Feldon
In addition to the ~175 of us in the #EQ2 Chatroom I linked here, the UStream Sentinel’s Fate Launch Event is going on as well. There are nearly 400 visitors in that chat and live video event. You can find EQ2Wire in either chatroom as Feldon30. 🙂
Expansion News
Ryan O’Sullivan at AdventuresofTaas.com was able to obtain the Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition and thought some might be interested in seeing the contents. His Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition Unboxing.
From Kiara: On February 16th, EverQuest II’s sixth expansion: Sentinel’s Fate will launch the retail headstart! We’re all very excited, and hope that you share our enthusiasm. We want to give a brief overview of what to expect on the 16th. We’ll be bringing the servers down at midnight on February 15th to begin patching to the live servers. Fan Faire attendees will be flagged at this time. Starting at 6am PST and running until 8am PST, Zatozia will be running a Ustream event. Kiara will be on the Official Forums and in Zam’s IRC chat to provide updates...
Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Senior Producer of EverQuest II has posted this Producer’s Letter: Happy Valentine’s Day All! Here we are, perched on the precipice of another big launch for our beloved game, EQII. Next week is a big week for us and for you, the players of this grand game. You will finally be able to log into the new areas of Odus and explore, level and play in the new area that the team has spent nearly a year putting together. Characters can now advance to level 90 as adventurers and tradeskillers. More items, more spells, more AA’s...
Looks like SOE Marketing forgot that there are more countries in the world than the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Japan. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and other countries are all reporting that they are unable to order the Digital Download from DLGamer and Direct2Drive. We have heard that on February 16th, Steam customers in these other countries will be able to order the Digital Download in these countries. At this point, we’re not taking anyone’s word for it. SOE Marketing Dept Strikes Again We here at EQ2Wire consider it a classy move for the SOE Marketing Dept...
Kiara has officially announced the Digital Download partners for International customers. Greetings! We’re pleased to announce the International Digital Download Distributors for Sentinel’s Fate. Our international customers will be able to digitally download the expansion and begin playing on February 16th! We appreciate your patience as we’ve worked out all the details. Accepting Orders Today DLGamer – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88) English | French | German Direct2Drive – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88) English | French | German Accepting orders February 16th Steam visit Steam International customers will be able to DD the expansion on February 16th and take advantage...
Sentinel’s Fate Digital Download We are getting reports that the Sentinel’s Fate expansion has appeared on Digital Download websites for customers outside the United States and Canada. If you hear of other sites, please let us know! We are still expecting a formal announcement at 9:30am PST today of the Digital Download partners. If you are outside the United States and Canada, you should now be able to purchase Sentinel’s Fate from these websites (of course we would be curious to know if any of you have trouble with these sites): DLGamer – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88) Direct2Drive –...
Bonus XP Weekend! Kiara brings us news that this will be a Bonus XP Weekend!! All forms of experience (Achievement, Adventure, and Tradeskill) will receive a 30% bonus from Friday Feb 12th @ 3pm PST (6pm EST) until Monday Feb 15th @ 11:59pm PST (Feb 16 @ 2:59am EST) when the servers will be brought down to patch the Sentinel’s Fate expansion as well as Game Update 55. Retail Boxes Some players have reported seeing Sentinel’s Fate regular and Collector’s Edition boxes in retail stores. We’re glad to see this as it will make it easier for some players...
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...
We have discovered some ancient writings which may yet hold the answer to a puzzle.
Once everyone logs back into EverQuest II with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate and Game Update 55, you will face many choices. Do you reset your AAs and spend them differently to take advantage of the new endline abilities of my Class and Subclass Trees? We already know that your Kingdom of Sky Class page will be reset on your first login, because points are spent differently on it. Do you start solo questing from level 80-90? Don’t forget to move your AA slider back from 100%! You cannot spend more than 200 AAs until you reach level 81....
Don’t forget to join us for SOE’s first ever Ustream Beta Tour, on Friday, February 5, 2010, hosted by Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Senior Producer of EverQuest II. Beginning at 4:00 p.m. PST, tune in to SOE’s Ustream channel to get an exclusive guided tour of EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate, through the eyes of the game’s producer. Chat with other viewers as the tour takes place, and get ramped up for the expansion release, on February, 16, 2010. We’ll see you there! Sony Online Entertainment @ USTREAM UPDATE: After 40 minutes, so far we have discovered that UStream + EQ2...
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.
I’m sure a lot of you are wondering. Where’s the good stuff? Where’s the shard gear? Where’s the raid gear? Where’s the Battlegrounds gear? Where’s the detailed analysis of class changes, the new AAs, racial traits, etc.? The meat and potatoes of groupers and raiders that my readers have come to expect from EQ2Wire? Frankly, I’d like to know too. 🙂 However even at this late date, all of these items are in such a state of flux on Beta, that it seems to document ANYTHING at this point would be foolhardy. Beta veterans assure me that there’s plenty...
EQ2Wire got an invitation to go on a tour of the Sentinel’s Fate Beta with the lovely Christine “Kiara” Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, last month and we’re now able to post some screens and details of that tour. We were able to check out the hub city of Paineel, the sprawling open dungeon the Hole, the Vasty Deep Conservatory, and the Erudin Library. I believe the most stunning aspect and lasting appeal of Sentinel’s Fate will be the artwork. The Shadow Odyssey artwork was not my favorite. I found the “void” look of purples, greys, and sharp edges just...
