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
Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, February 23rd) brings a Hotfix:
We’re going to be bringing down the servers in the morning for brief hotfix.
Also there are 2 Server Downtimes to report from the EQ2 Forums.
Beginning at 6:00 AM PST on Tuesday, February 23, 2010, the Antonia Bayle, Bazaar and Sebilis servers will be offline for maintenance. We expect the downtime to last around 2 hours. (from the forum post)
Beginning at 6:00 AM PST on Thursday, February 25, 2010, the Butcherblock, Lucan D’Lere and Nagafen servers will be offline for maintenance. We expect the downtime to last around 2 hours. (according to the thread title)
Battlegrounds have slipped again to February 25th. From the EQ2 Forums.
Since we’ve stated in this thread that the Battlegrounds feature is launching on the 23rd with the digital launch, I’m updating here to say that we’re actually going to be pushing it back a few days to put a few extra anti-cheating measures in place.
The plan is for Thursday the 25th
If there are any other updates, we’ll let you know!
If you’ve been playing for a a few years, you have probably accumulated several channel numbers which no longer work, yet you cannot leave. For example Good_Ranger, Good_Crafters, Level 80, etc.
One solution is to use /setchannelnumber old# new# to move the channel up to say 99 where it won’t bother you. This is what I did for a while.
Many folks (including myself) have been trying to figure out the purpose of the Gruegnach illusion available from the NPC when you first zone into The Hole, and what, if any benefit it creates.
There’s a thread on the EQ2 Forums which works out exactly how it works. It’s rather tricky to say the least, but at least we now know what EQ2 Devs were aiming for.
UPDATE: timetravelling indicates in the same thread I linked above that he is aware of the complexity of how this illusion works and will be working to clean things up.
Leveling Slowdowns
Also, in an effort to slow down leveling in The Hole, the quests to turn in horseshoes, paws, tails, etc. have been modified to only be repeatable once daily. I’m actually kind of sad to see this but considering I was able to gain half a level just standing in 1 spot repeatedly hailing the NPC, I can see why the change was made. There are clearly some issues with the leveling speed in EQ2 from 80-90 right now.
I know I will get some hate mail saying “What does it harm letting us level as fast as we want?” but I think it negatively affects the health of the game if the de facto level that all players are expected to be is level 90.
It has been an interesting week, to say the least. Expansion launch weeks always are. It’s also been a rather bumpy ride for the servers and developers resolving issues that made it through Beta.
We’re trying to get back into the habit at EQ2Wire of skimming the forums and finding the gems of info which may be of interest to our readers. Here’s the standouts for this week:
What I have noticed in the last 3 days is that folks have a LOT of questions — more so than we saw with the release of The Shadow Odyssey. Between itemization changes, stat consolidation, AA revamps, tranmuting/adornments changes, the number of factions, etc. it seems what’s really needed is a central Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) which points to the resources out there on the web to help you get quick answers to all these questions. So here we go…
The phase of the moon is just right and the mushroom rings will be active again for a short time.
There are more house items and other rewards than ever for the Moonlight Enchantments event this time around.
The event will turn on at 12:01am PDT on February 20th and run until 11:59pm PDT on February 21st. These times apply directly with no time conversion to all servers.
The EQ2 Developers are looking for players to help load test the Battlegrounds over on Test Copy before putting them on live servers on the 23rd. Join developers in playtesting Battlegrounds at 2pm PST today, Friday Feb 19th.
Here are your Hotfix notes for today, February 19th, after the jump…
Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. 🙂
There are some fantastic writeups and coverage all over the web regarding Sentinel’s Fate and Game Update 55. However I do see an opportunity to answer some of the questions I have been receiving in-game over the last 2 days in a sort of Mega FAQ.
Let me tell you, I have been having a LOT of fun in The Hole. Although at first glance the quests and faction earning are a bit confusing. It will undoubtedly become old hat for people, but I’ll see about providing some more information on this subject soon.
Some players are reporting sporadic results patching into the European EQ2 Servers. There have been numerous issues and delays with the Patcher. At this point, the Station Launcher is not successfully patching for most people, so we are recommending the standard EQ2 Launcher.
Players are reporting that they are starting to receive those product keys from DLGamer. DLGamer did not buy enough keys from SOE to fulfill demand.
We have received word that Battlegrounds have been delayed until February 23rd.
