What to Expect on Launch Day

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News

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 until the servers come up.

We plan to have the servers back up and ready to go by 9am PST.

EQ2Wire will also be present in the EQ2 ZAM chatroom if you’d like to tug our ear on any issues or offer suggestions.

February 12th Producer’s Letter

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Uncategorized

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 and we hope lots more fun.

As many have noticed, Halas is not going out with the expansion, many have asked why and the reasoning is twofold. We have three pretty decent starting areas already. Darklight, Greater Faydark and Timorous Deep. We know they are not perfect and so the team has done considerable work in reworking those areas, streamlining the progress path to make for a better experience. We believe that you will find the experience in those zones to be far better than it had been. So, we went to work on higher level content for this launch, which we have with the expansion content and the new Battlegrounds.

Additionally we really want new Halas to be something special. We want more time to polish the area and make sure the progression path is fun and smooth. We also hope to get kilts in there. Currently we are looking to have Halas out with the Halas Reborn update later in the year.

With this release, we are proud to open up the Pre-Season of EQII Battlegrounds. Three zones will be available, each with a different playstyle. They will have progression and items and we hope add a whole new element of fun to the game. Unfortunately we didn’t quite get as many players as we had hoped on the server to give it a proper test, so we are going to use this pre-season phase to iron out any kinks and tweak the balance a bit more beyond the testing phase. When we are ready, we will begin Season 1 and the mayhem will begin in earnest. You will be able to work towards the new Chaos Armor during the pre-season, which might be the best looking armor we have added to the game.

With a game like EQII, it is evergrowing and everchanging, on occasion we find the need to adjust items, spells etc. . . and some mythicals had their power reduced with the release of the expansion. With each launch, we have to look at the items released previously and decide if they are perhaps too high to encourage players to look for upgrades. EQII is, at its core, a game driven by itemization. The constant desire to get the next biggest, baddest piece of gear. So on occasion we have to make some difficult decisions. This was one of them. For those who feel their mythical was devalued, I offer my apologies.

Next Tuesday is the retail head start, so to get you all ready, we are turning on Bonus XP from now until the servers come down for the update Tuesday morning. I hope you all login and enjoy. We look forward to seeing you on the Battlegrounds and running around Odus. Mostly, we thank you for playing EQII.

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby

Senior Producer EQII

SOE Marketing: Oops We Forgot Australia

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News

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 to make it so incredibly difficult for loyal customers to purchase their product. I wonder if they got pay raises this year with exceptional skills like that.

Sentinel’s Fate DD International Announcement

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, International

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 Digital Download
DLGamer – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88)
English | French | German

digitaldownload_direct2drivecouk
Direct2Drive – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88)
English | French | German

Accepting orders February 16th
digitaldownload_steam
Steam
visit Steam

International customers will be able to DD the expansion on February 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

Continuing Coverage

EQ2Wire is continuing to follow this story. If you are unable to purchase the Digital Download through these sites outside of the United States and Canada, we’d like to know about it! If you find any tips or tricks on how to order the product through these websites, please let us know either by Comment or by sending us e-mail.

Breaking: Sentinel’s Fate DD Appears on International Websites

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, International

digitaldownload_sfbox

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 Digital Download

DLGamer – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88)

digitaldownload_direct2drivecouk

Direct2Drive – £29.95 (34,95 €) ($46.88)

Bad News for Amazon.com Pre-Orders

We’ve gotten a report that Amazon is telling its Sentinel’s Fate pre-order customers the following:

Severe Weather Alert: Due to winter storms on the East Coast of the United States, many packages will be delayed.

Bonus XP Weekend Feb 12-Feb 15 2009 & Retail Boxes

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

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 to buy the game early if they are not able to get to a retail store on the 16thl. Frankly, the release date doesn’t really matter on an MMORPG. Until the servers themselves are patched, you cannot play the new content.

Kiara has encouraged players to NOT enter Sentinel’s Fate product keys into the system (Station.com) until February 16th. The system may get confused by a prematurely entered key. O.o

EQ2:SF Digital Download Partners Announcement Tomorrow

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

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 and Canada, you will be able to play the DD on February 16th. If not, you will be waiting until February 23rd.

