Kander brings us news that Emperor’s Athenaeum and Kurn’s Tower: Breaching the Void have been added to the Hot Zone rotation. Post on EQ2 Forums.

On the fence about that Race Change Potion? Thinking twice about changing your Name? Contemplating a Server Transfer? If these questions, or the thought of grabbing some furniture or clothing while nobody’s looking, has occurred to you, here’s some news you might use.

Next week — November 23 ~ November 29 — all StationCash cards will redeem with a 25% bonus. So for $10, you get 1250 StationCash, instead of 1000SC. In short, a Race Change potion should work out to $20 instead of $25 if you redeem the points during next week.

Now, just like last time, these cards prominently feature the FreeRealms logo and FreeRealms mascot. But as long as it says StationCash on it, and not “Game Time” or “Game Subscription” on it, that’s the ones you want to buy.  On the back, it says to redeem at FreeRealms.com, but you can also redeem at Station.com. Wherever you redeem it, it all goes to the same place.

(photo courtesy Calthine of EQ2 ZAM)

Check out the 25% StationCash Announcement at EQ2Forums

EQ2Players.com has always had some features locked away behind an optional $2.99/month subscription. The most notable of these features for me have been looking up Alts and Item Discovery information. The rest of EQ2Players.com has always felt rather unfinished to me, especially the oddly formatted Alternate Advancements display.

While EQ2Players.com has recently seen renewed developer attention in the last few months (check out the EQ2Players Forum), it’s premium features have always been a bit skimpy to justify the $2.99/month subscription in EQ2Wire’s opinion.

So we were impressed by today’s news that, starting December 17th, the extra fee for EQ2Players premium features will be dropped. Now all players with an active EQ2 subscription (either the regular EQ2 subscription, or the premium Station Players account) will now have access to EQ2Players.com features for no additional charge.

Link to the Announcement (and Discussion) on EQ2 Forums

Today’s hotfix notes are brief:

ITEMS

• The Legends of Norrath “Mysterious Key” is now flagged No Trade as intended.
• The Legends of Norrath “Draught of Ingenuity” potion is now flagged Heirloom instead of No Trade.

MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION

• Munzok’s Edict no longer persists through death.

Welcome to the first Reader Survey for EQ2Wire. Depending upon participation and feedback, we’ll hopefully have one per month. This survey will be of particular importance to frequent Twitter users. 🙂

Survey after the jump:

EQ2Wire is working on a story covering the overseas marketing and distribution strategy for EverQuest II’s sixth expansion — EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate.

While there have been some concerns expressed on the EQ2 Forums regarding the 7-day headstart release strategy of Sentinel’s Fate from American customers (specifically within the 48 contiguous states with guaranteed arrival by February 16, 2010), specifically from American customers who have traditionally purchased the Digital Download, this has been nothing compared to the outcry from hundreds of international EverQuest II customers.

According to the EQ2Players Announcement, the only means for EQ2 players outside of the United States to acquire either the retail box($39.99), or Collector’s Edition retail box ($69.99) and play the expansion on release day, is to purchase the game from an American retailer (Amazon.com or GameStop.com), including shipping and import duties, and gamble that the parcel will arrive in time.

Including import duties, shipping cost, VAT, and the currency exchange rate, international customers are expecting to pay upwards of $80 for the expansion, or $130 for the Collector’s Edition, with no guarantee that the box will arrive by February 16th, 2010.

Due to a breakdown in communication, Amazon.com refuses to ship the expansion outside of the United States, leaving GameStop.com as the only international option. Further breakdown in communication has resulted in BestBuy.com not offering the product at all — even to domestic customers.

EQ2Wire would like to know why EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate is not available for purchase from international online retailers, especially from suppliers with which SoE already has a business relationship. For example BestBuy.ca (Canada), Amazon.co.uk (UK), Amazon.de (Germany), EBGames.com.au (Australia).

Follow the discussion on EQ2 Forums: [pre-order discussion] [7 day headstart discussion]

EQ2Wire is providing SoE an opportunity to respond to these concerns and we’ll get back to you as soon as we hear from them.

