Feldon
By Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums: Many years ago, while lost in a storm on the Tranquil Seas, the Brokenskull Pirates came upon an uncharted island. The pirates found a secluded cavern to the leeward side of the island to weather the storm. When the seas calmed, they set out to explore the new land, hoping to make a permanent port in the bay that protected them from the storm. Instead they found the urzarach, a sentient race of creatures that are part bear and part spider, who claimed the land as their own. Continue reading after...
Expansion News
It’s time for another zone preview from this fall’s expansion Altar of Malice, this time the overland Phantom Sea. From Nathan “Kaitheel“ on the EQ2 Forums: Unswayed in their quest to find Captain Greymast, the heroes sent by the Overlord of Freeport and by the benevolent Queen of Qeynos, arrive in the Phantom Sea, a body of water peppered with mysterious islands that have not been seen by eyes outside of the Far Seas Trading Company since the Age of Cataclysms. The island of North Dshinn shares a great many commonalities with its southern sister in Tranquil Sea, but...
From master of live events and senior designer Nathan “Kaitheel“, we have our first zone preview for the upcoming Altar of Malice expansion. And before anyone asks, this is NOT repurposed zone geometry, but an entirely new continent developed with the new Terrain Tool. Long had the Far Seas Trading Company provided Norrath’s displaced citizens a place of refuge, an island where they found respite from the chaos of the Shattered Seas, before being transported to the last great cities of Freeport and Qeynos. But strange tidings came and without another word, the seafaring merchants stopped honoring the Pact...
EQ2Wire will be liveblogging EQ2 Insider Episode #4, which as it turns out will be Maggie “Luperza” Krohn‘s last episode as she has taken a position at Curse.com. You can watch EverQuest II Insider #4 at Twitch right now. This was a live blog of today’s EQ2 Insider Episode #4. Talking about SOE Live and how positive and fun it was. Talking about updates later this year. Kander encouraging people to play Altar of Malice beta as players will earn very nice rewards on Live for their efforts on Beta. Nathan (Kaitheel) will be talking today about Altar of Malice...
As long last we’ve resumed posting videos recorded from SOE Live 2014. After this, we’ve still got the EQ2 Art & Animation panel, as well as three player panels and the Player Studio panel. Oy vey! This was the last panel at SOE Live 2014 for EverQuest II — Questions & Answers #2. Due to room acoustics, this recording took an inordinate amount of time to edit and normalize. Fortunately, Audio quality improves around the 3 minute mark when questions begin.
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums: Greetings Norrathians, We’re all charged up and busy after a great time at SOE Live! The team is hunkered down and focused on the expansion, fixes, and updates on the schedule. Here are some details! When is the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice Beta? On Oct. 7 we will launch Limited Beta for All Access members. Most of the content will be focused on the Overlands and level increase content. We need your support! Oct. 14 will be Open Beta for everyone. We’d love you to come check out the content and help...
I think these days, most players don’t consider their characters complete, competitive, or at least capable until they have upgraded a significant number of their combat arts or spells to Master level. It was not always so… Are We Entitled to Masters? It may be hard to remember, but there was a time before the Research tab and before Research Assistants when the only way to get Master spells was to defeat enemies. At launch, Masters were unbelievably rare and only dropped from Epic names. Over the years, they have trickled down to Epic trash, then to Heroic bosses. At...
Because sleep is overrated, EQ2 fan Afista spent the weekend meticulously transcribing the two EverQuest II Q&A panels and has posted them on EQ2 ZAM. Also don’t miss the notes from the all-important Mechanics panel posted by Cyliena as linked below. I got a kick out of hanging out with both of them at SOE Live and seeing what they’re doing for the EQ2 community. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a slacker now… 😉 At SOE Live 2014, the community had questions and the devs had answers! ZAM was there to keep track of what everyone wanted to know. Afista has written a...
In the EverQuest II: Systems panel, the EverQuest II team talks about the upcoming expansion, specifically class balance, mechanics, some new features, and takes player questions. On the panel: Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer, and Justin “Jamiss” Michael. We recorded this at SOE Live 2014 in Las Vegas and are happy to be able to share it. On YouTube:
We recorded the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote, which included about seven minutes of Q&A at the end. We also recorded the EverQuest II Q&A #1 panel and we’ve assembled it into a single video. NOTE: Audio quality improves at 8:45 as we started using an external mic at this point.
There were some technical difficulties during the first 10 minutes of the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote which was livestreamed from SOE Live last week. Instead of clearly hearing the producer and designers of our game hyping their hard work, audiences at home mostly heard frustrated AV techs trying to get things working. Fortunately, we recorded the keynote in person and are now able to provide the complete event for those who missed it!
Zone previews of EverQuest II: Altar of Malice were released at SOE Live so that we get to see flythroughs of all the zones which the EQ2 designers and environment artists have been working on. We present the best possible version of each of these videos below, edited together with some music from ToV zones…
Here are the slides presented by the EverQuest II team specifically the mechanics/systems guys. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer were presenting.