Commentary

I’d like to know…Are there any positions open in the SOE Marketing Dept? I’d love to be able to completely fumble the international launch of a top 10 MMORPG expansion, take late lunches, and not lose a wink of sleep at night, all while its Developers and Community team are working 14 hour days including weekends to develop and release a game that a lot of people won’t be able to play. Must be nice.

Epic Repercussions (Fabled/Mythical Weapon Quest)

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

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.

Do you jump into a 2-4 person group in the contested The Hole?

Whether you have the Fabled or Mythical versions of your Epic Weapon, you’ll probably be itching to start working on the heroic quest to updated your Epic Weapon. Then you can start looking at the weapons Sentinel’s Fate has to offer.

If you don’t mind reading spoilers, Kain at EQ2 ZAM has reported in with the complete walkthrough on the two quests you can do to transform your Fabled or Mythical Epic Weapon to a spell, appearance weapon, and house item. It’s two quests:

LIVE Ustream Beta Tour of Sentinel’s Fate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News

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 + Sentinel’s Fate Beta needs more testing. We have so far seen ~5 minutes of choppy video and 25 minutes of black.

UPDATE 2: We’re back on the air.

Update 3: There was a bunch more GREAT information given during the end of the Tour. I started taking notes but it was too fast, so I recorded the second half of the event using Sony Sound Forge 9.0, thinking I would be able to go back and listen to it and make notes. BUT since Sony Sound Forge 9.0 is a PIECE OF CRAP, it lost the entire recording. So I really don’t have much information for you guys. Yes, I want to kick a puppy right now. I am removing Sony Sound Forge 9.0 and going back to Sound Forge 4.5 which is before Sony bought it.

In short, Brenlo is pushing aggressively for more x2 and x4 raid zones as content updates this year, and is hoping to add cross-server grouping as well but it is unknown when that will happen.

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.

Where’s the Good Stuff?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

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 of time left, but I admit this makes me nervous. Remember folks, raid gear didn’t even appear on Beta until 72 hours before TSO went live.

Two weeks ago I thought I’d be working my fingers to the nubs so I could present you with the coverage you’ve come to expect. Folks can go to EQTraders, EQ2 Zam, and other sites to get the grand tours of the overland and group zones, artwork, tradeskill info, etc. I know that’s where I look. 😉

I will be providing some documentation of the Red Adornments system very soon, but the raid gear, battlegrounds gear, and shard gear will have to wait until it’s finalized.

EQ2Wire Beta Tour of Sentinel’s Fate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance

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.

EQ2_000097x EQ2_000059x

I believe the most stunning aspect and lasting appeal of Sentinel’s Fate will be the artwork.

EQ2_000494x The Shadow Odyssey artwork was not my favorite. I found the “void” look of purples, greys, and sharp edges just didn’t appeal to me. Also it seemed that many of the NPCs and monsters in these zones were not entirely new.

If you ask many players, I think they will tell you their favorite artwork in the game’s zones have been Kingdom of Sky and Pillars of Flame.

I think fans of that design will be thrilled to see Sentinel’s Fate make a return to the bright color palette and rich zone design of the past, while at the same time not simply recycling what we’ve seen before. The Conservatory is an eye-popping visual feast. As we saw at Fan Faire, the developers have been working hard to add completely new monster and NPC appearances.

One of my favorite parts of the Sentinel’s Fate zones I’ve seen so far is the influence of housing on zone design. Most dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate were laid out in a very “down to business” fashion. Long corridors full of monsters that need killing RIGHT NOW.

Sentinel’s Fate, as far as I have explored, seems to have a more “lived in” feel which I find very appealing.

Armor Appearances

This was not part of the Beta Tour, but we thought I’d throw in some screens of some of the armor I’ve seen in game. These are mostly the Raid armor sets from Sentinel’s Fate.

armor001x armor002x armor003x

Beta Tours Around the Interwebs

EQ2Wire is all about newsworthy rumors, scoops, announcements, and breaking news. But if you’d like to read a much more extensive Beta Tour, it’s worth checking out the Beta Tour at EQ2 ZAM by Calthine and Kain. Each of us have exclusive screen shots of Sentinel’s Fate.

