Kwill
Something that we can never forget, is that when we play an MMO, we play with real people. Most of the time, our relationships with our fellow players are superficial. Sometimes, real friendships form, and outlast the dragon slaying. But it’s those chance encounters, those brief moments when the paths of human beings cross for just a few moments, that brings into focus the reality of human relationships in a world where we choose just how much we want to reveal about ourselves.
Kwill
One of the problems that the developers have been working on lately is to make sure that non-participants or “slackers” don’t get rewarded in Public Quests. In the original version of the Public Quests, which started out with an arbitrary threshold of acceptable spell casting or DPS, too many AFK players were getting chest drops, at least in the eyes of other players, who expressed their concerns to developers. For Dev Gninja, this was an unacceptable situation that needed to be rectified. He was mad about it. So back to the drawing board he went, increasing the threshold yet...
The Storm Gorge Public Quests are currently denying eligible participants the ability to loot a chest, apparently as a result of the recent changes to weed out PQ slackers. Gninja has acknowledged today there is a problem: We are aware of the problem and are working to fix it. In the meantime, players are reporting lag and the possibility you will not get to loot a chest even if you are participating fully.
SOE has sent out another mass email advertising Fortune League, their EQ2-themed Facebook game. I was curious enough to go look. They entice players to play by offering Alternate Advancement scrolls and other in-game goodies. Sounds great to me, until you click on the “Play Now” button. Up pops a screen asking you to share with SOE and other players all your basic information on Facebook — friends, personal information, and all your contacts. Whoa, hold on a sec guys. I personally appreciate an MMO where all that stuff is revealed on a purely voluntary and individual basis, like, oh,...
Look for the enchanted mushroom rings tomorrow and Monday! Use these portals to be transported to five different enchanted grottos, where the inhabitants are ready to give you quests and reward you with house items, mounts, or illusions, and one purple shiny (that means it takes a while to complete the collections). Find the Dryad Grotto in Archer’s Woods in Antonica, The Fay Grotto in The Nursery in Greater Faydark, the Brownie Grotto in Darklight Wood, the Enchanted Naiad Grotto near the spires in The Enchanted Lands, and the Zygomyd Grotto near the spires in Nektulos Forest. Read more...
But not for the actual people who live in Ireland, open to residents of the fifty US states only: The Luck of the Irish is coming your way March 17 – March 20, 2011. Beginning on Thursday, March 17th, and continuing through March 20th, every time you add station cash to your account or make a purchase through the in-game marketplace in participating games you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a Sony® Cyber-shot® Digital Camera, a Sony® Vaio® F Series Laptop, or a 55″ Sony® BRAVIA® NX810 Television with 3D Sync Transmitter and 4 pairs of 3D...
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! You’ll have some time this morning to don the green, since the servers are going to be down for a while: The US servers will come down on Thursday, March 17, 2011, at 7am PDT for a hotfix and session server maintenance. The expected downtime is 1 hour. Please note that due to the maintenance occurring during this period, you may not able to log in to the forums. The UK servers are also getting a patch: This is a notification that UK worlds will be updated at 4:00 AM London Time on 03/18/2011. The...
Zatozia has posted our update notes for Thursday, March 17, 2011. They include numerous tweaks and fixes to Velious instances and Public Quests.
As part of the twelve year anniversary events, join SOE President John Smedley and Brasse for a trip down memory lane. Brasse, some of you may remember, was a fixture in the fan community before joining the SOE team. Zatozia posts: To celebrate EverQuest’s 12th Anniversary, John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, will join Brasse, Dwarven Overlord o’ Community, to take a look back at the history of EverQuest. Join us on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time*, as we live stream this webcast on the SOE channel on Stickam! You can also tune in...
Are you a dedicated decorator that likes to play with house layouts? If so, check out Gracey’s course in EQ2 Layout Editor being held this Thursday, March 17, on the Test server: This Week’s Topic: New to the layout editor? We can help!! Time: THURSDAY @ 5pm PST, 8pm EST, (Friday @ 01:00 GMT) Where: Test Copy server – Gracey’s 1 Room Gorowyn house What to bring: yourself and maybe some paper and a pen for notes What level do I need to be: You can make a level 1 char on Test Copy if you don’t already have a...
