Feldon
Last Friday, SOE announced changes to their Subscription services, replacing the 500 SC/month allowance for having a Gold Subscription in any of SOE’s games with a monthly voucher to buy ONE item per game, up to 2,000SC, to exclude Player Studio, “bundles“, and an unknown array of other items, presumably “Services“, Experience items (280AA bauble), and expansion unlocks like Mercenaries. Players who buy a number of 100-200SC items would have lost out with the deal, as the voucher only applied to a single item with exclusions. And while it’s a small pool of players, Vanguard players on an All Access subscription...
Feldon
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Veteran Merchant Added new items to both Veteran merchants; including several items that require gold membership to purchase. Vesspyr Isles Zaszea’s Armor Exchange will now correctly return a Cryptic Bracers Token when used on Cryptic Hive Aggressor’s Chain Bracers. Cryptic Hammer Slammer Gauntlets now correctly require Cryptic Glove Token’s to purchase. PVP Completing Cleansing the Good (Level 90) will now correctly update the quest Learning the Path. TRADESKILLS Recipes from Advanced Armorer Volume 90 should now accept refined primary components. Summon Artisan’s Gathering Goblin should no longer revert to a 12...
After last week’s changes to Gold Subscriptions for EverQuest, EverQuest II, DCUO, PlanetSide 2, and All Access passes were announced, I was certain that regardless of how much player feedback came out against the changes, little would change. After 6 years, I guess I can still be surprised by Sony Online Entertainment. Just over 1 hour ago, SOE President John Smedley took to Reddit (once again bypassing the forums), to announce the restoration of the monthly 500SC stipend, AND some remarkable changes to All Access. This not only gives us back everything we asked for, but goes to the...
SOE President John Smedley has taken to his favorite “bypass the Marketing/PR Machine” venue Reddit and posted some personal thoughts on the Subscription changes recently announced for EverQuest, EverQuest II, Planetside 2, DCUO, and all of SOE’s games under the All Access umbrella. It’s written from a PlanetSide 2 angle, but it is applicable to EQ2 as well. From Reddit: Hello everyone, I hope you all had a Happy New Year! we’re here back working hard to make cool stuff. I wanted to give a little more insight into our thinking regarding the changes to the upcoming subscription plan....
Massively‘s MJ Guthrie has checked in with her thoughts on SOE’s announced removal of 500 StationCash/month allowance for Gold subscribers to its games: While I had another, happier topic all ready to ring in the new year, SOE surprised us with a questionable decision this week that I felt necessitated an immediate response. So today we’ll focus on this hot topic instead: All change is not good. And SOE’s announced change in membership benefits for EverQuest II is really not good. Previously, with the removal of the remaining free-to-play restrictions, EQII subscribers saw their benefits whittle down to essentially a buff to mount speed...
When Fabled and Mythical versions of the Channeler Epic Weapon were discovered, players couldn’t help notice a passing resemblance to existing drops from the Temple of Veeshan Labs group instance and the Pirate Kings raid zone: Channeler Fabled: Spiritbreaker ToV Labs Bow: Wurm Sinew Strung Bow Channeler Mythical: Spiritbreaker, Eianosheoll’s Folly Pirate Kings Bow: Hullpiercer, Ship Destroyer The main differentiator between the Mythical and its more common drop is a 15% higher damage rating, and it seems that the Fabled epic was supposed to have a similarly boosted rating. Further, the two level 80 buffs for completing the Mythical quest, bringing the questline up...
Players have received an e-mail which elaborates on today’s contentious announcement that the 500SC/month allowance will be going away for recurring Gold and All Access customers: CUSTOMER SERVICE NOTIFICATION Dear EverQuest II Gold Member, We regularly evaluate our offerings at SOE to ensure we are consistently delivering great games and products, while also offering exceptional value to our players. Given that we just started a new year it seemed like the perfect time to add more value! The week of February 3rd, 2014 we will be making a very important change to Gold Membership in EverQuest II. The current...
