Feldon
EQ2 Devs are quick on the draw and have already remedied some issues that were present in the July 28th Fan Faire Feedback update and made some other cool changes as well. Each of the items in these two updates may appear small, but they are almost all from player feedback and make the game better. It’s great to see. General Choosing a bad name when using the CTS token should now give an appropriate error. The Scroll of Smoldering Tactics and Scroll of Smoldering Blessing now properly display their bonuses in the Persona window. The Abyssal Carpet mount...
Art, Appearance, Housing
With apologies to Dylan Thomas, it appears that the instant no-carry cast-anywhere torch which we have all been granted (press Alt-L) does not always respect the wishes of its owner. It seems that its flame will not remain quelled for long, and folks have reported spontaneous re-ignition of their torches at the least opportune times. I’ve heard this makes PvP quite a bit more interesting. A hotfix is expected soon.
Tinkerfest is here!! The gnomes of Norrath have resurrected their holiday from more than 500 years ago. This celebration of all things gnomish will bring you new gnomish house items, new shinies to collect, and lots of fun! Look for signs of celebration in gnomish hangouts – Gnomeland Security in Steamfont Mountains, Temple Street in Freeport, Baubleshire in Qeynos! The festivities will run from 12:01am July 24th until 11:59pm August 3rd PDT. See you in Norrath!! Read More Tinkerfest at EQ2Traders
Some concept art from EQ2 Sentinel’s Fate has been posted at EQ2Players.
Thanks to Coniaric for these snapshots of the Shard of Love from Fan Faire. This zone will be going into Gu53.
Thanks to Ke’la who has posted a video captured from the Shaders 3.0 presentation at Fan Faire 2009. The snapshots are from Nek Forest and show a dramatic improvement in lighting. This should appear in Game Update 53. Once you see the screen snapshots, you realize just how flat, grey, and unrealistic the lighting in Nek Forest has been. Check it out: EverQuest II Shaders 3.0 Video As soon as I get screen snapshots, you’ll see them here on EQ2Wire. 🙂
Here are some less concrete things that were discussed at Fan Faire. Race change is something a LOT of people are asking for. EQ2 devs asked for a show of hands of how many people would like this feature and half the room raised their hands. It IS being looked at. Yes, there was some resistance for lore reasons, and betrayal/alignment/quest issues are substantial, but it’s certainly possible with enough development time. The amount of money they’d make off this would more than make up for it. You can scratch “never” out of your vocabulary for this one. Heck,...
I present the EverQuest II Expansion & Game Update News from Fan Faire in a rollup post. This is partly based on the Fan Faire 2009 Consolidated News by Kalyyn. I started with Kalyyn’s great writeup and have built upon it, adding dozens of new details and minor corrections based on everything I observed at the 2009 Fan Faire EQ2 event in Las Vegas. I’ve archived the individual news posts I submitted over the weekend. If you still want to read them, they’re [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] And now, without further ado,...
Parsing Gravitas, Cures, CoB, etc. Will consider it. Determining where guild rally flag is located? Some coming has already been done for this. Auto mentoring – hail an npc and mentor to a level in 5 level increments. Old quest completion missions. Probably not on PvP. Daily double shard zone in Welcome window or MOTD? Possible. Achievements (like CoH or Xbox Live) like 500 kills, 20 heritage quests, etc. In a new tab in the quest window. Current tier upgrades are coming for bone clasped gridle. Not so much for the bloodthirsty choker. 🙂 Streamling buffing for classes. Buffing...
Some seriously funny, cool, and creative new mob designs and revamped appearances to some existing mobs. More interesting animations. * fighting pandas * displacer beasts * two headed giants * stalagmites * scarecrows Random illusion appearances driving you crazy? Looking at a possibly a Magic Mirror house item to save illusion setups. Npcs only have about 50 animations. Players have about 1,000 animations. Kelethin houses will get a transparent window. Both Kelethin and Neriak houses will have more rooms. Male ratongas with whiskers but without glasses? We’ll look into it. Illusion picker UI to switch illusions in development. Devs...
Any software update is going to bring bugs. Laryngitis I just wish SoE hadn’t tried to completely revamp the voice system on the same day as all this new content was added. Last night we spent most of time just fiddling around with voice, trying to get it clear and stable. Mostly it was choppy, stuttery, laggy, and folks had a tough time joining channels. We also had to inform a few folks running Windows Firewall that they would need to allow Eq2VoiceService.exe. This service was spun off from the EQ2 client to allow voice chat outside the game...
