Feldon
Wishing you a Merry Christmas Kwanzaa Hanukkah Solstice Festivus etc. and a Happy New Year. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Month: December 2010
The new Freeblood race has a special “Ferocity of the Freeblood”, as well as access to housing “Freeblood Lair” and “Swarm of Bats” mount/buff. The details of how these are unlocked and what issues players will face if they change race have been addressed in different posts over the last 24 hours. Here are the highlights. Also inside, a glimpse of something we have heard rumors about before — that some new feature is coming to EQ2 housing with the release of the Destiny of Velious expansion.
Here are some news items we missed in the flurry of Server Merge and Freeblood news. They include Shaders 3 and Halas buildings, the look of the Freeblood, and Loitering NPCs in Freeport and Qeynos.
So with today’s official introduction of the Freeblood vampire race to EverQuest 2 as the first Premium race, the remaining secrets have been unveiled. Chief among them is that the Swarm of Bats premium mount/ability available exclusively to Freebloods will, when Destiny of Velious expansion launches and a quest has been completed, be usable as a full-fledged Flying Mount. From the official announcement: Characters who go on to unlock flying mounts in the Destiny of Velious expansion will also be able to use this ability to fly.
The Freeblood vampire race as well as premium accessories are now available on the StationCash Marketplace. From EverQuest2.com: The Freeblood race is now available on the Marketplace in EverQuest II and EverQuest II Extended. You can watch a video of the Freeblood race over at Facebook.
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: Fan Faire folks will be authorized to enter the beta on Jan 5th with everyone else but are automatically authorized (after they fill out the application!)
Players on Butcherblock, Crushbone, Everfrost, Unrest, and Guk just received the following message: Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down for a brief update at 02:30 PM PST [22:30 GMT] Wednesday December 22, 2010. Please find a safe place to log out before the server comes down. We’ll let you know when we find out the cause of this unexpected downtime. UPDATE: This update is apparently to address an issue with illusion forms and will require the servers to be offline for approximately 1 hour. Amnerys has posted an announcement.
The Freeblood Lair housing is now available in the StationCash Marketplace. For 1500SC ($15), any Freeblood character can purchase a tiny cozy intimate version of the Mistmoore Crag Estate (which was a 7 year Veteran Reward). Cyliena has posted screenshots and more information about this new EQ2 Prestige Housing over at EQ2 ZAM.
Dethdlr
Smokejumper posted this announcement today on Everquest2.com: The time for Closed Beta testing of “Destiny of Velious” is upon us! Applications are now open and available at the following link: https://account.station.sony.com/au…9&theme=station Go there, complete the application process, and your application will go into the queue for approval. (Hint: You’re not finished applying until you accept the NDA.) We’ll be reviewing applications starting on January 3rd, and Closed Beta will begin on January 5th. If you are approved for beta, you’ll get an email letting you know, so check your email (out-of-game only) between the 3rd and the 5th! PLEASE...
Here are your hotfix notes for December 22, 2010: GENERAL Fixed some issues which could cause raid zones to crash.
SOE are trying something new with their EQ2 Bonus XP this time around. Past Bonus XP events have taken place over a weekend or during the holidays which has been good for some players, but not so good for others who are visiting family or working over the weekend. So this time around, the Bonus XP event is a Double XP Weekendish. From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: We’re doing Double XP Days from Dec 27th (Monday) to Dec 30th (Thursday). Most of you will be shocked to hear that we’re doing Double XP not actually on one of...
Cyliena over at EQ2 ZAM noticed new items in the StationCash Marketplace, specifically the new Freeblood vampire race. Remember, if you have an active subscription for December 14, January 17, and February 8, and buy the Destiny of Velious expansion some time in 2011, you will get the Freeblood race for free. However if you can’t wait, or don’t intend to buy the expansion any time soon, then it’s time to pay up. UPDATE: This is expected to go live today, Wednesday December 22nd. By itself, the Freeblood race will cost you 2000SC ($20 at normal price). It is...
