Feldon
From EQ/EQ2 Creative Director Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: The Pygmies of the Tranquil Sea lived their lives not knowing that they shared their island with a subterranean threat. Deep underneath Dshinn live the lizardkin tribe, Allu’thoa. Using their magic to control the flows of magma, the Allu’thoa carved out their home, a below-ground labyrinth known as Zavith’loa. Worshipping their enigmatic god of lava and prophecy, the Allu’thoa lived for millennia sequestered from the world above.
Year: 2014
On September 23rd, a new Adornment UI was added to EQ2 which presents a list of items that adornments can be applied to, rather than allowing you to apply adornments directly to the equipment tab. The new interface has not been universally liked: New Adornment Window Disable New Adornment Window New Adornment System Can we have a toggle option, please? (new adorn window) For those who dislike the new window, we have news from EQ2 Buildmaster Bunji that the new Adornment window will become optional: I’ll add an option that allows you to default back to old manual select style. But...
Character Spell Lists Now Support Grandmasters We’re happy to announce that EQ2U has been updated to fully support Grandmaster spells and combat arts. First up, Character Spell lists now support Grandmaster level for every spell, while still distinguishing between character choices and those spells which must be researched or crafted. NOTE: There are approximately one dozen spells game-wide which will not be offered in Grandmaster quality. Please post here in the comments or e-mail us so we can add them to our Grandmaster exclusion list. EQ2U Recipe Database Updated We have also loaded nearly 5,000 new Recipes into our...
The US-based EQ2 servers are now back up and running with the Grandmaster issues supposedly patched. EU servers will patch early tomorrow morning their time. Original article after the jump…
From the SOE Forums: We will perform account and commerce maintenance beginning at 6:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, October 8, 2014. We expect this maintenance to take less than two hours. Actual downtime for services should only last 15-20 minutes within this maintenance window. This will impact the following SOE services: Account management Commerce functions, including purchases Game, web and forum logins Time Zone Conversions PDT: October 8 @ 6:00am-8:00am EDT: October 8 @ 9:00am-11:00am BST: October 8 @ 14:00-16:00 GMT: October 8 @ 15:00-17:00 AEST: October 8 @ 11:00pm-1:00am
UPDATE: Servers have all been patched and the issues in this article have been resolved. Click through to read the original article…
At 7:00am PDT (15:00 BST / 16:00 CET), players on Storms, Splitpaw, and Valor noticed that their servers had not come down for today’s update. An hour later they still had not come down and Afista provided this update when asked if EU would patch at the same time as US: These are the correct scheduled server down times for each server. I am looking into why there was a delay and will update you all whenever I have the information. Two hours in, Windstalker tweeted this: @BabaGraPL @everquestii we didn’t forget. The patch is taking a longer time...
On/behind/ahead of/who knows schedule, the Altar of Malice beta is now up and running for ALL ACCESS members. How Do I Get to Beta? There is no Non-Disclosure Agreement to accept this year, and no separate Beta launcher to run. To access the Altar of Malice beta, simply close and reopen your EverQuest II Launcher, click on the Version link in the top left corner (US English for US players), switch the region to “Beta“, click Apply, and let the patching begin! Copying characters from live to beta is really easy now. Instead of typing /beta on the live server...
UPDATE from Afista on the EQ2 Forums: These are the correct scheduled server down times for each server. I am looking into why there was a delay and will update you all whenever I have the information. ALL servers are supposed to be patching at the same time. Here’s the announcement from the EQ2 Forums: All US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. Estimated downtime is 1 hour. All EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. (3:00 PM London Time). Estimated downtime is 2...
Members of the EverQuest II Art team including EQ2 Art Director Tim “Hoahmaru” Heydelaar, Dave “Covic” Brown, Tom “Ttobey” Tobey, and Chris “Phatkins” Atkins talk about the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion, and give us a look behind-the-scenes with concept art, clips and stills. Recorded live on August 17 2014 at SOE Live. Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nevada. Video edited and produced by EQ2Wire.
Have you been missing x4 Etyma currency (x2 for F2P) ever since this summer’s “Level Up, Gear Up” promotion ended? You’re not the only one… From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Tomorrow at 12pm PDT we start our Get Ready for 100 bonuses! For members, includes 25% XP (AA/Adv/TS) & 4x Etyma. F2P get 2x Etyma. #EQ2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 6, 2014 Also: Also starting tomorrow until the new expansion, all 2014 Summer Ethereals (Weapons & Jewelry) have a chance to drop in ToV Missions. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 6, 2014
Since September 24th, some 57 players of SOE games have contributed a whopping $3,920 for Extra Life. There’s still time to donate, and you can choose whose name you are donating for. From the SOE forums: On October 25th, Team SOE will join thousands of gamers to share the joy of gaming, be it online, board games, LARP-ing, or whatever. Together, we will raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network charity as part of Extra Life’s annual 24-hour gaming marathon. All proceeds donated will go to the local hospital of each team member! Why are we doing this? Our team is on a mission...
By Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: Many years ago, while lost in a storm on the Tranquil Seas, the Brokenskull Pirates came upon an uncharted island. The pirates found a secluded cavern to the leeward side of the island to weather the storm. When the seas calmed, they set out to explore the new land, hoping to make a permanent port in the bay that protected them from the storm. Instead they found the urzarach, a sentient race of creatures that are part bear and part spider, who claimed the land as their own. Continue reading after...
From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings Norrathians! Have you been eyeballing some of those awesome status items on the city merchants? Are you running low on status upkeep for guild halls and need to restock the escrow? Get ready to refill your status, because it’s time for a double status weekend! All-Access Members will earn double personal status beginning tomorrow, Friday, October 3rd at 12:00pm PDT. This double status will end Monday, October 6 at 11:59pm PDT, so make sure you take advantage of it before it’s too late! We want to know what you enjoy most in Norrath....
