Feldon
We’re working on an article about Shared Stats and Destiny of Velious. Share your comments about Destiny of Velious and shared stats and how they benefit: Summoners Conjurors Necromancers Enchanters Coercers Illusionists Shamans Defiler Mystic Also, any comments on Damage Over Time limitations for Necromancers and other pet classes above are appreciated.
Commentary
Now the calm before the storm… Tomorrow morning at 3:00am PST (11:00 GMT), the EQ2 servers will go offline to begin the process of installing the Destiny of Velious expansion and its related Game Update 59 patch. According to the announcement, the servers are scheduled to come up at 9:00am (17:00 GMT). So what are you looking forward to? Public Quests Dungeons Kael Drakkel Contested Dungeon Tower of Frozen Shadow (x2 raid) Velious x4 raiding Tradeskills Flying Mounts Give us your comments, good, bad, or indifferent. Even if it’s just that there’s 2 days to go until Rift launches...
EQ2Wire has just received special authorization to share screen shots with you taken during the Destiny of Velious Beta. We’re still waiting to find out about video. You may also start to see screen shots on other fan sites today as well. This is just happening so please bear with us. We would like to thank SOE for changing their mind on this issue. Fan Sites provide an opportunity for us to showcase parts of new expansions and we put a lot of effort into informing players. Thanks for your patience, everyone!
The Itemization Battle When examining any piece of equipment, players must evaluate whether that item is an upgrade for their class based not only on their existing stats, but also whether the stats and effects on that item are of benefit to their class. The character’s spells, combat arts, AA setup, and existing gear must all be considered. Choosing item upgrades has never been an exact science. At one time, all 5 main stats including Intelligence, Wisdom, Stamina, Agility, and Strength had a part to play in the effectiveness of an item for every class, not just hybrid classes....
You would think that the Non-Disclosure Agreement for the EQ2 Destiny of Velious beta had already been lifted, given the Youtube videos and unintended leaks on EQ2’s own and other sites. But we can assure you it remains firmly in place. Today, we plant tongue firmly in cheek and deliver another illustration brought to us by CheesePirate.com. The Destiny of Velious NDA is likely to be lifted towards the end of January. Until then, please be aware of the legal ramifications it may have for you, not to mention losing access to EQ2 and SOE games, should you choose...
Last night, the Destiny of Velious beta forums were taken offline and then restarted from scratch under the EQ2X Forums. It has been indicated that this change was to allow EQ2X players to contribute their feedback and reports in the Beta forums. However this means all discussions and threads about the Beta will need to be restarted, as the current Forum software lacks the ability to move threads from one game to another. Users who have signed the NDA and wish to participate in the Destiny of Velious beta forums must now first navigate to the EQ2X forums and,...
A cantankerous discussion on the EQ2 Forums posted over the New Year’s holiday addresses the issue of Account Hacks and Compromised Accounts. Due to the holiday schedule, some players have experienced as long as a 2 week wait to have their accounts restored or rolled back. Update: We’ve found a far more constructive thread on the subject of the increase in Compromised EQ2 Accounts. Amnerys has posted an update on the situation as well as a word on Velious Winter Rewards for those who were not automatically granted them:
Dethdlr
I’ve been helping Feldon out here at EQ2Wire for about eight months now. My first post was on April 4th 2010 so I haven’t quite been here a full year. In that time I’ve sifted through over seven thousand items to bring you almost 100 articles here on EQ2Wire. Hopefully you’ve found at least a few of them useful. I look forward to continuing my work in 2011 and bringing you all the latest highlights of what’s going on in the world of EQ2. Happy New Year Everybody!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas Kwanzaa Hanukkah Solstice Festivus etc. and a Happy New Year. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Looking for something to do while the servers are being merged? Check out Rothgar’s Christmas Lights! Today he added “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. Watch the new one and the original four videos in the original article posted here.
If you played EQ1 and are familiar with Magelo, you’ve probably been clamoring for SOE to let us outsource the whole EQ2Players/EverQuest2.com data stream to fan sites who will put in the hours to produce accurate, powerful search engines for the EQ2 data stream. If you have, or are just tired of EQ2Players and want to see something new, this news from Zoltaroth should brighten your day: The current [data] feeds server can generate XML, YML and JSON for consumption. It isn’t quite ready for prime-time yet but it is getting really close.
So you may remember that Racial Traits/Traditions were nerfed adjusted in Game Update 53 to remove all uniqueness, including all offensive buffs and abilities such as Ratonga bite and Sarnak fire breathing. From Frizznik: Offensive buffs have been removed. We did this to help balance races better against each other. It seems this ‘balance’ applies to only free races. Left out of the initial version of the The Freeblood: More Information and Images announcement on EverQuest2.com was this Racial Trait: Another Racial Trait, “Bloodletting,” grants a minor Lifetap spell to occasionally drain health from targeted enemies. Do you think...
image courtesy Kotaku.com Kotaku.com landed an exclusive interview with SOE President John Smedley and got some of his reactions to World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm update. Some selected quotes: Next week’s world-changing expansion for World of Warcraft may not be the only cataclysm to hit a major massively multiplayer online game soon.John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, tells Kotaku that the publisher has been considering a similar game-wide reset for EverQuest II. “We are looking at it closely, we have been for a number of years now,” he said during a visit to Sony Online Entertainment Denver. “Is it...
