Terrors of Thalumbra Reveal Livestream Video
Yesterday’s livestream reveal of EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion — The Terrors of Thalumbra — is now available for watching on Youtube!
The video was removed and a new livestream recorded.
Yesterday’s livestream reveal of EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion — The Terrors of Thalumbra — is now available for watching on Youtube!
The video was removed and a new livestream recorded.
Today’s Terrors of Thalumbra Twitch livestream included a ton of information about EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion, including what you get for the Standard, Collector’s and Premium editions. However it didn’t give us that all-important bullet-point list of the number of Zones, Quests, and other Details that players seek. EQ2 Community Manager Roshen has responded to this call and posted a Terrors of Thalumbra Expansion Pre-Order thread which fills in the details of what we can expect when the expansion goes live on November 17th. We’ve also updated our Pre-Order article with this information.
In the leadup to EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion Terrors of Thalumbra, a “Fall Frenzy” program is running with various bonuses. From Dexella on the EQ2 Forums:
This Fall Frenzy event is so exciting, it’s going to last TEN DAYS!
During the weeks leading up to the launch of Terrors of Thalumbra, we have something planned every week for you, our loyal players. This week we’re stretching out a bit longer than normal to give you extra time to enjoy the benefit.
From 12:00PM PDT (noon)* on Friday, October 2 through 12:00PM PDT (noon) on Monday, October 12, enjoy DOUBLE GUILD XP! Don’t miss this opportunity to get your guild leveled up and ready for the next expansion!
Learn more about Fall Frenzy here, and we’ll see you in Norrath!
UPDATE: This event went live at 2:00pm PDT on October 2nd.
The EverQuest2.com website has just been refreshed and EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion is now available for pre-order. Beta will begin in late October , while the official launch date of the expansion is Tuesday, November 17th. The expansion offers 13 new Heroic zones, a massive subterranean overland zone, four raid zones (including a x2 raid), over 80 quests including both Solo and Tradeskill Signature lines, 50 collections, as well as the new multi-Deity system, Item Infusion system, Best-in-slot Relic items, and more.
The EverQuest II Expansion 12 livestream will be starting shortly on Twitch.tv/EverQuest2 and we will be liveblogging it.
On the panel will be Holly “Windstalker” Longdale Executive Producer of EQ/EQ2, Ry “Roshen” Schuller Community Manager of EQ2, Robert “Caith” Fouts Systems Designer, Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall Senior Designer, Tim “Haohmaru” Heydelaar Art Director EQ/EQ2, Carlos “Gninja” Mora Senior Designer, and Emily “Domino” Taylor Tradeskill Goddess. Kyle “Kander” Vallee Lead Designer of EQ2 is in Belgium, a trip he booked months prior to a sudden schedule change by Marketing.
Some relevant quotes from the chat:
Windstalker: We will have an update on the Server Merges, the results of the Time-Locked Expansion vote, and we’ll be revealing the next pre-expansion Bonus.
Windstalker: I won’t be in chat for the duration of the stream. In fact, some of us have to go get set up.
Windstalker: preorder should be live at 10am
Windstalker: they are updating the web site…and we are supposed to be previewing the site…so ya…
Windstalker: The new site has Videos and Tooltips
Editorial: Can I just say it’s a bit nuts is to have the Pre-order and EverQuest2.com website revamp happen at the SAME time as the livestream? Everyone knows you roll out the updated website at the END of the stream.
This is a repeat of the previous announcement about tomorrow’s livestream. EQ2Wire will be liveblogging the event as well.
From EverQuest2.com:
The announcement stream for the 12th expansion to EverQuest 2 will start on Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 10AM PDT* and we would like to invite YOU to join us atwww.twitch.tv/everquest2
During this stream, the EQ2 team will share highlights from the upcoming expansion, do PRIZE giveaways, and answer your questions. Don’t forget that pre-orders start on October 1, this day will be full of information on the upcoming expansion. Join us for the stream, and log into Twitch to chat with us and other players!
Looking for more info? Check out the Producer’s Letter from Holly talking about what’s coming up for EverQuest 2!