Niami has also started to post her Beta Tour and Sentinel’s Fate Info. I know she has been working diligently to document all of the tradeskilling there is to see on the Sentinel’s Fate Beta and will continue to make EQTraders your one-stop shop for Tradeskill info.  Check out the screen snapshoty goodness Niami has posted so far at EQTraders.

   

EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate DD Pre-Order Coming Soon

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News

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 the distributors and provide links to their pages.

US and Canadian customers will not have the DD option on the 16th.

I will update this thread again when I have the international distribution information to post.

Mythical Weapons in Sentinel’s Fate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

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 their Epic weapons will be able to do a challenging heroic quest called “Epic Repercussions” at level 90 to gain a Persistent Spell which gives them the effects of their Mythical weapon.

Mythical Conversion

Mythicals are a large part of character power, and we don’t want to remove that functionality at higher levels.  We did however want to make weapon slot upgrades viable again.  In the expansion, mythical weapons can be converted into a spell by doing a quest.  The new spell will take the mythical’s proc and buff components and convert them into a “Until Cancelled” buff. Any subclass with an activatable effect will have that effect converted into a spell as well.  You will also be able to retain the mythical appearance through an appearance only or house item.

Effect Changes

We needed to make a few changes to how some of the mythical effects worked. The modifications will also be applied to the effects on the existing mythical weapons.

Mystic: The reuse time of the activatable portion is now 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes.  We didn’t want to weaken the effect, but the duration and reuse made this effect too powerful so we increased the reuse time.
Wardens: The triggered proc will now trigger off of any heal rather than only critical heals.  The effect will only trigger once per cast rather than up to six times per cast for group heals.  The power gain on group heals was greater than intended.
Illusionists: The triggered power proc was reduced to one trigger rather than three.  The power gain was too too high across the entire group.
Rangers: The bonus based on proximity was removed and replaced with a bonus that is active all the time.  The bonus is equal to the bonus you would have gotten at point blank range.
Conjuror and Necromancer:  The new spell effect will increase the damage of the pet’s spells and auto-attack damage directly, rather than summoning a new pet.  The existing mythical will not been altered.

Most of the mythicals are a direct conversion from the item to the spell.  The spell version will modify level 80-90 spells.

The heroic quest to acquire the Mythical Spell effect will be available to players who own either the Fabled or Mythical versions of their Epic weapons.

The significance of these changes will be felt by Rangers (yay, I can stand anywhere I need to!). And Summoners starting out the expansion will be able to continue to use their special Mythical pet. My understanding is that the mythical pet’s maximum level is 83. Then, after completing the quest, they’ll be able to cast one of thier other pets and cast the Mythical Spell to buff that pet instead. The folks who will lose out the most are Illusionists who will see a huge loss in how much power they are able to regenerate.

Bracing for Betrayal

Kaitheel has advised us that the Mythical spell will be cancelled, and the Mythical spell removed from your knowledge book if you betray to another alignment. The last step (as well as previous steps) of “Epic Repercussions” requires you to have the fabled or mythical weapon in your inventory or bank to complete the quest.  Completion of the quest removes the original weapon (from either inventory or bank).

Once you have completed the quest “Epic Repercussions”, if you betray your class, you will be able to speak with an NPC on the Nektulos Forest docks to trade in your useless spell gem for a new one of your new alignment. In other words, you no longer need to re-do your fabled/epic/mythical quest if you betray.

The Mythical Appearance

Gninja reports in on the topic of still having your mythical weapon appearance:

When you finish the quest you get the spells appropriate for your class, an appearance only weapon to use if you so choose, and a house item version of your weapon.

Our Stand

Considering mythicals are pretty much just knowing the right person or paying the right amount of plat to get into a raid, I have no issues with this change.

Sentinel’s Fate Group Dungeon & Raid Zone List by Difficulty

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Grouping, Raiding

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 Fate x2 Raids

The Vigilant: Final Destruction (x2)

Sentinel’s Fate x4 Raids

Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4)
Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4)
The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4)

Preview: Sentinel’s Fate Raiding

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Itemization, Raiding

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, and finally The Palace of Roehn Theer. The relative difficulties progress in a similar pattern. One thing that is relatively new is that they are all built in a manner similar to Miragul’s Planar Shard—the normal mode encounters are challenging and offer internal progression. However, the challenge-mode versions within all zones are a step above and offer players a truly difficult foe!

