Sentinel’s Fate NDA Lifted

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News

Since there seems to be some doubt…

Kiara has reported in as of 11:30AM PDT.

The NDA for Sentinel’s Fate is officially lifted!

All of you, who have been (not so) patiently waiting can spill the beans!

Those of you who didn’t wait and were breaking it all along…  Coal in your stockings.

This means ANY issues discussed in Beta, in the Beta forums, etc. can now be discussed.

   

Closing the Book on Void Shards

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, Tradeskill

When Commission crafting was altered in March 2009 to prevent crafters from using their own Void Shards and other NO TRADE/HEIRLOOM materials for other players, it closed the book for several crafters on this highly profitable market.

However it was quickly discovered that a crafter could still use their own shards if the customer had at least the requisite number of shards in their own inventory to make the item. This was accomplished by swapping out ingredients in the Commission Materials window.

Today’s Hotfix marks the closure of this exploit:

Patch Notes January / 26 / 2010

GENERAL
You can no longer swap no trade and heirloom items given to you in a consignment trade.

Patch Notes January / 26 / 2010
GENERAL
You can no longer swap no trade and heirloom items given to you in a consignment trade.

Mentored Shards

Further, EQ2Wire is now hearing rumors that it will be impossible to run mentored “grey” void shard runs in Shadow Odyssey dungeons once the Sentinel’s Fate expansion launches. This likely will take the form of either being booted from the zone or a forced mentoring if a “trivialized” condition exists (mobs are grey).

It seems a concerted effort is now being put forth to restore the logical progression of gear in EverQuest II:

  • Treasured/Mastercrafted — solo gear
  • Legendary — group gear
  • Fabled — raid gear

The Problem

1) Some players have no interest in getting into any sort of group, and play EQ2 entirely as a solo game, yet they are currently getting exceptional gear.

2) Some players are husband-and-wife or trio setups. Either they don’t want to do a full group and deal with the personalities, or they are undergeared and not able to get into a group.

3) And some players already have several main characters and are leveling an alt, possibly an alt that is not always desired (summoner, druid, brawler, etc.).

One of the biggest problems players of The Shadow Odyssey faced is that all 20 dungeons were targeted for level 80, and if more than one mid-70’s character joined the group, then zone rewards were scaled down (no chest, no shinies, level 67 gear).

The Solution

1) Treasured and Mastercrafted gear in Sentinel’s Fate will be much better gear comparatively than level 72 gear was for level 80 characters. Considering how powerful the T1 and T2 void shard armor are, for many solo players, it will likely last them well into the 80’s until they replace that gear with Mastercrafted and quested rewards.

2) The Hole offers a large sprawling open dungeon ranging from level 82-90. Most of it is tailored to 3-4 players. Instead of waiting for hours, trying to build the “perfect” group, I expect players will simply show up at the entrance and jump into whatever ragtag groups are running through. Also, a variety of quests and large number of named encounters exist within the zone.

3) We haven’t heard much word on Class Balance, but hopefully with the changes, and the fact that Sentinel’s Fate dungeons range from level 82-90 means that people will actually get to group up with mains AND alts throughout the level range. With the AA slider, it should be possible to earn AA just as easily this way as solo questing.

With the dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate not being locked to level 90 (The Hole is 82-90, and the first instance is accessible at level 83), players won’t be pressured quite so bad to “solo quest grind to 90” before being able to play the group game.

EQ2Wire Escape from Qeynos Beta Contest Concludes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News

Saints be praised! (No, not those Saints)

As I was ducking in and out of Fish’s Alehouse and Inn, trying to keep out of sight, not one, but 13 parcels of mail addressed to one “Feldon @ EQ2Wire” (that’s me!) arrived at the front desk. After bribing tipping the innkeeper, I opened the packages to discover that each contained a detailed illustration of an escape route to South Qeynos!

With the navigational guidance of my enterprising readers, I was able to avoid the Qeynos Harbor guards and use my tinkered spring shoes to make it to the secret exit! Further, my operative was able to smooth things over with the Queen. 🙂

The winners should soon receive their Beta access and be able to hop on the next wizard spires transmat to the Halls of Erudin to explore what remains of Odus. Of course they’re reminded not to tell anyone about their encounters in Odus until the NDA has been lifted. 😉

BREAKING NEWS: Digital Download on Feb 16 for International

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News, International

It seems sanity has prevailed at SOE. From EQ2 Forums:

The status of retail distribution for Sentinel’s Fate at launch internationally is still uncertain. However in an effort to properly serve our international community we have partnered with several digital distributors who will be providing the expansion to our international customers only starting on Feb 16th 2010. The digital downloads will be IP locked so that only the international community can take advantage of this.

When it became apparent that whoever at SOE Marketing signed deals with Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy forgot about the rest of the world, this should have been immediately addressed.

Instead, we’ve had 2 months of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about whether players in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Rim would even be able to play the expansion before late February.

I’d just like to personally thank whoever was SOE Marketing Dept‘s secret santa and got them this great gift:
worldmap

No Not That Tiger

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Commentary

cartoon_01_mount
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 the Mage tower, and the 55% inferno version offered in Lavastorm. I’ve flirted with the impressive Order of Rime ice mare as well as the Refer a Friend mounts but just haven’t had the persistence to get them. I really want a NEW attractive mount!

I waited with trepidation to check out the new Highland Stalker shipping with the Sentinel’s Fate expansion collector’s box. Rumors persisted that the mount was in fact a Lynx. One of the smaller cats out there, I was curious how EQ2 artists would handle this.

No matter what an artist produces, he or she will always be challenged, questioned, and criticized. Create a sculpture, painting, or 3D model based off a real creature, and you will be criticized for not making something more creative and stylized. Create something stylized, unique, and exaggerated, and you will be criticized for not making it real enough.

Having seen the Highland Stalker (Lynx), I personally feel that with some adjustments to the size of the head and perhaps the look of the eyes, we will have a very good looking mount, whether you choose the saddle-only version, or pick up your stalker fully loaded with head-to-toe armor plating.

In case you haven’t had your fill of Tiger-related controversy, check out the Highland Stalker Video and Highland Stalker Sneak Peek threads on the EQ2 Forums for further discussion. If you would like to read some developer comments about the proportions of the Highland Stalker, check out this post by covic. This may or may not be the finalized mount. Since the pictures and videos were taken, additional adjustments based on character race/size vs. mount size have been made.

Dozer Joins the Team

Speaking of the challenges of artists face, you may have noticed the illustration presented with today’s writeup. We are proud to present the first of what we hope to be a regular series of EQ2-inspired cartoons by Dozer. Some of you may have already seen his fine work around the interwebs and we are thrilled to be working with him. Look for a Portfolio section featuring Dozer’s work soon. Welcome!

Son of Banhammer

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

There have been a lot of reactions to the clarification of just what types of multiboxing are permitted in SOE games and which aren’t. What most of these reactions have lacked is perspective.

A careful read of the key pards Kiara‘s post in another thread on the multiboxing subject:

That is what allows us to nuke the farmers and plat sellers that we all loathe so much.

If you’re not doing something you shouldn’t be doing, multi-boxing is fine.

People are over-reacting and troll-feeding.

Please stop trying to read into it anything that says we’re going to start nuking our legitimate players for playing more than one account at a time.

along with past history suggest to me that SOE does not see any benefit in wholesale banning of players. Players are typically banned for disruptive behavior, and typically get several warnings.

Let’s look again at some significant exploits which have happened in past expansions such as item and plat duplication, profiting from item buyback, grey void shards, and instance reuse for shard updates. Very few consequences came out of these exploits.

Also, every discussion about this multiboxing issue seems to have referenced a single petition replied to by a single GM. However one person does not make a policy. It is certainly possible that this GM was being perhaps a bit too understanding, or suggesting (and not communicating) that what matters more than anything is to not be a nuisance or a disruptive player.