Here are the notes for GU52 which has now appeared on Test. It is unknown exactly when these changes will go live. FEATURED Charasis: Emperor’s Athenaeum The Order of Rime has managed to re-open this ancient vault of Venril Sathir’s. What secrets lie within? What terrible guardians? Venture in with a single group of adventurers to find out what awaits! Kunark Overland Quests A mysterious army has appeared upon the shores of Kunark and begun pillaging the land and slaughtering those that oppose them. Citizens of Dreg’s Landing in Kylong Plains, Riliss in Fens of Nathsar, the City of...
This will be good news for those of you with large guild halls and want to use more of the available guild hall amenities, but not without losing your Hall Guards. In GU52, Hall Guards will no longer take up Amenity slots. Already, mailboxes do not take up amenity slots. Also, as some guilds have used these Hall Guards for other purposes than guarding (indeed they don’t actually have any function and will not ‘defend’ the hall if invaders come in, nor are they agroable), in GU52, they will lose the “Hall Guard” flag under their name. More Info
Thanks to Denyo who has posted this great screen snap and list of all the epic encounters in EQ2 which reward a trophy: EQ2: Darathar, Vox DoF: Djinn Master, Godking KoS: Lord Vyemm, Tarinax TFD: Chel’Drak EoF: Wuoshi, Mayong, Clockwork Menace RoK: Venril Sathir, Trakanon, Leviathan TSO: Gynok, Ykesha, Zarrakon, Aiden
GAME UPDATE 51 March / 31 / 2009 FEATURED Weapon Appearance Slots Players now have access to primary, secondary and ranged appearance slots. The wield style (one-handed, two-handed, shield) of the weapons must match the weapons that are currently equipped. Bristlebane’s Day (3/31/2009 – 4/8/2009) Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the festivities that surround Bristlebane’s Day! You never know what laughs and pranks are to be found, during this enjoyable time of year. Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight...
Don’t you love unannounced tweaks? 🙂 There are some threads on the EQ2 Forums indicating that some graphics were revamped as part of the Feb 5th update. The ice in Everfrost is more translucent and looks really cool. However an inadvertent change was made to the grass in the Antonica Guild Hall. It looks rather black and spotty now. A hotfix is planned.
It is not easy to take a Game Update, remove a significant chunk of it, and release the rest. What was originally planned as Game Update 51 contained the much-maligned Fighter Revamp, as well as changes to Auto Follow, Spells, Items, the introduction of the HEIRLOOM tag, and some other items as well. Most of those improvements went live on February 5th. According to EQ2 Devs, for the remaining components of what was formerly known as GU51 (minus the Fighter Revamp) “We’re aiming for the week of February 16th as early as possible. “ There is no official list...
Looks like loot, AA, and the enjoyment of doing an x2 raid won’t be the only reasons folks will be packing like sardines into the new x2 raid zone. Posted by fyreflyte here: (The 12 new armor appearances being introduced in GU51) will indeed require some additional void shards (though not a staggering amount), but they won’t be directly purchased off the merchants. You’ll have to complete some of the x2 content to be able to get your hands on them =) Thus far the appearances have only been used on loot that will require some running of the...
From timetravelling‘s post here: The x2 (new raid zone) is going to be balanced specifically for people who do Not have mythicals. Our aim is that once you get some good TSO gear, such as the tier2 legendary set, you’ll be able to clear–or at least begin clearing–this zone. Mythicals should not be required for any stage of the instance. In fact, I created a brand new buffbot for test-copy so that we can put intrepid testers into legendary-ish gear and test the zone that way, sans-mythical. And, when I said new armor appearances, I didn’t mean recolors. That’s...
The Shadow “of” Odyssey Marketing department added the “of” in Shadow Odyssey. Many jokes made by SOE about it. Marketing dept was surprised that a EQ2 expansion didn’t have “of” in the middle. 🙂 The Shadow Odyssey New lvl 77+ overland zone. 20 dungeons Najena — A very large dungeon. Very tall (4 story stairs and just really cool). Very organic, wood, ropes, not the current stone boxes. Najena’s forge is the new place to go to craft various master weapons, etc. taking the place of the existing Solusek Ro forge. Nuroga Guk — “upper” and “lower” Befallen Most...