Feldon
Lessing (known on EQ2Flames as mafoe) has taken screen snapshots of the FABLED loot offered by the new Vendor being added in Game Update 56. Here are links to these screen snapshots: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAenf-rcI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/2KuKWlshkgY/EQ2_000868.jpg http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAe1IsMHI/AAAAAAAAAKU/Ttdtjvu6500/EQ2_000869.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfTEriRI/AAAAAAAAAKY/MaEJl-oV8RM/EQ2_000870.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAfsymb7I/AAAAAAAAAKc/HmsbcyoJvm0/EQ2_000871.jpg http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XvWh6xG4qE0/S9LAgXpQbpI/AAAAAAAAAKg/0g0DOHH5GSk/EQ2_000872.jpg
Feldon
Game Update 56 is looking to be a huge update, with many tweaks and adjustments throughout Norrath. In brief… a substantial Travel Revamp more quests in Stonebrunt Highlands to hopefully fill that level 87-90 solo questing gap a new Storyline feature a new Icy Keep x4 Raid Shaders 3.0 Graphical Revamp Research Assistants can help all your characters Blue PvP Adornments Yellow Adornments on T9 Mastercrafted gear Level 90 Character Traits PvP Warfields new Training Dummy options in your guild hall (solo, group, raid, and AE group) and of course New Halas Also of note, is that a vendor...
Domino has posted some background and lore regarding the new tradeskill society, the Ravens of the North, in New Halas. From the EQ2 Forums:
The focus this week has been on new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson, and EQ2 Server Performance, which has been a persistent black cloud over EQ2 for the last 2 months. Test Copy Test Copy is getting some major use as it is where PvP and Battlegrounds changes are tested. Gninja advised us: We will be working out a schedule as to when the test_copy server will be pvp vrs pve. We are working it out now and will get back to you guys shortly. Stuck at Character Select An issue with being stuck at Character Select on Thursday...
From Rothgar on the EQ2 forums: We’ve located the issue that was causing the slow performance last Tuesday. This problem had ZERO to do with battlegrounds but they were taken down as a precaution anyway. I know that battlegrounds tends to get the bad rap because it’s new, but they are not always the cause of problems. In fact, we’ve got the character loading issues under control now so that there are no performance spikes as a result of characters going to and from the BG world. We’ve been making some general performance improvements that will help lower the...
From the EQ2 Forums: Greetings all. An update on Battlegrounds and server issues. Battlegrounds will be down until at least tomorrow. While the BGs are down, we’ll be collecting data on the current server issues as an aid to tracking down what is causing the the lag and slow zoning times. We’ll be tracking the data with the BGs both off and on. If they appear to significantly affect the issues we’re seeing on the live servers, we’ll have them off over the weekend. We’ll let you know any further information we can share when we have it. We...
With the powerful buffs and bonuses of our Mythical/Fabled Epic Weapons safely squirreled away to a separate permanent spell (thanks to the Epic Repercussions quest), we’ve been able to divert our attention towards finding other, better weapons. While the choices are not plentiful (even with their buffs stripped, our Mythical weapons still have some formidable stats), the Sentinel’s Fate expansion is nonetheless supposed to offer us a variety of replacements for our now Enervated Weapons. Thus far, there have been a scant few upgrade choices for healers. Fortunately Kander has responded to these concerns: There will be some new...
Battlegrounds For Levels 30-79 We’ve gotten some more details on the format that Battlegrounds from levels 30-79 will take from timetravelling: After Game Update 56 the Battlegrounds tiers will be: 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, and 90 Players in each tier will be auto-mentored down to the lowest common level (30, 40, 50, etc.). Players in each tier will also have armor sets and accessories available for purchase from the existing PvP Merchants in the major cities. The BG ‘starter’ sets will be the already-existing Mastercrafted armor sets (from levels 30 -> 70). Each has had a small...
We’ve received word that brand spanking new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson also gave an interview to Massively. It’s an interesting contrast to the EQ2 ZAM interview and worth a read. It may turn out that the only EQ2 fan site that didn’t get an interview with Dave Georgeson is EQ2Wire… The Tattered Notebook: A moment with Dave Georgeson @ Massively The Return of SmokeJumper Dave Georgeson has already taken the time to post on the EQ2 Forums and respond to some player concerns. He’s brought back his nickname “SmokeJumper” from when he was a developer on Planetside. You...
It has been brought to our attention that the EQ2 Passport program contains verbiage which could be construed as condoning the exploit of Battlegrounds: Penny Pinching Multiboxers Running several subscriptions might be a bit expensive these days, but not with this program! Fire up your alt accounts for a weekend raid or even a Battlegrounds match all by yourself!
I’ve just received an unexpected e-mail from the EverQuest II team regarding a new program for players on the fence, considering returning to EQ2, wanting to participate in seasonal and special events, or wanting to spin up an inactive account to do some Multiboxing. If you’ve let your any of your EQ2 account expire, and don’t want to commit for the whole $15 to restore access, you can now play for up to 3 days access for $5 through the new EQ2 Passport program. Commentary While it might seem a nice gesture to offer players who are short on...