  • If you are dominating content that others wish to play, or are preventing other players from getting updates, then that is disruptive behavior.
  • If you are using software like this to flood a server’s economy with tradeskilled goods, etc. then that is disruptive behavior.
  • If you are causing server lag due to inefficient macros causing tremendous amounts of keypresses being sent to the server, then that is disruptive behavior.

If, however, you are multiboxing just to see what kind of heroic content you can tackle all by yourself, especially instanced content, I don’t think it really hurts anyone and I doubt anyone is going to go out of their way to remove you (and your additional subscriptions) from the game. In short — don’t be evil.

EQ2Players Update

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

The biggest loss of functionality on EQ2Players for many viewers was the ability to lookup Alt characters. This is used by guild recruiters to weed out players with a known history of troublemaking and guild bank plundering. So we’re happy to report that this functionality has been restored to EQ2Players.

DarkViper has been reporting steadily on fixes to the site:

The team is actively working on adding in quite a few new features, they’re just not ready yet SMILEY The community team will be posting a list of the features soon with when you can expect them.

Players are asked to do a hard refresh (Ctrl-F5 or Ctrl-R) to make sure they are not viewing a cached version of the page.

Players who wish to hide their alts can do this in their Settings area. Platform are looking at the possibility of adding a way to apply this setting to all your alts.

Platform responds to EQ2Players Concerns

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

DarkViper, from SOE’s Platform (websites, forums, etc.) department has responded to widespread criticism of the EQ2Players revamp which went live last week:

Everyone, thanks for the feedback on the web site. With Station Players becoming a free service, I hope you’re checking out all of the sections of the site if you’ve never had access to it. It’s important to keep hearing this feedback so we can continue to evolve the site.

To address the browser crashing:

We’re already planning on making a version of the site that is ‘lighter’ for the in-game browser. It has always been the plan, but we could not get that version of the site done in time for this release. We’ll investigate why it’s crashing, though I have heard that other sites (not just EQ2’s) have crashed in the past as well so it’s not something I can guarantee that will be in our control to fix before the in-game version of the site.

Re: Guild Chat visibility:

We’ll improve the placement for this, we agree that we need other entry points to this beyond just the profile pages. In fact, the profile bar is planned to be accessible via the entire site.

Re: Search functionality

We’re re-tooling this after much feedback to be more intuitive and accessible.

Re: Speed of loading

We’ll investigate this. It loads fast on all machines we’ve tested, and loads relatively fast even on the iphone. This could be browser version specific so we’ll have our lab here see if they can replicate this one.

A few additional comments:

Re: Alts

We’re adding this back in next build of the site.

Re: Guild Roster

Agreed, 5 is too low, we’re tweaking this next build.

Re: Best in Class Leaderboard

We’re adding the update in the next build of the site.

Re: Login remember me

We’ll speak with the teams responsible for this functionality and will hopefully have a fix in place soon.

Re: RSS Feeds/CSV functionality

We’ve been working on making this more accessible for folks and are looking into ways we can get you guild data for your use whether it be for web sites or not. We’ll have an update soon for this.

Please keep sending the feedback, we’re listening and addressing it. If you run into any problems (i.e. errors), please PM me or post it and we’ll get someone looking into it.

Keyboard Mapping and You

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

SOE has clarified their policy on using third party software to broadcast or duplicate keypresses on multiple computers for multiboxing purposes. An exclusive EQ2Wire Commentary…

It Started with /Follow

Since the first time someone discovered the /follow command in EverQuest II, ingenuous players have been fascinated with the possibilities of building a force of players all under their control. Naturally, it started with having a healer tag along to spot heal mobs that were too challenging to solo. Then players realized they could handle 3 or even 4 toons on separate accounts playing simultaneously with multiple keyboards and strategically arranged hotbars.

EQ2Players Merges with EQ2 Site

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

EQ2Players has undergone a revamp and the results went live this morning. Actually, it’s more than just a revamp. All trace of EQ2Players has been wiped away! This is now the main EverQuest2 website.

Searching

The first thing we noticed is that to Search for Characters, Guilds, or Items, you must either be on the Home page, or click the Search link in the upper right corner. It used to be possible to search from anywhere on the site. We also noticed that simply typing a character name and pressing Enter no longer works. You must now specify Character, Guild, Item, or Forum.

Performance

We’ve also noticed that the site renders noticeably slower. Perhaps with some tweaks to the Javascript code (which is now used throughout the site) can speed up performance.

Guild Searches

  • When browsing a Guild Roster, now only 5 members of that guild are displayed at a time and the viewer must page through roster.
  • It is no longer possible to click on a member of a guild to view their profile page. One must backtrack to the Search page and type in a character name and perform a new search.
  • There is no header table in the Guild Roster, so it is unclear what some of the numbers represent.
  • The graphics indicating tradeskill and adventure class are gone, replaced with text only (Dirge, Weaponsmith, etc.).

Character Searches

  • When you do a search for a Character, it shows a list of characters matching that name. However the Guild link next to each character brings you to an error page. You must click on a Character to bring up their Character Profile and then you can click the link to their Guild.

Character Profiles

  • It appears all of the Paper Doll graphics have been reset, so everyone’s Character Profile image is blank. If a characters wants an image of their character on their Profile, they will need to upload a new image.
  • While it’s more a design decision than a bug, we’re sad to see that the Alternate Advancements page when viewing a Character now has just about the minimum information possible.  Information about each AA is not available. No graphics are used. And it is impossible to tell at-a-glance, how many AAs are used in each tree. Hopefully this is just a placeholder until the expansion when AAs are getting tweaked and new lines.

Right now, the EQ2Players site, or I guess I should start calling it the EQ2 site, is a step backwards for usability. But hopefully with some tweaks, these nagging issues can be resolved.

Collector’s Edition Mount Revealed — It’s a Lynx!!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News

We are thrilled to present the first snapshot of the new in-game Highland Stalker mount exclusively available to players who purchase the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition ($69.99).

sentinels_fate_mount_ingame

The announcement from EQ2Players:

This is the Highland Stalker mount! The Highland Stalker will be available to characters from level one through level 90 and will have a 50% 65% boost to run speed. One important thing to note about the Highland Stalker: This mount is exclusive to the Collector’s Edition of Sentinel’s Fate. There will be no other Highland Stalker mounts!

Also, here is a photo of the Highland Stalker (armored lynx) miniature you’ll receive in the Collector’s Edition box:

reaper_miniatures_mounts_th

EQ2Wire Commentary

I think it’s the best-looking animal-based mount EQ2 has ever had. However the 50% runspeed is going to limit its popularity, to say the least. Our latest news is that the Highland Stalker will have a runspeed of 65%. Hopefully devs will provide a way to upgrade it to 70, 75, or even 80% with some stats, say by turning in the in-box Whistle, plus some raid dropped item, and turning it into a new mount.

And for this to be exclusive to the Retail Collector’s Edition would require a complete reversal of what we saw in Kunark/TSO where raid devs, group devs, tradeskill devs, live event devs all get in on the action of putting popular mounts anywhere and everywhere. Within 2 months of The Shadow Odyssey launching, the bear mount was available via grouping and raiding. EQ2Wire predicts that we’ll see this mount again, just with a name other than “Highland Stalker”.

Producer’s Letter: EQII Dev Team Update

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance

Class Balance

As many readers of EQ2 Forums and EQ2Flames have sussed out, Chris Kozak (known on the forums and in-game as Aeralik) stepped down in his position of Game Mechanics (class balance, mechanics, etc.) in early November. Today’s Producer’s Letter announces his replacement, the scrapping of the unpopular Gear Scaling system and Fighter Revamp, and the rescheduling of Shaders 3.0 to Game Update #55:

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Senior Producer of EQ2, has posted a Producer’s Letter for December 2009:

Hello Norrathians!

