From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: Forge of Ashes [Raid]

• [eq2u]Signet of Pure Terror[/eq2u] now correctly requires a Stone of Ashenfell Power or Stone of Greybeard Power as a purchase requirement.

ITEMS

• Psionist Crowns can now be upgraded through crafting using either original crowns or newly dropped crowns. Required component is now any crown of that armor type.
• Psionist Helms that were previously upgraded using the Mindstone Crystal can now be crafted into the new version of the crown. The recipe book has had the new recipes added.
• New armor drops* now have a descriptor added to their name for clarity.

Caith added:

ITEMS

• The potency and crit bonus of Echoes of Faydwer dropped and quested rewards have been adjusted to match new progression.

* The new raid and heroic drops added on February 17th are having their names changed slightly so they can be viewed side-by-side in game (and as a side benefit, they will no longer conflict on EQ2U).

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Hail Norrathians!

It’s going to be another great year for EverQuest 2! The team is excited to be working on new content updates as well as already being waist-deep on our next expansion, all coming this year.

We spent January getting our plans nailed down and are busy getting ready for a big content update for members this spring. This update will have new fabled dungeons and places to explore packed with quests (timed ones too!), key chests, adventures, and awesome stories.

For more news and details, join us for a livestream on Tuesday, March 15 at 11AM PST on twitch.tv/everquest2 and we’ll show you what’s in this game update and answer your questions live with the team!

Here’s your first hint of what’s coming in this spring update…

 

Move over old orc, the Scourge is in town!

Like the merges we did for US servers a few months ago, we’ll be moving ahead with the server merges for our European servers this spring. Our goal of combining these servers is to build and foster a vibrant server community. We know there may be questions about the European server merges and we’re working on building out a FAQ so players can know what to expect. Feel free to ask any questions you have now, but know we may need a bit of time before we can provide all the answers. We’re grateful for your patience and support and we’ll continue to keep you updated so our players have plenty of notice on the timing of these upcoming merges.

Continuing a time-honored tradition in EQ2, we’ll have new additions to our upcoming live events, Brew Day and Bristlebane Day. When those events roll around this year, make sure you join the festivities and get your holiday-themed rewards while you can!

Hang on to your class hats… there’s plenty more to come!

Update from Roshen:

This won’t be a “campaign” with a price associated with it.

Our spring game update will have new fabled dungeons, and other new zones. You’ll need a membership to access these zones, and the more interesting drops that come from these places will have the prestige tag on those items.

The purpose of New Content in any MMORPG is to provide additional length to the “treadmill” so that players who revisit heroic dungeons or raids always have new things to do. New zones provide new rewards that raise the bar and keep that loot chase going. It is totally expected that when a new content update or expansion is released that previous items will be trumped by new ones. However we’ve seen something new and unexpected since the release of the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion.

In an update on January 20th, existing Weapons and Jewelry items were removed from the loot tables of current enemies in raid zones and then newly upgraded Weapons and Jewelry items were added. These new weapons and jewelry had new names.

In an update on February 17th, existing Armor pieces had their Crit Bonus and Potency slightly upgraded, then removed from loot tables while newly upgraded Armor items were added with hugely upgraded Crit Bonus and Potency. This new armor had the same names as previous items.

There is no doubt that the Terrors of Thalumbra raid gear at launch was hardly worth getting out of bed for. Clearly something had to be done to itemization and we’ve been assured that this was the best way to do it with the time available. However there are several concerns with this approach of replacing rather than upgrading items inline.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: The Forge of Ashes [Raid]

• Changed the message given when triggering the Forge Golem.

LIVE EVENTS
The Erollisi Day “Lovely Lacquer” achievement can now be updated by crafting the passionate and romantic filigree rugs.

