Feldon
From Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson on the EQ2 Forums: Hail, Fellow Norrathians! We’d like to talk to you about how we’re delivering new adventures and new features into your worlds in both EQ and EQII. We’ve listened to you on the forums, across social media, and face-to-face at our many events. There have been some common topics that come up about the things you like and don’t like with what we’ve been doing, and we’re using that information to customize our new direction.
Month: January 2014
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice Corrected an issue that would occasionally prevent Tavekalem’s buff, Relentless, from decrementing to zero and wearing off. Added messaging explaining the bloodlust ability for Harin, Merig, and Gerid. Harin, Merig, and Gerid should give slightly longer time to react to their bloodlust ability. In the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter “Bloodlust” has been made more damaging. In the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter “Advanced Tactics” should no longer be quite as damaging. Orbs of Lethality in the Harin, Merig, and Gerid encounter should no longer require...
The in-game petition system, which uses the in-game browser to display a currently offline website, is not the only way to open a petition. Simply login to SOE.com under Support and Create a Support Ticket.
“Is nothing sacred?” In an unexpected (and undocumented) change today, it appears that players are now receiving Veteran Rewards from their account’s opening date, rather than actual time played as it has been calculated for many years now. This means that players who rolled a character in November 2004 and have not played a lick since may stand up and be counted along with those who have been actively supporting the game for 10 years, dutifully paying a monthly subscription. It’s a puzzling change to be sure, and the motivation may have been a genuine hope to attract returning...
SOE President John Smedley skipped SOE’s traditional communication streams and took to Reddit tonight to participate in one of their popular Ask Me Anything livechats to answer candid questions about today’s announcements about All Access, the sunsetting of four SOE games, and more. When asked what we can expect from SOE this year, we got: Everquest Next Landmark will launch…. we have expansions for EQ and EQ2 and an unannounced MMO that we’re working on. Wait… what? A new MMO? completely new IP. The data is on the interwebs.. someone just has to find it. SWG PLAYERS – OUR...
The Sony Online Entertainment belt-tightening continues, with the announced shuttering of the following games: FreeRealms – March 31, 2014 Clone Wars Adventures – March 31, 2014 Wizardry Online – July 31, 2014 Vanguard – July 31, 2014 As Clone Wars and Wizardry Online were the intellectual property of other companies, LucasArts (since purchased by Disney) and Gamepot respectively, so there may have been some contractual reason for these games to end. Also, the Clone Wars show went off the air this year. Vanguard has a long troubled history that included substance abuse, parking lot firings, and copious drama which...
As we found out recently, SOE is making all of their customers who currently have a Gold membership, through credit card, Krono, or game cards, into All Access customers. Players will be able to login to their favorite game once per month and claim 500SC for being loyal subscribers, as well as enjoying a 10% flat discount in all Marketplace prices. Finally, All Access customers will be able to access all of SOE’s games including DC Universe Online (PC), PlanetSide 2 (PC), EverQuest, EverQuest II, Dragon’s Prophet, EQN Landmark, and EQNext when it launches in 2015. NOTE: The upcoming changes...
From EQ2 Forums: Although Erudites are known for their magical talents, not all would use their powers for good. Many years ago, a group of Erudites began to study necromancy in secret, led by the great mage El’Arad. He and his followers, the Quellithulians, were denounced by the other Erudites as heretics, and their activities would eventually lead to a bitter civil war. El’Arad specialized in teleportation, and he was responsible for the construction of the Ulterian Spires throughout Norrath. In his experiments, he discovered the Overrealm and made a deal with the dragons: in exchange for destroying the...
From the EQ2 Forums: NEW FABLED ZONES Contested The Fabled Sanctum of the Scaleborn Group The Fabled Den of the Devourer The Fabled Halls of Fate The Fabled Vaults of El’Arad Raid The Fabled Laboratory of Lord Vyemm The Fabled Mutagenic Outcast The Fabled Three Princes GENERAL Updated sorting order of the Guild Event Filters in the guild window. A “Reset All” button has been added to the Persistent Instances tab of the Zones window.
Looks like today’s press embargo dropped around 1:30pm EST as ZAM, Massively, MMORPG, and a number of other sites dropped their articles about what we can expect from EverQuest and EverQuest II in the first 3 months of 2014, as well as a pointlessly brief tease of EQNext Landmark. Despite being just NINE days from SOE President John Smedley’s self-imposed “end of January” deadline for EQNL Alpha to begin, the team remains coy about what the actual day will be. We’re banking on January 31st, which is also the day when hundreds of players will fly in from around...
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale recorded (along with the Producers for EverQuest and EverQuest Next Landmark) a video talking about upcoming features this year. After the jump, our bullet-point list of what Holly talked about.
SOE writer Erin Oakley talks about the fabled version of the Den of the Devourer, which will offer level 95 rewards relevant to players in Tears of Veeshan content. The Kingdom of Sky fabled zones all go live tomorrow, January 23rd. From the EQ2 Forums: You may remember the shadowy floating isles of the Bonemire and the ancient halls of the Den of the Devourer which teem with Ravasects. These giant insects made their home in the Overrealm after the barrier between Norrath and the Plane of Air weakened. The Ravasect are intelligent, but their primary objectives are to...
From the EQ2 Forums: The minions of Lord Vyemm call the Halls of Fate their home. This fortress is one of the most important places to The Awakened. As such, the Halls of Fate and the treasures within these walls are guarded diligently. Within the walls of this massive fortress, the Doomwing Legion toils to create draconic weapons. Hidden within the laboratories of this dungeon, you may find the secrets behind the creation process of the weapons. But beware! Dragons do not respond well to intruders! The Fabled version of the Halls of Fate dungeon becomes available to players...