Lots going on in the EQII world!  We are just about to release our next update, Will of a Tyrant and couldn’t be more excited!  With this update you are going to see a few hundred lingering bugs fixed in EQII.  Some of these bugs date back to launch and are being knocked out before we gear up for the expansion.  In fact, we have taken to calling this update our “bug bash” as we pulled out our hammers and smashed them into oblivion.  As for content in this update, it might feel a little lighter than recent updates however there is a reason for that. Actually, there are a couple of reasons.  The first is that it was a shorter development cycle for us, with only about two months of time between this update and last.  The second reason is that we are starting to shift many of our resources over to expansion work as it gets closer to its release.  In addition, we have some as yet to be announced surprises coming.  They’re some rather large features, which we hope will excite you.  More on those in the months ahead.

One feature we have been receiving a lot of questions about is the Item Ratings system, which some of you may know as item degradation.  I know that since it was announced there has been a great deal of confusion over the system and what it is intended to accomplish.  After many internal discussions, and listening to feedback from you, we have decided not to move forward with this system.  We are exploring alternatives that would allow us to continue to grow items and allow your gear to advance in meaningful ways, without giving the impression that you are going backward.

Another long announced and long awaited feature has been the rework on the “fighter revamp”. This is another project that is going to fall by the wayside as we now focus on small changes, rather than sweeping revamps.  Fighters are going to see some love here in the near future, thanks to Xelgad, who is taking on some of the class balance responsibilities. Other classes will be seeing improvements and tweaks as we take a hard look at how each class performs in solo, group and raid play.  Our goal is to make sure every class has a role and will be wanted in groups and raids, as well as being able to successfully solo.

Shader 3.0 work is pretty much complete at this point, with all of the shaders being converted to the new system.  That being said, we will not be releasing it with Will of a Tyrant.  We are not seeing the performance increases that we had hoped so we will continue to optimize and tweak until they provide not only a visual boost, but a performance boost as well.  We do not want to take a step backwards in performance just to make things look shiny.  Currently it looks as though this feature will land with the next game update, on expansion launch day.

I know you are all excited about the upcoming expansion, or at least I hope you are.  We are very excited as a lot of hard work has gone into making Sentinel’s Fate.  We still have a lot to do and the time for release is getting close!  So close in fact, that you can now sign up for beta which should begin admitting folks in less than two weeks. You can sign up on the EQII players site, so if you are interested in joining in, make sure you sign up soon.

Lots going on,

See you soon in Norrath and Merry Frostfell.

The EQII Team

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby

We can only assume that Aeralik’s departure was fueled by the aborted Fighter Revamp, unpopular Gear Rating/Scaling system, and untimely Avatar Loot nerfs (gear he designed and submitted in October 2008 was identified as overpowered in February 2009, and then finally substantially nerfed in August after players had invested many months of game time acquiring it).

Several classes in EQ2 have endured major shortcomings and balance issues, some all the way back to the Rise of Kunark expansion in November 2007. Druids and summoners have been described as outright “broken” by many players. These issues have received little attention, allowing as much as 2 years to elapse without necessary changes.

Class balance received very little focus in 2009, with no significant fixes in Game Updates 52, 53, or 54, even as the game has gotten more complex, raid encounters gotten more demanding, and groups have become more selective about which classes and players they accept. Tolerance for players who have elected to play a class that doesn’t have the same tools for curing, healing, tanking, or DPSing, as other classes have dropped to a point where players are routinely asked to give up and “re-roll”.

With this challenging stage set, and a frantic 2 1/2 months before the expansion, we see Xelgad stepping into this hotseat position. He has not been very visible on the forums, but we understand he has already been hard at work sorting through the changes we’ll see in Sentinel’s Fate.

We are cautiously optimistic that each class will finally be given the tools necessary to do their job. We are hopeful that a new approach of subtle changes, picking-and-choosing the best aspects of what was previewed at Fan Faire, along with Player Feedback, can be used to solve some long-standing problems. Of course, only time will tell what his vision of the game is.

We will continue to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of the upcoming EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion with a critical, but fair eye for detail.

SOE Marketing Dept. Largest Roadblock to EQ2 Marketing?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News, International

EQ2Wire has been trying to get some answers about the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Pre-Order for the past 2 1/2 weeks.

We contacted the SOE PR department with a detailed list of questions. We received an e-mail which quoted the Press Release but which did not answer any of our submitted questions.

We sent an e-mail to SOE President John Smedley on November 19th with those same concerns and additional questions. At present, we have received no response to this e-mail.

Where do we Stand?

Going into December 2009, just where do American, North American (Canada, Mexico), and International customers stand with regards to the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion Pre-Order?

The answer: Left out in the cold.

Amazon.com

preorderdebacle_amazon001

preorderdebacle_amazon002

BestBuy.com

preorderdebacle_bestbuy001

GameStop.com

preorderdebacle_gamestop001

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of where we stand right now:

  • Amazon.com is listing a Release Date of February 16, 2010 and will not ship until February 15. With standard shipping, Amazon.com is estimating an arrival date of February 22-24, 2010.
  • Amazon.com refuses to ship the expansion outside of the U.S.
  • BestBuy.com is listing a Release Date of February 17, 2010 and will not ship until February 16. With standard shipping, BestBuy.com is estimating an arrival date as late as February 23, 2010.
  • BestBuy.com doesn’t even have box art for the expansion yet.
  • GameStop.com is listing a Release Date of February 16, 2010 and will not ship until February 15. With standard shipping, GameStop.com is estimating an arrival date of February 22-24, 2010.
  • GameStop.com is inexplicably limiting the number of EverQuest II: Collector’s Edition sets to 2 per household.

If you want to know where you can pre-order EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition (whether you live in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, or Asia) and receive it on February 16th, 2010, without spending $100~140, the answer is NOWHERE. If you want to buy 3 copies of the Collector’s Edition, then none of those 3 retailers will be able to help you, no matter how much money you offer.

Make no mistake folks, the Release Date, Street Date, Ship Dates, pricing, and regional shipping authorization are all determined by the SOE Marketing Department. Their complete failure to manage this situation and have an International Distributor selected before announcing this Pre-Order is a farce.

There has still been no explanation for why the game is not available from BestBuy.CA (serving Canada), Amazon.co.UK, Amazon.DE, Amazon.FR, etc.

So far, all polite, constructive attempts to contact SOE Marketing have failed. They are the division of SOE which seems the most insulated from the public (no Facebook or Twitter pages, rarely post on the SOE Forums), and yet seem to be the division that most needs to hear the public’s feedback.

At this point, it seems the biggest roadblock to customers being able to buy EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate in a timely fashion, are the SOE Marketing Dept.

EQ2Wire Survey Results

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

We’ve seen an excellent response to the first ever EQ2Wire Reader Survey with nearly 200 submissions. This will help us guide the site into the new year and the next expansion of EverQuest II.

On the subject of EQ2Wire adding updates on Twitter (without affecting our regular site updates), you’ve spoken loud and clear. 81% of readers don’t use Twitter and only 7% of readers would change their visiting habits if we offered a Twitter service.

Your votes on what kinds of articles, news, strategy guides, and amount of commentary we provide will help shape the future of EQ2Wire.

As for a glimpse into the world of regular visitors EQ2Wire gets, here are some of those statistics:

  • How many level 80 adventurer characters do you have in EQ2?
    • 4% have none
    • 30% have 1
    • 39% have 2-3
    • 20% have 4-5
    • 2% have 6-7
    • 5% have 8+
  • How many level 80 tradeskill characters do you have in EQ2?
    • 30% have none
    • 27% have 1
    • 23% have 2-3
    • 10% have 4-5
    • 5% have 6-7
    • 5% have 8+
  • What is your motivation for playing level 20-65 content in EQ2?
    • I like to do as many solo quests as possible in this level range. — 77 Votes
    • I play this game with a roommate/spouse/friend and we are doing as much duo/trio content as possible in this level range. — 42 Votes
    • I like to visit as many group dungeons as possible in this level range. — 47 Votes
    • Have not yet purchased either the Kunark or Shadow Odyssey expansions. — 1 Vote
    • Prefer this content over level 66-80 content. — 18 Votes
    • I am in no hurry to reach level 80. — 53 Votes
    • It’s a necessary evil to reach level 80. — 73 Votes

Also, 79% of you reported that you were not aware of the Strategy Guides feature while only 14% have used this feature more than once. If you have any suggestions about how to improve the Strategy Guides feature, please let us know!