We look forward to hanging out with you on Thursday, October 1, and sharing the details from our 12th expansion!
From the EQ2 Forums:
As part of Fall Frenzy leading into our next expansion, we have something special planned for players every week as we lead into our launch.
Starting noon pacific on Friday, September 25, and going until noon pacific on Friday, October 2, 2015 we’ll have double [eq2u]Far Seas Ferrin[/eq2u] activated in-game. This means double DOUBLE Ferrins for All-Access members!
Don’t miss your chance to stock up on Far Seas Ferrin this week!
NOTE: As with past expansions, we do not expect any method to convert this currency into this fall expansion’s currency.
The second prelude quest leading up to EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion is now activated on all non-TLE EQ2 servers. This quest appeared on Test servers for several days and the discussion thread may be helpful to those looking for clues how to complete the quest.
Interestingly, the quest references the underground cities of Moradhim and Klik’anon which appeared in the now-sunsetted PS2 exclusive EverQuest Online Adventures (EQOA), which predates both EverQuest and EverQuest II. Moradhim and Klik’anon were the player starting cities of the Dwarves and Gnomes, respectively.
The good version of this prelude quest is Sundered Ground, an Investigation for the Order of Arcane while the evil version is Sundered Ground, an Investigation for The Spurned. Niami Denmother of EQ2Traders has also posted a Sundered Ground preview on her site. Completing either of these quests awards the title “the Undertok Dismantler“, status, and the recipe book [eq2u]Building on Sundered Ground[/eq2u] which makes a variety of stone house items.
From the EQ2 Forums:
The announcement stream for the 12th expansion to EverQuest 2 will start on Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 10AM PDT* and we would like to invite YOU to join us at www.twitch.tv/everquest2
During this stream, the EQ2 team will share highlights from the upcoming expansion and answer your questions. Don’t forget that pre-orders start on October 1, this day will be full of information on the upcoming expansion. Join us for the stream, and log into Twitch to chat with us and other players!
Looking for more info? Check out the Producer’s Letter from Holly talking about what’s coming up for EverQuest 2!
We look forward to hanging out with you on Thursday, October 1, and sharing the details from our 12th expansion!
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has announced on Twitter that EQ and EQ2 will receive some kind of bonus every day between now and the release of each games’ respective expansions. We’re going to assume that means October 1st, not November 10/17/whenever. Actually it IS until release!
Starting next week, #eq2 and #everquest will get "some kind of bonus" every day until expansions launch. OMGRSH! Stay tuned for deets!
— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) September 19, 2015
EverQuest II’s twelfth expansion, coming in mid-November, will include the Altar of Malice expansion and Rum Cellar campaign. If you have recently resumed playing and can’t wait until then to play all this level 95-100 content, then now’s your chance to grab them at a 50% discount.
But perhaps the biggest audience for today’s 50% discount will be those players who missed out on the Striped Savage Pterodon mount, Elite Battle-Mystic Mercenary, 3 Gems of Armor Advancement, Prehistoric House Pet, and Mage Tower teleporter item for your house. If so, then the next two weeks are your last chance to get these items. This is the first time that the Altar of Malice Collector’s Edition has been discounted. Here’s the original announcement about what came with this release.
and here’s today’s announcement from the EQ2 Forums:
If you were hoping for the already overdue Pre-orders and Pricing information for EQ2’s twelfth expansion, I’m afraid Marketing is going to drag this out yet another two weeks until October 1st. Here’s today’s Producer’s Letter with what Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has been allowed to tease us with. We’ll be back with commentary. Maybe.
Hail Norrathians!
Our next expansion release is right around the corner! Yes, you heard me right – expansion! The team has been churning away and when we looked at the amount of content we created, we decided to call our next release an expansion rather than a campaign or the much-loved term, “campansion.”
The 12th expansion for EverQuest II includes a sprawling overland and loads of content with quests, advanced solo and heroic dungeons, and a healthy number of raids including x2s and x4s. Not only that, but we’re doing level-agnostic versions of each of the new dungeons! We have a couple of new types of items to talk about as well as an updated Deity system to give you details on! Tradeskillers, we’ve got new quests and recipes for you as well!
