From EverQuest2.com:

What's better than the amazing Dungeon Maker system introduced with Age of Discovery? Cheaper Dungeon Maker items, of course!
Whether it's getting the boss pack of spawners – reduced from 1800 DM (Dungeon Marks) to 150 DM -- or one of the many cool Glass Weapons available from 100 to 750 DM, we want to make items purchased with Dungeon Marks more accessible to you! It doesn't matter if you are looking for a specific consumable or a decorative piece of armor, there is something for everyone available via Dungeon Marks.

So starting today, February 27, 2012 jump in game and check out the new reduced prices!

While the EQ2 team continues to test allowing players to use their regular characters in Dungeon Maker dungeons, additional changes are planned to make Avatars (nee Adventurers) more interesting and dynamic.

Recently, a new mechanic for Avatars went to Test, namely a "power" bar which can be built up to unlock more powerful abilities. At first, we compared it to the Beastlord Savagery bar, but Testers universally knocked this analogy, with less favorable comparisons.

In light of this reaction, Lyndro has indicated that existing Avatars won't be changed to the new system -- instead, a new line of Avatars will be added with said mechanic:

Hi folks!

Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly why we put stuff like this on test before putting it out live. Based on your feedback, instead of changing the gameplay of existing adventurers, we're going to introduce a few new avatars based around this style of mana management. This way if you want to experiment with something different the option is there, but you can continue playing with DM in the manner that you're used to.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Our Take

Given our druthers, we would have gone with 6-8 fully fleshed out "Characters" with a full hotbar of spells and buffs that players might learn to love, rather than gnolls and mermaids with 4 spells apiece. People can warm to playing prebuilt characters, if they're interesting and dynamic. Squaresoft made billions on Final Fantasy before they offered installments allowing you to create your own character. People will get absorbed in a character, if it's interesting.

Last night, Linda “Brasse” Carlson (Director, Global Community Relations), Greg “Rothgar” Spence (EQ2 Lead Programmer) and Akil “Lyndro” Hooper (EQ2 Lead Designer) hosted a Webcast about the upcoming Dungeon Maker feature (previously known as Design Your Own Dungeon) in the upcoming EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion.

Note: Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson was not able to make the webcast.

Note 2: For the first ~5 minutes of the webcast, Rothgar's mic was not working at all. At this point, he and Brasse started sharing a microphone.

Note 3: Throughout the webcast, Rothgar refers to the Avatars you use to play through Dungeon Maker-designed dungeons as "adventurers". For clarity, I have changed all these references to Avatars.

After the jump, EQ2Wire provides an exclusive transcript of this SOE Webcast...

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UPDATE: According an EverQuestII Twitter post, tonight's Webcast will be a Smoke-free environment:

"Smokejumper" will not be joining us for the webcast today, as was previously indicated. It'll still be great, though [Isulith]

From EverQuest2.com:

Come check out the EverQuest II Dungeon Maker Webcast! Host Linda "Brasse" Carlson (Director, Global Community Relations) will interview Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson (EQ2 Executive Producer), Greg "Rothgar" Spence (EQ2 Lead Programmer) and Akil "Lyndro" Hooper (EQ2 Lead Designer), and learn all about one of the most anticipated features for the new EverQuest II expansion: Age of Discovery.

Join us on Thursday, November 17, 2011, at 4:30 p.m. US Pacific Time*, as we live stream this webcast on the Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

Come join us for the fun!

See you on Twitch TV!

Other Time Zones:

• PST: November 17 @ 4:30pm
• EST: November 17 @ 7:30pm
• GMT: 00:30
• CET: 01:30

Information about the upcoming Age of Discovery expansion has been few and far between, however SmokeJumper did take a moment to clear up how XP and loot will work:

Actually, you earn XP *and* tokens. The tokens are used to acquire items for any of your characters, not just the one you have currently logged-in. XP and tokens are awarded at the end of the dungeon run and based on a challenge rating system that should prevent exploiting. More on this soon.

As we heard at Fan Faire (which may, of course, have changed since then) is that there will be two vendors for DYOD, one selling armor/weapons/loot for your main characters, and one selling parts to add cool stuff to your own dungeons.

No additional information has been released about what choices there will be for DYOD Avatars (since you cannot play your own characters, you must pick one of the provided avatars), if you'll be able to buy upgrades for them, etc.

SOE has been exceedingly tight-lipped about the upcoming EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion, now just 5-6 weeks away by our estimates. In the process of searching for any kind of official press releases, we found two sites which covered EverQuest II at Fan Faire that we hadn't seen mentioned before.

Did you know that MMORPG.com interviewed Dave Georgeson about the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion during Fan Faire?

Did you know GameTrailers did a 4:54 interview with Dave Georgeson at this year's Fan Faire where he talks about Design Your Own Dungeon?

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Bunji dropped the news that Game Update 61 is hitting Test today:

We plan to push the current GU61 content to Test tomorrow morning.

GU61 (or most of it) is scheduled to hit Test around 7-8am PST tomorrow morning, 7/28.

What's in Game Update 61?

• Dynamic Dungeon: Silent City [60~90]
• Dynamic Dungeon: Djinn Master's Prism [60~90]
• Plane of War: heroic dungeon (normal and challenge)
• Plane of War: x4 raid (normal and challenge)
• Reitemize Level 20-90 dropped, quested, and crafted Items
• Alternate Advancement (AA) Revamp, especially Subclass (Monk, Templar, Paladin, etc.) tree.
• Tradeskill AAs [25 pts]
• House Rating System
• Dungeon Finder -- Dungeons of any level, same-server only
• Fae/Arasai Flying
• New content in Eastern Wastes
• Beastlord Prelude Event for Good or Evil (Exile may choose one)
• Velious Signature Quest continues

The disclaimer above makes it clear that not all of Game Update 61 will be on Test today, but we're anxious nonetheless. Read more about Game Update 61 in the Fan Faire EQ2 Panel.

Note: The Freeport Revamp, Tradeskill Apprentices, Item Reforging, Mercenaries, Design Your Own Dungeon, Beastlord Class, etc. are all part of the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion to be released this November.

Despite their having hardly left the drawing board, players have drawn some conclusions about the upcoming Design Your Own Dungeon feature, based on how similar features have been implemented, and how they've fared--mostly unsuccessfully--in other games. Speculation, as they say, has been rampant.

However Rothgar isn't willing to yield the "DYOD will be abandoned just like Arenas" ground just yet. From the EQ2 Forums:

The arena argument doesn't work, sorry. You can also play arenas using your normal characters and people don't do that anymore either. There are several other reasons why arena's didn't work, but that's a discussion for another thread. If it were simply because of the avatar system, people would still be playing them with their own characters, but they aren't.

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