A thread was created on the EQ2 Forums a couple of weeks ago entitled “Why is there no hype about Velious?” which elicited responses from Amnerys and Rothgar indicating that we’re still 3 months away and not everything is nailed down. This thread raged on. However the real discussion about the EverQuest II expansion Destiny of Velious and future of Norrath beyond its release has been happening in the elephantine Server Merges Announced by Email thread, which has become sort of an omnibus discussion between SmokeJumper, Rothgar, and the players.
EQ2Players received an incomplete revamp last December, leaving the site graphically refreshed, but with significant issues including problematic content updates, buggy Javascript, and various statistical oversights. The site was also re-branded as EverQuest2.com and became a free service, instead a paid feature. The SOE Platform Team were initially responsive to the issues brought up and some of them were fixed, but it seems there was some personnel shuffling and as a result, little else has been done to the revamped EverQuest2.com since the release of Sentinel’s Fate. Players have been trying to nail down some kind of response from...
In response to a conversation about the division of development time between EQ2, StationCash items, and Legends of Norrath, Calthine of EQ2 ZAM made a statement that elicited a response from SmokeJumper. That response confirmed on Thursday what many of us have believed but been unable to prove. Since the introduction of StationCash Marketplace, StationCash Items have been designed and tested by the main EQ2 team and not, as has been posited, by a separate team of artists and programmers. SmokeJumper indicates that this is changing, and with the revenue from SC/LoN, SOE have been able to justify hiring...
If you’ve been following the EQ2 Dev Tracker, you know that EQ2 Senior Producer SmokeJumper has been tearing things up the past few days with much dodging, parrying, and responses to player concerns. In response to the argument that “EQ2 is dead”, EQ2 Senior Producer SmokeJumper had some words for competing MMOs out there. While he didn’t mention Rift: Planes of Telara by name — which just opened with what some people are calling the smoothest, most successful Beta Test of any MMO in history, and which will be launching head-to-head with Destiny of Velious next spring — well,...
Amnerys posted this today on the Everquest2.com forums: As of yesterday afternoon, the decision has been made to hold the merge until next week. We want to be sure we have full staff on hand to make everything goes smoothly. Commentary: Some of you are probably wondering what the heck is going on with the merges and thinking that if they’re pushing it this many times, this probably isn’t going to end well. From what I understand, they needed to give people 30 days notice of the upcoming server merges (not sure exactly why but sounds like a good...
I remember several years ago preparing to raid Deathtoll. The first thing I did was ride a cloud up on Bonemire and jump off at just the right spot so I could land on the floating island containing Arbiter Selek. But before I could talk to him, I had to speak Draconic. That’s right, first I had to do the quest Speak as a Dragon that started with a raid and then sent me all over Norrath looking for items.
Search Engine Rankings Internet search engines use many different methods to rank the results of searches. One method of choosing which page to show first is by counting up the incoming links from other sites. The theory is that the more sites that are linking to a given page, the more likely it is to be useful. But what if you just want to show ads on your site and trick people into visiting? How to you get a higher ranking in the search engines? One method is to use programs that go out and post comments on websites...
Starseeker
Community. What does that word really mean in an MMO? We don’t live in the same neighborhoods, nor even know each other outside a virtual world, so what does a gaming community mean to those playing the game?
Would EQ2 benefit from its Lead Designer (Rich Waters) having a presence on the EQ2 Forums? This straightforward question is the subject of a colorful new forum thread on the EQ2 Forums. The Lead Designer is as much a gatekeeper for the development of a game as the Senior Producer, and so they need to have a good working relationship. I’m sure it’s been too short a time to know how things are gelling on the current EQ2 team, but a more accurate term for the previous setup might be “curdled”. Recent prominent departures which have shaken the EQ2...
I’ve been advised that my previous post on Comment Abuse was alarming, so I wanted to post something more detailed and lay out the situation. EQ2Wire is starting to develop a community of loyal readers, some of whom post comments under our articles. We appreciate these comments, as it helps give us direct feedback on how we are doing at communicating ideas, summarizing information, etc. as well as give us ideas for coverage. We currently moderate or approve the first few posts of each new user here to make sure that comments are not offensive, abusive towards other players,...
Fan Faire is now over and one thing seems to be clear: SOE does not have a plan to balance the new players coming into the game between EQ2X and EQII Live, at least not one they are willing to share with us…