EU Servers have actually been up for some time now, BUT nobody can get patched because the software on the EU Patch servers (3 different servers in 3 different languages) is not up-to-date. It is unclear why this download didn’t start earlier.
The current estimate is that folks in the EU will be able to play roundabout 12:30AM GMT.
More as we have it.
It’s 4 hours since the launch of Sentinel’s Fate, and we are already hearing widespread reports of players who have reached level 85, 87, and even some level 90 characters. So there you have it, no longer is questing a required way to level.
Unfortunately I wonder how many players will completely skip the contested version of The Hole with as easy as it is to level. I really hoped we’d see a return to form of Kingdom of Sky with people leveling via a combination of dungeon crawls, heroic quests, etc. rather than just pressing the Easy button . I hope I’m wrong.
It seems the fixes made to Butcherblock didn’t last as the server is down again. More as we have it.
Update: Server came up in about 30 minutes.
Sentinel’s Fate is now available for purchase from Steam for anyone outside the U.S.A. and Canada. Meanwhile DLGamer is currently working with the SOE Marketing Dept to get more product keys.
We have heard from Kiara that Direct2Drive has been authorized to sell Sentinel’s Fate to anyone outside the US and Canada. Specifically Australia. So if you have tried and received an error message, try it again:
As soon as we hear from DLGamer or Steam posts the expansion, we’ll let you know!
From Kiara:
Butcherblock experienced a hardware failure. They’re fixing it now. We’re going to keep the server locked until it’s fixed. ETA 10:30am PST.
UPDATE: Butcherblock is now up.
We were thrilled to notice that Kanga‘s awesome EQ2 Adornments site is being updated for Sentinel’s Fate. Check it out!
These will likely be the #1 and #2 questions today.
How do I get to Odus?
By far the fastest way to get to the expansion zones is to take a Druid Ring to Antonica, and then run uphill to the Ulteran Spires and take the Spires to Sundered Frontier. Any Wizard Spires in the world will take you to the Sundered Frontier. You can also purchase the new Wizard Spires guild hall amenity. 🙂
What’s up with my AAs?
When you login, your AAs will be completely reset.
Helpful Hint: If you forgot to take a screen snapshot of your AAs before the update, you can view your AAs on your EQ2Players Profile.
Kingdom of Sky AAs (Main Class – Enchanter, Cleric, Druid, etc.)
The Kingdom of Sky trees have changed substantially since TSO.
INT, STR, AGI, WIS, and STA are now folded into the top line. And you only need to spend 1 point in that top line to start spending points on abilities. You must spend 22 points to get the original KoS end-of-line ability. However instead of being limited to 8 points per, you can now spend 10 points per ability.
Once you have spent 70 points, you can start spending points in the new Sentinel’s Fate AA abilities. Although the Sentinel’s Fate AAs fall directly under the original lines, you do not need to spend points above those abilities to get them. After spending 16 points in the Sentinel’s Fate abilities, you can get the SF end-of-line ability.
lines added for effect
Echoes of Faydwer AAs (Subclass – Illusionist, Inquisitor, Fury, etc.)
Spend 70 points in the original Echoes of Faydwer AAs and then you may start spending points in the Sentinel’s Fate line at the bottom. Once you have spent enough points, you can get the end-of-line ability.
Apparently DLGamer has been randomly giving keys to those who purchased Sentinel’s Fate, instead of in the order they were purchased.
From Kiara:
UPDATE: DL Gamer issue. We are going to be providing them more keys. They will NOT be selling anyomore until they have satisfied the people who have already purchased. If you ordered and are waiting on them you will get your key TODAY.
DLGamer are now reporting that they have received more keys and will be making them available in approximately 1 hour.
Notes from the UStream Chat
In a future update, Ratongas and others will see a breast size decrease. 😉 It was not intended for gigantic breasts.
Battlegrounds will be usable level 50-90 in May. Usable at level 10-90 in a later update.
We would like to do Flying Mounts, but we don’t want to do it unless we can make zones that don’t have restrictions on where you can fly.
We want to fix Antonia Bayle. One option is offering free server transfers off Antonia Bayle, but we would rather fix the issues.
Battlegrounds is running on its own server. Specifically the old Venekor server.
Sentinel’s Fate is now ONLINE on U.S. Servers. EU servers won’t be up for a bit longer.