Feldon 
In July, an Aether Flying Race was added to the Thundering Steppes on the Test server. Turns out, this was created specifically for the Community, Customer Service, and Guide teams as something they can turn on for specific events, weekends, etc. This unique Aether Race was activated today, September 10th, on all EQ2 servers. It will be activated next week on the EQ2X Freeport server.
Dellmon and Aliscious of EQ2Talk have been running the course like crazy trying to set an all-time track record. Although there is no unique title for completing the course within a specific time, there is a special flying appearance mount/ground mount for completing these.
UPDATE from Naylie (Community Relations Manager; Guide Liaison – Station Pass Games): The Community team Aether race track reward is a Gold C.R.A.S.H. Disk ( \aITEM 144820029 1111115652:[Gold C.R.A.S.H. Disk]\/a ). The Guide’s race track will reward a green pad and the Customer Service track offers the purple pad.
From the EQ2 Facebook page:
The Community Aether Races should now be up in game. You can find these in The Thundering Steppes. Isulith will be running them next Friday on the Freeport server.
EQ2 ZAM recorded a video preview of this track in July if you want to check it out. This event is being discussed on the EQ2 Forums.
125s Top speed so far;)!
Hopefully this means they may fix the “glass ceiling” issues in TS. It is MUCH lower and non-uniform, unlike Nek Forest. Using a leaper is annoying painful in TS, and a flyer is just outright annoying
The course conforms to the current boundaries nicely–still plenty of maneuvering room even so. There is one spot where you can switch the wrong way if you don’t pay attention though… 😉
Next it’s up, keep your time under 150 seconds or so to get the prize!
(Side point, amazing–as frustrated as I get with this game and crew sometimes, every so often they pull something like this that reminds you why you’ve been here so long. If only…)
Just a LITTLE more advertising and/or announcing of an event like this would have been MUCH appreciated. I do not, nor will I EVER use Facebook. I didn’t see any announcement, I didn’t see it on the message of the day (though, admittedly, there are times when I get distracted enough by events happening in and out of game that I don’t read it) and it wasn’t on the in-game calendar of events. On Facebook and one tiny blurb in the forums, to me, is not enough. We should not have to RELY on sources OUTSIDE of the game to find out what’s happening IN the game. I would think at least SOME equity of information would be of tantamount importance.
Using social media is fine, I get it, I see why people use it, and I ESPECIALLY get why businesses would use it, but don’t make it the ONLY way for people to get information. It would be like me going to work on a Monday and everyone asking me why I didn’t show up to the company Picnic on Saturday . . . “I didn’t know about it.” “Really? But we announced it on Facebook . . . ”
By the time I’d actually heard about it, I went there, started the race, and it LITERALLY vanished beneath me . . . by the time I hit the fifth gate it was there in front of me, then the entire race was gone. Very disappointing because I LOVE these races. /sigh /shakes head in disapproval
Charn,
I posted about it as soon as I heard about it. Fortunately this won’t be a one-time thing as Community, CS, and Guides can trigger the event.
Feldon you do a great job of posting information and I count on it daily, however I have to agree with Charn. I don’t use or plan to start using Facebook and there are plenty of in-game ways to get the information out there that to limit it to Facebook is short-sighted.
It’s not you Feldon, it’s SOE. An event like this should have been better announced. I didn’t hear about it till the day after. I know this isn’t the only time they are running it, but who knows when they will again, and if even then will they announce it better then.
You do a great job keep up the good work.
Feldon,
I am absolutely thankful and grateful to EVERYthing you do here. Thank you for posting the information about this event. My gripe, however, is not with you. There may be times when I do not nor will not log onto ANYthing besides the game. I’ve had a hard day, things not going well at work, at home, wherever, I just want to sit down and play the game. That’s the part of the reason why many people play MMORPGs . . . it’s an escape from the every day. I do not want to and should not have to check in with every social media page, website, and forums OUTSIDE the game to find out what’s happening IN the game.
As Awing and Fievall both said, YOU are ABSOLUTELY great at what you do and I VERY much appreciate all of your efforts here (as well as Dethdlr and anyone else that contributes to your site). As was stated earlier, SOE SHOULD BE the ones responsible for making sure something like this is better publicized in-game rather than how they handled this event. I just hope that future occurrences of this event and any like it are better publicized IN GAME. If they can spam me with messages about when the server is shutting down, they can have a “Town Crier” message that shows up announcing an event like this.
You hear a Town Crier shout, “Hear, ye! Hear, he! Announcing the happening .”
When will there be another race giving out the gold C.R.A.S.H disks? I want one so bad but I can never seem to be on for the races…I am always on for the purple and green ones…but never the gold ones :(…please let me know if there will be one anytime soon! Thank you!