Aspiring graphic artists who happen to live outside the USA have been stymied by SOE’s regional restrictions on Player Studio. It’s our understanding that tax and accounting laws have so far kept the program from opening up to other countries. With Player Studio being a core part of the upcoming EQNext (sources pointing to a 2015 nod) and EQNext Landmark (going Alpha this month and in wide release sometime in April), it seems that a corner may have been turned and PlayerStudio availability in the EU may be on the horizon. As a happy side benefit, this will hopefully open...
From the EQ2 Forums: Is your Vitality in the dumps? Low XP gain keeping your character from enjoying Norrath? Don’t settle for normal speed progression! This weekend only, take advantage of 30% off Services* and Potions to ensure your character receives nothing but the very best! This sale will begin at 12:00 PM PT, January 17th and be available until 11:59 PM PT, January 20th. * Heroic Characters and 280 AA Bauble not included What’s On Sale? Character Slots Reforging Uses (you can use Plat or SC any time you reforge your stats) XP Debt Removers XP Potions Vitality...
From the EQ2 Forums: All EU servers will be unavailable for a very important technical (database) maintenance on January 22nd beginning at 2:00 AM CET (5 PM PT January 21st). Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 12 hours. There are no gameplay changes associated with this maintenance Time Zone Conversions PST: Jan 21 @ 5:00pm ~ Jan 22 @ 5:00am CST: Jan 21 @ 8:00pm ~ Jan 22 @ 8:00am GMT: Jan 22 @ 1:00 ~ Jan 22 @ 13:00 CET: Jan 22 @ 2:00 ~ Jan 22 @ 14:00 AEST: Jan 22 @ 10:00am ~ Jan 22 @...
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Stratum of the Protector Shazzak no longer spawns multiple copies of himself when he transitions from the Fragment phase. If you want a giggle, read this thread explaining why this update was necessary.
From Kyle “Kander” Vallee on the EQ2 Forums: We are working on some changes to pvp that will be coming up over the next few weeks. We will be removing procs from pvp entirely. We simply cannot tweak and balance the thousands of procs and effects that were intended for PvE in any sort of reasonable amount of time, most of them are too specialized and situational to elegantly translate for use in PvP. We had them mostly removed prior to the expansion and things seemed to be okay from that standpoint. We will be upping player damage and...
From the EQ2 Forums: MERCENARIES In response to player feedback, we have revised the Mercenary user interface in the Character panel to add summon/suspend functionality and clarify the features overall. As a reminder, mercenaries (normal and rare) may be resummoned after 60 seconds from when they were last suspended. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Vesspyr Isles Fixed an issue that was preventing Draazak from being spawned when the correct items were turned in. The red shinies on Aeterna Gardens have been moved a bit further away from Wuoshi. Underfoot Depths Regulus and Regulas should no longer reset a few seconds...
E-mailing a Producer or Executive Producer on your favorite game is like a box of chocolates. You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. A player named “Pawder” reached out to Director of Development for the EverQuest Franchise Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson and hit the motherlode. Here’s the entirety of Dave’s e-mail as posted on the EQ2 Forums: Hey there, Steve, I had to do some research on this before I could respond accurately, but here goes. Firstly, I’d just like to say that we like PvP also. You may or may not know, but I helped create the original...
From the EQ2 Forums: Starting Thursday, January 23, 2014 EverQuest II players can experience the Kingdom of Sky zone, Sanctum of the Scaleborn, as a Fabled dungeon. This means that this contested dungeon will return as a place where the highest level players can explore and defeat the challenges for level appropriate loot. Are you prepared to do battle with the fanatical Awakened (again)?
On December 18th, I announced our Forum Signature Design Contest which would allow players to submit artwork and designs for EQ2U-driven signatures which players can post on the EQ2 forums, guild forums, and anywhere else they choose. Here we are 4 weeks later, and I’m happy to announce the winners of the contest. First up, Ainaree of Antonia Bayle submitted the winning entry which you can view below: I really liked how clean and easy it is to read, with great use of the headshot imagery, and good display of both adventure and crafter classes and levels. Next up, Ajiope submitted...
Last month, we introduced a Known Recipes and Recipe Books feature, however it was lacking the some optimization and was affecting the overall performance of the site, so we temporarily took the feature offline. I’m thrilled to announce that not only have we completed the optimization and restored these features, but we have also added full support for Recipes throughout EQ2U, including Recipe Search and Recipe Details! Search for Recipes at EQ2U! If you have not read it, please read our past article: Crack the Books with Recipes on EQ2U after the jump, our EQ2U Recipes FAQ…
For last week’s Distributed Denial of Service attacks which took down League of Legends, Battle.net, Steam, Origin, and yes Sony Online Entertainment, “miscreants…used a never-before-seen technique that vastly amplified the amount of junk traffic directed at denial-of-service targets.” From Ars Technica: Rather than directly flooding the targeted services with torrents of data, an attack group sent much smaller sized data requests to time-synchronization servers running theNetwork Time Protocol (NTP). By manipulating the requests to make them appear as if they originated from one of the gaming sites, the attackers were able to vastly amplify the firepower at their disposal. A spoofed...
NOTE: No EQ2 News. Just a little bit of cross-promotion of EQNWire. EQNWire.com has checked in today with a speculative critique of the upcoming EQNext Landmark and its all-encompassing implementation of Player Studio. According to PC Gamer’s recent interview with Dave Georgeson, SOE will be looking to recoup its staggering development investment in EQNext as soon as servers are up. But if a price tag can be put on everything players create, will an in-game economy have any chance against players flush with cash? Op Ed: Will Monetizing Everything Leave Room for an In-Game Economy for EQNL? @ EQNWire