There will also be a x2 raid — The Vigilant — based on the 3 Vigilant difficult level 90 group zones.

Further, Timetravelling has dropped the other shoe, so to speak, on the other Adornments which will be available to raiders. Instead of 12 sets or 24 sets of gear, there will be just a handful of raid gear sets. It would seem that the Sentinel’s Fate Raid Gear Sets will have a second adornment slot which will allow players to further specialize their gear how they see fit.

There were numerous balance issues in both TSO and RoK that came up again and again:

  • Unique set bonuses were often so desirable, that players often worked very hard to avoid having to break the bonuses when upgrading to a later set
  • With 24 classes and 24 sets, loot tables had a tendency to often be…unkind

In The Sentinel’s Fate we are addressing these issues by moving away from class-specific sets. Many of the sets will fulfill a role/playstyle—such as a plate-wearing tank, or a leather-wearing healer—instead of being the Berserker or Fury set. However, we certainly did not want to cause players to lose the unique focus effects and set bonuses received from their gear.

For that, we have created a new system of adornments based upon color. Gear in Sentinel’s Fate can be created to allow more than one adornment upon each item. Almost all items will have a ‘white’ adornment slot that will allow players to continue to apply adornments normally as on live. In addition, raid armor will receive an additional ‘red’ adornment slot that is restricted to raid-level adornments. These adornments can be either powerful generic effects (such as dps-enhancing stats or critical mitigation) or a number of class-specific adornment effects. For example, the Berserker might—in some bizarre Kiara-run-world—receive an adornment that causes them to spawn Rabid Bunny pets whenever their Berserk effect is activated.

These changes should help to reduce the often extremely wide range of loot on any particular encounter while additionally providing players with even more ways to tailor their characters to their playstyle and spec.

Check out the complete article at EQ2Players.

Sentinel’s Fate Adornments Revamp

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Itemization

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 crafted as the recipes have been removed.

Starting with Game Update 55, all adornments are crafted by those players who choose the secondary tradeskill of Adorning. If you were a 400 Transmuter, then you will be a 400 Transmuter and 400 Adorner on February 16th.

Continuing Coverage of Game Update #55 and Sentinel’s Fate

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

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.

Zone Timers (Lockouts) Window

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

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.

zonetimerslockoutwindow

Knowledge Filter

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

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 level 35 or levels 51-55. These show up with this Filter option set.

Screen shot after the jump…

Expanded Quest Journal and Quest Helper

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

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 clicking the checkbox next to each quest you want to track. You can track, I believe, up to 10 quests at a time. You’ll notice there’s even a diamond icon next to each quest with the color of the quest’s level. Also, when you get a quest update, the quest name flashes briefly to draw attention to which quest was updated.

Screen Shot after the jump…

Consolidated Stats Persona Window

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

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, Base Combat Art Damage, Base Taunt, Base Heal Amount
  • Ability Mod = +CA Damage, +Spell Damage Mod, +Heal Amount
  • Physical Mitigation = vs. Crushing, vs. Slashing, vs. Piercing
  • Elemental Resist = Cold, Heat resists
  • Noxious Resist = Disease, Poison resists
  • Arcane Resist = Divine, Magic, Mental resists

Consolidated Stats naturally lead to a simplified Persona Window. Most classes will no longer have to hunt in Spell Stats and Melee Stats to find their Crit, Crit Bonus, Double Attack, etc. numbers. They’re all right there on the main Persona page. There isn’t even a Ranged Stats page anymore.

Inflated Stats?

If you think about how this consolidation works, you’ve probably realized that it’s going to be very easy for Druids, for example, to end up with 100% spell/heal/melee crit, or for rangers to end up with 100% self-buffed Double Attack/Ranged Double Attack. We already know that this expansion is going to be all about Crit Bonus. I think the developers have just accepted that even casual raiders are going to be at (or very close to) the 100% caps for Spell/Heal/Range/Melee Crit on day 1.


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