QUESTS

• The Wind of Strife Blows Fickle – The update is now found in the truck at the foot of the bed in Viktor T’Hoth’s room, to better fit the description.
• Restoring the Underfoot Cathedral – Each of the tormented Serilian spirits can now only be seen by players on the appropriate step of the quest, and they no longer can be damaged lower than 3% of their health (thus allowing them to be updated by the “Serilian Spirit Gems”).
• A Mind of My Own – The quest journal now specifies that you can return to Talvrae if you ever lose the kobold pet.
• Mount Stations: Greater Faydark – Triggering the mount station updates will now be much easier, even if the player is mounted.
• Mount Stations: Greater Faydark – The Butcherblock Mountain station now properly updates the quest.
• A Time of Growth – Obtaining another sapling from Arbos is much more intuitive, if you have misplaced it.

ITEMS

• Corrected an issue that reduced ranged auto-attack damage.
• Heroic and raid Terrors of Thalumbra armor rewards have been upgraded [in place], and all new armor rewards will now drop in Terrors of Thalumbra Heroic and raid zones.
• Signature Rewards are no longer Relic, but are instead Prestige.
• Confidence will now grant the correct bonuses when grouped.
• Signet of Pure Terror no longer has an effect, and now grants base stats on the item itself.

Daalilama started a thread on the EQ2 Forums asking what we can expect as far as filling gaps in itemization as a result of the player power growth of the recent Terrors of Thalumbra expansion. Points of specific concern are Cyan Adornments, Quintessences, White Adornments, Food & Drink, and Poisons all of which remain largely untouched since 2015’s Altar of Malice expansion.

EQ2 Lead Designer Kander has had some interesting responses suggesting that we’ll see a content release this spring that addresses many of these issues. From the EQ2 Forums:

We’re saving a lot of this stuff for the content update that is coming soon. [TM] Most of this will be addressed with the new content push.

In response to how tedious it is to acquire Exceptional Jewels (non-War Rune purple cloak adornments which offer a nice set bonus)…

Also in new content coming soon.

on the subject of Fabled zones…

We have a lot coming soon. More info soon.

When the team is authorized to say more, we’ll post it.

Along with other line items in today’s Update Notes, it seems a number shifted on the damage ratings of Ranged Weapons in EQ2. For example, the popular Fai Thiss, The Ravager bow saw its Damage Rating drop from 298.5 to 158 with similar changes to the damage range (minimum – maximum).

According to Caith on the EQ2 Forums, this is an unintentional bug rather than a planned change:

Ranged weapons are using the incorrect formula for calculating DPS currently, they are calculating themselves as dual wield weapons instead. The bug should be fixed in the next hotfix.

MJ Guthrie of Massively Overpowered got a chance to talk to the EQ2 team about the music in the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion. After countless expansions scored by sought after composer Inon Zur, EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion received its soundtrack from longtime sound designer Mark MacBride who has been with SOE and Daybreak for many years. The music trades orchestral heft for an urgency and immediacy found in horror and other soundtracks.

From Massively Overpowered:

Music has been on my mind a lot lately. OK, so it is always on my mind! From skipping down the streets belting out showtunes, cartoon theme songs, and parodies of other assorted songs (now you know what I did last weekend!) to signing on livestreams, my mind is always aswirl with music. So when EverQuest II Audio Manager/Composer Mark MacBride made his Terrors of Thalumbra tracks available on soundcloud, I knew I had to go and give them a listen.

As much as I appreciate the art in a game — as much as I love the vistas, the beautiful backdrops, and the intricate details — it’s music that can truly be the heart of a game experience. It’s the music that truly brings out feelings and emotions that connect you to your surroundings; the right music can add things to the picture that your eye can’t see.

…

I’ll admit that my next thought was to go back and discuss my favorite musical scores in the game. However, that became a massively daunting task as there are so many zones and so many dungeons that I simply can’t remember them all nor could I possibly visit in the time I had allotted. So we’ll leave that for another week. In the meantime, which musical scores do you think perfectly fit their areas and help you feel immersed in EQII?

