Launched September 5, 2007, Legends of Norrath began Sony Online Entertainment’s love affair with online trading card games. With solo and multiplayer game scenarios, players were encouraged to buy LoN card packs to build decks and play to complete achievements and for bragging rights. Gameplay took its cues from its real-life counterpart Magic the Gathering, although with Legends of Norrath, no physical cards were sent out — everything is virtual.

The first two Premium Guild Halls were introduced this Tuesday at eye-opening prices of 35,000 DBC ($350) and 40,000 DBC ($400) for the Highhold and Skyshrine zones respectively. Thus far, data analysis tells us that four guilds have acquired these halls — one Skyshrine and three of the Highhold halls.

If you prefer to acquire your Premium Guild Hall through gameplay, well then Good News Everybody!

From Kander on the EQ2 Forums:

Just FYI. We do have other guild halls [different new guild halls] that will be being added to in-game content only coming soon. One just around the corner with GU 101. The plan is to regularly have ones that can be earned through game play in the future.

To be absolutely clear, he is not talking about the Highhold or Skyshrine hall which are available through tickets on the Marketplace. He’s talking about another popular zone which will become available as a Guild Hall which players can then acquire through gameplay. Perhaps a quest series or some token grinding.

Commentary

Daybreak has the right to set whatever price it wants on Marketplace items. And industry trends have shown that a very small group of customers, less than 0.1%, can buy enough items to support an entire game. My concern is, for a small short-term financial gain, the news of this $400 pricetag spreads like wildfire and leads to a lot of player rage and chants of “cash grab”. It’s the summer time and as is tradition players are kicking the tires on other MMOs and other forms of entertainment and evaluating whether they want to stick with the choice they’ve made or consider alternatives. Players are thinking long-term, and I think Daybreak should be too.

From EverQuest2.com:

Norrathians – it’s time to team up with your guildmates to unlock access to the new Highhold Guild Hall and Skyshrine Capital Guild Hall!

These two guild halls may be earned by purchasing guild tickets from the Marketplace [for $1 or 100DBC each]. Anyone within a guild may purchase and make use of these guild tickets. Each ticket increases the count on the guild medal, and once 350 (for Highhold) or 400 (for Skyshrine Capital) total tickets have been used, the medal is granted and the guild will have access to purchase that guild hall from the guild bells in Antonica or Commonlands. Both guild halls also require a guild of level 30 or above.

Grabbed too many guild tickets? They can also be sold on the broker or sold for status!

PLUS, the Skyshrine Capital Guild Hall has a bonus amenity available – the chrono echo of a dragon! Members of the guild that owns the hall may find that she grants a special bonus to them.

Lendiniara

Update: Bloodguts has posted what the reward is:

For anyone wondering what the special bonus item you get from being an owner of the Skyshrine Guild Hall, it’s a Filled Experience Vial (200,000 Adventure Experience)

Instead of being no-value only, it’s Lore/No-Value/No-Trade version. That can only be picked up we believe is every 24 hours once. Not worth the $400 dollars it took to purchase.

NOTE: Unlike all other prestige housing, these two new guild halls require the full upkeep cost of a regular guild hall, plus any amenities.

It seems that an H1Z1 player who is unsatisfied with a certain ruleset did not get their fill with last night’s disruption of Daybreak Games and have decided to DDoS the company once again. Due to Daybreak’s interconnectedness, when one game is affected, all services are impacted. Updates as we have them…

Update: EQ2 servers should now be up and available after the extended downtime.

After the jump, the timeline of events…

All Servers: 7:00am~1:00pm PDT | 10:00am~4:00pm EDT | 15:00~21:00 BST | 16:00~22:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

All EverQuest II Servers, both US and EU, will be brought offline on Tuesday, June 14th, 2016 at 7:00AM PDT* (2:00 PM GMT) for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately six hours.

From the EQ2 Forums:

IMPORTANT NOTICE

• Due to recent required client updates, EQ2 will no longer run on Windows XP or older machines.

QUESTS

• Alchemist’s Component – Leelee Brewbubble has been convinced that the components you have obtained are useful, once again.

ABILITIES

• Fixed a bug that was preventing Ancestral Support from working.

GUILDS

• Skyshrine Capital Guildhall guild tickets are now available for purchase from the Marketplace.
• Highhold Guildhall guild tickets are now available for purchase from the Marketplace.