Early this morning, the “Malicious Threat” prelude event was activated on all EQ2 live (non-TLE) servers. This event will undoubtedly tie current events into this fall’s upcoming expansion, while giving some hints of what we can expect later this year. The prelude event was tested on the Test server and is now live until September 16, 2015.
Good players can start the “Malice in the Glade” quest in Greater Faydark while Evil players should start the “Malice in the Woods” version in Darklight Wood. Both quests start in Greater Faydark. These quest writeups are by Sigrdrifa. When the quest is completed, you may continue defeating Primordial Malice mobs to get arcane Malice baubles which are a currency to buy special House and Appearance items. Niami Denmother of EQ2Traders has posted a Guide to the event and screenshots of all the in-game items which may be purchased.
From the EQ2 Forums:
Will you confront malice in Norrath?
The mage house of Kelethin’s House of Falling Stars and Neriak’s Disciples of Innoruuk have both felt something disturbing a nearby location. They are looking for adventurers willing to investigate and help them uncover a threatening campaign being carried out. Players welcome in Neriak should speak with Virun D’Xyafin in Darklight Wood, while those that are welcome in Kelethin should speak with Miriel Tawnyglade in Greater Faydark.
This in-game event runs until Wednesday, September 16, 2015.
It’s been over a year since SOE’s Gold and Station Pass subscriptions were revamped and rolled into a single All Access program. If it’s been a while since you played EverQuest II and you are just coming back, you might have forgotten what game features and entitlements you’ve been granted in EverQuest II. While you’re in-game, you can always type /show_account_features to see a localized listing all your in-game account features/grants. However if you want to see this information on a website, you have to know the secret handshake. This link is not shown anywhere on the DaybreakGames.com website.
If you are returning to the game after an absence, remember that all expansions up to Chains of Eternity are free. Since then, there have been two expansions and a campaign that you may purchase singly or in a bundle. There are also a few game features that have an additional cost:
A new expansion is currently planned for Novemberish and if Campaigns are treated like the adventure packs of old, then the November update may not include past campaigns or expansions, so only buy what you need right now. Also be aware that Expansions are currently dsabled on the Time-Locked Expansion servers. If you are playing in TLE PvP or PvE, you are locked to the base game with a level cap of 50.
Please be aware that the hidden EQ2 Game Features and Grants page shows everything twice.
You can now watch today’s June 4th Livestream on Twitch
and on Youtube:
From EQ and EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:
What’s Up for EQII?
We have a lot in store for our intrepid Everquest II players. We’re excited to be discussing the launch of two new Time-Locked Expansion Servers for PvE and PvP sometime this year.
Along with that, the team is moving forward with a strategy of treating our players as real gamers who don’t need to be handheld for everything they do. What this means is we feel we need to trust our players to learn and achieve things without us having to give you all the information ahead of time. There’s a big difference between “head southwest and uncover the mystery of the green fog” and “go find the green fog that I put on your map for you.” Our players are smart and we want EQII to be a thinker’s and strategist’s game.
Today we release a new Rumrunner home with a décor set for our decorators, a store version of the Zeppelin mount for anyone that likes to float about in style, and new Summer Ethereal items will start dropping in Altar of Malice heroic zones (including Rum Cellar) for our adventurers.
We’re also currently testing Character Restore and Item Restore functionality on Beta which we hope to release soon.
On Tuesday, June 23, we will release Echoes of Faydwer Fabled Dungeons with all new updated loot and fun for level 100. There are 3 heroic dungeons, 3 advanced solos and 1 raid with a challenge version. Here’s the zone list:
· The Fabled Acadechism [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Court of Innovation [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Crypt of Valdoon [Heroic & Advanced Solo] · The Fabled Freethinker Hideout [Raid & Challenge Raid]
Then, in early July, we’ll introduce the ability to quest and worship Erollisi as a god for new miracles and blessings.
We can’t forget Tinkerfest! It will launch on July 17 with new content!
And later in the summer, we’ll see more Ethereal weapon drops.
