Feldon
The big news yesterday about the new Prowler mounts available via StationCash in the Marketplace is being discussed in the First Ever Mount on the Marketplace thread on the EQ2 Forums. But as part of the introduction of these SC mounts, the Highland Stalker mount which was included in the Sentinel’s Fate CE retail box has gotten some tweaks as well. First, the run animation created for the SC Prowler has been adapted to the Highland Stalker. Second, the gigantic, and I mean Sir Mix-a-lot sized rump on the Highland Stalker has undergone plastic surgery. Some players find the...
Commentary
Previous EQ2 Senior Producers Alan “Brenlo” Crosby and Bruce Ferguson rarely responded directly to player inquiries. Thus we featured their posts here on EQ2Wire in separate posts. However Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has been tearing up the EQ2 Forums in two threads: Suggestions and requests for the new Senior Producer First Ever Mount on the Marketplace
Check it out folks! We’ve got a new Calendar here on EQ2Wire. I’ve put in a list of upcoming events (currently set to 45 days, I can adjust this easily) in the Sidebar, including tentative dates for certain events based on 2009, and if you click the EQ2Wire Calendar header there, you can jump to a monthly calendar of EQ2-related events. If you have any suggestions for events that should be on this calendar, please post a Comment and we’ll see about adding it!
An interesting topic has popped up on the EQ2 Forums asking the question: Is there Raid Progression for Small Guilds? The Shadow Odyssey ended up offering many choices for Casual Raid Guilds. Sentinel’s Fate has not been quite so generous with such progression choices. Game Update 56 will add two raid zones, but both are intended for 24-person raids. We compare the expansions in today’s commentary.
Just prior to Sentinel’s Fate, two different web designers set out to produce an updated AA calculator. We kept our eye on a really smooth one (but which had not been updated for Sentinel’s Fate) by Beetny. We were stoked to find out that Beetny’s AA Calculator has been fully updated for Sentinel’s Fate. This AA Calculator lets you browse, experiment, and spend AA points in all 3 AA trees for your character class without logging into EQ2. Also, you’ll notice there is a URL at the top so you can share your suggested AA setups with other players....
Today, we reflect on a dungeon that I had high hopes for when it was first announced, but which underwent dramatic changes within 72 hours of its launch. 3 months later, there are no clear answers on the current intended audience of this zone, whether we’ll see any rollback of those changes, and going into the next expansion — EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious — will these lessons in design and balance be learned from?
It’s hard to believe that in 3 months we will be covering our third Fan Faire event and entering our third year of wheedling news and previews of EverQuest 2 expansions and game updates. We plan to offer the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the 2010 Fan Faire event. It’s challenging to come up with news on a daily basis, especially about a game that works in 3 month cycles. Last month, we officially brought a staff writer, Dethdlr, into the fold, who has so far been posting some great updates. There are a lot of EQ2 fan sites...
Even as EQ2Wire is trying to find an artist or artists to help us tell humorous, interesting stories about EQ2, the development of MMOs in general, and the sometimes tumultuous relations between game developers and the players, we could not help but notice the “Notable Norrathians” contest currently running on the EQ2 Forums and posted by Kiara. UPDATE: Deadline Extended to May 28th! The New Artists My favorite part of EverQuest II’s fleeting 5th Anniversary “Heroes Festival” (during last year’s American Thanksgiving week) was the 10 Player-Designed In-Game Paintings. Initially, an art conteste, the top 10 winners became available...
It seems we’ll be parting with two islands by May’s end. And while we’ll still be able to catch John Locke, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, and Kate in syndication, the Qeynos and Freeport starting islands seem destined for a more permanent fate. We are providing continuing (hopefully not excessive) coverage of the impending removal of the EQ2 starting islands. Share Your Story If you’d like to share your story of your experiences either on the Outpost of the Overlord, Queen’s Colony, or on the original Isle of Refuge, shoot us an e-mail through the Contact Us page, or post a...
There seems to be some confusion in the In Testing Feedback thread regarding the removal of Qeynos and Freeport as starting choices. I stand by the original article I posted, but some clarification is worth mentioning. Qeynos and Freeport Going Away? Qeynos and Freeport are not being removed as cities. Furthermore to my knowledge, none of the level 6-20 quests in these city zones and surrounding suburbs are going away. Although further testing on the Test Server will be needed to confirm this. Players wishing to experience the Qeynos and Freeport level 6-20 content would need to create a...
In February, former EQ2 Senior Producer Alan “Brenlo” Crosby created a thread “What is the Golden Path?” It included this provocative passage: The golden path is the first step in a larger revamp of our new player experience. We took a look at the starting areas, other than Qeynos and Freeport as we plan to move away from those, and reworked content so that it had a better flow. We wanted the quests in Darklight, Timorous and Greater Fay, to give you a better progression path. When asked in the EQ2 ZAM Dev Chat to clarify this position, Brenlo...
Dethdlr
It all started with a simple post: “If you’ve ever fancied yourself a writer for EQ2Wire, whether it’s just updates on the happenings around Norrath, including updates on Live Events, shoot us an e-mail thru Contact Us.” Since then, I’ve gone from e-mailing articles to Feldon to full Author, Contributor, and Editor at EQ2Wire. You may have noticed a few of my articles over the past few weeks. Some of you are probably wondering, who is this Dethdlr person? Allow me to introduce myself. I started playing EQ2 on May 15th, 2005 but it wasn’t until August of 2006...