TLE

• NPC Encounters will no longer have a chance to double attack on the TLE server.
• NPC Encounters now have a chance to strike through avoidance, the higher the level and tier of the encounter, the higher the chance to strikethrough.

Late addition:

Summoners

• Corrected an issues that reduced summoner mitigation when summoning a pet.

On March 16, 1999, EverQuest launched, and with it, a volunteer Guide Program. They would “act as basic customer service/support via ‘petitions’. Issues could be forwarded to the Game Master assigned to the server or resolved by the volunteer. Other guides would serve in administrative functions within the program or assisting the Quest Troupe with dynamic and persistent live events throughout the individual servers. Volunteers were compensated with free subscription and expansions to the game.

In 2003 the program changed for these volunteers, shifting them away from a customer service focus and instead placing them into their current roles as roving ‘persistent characters’ role-playing with the players.” (wikipedia) There’s always been confusion within the player community at large about whether the Guide Program was a part of Daybreak Games, a completely separate entity, or something in-between. We asked for clarification from the Guides and got this answer from Elder Guide Rynara:

The Guide program works side by side with Daybreak, they always have. The Program was never “run” by SOE. Since we are volunteers we are separate and do not work under them in any way but along with them to support the players of EQ and EQII. [While] Kander does not run the Guide program, he does support us as acting liaison to Daybreak. He is our contact.

The leaders of the Guide program back when it started at the beginning of EQ wrote a policy and procedure manual that we follow today. It has been updated and tweaked along the years however the fundamentals still apply today.

While the earlier Guide quests were of a “milk and cookies” nature, in recent years, more dynamic and complex quests have been added. None has gained more visibility than the Nebulous Newsies quest. The reward is millions of status and one of the largest inventory bags available in the game. Players line up by the hundreds to pickup the quest from a Guide (it cannot be acquired by any other means) when word breaks that they will be seeking player help on a server. A new Terrors of Thalumbra guide quest was just added to the Guides’ repertoire this month and it will be interesting to see how frequently it is made available.

Daybreak Games seems to be undergoing a DDoS attack. More as we have it…

Update:

We are recovering from earlier issues. Have a gamey night! (You know what I mean….)

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) June 13, 2016

Still some funk happening with all games. Ops still working on it.

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) June 13, 2016

We are aware of the issues with our games at the moment. Our ops folks are looking into it.

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) June 12, 2016

We're currently looking into an issue that may be affecting logins and servers across our games. We appreciate your patience!

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) June 12, 2016

From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums:

Moonlight Enchantments is active on the Test server!

Why, you ask? Because there are 25 new items available through the different grotto merchants!

Jump in and get a sneak peek at these new items available now on Test, before they are live on 6/20. Please post any feedback you might have pertaining to them in this thread.

Moonlight Enchantments runs on live servers the 20th-21st of every month.

Niami Denmother of EQ2Traders has updated her website with a preview of the new items!

Normally, Game Updates are delayed for the EU server so that they are applied early the next morning rather than disrupting primetime gaming. However when a Game Update includes new content and new items, these updates are done simultaneously with the US patches so that everyone is on the same footing. This morning’s launch of the Summer Ethereal event only applied to the US server, with the EU server (Thurgadin) having to wait until a 9pm PDT / 6:00 CEDT update. Because today also launched a Double Ethereal Coin event, the result was a double whammy of the EU server being almost an entire day behind. The EQ2 team have recognized this and so will be extending the Double Ethereal Coin event (actually quadruple for All Access subscribers) for an additional day.

From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

We’ll be extending this first double Ethereal coin promo on Thurgadin. On Thurgadin, the first double Ethereal Coin event for members will be extended until 1:59PM Pacific time on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.

We already posted an article about them, but here’s the official announcement.

From EQ2 Brand Manager Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

Summer Ethereal Items are here!

During the event players will be able to pick up Ethereal missions from the mission NPC’s in Thalumbra, the Ever Deep. These missions will grant you [eq2u]Umbrite Ethereal Coin[/eq2u]s, and a chance at the current accessory reward or an Ethereal Rune. Umbrite Ethereal Coins may be used to purchase any of the available rewards from the Lylleia, the Ethereal Merchant.

