Feldon
In preparation for Game Update 56, some of the art assets (and likely music) for Game Update 56 are being pushed in an update today. This update is approximately 200MB. From EQ2 Senior Producer “SmokeJumper“: [Today’s] update includes a lot of the files needed for the upcoming Halas feature set. We’re splitting the download into two parts so that the pain is a bit less each time.
Month: May 2010
From EQ2Players: Introducing the Etheral, Sinister, and Ulteran Prowlers! Each mount comes in your choice of one of the following versions: Fierce and Arcane. The Fierce version increases Slashing, Aggression, Ranged, Piercing and Crushing of caster by 5, while the Arcane version increases Focus, Ordination, Disruption, Subjugation and Ministration of caster by 5. Both versions of the mount reduce the maximum falling speed of your character and have a 65% run speed. The Prowlers are guaranteed to be available for at least one month and adventurers can now purchase these new mounts for 2500SC from the Marketplace. These are...
A prelude quest leading up to Game Update 56 and the introduction of the city of New Halas has been available for some time now, if you could find a Guide or in-game GM or CM. But now in the last week leading up to this update, NPCs have been added throughout Norrath for those players who want to do this quest. This quest is A Vision of Valor. Follow the link for a list of NPCs and locations.
Dethdlr
EQ2Players has a preview up for one of the two new raid zones coming with GU #56: Icy Keep: Retribution. This one was designed by Carlos “Gninja” Mora with help from Cyndi “Xadrian” Johnson. From the Gninja: Which raid zones are of a comparable difficulty? The difficulty should be aimed at the same difficulty as Lair of the Dragon Queen or slightly tougher in the later areas. How many named mobs are there? There are ten normal encounters and one challenge mode encounter. However some encounters might have to be unlocked in order to gain access to them through...
This is a placeholder article. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
Check it out folks! We’ve got a new Calendar here on EQ2Wire. I’ve put in a list of upcoming events (currently set to 45 days, I can adjust this easily) in the Sidebar, including tentative dates for certain events based on 2009, and if you click the EQ2Wire Calendar header there, you can jump to a monthly calendar of EQ2-related events. If you have any suggestions for events that should be on this calendar, please post a Comment and we’ll see about adding it!
After Game Update #56, you may wonder why your mount is disappearing during combat. As reported earlier, there’s a new setting coming to the game. In Options -> Display -> Animation, there will be a new setting called “Render Mounts”. This has three options: Show mounts always Hide mounts during combat Never show mounts Hide mounts during combat is the default which may lead to some confusion on launch day. If you want it to work the way it used to, just set it to Show mounts always.
Game Update 56 next Tuesday will include a new scenario specifically for the PvP servers. Antonica and Commonlands will become home to Warfields, a scheduled PvP campaign with specific rewards. Here’s PvP developer Olihin‘s update notes: PvP WARFIELDS Antonica and Commonlands have once again become hotbeds of conflict! Will your lands be overrun or will your forces prevail against the siege? Warfields are Good vs. Evil faction based. Rewards will be Discord Tokens with a higher quantity to the winning team. The event will stagger between Antonica and 2 hours later in Commonlands and last for 30 minutes. The...
An interesting topic has popped up on the EQ2 Forums asking the question: Is there Raid Progression for Small Guilds? The Shadow Odyssey ended up offering many choices for Casual Raid Guilds. Sentinel’s Fate has not been quite so generous with such progression choices. Game Update 56 will add two raid zones, but both are intended for 24-person raids. We compare the expansions in today’s commentary.
Tired of getting a swift kick or a punch in the mouth from the surly and unwelcome Thexian and Dreadnaught goons occupying parts of Freeport? Did you know… Killing Thexian and Dreadnaught “guards” in Freeport does not affect your faction with Freeport? If you kill enough Thexians and Dreadnaughts (about 10 of each), they will grow afraid of you and STOP WITH THE BEATINGS ALREADY? Fun Facts from the EQ2 Forums
Just prior to Sentinel’s Fate, two different web designers set out to produce an updated AA calculator. We kept our eye on a really smooth one (but which had not been updated for Sentinel’s Fate) by Beetny. We were stoked to find out that Beetny’s AA Calculator has been fully updated for Sentinel’s Fate. This AA Calculator lets you browse, experiment, and spend AA points in all 3 AA trees for your character class without logging into EQ2. Also, you’ll notice there is a URL at the top so you can share your suggested AA setups with other players....
The Underfoot Depths from EQ2Players: Halas Reborn, scheduled to launch at the end of May, brings us two new raid zones. The first of which is the Underfoot Depths, accessed via The Hole. Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert gave EQ2Players a brief interview about this new raid zone. Players have cleared all of Sentinel’s Fate’s normal-mode encounters and all but one of the challenge-mode encounters…just in time for us to add 20 more normal-mode encounters and eight more challenge-mode encounters (which practically doubles the raid content available at level 90). I am very excited at the chance for players to test...
