Feldon
Although there are many things we can do on our end to reduce poor performance when playing EQ2, Public Quests have really pushed things to the limit both on the client and AND the server end. Especially in Storm Gorge which has some 60 combatants in the highest difficulty setting. In the past, there have been some tit-for-tat arguments about people’s slow computers vs. issues on the EQ2 servers themselves. While there is a lot players can do to reduce graphics performance aka “client lag”, it is up to the EQ2 devs to tackle any issues on the SOE...
Feldon
As you may know, in Destiny of Velious, certain dungeons reduce your Critical Chance by a fixed amount. You thus need to go over 100% just to reach 100% critical chance. Thanks to Buffrat for collecting this information and posting it on EQ2Flames. You need the following crit chance in velious to crit 100%: Estimated Crit Numbers: Heroic Tower of Frozen Shadow (ToFS) Zones – 150% Crit Heroic Kraytoc Zones – 150% Crit Heroic Kael Drakkel (KD) Zones – 200% Crit
From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums: Brewday 2011 has been activated on both Test and Test Copy. Grab a stein and celebrate Brewday! The shouts of rowdy patrons located near every player city will lead you to The Bar of Brell where adventures and crafts await those thirsty and foolhardy enough to enter. Meanwhile, the Avatar of Below has returned to Antonica. Help him find the best sampling of drinks from all around. And as you’re crawling through the bars and drinking holes throughout Norrath, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special items of interest to collect!...
A topic is raging on the EQ2 Forums about PvP and Flying Mounts. Rothgar has waded hip-deep into this one, asking for player feedback. Rothgar posted this: If we changed it so that players have a chance to knock other players off their mount, would that alleviate some of the issues? I realize it probably doesn’t solve the entire issue, but perhaps its a move in the right direction. A player responded: Please no knee jerk reactions like just giving people the ability to knock others from the sky. Those that cannot melee, bow shoot, or bring mage pets...
Great news if you have been running Public Quests and been rather puzzled at Legendary (or Fabled) gear with Yellow adornment slots, yet receiving Red adornments (which only go on Raid gear). Now, you will get a select window/choice for Yellow or Red, and it’s based on archetype. After the jump, your update notes for March 4, 2011:
Today’s Update Notes fix a variety of quest and zone issues, as well as some issues with Public Quests, not to mention a fix for the quest Ominous Hints and the Twins in Thurgadin. The detailed Update Notes for March 3, 2011 after the jump…
We heard about this in Beta, but Windslasher intends to add more Public Quests in future updates, possibly even to older zones. From the EQ2 Forums: The Eastern Wastes public quests were pulled from the expansion for use in game updates. I can’t reveal what I’ve created for Pit of the Awakened yet. Sorry! Also, Gninja has heard our pleas and will be adding zone portals near the Public Quests allowing players to join each other in the same zone for PQs, as well as our personal preference: spreading out into different instances of the Great Divide. I will...
It was strongly suggested that if feedback were positive, the Aether Races which allow ANYONE level 1-90 (with or without the Velious expansion) to participate in a live event, and receive a temporary flying mount to get a taste of flight. Now we know that Windslasher‘s event will be coming back! Well, now it’s over and I’m back to my regularly scheduled tasks. Thank you all for the great feedback! It’s absolutely heartwarming to hear how much you all loved the racing, and I’ve taken notes on all your suggestions. Rest assured, after such a glowing response this event...
The conclusion of the main Othmir quest line results in players receiving Nipik’s Cane. As this item is priest-only, several of us ended up transmuting it. As it turns out, it was supposed to be a house item. If you already transmuted or sold yours, good news from Kaitheel: I’ve made this change and submitted it to internal testing. In a future update you should see the following change listed in the Update Notes: Nipik’s Cane can now be bought from Shady Swashbuckler in Nektulos Forest, by players who have completed the quest “A New Calling”. Nipik’s Cane is...
For the last day of the Destiny of Velious launch celebrations, every EQ2 and EQ2X player from level 1-90 is able to travel to Lavastorm, Butcherblock Mountains, or Tenebrous Tangle and fly around using a Tinkered flying machine. The quest and event has been placed near the entrance of the zone, thus the level of enemies should not prevent celebrations by all players of all levels. Once you compete in a race through airborne rings in the allotted time, you receive a temporary flying contraption which is NO ZONE but which you can use to fully explore the entire...
Kael Drakkel is making Contested Dungeons in EQ2 sexy again. With 15 names, and the largest zone ever added to EQ2 (it’s larger than Solusek’s Eye), there is a lot to live up to here. The zone is intended to be difficult, with loot somewhere between the hardest Velious instances and beginning raids. It’s a new way of approaching contested dungeons compared to The Hole, Karnor’s Castle, Sebilis, and Chardok which all struggled to keep our attention after a few weeks. Players have been looking for an old school dungeon crawl and Kael Drakkel seems to deliver. It shows...
Now that we’ve seen Tuesday’s Update Notes, we can talk about a few issues we’ve seen which remain unresolved. These may have been fixed today, but they don’t appear in the Update Notes. If you know of a specific bug affecting quest progression, zone progression, etc., please post a comment! Eastern Wastes Flight Discoveries Uncooperative Twins Forgotten Pools Zone In/Zone Out Stat Changes Nerf Level 20-60 Gear Nektropos Castle Door Missing Many Instances Not Spawning Mobs Public Quest Lag Call of the Veteran More Broken Than Ever Disruptive Students in Shadowed Corridors Raid Invites Autoconsume Items in Flight Spam...
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: So…it turns out that the gnomes are horribly, terribly jealous of the “meat solution” to flying mounts found in Velious and they’re working furiously to come up with a tinkering substitution instead. Thus, the debut of “Aether Racing” tomorrow, Tuesday, March 1st! The tinkerers have cobbled together a rattling, wheezing deathtrap of a flying machine, and they want YOU to test it for them! (They’re not stupid enough to test it themselves.)
It’s one week since the launch of Destiny of Velious and there are always bugs and issues that make it through from the Beta. Today’s update tackles many of them. With today’s update, many of these issues are fixed. Tradeskillers can now equip their Boreal or Frost Gryphon as a flying mount at level 85 tradeskill. Freebloods who have completed their Cloud of Bats quests can now use it. And the Collector’s Edition (still available as a $25 upgrade today until 10am PST [18:00 GMT] ) Stormfeather Brood Guardian is now usable by 85 tradeskill and 85 adventurer. The...
From EverQuest2.com: February 26: Double XP Day Adventure, tradeskill, and AA XP gain are doubled. Saturday only! February 27: Loot Bonanza Day Today only, all named monsters will drop loot at 100% probability. Rare mobs will have doubled loot drop chances. February 28: Expansion Upgrade Day If you already own the Standard Edition, upgrade to Destiny of Velious Collector’s Edition for $25 on this day only. Pick up the Digital Collector’s Edition and enjoy the bonus items; Cryomantic Armor, the Stormfeather Brood Guardian Mount, Tserinna’s Wedding Present, and the Everfrost Summer Home (seen at this link).
A syndrome that I think many people who write about MMOs experience is that find ourselves actually PLAYING the game less and less. I’m certainly guilty of this myself. We get interested in a game, start writing about it based on our experience, and next thing you know we aren’t catching groups or raids anymore. So with Velious I made a commitment to get back in the game. So one of my first experiences has been getting into Public Quests, which spawned the article yesterday. The concept certainly makes for an interesting type of content, one that was popular...
Since the launch of the Destiny of Velious, there have been nearly 250 posts by Developers, Producers, and Animators on the EQ2 Team. While we appreciate this degree of feedback (it’s refreshing after the tight-lipped Velious Beta), it has been challenging to keep with it all, much less compose it into news stories that have context and are useful for our readers. No doubt if you are already familiar with the EQ2 Dev Tracker, you check it out on occasion. I personally follow the EQ2 Dev Tracker at EQ2Flames because it’s easy to read, however the comments and feedback...
From EverQuest2.com: The U.S. servers will come down on February 25, 2011, at 7am PDT for a hotfix. The expected downtime is 2 hours. UK worlds will be updated at 5:00 AM London Time on February 25, 2011, with an estimated downtime will be 2 hours. Here are the notes: GENERAL Depth of Field, SSAO and Sunshafts should be working correctly now. Fixed a crash bug.
Public Quests provide different kinds of rewards than we’ve seen in the past. Right now there are 2 Public Quests: Storm Gorge which is Southeast of Thurgadin and the Ring War which is Northeast of Thurgadin. There are plans to add several more Public Quests as we heard about in Beta (possibly the Sleeper!).
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: Hey, folks, I just wanted to post and let you know that a bunch of accounts (less than 100) got a temporary suspension tonight. Why? Because some of them were invited to Beta and then found a way to shortcut the gryphon quest series, which takes a minimum of five days to complete, and were able to do it in minutes. They then told others how to do it and the rest followed along, duplicating the exploit.
The Tower of Frozen Shadow presents a unique, but familiar approach to dungeon progression. Although the seven (or is it eight?!?) floors of the Tower of Frozen Shadow are split up into 3 group instanced dungeons (Shadowed Corridors, Umbral Halls, and Haunt of Syl’Tor), there are quests that span all three. Completion of those quests is necessary to unlock different floors in the Tower. UPDATE: Added quotes from Gninja.
When do the Public Quests (live events that any player, from solo to a full raid of 24, can participate in) run? From Windslasher: Storm Gorge runs at even hours — noon, 2, 4, 6 etc. while Ring War starts on odd hours. So one of them starts every hour on the hour.
From covic on the EQ2 Forums: Update is that we started them and where trying to figure a way around skinning issues. Well our new graphic programmer says he can give me better skinning code. Right now a vert (point at the edge of polygon) can only have two bone influences, making it really hard for long skirt type cloth. Well Alex (GermInUSA) our graphic programmer says he can get me 4 influences. It’s on his task list for about April. Then we will probably block more time for the creating of kilt art assets. You will laugh at...
Servers are back up after a 3 hour downtime. Today’s Update Notes
All US servers are still down 2 1/2 hours into a 1 hour Update. EQ2 Network Status Page Yesterday we read in the EQ2 Dev Tracker that several tweaks and fixes as well as additional debug code were being added for Freeport and Everfrost servers to try to get to the bottom of the problems. UPDATE: The Network Status Page has been updated to indicate this is now a 3 hour downtime. So much for Double Guild XP.