Feldon
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)?
Year: 2014
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
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Veteran Rewards Corrected an issue that prevented items from being purchasable on the Loyalty Merchant. Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice [Raid] In the Andreis the Culler encounter, the spell “Bone rot” should no longer continue to get stronger after 60 seconds and wear off. Adds in the Andreis the Culler encounter have had their health adjusted. In the Gerid, Merig, and Harin encounter, the spell “Commanding Leadership” has been reduced in damage. Lowered the agro radius on the Aerakyn Recruits for the ring event in the west wing. Lowered melee damage...
From the EQ2 Forums: This is last chance to brave the chilly winter wonderland and save Frostfell if you haven’t. Spend your Frozen tokens to stock up on decorating items or grab one of the other unique items available on the vendor but do it soon!
From Kyle “Kander” Vallée on the EQ2 Forums: We are opening a new area here on the forums for the sole purpose of getting raid feedback quickly and easily in order to assist us to make changes, tweaks quicker and more effectively and vastly improve future raid content. This area will be by invite only and will be for raid leaders and raiders who are participating in the upper echelon of raid content. This is area will be a direct link to the development team. We want it to feel open and constructive. The goal is to have a limited...
From SOE President John Smedley‘s twitter: We have decided to treat krono and our prepaid cards exactly like a recurring sub in terms of benefits. — John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 8, 2014
SOE has tried to turn the other cheek on Multi-boxing, but players have been turning up the automation of these bot-controlled characters to 11, with armies of computer-controlled characters performing a level of interaction that can only be described as “fully automated gameplay”. There was an exploit being taken advantage of by a top guild. Kander has posted this announcement that continuing to use this exploit will not be tolerated on the EQ2 Forums: Using 3rd party programs to get character ID’s for use in macros is not okay. Due to the holidays, we were unable to address this in a timely...
Shining Red Gemstones, the gems required to upgrade the Tears of Veeshan tier 1 raid gear, are very hard to come by. However the EQ2 team have shied away from making them drop more frequently, likely due to their conversion to purple gemstones. Today, a solution has been announced by Kyle “Kander” Vallée on the EQ2 Forums: Coming soon, we will be issuing Fractured Red Gemstones for raid gear that will be purchasable with Draconic Etyma and Craft-able for a lesser amount Draconic Etyma. These will be heirloom and they will NOT be usable to create Mystical Purple Gemstones. Mystical...
SOE President John Smedley continues to peel back the curtain on the thinking behind Subscriptiongate and why he is trying to make this right for loyal customers, while addressing the Accounting and Tax Law issues which SOE could ignore no longer. First up, Smed posted his philosophy on game development and how these Subscription changes were never about squeezing players for more revenue: When I read through all the posts here and on our forums, it never ceases to amaze me how people can think we’re just money grubbing jerks because we’re trying to make money. I can tell you...
From Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson‘s twitter last night: We have a new content strategy for EQ & EQII. Addresses much feedback you’ve given. I’ll do a DoD letter soon. You tell us how it sounds! — David Georgeson (@DaveGeorgeson) January 7, 2014 This could literally be anything.
Last Friday, SOE announced changes to their Subscription services, replacing the 500 SC/month allowance for having a Gold Subscription in any of SOE’s games with a monthly voucher to buy ONE item per game, up to 2,000SC, to exclude Player Studio, “bundles“, and an unknown array of other items, presumably “Services“, Experience items (280AA bauble), and expansion unlocks like Mercenaries. Players who buy a number of 100-200SC items would have lost out with the deal, as the voucher only applied to a single item with exclusions. And while it’s a small pool of players, Vanguard players on an All Access subscription...
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Veteran Merchant Added new items to both Veteran merchants; including several items that require gold membership to purchase. Vesspyr Isles Zaszea’s Armor Exchange will now correctly return a Cryptic Bracers Token when used on Cryptic Hive Aggressor’s Chain Bracers. Cryptic Hammer Slammer Gauntlets now correctly require Cryptic Glove Token’s to purchase. PVP Completing Cleansing the Good (Level 90) will now correctly update the quest Learning the Path. TRADESKILLS Recipes from Advanced Armorer Volume 90 should now accept refined primary components. Summon Artisan’s Gathering Goblin should no longer revert to a 12...