If you feel that EQ2’s expansion betas have been unnecessarily long, we have some great news for you. For everyone else, prepare for a rather abrupt beta this time around. According to SmokeJumper, the Destiny of Velious beta will start “when we come back in 2011”.
I’ve finally managed to escape Charles de Gaulle airport which completely ground to a halt due to 3 inches (7cm) of snow. Meanwhile, our SAS pilot made a perfect landing in near whiteout conditions with heavy snowfall on a runway and at an airport positively blanketed with snow. Ah… Copenhagen… 😉 Anyway, ’bout those server merges…
Here are your update notes for December 21, 2010: GENERAL This year you can support the Child’s Play charity by purchasing the new Cloak of the Snowfall from the Station Marketplace! ITEMS Auto-consumed items such as the server merge titles will now be consumed on login if they were added while the player was offline. AMENITES Research Assistant amenities can no longer be purchased in a guild hall.
The latest from Rothgar on the merge: Oasis should be unlocking now. 8 hours ahead of schedule isn’t bad!
Here’s the latest update from Rothgar: Update: Both merges are still going great, no issues so far. We hope to have the chat portion of the merge done in 2 or 3 hours. FYI, this will be the last merge of the year. Update from Rothgar as of 1:49pm PST: Update: We’re ahead of schedule on the merges today. Chat should be back up any minute now and the servers are being QA’d as we speak. Hopefully if there are no QA issues we will have the servers unlocked in an hour or two. Also, if you happen to...
Befallen/Oasis and Nektulos/Guk (BONG for short 😉 ) Server Merges are underway. From Rothgar: Everything is going great on merge 1. Set to begin merge 2 in 20 minutes. Everything is still on schedule. I’ll update again in the morning. Our updates will be spotty as I was affected by airport weather delays. Best of luck to Rothgar, Zoltaroth, and all merging players. 🙂
Those servers which have completed their merges are experiencing crowding in main chat channels, specifically 1-9 and auction. Fortunately, some adjustments are being made to resolve the matter. From Zoltaroth: We are looking into increasing the channel limits. and later: We have identified the issue and are working on a fix. Barring any other major news, we’ll be rather content-light until just prior to Sunday night’s server merges. Just got back from the Eiffel Tower. Peace. 🙂
From SOEFanFaire.com: SAVE THE DATE FOR FAN FAIRE 2011 July 7-9, 2011 @ Bally’s Las Vegas Make the Trek, Meet New Friends and Get Your Game On!
Everseek.com, the ultimate EQ2 House Item Reference Guide, will be hosting a Frostfell Decorating Contest this year. I’m thrilled to be one of the four judges of this contest. From EverSeek.com: From Sunday, December 12, 2010 (12:01 a.m., US Pacific Time) through Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at (11:59 p.m., US Pacific Time), Everseek.com will be hosting a Frostfell decorating contest to celebrate the Frostfell holiday season. Submit your entry for a chance to win a cool item for your home! Depending on the number of entries, winners will be announced on or around January 17, 2011. The judges for...
Latest update from Zoltaroth: Update: Butcherblock should be open within the next 15 minutes. Permafrost is going into QA. Also, I can personally confirm that Butcherblock is in fact back online right this second. I’m logged in and checking out the new digs. 🙂 And this in as well from Zoltaroth: We are opening up Permafrost now. And we have confirmation from Quesera in the comments that Permafrost is up.
From the EQ2 Forums: Butcherblock looks good so far. QA is still working on it but no major issues yet. Permafrost is almost ready to come up for QA testing as well. All in all we are ahead of schedule and everything is looking good.
It seems like StationCash bonuses have been coming more and more often. One might think that there’s no need to get in on this campaign if another one is just around the corner. SmokeJumper has some news: I think this is the last one for a while also. I think there’s a minor one coming on the heels of this one, but then we won’t be doing another one for several months, probably. (We reserve the right to change our minds, but that’s the plan currently.) Unfortunately, the maximum StationCash that can be held on an account is 20k,...