Kiara has posted the following on EQ2 Forums: International customers will be able to DD the expansion on Feb 16th and take advantage of the headstart offer. They will receive the DD version of the game and the things included in that package: These include: 500 Station Cash LoN Fall of Erudin scenario 30 days free play time for new accounts In-game armor piece – Guarding of the Learned The distributors have not yet been announced. We are still waiting on some final requirements to be met. As soon as we are permitted to do so, we will announce...
Mythicals present a significant challenge to EQ2 developers trying to create desirable weapons for players at level 90. Some of the Mythical effects are uniquely powerful and no player would even consider replacing them without getting the same effect with another weapon. For this reason, it was announced at Fan Faire that mythicals would become either an equippable charm, or a clickable item. Already, in Beta, players have discovered that, when equipped, Mythicals would not modify level 81-90 spells (eg. Chimes of Blades III, etc.). The Truth Comes Out Frizznik has posted in the Beta forums that owners of...
Sentinel’s Fate Group Dungeon & Raid Zone List by Difficulty Difficulty Rating Key Easy Easy to Moderate Moderate Moderate to Hard Hard The Hole contested (82-90) Sprawling dungeon with 3 wings of difficulty, most content tailored for 2-4 players. Old Paineel Dartain’s Fortress Tower of Serilis The Hole instances Demitrik’s Bastion (85+) The Outer Vault (88+) Spirit’s Resonance (88+) Vasty Deep The Conservatory (86-88) The Abandoned Labs (90) The Vestigal Cella (90) Erudin Erudin Library (87-89) Erudin Research Halls (90) Erudin Royal Palace (90) The Vigilant The Vigilant: Incursion! (90) The Vigilant: Infiltration! (90) The Vigilant: Rescue! (90) Sentinel’s...
From EQ2Players: Raiding is an important part of gameplay for many and is a part of every MMO. Roger “Patherpanchali” Uzun designs the raids for EQII and Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert often works with him on these. Timetravelling was kind enough to sit down and give us an overview of the new raids coming with Sentinel’s Fate. We have three x4 raid instances launching with: Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4) Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4) The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4) For x4 content players will discover the Lair of the Dragon Queen first, then Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory,...
The Adornments system in EQ2 has always been pretty confusing. And so far, there just have not been a lot of options for certain classes in certain slots for adornments. Each of the 9 tradeskill classes and the 2 secondary tradeskill classes have each made a handful of adornments. necessitating adornment websites to keep it all straight. We are thrilled to see that the Kanga will be updating her fantastic EQ2 Adornments site for Game Update 55. With Game Update 55, adornments have been rebuilt from the ground up. In fact some prized adornments (Parry) can no longer be...
EQ2Wire is providing continuing coverage of Game Update #55 (now on Test) and the Sentinel’s Fate expansion. News is coming hot and fast now, so we’ve improved how news items are labeled and have added a News Ticker at the top of the site. Don’t forget the UStream Sentinel’s Fate Beta Tour which will be led by Alan “Brenlo” Crosby. This is tomorrow Friday at 4PM PDT. We are currently working on articles about the new Adornments, Guild Amenities, Leveling Tweaks, and a Zone List for the expansion.
And just to bring out tour of the UI improvements in Game Update #55 full circle, the lowly Zone Timers (Lockouts) window has been the bane of many a raid leader, as they remind players over and over to reset their group/raid persistent zone timers. While I didn’t see a /resetallzones command (there might be one, I’m just not aware of it), the new Filter function at the bottom of the Zone Timers window should help considerably at raid time.
Many of us have been faced with the prospect of trying to find a spell or combat art out of our Knowledge book, only to be frustrated by a wall of all our spells from levels 1-80. This will only get more difficult when another tier of spells is added with the expansion. Fortunately, the Knowledge book has gotten a great new Filter feature that lets you choose to only show the highest level version of each spell you have. This doesn’t just mean all the spells from 71-80. Some classes have abilities which do not get updated beyond...
You’ve probably already seen screenshots of the Updated Quest Window. We saw it way back in November when Brenlo posted it as a twitter picture. It’s great to finally see it coming to the live game. If you’ve ever been frustrated with having to constantly open the Quest Journal and flip through your quests to see what steps you need on all the quests you are working on in a certain area, you will be relieved to see the multi-quest tracking feature of the new Journal. Now, you determine what quests appear in your Quest Helper floating window by...
Consolidating Stats Sentinel’s Fate consolidates many separate stats in an effort to simplify itemization. Developers have been hounded on the EQ2 forums for “ignoring” healers, hybrid classes which need both spell and melee abilities, etc. in designing gear. Stat Consolidation is a huge step in making a smaller set of gear usable by a larger player population. Here is the list of changes: Crit = Damage Spell Crit, Melee Crit, Range Crit, Heal Crit Crit Bonus = Spell Crit Bonus, Melee Crit Bonus, Range Crit Bonus Double Attack = Double Attack, Ranged Double Attack Potency = Base Spell Damage,...