Feldon
EQ2Players has checked in with another great Artist Highlight, this time for Stephanie Young. One of my favorite parts of Sentinel’s Fate has been the zone artwork. It has taken everything to another level. Here are some excerpts from the article: How did you get started in the industry? I started out as a graphic artist for a subcontractor to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Gradually the company started incorporating more 3D simulations into the products we developed and I became the primary developer for the 3D assets used by the engineers. Eventually though I found it difficult to...
Art, Appearance, Housing
Tad Ehrlich is a lead artist on the EQ2 Development team. He was a major part of the creation of the zone art for the beautiful Vasty Deep zones. Some excerpts: How did you get started in the industry? I began in comic books and worked as a colorist for Wildstorm, Jim Lee’s comic book company. I was very fortunate to land in an industry that I was extremely passionate about and had amazing people to learn from. My experience there led to me starting as a texture artist at Midway. The rest is history! What are some of...
Remember those awesome Player-made Paintings for the 5th anniversary of EverQuest II Timeless Heroes celebration? Brasse has put together a player contest on the EQ2 Forums to win a set of these house items! The Challenge: We want your best screenshot of (and a brief description of the event) you falling to your death in The Hole. This is inspired by Brasse happily going splat many times in both EQ and EQII! Deadline: Friday, March 12th 2010 at 10:00am PST Submissions for this challenge will be accepted until Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 10:00 am US PST. Winners will be...
EQ2Wire got an invitation to go on a tour of the Sentinel’s Fate Beta with the lovely Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, last month and we’re now able to post some screens and details of that tour. We were able to check out the hub city of Paineel, the sprawling open dungeon the Hole, the Vasty Deep Conservatory, and the Erudin Library. I believe the most stunning aspect and lasting appeal of Sentinel’s Fate will be the artwork. The Shadow Odyssey artwork was not my favorite. I found the “void” look of purples, greys, and sharp edges just...
Last month, the first ever City Festival camped outside the Kelethin gates and provided a selection of both local and traveling rewards, house items, and temporary costumes (I want that Gi as a permanent item!!). When it pulled up stakes, we had no idea where it would end up next. Early this morning we caught wind of the news that the traveling City Festival had arrived in Gorowyn. The theme for Gorowyn seems to be all things in a deep crimson. Here’s a sneak of what you can purchase with City Tokens for the next week, before the event...
When it comes to EQ2 Crafting Previews and Guides, nobody does it better than Niami Denmother at EQ2Traders. Once you’ve finished ogling the new Apple tablet, check out her Erollisi Day 2010 crafting preview!!
Today’s hotfix notes bring news that your player appearances (including illusions) can now be set in-game using a Magic Mirror type tool. Update Notes from EQ2 Forums: ITEMS Appearance customization items have been changed! This affects these items: – Shave and a Cut, Makeover (combined into the same item) – Nalana’s All-Natural Cosmetic Balsam When used, these items now open a window that allows you to customize your appearance in-game instead of returning to the character select screen. In addition, Shave and a Cut and Nalana’s All-Natural Cosmetic Balsam now affect your current illusion if it is that of...
A zone I have been anxious to get a look at is the contested “The Hole” which will encompass an area over twice the size of Sanctum of Scaleborn, and a level range from 82 all the way to 90. We are thrilled to present the first screen shots of this zone: Around the web, others have posted new screen shots this evening including: EQ2 Zam | EQ2 Traders | Ten Ton Hammer | MMOQuests | Shattered | MMORPG-Info | kithicor.org | LoreLibrary | Archive of Ik | EQ2 Daily | TheBrasse.com | EverSeek.com
illustration by Dozer Mount Up EQ2 has yet to fill out its stable of player mounts with the variety available in other MMORPGs. The hygiene-challenged Wargs and motion sickness-inducing Rhinos weren’t my up of tea. When I heard that EQ2 were getting Dire Bears, I was thrilled, until my hopes were dashed when the Sabertooth/Werewolf-like mount was revealed. In lieu of a desirable fluffy travel companion, I’ve limited myself to running barefoot. I’ve long since outgrown the 40% speed of the venerable Carpet of El’khazi, wrangled from the ever-sarcastic flying carpet dealer in Sinking Sands, the 48% upgrade in...
EQ2Wire is thrilled to present some more screen shots from the upcoming Sentinel’s Fate expansion. These images are taken from the first part of Odus players will encounter, the Sundered Frontier. It seems many things have changed, and many others have stayed the same. Odus seems to have been scooped from out of the earth and is now scattered across the Norrath sky. Visitors will likely arrive by Spire or Airship! Check out these screen shots (Scroll down to get a clickable grid of thumbnails): Also check out this exclusive Sundered Frontier screen shot available only on EQ2Wire: EQ2Wire...
>> Download Highland Stalker Preview HD Video [22.5MB WMV]. << >> Download Highland Stalker Preview SD Video [13.8MB WMV]. << Guarding of the Reasoned and Guarding of the Learned The Guarding of the Reasoned (right) comes with the retail boxes The Guarding of the Learned (left) comes with the digital downloads.
The phase of the moon is just right and the mushroom rings will be active again for a short time. There are more house items and other rewards than ever for the Moonlight Enchantments event this time around. The event will turn on at 12:01am PDT on December 20th and run until 11:59pm PDT on December 21st. These times apply directly with no time conversion to all servers.