The zone crashes occurring in the x2 Tower of Frozen Shadow instances involving boss Tserrina have been identified by the development team, but cannot be immediately fixed, says Gninja: We have found the crash issue with Tserrina and it should be getting cleared up within a patch or two. For now if you do not cure the curses it should not crash. Looks like Tserrina found a way to make her curses stick!
EQ2 Designer Windslasher is working on the lag issues in the Storm Gorge public quests, but apparently it’s not an easy problem to solve: I am working on changes to reduce lag. I’m very aware of how bad it is, and I consider that the #1 problem to fix. It also happens to be the hardest, which is why the going is slow. That is all.
The player base has started a very interesting discussion thread on how long the Public Quests will remain popular. Currently, everyone is scrambling to get gear — raiders, non-raiders, casual players. The PQs are packed, players are complaining no one wants to group or do anything else, and for most people who are participating, they are getting most of their gear slots filled with the best upgrades. Being nearby a successful raid seems all that is necessary. But how long will the gearfest last? Once everyone gets what they need, why would they continue to join the PQs? The...
If you’ve been keeping your Burynai house pet (from the Kunark Pre-Order) on a steady diet of fertilizers and letting the shinies roll in, you’ve probably noticed that they have had no luck producing any of the collections from Odus (Sundered Frontier, Stonebrunt Mountains), Velious (Great Divide, Eastern Wastes), or associated dungeons. It turns out, a new Guild Hall amenity has been added for these Tier 9 zones. Here’s Gninja to explain the new Herbalist Hirelings which accept fertilizer items in exchange for collectable rewards: .. Right now you should be able to feed the “Herbalist Hireling” any combination of...
The March 8th Game Update Notes contain an interesting item: The anti-slacker threshold has been raised on all PQ’s [Public Quests]. The Developers are serious about this! Windslasher said: Freeloading was not part of the public quest design and will not be allowed. I’m approaching the problem slowly and carefully, to avoid denying loot to players who deserve it, but measures are being taken to tighten up the participation requirements. The next hotfix [March 8] will make a slight change to address the problem, and depending on the response, I may take progressively stronger measures. We reported earlier this...
In an amusing use of a Station Cash illusion item, clever player Meha turned himself into a treasure chest and planted himself where the normal chest would drop in a public quest raid. Apparently, the actual chest hadn’t dropped, so they took matters into their own hands to lighten the mood. Needless to say, player Rabbie from Butcherblock and his guild The Black Knights were laughing at the ensuing chaos: Everyone ran to him, clicked on him, there was shouting, snickering, and cursing indeed. Then about 5 minutes later, someone else did it, off to the side. And half the zone...
Some players have noticed everquest2.exe instances keep running in the background after they have logged out. Aerendar from Quality Assurance would like to get to the bottom of it, and asks: Could we get a little more info from you regarding your system specs (DXDiag and MSinfo would be extremely helpful in looking at this further and to see if we can determine a commonality between users)? He adds: We’re also interested in how you’re getting into game (which launcher/portal). If you have experienced this problem, please post in the relevant thread. If this is an old issue resurfaced,...
The rewards from public quests have been a hot topic on the community forums lately, with a few players wondering if just healing or playing a support role results in a lesser chest than all out DPS. As the rumor that only good dps’ers would get the best loot swept the community, some support classes have resorted to dealing out pure dps and not healing, which doesn’t make for a very successful raid. We may yet hear from the Devs on this issue, but until then, the only information available is from the core design of public quests. Our understanding of...
Of interest to some players who may play both EQ1 and EQ2… SOE has announced that a new time locked progression server for EverQuest 1, Fippy Darkpaw, is planned to go live on Tuesday at 10am PST. The server will use a normal player versus environment rule set. Players will take on challenges to unlock newer expansions, and when unlocked, will have the ability to vote using an in game poll for which expansion will be unlocked next. Various armors and other items will be limited on the server if SOE has determined they would give an unfair advantage....
Launched in January 2011, this new fan site looks promising for players who would like to track named mobs for alternate achievement progress and keep track of daily missions. EQ2Mission will not only keep track of which named mobs you have killed, but suggest others in a zone that you might have missed. Still a work in progress, the author, Quicktiger on Antonia Bayle, has been steadily growing his database. The site also promises to track items needed, such as master spells and recipe books, as well as the best food and drink choices for your characters. Quicktiger’s site lists...