From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:
Just a heads up on the change coming with GU60.
You will now be able to change your spoken language on Nagafen (and Vox). This will enable you to communicate to the other team via /shout and /say commands. By default, your language will continue to be Lucanic (evil) or Antonican (good). If you don’t change your language, the other team will not understand you.
A lot of us have been putting 2 and 2 together and getting that Multi-housing would be included in the forthcoming Game Update 60.
So many of us were sent into a tizzy when the Game Update 60 preview omitted multi-housing and today when Zoltaroth, wrangler of multi-housing code, posted this:
Housing will likely not be released as part of a GU. It will be a seperate update with its own set of notes etc.
Fortunately, our interpretations that multi-housing was now far off in the distance were unfounded. Multi-housing is something we’ll get when it’s ready, and it’s not tied to Game Update 60. It could appear on Test as soon as this week!
I think people are misreading what I am saying. It is not part of a GU. If it is ready before GU-60 it will go before GU-60. Right now we are in the final internal testing stages and are hoping to get it to test this week. If any critical bugs are found then it obviously will not be pushed.
Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) today announced the landmark 60th game update for the iconic massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), EverQuest®II (EQII) The Children of War.
Scheduled to arrive to the world of Norrath on May 17, 2011, the update will continue the storyline introduced to players in the recently released EQII: Destiny of Velious expansion pack as part of the Age’s End Prophecy saga and deliver content for players of all types, including battlegrounds and PvP improvements.
From April 14 to April 21, 2011, former players are also invited to log back in and experience the unparalleled depth and adventure that can only be found in EQII with the Take Flight Winback promotion. Eligible inactive accounts can log back in for free for 7 days, claim their free flying mount and reunite with friends and enemies alike for 7 days!
The plans of Rallos Zek are beginning to come to fruition and the mighty Fortress of Drunder, which once sat within the Plane of War itself, has appeared on Norrath, and now rests high above the Kromzek city of Kael Drakkel. From Drunder, Rallos Zek plans to rally his war parties, scale the massive sheer cliffs leading to the Western Wastes, and execute his plan to steal the power of Roehn Theer. It will take bold and daring adventurers to enter the fortress itself, unlock the secrets to the salvation of Norrath, and thwart the destructive agenda of the God of War.
PvP & Battlegrounds improvements, including but not limited to:
o Lobby system so players can hang together between matches with PvP merchants available locally
o New Velious battleground map (“The Frozen Tundra”)
o New Battleground game type! (“Vanquish!”)
o PvP and Battlegrounds rule modifications for better balance and fun factor
o Fame system improvements
o New PvP armorItemization:
o New Adornments interface to make this system easier to understand
o Continued honing of the itemization systemDrunder!
o Three new instanced dungeons
o Three new raids with all new bosses
o New daily missions
o Crystal Caverns
o Solo shard quest
o Two new heritage quests
o Additional signature quest lineNOTE: Drunder content is locked to DoV expansion owners only. All other GU content affects all players.
EQ2Wire Commentary
If the “free flying mount” offered to inactive players ends up being available below level 86, then I expect this will be a hotly debated issue.
UPDATE: The flying mount is a 12 hour one-use item. Players who qualify can get them off the Marketplace for 0,SC until the event ends.
You’ll recall SmokeJumper‘s posting on April 5th about the notes/plans/announcement for Game Update 60….
The GU 60 notes we post later this week should set the pace a bit.
Amnerys updated us today with the explanation for the hangup:
The press release is going out today and I’ll have an article for you this afternoon with more info. Yay! It was originally planned to go out on 4/5 but Marketing requested a small delay to align the timing with other things going on.
and just to confirm, SmokeJumper had a 1 word answer when asked when the notes will be posted:
Today.
We’ll have reactions to these notes in the morning.
From Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson on the EQ2 Forums:
So, you’re probably curious how EQII will be growing and changing in 2011, right?
Well, it’s finally time to share. This year is all about content and entertainment and we intend to give you plenty of both. The following outlines some of the broad strokes to get you thinking about what’s coming…and possibly just a little excited, as well.
First of all, if you’re a “Destiny of Velious” owner, you’re going to be *extremely* happy that you made that purchase. Why? Because DoV is going to be the biggest, best expansion that has ever been made. We’ll be releasing content on a regular basis that continues to tell the “Age’s End Prophecy” saga, and the only price of admission is that you own DoV. The Age’s End story gets really big before it’s done and it’s going to take us a good chunk of time to tell it all, but we’ll do so by releasing chapters of it every few months and building the story a bit at a time. Velious is a big place, and so is this story. It’ll be a good ride.
Secondly, we’re going to revamp Freeport and make Evil an exciting place to be. Freeport (and next year, Qeynos) will become multi-level adventure hubs with instanced content at many levels. The city itself is also getting a facelift as Freeport reorganizes itself to retake its place as a driving power of the world. Additionally, it’s becoming a single zone (instead of many sub-divisions) and flyable. When we upgrade Qeynos, it will get the same visual upgrade and zone treatment, and will bring back the “Greater Good”.
The Gods of Norrath will be returning to once again directly muck about with the lives of mortals. Too long has the world of Norrath spun along on its own axis. It’s time again for it to feel the touch of the divine.
On the non-content side of things, we’re going to be working on a lot of stuff “under the hood” to make your gameplay better. We’re looking into ways to increase the speed of our game and graphics engine, some of which could be very significant, which would obviously make raids and public quests a lot more fun, as well as boosting smoothness of gameplay for everyone. We’re revamping the way that our terrain is created so that we can bring you content more quickly, but still with high quality, thus increasing how big the world can become.
And last but not least, we’re crafting a host of new features and fun ways to play the game. Some of our current ideas are way outside the box for an MMO and we’re pushing hard to bring you new experiences (more on these later!).
We’re already one of the best MMOs out there. This year we’re going to become even more unique and exciting. 2011 is a good year to be Norrathian.
— Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson
P.S., A detailed feature list of the upcoming GU 60 will be announced soon, and more elements of the longer-ranged features will roll out in successive months. This letter is just to let you know the general direction of where we’re going and what to expect.
Anobabylon from Oasis posted some questions about multi-housing coming in Game Update 60 and SmokeJumper provided some answers:
Q: While you are putting in the ability to own more than one home, could you please also add in the ability to share homes with other characters?
A: Prestige Homes allow this already. Add each character to the others’ trustee lists, then link the homes together via portals. Voila! Now your homes are linked and you can edit them freely.
Q: Change *Guild Port Doors* to be heirloom/attunable (heirloom selfishly because my main character buys all the doors for my other girls) rather than no-trade and let the location of our attuned guild port door be where the “Guild Portal to Player Housing” sends us to. This would allow us to use the “Guild Portal to Player Housing” to load in to whichever of our multiple housings we choose, or even into a home where we are trustee if that is what we desire.
A: More good news. This already works! You can place your Prestige Home portals in your Guild Hall directly, *and* the current “Member Housing” amenity now allows you to travel to any house that is linked in your home network. This can be a large amount of houses if you have lots of links and friends.
As always, this is subject to change based on any number of code issues, delays, etc. but we now have a soft timeframe for when Game Update 60, or at least the Multi-housing (the ability of 1 character to have multiple houses) will be hitting the Test server. It sounds like it may be on Test for several weeks for players to test everything out and make sure there are no problems with houses and guild halls. Undoubtedly a change like this requires major alterations to the database. We haven’t got anything concrete how what changes will be made Teleport to Player House guild hall amenity, but we’ve heard good things.
From SmokeJumper:
It’ll probably hit testing next week or the week after. It’s a LOT of code changes, so we’ll probably let it stew on the Test server for a while until we’re confident we kill all the major issues and then release it thereafter.
Soon!
EQ2 PvP Guru Olihin has given PvPers a taste of Game Update 60:
GU60 will bring lots of changes to PvP.
- Fame is being reworked
- Fame and title gains will now have their own EXP BAR, no more trying to figure out how long or why you gain/lost a title
- New armor and adornments
- Ongoing balance changes (this will never stop and will never be perfect in any realistic way)
- New Battleground
- Enhancements to the Matchmaker for Battlegrounds
- Cross faction communication
There will be more details as we get closer to GU60.
In the run up towards Game Update 60, there are several things of note regarding Player Housing and Graphics that we’ve been meaning to cover. These include House Item Limit Expanders, Prestige Houses, the Network Status Page, and also a tip of the hat to Ryan “Imago-Quem” F. who has moved on to PlanetSide 2 and incoming graphics guru Alex “GermInUSA” who continues to polish up the EQ2 graphics engine while adding new features.
In response to a concise Berserker Class Issues post-Velious thread created by Bremer, Xelgad said that we should see some of these fixes hopefully before but at the latest by Game Update 60:
Hey guys, thanks for the thread!
We’ve got a bunch of quick fixes for these issues on the way. They’ll be live by GU60 at the latest.
Most of the changes are pretty straightforward and some are exactly as suggested here.
From Windslasher on the EQ2 Forums
Okay, I have it on pretty good authority that a solo shard quest is on the way. Probably GU 60. It will not have anything whatsoever to do with public quests, however.
From Olihin on the EQ2 Forums:
Greetings,
With GU60, a new battleground will be added that will allow for a 18 vs. 18 combat setting.
We are currently working on possible additions to the achievements earned while in a battleground and we would like to hear some thoughts on what you may want to see.
We will also evaluate the current achievements and look for ways to reward those that have earned or are in the process of earning them. We believe that someone that can help control all the towers while at the same time having the highest kill streak should be acknowledged, for example.
Feel free to add your ideas and we will do what we can to make your experience while fighting more enjoyable and rewarding and perhaps even humorous at times…
Believe it or not SmokeJumper posted a bit about Game Update 60, which will be anywhere from 1-3 months after the Destiny of Velious expansion launches. It’s expected to have some Battlegrounds and PvP tweaks. His post also talks about EQ2X marketing and EQ2X PvP servers:
Answers (but you might not like them):
1) We haven’t started spending marketing cash for Extended yet. That’s slated for January. The reason I bring that up is until we bring more people into Extended, we have no plans to open up a PvP server because too many servers dilutes the population and we’re not willing to do that yet. However, we *would* like to do a PvP server. It’s currently slated to be the third server, assuming we can kick start population beyond its current levels.