Already I have some ideas for questions for the next Survey, so stay tuned. 🙂

   

EQ2: The International Strategy

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News, International

courtesy American.com

EQ2Wire is working on a story covering the overseas marketing and distribution strategy for EverQuest II’s sixth expansion — EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate.

While there have been some concerns expressed on the EQ2 Forums regarding the 7-day headstart release strategy of Sentinel’s Fate from American customers (specifically within the 48 contiguous states with guaranteed arrival by February 16, 2010), specifically from American customers who have traditionally purchased the Digital Download, this has been nothing compared to the outcry from hundreds of international EverQuest II customers.

According to the EQ2Players Announcement, the only means for EQ2 players outside of the United States to acquire either the retail box($39.99), or Collector’s Edition retail box ($69.99) and play the expansion on release day, is to purchase the game from an American retailer (Amazon.com or GameStop.com), including shipping and import duties, and gamble that the parcel will arrive in time.

Including import duties, shipping cost, VAT, and the currency exchange rate, international customers are expecting to pay upwards of $80 for the expansion, or $130 for the Collector’s Edition, with no guarantee that the box will arrive by February 16th, 2010.

Due to a breakdown in communication, Amazon.com refuses to ship the expansion outside of the United States, leaving GameStop.com as the only international option. Further breakdown in communication has resulted in BestBuy.com not offering the product at all — even to domestic customers.

EQ2Wire would like to know why EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate is not available for purchase from international online retailers, especially from suppliers with which SoE already has a business relationship. For example BestBuy.ca (Canada), Amazon.co.uk (UK), Amazon.de (Germany), EBGames.com.au (Australia).

Follow the discussion on EQ2 Forums: [pre-order discussion] [7 day headstart discussion]

EQ2Wire is providing SoE an opportunity to respond to these concerns and we’ll get back to you as soon as we hear from them.

~EQ2Wire~

The New Player Experience

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Expansion News

On the EQ2 Forums, some discussion has sparked about the planned push to get EQ2 in retail stores and improve the experience for new players. I authored a post that I thought might be worth repeating.

What is the Experience for New Players right now?

  1. Visit a half dozen retailers and not find any copies of EQ2 except maybe a dingy old cobwebby copy of Kunark priced $50. Let’s say you do manage to find a recent copy of EQ2 and take it home. You dutifully install 11GB of data off two DVDs. Then you fire it up and find out you have to download another 3GB of data because the DVDs are hopelessly out of date. A 1-2 hour process for most users.

OR…

  1. Thinking you’re smart, you do the DirectDrive or Station Launcher digital download. Well sonny, now you’re talking 11GB of data off the internet. A 6-12 hour download for most users.
  2. Once you’re done with that, it’s time to go to Station.com, register an account, enter credit card info, enter the product key off a sticker inside the box, and finally fire up the game and start playing right?
  3. Chances are most user’s graphic drivers need updating. So let’s do that.
  4. After 2-14 hours of frustration, you finally get to start playing EQ2.

Not exactly a great Customer Experience! And I think SoE has realized that this has to change. Especially if the expansion adds another 2 GB of data. EQ2 is not picking up new players at a rate that I think SoE would like to see.

It’s almost impossible to find EQ2 in stores, and if you decide to download it, you’re talking 6-12 hours download. And even if you do buy the retail box, it’s so hopelessly out of date that you will spend another 1-2 hours downloading updates. Not a pretty picture, and it’s a wonder EQ2 is picking up new players.

So what is the New Player Experience?

Jedi as a choice on the EQ2 character creation screen? NO!!

For new players who want to get a taste of EQ2, the new Streaming Client currently being tested and  expecting to be officially launched in the next few weeks allows new players to start playing EQ2 in as little as 15 minutes. The Streaming Client has a list of prioritized downloads. It starts with the basic character models and armor, then the starting zones, then works its way through the content the user is most likely to see, in order of likely priority. If the player tries to jump straight to a zone that’s not loaded, it takes a couple of minutes to download and then they can proceed.

Also, for existing players, let’s say Game Update 55 has come out. But you don’t want to wait for Halas or any of the other new content to download. Let’s say you’re late for the raid and just want to get logged in. You’ll be able to just do the brief update and stream the rest of the updates in the background. Game Updates should no longer mean a mandatory 30-45 minute download.

And the second prong of the New Player Experience is deals with retailers to get them to carry EQ2 and to have it in stores on expansion day. It’s no secret that the retail strategy so far with EQ2 has pretty much been a fiasco, with players scrambling to find boxes just to get the in-game pet or in-game mount, and coming up short because retailers just plain didn’t get the message.

The first step in all this is the EQ2 Complete Collection in stores now for $20 which has everything up to TSO. I expect more announcements in the run up to the expansion.

City Festivals on Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events

Understandably, some players are taking a look at Game Update 54 (aka the Great Bug Stomp) and not seeing a lot of new content. Part of the issue is, normally, we would be just 2 weeks away from an entirely new expansion at this point. However Sentinel’s Fate won’t hit until February. Also, it is now unclear just when we can expect Shaders 3.0, although I’m hopeful that we’ll get it as an early Christmas present.

Of course, we have Frostfell 2009 to look forward to this December. If this year has proven anything, it is that live events get bigger and bigger, with significant new content each year (next year, I figure it will take all 20 days just to complete all the old and new content of Nights of the Dead!!). Seasonal and recurring live events (eg. Moonlight Enchantments) have been extremely popular, so a lot of attention is being focused on them.

And now it turns out that in response to many complaints that Guild Halls and other game design decisions have “emptied” the home cities, a new recurring event is being introduced in Norrath: City Festivals.

From Kaitheel‘s announcement:

The Far Seas Trading Company is proud to introduce a traveling festival for all to participate in! When this event goes live, a different city will be chosen to host a week long event, once each month. Gorowyn, Neriak, Kelethin and Freeport will each get their chance to host their version of the event. On Test and Test Copy the great city of Qeynos is the first to find the traveling caravan outside it’s gates in Antonica. Adventurers will find new quests, collections and rewards, many of which are city specific! And for those of us that don’t want to wait for the festival to reach our city’s gates, we don’t have to. City Tokens are now being given as further reward for completing city writs!

This event should now be available on Test and Test Copy and we’ll report back soon with the details.

Remember, the Spires event is still in-game and some of the rewards from that event may not re-appear in EQ2 for a long time. In addition to the variety of house items, there are some unique items like the Magic Mouth house/guild hall item which can be set up to make announcements to passers-by. And don’t forget in-home teleporters. You buy them in pairs, right-click to name each one, and then you can port between them.

Knapsacks and Wrecked Cities

One perhaps overlooked feature of Game Update 54 is larger Backpacks. The largest size using a rare component (Mahogany) is now a 40 slot backpack with 20% weight reduction. You can read more about these here.

And finally, if you have been on test and wandered through West Freeport, you may have been shocked at what you saw. Norrath is changing in the leadup to Sentinel’s Fate…

The FreeRealms Experiment

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary

moneybag-freerealms

Note: No EverQuest II content.

When FreeRealms was launched in April 29, 2009, Sony Online Entertainment pondered the question: Can a Massively Multiplayer Online game produced and sold in America support itself with Real Money Transactions (RMT)?

On November 2nd we found out the answer:

Effective November 2nd, the free-to-play classes available to NEW players of FreeRealms will shrink from Ninja, Chef, Postman, Kart Driver, Demo Derby Driver, Brawler, Adventurer, Card Duelist and Miner to just Adventurer and Card Duelist. Starting November 2nd, all players will be able to sample all character classes up to Level 5. Existing free-to-play characters of those original classes are not affected at this time.