For those who are curious, we’re doing a fair amount of technical and backend work to help our performance and to move toward cross-server functionality. We also want to address server population issues. We’re focusing on the first part of this work which is adjusting our architecture.
We also have been continuing to work on the content for our release later this year. Toward the end of summer as we head into the Campaign release timeframe later this year, we’ll be releasing some prequel events and designers will be sharing details about upcoming features with you. Today in our Twitch stream, designers previewed an upcoming feature that allows you to increase stats on new equipment. We also have a new item type in the works for this year’s campaign referred to as Relics which are extremely powerful items where only one can be equipped at a time, per character. Kander, Caith, and Kaitheel (yikes!) discussed these features in our livestream today and you can watch the replay here.
We’re enormously grateful for the support of all of our players and we’re excited about what’s coming up for EverQuest II!
Sincerely, as always,
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale
Exec Producer, EQ & EQII
Today Robert “Caith” Fouts, Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall, and Kyle “Kander” Vallee were joined by EQ2 Community Manager Ry “Roshen” Schuller to talk about upcoming changes in this fall’s expansion-sized Campaign, or as the EQ2 team has been calling — the Campansion. Here are my rough notes, subject to my interpretation and these are mostly not direct quotes. Any mistakes are my own!
Amplifying Infusing
Players have be able to upgrade armor through Gems and adding Essences to change the Damage type on Weapons. However this has been very limited as it requires the devs to create hundreds of items for each boost/change. A new feature is coming with this fall’s Campansion #12 (Expansion-sized Campaign) called Amplifying Infusing which will allow items to be customized and upgraded on a more detailed level. Not all items in the game will be upgradeable, as this will be limited to items in the expansion and perhaps a few AoM/RC items. For example, you might get a bauble from a zone that allows you to boost stats or add a totally new stat to an item. You will be able to change the Weapon Delay (1, 2, 4, 6, 8) and Damage Type (Mental, Fire, Noxious) on Weapons.
current prototype of Amplifying
Amplifying Infusing requires a dropped material (which could be rare) to boost an item. We’re not sure what it costs just to change the stats, delay, or damage type on an item. The prototype shown just costs plat, but the finalized version will use a material. This will work alongside but not replace Reforging which will largely remain in its current form. The plan is to have a longer expansion Beta test this year so that more feedback can be collected on this feature.
Update: “Unlocking US live servers now.” – Bunji
Update: Downtime is now expected to extend until Noon Pacific time. However, the link to purchase the Rum Cellar Campaign is now active, so we can pretend that’s the pre-order time window. 🙂
Today marks the launch of the Rum Cellar Campaign which can be purchased here.
For those that haven’t been following along, the Rum Cellar Campaign is the first attempt at delivering Downloadable Content (DLC) for a price, rather than through traditional expansions (not counting the old Adventure Packs that were meant to be in addition to expansions, not a replacement for expansions). It contains the “Far Seas Distillery” with 1 Solo, 1 Event Advanced Solo, 1 Heroic, 2 Event Heroics and a large Raid version for $15 ($13.50 for All Access). Altar of Malice is required and should be available as a bundle for those that have yet to purchase AoM. There will be another large Campaign this fall around the usual expansion release time. The content released throughout the year in these Campaigns should add up to what we might have traditionally seen in a yearly expansion.
Roshen posted this on the EQ2Forums:
US EverQuest II Live Servers and website will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for the Rum Cellar Campaign Patch. Estimated downtime is approximately three hours.
Players will NOT be able to play this campaign until after this patch has completed, even if they purchase the campaign prior to this maintenance.
EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for this update. (Approx. 3:00PM London Time on April 28, 2015). Estimated downtime is three hours.
Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 16:00 CET am 28.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 3 Stunde(n) betragen
Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 16:00 CET le 28-04-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 3 heures.
Update notes for this downtime can be found in the Game Update Notes forum once they’re available.
Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums for news if additional downtime is needed.
EDIT: Approx downtime is now three hours.
EDIT 2: This downtime will affect the website as well.