If you have been poking and prodding the EQ2 forums hoping for even a brief Producer’s Letter from Dave Georgeson, you’ll be surprised to read the in-depth exclusive interview at EQ2 ZAM with new EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson who replaced Alan “Brenlo” Crosby last week. EQ2 ZAM Interviews Dave Georgeson
Gninja wanted to get the word out that the quest Tending to Toxxicology will be getting a revamp which will result in quest progress being reset by anyone still on the quest. If you are on this quest, get it completed before Game Update 56 hits (late May). Or you can just wait until the change when the quest requirements will be reset to resolve the bugs people have been facing in trying to complete it. We are aware of the issues with the quest in Sundered Frontier “Tending to Toxxicology” becoming gated if someone summons Sherra prior to...
Today’s Hotfix grants Research Assistants the ability to research for all of your characters at once, instead of just one per account. Also included are tweaks to the UsabilityOnPlayer macro command, some adjustments to the Labs SF raid zone, and a change to the Focus: Death March adornment so that its effects are different between PvP and PvE. We’ve been advised that some Database maintenance will be performed at the same time, so the Hotfix and associated downtime may exceed 1 hour.
It turns out yesterday’s news on changes to the Training Dummies guild hall amenity was just the beginning. Xelgad has updated us with news that one of the choices on the menu when summoning a Training Dummy (in addition to Solo, as well as Heroic and Epic which are new to GU56) will be an Encounter: We’ve added a new set of dummies for GU56 that come as a linked encounter of a total of eight heroic training dummies. Enjoy! This should provide many more options for players wanting to work on what order they cast spells and/or combat...
In addition to the bigger content additions, Game Updates always include smaller, but no less desirable changes and tweaks. Research Assistants Learn to Multitask UPDATE: Oops! Despite appearing in the headline, this item somehow got left out! UPDATE #2: This feature is in the April 20, 2010 Hotfix. Bunji, member of the EQ2 QA Team, has posted this info on the EQ2 In Testing Feedback forums: With the new Test server build, each character on an account can research a spell at the same time (this should not affect existing research). Research times are also being tweaked (lowered). Floating...
EQ2Players has a new video showcasing Halas Reborn. Check it out below. And in case you missed it, here are Screenshots of Halas Reborn Housing.
Game Update 56 is coming soon to the Test and Test Copy servers, and in addition to the expected New Halas starting zone and city, which will have 2, 4, and 6 room housing as well as Tier 1 Guild Halls (unknown if it will be the same or different artwork), and in addition to a new raid zone, some substantial changes are happening to Battlegrounds and PvP combat in general. Battlegrounds in particular are being expanded from level 80-90 to level 30-90. timetravelling gave this Battlegrounds preview: Brand new 1st Campaign armor sets and accessories Many of the...
Linda “Brasse” Carlson, Senior Community Manager for SOE has posted this update on the EQ2 Forums: After many years of service, Alan “Brenlo” Crosby has decided to leave SOE to pursue other opportunities. And while it is sad to see him leave, we wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors. At this time, we’d like to take a moment to introduce EverQuest II’s new producer, Dave Georgeson. Dave is excited to join the EQII Team and will be posting an introduction in the near future. According to EQ2 Zam, Dave’s resume includes SOE’s Planetside and Free...
From EQ2 Zam: Astute fans of Sony Online Entertainment noticed Alan “Brenlo” Crosby changed his job status on Facebook this afternoon. His Recent Activity says “Alan removed his job as Senior Producer – EverQuest II at Sony.” A query to Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, resulted in a polite “no comment.”We will report details as they become available. Wherever Alan is going, ZAM and the EQII Community wish him the best. He said this to Massively: Yeah after working together for 10 years, it was my time to move on. Was a great ride and I am going...
Here are your hotfix notes for today, April 13th, including adjustments to group and raid zones, as well as spell resists in PvP combat. After the jump:
We wrap up another week in Norrath with some posts from the EQ2 forums from developers and players alike which you may have missed. Also, although no date has yet been announced, work on Game Update 56 has likely reached a feverish pace and we’ll start hearing more about it soon. Waiting for Zone Info The EQ2 and SOE teams have been putting in long hours trying to resolve the database and server lag/performance issues since the expansion. Zoltaroth has weighed in with this update: We are also internally testing some additional updates that should furthur improve zoning (specifically...
We continue to follow progress on the Shaders 3.0 update. Imago-Quem (Ryan) has continued to work tirelessly on this project and we have an update of sorts. Originally intended as a graphical bump to improve the appearance of the game in existing and new zones, Shaders 3.0 was expanded and re-prioritized into a sweeping optimization of the EQ2 graphical pipeline engine first, and a graphical improvement second. Part of this process was Imago-Quem providing tools to the EQ2 zone and character art developers so that all new content they create for this and future expansions is fully compatible with...
Rothgar has been working closely with the Database folks trying to solve the Server Performance Issues, specifically Server-side Lag, and extremely long Zoning times which have become a major problem facing EQ2 since Game Update 55, the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, and the introduction of Battlegrounds. These Database and Server Lag issues have been so disruptive, that they have largely drowned out discussion on other issues facing EQ2. Fortunately, Rothgar brings us an update on the situation regarding some long-needed caching being added to how character data is transmitted and stored: Right now we are addressing the database-related issues and...
An unintended consequence of today’s Hotfix seems to be that certain players have been unable to equip their Mythical weapons. Players affected include those who have not progressed in the Epic Repercussions quest. Xelgad has posted this comment: We’re aware of the issue and looking into a fix. In the meantime, please use the /petition command to contact Customer Service if your weapon cannot be equipped. They’ll be able to fix your weapon for you. UPDATE: This issue is related to the Balanced Ayr Stone adornment which used to provide +3% Parry and was applicable to weapon slots. On...