In addition, over the course of the event there will be several periods of time that award bonus Ethereal Coins. Starting TODAY and running until 11:59PM PT on Monday, June 13, 2016 players will receive DOUBLE Ethereal Coins. Don’t miss your chance to stock up on coins early, and pick up the Ethereal items that you’re looking for!

This is in addition to the bonus that All Access members get every day to their alternative currency earned in-game. That means double DOUBLE Ethereal Coins for members during the times for bonus Ethereal Coins.

With tomorrow’s update, the Summer Ethereals event goes live for 2016.

In the past, I have come to view these events a mixture of excitement and dread. Yes, it becomes easier to find groups, however you have to be lottery-lucky to acquire these game-changing items as [eq2u]Phelony, Deathbringer[/eq2u], [eq2u]Fai Thass, The Ravager[/eq2u], and ability resetting items such as Essence of Duality. With the focus on weapons shifted to later this year, the Summer Ethereals this time around are jewelry — Necklaces, Bracelets, and Earrings. In addition, some of the very popular but exceedingly rare Ethereal Runes are now also available through heroic content this summer.

A view of the Ethereal merchant as seen by a Mage. Different items are offered for Scouts, Fighters, and Priests.

RNGQuest

In years past, the only way to acquire these Ethereal items was through repetition. It might take 300 or more dungeon runs to acquire your preferred item. This year, the rewards are presented in such a way that you will either get an [eq2u]Umbrite Ethereal Coin[/eq2u], which can be used to buy Ethereals from a merchant, or you will get an Ethereal item. Please note that the Ethereal Coin currency is NO-TRADE which is necessary to keep the cost low.

There was no downtime notice, but…

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PDT | 10:00am~11:00am EDT | 15:00~16:00 BST | 16:00~17:00 CST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PDT | 12:00~1:00am EDT | 05:00~06:00 BST | 06:00~07:00 CST

From the EQ2 Forums:

Towards the end of the Spring Update Livestream, we were informed that we’d gain the ability to acquire Legends of Norrath Loot Cards rather than the current process of buying and unwrapping dozens of Legends of Norrath game packs hoping to get lucky. The Legends of Norrath card game was recently unbundled from the EQ and EQ2 clients and now requires a standalone download and install.

Today comes the news that Legends of Norrath “Loot Packs” are now available for purchase from the Marketplace. However rather than providing a choice of specific loot, each pack contains two random loot items. Like the Mercenary Packs, Burbur Baskets, the new LoN Loot Packs continue a trend of chance over choice. On the plus side, the loot items are tradeable on the Broker as one player found out. Even if you don’t believe in gambling, you’ll still be able to acquire items from those who do.

From the EverQuestII Twitter:

Legends of Norrath Loot Packs are now available!  What loot are you chasing?

The announcement on the EQ2 Forums is not up yet, but a similar announcement on the EQ Forums gives some details:

Legend of the Jarsath Destroyer is the newest Legends of Norrath loot pack. Like previous packs, each “Legend of the Jarsath Destroyer” pack costs 999 DBC and contains two (2) random loot rewards that were originally available in Legends of Norrath. The Legend of the Jarsath Destroyer packs include loot that was previous available from LON sets: The Jarsath Destroyer, Fall of the Estarim, Debt of the Ratonga, and Drakkinshard.

I was hoping to login and see a new Marketplace category that would allow me to buy the exact items I want at a fair price. It will be interesting to see how many people partake of these Loot packs.

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET
EU Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

ZONES / POPULATION
The Siege [Raid]

• Sanctifier Goortuk should now have lower resolve when fought in normal mode.

Barren Sky

• The 3 Princes have had their encounter level lowered

ITEMS

• [eq2u]Spine of Ancient Terror[/eq2u] now has the correct 14 resolve.

and…

MARKETPLACE

• Legends of Norrath loot card packs are now available on the marketplace. Specific campaign packs will be available for a limited time and will alternate after a set period. When opened, each Legends of Norrath loot card pack will grant a single tradeable reward bag. Once that bag has been opened the item contained within will be bound to that account.

From EverQuest2.com:

Norrathians – are you ready to take advantage of everything this long weekend has to offer?

Beginning at Noon PDT on Friday, May 27, 2016 and continuing until Noon PDT on Tuesday, May 31, 2016, All Access members will receive double XP (Adventure, Tradeskill, and AA)!

Plus, as an added bonus, All Access members will also receive 40% off all marketplace purchases, so pick up those items you’ve been eyeing before the discount ends!