Did you start a guild years ago and and give it a silly name as a goof? Did the guild manage to survive and now has lots of members but still has a silly name? Ever wish you could change the name? Help is on the way! shotens recently posted a request on the EQ2 Forums: So what I ask is for the Dev team to put out a product that we can spend our hard earned money on that allows us to change a guild name. and got this startling response from Rothgar: It’s done and should be...
Linda “Brasse” Carlson, Senior Community Manager for SOE has posted this update on the EQ2 Forums: After many years of service, Alan “Brenlo” Crosby has decided to leave SOE to pursue other opportunities. And while it is sad to see him leave, we wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors. At this time, we’d like to take a moment to introduce EverQuest II’s new producer, Dave Georgeson. Dave is excited to join the EQII Team and will be posting an introduction in the near future. According to EQ2 Zam, Dave’s resume includes SOE’s Planetside and Free...
From EQ2 Zam: Astute fans of Sony Online Entertainment noticed Alan “Brenlo” Crosby changed his job status on Facebook this afternoon. His Recent Activity says “Alan removed his job as Senior Producer – EverQuest II at Sony.” A query to Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, resulted in a polite “no comment.”We will report details as they become available. Wherever Alan is going, ZAM and the EQII Community wish him the best. He said this to Massively: Yeah after working together for 10 years, it was my time to move on. Was a great ride and I am going...
We wrap up another week in Norrath with some posts from the EQ2 forums from developers and players alike which you may have missed. Also, although no date has yet been announced, work on Game Update 56 has likely reached a feverish pace and we’ll start hearing more about it soon. Waiting for Zone Info The EQ2 and SOE teams have been putting in long hours trying to resolve the database and server lag/performance issues since the expansion. Zoltaroth has weighed in with this update: We are also internally testing some additional updates that should furthur improve zoning (specifically...
We have been trying to get Google AdSense to display better ads, but after months of trying different settings, blacklisting hundreds of vendors our readers have no interest in (plumbing supply cos, wiring companies, really?), now all we’re getting is Plat Farmer and Account Selling ads. It seems Google AdSense doesn’t have any ads that you guys would like to actually see. I am currently looking for a banner ad company that will show appropriate ads, such as movie banners (non-flash, no scary music!), upcoming MMOs and other games, and just cool stuff people might actually click on. For...
The previous Thursday and Tuesday hotfixes have brought some itemization changes, specifically with the increase in the number of items holding Red Adornment slots, the introduction of Yellow Adornments for heroic gear, and the addition of Resists to Legendary and Fabled gear (previously, players were expected to run around with 2-3 pieces of Mastercrafted jewelry). Now, we are starting to see the second prong of these changes, intended to fix the itemization mess that Sentinel’s Fate launched with. Frizznik brings us: Thanks for your patience with us as we look at items, spells, and combat arts. We are reading...
Thursday night saw the first post-expansion developer chat of 2010. Hosted by ZAM, this chat had previously been scheduled for March 4th, but was postponed to March 18th as developers focused on issues with Battlegrounds. You would have assumed, with the key issues of Battlegrounds and Itemization consuming a great deal of development effort in the month since Sentinel’s Fate launched, AND the 2 week postponement in the EQ2 Developer Chat, that Calthine at ZAM would have received an avalanche of hardball questions. Instead, we saw just a few of these critical issues raised, with the rest running the...
Today brings the first part of a two part story about how we got to the Itemization situation we are in now. Part history lesson, part recap. Part 2 will try to sort out the Sentinel’s Fate Itemization picture as we have it so far. I assure you that Part 2 will be MUCH shorter. 🙂 After the posting of Part 2, we will be posting a survey to get your feedback on these long-form articles.
The elusive SOE Marketing Dept. took a moment today to pat itself on the back for its “successful launch” of EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate. They also made a point of thanking “our great fans have responded with overwhelming support“. It is unclear what aspect of the Sentinel’s Fate launch players give “overwhelming support” to, but no doubt this will be a key point on a Powerpoint presentation somewhere soon. EQ2Wire does not think it is too soon to start our campaign for NO retail launch of the next EverQuest II expansion. It costs too much money, diverts too many...
Battlegrounds vs. Oasis Battlegrounds were locked this afternoon/evening due to significant lag and zone time issues. The servers were also rebooted. However the biggest issue is that Oasis is almost unplayable for some players. This quote from the EQ2 Forums: We’re aware of the problems facing the Oasis server right now and several people are working on it. It will be addressed more fully tomorrow when everyone is back in the office and I’m sure we’ll have more information then. There is an active thread on the Oasis server forum. Character Corruption A few players are reporting sporadic issues with losing...
So today marks the release of the Digital Download in North America and Canada. For those unfortunate souls who couldn’t get their hands on a retail copy, your expansion begins today. Do you really miss anything by being a week late? Well, there are those server discoveries (which EQ2Players isn’t tracking properly). And there’s the chance of making a lot of plat being first to sell shinies, tradeskilled materials, rare items, etc. We have received player reports but have not yet empirically confirmed ourselves that there may have been some monkeying around with how combat XP is converted to...
With hardly a moment to spare, we will soon find out where the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion will be available for purchase as a Digital Download. We will be releasing the distributors and the links to their sites tomorrow morning after 9am PST. It will be up in this thread about 9:30am PST as soon as I walk in the office. The list will be updated as more information comes in, but will be good to get everyone started. — Kiara Current wisdom indicates that if your IP address is recognized as being outside of the United States...