After last week’s changes to Gold Subscriptions for EverQuest, EverQuest II, DCUO, PlanetSide 2, and All Access passes were announced, I was certain that regardless of how much player feedback came out against the changes, little would change. After 6 years, I guess I can still be surprised by Sony Online Entertainment. Just over 1 hour ago, SOE President John Smedley took to Reddit (once again bypassing the forums), to announce the restoration of the monthly 500SC stipend, AND some remarkable changes to All Access. This not only gives us back everything we asked for, but goes to the...
SOE President John Smedley has taken to his favorite “bypass the Marketing/PR Machine” venue Reddit and posted some personal thoughts on the Subscription changes recently announced for EverQuest, EverQuest II, Planetside 2, DCUO, and all of SOE’s games under the All Access umbrella. It’s written from a PlanetSide 2 angle, but it is applicable to EQ2 as well. From Reddit: Hello everyone, I hope you all had a Happy New Year! we’re here back working hard to make cool stuff. I wanted to give a little more insight into our thinking regarding the changes to the upcoming subscription plan....
Massively‘s MJ Guthrie has checked in with her thoughts on SOE’s announced removal of 500 StationCash/month allowance for Gold subscribers to its games: While I had another, happier topic all ready to ring in the new year, SOE surprised us with a questionable decision this week that I felt necessitated an immediate response. So today we’ll focus on this hot topic instead: All change is not good. And SOE’s announced change in membership benefits for EverQuest II is really not good. Previously, with the removal of the remaining free-to-play restrictions, EQII subscribers saw their benefits whittle down to essentially a buff to mount speed...
When Fabled and Mythical versions of the Channeler Epic Weapon were discovered, players couldn’t help notice a passing resemblance to existing drops from the Temple of Veeshan Labs group instance and the Pirate Kings raid zone: Channeler Fabled: Spiritbreaker ToV Labs Bow: Wurm Sinew Strung Bow Channeler Mythical: Spiritbreaker, Eianosheoll’s Folly Pirate Kings Bow: Hullpiercer, Ship Destroyer The main differentiator between the Mythical and its more common drop is a 15% higher damage rating, and it seems that the Fabled epic was supposed to have a similarly boosted rating. Further, the two level 80 buffs for completing the Mythical quest, bringing the questline up...
Players have received an e-mail which elaborates on today’s contentious announcement that the 500SC/month allowance will be going away for recurring Gold and All Access customers: CUSTOMER SERVICE NOTIFICATION Dear EverQuest II Gold Member, We regularly evaluate our offerings at SOE to ensure we are consistently delivering great games and products, while also offering exceptional value to our players. Given that we just started a new year it seemed like the perfect time to add more value! The week of February 3rd, 2014 we will be making a very important change to Gold Membership in EverQuest II. The current...
An announcement intended for tomorrow morning briefly appeared in the EQ2 Forums RSS feed and then vanished, however a few players brought it to our attention. As you likely know, EverQuest II Gold and SOE All Access accounts currently receive a monthly allowance of 500 StationCash. Starting the first week of February 2014, in lieu of this StationCash allotment, all recurring Gold and All Access customers will be able to login to EverQuest II and buy one item (up to a value of 2,000SC) per month for FREE. If you are All Access, you’ll also be able to login to EQ, Planetside...
UPDATE: The DDoS attack has ceased, and all SOE websites and game services are now coming back online. Players have reported logging into EQ2 successfully. As of 6:00pm EST, all SOE websites and forums seem to be offline and are now returning a Maintenance message. In addition, all SOE game servers, including PlanetSide 2, DCUO, EQ and EQ2 are offline and inaccessible. A DDoS hacker group have taken responsibility on twitter. In past days, they took down: EVE Online World of Warcraft Battle.net Guild Wars 2 Skype NOTE: This was NOT a hack, and customer data has NOT been...
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