives just outside the gates of the city of all things dark and gloomy — Neriak.
Once again, a selection of both local and traveling rewards, house items, and temporary costumes become available.
The theme for Neriak seems to be all things blue. Here’s a sneak of what you can purchase with City Tokens for the next week, before the event rolls on to the next city:
Battlegrounds vs. Oasis
Battlegrounds were locked this afternoon/evening due to significant lag and zone time issues. The servers were also rebooted. However the biggest issue is that Oasis is almost unplayable for some players.
This quote from the EQ2 Forums:
We’re aware of the problems facing the Oasis server right now and several people are working on it. It will be addressed more fully tomorrow when everyone is back in the office and I’m sure we’ll have more information then. There is an active thread on the Oasis server forum.
Character Corruption
A few players are reporting sporadic issues with losing AAs, levels, gear, etc. after lagging out from playing in Battlegrounds. I and others have played Battlegrounds and not had issues, so this seems pretty random issue. Sometimes, I did have a 5-10 minute wait leaving the Battleground and being sent back to my home server, but saw no other issues.
A Word about Forum Moderation
When I started using the EQ2 Forums I remember how intolerant the moderators were towards differing opinions and constructive criticism. Any kind of useful feedback was deleted and members banned for expressing themselves. I just plain stopped posting there. I, along with thousands of other players, moved to EQ2Flames.
It is only under Kiara‘s guidance that the EQ2 forums clawed their way back to being a place where constructive criticism is allowed and players are truthful about their favorite parts as well as the major issues within EQ2. She has fought at every turn to allow players to speak their mind.
Do I think Kiara is perfect? Of course not. Nobody is. But in my 9 years experience in moderating 2 other forums, I think she’s doing a damn good job.
And yet, in the past couple of months, I have noticed unbelievable hostility towards her, blaming her for EQ2 development choices, database issues, expansion launch pains, etc. I see people shooting off at the mouth about things they don’t even understand.
But what has really turned my stomach is when I heard about players gloating to their friends that they reported her to her supervisor.
You know, I manage to post on the EQ2 Forums and express EXACTLY what I feel I need to say about all of the shortcomings and problems at SOE and the EQ2 development, and I manage to do so without getting banned. And when Kiara has done something I’ve disagreed with, I’ve told her. We’ve had some pretty heavy conversations. 😉
But really, if someone out there is too chickenshit to resolve their issues with Kiara, why don’t you send *me* a mail here on EQ2Wire. You might learn something.
