Feldon First I’d like to wish a Happy New Year to all of you. No doubt many took advantage of the Double XP weekend and squeezed in the last bit of Frostfell magic.
In the coming weeks, we should be hearing more from EQ2 developers and their work on the upcoming Game Update 63 coming in February. This update is expected to include new Destiny of Velious content, including dungeons, raids, and more.
Here are some issues we’re tracking this week, some of which got a nod from a developer or community:
- Character Lighting
- EQ2Players
- Invisible Mercenary Healers
- Timorous Deep (Kunark) client crashes
- Tradeskill Apprentice Recipes for Provisioners
- Characters Stuck in Frostfell
- Character Transfer Server Tokens
- What House Items do you want?
Character Lighting
With the launch of Age of Discovery /Game Update 62, some players are reporting a random darkening of different armor pieces, weapons, or body parts on both Character Select and in-game. This is not a Shaders 3 issue as Shaders 3.0 has been disabled indefinitely. Fortunately, Alex “GermInUSA“ is on the case and has this update:
Thanks for all your patience and replies.
I was able to track down what change caused this problem and we are working to implement a valid fix right now. Unfortunately the random nature of this bug made it hard to track down and will make it hard to verify as being fixed so please bear with us a little bit longer. We should be able to nail it this week though.
We would expect an update possibly as early as next Tuesday.
EQ2Players
We are now 1 month since the launch of Age of Discovery, and the promised relaunch of the EQ2Players service remains in limbo. Meanwhile, EQ2Wire and other fan sites have been testing the fantastic new Data Feeds API which provides most of the data that used to come from EQ2Players, but in a digestible format.
Invisible Mercenary Healers
Stamper and Bdorn, the popular Inquisitor and Templar mercenaries, have been playing hide and seek. Specifically, only the people who hire them can see where they are standing, making it difficult to know if they have line-of-sight, or are off trying to kill mobs across the room when they should be healing. Fortunately, this fix is on the Test server and should go live as early as next Tuesday:
Stamper (Inquisitor Merc) should no longer show as invisible to players who have not hired him.
Bdorn (Templar Merc) should no longer show as invisible to players who have not hired him.
Timorous Deep (Kunark) client crashes
With increasing frequency, players have been reporting crashes when zoning into the Kunark starting zone Timorous Deep. The issue manifests itself as the EQ2 client crashes while “Loading Environment Map” appears in the status area. Fixes have included deleting any *.vpk files with ‘timorous’ in the name as well as the cache and assetcache folders.
Here’s a further update from TSR-JoshuaM who typically handles Customer Service tickets:
The TD specific issues are a high priority but is currently a dev issue that, outside of the recommendations already posted by me, we won’t be able to troubleshoot with you further.
Deleting the Cache folder and/or the TD specific VPK files from the PAKS folder is a temporarily workaround for the time being. We also highly recommend not camping out in or around Mok Rent until we have confirmed that the issue has been resolved. We do apologize for the inconvenience this will cause for you and we will do our best to get it resolved as quickly as possible.
Tradeskill Apprentice Recipes for Provisioners
If you haven’t used a Tradeskill Apprentice, the quickest way to describe them is Recipe Research Assistants. They’re NPCs you can hire, place in your house, and hail once every 24 hours (as well as running some errands) which will eventually grant you one recipe appropriate for your tradeskill class. You can’t be in any hurry, as each level 90 recipe take ~15 days to discover.
The primary ingredient for these TS Apprentice recipes is a Reactant, which drops from mobs throughout Norrath. While the lower level reactants have become common, the level 90 ones (Colossal Reactant) remain quite rare, as they only drop from Velious dungeons with mobs tiered above level 90 (Zek, EoW, and Drunder), or occasionally from those aforementioned Tradeskill Apprentice errand quests. Servers are reporting prices for Colossal Reactants in excess of 700 platinum up to 2,000p.
That may sound expensive, but the items, specifically jewelry, weapons, and cloaks produced from these Reactants are equal to raid drops which routinely sell (SLR) for similar prices.
But you can imagine the shock of Provisioners when their recipes, which produce 20 food or drink items, also required a Reactant. Sorry, but no stack of food or drink is worth 700 plat. Fortunately a fix is incoming.