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

I am relieved to share the news from three weeks ago (not sure how I missed it!) that EQ2Interface, EQ2MAP, and all the other MMOUI sites have been reacquired from ZAM and will now once again be run as independent sites. The idea of losing EQ2Interface (and ProfitUI, DrumsUI, DarkUI, EQ2MAP, and many many other EQ2 mods) was a horrifying but real possibility since the devastating reorganization of ZAM late last year.

From Cairenn on EQ2Interface.com:

Now under new (old) ownership

After a number of months of negotiations, Dolby and I have some very exciting news to share with all of you! Under our new company, Good Game Mods LLC, we have been able to re-acquire complete ownership of the MMOUI network (all of the interface sites and Minion).

What does this mean for the future of the sites? Well, I can tell you about some of the short term things that we already know: The next few weeks will be spent getting the sites transferred over to our own servers. Coming up soon ™ we will be rolling out a new layout for the sites. We’ve also decided that we are going to honour any existing Zam premium memberships for a while. What we will do about a new premium membership in the future has yet to be decided.

We are sure you may have questions for us, so feel free to ask them here. We will answer them as best we may, but please understand that we obviously don’t have all of the answers right now. Where things will go in the long term, well, we’ll just have to see.

The best news of all, at least in our opinions, is that we aren’t going anywhere. Dolby and I are still as dedicated to the UI communities we’ve built today as we were the day we opened the sites. You can’t get rid of us that easily.

Commentary

Years ago, ZAM made a very low offer to purchase EQ2U (and all future sites built on the same tech including what then seemed an inevitable “EQNU” site). If we’d taken the deal, we would now be scrambling to try to re-acquire the site to save it from abandonment or shutdown.

It seems like just yesterday that Kingdom of Sky was unlocked on Stormhold and Deathtoll servers, yet here we are once again with an in-game poll. From the EQ2 Forums:

The original wallpaper for the expansion, after the jump…

Erollisi Day went live on Thursday, February 4th and will run until Wednesday, February 17th. From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

Love is in the air, fair Norrath, and with good reason – it’s time for Erollisi Day!

And this year, our hearts are bursting because we’ve got NINE new achievements, two new quests, and a new tradeskill book full of delightful new things to craft!

From Thursday, February 4th through 11:59PM PST on Wednesday, February 17th, you can experience the fun and frivolity of the Erollisi Day holiday! Enjoy your favorite returning quests (how IS your romantic reputation doing?) and try your hand at the new quests for handsome rewards. And keep racking up those achievements! Who will help the Doomed Lovers if not you, dear hero?

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PST | 10:00am~Noon EST | 15:00~17:00 GMT | 16:00~18:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Persistent Instances

• Removed 30 minute lock-out when first entering a persistent instance.
• Killing any NPC in a persistent instance will now commit the lock-out.

Kralet Penumbra: The Master’s Chosen [Heroic]

• The Chosen Curse and the Yothshaval Curse should no longer kill players if it wears off after Golguth is slain.
• Health of bosses have been adjusted.
• Xal’Gilah’s Disrupting Tutor add should no longer disappear during his encounter.

Maldura: Bar Brawl

• Mages disarmed by Dalkuhm can now re-equip their weapons outside of a priest’s cure curse.

From the EQ2 Forums:

January is coming to an end, Norrathians. Here’s even more incentive to venture out into the world of Norrath this weekend: DOUBLE BONUS EXPERIENCE FOR MEMBERS!

From 12:00PM PST (Noon) on Friday, January 29, 2016 through 12:00PM PST (Noon) on Monday, February 1, 2016, all servers (yes, including Stormhold and Deathtoll) will have double bonus experience for All Access Members! Double Experience will be applied to Adventure, Tradeskill, and AA.

Take some time and end January stronger than ever! We’ll see you in Norrath.

Not a member yet? Visit https://www.everquest2.com/membership to sign up and enjoy the Double Bonus XP!