~EQ2Wire~

If you attended Fan Faire 2009, you may have watched the Jace Hall production “EverCracked”. It is a humorous documentary about the history of EverQuest, and the slightest hints about EverQuest Next, the 3rd EverQuest game currently in development.

Today marks the debut of the epic documentary EverCracked! The Phenomenon of EverQuest, available exclusively on IGN.com. The five-part weekly series, hosted and produced by Jace Hall, chronicles the trials and tribulations leading to the development, launch and success of the genre-defining massively multiplayer online game which celebrated its tenth anniversary in March 2009.

EverCracked! celebrates EverQuest’s legacy by taking a look at the past, present and future of the franchise. The film includes never-before-seen footage and interviews with industry moguls and longtime players. EverCracked! details the events, products, personalities and art that graced the world of Norrath over the years, with many tongue-in-cheek moments that befit EverQuest’s own sense of fun and humor.

EverCracked! The Phenomenon of EverQuest Debuting at IGN.com

Niami DenMother and Kaisha of EQTraders.com can always be counted upon to provide excellent coverage of Crafting and Live Events.

There are 3 articles worth checking out, and they are still being updated as more items are discovered, so be sure to check them out again at the end of the month to see anything news! From Niami:

Check out the EQ2TC GU54 Crafting Overview for more details – it already has the furniture shots for the first City Festival event (clothing shots will be incoming as time permits), as well as a page showing both the returning and the new Glacial Furniture from the Icy Keep vendor in Frostfell.  Mmmm, love that bed!

and a word about the Quellthulian Spires event which will end with the launch of Game Update 54 slated for early December:

Finish your work on the spires event now, get your shopping done, earn your title, finish up any incomplete spires, etc. When GU54 goes live, you will no longer be able to quest and earn tokens.

Note that, by popular demand,  Titles were added to the Quellthulian Spires Merchant, but these are still only on Test. Hopefully these updated Merchants are available on the live servers long enough for everyone who is sitting on a stack of Tokens to get them.

The EQ2Wire often produces articles and opinion pieces which would benefit from a comic or cartoon to illustrate the salient points. We are looking for an Artist who would be interested in producing illustrations or cartoons at least twice a month for the EQ2Wire.

This is not a paying position, but the artist retains viewing and portfolio rights to artwork created for the EQ2Wire. This artist will also receive a link to their own personal site (if they have one) in the EQ2Wire sidebar.

Some illustrations will have a specific theme and/or dialogue written by EQ2Wire. Others will offer more opportunities for the artist’s flexibility and creativity.

If you would like to have your art featured on a highly focused MMORPG game fan site which receives 3,000 visitors per day and is currently the #5 Google result for searches for “eq2 news”, please send an e-mail to morganfeldon (at) gmail.com with examples of your work and any other details about yourself which you think may be useful.

The main EverQuest 2 site at Station.Sony.com has been updated with a dozen new screen snapshots for the new EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion. Check them out (choose ‘Sentinel’s Fate’ from the filter menu on the bottom right). Featuring a few below:

If the EQ2 team are trying to keep the secrets of February’s expansion Sentinel’s Fate under wraps, they might want to avoid sending out data files containing Sentinel’s Fate textures and zone art with the EQ2 Patcher. We’re not even in Beta yet (expected sometime in December) 🙂

If you wish to remain ignorant about Sentinel’s Fate a bit longer and you’d rather be surprised in February, then don’t click:

The trailer we saw yesterday for Sentinel’s Fate, the sixth expansion for EverQuest II, has been posted on EQ2Players in High Definition (1280 x 720). You can download it as well as grab some more screen snapshots at EQ2Players. Note it’s a large file (120MB) so I recommend downloading it to your PC first before trying to play it.

The news is coming quickly about EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate’s new Retail strategy.

Kiara brings us this:

Fan Faire attendees with accounts in good standing will receive a complimentary digital copy of the retail version.  You will have the early access and items associated with the retail version of the game.

We’re looking into Best Buy not having the listing yet.

Amazon and GameStop are shipping overseas.  I’m trying to get a list of the countries that will be shipped to.  Retail boxes ordered online and shipped, SHOULD be shipped in time to arrive on release day to allow people to take advantage of the early access.