Not For Lack of Trying

I don’t think there is any question that Sony is putting their weight behind FreeRealms. If you read the FreeRealms Blog, you know a lot of new content is coming this year. Player Housing, new Pets, more Holiday events, Daily in-game events, a streamlined User Interface, a unified Coin Market (instead of visiting vendors around the world), Item Dyes, new Combat system, more Minigames, etc.

SOE has dumped a ton of money into promoting FreeRealms with various tie-ins, TV commercials, and getting FreeRealms-branded StationCash cards into major retailers. They went after an audience that were traditionally not MMO players. They launched the GIRL (Gamers In Real Life) program. But it’s clear that most of those 5 million players that FreeRealms managed to attract weren’t buying much.

Eastern Philosophy

So why didn’t the FreeRealms model work?

Was it something SOE did? Was the balance too much on the Subscription and not enough on “must have” RMT items? Was it the name? FreeRealms always implied to me that someone could play a good chunk of the game for Free, and that RMT and Subscription were optional. Perhaps a lot of other people felt the same way. Incidentally, the Free in FreeRealms, according to SOE, has always meant “free to do what you want”, not an implication that the game was free of charge.

Is it a cultural difference? Free-to-Play with RMT games are widespread and wildly popular in Asia. Microtransactions are just accepted. Americans in contrast are somewhat sensitive to being “nickle-and-dimed”. I received a link to an interesting article about the differences in Game Design between Asia and North America. It’s worth a read: Game Designers – Everything You Know is Wrong

A Transition

I see FreeRealms undergoing a transition. While nobody is being booted from the game (you can still keep your friends, play the game, travel the world, and still play a fair amount of content), the direction of the game is now clearly steering towards a “velvet rope” model. What was previously viewed as a “free” game becomes a generous Free Trial which lets you sample every class in the game and decide if you want to subscribe. Everything after that requires a Subscription. I’ve been told it’s similar to Toon Town and Club Penguin although I don’t know those games.

Frankly, the FreeRealms subscription is really not expensive. And it can be paid for with cards purchased at major retailers. For $4.99 a month, you get  some nice benefits, like additional Jobs, 3 Character slots vs. 1, and 400 more Items and Quests. It is unknown whether Housing and the other content will require a subscription, but I think it’s a safe assumption.

Resources

If you would like to read a more “Just the Facts” type of posting about the changes coming to FreeRealms, check out this posting. Also, there is a public discussion on the FreeRealms forums about the changes as well.

A Cautionary Tale

Normally I would have a witty conclusion to such news. However I don’t. FreeRealms has to do what makes sense for their business model. It was never advertised as a game where an incredible amount of hard work was required to receive certain rare, powerful items, followed by those items becoming available with RMT.

It was built from the ground up as a casual, fun, RMT game designed for the largest possible audience with a large variety of playstyles. I think there are a lot of folks having fun out there playing FreeRealms, and enough of those folks will upgrade to the subscription to make the game self-sufficient. I don’t see a lot of folks quitting, since nothing currently changes for those “free” players.

However, I do want to close this posting with a warning:

RMT clearly wasn’t enough to cover the costs on FreeRealms. This revelation should strongly guide the decision-making on how items are added to SOE’s existing subscription-based games like EverQuest and EverQuest II. Never assume that RMT will be able to keep a subscription-turned-RMT game alive, if it couldn’t keep a game built from the ground up for RMT afloat.

A Cure For Curing

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Raiding

After reprinting the excellent Letter to SoE written by Shianne (Spritelady), we here at EQ2Wire weren’t expecting much of a response. So today’s detailed feedback from timetravelling was a real eye-opener. As he says, there is a fine line between challenging and frustrating. Some fights in TSO are just plain annoying with the unbelievable amount of curing they require. Nobody is asking for easier fights, just ones that are not hair-pulling annoying, fights that healers are quitting over.

Here’s the refreshing quote from EQ2 Forums:

A good thread with some excellent feedback!

From the population side, we are definitely always trying to improve the ‘fun’ of fights going forward. It’s a very thin line between challenging and frustrating, but we are always looking for ways to improve y’all’s experience. As a couple of people mentioned, Miragul’s Planar Shard was a step in this direction, and one we plan to continue with Sentinel’s Fate. We would like for many guilds to be able to have the satisfaction of clearing an entire zone while preserving the very difficult fights for players to really test their limits!

You have been heard on the curing side of things. We’ve begun to move away from it already, but we’ll make sure and look at each fight to hopefully ensure that the curing required is part of the fight, or plays an important role but does not devolve into ‘spam’ curing an excessive number of debuffs.

I spoke with our lead raid designer today and we’re going to look into perhaps removing as many ‘non-essential’ debuffs from the TSO raids as we can. A number of the fights had varying amounts of spells and effects that were not necessarily an integral part of the difficulty or flow of the encounter and we’re going to re-evaluate whether or not they need to be there. The goal of this proposed change (for the devil’s advocates out there) is to reduce the # of cures required while not affecting the difficulty of the fight in any significant way.

Thanks again for all the feedback, and good luck!

Legends of Norrath Brings Powerful Items to Norrath

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Grouping, Itemization

If you have been following the increasingly train-wrecky Legends of Norrath Affects Gameplay topic on EQ2 Forums, you know that the Legends of Norrath card game is on the cusp of making powerful items available within the EverQuest 2 universe.

Already, by purchasing booster packs of cards (at $2.99/ea) and/or playing the LoN card game, one can acquire cloaks, mounts, appearance items, potions, and other items within the EQ2 world. So far these items have drawn the line at being comparable to dungeon/raid drops.

Many have argued that EQ2’s $15/month subscription + $50/year expansion cost should be more than adequate for Sony Online Entertainment to cover their costs. The latest subscriber estimate is 250,000 players. Considering 6 months a year and 25% expansion buyin, that’s $26 million revenue per year.

Yet increasingly, in-game items have been made available through StationCash (funded with a credit card, items have a fixed price) and Legends of Norrath (player must purchase an unknown number of card packs until they find the loot card they desire, trade with others, or buy such cards at an extreme markup on such sites as LoNLoot.com).


Today marks the launch of the 8th expansion: Legends of Norrath:Travelers. It was announced 2 weeks ago including this controversial passage:

Incredible loot cards, including exclusive new quests in EverQuest® and EverQuest® II that open all new chambers and rewards of loot and XP!

Starting today, players can acquire a Legends of Norrath loot card “Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key” ( \aITEM -691738313 583949373:Legends of Norrath: A Mysterious Key\/a )

  • This key will unlock a unique level 80 combat instance for the holder and his/her group. One use only.

lon-keyitem

Examining the key offers the quest Repulsing Repuuli.

  • After receiving a location of an up and coming threat to all of Norrath, you are sent to destroy Repuuli the Destroyer within the Moors of Ykesha.
  • Find and enter the Destruction Chamber near the Obelisk of Ahkzul in the Moors of Ykesha.

lon-questoffer lon-questjournal

EQ2Wire went on safari to The Moors of Ykesha to get the facts. Upon entering the portal (which is a short distance from the Obelisk entrance), the surroundings immediately seemed familiar.

lon-portal

Indeed, I was greeted with the sight of the last room of Obelisk of Ahkzul.

lon-obelisk1

lon-obelisk2

After defeating four roaming 80^^ void beasts, Repuuli the Destroyer (82^^^) became interested in my presence. Defeated as easily as Executor Vark in the Obelisk, it is then that the true nature of this Legends of Norrath tryst was revealed. Although housed in an unassuming Ornate chest, the rewards found within were anything but ordinary.

lon-questcomplete

Inside the Ornate chest is an item container called A Void Cube. One player per zone visit gets to loot this container.

lon-ornatechest

The recipient must then choose between 7 items. Make no mistake folks, these items are comparable to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

lon-portalbracerofthevoidwarrior lon-portalclaspofthevoidinvoker lon-portalwrapofthevoidassassin

  • Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior ( \aITEM 1363089210 -1153524204:[Portal Bracer of the Void Warrior]\/a )
  • Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker ( \aITEM -29585155 -1544401326:[Portal Clasp of the Void Invoker]\/a )
  • Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin ( \aITEM -932311402 966076848:[Portal Wrap of the Void Assassin]\/a )

lon-portalbangleofthevoidknight lon-portalbindingofthevoidcaller lon-portalbraceofthevoidwarder

  • Portal Bangle of the Void Knight( \aITEM -1348074215 2070418077:[Portal Bangle of the Void Knight]\/a )
  • Portal Binding of the Voidcaller ( \aITEM 935669575 190604106:[Portal Binding of the Voidcaller]\/a )
  • Portal Brace of the Void Warder ( \aITEM 552342734 -2044085964:[Portal Brace of the Void Warder]\/a )

lon-portalbraceletofthevoidpriest

  • Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest ( \aITEM -1900203042 2008289082:[Portal Bracelet of the Void Priest]\/a )

How Does Legends of Norrath Affect Me?