Remember now with Tithe and the Deity System for Terrors of Thalumbra expansion owners, this essentially makes for a Double Tithe weekend. Keep checking your Deity Window every hour or so to make sure you are spending your deity points on Crit Bonus, Potency, Stamina, or the various miracles.

Time Zone Conversions

• PST: January 29 @ Noon – February 1 @ Noon
• EST: January 29 @ 3:00pm — February 1 @ 3:00pm
• GMT: January 29 @ 20:00 — February 1 @ 20:00
• CET: January 29 @ 21:00 — February 1 @ 21:00

Terrors of Thalumbra has been out for over two months, and some players may just now be coming back to the game after a break, or have been playing the expansion but want to get better. With Terrors of Thalumbra, the token grind to add colored gems to gear has given way to dungeon dropped-armor, jewelry, accessories, and weapons which are then upgraded through Infusing.  Add that to Reforging, Adorning, and other game systems and there is quite a lot of “homework” just to play EQ2 these days. Before we go any further, I do not hold myself up as any kind of authority on game itemization or mechanics. Much of this information has been acquired through extensive discussions with other players or personal experience, which likely does not reflect “end game” EQ2.

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

Daybreak Games Senior Community Relations Manager Tony “RadarX” Jones seems to view community management as a war between players and developers. At this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in March, RadarX will be hosting a panel to teach other game companies how they should run their Communities. Here’s the course description:

Toxic behavior in a community can drive player sentiment in the wrong direction, distract from desired discussion points, and cripple positive engagement. Examining principles used by military genius Genghis Khan, attendees will learn how to identify and defeat this behavior.

Takeaway

Attendees will learn to identify forms of toxic behavior regularly seen in online game communities, and practical techniques employed to combat it using real world examples in the industry.

Some of you may be snowed in or, in my case sleeted in. If you were hoping for some promising news about Norrath, Kander has this brief take on Twitter:

Currently working on new Fabled dungeons for this year. We'll be doing something different this time around.

— Kyle Vallée (@EQII_Kander) January 22, 2016

US Servers: 12:30~1:30pm PST | 3:30pm~4:30pm EST | 20:30~21:30 GMT | 21:30~22:30 CEST

This morning’s Game Update was incomplete, so there will be a second downtime at Noon 12:30 PST. From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

We’ve identified additional issues, and EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 around 12:00 12:30PM PST* for maintenance. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

Update: Just received an in-game message on Maj’Dul:

Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down for a brief update at 12:30PM PST Wednesday Jan 20, 2016.

Here are the expected (but not confirmed) Update Notes:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Ascent of the Awakened

• Ireth The Cold is now the correct level.

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PST | 10:00am~12:00am EST | 15:00~17:00 GMT | 16:00~18:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

Update from Caith:

Looks like a large part of the patch didn’t make it to the live servers in this morning’s hotfix, so this is still currently bugged. We’re working on getting it out asap.

and from Gninja:

We are working to get the parts of the patch that did not make it to live servers remedied asap. We are working on it as we speak. Thanks…

Here’s what got patched (from the EQ2 Forums), including that frustrating bug affecting the progression of numerous Zones such as Castle Highhold…

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Corrected an issue that prevented interaction with many objects and NPCs.

ITEMS

• Thalumbra fertilizers drop more frequently. [eq2u]bag of gypsum[/eq2u], [eq2u]flask of deep water[/eq2u], [eq2u]gnawed bone[/eq2u]
• Items with the ability “Soulfeast” will now properly upgrade from items with “Soulthirst“.

If you notice a few guildmates, recently flush with in-game currency, suddenly absent from EQ2 over the next few days/weeks, now you know why. It seems that there was an item which could be purchased for 1 copper from one vendor that could then be sold back to another vendor for upwards of 10 platinum pieces each.

Some players prudently ceased once they discovered the issue. However others systematically abused this glitch, upsetting the in-game economy in the process. Krono prices jumped 200% on some servers. Time will tell if these players are stripped of their ill-gotten plat and/or allowed back into the game.