It’s going to be a busy week for Norrathians. Will of a Tyrant (Game Update 54) Weduesday, December 9 PRELUDE EVENT Freeport has been rocked by the sudden destruction of Dethknell Citadel. What was once an ever-present reminder of The Overlord’s power and will floating above the city has collapsed, and the tenuous peace held within the city by the watchful and ruthless Overlord has been obliterated. Something has obviously befallen Lucan D’Lere, the Overlord of Freeport! Start your investigation into these mysterious events in West Freeport by speaking with Sir Tallen Yevix. The destruction and chaos in Freeport...
Kiara has brought us the great news about the Six Year Veteran Rewards. I have to say these are some great items!! Check out the preview at EQ2Players. Also, Frostfell is expected to appear in Norrath on December 10th.
Available for Thanksgiving week only, there are 10 new paintings available in Norrath from the City Merchants in Qeynos and Freeport. As I was writing this article, I discovered a writeup at EQ2 Wiki with the names, screen snapshots, and descriptions of each painting. A merchant window retouched to show the 10 winning paintings: The First Prize winning “Destroyer of Ordanach” by Citadelli. One of the nine Second Prize winners “Prayer of the Righteous” by Enna. All 10 paintings can be viewed at your local City Merchant or at EQ2 Wikia. These items may be available later on, but...
A Bibliophile’s Guide to the Books of Norrath We’ve been following Aurelis‘ progress on documenting every book currently available in the world of Norrath. She has now posted the results of her extensive research. Some facts and figures she discovered: 428 confirmed books 2 unconfirmed books 20 books that exist only in the database and have never been discovered 1 book that was once a house item and is kept on the list in memoriam of its untimely demise. Of course these are subject to change if someone out there finds another book! Please see her full announcement. A...
Niami DenMother and Kaisha of EQTraders.com can always be counted upon to provide excellent coverage of Crafting and Live Events. There are 3 articles worth checking out, and they are still being updated as more items are discovered, so be sure to check them out again at the end of the month to see anything news! From Niami: Check out the EQ2TC GU54 Crafting Overview for more details – it already has the furniture shots for the first City Festival event (clothing shots will be incoming as time permits), as well as a page showing both the returning and...
We’ve been closely monitoring the progress on the development of Shaders 3.0. This is the graphical revamp which will improve the lighting, reflections, and other effects on 99% of the textures in the game. So far, we know that Shaders 3.0 is running very well on certain systems, but has significant performance problems on other systems. As a result, it’s not yet on Test, and may not be released until after Game Update 54. In response some pithy comments that Shaders 3.0 has slipped to the February expansion and will now be used as a selling point of said...
We know what’s in Game Update 55, which will coincide with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate in February. It’s the new good starting city of New Halas. What is Game Update 54? Game Update 54 (slated for release the first week of December) addresses the most annoying of beasts in EQ2: the bug. That random inconsistency in a item description. That bizarre issue in a quest that makes it impossible to complete. The unexpected roadblock in a zone. The mob that just doesn’t work right. Game Update 54 contains a gob-smacking 304 BUG FIXES covering both recent and long-standing...
EQ2 Producer Brenlo has Twittered a couple of interesting sneak peaks into the future of EQ2. New Dance Moves First up, if you’ve been thinking that what Barbarians really need is some new dance moves, you might enjoy this new video. No word on when we can expect Guitar Hero: EverQuest edition. 🙂 New Barbarian dance on YouTube You can safely infer that since this dance is specific to male Barbarians, that EQ2 is getting a bunch of new dances unique to male and female members of each race. I wonder if they will all be pop culture references....
EQ2Wire is on the road this week, so updates will be a bit less frequent. Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge The Nagafen/Venekor Server Merge was completed Friday night. We’d certainly like to hear comments from folks on what the new 64-bit server experience is like (I know Butcherblock is a lot snappier with the new hardware), as well as having more folks to kill. 🙂 Issues with using the Broker, Banker, and World Chat channels were all related to the last stages of this merge, and should long have since been resolved. New Shaders 3.0 Snapshots Imago-Quem (Ryan) surprised us over...
Who would have thought just 5 months ago that we would see these: Also, contrary to prior plans/rumors/hints, they are not restricted to Alignment. Any race can switch to any other race!! Just $25 ($44 in Europe).
To compensate for the server wonkyness, server downtimes, and slow start on the event, Moonlight Enchantments is extended through 11:59pm PDT October 22nd.
Sorry for the late post on this but Butcherblock, Nagafen, and Lucan D’Lere servers are currently down to complete the maintenance which was attempted last week. Note that ALL 3 servers are being upgraded at this time. Hopefully at noonish Pacific time, we’ll be running 64-bit and see some significant improvements to zoning time, zone lag, etc. The announcements on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings all! This is to let you know that Nagafen, Butcherblock, and Lucan D’Lere will be down from Midnight PDT tonight (October 19th) until Noon PDT Tuesday October 20th, while the team migrates Nagafen (only!) [all...
Spoilers ahead… Maze If you have been struggling to complete the Nightmarish Hedge Maze as part of Nights of the Dead, especially as a mage or pet class, you may be interested in this thread on the EQ2 Forums. Of course if you’d rather be challenged to figure it out for yourself, then don’t. 🙂 Fog Another item as part of Nights of the Dead you may not want to miss may make your head a little more Foggy than usual. Again, if you’d rather figure it out yourself, then don’t visit this forum thread on the EQ2 Forums....