Feldon 
EQ2 Programmer Maevianiu has been working over the last few months on some significant performance tweaks to the EQ2 client and server, including at least one change that touched 10 year old code. As a part-time semi-amateur coder, that scares me deeply. So I’m gonna say it’s uberimportant that players login to Beta and test everything out to make sure these changes don’t impact any existing systems. It won’t just be a testing session though as it looks like there’s going to be quite a turnout of EQ2 devs on the Beta server today!
From Maevianiu:
We have our first round of performance increases on Beta right now. There are more coming, but this first round we want to do some load testing and get it out to live as quickly as we can. This affects every aspect of the game: quests, tradeskilling, items, combat, pvp-combat even housing. So we need to test as many different things as possible.
Please join us on the Beta server, Wednesday, August 27th starting at 3PM and going on until whenever!
Gninja is promising Punch and pie!
and:
[These changes haven’t] really had any stress/load testing done on it yet would like to throw a lot of people at it before promoting to live.One thing I would like to do is get a LOT of people into Vesspyr Isles. Its a high load zone as it has people adventuring, zoning, brokering, etc. We also have a memory issue with it on live right now that should be fixed on beta and I want to make sure that is working right as well.
Level-Agnostic Dungeons
Endymion invited people out to test level-agnostic dungeons:
We’d love to get some people together to do level agnostic dungeons! You need to be between 20 and 89 to run them; you can create a heroic character or bring over an existing one.
Any activity at all is of course appreciated, as well.
Maevianiu replied:
We could test the level agnostic dungeons with low level characters. Kinda kill two birds with one stone on that. And thats what I’ll be doing myself. that is for anyone level 20 to 89.
and:
Both crafting and level agnostic dungeons would be great.
Jamiss chipped in:
I can definitely say that internal testing of the level agnostic dungeons has been very fun so get in there and do some!
Getting to Beta!
How do you try out Beta without patching for 14 hours? Do you have to sign an NDA? Do you have to sacrifice a kitten? Find out in our Beta Guide here. Just ignore the part about it being Chains of Eternity beta!
And no, you don’t have to sacrifice a kitten.
There was zero punch and pie. 🙁
Someone send me pie (or other baked goods) or I’ll be a sad dev!
If you’re in Sweden, I can bake you a strawberry and cream gateau, otherwise there’s not much I can do =P
Just looked up a picture of what that is; be right there!
How has this testing gone thus far? I don’t think I’ve heard anything…
Heard the Level Agnostic dungeons are pretty awesome. The quest for completing one grants 10 Draconic Etyma, which is uber.
I like the whole concept. Level 1-89 has become such a colossal waste of time just as far as every mob even heroics dies in 1 shot, the rewards can’t equal mastercrafted, and everything you earn becomes useless in 6-8 levels. The idea that you level up and at the end of your leveling, you can spend a few tokens to gear up your character with gems and adornments sounds like what it should be. Sorta how some of the epic weapon quests require you to have done a few key level 20-70 quests.