If you need a dose of forum rage this morning, you can find it here:

• EQ2 Forums: Suspending accounts for coding errors

NOTE: No EverQuest II content inside.

If you’ve been following Sony Online Entertainment co-founder John Smedley‘s Twitter teases and wondering what he would be doing next, now we know…

• Kickstarter: Hero’s Song by Pixelmage Games
• Massively Overpowered: Exclusive Interview: John Smedley Reveals Hero’s Song, His New Open-World OARPG
• MMORPG: Smedley & Patrick Rothfuss Team Up for New ARPG
• PixelmageGames.com
• Twitch: Watch the CohnCarnage Reveal Video hosted by CohhCarnage, John Smedley, Pat Rothfuss

Kickstarter video on Youtube:

What started as an odd Twitter exchange which felt like a pre-planned stunt turns into a three page backhanded compliment for EverQuest II. From Polygon.com:

Touring the living remains of an 11-year-old MMO
EverQuest 2 has been around over a decade, but there’s still some incredible sights to see in this odd game

My name is Phil Kollar, and I had a weird weekend.

Let’s start our story just over 11 years ago, on Nov. 9, 2004. That was the date that Sony Online Entertainment released EverQuest 2. I had spent a couple years in high school noodling around in the original EverQuest, a period that, despite my inability to make much progress in the game, helped me fall in love with the genre of massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

So I must have been excited for EverQuest 2, right?

…

EverQuest 2 is not a bad game, and I’m happy that it’s still up and running.

Have you got Stormhold (TLE PvE) or Deathtoll (TLE PvP) characters on another account and want to move them to your main account? Do you have them on your main account and want to move them to another account? Now you can. This is a manual process handled through Customer Service and it requires both accounts to be in the same name and address and, I believe, paid with the same credit card.

Note that this is not opening up the much-desired ability to move characters from the Stormhold or Deathtoll servers to a standard ruleset server.

From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

Today we’re opening up the Account-to-account transfer service to our Time-Locked Expansion servers, Stormhold and Deathtoll!

Account-to-Account transfers are a way that players can manage their characters. This service allows people to move characters from a single to multiple accounts so those characters can play together at the same time, or move characters spread across multiple accounts into one account to help save on membership dollars each month.

BEFORE you transfer a character from one account to another, remember that you need to contact our Customer Support team! For more information about this, see the knowledge base article here.

We’re happy to be opening this up to the players on our newest servers, and we appreciate your continued support!

Like previous expansions, Terrors of Thalumbra includes shiny “collections of collections” or meta-collections. A number of the expansion’s collections reward a piece which is part of a larger collection. When the expansion launched however, some of these pieces were not being rewarded. This week, Caith went through game logs to award the correct items to the players who had completed the quests but didn’t receive the pieces. From Kander:

We have started reimbursing these missed meta collection pieces. If you haven’t been reimbursed for missed metas, Please email me.
KVALLEE@daybreakgames.com

Email me if you have collections you have completed and did not receive the meta reward. We will of course be verifying any claims via logs.

Second, the collection rewards need to be corrected to properly reward the pieces. This is still in progress…

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums yesterday:

Quick update folks, we’re working on the collection issues, they are not yet fully resolved. None of the collections that have been completed are the final collection for the expansion, so you have not yet seen the final reward. We are aiming at having the issues resolved for next hotfix, we’ll let you know if that changes.

Anyone that completed one of the collections that was fixed in December have been granted the collection pieces that they missed out on. The grants were completed today.

As for the Time-Locked Expansion servers, a significant effort was made to go through heroic and raid rewards for the Kingdom of Sky expansion to bring the items up to snuff. After numerous revamps left the raid gear untouched, it had fallen behind even HANDCRAFTED gear. As per Gninja on the EQ2 Forums, the effort to remedy this imbalance continues:

From the EQ2 Forums: