EQ2Wire Transcript: GU66 Scars of the Awakened Lore Webcast

Not everyone has the time to watch a Twitch or Youtube video talking about upcoming Game Updates, Expansions, Features, etc. Some are not able to watch videos at work and would rather read a transcript. And there are a number of EQ2 players who are hearing impaired. So for you guys, I am happy to present another EQ2Wire exclusive Transcript of an SOE Webcast. This week’s session is about the upcoming Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened which lands on the Beta server next Tuesday and goes live April 30th.

Inside this transcript, you’ll find out…

• The Othmir make their way to Cobalt Scar to see what’s left of their homeland.
• New Tradeskill quest line.
• New Tradeskill Apprentice recipes.
• New overland zone with numerous quests at Advanced Solo difficulty.
• New Heroic zones. New Advanced Solo zones. New raid zone with internal progression.
• Itemization is an overlay for Chains of Eternity, not a gear reset.
• Gear upgrades will be in 7-8 slots and there are clear upgrades for all gameplay levels including solo, group, and raid.

Welcome everybody this is Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson. I’m the director of development for the EverQuest franchise. With me are folks from the EverQuest 2 team including Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Carlos “Gninja” Mora, Senior Designer, and Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall, Senior Designer

We’re here to talk about the upcoming Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened. We wanted to talk a little bit about the story thus far, so everyone can get caught up and in that way the rest of the stuff we talk about will make more sense.

Kaitheel: For those of you who didn’t read the quest dialog, maybe this will come in handy. So we’re going back to Velious. That’s the point where you’ve come into this new continent and you’re starting to really find out that this thing called the Age’s End Prophecy which all surrounds the stone which is the Shissar calendar. Different people have found out about this Age’s End which is supposed to be coming about. So there’s Mayong Mistmoore, he did a lot of investigating. Maybe Nagafen knows a little about it. Nagafen seems to know a little about everything.

Kaitheel: So we get to other characters that start to have the players investigate this as well and they’re trying to stop it from occurring, because the Age’s End from their estimation is going to be the utter destruction of Norrath at the hands of Kerafyrm. (mic cut out) so (Kerafyrm) and his forces are the Awakened Legion. He has been struggling with gaining more power, other people have been trying to stop him along the way. You are learning more and more about what you might be able to do to stop him.  At one point he even gets the power from the two Swords of Destiny. The Swords of Destiny are Qeynos Claymore and Soulfire. These are very pivotal items that were Roehn Theer’s swords originally.

SmokeJumper: So Roehn Theer had the swords, then mortals had them for a long time. The power got drained away from them by Kerafyrm. Kerafyrm took the power so he can use the power to destroy the world. That’s what the prophecy says. We don’t know that for sure. Everyone’s pretty worried about it (Kaitheel: understandably!). What is everyone doing to stop prophecy?

Kaitheel: Furthering to understand the calendar because it has all kinds of symbols and keys within it that hopefully will either lead to it not happening or that are signs of when it will happen whereby they can cut it off.

SmokeJumper: So the calendar is giving us lots of clues?

Kaitheel: Yes.

SmokeJumper: There’s other stuff that’s happened too,say like when Velious started we went to Skyshrine, an abundance of pivotal political stuff started happening.

Kaitheel: The armies of Norrath of the player cities: New Halas, Neriak, Gorowyn, Qeynos, Freeport are all joining together as a New Combine force. This force is very tenuous. Cooperation between the cities is not the best. The citizens of Qeynos in particular question why it was that Freeport — Lucan — is now in cooperation with Antonia.

SmokeJumper: You see a lot of that subtext in the quests when you play Qeynos since the revamp. Are you seeing much of that in the Freeport context too or are they basically…

Kaitheel: No I think they’re pretty much we could take care of ourselves but we can also take advantage of this.

SmokeJumper: So it’s really only the good people that are upset that the evil people are involved. So now you have this Combine Army so everyone from Norrath are putting together an army and they’re to go take on Kerafyrm, is that the idea?

Kaitheel: Either they’ll take him on, or they’ll find ways find of defeating him but that’s their intent definitely to try to stop the Age’s End Prophecy from coming to pass.

SmokeJumper: So how are you, the players, involved with the Combine Army?

Kaitheel: So far you’ve been helping them as they’ve been finding either more of these monoliths of Theer which are pieces of the calendar, or you’ve been helping investigate different means of which you could possibly defeat him. And you’ve been going deeper and deeper into Velious. Hopefully they’ll actually come to a head meeting Kerafyrm.

(screenshots of Withered Lands)

SmokeJumper: This is when you started getting into the Skyshrine stuff. Now the Skyshrine stuff is interesting to me — dragons are cool right? You get into the whole Awakened army, the Awakened Legion.

Kander: Essentially Skyshrine has been invaded by the armies of the Awakened — Kerafyrm’s armies. You get to experience the whole betrayal and be savior of Skyshrine. The utter destruction, and you the heroes come in and get to save the day.

SmokeJumper: so Kerafyrm was eliminating opposition?

Kander: Basically he knew there were some key players in Skyshrine that he needed to remove from the pegboard to move along. He managed to convince a betrayer to lower the defenses of the great Dragon Citadel. They kinda turned it into a food processor.