Game Update 56 will contain minor tweaks to Betrayal and changing one’s Citizenship. Changing citizenship is being streamlined, as some cities require more busywork from players than others to switch between cities of the same alignment. Contacting one of the new Ambassadors in each city is your first step. No changes to the actual betrayal quests are being made (changing alignment ) are being as far as we can tell, but an Ambassador NPC is being added in every city who must be contacted prior to deliberating the Betrayal process. You can read more about these Betrayal changes which...
From EQ2Players: One of the exciting features coming with Halas Reborn is the revamp of the travel system. Salim “Silius” Grant has made traveling throughout Norrath smoother and took a few minutes to explain in detail some of the changes that adventurers will see.
Today, we reflect on a dungeon that I had high hopes for when it was first announced, but which underwent dramatic changes within 72 hours of its launch. 3 months later, there are no clear answers on the current intended audience of this zone, whether we’ll see any rollback of those changes, and going into the next expansion — EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious — will these lessons in design and balance be learned from?
From EQ2Players: We’re making it easier than ever to try out EverQuest II’s most recent expansion, Sentinel’s Fate. For three days, May 12th through May 14th, everyone who doesn’t already have Sentinel’s Fate can try it out for free. Also, there is a $5 discount off the cost of the expansion for active players, and an additional $5 discount off the cost of the 1st month’s subscription for inactive players. Finally, all players can claim the Rose Quartz Inlaid Golden Armband for free from the Station Marketplace! So make sure you log in between now and 11:59pm on May...
It’s hard to believe that in 3 months we will be covering our third Fan Faire event and entering our third year of wheedling news and previews of EverQuest 2 expansions and game updates. We plan to offer the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the 2010 Fan Faire event. It’s challenging to come up with news on a daily basis, especially about a game that works in 3 month cycles. Last month, we officially brought a staff writer, Dethdlr, into the fold, who has so far been posting some great updates. There are a lot of EQ2 fan sites...
Here are your hotfix notes for May 12, 2010: ITEMS Summoning Brace of the Wyrmkind now properly adds Molten Carnage IV to the caster’s pet. THE HOLE The following mobs will no longer attack you if you have faction points equal to or above -39,999 points with them. The faction point requirement should now be consistent with other standard mobs under the same faction. “an animated watcher” “a disheveled refugee” The “Caetaxian dominator” located on the fallen pillar bridge in the Old Paineel section of the zone. Killing “disheveled refugee” should now have an effect on your faction status...
Players were surprised when servers went down at midnight PST last night for a Hotfix. This hotfix is targeted at Performance issues which continue to dog EQ2. From the EQ2 Forums by Rothgar: Tonight’s hotfix introduced a few changes that have been on the test server for a few weeks. I’d like to hear your feedback to see if any of these performance issues have gotten better after tonight. First, we made a change to the zoning processes that should hopefully speed it up. In addition we’ve extended our logging in this area to help us better troubleshoot long...
From EQ2 ZAM: EverQuest II players have long hoped for an expansion returning players to Velious. Scars of Velious, the second expansion in the original EverQuest, was a favorite of long-time players. With the appearance of the the icy Order of Rime last summer many players were sure Velious was coming, and were surprised when Sentinel’s Fate took EQII players to the lost island of Odus. Astute player Vulkoor found some interesting files downloading in April, which included othmir (an otter race from Velious) and Tserrina the near-legendary boss of the original Tower of Frozen Shadow. The appearance of...
This information was part of our Game Update 56 post on May 4th. However considering the importance of its content, we have reprinted it as a separate article and rewritten it for clarity. GU56 Travel Revamp Travel in Norrath has been substantially consolidated. Changes and bugfixes continue to be applied on Test, so this information may change before May 25th. Worldwide Travel Revamp Players may travel from and to nearly every zone in Norrath by using the Worldwide Globe system, which have consolidated all existing bells and gained many unexpected destinations. Flying carpets, boats, and airships are now entirely...
Even as EQ2Wire is trying to find an artist or artists to help us tell humorous, interesting stories about EQ2, the development of MMOs in general, and the sometimes tumultuous relations between game developers and the players, we could not help but notice the “Notable Norrathians” contest currently running on the EQ2 Forums and posted by Kiara. UPDATE: Deadline Extended to May 28th! The New Artists My favorite part of EverQuest II’s fleeting 5th Anniversary “Heroes Festival” (during last year’s American Thanksgiving week) was the 10 Player-Designed In-Game Paintings. Initially, an art conteste, the top 10 winners became available...
EQ2Players is highlighting another team member, this time Jeff Jonas, player artist for EverQuest II. My role on the EQII team is to create objects that our player characters use, wear, or ride. I am known as a “wearables” guy. A project like this needs thousands of items to make it fun and exciting. Wearables run the gamut from Barbarian helmets, to collector’s capes, and full vampire armor sets, to wieldables such as swords and staffs, to rideables like the hover discs I have created. Other wearables can be backpacks, or armbands. What’s your favourite thing that you’ve done...
The tireless Niami Denmother of EQ2Traders has turned in another great preview, this time New Halas.