And here we were making sure that EQ2U was ready for Grandmasters tomorrow… From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Update delayed to Tuesday. 8( We're working hard to make it clean and shiny. We found gnarly bugs today that we don't want to give you. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 1, 2014
The first five level-agnostic dungeons, open to level 20-89 players, as well as the availability of Grandmaster spells at all levels and tiers, is expected this Thursday. Racheal “Afista“ has posted an in-depth preview of what we can expect on the EQ2 Forums: We’re excited about Level Agnostic Dungeons and Grandmaster Spells coming to EverQuest 2 on Thursday, October 2, 2014! So what exactly are these dungeons and why should you check them out? Level Agnostic Dungeons Level Agnostic Dungeons are instances in which characters between levels 20-89 have a chance to group together, regardless of the difference in their...
Over the last couple of days, players have noticed their game client taking screenshots of certain Achievements and other in-game activities. It looks like this was an in-development feature which slipped to live a bit prematurely. From Dave “Maevianiu” Kish on the EQ2 Forums: Oh snap! This one is my fault. It got “pulled along for the ride” with the performance increases. It wasn’t ready for live and I’m personally sorry for this one. This feature isn’t finished yet, so I’ll be turning it off with the next hotfix. I am very sorry for it sneaking out like this,...
From the EQ2 Forums: Attention players: we will perform maintenance beginning at 7:00 AM PDT* on Thursday, September 25, 2014. We expect this maintenance to last about two hours. This will impact the following SOE services: Game servers may sporadically lose connection across all games Commerce functions, including purchases for all games Game, web and forum logins for all games Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance. Time Zone Conversions PDT: September 25 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am EDT: September 25 @ 9:00am ~ 11:00am BST: September 25 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00 CET: September 25 @ 18:00 ~ 19:00 AEST:...
Performance This Tuesday’s update to EQ2 included quite a few tweaks to the EQ2 game client which have produced a substantial upgrade in framerates and overall performance for many players including myself. I have to give a round of applause to Dave “Maevianiu” Kish and others on the EQ2 code side who have worked the last few months to get these changes done. I was personally able to bump up one quality setting and my framerate still increased from 20’s to a steady 45-50. So… There are a few players who have been hung up on these changes though....
It’s time for another zone preview from this fall’s expansion Altar of Malice, this time the overland Phantom Sea. From Nathan “Kaitheel“ on the EQ2 Forums: Unswayed in their quest to find Captain Greymast, the heroes sent by the Overlord of Freeport and by the benevolent Queen of Qeynos, arrive in the Phantom Sea, a body of water peppered with mysterious islands that have not been seen by eyes outside of the Far Seas Trading Company since the Age of Cataclysms. The island of North Dshinn shares a great many commonalities with its southern sister in Tranquil Sea, but...
From the EQ2 Forums: PERFORMANCE UPDATES We don’t want to get into too much detail, but overall we updated some very old libraries to bring EQII up to date. We also updated memory management, fixed some memory leaks as a result, and made some other code changes that look to be improving server performance. Here’re a few notes to give you a bit more detail: Improved client performance on maximum settings. Additionally, altered the “Extreme Quality” defaults to look and run better on higher end machines. This means that non-raiders who do quests, decorate houses, heroic dungeons (without oceans...
From Racheal “Afista” on the EQ2 Forums: We are excited to announce that the game update on September 23rd will include code updates to improve performance on servers as well as player clients! What does this round of updates hold in store for you? These changes will help game performance, whether you enjoy adventuring, tradeskilling, or decorating. Improved Graphical Performance Improved client performance on maximum settings, including “Extreme Quality” Utilized SSE and SSE2 instruction sets Improved how the Welcome window is sent to clients Improved Functionality Improved how the server calculates stats during combat (more to come!) Several improvements...
From master of live events and senior designer Nathan “Kaitheel“, we have our first zone preview for the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion. And before anyone asks, this is NOT repurposed zone geometry, but an entirely new continent developed with the new Terrain Tool. Long had the Far Seas Trading Company provided Norrath’s displaced citizens a place of refuge, an island where they found respite from the chaos of the Shattered Seas, before being transported to the last great cities of Freeport and Qeynos. But strange tidings came and without another word, the seafaring merchants stopped honoring the Pact...
Sometimes life comes at you fast! On September 10th, Linda “Brasse” Carlson posted a remote position opening to work on EQ and EQ2 Community in a very public support role (through a contractor). On the 15th she announced that Racheal “Afista“, well known to crafters and decorators in the EQ2 world for her EQ2DesignGallery.com site and involvement in the EQ2 forums, as well as part-time writer for EQ2 ZAM, had gotten the position. Today, she introduced herself on the EQ2 Forums: Fellow Norrathians, I’m Racheal “Afista” McKenny and I’ll be joining the SOE Community Team working with EQII. Some...
Dethdlr
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale announced today on twitter: We’re going to have a Double XP weekend for members this Friday at noon to Sunday midnight PDT! Wee! Update: Windstalker confirmed that this is for Adventure and Tradeskill, but not Guild XP. Time Zone Conversions PDT: Friday, Sep 19 @ Noon ~ Sun, Sep 21 @ 11:59pm (+ 1 minute) EDT: Friday, Sep 19 @3:00pm ~ Monday, Sep 22 @ 2:59am BST: Friday, Sep 19 @20:00 ~ Monday, Sep 22 @ 7:59 CET: Friday, Sep 19 @21:00 ~ Monday, Sep 22 @ 8:59 AEST: Saturday, Sep 20 @ 5:00am ~ Monday, Sep 22 @ 4:59pm