Gjinja: That’s where players come in. It’s already happened and the Awakened have already shown up. They get to jump in and save the day.

Kaitheel: They literally come in right in the middle of the battle.

SmokeJumper: This is Kerafyrm’s first small defeat. He’s pushed out of Skyshrine.

Kaitheel: He did get pushed out but the cost to everyone else was so high that it didn’t really feel like much of a win.

SmokeJumper: So what’s the morale like in the Combine Army after the Skyshrine (audio cuts out) Do they realize how powerful the stuff is that they’re facing?

Kaitheel: I think they are now — they weren’t then. While we were in Skyshrine battling the Awakened Legion, the new Combine Forces, because they didn’t go in with you (to Skyshrine), they pushed further into Velious and have now entered Cobalt Scar. So they were totally sidestepping all of that, so now they’ve pressed further in to bring that fight to his doorstep.

SmokeJumper: So the Skyshrine stuff was kept a little bit kept away from all that. They’re still focused on marching towards the unknown.

Kander: Skyshrine was really the focus of (?) bringing in the heroes, the players, and letting them demonstrate their power. Both sides are seeing how powerful the heroes of Norrath are (our players) and what you’re up against. And knowing that that was just a small portion of Kerafyrm’s power.

Gninja: Also if the players hadn’t gone into Skyshrine, than the Combine Army would’ve been stopped right away because the Awakened could’ve come down and stopped their progression. (talking over each other) so the players played a pivotal role in keeping that away from the Combine so they could progress.

SmokeJumper: So then we had this major interlude where everybody started dying and we went to Ethernere. And that really didn’t have anything to do with the Age’s End Prophecy directly.

Kaitheel: Not directly but they did find a few more of those monoliths of Theer along the way.

SmokeJumper: Which did what? What does that do for the story?

Kaitheel: It’ll help other people figure out what’s going on.

Gninja: More pieces of the puzzle

Kander: You’re essentially assembling the Armageddon clock.

Kaitheel: Good analogy.

Kander: You’re trying to find out what time it is on the Armageddon clock. You know that the Shissar calendar is pivotable(oops)  pivotal (looks at Kaitheel) and you know that there is a prophecy coming. They’re different parts of the story that have different ideas about what Age’s End is.

SmokeJumper: Right.

Gninja: But without all these pieces…

Kander: There are definitely different pieces. Part of the Ethernere was also helping reassemble what I call the Armageddon clock, trying to finish the Shissar calendar and really figure out what the prophecy is.

SmokeJumper: So then you come back and we’re starting to get to the current stuff. So you come back from Ethernere after having saved the world and you find the Combine Army where?

Kaitheel: They’ve pushed on into Cobalt Scar. You’ll be getting a mail that’s the call to arms: “Come to Cobalt Scar!” You’ll be able to enter and see what they found. What they’ve realized is that the Awakened Legion had used a section of Cobalt Scar as a staging ground for their attacks upon Skyshrine and, so now you’re going to help in that battle as well.

SmokeJumper: That’s cool. That’s really cool. Of course I know a bunch of the story that’s coming out.

Kaitheel: There is more to that, there’s all kinds of things in Cobalt Scar. One of the things that I think is really cool, that people will really enjoy, is more tugs at the heartstrings. The Othmir back in the Great Divide and in the Eastern wastes are quite the lovable characters and a very endearing storyline.

SmokeJumper: Nipik.

Kaitheel: Nipik. Exactly. At the news that some people had made their way to Cobalt Scar, the Othmir got really excited too because this is the land of their ancestors, this is where they have come from. Nipik had to convince a very few Othmir to go with him away from those lands when he foresaw that something horrible was going to happen — utter destruction. So he said “we have to leave” and many people said “we’re not going to”.

SmokeJumper: So now we’re going back is what you’re saying? Something horrible’s going to happen there (laughter)

Kaitheel: Now they’re on a pilgrimage to go see their ancestral land and hopefully reconnect with their kin. So then Osh goes along with them. Osh was the speaker for Lodizal. He was the grandson if I remember for Nipik. So he gets to have a little (home)coming of his own as well. At the same time you get to see and appreciate even more Nipik’s sacrifice.

SmokeJumper: and that’s all in Cobalt Scar.

Kaitheel: Yeah, it’s like one quarter of Cobalt Scar.

SmokeJumper: We’re not even talking about Siren’s Grotto yet. I know that Siren’s Grotto obviously comes after Cobalt Scar in the story so we can talk about it less cause otherwise your tipping off too much stuff. But is there anything you can talk about Siren’s Grotto right now?

Kaitheel: You should help those sirens those poor defenseless sirens. They really need your help.

SmokeJumper: Mmkay. All right so were going to meet the sirens. That’s one tipoff. Is there anything else that you can mention or should we just skate around that issue for right now?

Gninja: I think you should venture there for yourself and check it out, and help them out if you can. Like he said they really need your help.

SmokeJumper: To recap. We had all this stuff with the Age’s End Prophecy. We know where it’s basically going, or everybody believes that Kerafyrm’s going to destroy the world because he has the power of these swords.