Update: As part of the launch festivities, Daybreak Games will be livestreaming as well:
Don’t miss today’s EverQuest 2 stream! To celebrate the launch of the Rum Cellar Campaign, we’ll be streaming today, Tuesday, April 28, 2015 starting at 11AM PDT* on twitch.tv/EverQuest 2
If you told me last November that nearly one third of Altar of Malice expansion purchasers would opt for the never discounted $89.99 Collector’s Edition, I’d have suggested therapy or possibly drug treatment. If you read the comments here on EQ2Wire and on the official EQ2 forums when the pricing was announced, the universal response was howls of protest. Yet to this day, the expansion not only continues to show good sales numbers, but fully one third spring for the Collector’s Edition. Perhaps we ARE the vocal minority.
So with that background comes today’s Marketing-driven blitz (yes on April Fool’s Day for some reason) of how EverQuest II’s content will be released going forward. First up, here are the Press sites that participated in Round Tables with the EQ2 team this week:
TL;DR Summary
Have you taken the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion survey? If not, head here:
Personally as someone who has dedicated some time to writing good survey questions, this has to be one of the most generic surveys I’ve seen. On one hand, there is an entire page dedicated to the six raid zones in the expansion, yet the entirety of the tradeskill and heroic content are each distilled down to a single 1-10 rating question. What if you love the zones, animations, populations, humor, and the music, but you dislike difficulty, how would you rate that?
It’s pretty clear that Marketing largely referenced the expansion’s press release without much (if any) consultation with the EQ2 team. I wonder what if anything SOE will learn from this survey. I feel that the way the questions are written is prone to lead to invalid conclusions.
Starting today, EverQuest II’s 11th expansion Altar of Malice will become available for purchase for Free-to-Play EQ2 players both at EverQuest2.com, and through Steam. All Access customers were able to buy and play the expansion some two weeks ago starting on November 11th. Pricing remains unchanged, at $39.99 for the standard edition and $89.99 for the collector’s edition.
Coinciding with the platform changes to allow F2P players to buy the expansion, there are some login issues affecting EQ2 players. Update as of 35 minutes ago:
From Afista on Twitter (also posted on the EQ2 Forums):
Login issues should now be resolved. Thank you for your patience and please let us know if you encounter any problems! [Afista]
— EverQuest II (@everquestii) November 25, 2014
First up, starting at 10:00am PST tomorrow (1:00pm EST, 18:00 GMT, 19:00 CET), Free-to-Play EQ2 players will be able to buy and start playing the Altar of Malice expansion.
Now for the downtime announcement…
US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PST.
Estimated downtime is 1 hour.EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at approximately 9:00PM PST. (Aprox. 5:00AM London Time on 11/26/2014)
Estimated downtime is 2 hours.All accounts will also be able to purchase and play our new expansion, Altar of Malice, at 10:00AM PST.
GENERAL
- Fixed a bug where general achievements would export to census with “Altar of Malice” as the subcategory.
From the EQ2 Forums:
Greetings Norrathians!
EverQuest II is currently celebrating ten amazing years of gameplay. To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we’re giving away 10 Collector’s Editions of our new expansion, Altar of Malice!You can enter the EverQuest II – Tenth Anniversary Contest from now until 11:59pm PST on Sunday, November 23, 2014. We’ll randomly select ten winners from the eligible entries to win a Collector’s Edition code for Altar of Malice.Thank you to all of our wonderful players and happy anniversary!
All Access subscribers who purchased the All Access expansion have been chugging along working on quests, zones, and more since late Tuesday, and so far there haven’t been too many show-stopping bugs, however a few always creep in and we are collecting them here.
Inside:
Bugged Kithicor
There are two bugged quests in Kithicor, not required by the Altar of Malice signature quest, which otherwise prevent progress in it. “Sustaining Souls of Bloody Kithicor” and a request to place blessed salt to the souls of slain Teir’Dal by the quest “Momentary Peace for Bloody Kithicor“. The workaround for these seems to be to cancel or re-apply the Belt Illusion associated with the questline.
Allu’thoa Menace
We’re not sure how serious this is, but there seems to be a detriment that does not cancel when the related mob is killed. Extemper indicates that a fix is coming soon.