Legends of Norrath is a game I was never interested in, that I’m forced periodically to wait for it to download updates. It has never appealed to me. So far I’ve been able to ignore it other than checking to see if I get any loot cards. I’ve gotten a few cloaks. I got the heal potion.

And I bought some StationCash when it was half price. I’d probably use it for appearance gear or name changes. Maybe even a vitality potion to level a 5th tradeskiller to 80.

So I’m not like “Mr Furious” about RMT/SC/LoN. But I know others are, so LoN affects my gameplay if others want to quit EQ2 because of LON getting further and further entrenched in the game.

How does one level from 1-80 in EQ2 these days?
How does one get geared up in EQ2 these days?

Right now, I think a lot of folks solo quest from 1-80, missing the entire content of this game. Then they transfer plat and HEIRLOOM gear from their main to twink out their alt. They might even run a few Mentored (grey) Shard Runs to gear up their alt.

Without having ever stepped in a 1-80 dungeon, people feel they need to gear up alts just to have a chance — just to get a group. Imagine if you are a level 80 character these days and go LFG (Looking for Group) and show up in mastercrafted/quest gear and adept 1 spells? You will be laughed out of the building (and dropped from the group). When I started playing EQ2, grouping from 1-70 was prevalent. I feel sorry for the players now who will never know this content.

I am lucky that I was level 80 when The Shadow Odyssey was released. I already had the best Kunark group gear available to me, and started the first night earning as many void shards as possible. It’s just expected now to get a group you have full T1, possibly T2 gear, fabled weapon, etc.

Hand Me Downs

It’s easy to earn plat in this game. So easy that the plat farmers aren’t doing as well as they used to. With a few hundred plat, you can gear up with some significant jewelry and even T4 bracer/boot pattern to a toon that’s never fought in a dungeon let alone a raid zone. If you are raiding 4 nights a week and getting all kinds of patterns that everyone already has, then your alts are going to be built to the hilt.

When my Dirge dings 80, he will have full Tier 2 Void Shard Armor, with Tier 3 (Ward of Elements) boots, and pretty substantial jewelry. Who knows, he might even have Tier 4 FABLED bracers by then.

If some idiot really wanted to pay a few hundred bucks to acquire a few thousand platinum pieces and spend it on T4 raid patterns (The T4 chestpieces go for 1200-2000p on BB right now), they could. They could even pay for group updates on their Fabled epic, and then pay more for VP updates for their Mythical. In short, with a few waves of the credit card, I can build a toon in full Tier 4 FABLED gear, jewelry, and Mythical having hardly ever DONE the content.

People gear up alts with plat (earned or bought) and shards (earned or greyed out). Enough people view this as shady that there is still some sense of dignity maintained. Some folks still take pride that they built their characters without the aid of a powerful main character supplying them shards, gear, and plat.

I am NOT advocating stopping loot rights. It’s just a somewhat dysfunctional reality that I too have benefited from (I got the Ethernauts Roundshield of Ranger Pwnage for 120p). I think grey shards screwed them up and should have been stopped it.

So I think by putting FABLED-like gear into Legends of Norrath, SoE are legitimizing this process. It is a signal to a lot of players that SoE does not care how you build your toon. In combination with all gear getting the HEIRLOOM tag, it sends a message that rules can be bent and/or broken. You can build up your toon however you want, either by playing the game or swiping your credit card.

So I stand on principle and say that I will not use my credit card to get Legendary or Fabled gear and build out my character. I will not buy Legends of Norrath cards to get access to some significant loot. Already, so many barriers have been broken down in how characters are geared up in such a short time, I wonder how it will affect the future of the game. I think it will inevitably kill it. The thrill of the chase, the actual PLAYING of the game is diminished. Why learn the encounters and play the game when you can just put in a few bucks and get to the same destination?

When Legends of Norrath was launched, several promises were made by John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. It seems the expression “Time changes everything” is never more true here.

How Good Is the Loot?

The following diagram compares the LoN rewards with equivalent or similar items elsewhere in Norrath. It is disturbing to me that some of the rewards are similar to Ward of Elements x2 raid drops:

lon-cat-comparison
LoN Item Comparison

The truth, as they say,  is out there.

What’s Wrong with EQ2 Raiding?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Itemization, Raiding

Most of my gametime these days is either raiding with my Ranger, or leveling my Dirge alt. I do live events (looking forward to Nights of the Dead), but otherwise, I’m fairly bored with the runaround quest lines. Groups in the 20’s-60’s are few and far between, but that is an issue for another blog post…

Our guild is currently running Ward of Elements (I have all but shoulders and the cloak from Aiden) and we do as much x4 raiding as we can with 2 1/2 groups. That’s the first 3 named of Tomb of the Mad Crusader (including Thet) and the twins in Palace of the Ancient One. We’re probably going to start doing Kurn’s X2 because we’re pretty much blocked from doing anything else by lack of players/needed classes.

This is a chronic problem on Butcherblock, and I think other servers. At last count there were over 15 semi-casual raid guilds each about 4-8 players away from having a full raid force. Nobody wants to merge or switch guilds. And there’s never been a successful Raid Alliance on Butcherblock.


I read the EQ2 forums every day looking for news and info for EQ2Wire readers. So today I found a couple of posts that really jive with how I’ve been feeling lately…

First up from Shianne <Tainted> @ Kithicor:

Dear SOE,

I have been a loyal subscriber since July of 2005.  I have been a co-leader of a raiding guild since Dec of 2006, and an officer prior to that.  In the time I have played I have seen many people come and go.  I have seen good expansions and bad.  I have seen nerfs and character balance issues; server mergers and many other developments and setbacks.

One thing I can say is that I have always enjoyed the game, no matter how badly my class was messed up or how many of my friends or guild mates left for greener pastures in other MMOs or guilds or just to experience the real world. However, my enjoyment is waning along with so many others.

My server, Kithicor, has suffered many guilds disbanding of late due to a lack of available players to fill out their rosters.  i have lost 8-9 people of my raid force myself.  The commen thread to all of the people leaving?  They are bored.  Most of them (including myself) have multiple characters that are level 80 and at 200 AA or close to.  They have no need of shard gear.  They have no need of instance loot.  They don’t want to level yet another character.  The only thing to log in for is raids and when you can’t get classes you need, those are getting old to since you can’t progress.

The release of GU53 did little to entice people to remain.  The Achivement System gives no tangible and USEFUL rewards.  Those that missed out on getting AA for various things aren’t likely to go get the achievements done as they will hold out till there is an AA cap increase.  So, there is still no reason to log in.  The Shard of Love offers nothing but fluff items and 1 time AA experience.  A fair amount of people will do it once, then never again.  Miragul’s Planar Shard – while it is nice to have another raid zone, many of us can’t clear what is already out there due to lack of population to flesh out our ranks.  Then, you add items into the heroic instances to make the raids easier, so in essence creating the necessity for many people to run zones for no other reason than to collect those items.  It is becoming a JOB and not fun.

If the achievement system had offered useful rewards, such as dual stat adornments, or the ability to add 2 points to an AA tree when completing an achievement, or rocking charm items, etc. This MIGHT have been a draw for those of us who want something to work towards that IMPROVES our characters.

