Feldon From EverQuest2.com:
Hello, Norrathians!
We’re incredibly glad to have our worlds back online again and we really appreciate you all being so patient with us while we strengthened the castle walls.
It’s been quite odd working on the game without it running. We’re glad you’re back!
So, you’re probably wondering, “What has your Dev Team been doing for the last couple of weeks?”
Here’s a small list of things that happened during that time:
- Figured out the Fan Faire panel details. The “New Stuff” panel is going to be a heck of a show this year, I think.
- Continued brainstorming on a major new feature set (which we intend to unveil at Fan Faire.)
- Detailed out the mechanics change plan for the coming year (we’ll be sharing these plans with you soon and think you will really like what we have in store.)
- Worked out a very cool set of tradeskilling quest changes to make those more interesting.
- Made a quick UI change to the AA trees so that unavailable abilities are greyed out. (Kind of a “no duh” change, but it’s nice.)
- Freeport artwork concepting has been going well and the first architecture changes have started.
- And of course, there’s a lot more, but details will roll out as we get closer to their release.
Because of the outage, we’re going to bump the release of “The Children of War” (GU 60) out a couple weeks so that it can soak for longer on the Test server and we can get the original amount of player feedback we had planned. It’ll likely be the end of the month for the new release instead of mid-month. But that release will have a big chunk of stuff in it, including new dungeons, new raids, big PvP rules improvements as well as a new Battleground and a new BG game type!
We hope you also enjoy the “Welcome Back” package of stuff we’ve turned on this week, scheduled to run through May 22, 2011. All the city festivals, the Aether Races, the Moonlight Enchantments, Double XP on everything, even granting a month’s free house rent to everyone and ensuring no time was lost on duration quests…they’re all a big “thank you” for being so patient.
Welcome back!
— Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson
Actually work on the game at all??
Maybe it’s just the lighting, or maybe my memory’s just bad, but it looks like SJ got a tan during the downtime. 😛
Did I miss the Station Cash sale? Not that I have any to spend but might have been interested in transfer tokens. It was supposed to start on 17th right? I have checked back with Everquest2.com but can’t see anything there 🙁
Mechanics changes + new stuff sound very interesting, and also very reassuring too that they’re not being made-up-as-we-go like I have a suspicion went on a little during other tenures 🙂
And a letter like this is just perfect, I hope these roll out every so often.
I like Thom Terrazas’s Welcome back for EQ1 better. It seems more professional. Especially the picture used. Yea we know they are both gamers, but they are representing a company here. Step away from the arcade and comb your hair. lol
mechanics changes = remove all skills but heal for priest, backstab for scouts, taunt for fighters, and spell for mages.
Ya, no one likes to hear about changes to the mechanics. Generally, they tend to make the game simpler, to appeal to a wider range of morons.
The sales a waste. Dont waste SC on it.
I’m looking forward to being able to log in hit auto play and go watch tv. Totally immersive and awe inspiring.
Well tbh I won’t be touching any of the sale apart from the transfer tokens and extra character slot thingies as I said above. Not as cheap as I might have hoped for but a discount is a discount 🙂
Carrot and donkey tactics again. Pay attention to our epic failure…look at this vague promise for the future!
So basically you worked on nothing, and only change from before downtime is delay in GU60.
woop, woop!
Hate to say it, but my wife and I are having great fun playing LOTRO. We had enough over the last few weeks as well as in the past. I’d like to see someone bounce his head off that screen.
Well the only problem I had with all of this is we were down for 2 weeks and they only give us week worth of goodies. Am I not the only one who thinks we should have gotten two weeks of goodies considering the downtime.
Just saying I felt they cheeped out on us.
Now I am wondering about the engine changes and all. I hope they don’t give us a nge. I like the way my game plays.
Suggestion! Make a double xp potion that lasts a day or whatever for station market! For the time we are not getting server double xp days!