Kander: We sort of know where it’s going. Everyone kind of has their own idea of what Age’s End is, what part the Swords of Destiny are playing in this whole thing, and there are a lot of players that haven’t been identified yet too. So, you know…

SmokeJumper: Is there argument about the end of Age’s End Prophecy? Are there other possibilities that have been talked about?

Kaitheel: I don’t think that have been talked about.

SmokeJumper: Okay but there are other possibilities that we might find out about them later?

Kaitheel: Yes.

SmokeJumper: Interesting.

Gninja: Well obviously what kerafyrm thinks of the Age’s End Prophecy is completely different from what the players think. He doesn’t want to destroy the world because that would destroy him to.

Kaitheel: That’s true. That’s a good point.

SmokeJumper: Okay so we’re at the point really where we can’t keep talking about the lore that we don’t want to reveal, so can you talk instead about why this update will be cool?

Kander: It’s a good-sized update. We have a whole overland zone with lots of quests. We’re doing something different with the overland zone. This is going to be a new thing we’re trying out but essentially it’s an advanced solo overland zone. It’s a little more difficult, it’s a little further up in the progression. You’re encouraged to bring your friends or your mercs to progress through that.

SmokeJumper: My merc is my friend. He likes me.

Kander: Well there you go. You’ve probably developed a really close relationship with him. (laughter) We have new heroic dungeons. We’ve got new advanced solo dungeons. We have a very good-sized new raid that I think people are really going to be excited about. We’re kind of picking up at the end of the progression so the raid’s kind of starting at the end of where normal mode raids ended. There’s going to be some progression and some difficulty.

SmokeJumper: It sounds like people that like challenge should like this update.

Kander: Yes.

Gninja: Well there’s also a big chunk of crafting content.

SmokeJumper: What kind of crafting content?

Kander: We have a pretty good-sized crafting quest line series. I think it’s 20 or 30 quests. It’s going to give some new recipes and some new rewards.

Gninja: New trade skill apprentice items.

SmokeJumper: Oh excellent. Woo hoo. We get that 12 days or less. (laughter)

Gninja: Oh these are 45 days. Totally kidding! Totally kidding!

Kaitheel: I’m gonna hold you to that.

SmokeJumper: Is there anything else that you might want to mention.

Kander: Well we have a lot of the spell and feedback changes that are coming. There’s going to be some class balance. We have lots of new itemization. We didn’t itemize. It’s not going to be like Skyshrine where you went in and everything was new. We limited the amount of slots that you can find upgrades for.

Gninja: It’s not a complete gear reset.

Kander: Right you’re just going to be adding seven or eight slots. We don’t want to make the expansion obsolete. We want to keep the expansion important. We want to keep Skyshrine  important.

SmokeJumper: But you made the zones more challenging so that the gear gets you up a little bit.

Kander: The slots that you are rewarded are definitely upgrades to anything that you had previously. By tier. So if you’re a solo player you’ll absolutely get upgrades. If you’re a heroic player you will definitely receive upgrades. If you’re a raider… yeah. (chuckles around)

Kander: We’ve actually put in something specialr for the raiders. That’s all I’m saying.

SmokeJumper: Nice. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Kaitheel: (to Gninja) You brought up one thing about Siren’s Grotto that you thought would be important to mention right before we started filming this. (to audience) It’s not an underwater zone.

Gninja: Oh yes. I know everybody just wants to fight underwater but we decided to make… It looks like it’s been underwater and drained out. There’s still very much water elements to it but you won’t be fighting underwater.

Kaitheel: It’s still amazing to me how beautiful it is.

Kander: (undertone) I know you’re all really disappointed.

Kaitheel: Fighting underwater!

SmokeJumper: I know there’s one guy out there who’s going Hey! I wanted to fight underwater! (chuckles)

SmokeJumper: I think everyone’s looking forward to the next game update. GU66 is scheduled for April 30. Beta starts April 2. This next Tuesday is when Beta starts. Please help us out, go check it out. The more of you that give us feedback on that kind of thing, the better the release can be when we get to it. So thank you to anyone who wants to help, and for the rest of you I hope you’re looking forward to it. I think that this will be a really good one. Thanks.

Transcripts: What It Takes

It seems there are a number of you out there who appreciate these transcripts of SOE’s Webcast videos.  If you do, I’d certainly like to hear from you as it takes between 2-3 hours to fully transcribe each of these webcasts.  Even though the video is just 20-30 minutes, typing everything outt, including time to rewind and rewatch sections a few times to catch all the meaning of what’s being said really adds up. Also in a live webcast, it’s easy to get tongue-tied or start a thought and then double back and switch to a different idea. Sorting all that out into a readable narrative takes time.

So this week, I tried out Dragon Naturally Speaking to see if this would shorten the process. Once I went through the training session (DNS is tied to one speaker’s voice), and then taught it some vocabulary specific to Norrath, it was about 95% accurate.  I played the webcast on my headphones and then repeated my interpretation of the statements and let DNS type it out for me, going back and correcting things as I went. Next time, I’ll track how long it takes to produce a transcript using the voice recognition and report back how much time it saves.