Feldon
Alan “Brenlo” Crosby has posted on his Twitter (specifically at TweetPhoto) a couple of screenshots of a saddle-only version of the Highland Stalker. Download I know I have been interested in a non-armored version and glad to see this. Since the official announcement of the Collector’s Edition includes specific verbiage indicating that the only way to get the Highland Stalker will be in the Collector’s Edition, a safe assumption would be that there will be a choice in the box. More info as we have it.
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). 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...
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...
Since our exposé on the lack of options for anyone outside the continental United States to order the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion, it seems we stirred up a hornet’s nest behind the scenes, causing the resolution of at least some of the issues facing EverQuest II customers. We are now able to report that BestBuy.com has corrected its release date to February 16th, Amazon.com is now offering shipping outside the U.S., and Amazon.ca is now offering Sentinel’s Fate for sale directly to Canadian customers. We are still awaiting word of the selection of one or more international distributors....
The EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion Beta Registration is now open! Login to your Station Account, sign the NDA, and Register for the Sentinel’s Fate Beta. [ EQ2Players Announcement ]
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...
Kiara has posted the following update regarding SoE’s efforts to locate one or more international distributors for EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate. Answers! Not all the answers that everyone wants, naturally, but definitely better than nothing, for certain. 1) The coupon in the retail box for the $10 in the Station Store is for the DD version of SF only. Good for folks with more than one account or for those who want to gift to a friend to get them into the game. 2) Still waiting on the lists of where Amazon and GameStop will ship. Sharp sticks have...
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...
The main EverQuest 2 site at Station.Sony.com has been updated with a dozen new screen snapshots for the new EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion. Check them out (choose ‘Sentinel’s Fate’ from the filter menu on the bottom right). Featuring a few below:
If the EQ2 team are trying to keep the secrets of February’s expansion Sentinel’s Fate under wraps, they might want to avoid sending out data files containing Sentinel’s Fate textures and zone art with the EQ2 Patcher. We’re not even in Beta yet (expected sometime in December) 🙂 If you wish to remain ignorant about Sentinel’s Fate a bit longer and you’d rather be surprised in February, then don’t click:
The trailer we saw yesterday for Sentinel’s Fate, the sixth expansion for EverQuest II, has been posted on EQ2Players in High Definition (1280 x 720). You can download it as well as grab some more screen snapshots at EQ2Players. Note it’s a large file (120MB) so I recommend downloading it to your PC first before trying to play it.
The news is coming quickly about EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate’s new Retail strategy. Kiara brings us this: Fan Faire attendees with accounts in good standing will receive a complimentary digital copy of the retail version. You will have the early access and items associated with the retail version of the game. We’re looking into Best Buy not having the listing yet. Amazon and GameStop are shipping overseas. I’m trying to get a list of the countries that will be shipped to. Retail boxes ordered online and shipped, SHOULD be shipped in time to arrive on release day to allow...
You can now watch the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Teaser Trailer at EQ2 Zam: and you can check out some EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate screen snapshots as well: To find more information about EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate, you can check out EQ2Wire’s recently updated Fan Faire News Rollup with all the information about the expansion. From watching the trailer, we’ve also learned the Sentinel’s Fate will contain: 4,000 new items 400 Quests 5 Heritage Quests
EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate Getting a jump on the holiday season (and a full 100 days before its official launch), the EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate expansion has been made available for pre-order!! The most remarkable part of this announcement is the extraordinary measures being taken to get EverQuest II back onto Retail shelves and getting retailers to take the game seriously. With Sentinel’s Fate, it is now clear that the preferred version of EverQuest II will be the retail Collector’s Edition. Not only with in-box and in-game exclusive items, but the release schedule. The Retail version will be available...
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? 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...