Not an All Access member yet? With bonuses, discounts, access to new content, and more, there’s never been a better time to join!

Time Zone Conversions

• PDT: Friday May 27 @ Noon — Tuesday May 31 @ Noon
• EDT: Friday May 27 @ 3:00pm — Tuesday May 31 @ 3:00pm
• BST: Friday May 27 @ 20:00 — Tuesday May 31 @ 20:00
• CET: Friday May 27 @ 21:00 — Tuesday May 31 @ 21:00

MMOs like EverQuest II can’t help but include a loot chase. While EQ2 offers many different styles of gameplay from crafting to decorating to soloing, those players who elect to group or raid find themselves on the loot treadmill and want to be able to point to forward progress. In recent years, the EQ2 team have scattered a few best-in-slot items throughout the content so that crafters and soloers get some “Whoa!” items. Still, most Progression items come from extremely difficult content that requires substantial coordination. There’ll always be that one ridiculously difficult heroic zone. There’s always that Wing 3 of raid content. With Terrors of Thalumbra as well as Altar of Malice (after some post-launch tuning), the heroic content has been made accessible so that more people get to enjoy it. But as with any organized sport, the tolerances between success and failure shrink the higher you go into more challenging fare.

I don’t envy game developers who are forced to create enough content to last a year. What has concerned me about Ethereal runes, Ethereal weapons, Mythicals, and Ancients is that they are acquired almost entirely based on the luck of the dice roll, not player skill or effort. It saps the sense of accomplishment when you say “This item took me 374 heroic runs!” after the person next to you says “I got it the first time through. Now what?”

From the EQ2 Forums:

Happy Springtime, Norrathians!

Time is zipping by as usual! I wanted to drop in and let you know what we’ve been up to.

As you continue with the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion and take part in GU100, the team has been toiling away on future plans. And what are those? Well….

By the end of June we are going to introduce two new servers! We wanted to hear what kind of servers the community wanted so we recently ran an in-game survey. Given the results, we decided to launch two servers, each with different rules. There will be details coming soon, but here’s the summary:

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PDT | 10:00am~Noon EDT | 15:00~17:00 BST | 16:00~18:00 CET

EU Servers: 9:00~11:00pm PDT | Midnight~2:00am EDT | 05:00~07:00 BST | 06:00~08:00 CET

From the EQ2 Forums:

ZONES / POPULATION

• Encounter [enemy] resolve buffs have been reallocated to take stacking resolve buffs into account.

Kralet Penumbra: The Hive Mind [Raid]

• The Penumbran Chanter should no longer spawn in unreachable areas in the Kraletus encounter

Thalumbra, the Ever Deep

• Koolor Ironblood has moved to within the Abandoned Fungus Farm to avoid Vanlith’s wrath

From the EQ2 Forums:

The server consolidation with Sebilis and Antonia Bayle servers will start on Thursday, May 26th, 2016 at 4AM PDT (11 AM GMT). This downtime is expected to take 24 hours, and Antonia Bayle is scheduled to unlock to players at Friday, May 27th, 2016 at 4AM PDT.

Important Notes for Players:

Players should pick up No-Trade items from shared housing (such as Guild Halls) BEFORE this downtime. This will prevent losing ownership of placed items during server consolidation.

When the consolidation is complete on Friday, players should delete their “logincache” folder or else LaunchPad character logins may fail.

EverQuest II players have a long memory. The unpopular Critical Mitigation stat was removed from the game over four years ago, yet player suspicion towards progression stats seems to have hardly faded in the intervening years. Buried amongst the update notes for GU100: The Siege of Zek came a new stat, Resolve. Even though the stat is thus far confined to the five strongest raid targets and does not affect Heroic content at all (at least until this fall’s expansion), players have responded strongly.

Over the years, Crit Mit, Crit Avoidance, and Resists have all been used to stratify content and provide a steady treadmill for players to consume dungeons and vanquish raid content. However in the absence of one unifying progression stat, developers have fallen into a vicious cycle of compounding player power at an astonishing rate. Player damage output has grown by a factor of 5,000 in recent years. Whether we want it or not, we need a progression stat to keep growth of the other stats in the realm of sanity. Resolve, rather than a guaranteed death or failure, has been described as a kinder, gentler mitigation stat in our interview with the EQ2 team. The stat affects incoming damage for both players and enemies. With exceptional healing, a shortage of Resolve can be worked around, while the reduction in damage received by the enemy may be an even bigger obstacle.