Now it’s time for the EverQuest II Systems panel. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer are presenting. We’re liveblogging this panel as well as recording a video of this panel in 720p HD. Liveblog begins at 1:00pm PDT and ends at 2:00pm PDT on Saturday August 16th. Fix for Stealth and AE Abilities New Spell Qualities All spells go to Grandmaster Certain spells go to Ancient Battleground 6v6 Balance of Theer Deathmatch Penalty for dying Tiles to stand on and get buffs/debuffs
EQ2Wire is boots on the ground in Las Vegas and we’ve been covering all things EQ2. Yesterday we reported all the Altar of Malice news. Today, we continue to record panels in HD, including this morning’s Art and Animation panel. We’ll be Liveblogging the EQ2 Mechanics this afternoon. We’re slso recording Q&A panels and will post them this coming week.
Now it’s time for the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion panel with nearly the entire EQ2 team. We’re liveblogging as well as recording a video of this panel in 720p HD. This panel is also being livecast on Twitch. Liveblog began at 12:00pm PDT and ended at 1:00pm PDT on Friday August 15th. Holly “Windstalker” Longdale to the stage. Tim Heydalaar and Dave Brown to the stage. Showing PlayerStudio items.
Looks like Press gets a healthy headstart on posting expansion news for EverQuest and EverQuest II this year. After their private meetings with Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson and EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on Tuesday, they’ve had time to draft their articles and now, they’re available for all to read. My issue is, people at home have more information than those at SOE Live who may not yet have read these articles. Some Press sites (notably excluding Massively and ZAM) get a full boat ride from SOE, paying for hotel and sometimes even airfare, dinners, etc.). EQ2Wire covers EverQuest II all...
And here’s the super high res logo for EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion. Another logo seems to have been posted on Twitter by the official EverQuestII account, and at least one player thinks the logo somehow relates to Erollisi Marr….
Here’s the Twitch Livestream schedule for SOE Live this year. Keep in mind that EQ2Wire will be recording all EQ2 panels, several Player panels, and even a few EQNext panels if Curse doesn’t show. All times are in Pacific Daylight Time, and all broadcasts are on SOE’s Twitch channel. Thursday, August 14: 7:00 – 9:00 PM: SOE Live Welcome Reception and Keynote featuring President John Smedley Friday, August 15: 9:00 – 10:00 AM: Landmark Keynote 10:00 – 11:00 AM: EverQuest Next Keynote 12:00 – 1:00 PM: EverQuest II Keynote 1:00 – 2:00 PM: EverQuest Keynote 2:00 – 3:00 PM: DC Universe Online Keynote 3:00 – 4:00 PM: H1Z1 Keynote 4:00 – 5:00...
Has it really been another year? Next week, EQ2Wire will be (where else?) in Las Vegas for our seventh SOE Live covering EverQuest II. This looks to be a light year for EQ2, with only 5 events to cover and no Tradeskill, Lore, or Itemization panels this time around. You can read the official SOE Live 2014 Schedule here, but scroll down to see the list of panels I will be attending, with notations of which panels I will be Liveblogging and Filming. Blogging an accurate transcription of a Q&A panel in realtime is almost impossible, so this year I will be focusing on...
EQ2Wire is providing a running transcript of today’s EQ2Insider Developer Q&A with questions posed by players on the EQ2 Forums, Facebook, Twitter, and even Google Plus. Present on the panel are EQ2 Community Manager Margaret “Luperza” Krohn, EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EQ2 Game Designer Mike “Xelgad” Ganz, and EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee. Today’s livecast started with a hilarious 2D animation of the Age’s End story thus far. Announcing the winners of the EQ2 summer contest. After the jump, the Dev Q&A…
According to a player who goes by Liched on the EQ2 Forums, SOE just registered two trademarks on July 2nd. One, The Altar of Malace, would seem to feed into an existing storyline in EverQuest related to Neriak. The other trademark — The Darkened Sea — may be the name of the upcoming EverQuest II expansion, a whole other game, or just a red herring which doesn’t amount to a released product any time soon. The next EverQuest II expansion, expected to be released this November, will raise the level cap to 100 (as per the EQ2 Insider webcast)...
Kinya, webmaster of the Polish multi-game fansite Babagra, has posted a summary and notes of the second EQ2 Insider webcast which was held last Wednesday. What happen recently in EQ2: – weekly updates; – dreadscale maw – new raid; – high keep contested; – June promotion Gear Up, Level UP; – heroic characters are on sale; – discount on expansion if bought in June; – new Loyalty items added to MarketPlace. Team is focused mostly on the things which are coming to EQ2: – fabled Deathtoll (around 20 July); – big unnamed event in July; – new challenge duo...
From the EQ2 Forums: Check out the latest video featuring the Producers from EverQuest, EverQuest II, and Landmark talking about what happened during May and what’s coming up over summer! Here are the bullet points for EQ2: The EQ2 team are looking forward to this year’s expansion which will increase the level cap to 100. In June, we want you to Gear Up and Level Up your characters. All Access gets 25% Bonus XP, 25% off Heroic Characters (insta-level 85), four times the amount of Etyma currency from Tears of Veeshan missions, and 15% off the Tears of Veeshan...
Caela
Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted a new Producer’s Letter which can be found on the EQ2 Forums Highlights include: New Matchmaking Code for Battlegrounds New PVP Warzone Converting old currencies House NPCs New Loyalty items New Deathtoll Fabled Dungeon Status Merchant Revamp June Promo – Gear Up, Level Up Here’s the letter… Dearest Norrathians, We’re working to bring you a lot more information about what we’re doing, why, and when. To that end, here’s a quick overview on what we’ve done recently and what’s coming soon! As a quick recap of our larger content releases in April and May...