If you had done server mergers, then at least the population wouldn’t be spread so thin.  I realize that server mergers would cut into the Cash Cow transfer potions that are available thru the Marketplace, but please, understand that the economy sucks at the moment.  For many people this is their entertainment.  This is their hobby.  This is their escape from reality.  Many people are struggling just to pay the subscription fees.  Throw us a bone and think about merging some servers so that we have a base of people to work with so perhaps we may find some enjoyment in the game again.

This latest expansion with its cure heavy scripting has burned out the healers.  I have been looking for ONE templar for going on 3 months. I have had 2 applicants in that time and neither were able to handle the whack-a-mole curing as well as keeping their reactives up. When you spend THREE months trying to find a single class and have no success, this tells you things are not well in the land of Norrath.

In the last three months, we have lost at least two major guilds to collapse.  Unfortunately, those people didn’t remain on the server.  Most went to other servers or quit entirely.  We have had one guild transfer here to “rule the school” and another leave to go to another server to do the same.  We have at least 2 other non-avatar raid guilds on the verge of collapse and at least 2-3 others with severe recruitment issues.  Much of this is being caused by people QUITTING EQ2.

Please SOE, I implore you to do something to breathe some life into the game before more people take of for Aion or other MMOs. Delaying the expansion is killing the game, fluffy GUs with no real substance aren’t keeping the interest of a vast amount of us,  continued nerfs and re-defining classes isn’t the best way to hold on to people.

I see hundred of posts from people on ways to improve the game, ways to work towards class balance, ways to deal with itemization, ways to implement avatars into instanced encounters, and a majestic array of other ideas, suggestions, wants, desires,etc.  People WANT to play EQ2, but they also want to know their voices are heard, that the devlopers realize the we, the players, have a borader understanding of the game than you may think.  We the players are a font of knowldge, we are talented and skilled and we know what gamers want, do you?

Pervis has a nice followup which makes some great points about Itemization:

There is nothing more disapointing in raiding when you spend weeks working on an encounter to finally get the kill, only to have the one item in the chest be totally worthless. What this game needs, and what one of my primary complaints has been with TSO (paired with Research Assistants, which only add to the issue) is the total lack of any raid-based quests.

The original game was great. As soon as your guild killed Darathar, you basically took a giant step forward. Every mage and healer in the guild got a huge upgrade, and scouts and tanks got an item that was invaluable on many encounters.

Desert of Flames had the same with killing the Godking, and getting the weapons from the peacock quest series.

Kingdom of Sky had similar with the Claymore, though once you had killed Taranax you had no progression left until Fallen Dynasty was added.

Echoes of Faydwer was wasted, due to the Soulfire quest taking so long to implement. While it was great for lore reasons, it was horrible for content/mechanics reasons.

Rise of Kunark of course had epic [weapons], and as soon as you were able to kill Nexona and Druushk, you had an almost clear run to getting every mythical weapon. There is no need to even mention the difference between a raid with identicle equipment, but one with mythicals the other without.

The Shadow Odyssey has… umm… the earring from Munzok’s Material Bastion (MMB)?

There is no carrot dangling. When we kill a mob, we have no guarentee that the item it drops will be wanted. Why bother working on mobs in MMB if you know you are going to get a summoner-only item (we had the cloak and charm both drop 3 times in a row, prior to GU#53, we have no summoners).

While raiders are less interested in quests for the story aspect (in general, many raiders are as into the lore of this game as any non-raider), what they like is the guarantee that the time and effort they put in to killing encounters is going to be rewarded. Again until GU#53, I was looking at Ykesha thinking… why even bother? As a mage, he had no items that were worth me even looking at, and since he is not required for any quest update, I have no personal reason to care.

How is that good for the expansion’s end mob?

I have seen more raiders quit in TSO than any other time. Most of the players I know that have quit have done so for itemization reasons. While there are more item options and effect in game than ever before, it is how those effects have been distributed that has simply caused people to not want to bother. Its not enough to just create 100 items and throw them on loot tables at random, the placement of each item should have more attention paid to it than the creation of the item itself.

I have zero faith that the next expansion will be any better, simply because the same issues have been bought up with every previous expansion. Players have asked during beta to look over items to check for progression, and have either been not heard or ignored. Just look at how long it took to get items in to Miragul’s. If us players are being asked to test content out to make sure it is working as intended, and is set to the appropriate difficulty, we should also have someone asking us to test itemization progression.

Revisiting the same content over and over is just part of any MMO. Keeping players hooked as long as you can to keep subscription rates up is just part of the game business model. However the reliance on the Random Number Generator in gearing players up is really getting out of hand. Folks identify the best item for a slot (sometimes the best item in the game for a certain class and for a certain slot drops in an easy group zone, sometimes off the hardest raid mob in the game, it’s completely random) and then run that zone until they get the item. Then they never go back. Then there’s Healer Burnout, where healers are sticking around even though they currently hate some of the encounters just to not let their friends down.

EQ2 ZAM Chat concludes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized

And that concludes the EQ2 ZAM Chat.

Guests were:

  • Alan <Brenlo> – EQ2 Producer
  • Brett <timetravelling> – Dungeons/Content
  • Nathan <Kaitheel> – Live Events/Quests
  • <Gninja> – Quests, Zone Design, Live Events
  • Greg <Rothgar> – Lead Programmer
  • Paul C. <Frizznik> – Mechanics
  • Paul M. <Cronyn> – Lore, Content, Quests
  • Emily <Domino> – Tradeskills

Rough Chat Logs of this event are now available at EQ2 ZAM.

Some of the topics that stuck out to me:

  • Brenlo: At the moment we have no plans to (have) LON cards (drop from mobs). That is why we went to giving each active player 5 packs a month.  We like the current delivery method as it gives every player the cards regularly.
  • In response to the idea of changing Adventure class (for example, a high level tradeskiller not satisfied with the adventure class they chose), Rothgar replied with: This is something we’ve talked about and understand that it would be a desired feature. However, we don’t have a timeframe on it and haven’t worked out the details.  We’ll have some more discussion on it and see if we can work it in soon ™.
  • In response to a question about more PvP options on PVE servers and giving casual PvP battlegrounds, Brenlo replied with: I would look for a big announcement in the very near future.
  • With regards to Shaders, Rothgar advised us: We are still working hard on the Shader 3.0 system.  This is a huge amount of work to convert all of our thousands of existing shaders into the new model.  We still have some challenges to overcome and we’re still tweaking performance.  We don’t have a date yet as to when we will push it to Test, but as soon as we feel comfortable with the final product, we will let you know.
  • Winwin chimed in with this question which I’m sure many of you would like to know the answer: Do you guys have a tentative date for the race change service on station cash? The answer? Tentatively scheduled for October 20th.
  • And for those of you who might have heard about the EverQuest II Complete Collection box coming out on the 19th, note that it does not have an in-game item. It is meant to get boxes on the retail shelf and attract more new players. New players would get 60 days of free gameplay.