An announcement intended for tomorrow morning briefly appeared in the EQ2 Forums RSS feed and then vanished, however a few players brought it to our attention. As you likely know, EverQuest II Gold and SOE All Access accounts currently receive a monthly allowance of 500 StationCash. Starting the first week of February 2014, in lieu of this StationCash allotment, all recurring Gold and All Access customers will be able to login to EverQuest II and buy one item (up to a value of 2,000SC) per month for FREE. If you are All Access, you’ll also be able to login to EQ, Planetside...
UPDATE: The DDoS attack has ceased, and all SOE websites and game services are now coming back online. Players have reported logging into EQ2 successfully. As of 6:00pm EST, all SOE websites and forums seem to be offline and are now returning a Maintenance message. In addition, all SOE game servers, including PlanetSide 2, DCUO, EQ and EQ2 are offline and inaccessible. A DDoS hacker group have taken responsibility on twitter. In past days, they took down: EVE Online World of Warcraft Battle.net Guild Wars 2 Skype NOTE: This was NOT a hack, and customer data has NOT been...
EQ2Wire and EQ2U will be undergoing server maintenance over the next few hours, so these websites will be unavailable during this time.
The two-day StationCash Instant Rebate event is now active, and over 1,000 items can now be purchased for half their normal price. Rebates are a marketing tactic intended to drive sales of StationCash, since players must typically purchase more to buy discounted items. If a mount is 1,950SC, then you’ll need the full amount to buy it, but you’ll immediately receive 975SC back. This rebate event runs all day December 31st and January 1st, ending at 11:59pm PST What’s on Rebate? most Appearance Clothes/Armor Kilts, Cloaks, Shields, Weapons, Jewelry Racial Heritage Armor most House Items House Pets and Plushies Building Blocks Furniture many PlayerStudio...
Looks like there’s a 2 hour server maintenance on December 29th coming to EU servers. There are no update notes. From the EQ2 Forums: All EU servers will go offline for a scheduled network maintenance at 12:00 AM CET December 29th (3:00 PM PT December 28th). Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 2 hours and players should notice no gameplay changes.
Dellmon and Aliscious have conducted a great post-launch interview with Kyle “Kander” Vallée about EQ2’s recent Tears of Veeshan expansion, talking about what worked and what didn’t, and sharing a few tidbits of the future. Our illustrious host Dellmon’s protestations that he shall never reforge nor adorn do wear a bit, but it’s nonetheless a fantastic interview worth listening to if you wish to hear the thought processes behind the expansion, as well as a look at EQ2’s coming months. As for prescient sneak peaks within the interview, look for more raid content, a fabled Kingdom of Sky zone...
Healov of Unrest (posting as Sylke on the forums) has just (less than 2 hours ago) discovered the Channeler Epic Weapon quest starter and shared the details on the EQ2 Forums. The Channeler Epic Weapon quest went live 5 days ago. If you don’t want spoilers for where to find the Channeler quest, STOP READING!! Ok last warning! 1. Go to Paineel (Sundered Frontier). In the same room as Sa’ib Waseem (Epic Repercussions NPC), go to loc 1986.34, -298.22, 3378.24. Click the 4th book from the right on the middle book case, 4 shelves up. 2. This will open a...
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums: Happy holidays and merry Frostfell, Norrathians! It’s been an incredible year thanks to all of you! We’re grateful for every player who enjoys this game that is a passion and labor of love for all of us. As part of our daily lives here we are constantly evaluating what we offer you — our faithful roleplayers — and are always striving to improve. Recently we added the Ethereal jewelry drops for the Tears of Veeshan expansion zones, we doubled the alternate currencies that Gold members earn, and made 10% mount speed,...
From EQ2 ZAM: This holiday season, Sony Online Entertainment and ZAM want to share the holiday spirit with the community with an epic contest! It doesn’t matter if you play EverQuest, EverQuest II or want to dive into EverQuest Next Landmark, there is something for all Norrathians here. We have one grand prize and three Station Cash prizes from SOE, as well as a bonus for ten lucky people from ZAM! GRAND PRIZE: One winner will receive codes to the collector’s editions of the most recentEverQuest and EverQuest II expansions, Call of the Forsaken and Tears of Veeshan (a $90 value each), as well as a code for the EverQuest Next Landmark Trailblazer Founder’s Pack (a $100 value;...