Discuss this further on the EQ2 Forums
Characters Stuck in Frostfell
If Jack Frost caught you in Frostfell after Tuesday’s cutoff, you probably got stuck there. The prudent approach to resolve this issue is to Open a Support Ticket at SOE.com.
If you are unable to get the website to work, but are able to login to the game with a different account, according to TSR-JoshuaM, you can open a /petition in-game to address problems with the other account:
You can contact our support staff directly or open an in-game petition to receive assistance with recovering those characters.
UPDATE from Kaitheel:
A script was run yesterday around 11 am PST that automatically moved anyone logged out in the Frostfell Wonderland Village to Thundering Steppes. Your characters should no longer be unavailable!
Character Transfer Server Tokens
EQ2 subscribers who use prepaid game cards, who have bought game time with StationCash, who otherwise do not have a credit card on file, or have an All Access (formerly Station Access) account have had problems using the in-game Server Transfer feature. Namely, they have been unable to find Character Transfer Server Tokens on the StationCash Marketplace.
Players have had to play CSR Roulette, contacting SOE repeatedly until they find a sympathetic (or knowledgeable) representative who can sort the problem out.
According to TSR-JoshuaM, CSRs are now up to speed on the issue:
We are prepared to offer workarounds to get everyone transferred up even if you cannot see the token.
This information, or policy if you will, has been propagated with the Tech/Billing department so you don’t have to cherry pick your representative. Just keep in mind that we are a separate department from the GM’s where petitions are sent. You’ll need to contact our support staff directly or open a Support ticket to begin the process.
The requirements that must be met and cannot be excepted are as follows:
- You must be the account owner and able to verify ownership with our staff.
- For account to account transfers you will need to be the account owner of both accounts in question and both accounts will need to be fully verified.
- You must have the supporting Station Cash balance of 2500, we may instruct you to make purchases that we will remove for you in place of the CTS Token.
- You must be a Gold member on either of your accounts.
If you meet the above, you are ready to contact our staff directly to discuss a possible workaround.
What House Items do you want?
Omougi wants to know!
We’ve seen a lot of good ideas for housing items on these boards. In an effort to get those ideas in one place, please let us know *in this thread* what housing items you want. Thanks!
We hope you have a great weekend. In the meantime, if you haven’t checked our Beastlord Warder guide in a few weeks, I just updated it yesterday, bringing the total number of unique appearances for your Beastlord pets to 110.
This is why i really enjoy reading this article.
“In the coming weeks, we should be hearing more from EQ2 developers and their work on the upcoming Game Update 63 coming in February.”
Don’t forget how unstable the game client is now with repeated crashing.
Would like to say that 700p for Colossal reactants is cheap, on Nagafen the cheapest is 2475p
Uhh . . . I have never, since November 8th, 2004, used a prepaid game card in EQ2 (or EQ1, or any SOE game), nor have I ever bought game time with Station Cash . . . EVER . . . and I have ALWAYS, since 1999 (having been a player of EQ1 and I’m still using the same Station Account) had a credit card on file. Yet, I also cannot see the character transfer tokens on the marketplace. Why can’t I see the tokens? What the hell did “I” do?
So now is it better to call them directly at their customer support number or with an in-game /petition? And I just find it funny that this is not even a “fix” but a “work around.” They are basically asking us to buy any OTHER item(s) in the Station Marketplace that equals the 2500 the tokens would cost, take them from us and replace them with a Character Transfer token. Really? They can’t just take the SC from me directly OR . . . and the BETTER option:
FIX YOUR DAMN SYSTEM SO PEOPLE CAN SEE THE TOKENS SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH CRAP LIKE THIS . . . Maybe . . . might be a better option, possibly . . . . . . .
/shrug. Just sayin’ . . .
Charn,
Not to call you out, but is it really that hard to buy 2500SC of items, do a /petition, and followup if they have any questions?
ALL server transfers used to be done this way. It’s only in the last ~2 years that character transfer tokens have made automated transfers possible.
Cheapest colossal reactant on BB is 1200. 700p would be nice indeed. 🙂
Ok, so the first time we “hear about” GU63 could be when they push the Update Notes for it on the morning of February 29th. 😉
Another thing to note on the transfers. Even if your account has had a card on file if you have left at all or skipped a month. You need 31+ days of activity on your account if you are coming back. I brought an old account back online recently same card I am currently using after talking to CS that is what they told me. A day after it passed the monthly billing cycle and I was able to see tokens in the store.
Data Feeds API?
After some searching, I haven’t been able to find out much about this, other than vague remarks dating back 12+ months. Is this something that’s publicly available, or super-secret for only the fan site admins?
I’m an API pro and would love to take a look at this data — or help anyone in the fan site realm digest theirs appropriately. Let me know if there is somewhere I can post to alert others that I’m willing to help with this.
I thought buying and selling accounts online is like againts the tos??
Colossal Reactant is usually around 1500p on oasis broker. Hard to say if those sell, but I would bet those do.
Feldon, it’s not ABOUT how difficult it is for me. It isn’t at all DIFFICULT, though I now have to go through extra steps, it’s not hard. My point is, I’m calling Sony out.
As you said, they’ve been doing this for 2+ years. And yeah, they’ve come up with a “work around” for now, but for the love of GOD SoE, do your damn jobs and fix your shit already! With the current amount (and, it seems, continuous implementation of) things that are filled with bugs or just don’t work well, how are they NOT embarrassed?
Look, I am one of the most loyal people around. Hell, I’ve been going to the same place to get my haircut for over 30 years. I find something I like and I stick with it. I’ve been playing SoE games since June of ’99: all of them (All Access member). And I’ve been going to Fan Faire since 2008. But even I’m becoming hard-pressed, lately, not to question my own loyalty.
I’m holding out to see this new “Quarterly Update Model” Smokejumper has been touting, but I’m starting to lose hope it’ll be done without game-breaking bugs or implemented in a way that sounds great on paper, but isn’t viable as a game feature or mechanic.
“That may sound expensive, but the items, specifically jewelry, weapons, and cloaks which are products of said Reactants are equal to raid drops which routinely sell (SLR) for similar prices.”
That’s pretty funny since the craftable items are superior to almost all pieces, EM as well as HM raid gear 🙂
Also, 700 plats is cheaper than I’ve ever seen it. atm I think it is around 1500+ plats on Oasis.
Tradolan,
Dethdlr and I have been working on a new website for about 2 months now using the Data Feeds API. It’s still undergoing changes but what’s there is very good.
I sent you an e-mail.
Charn said: “I’ve been playing SoE games since June of ‘99: all of them (All Access member).”
If All Access means the same as Station Access, then this is the problem.
Yes, Charn, they hosed up the Station Access stuff big time with the conversion. My account was also severely affected for quite a long time. Apparently Station Access/All Access was something they hadn’t factored in to their database conversion and it broke.
I am also disappointed in the direction the game has taken lately, as I have been very vocal in pointing out, but I am still hanging in there because I am still having fun. This is still the most attractive game out there. WoW is like living in New York city … fun to visit, annoying to live there. The others just don’t have the depth (or are science fiction). So here I stay.
Ahh more velious content including more dungeons…which begs the question is it or them going to be the new “drunder” type raid zone or zones gear wise…probably…will they assit in unlocking plane of war sometime before 2014 probably not….
As for crashes the devs have completely overlooked the memory error crashes in guild halls and personal homes which showed its head in 2009 and was passed off on user pc issues kinda like their doing now…until they finally fixed it…until AoD which brought it back with a vengence.
Note that I’ve started on leader boards on my own, since I was missing them.
http://eq2mission.flame.org/leaderboards
I’m adding more stats, and currently they update once every 5 minutes. I may have to make them update less frequently if the server gets hammered.
Character information takes a while to sync with Sony’s database, so it is also quite slow. AFAIK,
That’s really a nice job, Quicktiger. Very interesting.
First class work Quicktiger, cheers.
they also have a bata thing they used on my account once installed to your account you open and close th SC window two or three times and then you can see the tolken worked for both my wifes account and my account we transefered from Freeeport to BB with no problems , 🙂
Personally I’d like to see them add comperable weapons for all classes, add a common questline, must do 80 epic, must do ER, & the common questline to get it. Simle, Kill all end named Kael & lower for group instances as that quest. Award duel weild for those who can, & 2H or 1H & secondary for those who cant. Plus class cloak. Imo