Feldon
image courtesy Kotaku.com Kotaku.com landed an exclusive interview with SOE President John Smedley and got some of his reactions to World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm update. Some selected quotes: Next week’s world-changing expansion for World of Warcraft may not be the only cataclysm to hit a major massively multiplayer online game soon.John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, tells Kotaku that the publisher has been considering a similar game-wide reset for EverQuest II. “We are looking at it closely, we have been for a number of years now,” he said during a visit to Sony Online Entertainment Denver. “Is it...
Day: December 4, 2010
If you’ve been hoping for any hint of class tweaks we’ll see in Velious, Xelgad has posted an early preview. Naturally this does not include any mention of new AA lines or other abilities we may gain. We’re still three months from the Destiny of Velious launch, and more sweeping changes than the ones listed below were made in less time, so take this as an early teaser, subject to change. In short, there is great news for Illusonists and Summoners, and some news for other classes as well.
A thread was created on the EQ2 Forums a couple of weeks ago entitled “Why is there no hype about Velious?” which elicited responses from Amnerys and Rothgar indicating that we’re still 3 months away and not everything is nailed down. This thread raged on. However the real discussion about the EverQuest II expansion Destiny of Velious and future of Norrath beyond its release has been happening in the elephantine Server Merges Announced by Email thread, which has become sort of an omnibus discussion between SmokeJumper, Rothgar, and the players.
EQ2Players received an incomplete revamp last December, leaving the site graphically refreshed, but with significant issues including problematic content updates, buggy Javascript, and various statistical oversights. The site was also re-branded as EverQuest2.com and became a free service, instead a paid feature. The SOE Platform Team were initially responsive to the issues brought up and some of them were fixed, but it seems there was some personnel shuffling and as a result, little else has been done to the revamped EverQuest2.com since the release of Sentinel’s Fate. Players have been trying to nail down some kind of response from...
So you might have heard that Vampires, specifically the Freebloods will be a playable race for those who have an active subscription for December and January, and then purchase the Destiny of Velious expansion. We’ve naturally been wondering how a former villain of EQ2 will become a playable race and if there will be any attempt to tie this into existing lore. Meanwhile, we’ve been stocking up on garlic, stakes, and copies of Twilight.
It looks like some unexpected changes to Research Assistants have hit the Test server. Spell and Combat Art upgrades are now possible without any involvement by a Sage, Jeweler, or Alchemist. And instead of hailing an NPC, Research is being folded into the interface. From the Test Copy notes: RESEARCH The Research window has been moved in to the Knowledge window. Journeyman through Master spell tiers can be researched. You are no longer required to speak with a Research Assistant to start/change/claim research.
From the EQ2 Forums: We’ve found a problem with the Gifting option for the EQII Marketplace, so the service will be temporarily disabled until early next week when we can patch a fix for this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience. Commentary It is unknown how many players exploited the StationCash Gifting feature, what punishment they can expect, or when exactly this feature will be restored.
In response to a conversation about the division of development time between EQ2, StationCash items, and Legends of Norrath, Calthine of EQ2 ZAM made a statement that elicited a response from SmokeJumper. That response confirmed on Thursday what many of us have believed but been unable to prove. Since the introduction of StationCash Marketplace, StationCash Items have been designed and tested by the main EQ2 team and not, as has been posited, by a separate team of artists and programmers. SmokeJumper indicates that this is changing, and with the revenue from SC/LoN, SOE have been able to justify hiring...
If you’ve been following the EQ2 Dev Tracker, you know that EQ2 Senior Producer SmokeJumper has been tearing things up the past few days with much dodging, parrying, and responses to player concerns. In response to the argument that “EQ2 is dead”, EQ2 Senior Producer SmokeJumper had some words for competing MMOs out there. While he didn’t mention Rift: Planes of Telara by name — which just opened with what some people are calling the smoothest, most successful Beta Test of any MMO in history, and which will be launching head-to-head with Destiny of Velious next spring — well,...
Last night we received an e-mail with some surprising new information about events leading up the the EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious expansion. They include up to six gifts for players with active subscriptions (accounts in good standing) through December, January, and February, as well as rewards for players who purchase the Destiny of Velious expansion. To get the two unique December gifts, you must have: EQ2 or EQ2X account with Gold or Platinum active on December 14th. To get the two unique January gifts, you must have: EQ2 or EQ2X account with Gold or Platinum active on January...