NOTE: This article is NOT about Sony Online Entertainment or EverQuest II. NOTE: Sony has NOT been hacked. This is an EA problem and 2 years ago, the same issue affected EA games on Xbox Live. So I don’t know how many EQ2Wire readers also play EA’s FIFA Football (Soccer) games, but you might have a friend or family member that does. Apparently EA’s FIFA Football has lots of stuff you can buy in their in-game shop. So much so, that it has become lucrative to snatch funds from other people’s PSN accounts and buy or gift FIFA subscriptions and in-game...
Stratum of the Protectors Just a little head’s up for the weekend about the Stratum of the Protectors [Heroic] zone. It looks like if you try to fight Shazzak off his platform either in the water or near the lift, then after the first wave of snake adds, he will despawn and will not come back. Our group came across this while running the zone, and when I raised the issue in open chat, two other groups reported the same issue. The solution is to fight him up on his platform, with the tank near one platform, and everyone else...
From RadarX on the EQ2 Forums: Finish up your holiday shopping and clear your calendar as this weekend starting Friday, December 20th at 12:00 PM PT you’ll get double experience from Adventure, Tradeskill, Alternate Achievement, and Guild Experience! This event will run through Sunday, December 22nd at 11:59 PT. Also, to help everyone ring in the new year and finish out Frostfell, we will have a 50% Rebate Sale on many of our items on Tuesday, December 31st at 12:00 AM PT to Wednesday, January 1st, 11:59pm PT. You only have two days so don’t miss out on this...
From the moment we added a Forum Signature feature to EQ2U, we always intended to add additional looks and styles. However to date, all our signatures still look like this: In the last months, we have refactored our Signature code, and we can now support signatures that look a whole lot better. But to really go all-out on the look and style of these signatures, we need your help as we are not graphic artists! What Are We Looking For? We are looking for player-submitted signature designs that are visually appealing, and language-appropriate, which provide a clear space where...
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice Fixed an issue with the winter juggernauts.
We are proud to announce that EQ2U has been updated with a new “Recipes” tab which allows you view Known Recipes and Known Recipe Books for EQ2 Characters! When viewing Recipes, the Item, Book, and Level columns can sorted or reverse sorted by clicking the column headers or spinner (). To keep web browsers from exploding when trying to display 6,500 recipes, we’ve broken this data out into Tiers (0, 1-9, 10-19, 20-29, up to 90-95). Recipes can also be quickly filtered from the Category menu.
From the EQ2 Forums: QUESTS The Channeler Epic Quest is now available for all level 95 Channelers. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Vesspyr Isles Zaszae’s Armor Exchange in the Falinpol area of Vesspyr Isles will allow you to convert any Cryptic, Arcane, or Potent armor that has not been upgraded with a gemstone into a Token specific to that tier and slot. Seven of these tokens can then be used to purchase a piece of armor from Zaszae. Anex and Onerind Fe’Dhar in Vesspyr Isles no longer turn toward players hailing them. Accursed Sanctum (Raid) The tomes unlocked around the...
One of the most intriguing things about the recent Tears of Veeshan expansion is, there are at least seven different “Stat Packages” for quested and dropped gear. Not only are these items intended to have their stats fiddled with through Reforging, but most restrictions on equipping items have been dropped, save for the armor’s material (Cloth, Leather, Chain, Plate). This plethora of choice has been a blessing for most, but a curse for some with unlucky dice. When an Advanced Solo or Heroic mission is completed, each player receives an Ornate Chest with an item having one of the following “stat packages”: DPS...
It’s official! SOE Live 2014 is set for August 14-17, 2014 returning to Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Registration will go live next Spring. From SOE.com/SOELive: Hopefully a Mobile Data solution can be found so that article posting, tweeting, and facebooking is possible from the convention floor. It wasn’t last year (unless you paid $25 for 3 hours of Wifi), greatly diminishing SOE’s social media presence over the all-important weekend of EQNext news. It’s also too early to tell if events will spill into Sunday afternoon as they did last year, but now, people can start asking for days off work to attend!