In response to concerns that Amazon.com does not currently offer International shipping, and that Amazon.co.uk does not yet carry this expansion Kiara followed up:

This is being looked into.  The agreement is very specific that GameStop and Amazon will be shipping overseas.

Please let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater juuuuuust yet.  Also, since we won’t be shipping until February, we’ve got a little time to work this all out with our distributors.

Additionally, retail boxes **should** be shipped in time for people to have them on release day if they pre-ordered, rather than waiting a week to get it.

Street Dates

The issue is that retailers, both online and stores, are scared sh*tless about breaking Street Dates. They’ve faced huge fines and browbeatings by Microsoft, Electronic Arts, etc.

The important part here, is for CLEAR communication between SoE Marketing and the retailers that there IS NO STREET DATE and that boxes should be shipped as soon as they are ready.

You can now watch the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Teaser Trailer at EQ2 Zam:

and you can check out some EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate screen snapshots as well:

To find more information about EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate, you can check out EQ2Wire’s recently updated Fan Faire News Rollup with all the information about the expansion.

From watching the trailer, we’ve also learned the Sentinel’s Fate will contain:

• 4,000 new items
• 400 Quests
• 5 Heritage Quests

EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate

Getting a jump on the holiday season (and a full 100 days before its official launch), the EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate expansion has been made available for pre-order!!

The most remarkable part of this announcement is the extraordinary measures being taken to get EverQuest II back onto Retail shelves and getting retailers to take the game seriously. With Sentinel’s Fate, it is now clear that the preferred version of EverQuest II will be the retail Collector’s Edition. Not only with in-box and in-game exclusive items, but the release schedule. The Retail version will be available fully 1 week before the Digital Download.

This is a ballsy move and one which will likely be greeted with some skepticism and anger. But many players have been clamoring for better retail presence of EverQuest II. Part of this is the in-box rewards, but perhaps a bigger part is that new players are more likely to come to the game if retail boxes are present. And I believe that having the digital download available on the same day as the retail version was, no doubt, a great demotivator to retailers to bother providing retail space or ordering sufficient boxes.

Now our spotlight rests squarely on the SoE Marketing Department. This is make-or-break time for them. They’ve let us down with the confusing Rise of Kunark pre-order Burynai reward, and they stumbled in providing Best Buy with the incorrect street date for The Shadow Odyssey. All eyes now rest on them to make Sentinel’s Fate a successful launch available to the widest possible audience of players in North America and worldwide.

They have a great opportunity here to surprise players and get EverQuest II back in stores and solve the availability problems we’ve faced in the past few years. Specifically, we will also be watching to see if there are any issues for International customers wishing to purchase EverQuest II as there have been in past years.

They say it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, and I’m not ready to concede to WoW. Hopefully SoE isn’t either.

Sentinel’s Fate will be available for pre-order beginning on Thursday, November 12, 2009! Sentinel’s Fate will be a compilation pack, containing the previous five expansions and three adventure packs. Sentinel’s Fate is EverQuest II’s sixth expansion, and marks the return of Odus to Norrath. New and veteran players alike will find tons of new content for all playstyles to explore.. More information about this newest addition to the EQII universe will be revealed in the months to come at EQ2Players.

All versions, both retail and digital download come with the compilation all-in-one game. This includes the following expansions: Desert of Flames, Kingdom of Sky, Echoes of Faydwer, Rise of Kunark, The Shadow Odyssey, Sentinel’s Fate; and the following Adventure Packs: The Bloodline Chronicles, The Splitpaw Saga, and Fallen Dynasty.

The retail pre-order may be obtained solely through North American retailers: Best Buy, GameStop and Amazon. You may pre-order through these retailers online. International players wishing to order a retail box may purchase through GameStop and Amazon and have their box shipped.

Retail Pre-Order Links:

• Amazon.com EQ2:Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s $69.95
• Amazon.com EQ2:Sentinel’s Fate $39.95
• GameStop.com EQ2:Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s $69.95
• GameStop.com EQ2:Sentinel’s Fate $39.95

Links from BestBuy.com are forthcoming as their website has not yet been updated.

We’ve been closely monitoring the progress on the development of Shaders 3.0. This is the graphical revamp which will improve the lighting, reflections, and other effects on 99% of the textures in the game. So far, we know that Shaders 3.0 is running very well on certain systems, but has significant performance problems on other systems. As a result, it’s not yet on Test, and may not be released until after Game Update 54.

In response some pithy comments that Shaders 3.0 has slipped to the February expansion and will now be used as a selling point of said expansion, Rothgar has chimed in with this update:

This is not the case.  In fact, we can’t really use something as a selling point for the expansion when everyone gets it for free without buying the expansion.

We’ve been doing some internal benchmarking on the Shader 3.0 implementation and we still have a few major challenges with the lighting system.  The new shader system looks great and it performs very well in certain circumstances.  However, there are still common situations that players would run into where the framerate takes a significant dip compared to Shader 1.0.  We know why and we know how to fix it.  So that’s the good news.  The bad news is that it will take a little more time to do it right.

The lesson we’ve learned here is that we shouldn’t communicate a release date on such a large project, so far from completion.  But we’ve also learned from past issues that we don’t want to release something that doesn’t meet our own expectations.  We’ll certainly keep you informed in regards to our progress.

More news as we have it.

Note: No EQ2 content!

I was posting some BBQ recipes for baby back ribs and grilled chicken breast on another forum and thought some folks here might like to read ’em. If you’d like more, post a Comment. Baby Back Ribs & Grilled Chicken Breast recipes after the jump.

On the EQ2 Forums, some discussion has sparked about the planned push to get EQ2 in retail stores and improve the experience for new players. I authored a post that I thought might be worth repeating.

What is the Experience for New Players right now?

1. Visit a half dozen retailers and not find any copies of EQ2 except maybe a dingy old cobwebby copy of Kunark priced $50. Let’s say you do manage to find a recent copy of EQ2 and take it home. You dutifully install 11GB of data off two DVDs. Then you fire it up and find out you have to download another 3GB of data because the DVDs are hopelessly out of date. A 1-2 hour process for most users.

OR…

1. Thinking you’re smart, you do the DirectDrive or Station Launcher digital download. Well sonny, now you’re talking 11GB of data off the internet. A 6-12 hour download for most users.
2. Once you’re done with that, it’s time to go to Station.com, register an account, enter credit card info, enter the product key off a sticker inside the box, and finally fire up the game and start playing right?
3. Chances are most user’s graphic drivers need updating. So let’s do that.
4. After 2-14 hours of frustration, you finally get to start playing EQ2.

Not exactly a great Customer Experience! And I think SoE has realized that this has to change. Especially if the expansion adds another 2 GB of data. EQ2 is not picking up new players at a rate that I think SoE would like to see.

It’s almost impossible to find EQ2 in stores, and if you decide to download it, you’re talking 6-12 hours download. And even if you do buy the retail box, it’s so hopelessly out of date that you will spend another 1-2 hours downloading updates. Not a pretty picture, and it’s a wonder EQ2 is picking up new players.

So what is the New Player Experience?

Jedi as a choice on the EQ2 character creation screen? NO!!

For new players who want to get a taste of EQ2, the new Streaming Client currently being tested and  expecting to be officially launched in the next few weeks allows new players to start playing EQ2 in as little as 15 minutes. The Streaming Client has a list of prioritized downloads. It starts with the basic character models and armor, then the starting zones, then works its way through the content the user is most likely to see, in order of likely priority. If the player tries to jump straight to a zone that’s not loaded, it takes a couple of minutes to download and then they can proceed.

Also, for existing players, let’s say Game Update 55 has come out. But you don’t want to wait for Halas or any of the other new content to download. Let’s say you’re late for the raid and just want to get logged in. You’ll be able to just do the brief update and stream the rest of the updates in the background. Game Updates should no longer mean a mandatory 30-45 minute download.

And the second prong of the New Player Experience is deals with retailers to get them to carry EQ2 and to have it in stores on expansion day. It’s no secret that the retail strategy so far with EQ2 has pretty much been a fiasco, with players scrambling to find boxes just to get the in-game pet or in-game mount, and coming up short because retailers just plain didn’t get the message.

The first step in all this is the EQ2 Complete Collection in stores now for $20 which has everything up to TSO. I expect more announcements in the run up to the expansion.

Understandably, some players are taking a look at Game Update 54 (aka the Great Bug Stomp) and not seeing a lot of new content. Part of the issue is, normally, we would be just 2 weeks away from an entirely new expansion at this point. However Sentinel’s Fate won’t hit until February. Also, it is now unclear just when we can expect Shaders 3.0, although I’m hopeful that we’ll get it as an early Christmas present.

Of course, we have Frostfell 2009 to look forward to this December. If this year has proven anything, it is that live events get bigger and bigger, with significant new content each year (next year, I figure it will take all 20 days just to complete all the old and new content of Nights of the Dead!!). Seasonal and recurring live events (eg. Moonlight Enchantments) have been extremely popular, so a lot of attention is being focused on them.

And now it turns out that in response to many complaints that Guild Halls and other game design decisions have “emptied” the home cities, a new recurring event is being introduced in Norrath: City Festivals.

From Kaitheel‘s announcement:

The Far Seas Trading Company is proud to introduce a traveling festival for all to participate in! When this event goes live, a different city will be chosen to host a week long event, once each month. Gorowyn, Neriak, Kelethin and Freeport will each get their chance to host their version of the event. On Test and Test Copy the great city of Qeynos is the first to find the traveling caravan outside it’s gates in Antonica. Adventurers will find new quests, collections and rewards, many of which are city specific! And for those of us that don’t want to wait for the festival to reach our city’s gates, we don’t have to. City Tokens are now being given as further reward for completing city writs!

This event should now be available on Test and Test Copy and we’ll report back soon with the details.

Remember, the Spires event is still in-game and some of the rewards from that event may not re-appear in EQ2 for a long time. In addition to the variety of house items, there are some unique items like the Magic Mouth house/guild hall item which can be set up to make announcements to passers-by. And don’t forget in-home teleporters. You buy them in pairs, right-click to name each one, and then you can port between them.

Knapsacks and Wrecked Cities

One perhaps overlooked feature of Game Update 54 is larger Backpacks. The largest size using a rare component (Mahogany) is now a 40 slot backpack with 20% weight reduction. You can read more about these here.

And finally, if you have been on test and wandered through West Freeport, you may have been shocked at what you saw. Norrath is changing in the leadup to Sentinel’s Fate…

We know what’s in Game Update 55, which will coincide with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate in February. It’s the new good starting city of New Halas.

What is Game Update 54?

Game Update 54 (slated for release the first week of December) addresses the most annoying of beasts in EQ2: the bug. That random inconsistency in a item description. That bizarre issue in a quest that makes it impossible to complete. The unexpected roadblock in a zone. The mob that just doesn’t work right.

Game Update 54 contains a gob-smacking 304 BUG FIXES covering both recent and long-standing issues throughout the game. EQ2 developers have addressed hundreds of bugs, large and small, throughout the world of Norrath.

Game Update 54 also officially marks the availability of the EQ2 Streaming Launcher. As we’ve been talking about here on EQ2Wire, this launcher will allow new players to jump into Norrath in as little as 10-15 minutes instead of the current 6-10 hour download.

Not part of today’s Test Update, but soon, we’ll also see the updated Frostfell festivities on Test. I’m looking forward to new quests, new loots, and more things to do.

Shaders?

You’ve probably noticed something conspicuously absent from these Test Update Notes. What I know so far is that Shaders are “done and working” on Ryan’s development box. If only we all had Ryan’s development box, we could have Shaders tomorrow. However, Shaders has to work on all sorts of different configurations. From what I hear, Shaders are still undergoing Performance tuning and I hope to bring you some news soon about the results of this tuning.

Because the list of fixes in Game Update 54 is extensive, please click the Read More link below to view the notes.

EQ2 Producer Brenlo has Twittered a couple of interesting sneak peaks into the future of EQ2.

New Dance Moves

First up, if you’ve been thinking that what Barbarians really need is some new dance moves, you might enjoy this new video. No word on when we can expect Guitar Hero: EverQuest edition. 🙂

New Barbarian dance on YouTube

You can safely infer that since this dance is specific to male Barbarians, that EQ2 is getting a bunch of new dances unique to male and female members of each race. I wonder if they will all be pop culture references. 🙂

Quest Helper

And if you have been longing for the Quest Helper window that other MMOs have been enjoying, you’ll be thrilled to know that a Quest Helper is now coming to EQ2 as well. Check out all those stacked up quests on the right side.

It is unknown if this will be part of Game Update 54 or Game Update 55/Sentinel’s Fate in February.

Speaking of Game Update 54, it should be going on Test Server soon enough, and we’ll have those notes for you as soon as possible.

Note: No EverQuest II content.

When FreeRealms was launched in April 29, 2009, Sony Online Entertainment pondered the question: Can a Massively Multiplayer Online game produced and sold in America support itself with Real Money Transactions (RMT)?

On November 2nd we found out the answer:

Effective November 2nd, the free-to-play classes available to NEW players of FreeRealms will shrink from Ninja, Chef, Postman, Kart Driver, Demo Derby Driver, Brawler, Adventurer, Card Duelist and Miner to just Adventurer and Card Duelist. Starting November 2nd, all players will be able to sample all character classes up to Level 5. Existing free-to-play characters of those original classes are not affected at this time.

Not For Lack of Trying

I don’t think there is any question that Sony is putting their weight behind FreeRealms. If you read the FreeRealms Blog, you know a lot of new content is coming this year. Player Housing, new Pets, more Holiday events, Daily in-game events, a streamlined User Interface, a unified Coin Market (instead of visiting vendors around the world), Item Dyes, new Combat system, more Minigames, etc.

SOE has dumped a ton of money into promoting FreeRealms with various tie-ins, TV commercials, and getting FreeRealms-branded StationCash cards into major retailers. They went after an audience that were traditionally not MMO players. They launched the GIRL (Gamers In Real Life) program. But it’s clear that most of those 5 million players that FreeRealms managed to attract weren’t buying much.

Eastern Philosophy

So why didn’t the FreeRealms model work?

Was it something SOE did? Was the balance too much on the Subscription and not enough on “must have” RMT items? Was it the name? FreeRealms always implied to me that someone could play a good chunk of the game for Free, and that RMT and Subscription were optional. Perhaps a lot of other people felt the same way. Incidentally, the Free in FreeRealms, according to SOE, has always meant “free to do what you want”, not an implication that the game was free of charge.

Is it a cultural difference? Free-to-Play with RMT games are widespread and wildly popular in Asia. Microtransactions are just accepted. Americans in contrast are somewhat sensitive to being “nickle-and-dimed”. I received a link to an interesting article about the differences in Game Design between Asia and North America. It’s worth a read: Game Designers – Everything You Know is Wrong

A Transition

I see FreeRealms undergoing a transition. While nobody is being booted from the game (you can still keep your friends, play the game, travel the world, and still play a fair amount of content), the direction of the game is now clearly steering towards a “velvet rope” model. What was previously viewed as a “free” game becomes a generous Free Trial which lets you sample every class in the game and decide if you want to subscribe. Everything after that requires a Subscription. I’ve been told it’s similar to Toon Town and Club Penguin although I don’t know those games.

Frankly, the FreeRealms subscription is really not expensive. And it can be paid for with cards purchased at major retailers. For $4.99 a month, you get  some nice benefits, like additional Jobs, 3 Character slots vs. 1, and 400 more Items and Quests. It is unknown whether Housing and the other content will require a subscription, but I think it’s a safe assumption.

Resources

If you would like to read a more “Just the Facts” type of posting about the changes coming to FreeRealms, check out this posting. Also, there is a public discussion on the FreeRealms forums about the changes as well.

A Cautionary Tale

Normally I would have a witty conclusion to such news. However I don’t. FreeRealms has to do what makes sense for their business model. It was never advertised as a game where an incredible amount of hard work was required to receive certain rare, powerful items, followed by those items becoming available with RMT.

It was built from the ground up as a casual, fun, RMT game designed for the largest possible audience with a large variety of playstyles. I think there are a lot of folks having fun out there playing FreeRealms, and enough of those folks will upgrade to the subscription to make the game self-sufficient. I don’t see a lot of folks quitting, since nothing currently changes for those “free” players.

However, I do want to close this posting with a warning:

RMT clearly wasn’t enough to cover the costs on FreeRealms. This revelation should strongly guide the decision-making on how items are added to SOE’s existing subscription-based games like EverQuest and EverQuest II. Never assume that RMT will be able to keep a subscription-turned-RMT game alive, if it couldn’t keep a game built from the ground up for RMT afloat.

EQ2Wire is back in town and brings you some Hotfix notes.

October 28 Hotfix

ACHIEVEMENTS

• New Achievements have been added! Test your skill with three new types of Achievements: Flawless Victory, Sense of Urgency and Shorthanded Victory achievements have been added to Rise of Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey zones.

ITEMS

• Equipment with pet buffs should no longer experience stacking issues which cause the cancellation of multiple pet buffs when removing a single piece of armor.
• Jewelry items purchased from Lavastorm and the Moors of Ykesha are now heirloom attuneable.
• Jewelry items acquired with Void Shards is now Heirloom.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now be placed as a red puzzle cube then after placed should retain its fog effects.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now change into a red puzzle box when turned off by the defogifier.
• The Necklace of the Plague has been increased to 12% base damage.
• Hallow’s Gallows now grants ranged crit.
• Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now give larger gains when stacked.
• The appearance of the Ceremonial Robe of the Brethren has been corrected.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• Miragul Encounter (Hard mode) : Miragul’s Arcane impairment now only affects spells. Miragul’s Physical Impairment now only affects auto attack and combat arts.

USER INTERFACE

• The placeholder detriment icons were removed from the raid window.
• The raid window’s font-size was decreased and the overall window is a little more compact.

November 3 Hotfix

ITEMS

• The Collar of Ice is now Heirloom.

“1:10PM SYSTEM MESSAGE: Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down in 30 minutes for brief maintenance. Please plan accordingly to be logged out during this time. Thank you!”

“1:25PM SYSTEM MESSAGE: Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down in 10 minutes for a brief maintenance. Please get to a safe location and camp out as soon as possible. Thank you!”

“1:26PM SYSTEM MESSAGE: Sorry Norrath! That’s 15 minutes, not 10. But, please get to a safe location and camp out as soon as possible. Thank you!”

No idea yet the duration or cause of this downtime. No other servers are going down to my knowledge.

EQ2Wire is on the road this week, so updates will be a bit less frequent.

Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge

The Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge was completed Friday night. We’d certainly like to hear comments from folks on what the new 64-bit server experience is like (I know Butcherblock is a lot snappier with the new hardware), as well as having more folks to kill. 🙂

Issues with using the Broker, Banker, and World Chat channels were all related to the last stages of this merge, and should long have since been resolved.

New Shaders 3.0 Snapshots

Imago-Quem (Ryan) surprised us over the weekend with the news that Shaders 3.0 is getting very close to completion now. He also posted some new screen shots. Hopefully there will be enough time to get Shaders 3.0 onto the Test server and for everyone to test them out before Game Update 54 now slated for early December.

All 416 zones and 29,000+ objects have been converted over with a very small set of exceptions, those I am working on and those that will stay 1.0.  There’s about 1% left in the game that is still shader 1.0.  Right now I’m working on remaining bugs and optimizations for better performance.

When can we expect to see Shaders 3.0?

The plan is to have it out on Test first thing November and on Live with GU54 on December 1.

I’m working my very hardest to get all the major bugs out right now.  I’ll continue working on bugs and performance over the next month or so.

EQ2 Streaming Client

Testing continues on the EQ2 Streaming Client. This, along with the EQ2 Complete Collection ($19.95) now in stores, are our best opportunities to get new players into EQ2. The Streaming Client will allow new players to get into EQ2, create a character, and get started in the newbie area with as little as 10-15 minutes of downloading. Compare this to the current digital download option, which is a 6-10 hour download.

What Bugs You Most 2009

Players continue to post their ideas in the What Bugs You Most 2009 Edition thread. What is interesting is that unlike the What Bugs You Most thread from Feb 2008, the vast majority of the issues being brought up are not User Interface fixes (which Rothgar is a champ at) but long-term design changes. It’s not known just how many of the issues being brought up will be possible to address between now and the expansion.

Silverwing

Speaking of bugs… Some folks are having trouble with Silverwing in Veeshan’s Peak since Game Update 53. Some workarounds to prevent his massive healing while the issue is addressed have been posted in this Silverwing Issues thread.