EQ2 Producer Brenlo has Twittered a couple of interesting sneak peaks into the future of EQ2. New Dance Moves First up, if you’ve been thinking that what Barbarians really need is some new dance moves, you might enjoy this new video. No word on when we can expect Guitar Hero: EverQuest edition. 🙂 New Barbarian dance on YouTube You can safely infer that since this dance is specific to male Barbarians, that EQ2 is getting a bunch of new dances unique to male and female members of each race. I wonder if they will all be pop culture references....
Domino brings us some tradeskill news from Game Update 54, expected in November: I wanted to take a minute to let you know that with the next game update (54) which we should see before Christmas, there will be an additional set of daily missions in each of the 3 Kunark factions that tradeskillers can assist (Bathezid’s Watch, Riliss, and Danak). They aren’t anything fancy, they’re very similar to the daily missions in Grobb, Tupta, and Firmroot moot – same type of tasks, and about the same amount of time. There are 4 per faction and they’ll rotate on...
We’re now less than 6 months from EverQuest II’s Sentinel’s Fate expansion and Domino, EQ2 Tradeskill Developer, is starting to dig deep into Transmuting. If you’d like to see her preliminary ideas and give feedback on the EQ2 Forums, you should check out the EQ2 Tradeskill forums. And here’s a completely unrelated Fan Faire photo:
Every EQ2 news site has been abuzz with the news about Sentinel’s Fate as well as changes and new zones expected between now and then. Naimi Denmother’s (EQ2Traders) Fan Faire 2009 Writeup EQ2 Mechanically Speaking Panel @ Zam EQ2 Fan Faire 2009 Report @ EQ2Zam If you have a fan site news link that you think I should be mentioning, please let me know!!
Some concept art from EQ2 Sentinel’s Fate has been posted at EQ2Players.
Here are some less concrete things that were discussed at Fan Faire. Race change is something a LOT of people are asking for. EQ2 devs asked for a show of hands of how many people would like this feature and half the room raised their hands. It IS being looked at. Yes, there was some resistance for lore reasons, and betrayal/alignment/quest issues are substantial, but it’s certainly possible with enough development time. The amount of money they’d make off this would more than make up for it. You can scratch “never” out of your vocabulary for this one. Heck,...
I present the EverQuest II Expansion & Game Update News from Fan Faire in a rollup post. This is partly based on the Fan Faire 2009 Consolidated News by Kalyyn. I started with Kalyyn’s great writeup and have built upon it, adding dozens of new details and minor corrections based on everything I observed at the 2009 Fan Faire EQ2 event in Las Vegas. I’ve archived the individual news posts I submitted over the weekend. If you still want to read them, they’re [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] And now, without further ado,...
Some seriously funny, cool, and creative new mob designs and revamped appearances to some existing mobs. More interesting animations. * fighting pandas * displacer beasts * two headed giants * stalagmites * scarecrows Random illusion appearances driving you crazy? Looking at a possibly a Magic Mirror house item to save illusion setups. Npcs only have about 50 animations. Players have about 1,000 animations. Kelethin houses will get a transparent window. Both Kelethin and Neriak houses will have more rooms. Male ratongas with whiskers but without glasses? We’ll look into it. Illusion picker UI to switch illusions in development. Devs...
The comprehensive writeups on Fan Faire and the events and photos are always worth a read if you couldn’t make it. I admit I’m all about the details and the expansion news. I don’t try to cover the whole event as others do that better than I can… One writeup I want to mention is CompleteHeal. Calthine (great to meet her of course!) has a writeup at Zam as well. I took some pics of the event last night, some general Fan Faire pics, and of course lots of pics from the EQ2Flames gathering last night. Hope to get them up...
From Curse.com. Through a bit of internet sleuthing we’ve discovered that recently, Sony Online Entertainment decided to trademark two new titles, one each for EverQuest and EverQuest II. The trademarks in question took place on June 10th, 2009 and are EverQuest Underfoot, and EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate. While nothing is announced yet, there’s a good chance these two titles are the names of each game’s respective expansions. So why would SOE do this? Well, they have the annual SOE Fanfaire coming up in a week, in which they’ll no doubt continue their recent tradition of announcing expansions for their...