Regarding Class Balance, Aeralik chimed in with these answers:

  • Summoners will see some signifcant changes to reduce the number of pet lines.  Summoners will have one fighter pet line and one dps pet line in the summoner tree. The dps pet line will work on scout/mage pets. The int line will then transform into something like the summoner version of the rogue strength line.
  • Rogues will see the wisdom line changed to be more inline with current itemization.
  • The (priests) cure lines are all seeing a number of changes.  We are also looking at individual abilities make sure they are desirable.

and one of my questions:

  • What role (if any) will Armor and Weaponsmiths have in the expansion? Mastercrafted items would have to be incredible to be desirable at their classic level of 82.  Will we see level 90 mastercrafted gear become important, as other games are doing?

got the reply from Domino:

  • We’re not planning a *completely* different direction for mastercrafted gear at this point, however we’re definitely aware that it’s going to have to  be balanced assuming that many people will be wearing at least some shard gear.  It’s something I’ve been working with Fyreflyte to balance, and we’ll probably need to continue the balancing based on feedback during beta.
  • Both armor and weapons will definitely be seeing a lot more nice blue stats, for one thing.  And I know I can count on you and others in here for honest and helpful feedback!

and in relation to Item Degradation:

  • Fendy:  Can we have any more details on how item degradation is going to work?  When can we expect to hear more?
  • Frizznik: We are looking at the system now. It is a work in progress so we can’t give exact details of what it is right now because we are still working them out.  We are trying really hard to make sure that you don’t lose overall power from one level to the next, and will want to get items that provide better power gains for you.  We will definitely be providing information in advance so will have notice of what it is. When we know, you will know.  🙂

Here’s another cool question that got answered only in #EQ2FFA:

  • Artemiz: Should we expect more raid style scripted encounters in the heroic zones for Sentinels Fate like the ones in the Shard zones for TSO or something more casual players will find fun as well?
  • timetravelling:  Yes and Yes? The scripted encounters have actually been quite popular. One of the big pieces of feedback we received though was the desire for more ‘casual’ content, and we’ve created quite a bit of that as well!

and about Antonia Bayle:

  • Rothgar: As soon as we get the Venekor merge behind us we will be looking at upgrading the DB hardware for AB.

Again, this is just questions I picked out that I thought would appeal to EQ2Wire readers. I will be doing a Survey soon to find out just who my audience is.

Where do the Questions Come From?

The questions asked in the EQ2 Dev Chats come from user submissions. Developers who participate in the chat see the COMPLETE LIST of UNFILTERED questions that ZAM submits. They see the best and the worst. The fluff and the hard, controversial questions. They go through and decide what questions they can answer. Generally these are not “When are you going to fix Brawlers?” or “When are raids not going to suck so much?” or questions that will get a “we are still looking into that”.

I know there were a lot of complaints in the #EQ2FFA (free for all) chatroom saying that controversial questions weren’t asked or answered.  They receive a ton of questions in advance, and they usually get through all of these, and then start trying to get through the questions asked during the chat. You have a much better chance of getting your question in if you submit it a few days in advance. They may also be able to get you a better answer. If you want your question to get asked, submit your question in advance. I do.

I do not work for EQ2 ZAM. I do not work for SoE either. It’s helpful to be independent sometimes. 🙂 I do hang out sometimes in ZAM’s EQ2 chat channel just to shoot the breeze. I do submit questions to Calthine as they come to my mind. I also try to think of questions that the developers can answer. ANYONE can submit questions to Calthine @ ZAM.

If folks think I’m getting favoritism or think that my questions have a better chance, then by all means post your question to me as a Comment, or send it to me using the new Contact Us form. I’ll save em up, clean them up so they might get answered, and submit them. If I already know the answer, I’ll send you a reply. 🙂

Miragul Himself

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization, Raiding

Well, now we know the real reason that Avatar Loot was nerfed. It wasn’t because it was “overpowered” or because it would “break the next expansion”. It was so similar items could be put on the endboss of an instance.

As posted by Jasuo on the EQ2 Forums, two of the charms dropped by Miragul in Miragul’s Planar Shard (x4 raid zone) are very similar to Avatar Charms:


and yes, we will be back later today to talk about the new EQ2 zone which requires a LoN item to access.

Miragul’s Planar Shard Upgrades

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization

Much has been made of the difficulty, and more importantly the limited desirability of the loot that drops in the new raid zone — Miragul’s Planar Shard — which arrived in Game Update 53. Players capable of killing these mobs already have access to far superior gear, and indeed some of these items were not as good as Ward of Elements or even group instance drops.

Significant changes are expected to both the difficulty of the zone and the quality of the loot in tomorrow’s Hotfix. Gninja advises us that further changes to the difficulty of the zone should be expected in the near future:

Just an update for you folks.

The difficulty of this zone is getting toned down slgihtly. More specifically the level of the mobs and the crit chance of the mobs as well as some small tweaks to the AE effects that some of the bosses cast to make it a bit less painful. As you guys noticed with some of the changes above the items were also closely looked at and adjusted to fit the intended difficulty of the zone and taking into consideration the quality of items from similar zone with same difficulty.

You should see these changes do live as soon as we can get them in.

EQ2Wire has logged into Test and done side-by-side comparisons of the loot as it exists on live and what we can expect in Thursday’s Hotfix:

Fighter/Scout
offensive_instinct_earring_nochange
Offensive Instinct Earring
\aITEM -388580771 -638695899:[Offensive Instinct Earring]\/a
crystalline_blade_of_the_tracker_nochange
Crystalline Blade of the Tracker
\aITEM -316628234 -923770519:Crystalline Blade of the Tracker\/a
drape_of_ice_knives
Drape of Ice Knives
\aITEM -1560491499 1713236965:[Drape of Ice Knives]\/a
temporal_bludgeon_nochange
Temporal Bludgeon
\aITEM 1014861936 -1849987806:Temporal Bludgeon\/a
thought_frosted_rhombus
Thought Frosted Rhombus
\aITEM 1420730539 582560697:[Thought Frosted Rhombus]\/a
swift_frostlink_boots
Swift Frostlink Boots
\aITEM 948554117 804576793:[Swift Frostlink Boots]\/a
swift_frostlink_coif
Swift Frostlink Coif
\aITEM 1280635002 -2030227484:[Swift Frostlink Coif]\/a
rohop_the_icecleaver
Rohop, the Ice Cleaver
\aITEM 643973595 1990042517:Rohop, the Icecleaver\/a
band_of_jagged_ice
Band of Jagged Ice
\aITEM 1605011023 1764687837:Band of Jagged Ice\/a

Crusader/Cleric
superego_sabatons
Superego Sabatons
\aITEM 525125006 -1215697349:[Superego Sabatons]\/a
ego-imbued_coif
Ego-imbued Coif
\aITEM 180032609 1595324054:[Ego-imbued Coif]\/a
ego-imbued_treads
Ego-imbued Treads
\aITEM 1738261032 79569467:Ego-imbued Treads\/a
id-infused_cap
Id-infused Cap
\aITEM 428078571 -1324929700:Id-infused Cap\/a

Mage
sash_of_creeping_cognition
Sash of Creeping Cognition
\aITEM -241257653 460997427:Sash of Creeping Cognition\/a
dodecahedron_of_mispronunciation
Dodecahedron of Mispronunciation
\aITEM -1690781327 -1801892191:[Dodecahedron of Mispronunciation]\/a
glaceus_the_ice_comet
Glaceus, the Ice Comet
\aITEM 1124854224 -263555851:Glaceus, the Ice Comet\/a
glacial_sheet_cherubs_drape
Glacial Sleet Cherub’s Drape
\aITEM -1950366370 -344374835:Glacial Sleet Cherub’s Drape\/a
black_mindweave_hood
Black Mindweave Hood
\aITEM 1861451831 -1537581143:[Black Mindweave Hood]\/a
black_mindweave_slippers
Black Mindweave Slippers
\aITEM -1150004573 1682610743:[Black Mindweave Slippers]\/a
mobius_band_of_the_mind_nochange

Mobius Band of the Mind
\aITEM -1347628754 1584699148:[Mobius Band of the Mind]\/a

dangle_of_twisted_thoughts_nochange

Dangle of Twisted Thoughts
\aITEM -1308454009 1556516884:[Dangle of Twisted Thoughts]\/a

Priest
nebulous_loop_nochange
Nebulous Loop
\aITEM 1222148207 2119916759:[Nebulous Loop]\/a
hypothermia
Hypothermia
\aITEM 455426760 -1457104545 -1862364414:Hypothermia\/a
octagonal_ice_sculpture

Octagonal Ice Sculpture
\aITEM -2059655992 446295863:[Octagonal Ice Sculpture]\/a

hoop_of_hope
Hoop of Hope
\aITEM 273246243 890145727:Hoop of Hope\/a
frozen_font_of_life
Frozen Font of Life
\aITEM 864297868 1608526987:Frozen Font of Life\/a


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