Feldon
From the EQ2 Forums: You won’t want to miss the EverQuest II 10th Anniversary Stream, this Friday, November 14, 2014, running from 2-3PM PST. You can watch us on www.twitch.tv/everquest2 Tune in to watch Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, and Ry “Roshen” Schueller as they show off the newest expansion Altar of Malice, and play the new Aerakyn race. The team will also be running a special 10th Anniversary in-game event on the Freeport server that you certainly wouldn’t want to miss! Do you like giveaways? We got them! During this one hour stream there will be goodies that...
Expansion News
This may seem self-evident, but playing the Altar of Malice expansion these next two weeks (November 11-24) prior to the widespread release is a thank you given to All Access subscribers for their continued support. Free-to-Play users will be able to buy and start playing Altar of Malice on November 25, 2014. If you are currently All Access, bought Altar of Malice, and let your All Access subscription expire during the early access, you will be booted to Antonica and not able to access expansion zones until November 25th! My opinion: It would not be fair for people who renewed their...
EQ2Wire was fortunate enough to interview EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallée for today’s Altar of Malice expansion launch to talk about a broad spectrum of topics including: The building blocks of MMORPG content design and how collaboration between artists, animators, musicians, and designers makes it possible for a cohesive expansion with a strong theme and storyline. The new Altar of Malice zones as they fit into Solo, Adv Solo, Heroic, Event Heroic, and Raid playstyles How Altar of Malice builds on the Itemization bedrock laid by Tears of Veeshan A hint of what we can expect in next year’s content-focused...
Table of Contents So what’s new in the expansion? How do I jump into the new expansion content? Why am I not gaining levels?! Are the new overland zones and dungeons re-skinned/re-textured versions of existing zones like we got in the past? Is there a new harvest tier for the expansion, or does level 90-100 become a tier? What material do I use to make Grandmaster spells? Are there new Alternate Advancements (AA’s) or Prestige Points in the expansion? What’s up with the new Ancient spells? How much better than Grandmasters are they? What new Contested Heroic zones can...
Altar of Malice launch trailer @ Youtube From the EQ2 Forums: EverQuest II’s 11th expansion, Altar of Malice, launches today for All-Access Members! Are you ready to take up arms and unravel the mysteries of The Shattered Seas? This expansion is packed full of adventure and brings a ton of exciting new features to players! Let’s take a look at some of the things you can look forward to in Altar of Malice.
The Altar of Malice expansion is now available for purchase for All Access subscribers!! Answers to Frequent Questions If you Free-to-Play, or wish to purchase on the Steam platform, then you will be able to purchase the expansion on November 25, 2014. If you attended SOE Live, then you can verify that you have been granted the standard edition of Altar of Malice by visiting this hidden EQ2 Entitlements page and looking for “Entitlement: Altar of Malice“. Some users are receiving the message “You are not eligible to purchase this product. Please check available products below.” If you did not...
After some initial confusion, the downtime for tomorrow’s big update for the Altar of Malice expansion has been announced. ALL servers will go down at 5:00am PST tomorrow. Time Zone Conversions — Downtime for ALL SERVERS (US, EU, RU, JP) PST: November 11 @ 5:00am til Noon EST: November 11 @ 8:00am til 3:00pm GMT: November 11 @ 13:00 til 20:00 CET: November 11 @ 14:00 til 21:00 AEDT: November 11 @ Midnight til November 12 @ 7:00am
Today is the last day to run the Altar of Malice solo quest lines, heroic zones, or do the tradeskill questline and get rewards for your live characters. You Beta Believe These Rewards are Awesome From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: The Beta server will be coming down tomorrow morning with the game update. It will not be coming back online after tomorrow’s All-Access launch of Altar of Malice.
From EQ2 Senior Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Almost to AoM expansion! Servers will come down about 5am and we are aiming to be live at 12pm pst. Purchasing up about the same time. #EQ2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) November 10, 2014 Presumably this means we’ll be able to buy the Altar of Malice expansion around the same time servers come up, but possibly ambiguously sooner.
From Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: For centuries, Ssraeshza, the last bastion of the Shissar, loomed forebodingly over the gray plains of the moon, Luclin. During The Shattering, Ssraeshza was among the chunks of Luclin that rained down on Norrath. The temple landed inverted within the Phantom Sea, where it formed the island known as Grim Shales. The shattered walls of the temple created a terrible landscape, treacherous to even the hardiest of explorers. Though the great temple sits in near ruin, a dark force has begun its reconstruction. The Akheva and their subjugated Grimlings have been...
EQ/EQ2 Community Manager Ry “Roshen” Schueller interviews designers Jeffery “Extemper” Bard and Carlos “Gninja” Mora as they give us a sneak peek of the stunning The Tranquil Sea and elaborate Brokenskull Bay, two new zones in the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion releasing next Tuesday for All Access members and November 25th for everyone else. The Tranquil Sea is the first overland zone players encounter in the Altar of Malice, and contains the Isle of Refuge, Alla’thoa, and much much more. Brokenskull Bay is a swashbuckling instance styled after Tortuga and will be available in a few different heroic versions, an advanced...
We are now seven months past the “End of Life” date for Windows XP, but you wouldn’t know it from the number of players reporting issues with the Altar of Malice beta. While the crashes being reported are far from exclusive to any particular version of Windows, it’s a little frightening how many EQ2 players are still running a version of Windows which is not receiving any type of security updates and which is limited to just 3GB of memory (with a scant 2GB of that being made available to EQ2). No game developer wants to release an expansion that...
From Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: Deep within Kithicor, the Primordial Malice, resides a cult devoted to the Demigoddess Lanys T’Vyl. As a show of dedication to their fallen matriarch, members of the Primordial Malice worship the state of undeath. They desecrate their bodies with bone piercings and intricate tattoos, flaying their skin to the muscle, in an attempt to ride the line between life and death. The Ossuary of Malevolence is the pinnacle of that devotion. The Ossuary of Malevolence is a massive cathedral built with bones as brick and mortar, constructed to harness and focus...
Not sure how we missed this, but Massively posted their sneak preview of the Altar of Malice expansion on October 14th. From MJ Guthrie on Massively.com: When EverQuest II’s next expansion, Altar of Malice, was announced at SOE Live in August, we heard about upcoming features, perused concept drawings, and even saw some screenshots. As exciting as all that can be, nothing compares to actually getting in the game and seeing the living breathing world of Norrath. And that’s exactly what I got to do last week on a tour with Senior Producer Holly Longdale and Creative Director Akil Hooper....
Sales/Marketing set a price of $90 for the Altar of Malice Collector’s Edition which has led to some concerns. So the EQ2 team — now currently between a rock-and-a-hard-place — are trying to make lemonade by adding some stats to the Pterodon mount which will ship with the Collector’s Edition. Here are the stats as per Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Striped Savage Pterodon Mount Each level 85 character on your account will be eligible to use this flying mount which grants 100% ground speed and 150% flying speed. At level 95 this mount will give its rider the...
In a promotion that is sure to confuse more than a few players, I’ve just received an e-mail from SOE for EverQuest II: If I’m reading this correctly, then all EQ2 players with inactive accounts (no idea what qualifies as inactive but presumably a few months without logging into EQ2) are being temporarily granted All Access membership until November 10th, 2014, as well as receiving two 4 hour 100% XP potions and one 2 hour 50% Group XP potion just for logging in in the next 14 days. This promotion looks to expire the night before the Altar of Malice expansion launches...
From Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Creative Director for EverQuest and EverQuest II on the EQ2 Forums: Overlooking the Phantom Sea, in the shattered mountains above Kithicor forest, sits Castle Highhold. For many years, Castle Highhold has served as the heart of the Far Seas Trading Company on Norrath. The walls of the castle have protected the vaults within from countless attacks from the Brokenskull Pirates and other foes. However, now it is besieged by a new adversary, the Akheva. The Akheva, the four-armed children of Luclin, are battering the walls of the castle with spell and sword. They hope to...
Dethdlr
Update: This issue has now been resolved. Having issues loading the non-streaming Altar of Malice Beta? You’re not alone. Starting about 6 hours ago people have been experiencing an error when trying to patch the non-streaming client for Beta. Holly “Windstalker” Longdale just confirmed on Twitter that they are aware of the issue and are testing a fix. She’s also written this on the forums: “True, true. Sorry folks. We are updating a lot of code to handle memory issues better. There were a few unexpected results…which were bad, obviously.” If you can’t wait for the fix, the streaming...
It looks like Marketing is getting started earlier this year as EQ2 ZAM has already released their Altar of Malice expansion preview with some nice screenshots. No doubt Massively, TenTonHammer, and MMORPG won’t be far behind with their own press tour writeups. Altar of Malice marks the 11th expansion for EverQuest II. First announced at SOE Live 2014, the expansion will add two new overland zones as well as several new Advanced Solo, Heroic and Raid dungeons. The level cap will increase from 95 to 100 for adventuring, tradeskill and guild levels, and both tradeskillers and adventurers alike can enjoy a variety of...
Confirming speculation after the pricing for EverQuest’s own The Darkened Sea expansion was recently revealed, today the EverQuest II team have unveiled the pricing for their own Altar of Malice coming this November. As previously mentioned, there will be no Pre-order for this expansion. It’s believed that the team is hoping to avoid the kind of pre-order snafus that players have experienced in the past by just opening the door to purchases on launch day. All Access customers may purchase one of these two versions of Altar of Malice starting NOVEMBER 11th, 2014: Altar of Malice Standard Edition —...
From Afista on the EQ2 Forums: Beta testing for the Altar of Malice expansion is in full swing and now open for everyone to try out! Joining the Beta server for testing is a great chance to take a look at all of the incredible things coming with Altar of Malice, and also an excellent opportunity to give us your feedback about the expansion before it launches on November 25, 2014. In addition to seeing these gorgeous lands before launch, you can also take some loot home to your live characters just for participating in the Beta action! Take a...
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Open Beta for everyone starting tomorrow after our update! #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 14, 2014 UPDATE: At 5:00pm PDT last night, the Altar of Malice beta finally opened for all players, whether Free-to-Play or All Access subscriber. From the EQ2 Forums: Everyone can now join the Beta server and experience Altar of Malice before it launches. Are you interested in what’s become of the Isle of Refuge? Do you long to discover the treasures hidden in the Phantom Seas? Beta testing is a great opportunity for you to try out the features...
From EQ/EQ2 Creative Director Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: The Pygmies of the Tranquil Sea lived their lives not knowing that they shared their island with a subterranean threat. Deep underneath Dshinn live the lizardkin tribe, Allu’thoa. Using their magic to control the flows of magma, the Allu’thoa carved out their home, a below-ground labyrinth known as Zavith’loa. Worshipping their enigmatic god of lava and prophecy, the Allu’thoa lived for millennia sequestered from the world above.
Members of the EverQuest II Art team including EQ2 Art Director Tim “Hoahmaru” Heydelaar, Dave “Covic” Brown, Tom “Ttobey” Tobey, and Chris “Phatkins” Atkins talk about the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion, and give us a look behind-the-scenes with concept art, clips and stills. Recorded live on August 17 2014 at SOE Live. Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nevada. Video edited and produced by EQ2Wire.