In November 2014, the EverQuest II team spent additional time debugging the game’s graphically demanding Altar of Malice expansion to make sure the game continued to work on the end-of-life Windows XP and soon-to-follow Windows Vista. In November 2015, further effort was expended making sure the in-game Marketplace supported these obsolete systems. However it seems that time is running out on legacy Windows support.

According to an announcement on the EQ2 Forums, EverQuest II will receive some kind of update in June 2016 which will render the game unplayable on Windows XP. Vista may share the same fate at some future date. While it may be possible to institute further workarounds to get the game working, players will not receive official support from Daybreak in these attempts.

As mentioned in the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion, the minimum system requirements to run EverQuest 2 at this time is Windows 7 and we have not offered support for [previous] systems since it’s launch in 2015. While an older OS may have continued to function, after the first game update in June these may no longer be able to run the game in an optimal manner.

Please ensure you have reviewed the specifications here.

Windows XP, introduced in 2001, is fully end-of-life and stopped receiving any kind of security or stability updates on April 8, 2014. It should not be used except on internet-disabled computers for mission critical applications. Windows Vista, introduced in 2006, will reach its official end-of-life next April 11, 2017 and will no longer receive updates either. The announcement thread is locked from any customer replies, so clearly the topic has reached an “end of discussion” stage.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Members! Want to fill up your status bar? Looking to improve your guild’s status bar? Well, good news! From noon (12:00PM) PDT on Thursday, May 19 through noon (12:00PM) PDT Tuesday, May 24, members can earn DOUBLE PERSONAL STATUS and DOUBLE GUILD STATUS!

ALL servers are included in this special bonus weekend, which means those of you on Stormhold (who are all members already) will get to take advantage of the Double Status.

Being a member has its perks! Not a member yet? Visit www.everquest2.com/membership to learn more!

On April 28th, EverQuest II launched its level 100 content release “The Siege of Zek“. The update takes us back to Zek, the Orcish Wastes and a lot has changed in 12 years. While the original level 35-appropriate zone can still be accessed, players may now choose to travel to the new level 100 Scourge Wastes. The update contains updated versions of classic Zek zones in Advanced Solo, Heroic, Event Heroic, and Heroic Contested versions as well as a Raid zone. Rather than a simple up-tiering of existing zones, the Designers and Art Team have put a lot into this All Access-only update with totally redone Orc models and many other touches that make this content feel fresh.

As it had been a couple of weeks since the release of the Siege of Zek, we had an opportunity to peruse the official EQ2 forums for player questions and concerns. The EQ2 team are already working flat out on EverQuest II’s thirteenth expansion slated for later this year, so our interview focuses on the few questions that I submitted about itemization and some of the new systems in the update including Heartbound, which is an in-game celebration of the real-life bonds that players have developed, and the new progression-tied Resolve stat.

After the jump, our interview!

From the EQ2 Forums:

A “Merchant of Rarities” has rare heroic drops from Terrors of Thalumbra dungeons available to players that are looking to pick up an item that has been eluding them, or to get a character caught up to adventure in Thalumbra and beyond!

Are you looking for awesome new Green Adornments? Koolor Ironblood has them!

Koolor Ironblood can be found in Thalumbra: the Ever Deep. He has items to purchase for status, for platinum, and for Coin of the Eternal Queen. What items are YOU most excited for?

UPDATE from Kander:

We missed the rare raid trash drop cloaks and belts. We will be adding them to the merchant next hotfix.

We will absolutely not be adding the rare mythical weapons.

After the jump, the complete list of items available from the merchant…

US Servers: 8:00~10:00am PST | 11:00am~1:00pm EST | 16:00~18:00 GMT | 17:00~19:00 CEST
EU Servers: 8:00~10:00am PST | 11:00am~1:00pm EST | 16:00~18:00 GMT | 17:00~19:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fervor will no longer apply twice when damage is being duplicated from another source.

ZONES / POPULATION
The Siege [Raid]

• The Weapon of War’s “War” buff can now be properly removed. Hardened By War remains unable to be removed.

Scourge Keep [Both Versions]

• Prime Vigoth Ansleborg’s flanking order should be less strict to follow for fighters.