From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 10, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 10.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 10-04-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 1 heure.

and from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue related to server stability.

Update: Unrest seems to be done, however Oasis is now 4 hours overdue on returning to service.

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Oasis server, the Unrest server and ALL US Battlegrounds will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 3:30AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. These servers are estimated to be unavailable until approximately 2PM Pacific.

Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

For those playing at home, this leaves Splitpaw, Storms, Valor, Butcherblock, Crushbone, Permafrost, Barren Sky and Harla Dar.

The Rum Cellar update, which will be available for purchase for $15 near the end of April, and which introduces 6 new zones all based on the “Far Seas Distillery” motif, is now available for Beta testing. It’s been announced by Ry “Roshen” Schuller on the EQ2 Forums. Curiously, the announcement includes the pronouncement that EQ2 players are expected to use a cancerously atrocious third party service trollfest known as Reddit and that developers will be seeking feedback there. I believe the term “when hell freezes over” is applicable here.

Fortunately, the EQ2 designers can be reached directly through their forum handles of @Gninja (design/instances), @Kander (design/instances), @Caith (design/itemization) @Kaitheel (design/events/quests), and @Maevianiu (code/stability issues), and @ttobey (art/animation).

The Rum Cellar Campaign and class changes are now live on Beta! We appreciate everyone that’s able to join us on the beta to help test this upcoming content.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US  EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 8, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 08.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 08-04-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 1 heure.

and from the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Precipice of Power [Raid]

• Cazic Thule will be protected by his minions if he falls low on health and they are able to help him!

ITEMS

• All damage types of the Terror Inducing Mace have been made 6 second delay.

Normally we don’t list complete Test / Beta Update Notes so as to avoid confusion with Live notes, but in this case, we’re going to make an exception as players have been clamoring for signs that development continues on EQ2 from bug fixes to performance tweaks to mechanics and class balance changes, and this update has all of that!

From the EQ2 Forums:

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

• Reduced frequency of UI updates being sent to clients from the server lowering server/client and bandwidth load, specifically during combat.
• Improved server memory use.
• Various client crash fixes.
• Several minor performance improvements on nearly every system in game.
• Lowered server/client and bandwidth load for the warder and construct windows.
• Lowered the server load caused by player pets in and out of combat.
• Made improvements to performance hits caused by census exports.

GENERAL

• Guildhall Harvesters have had their dialog list shortened.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• The triumphs for Drunder have been reset to clear any issues with them not updating. Some players will be granted this automatically upon logging in.
• Achievements related to Sevelak of Storms have been fixed.
• Achievements related to youtube uploads have been removed as this feature is no longer available.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 3, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 03.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 03-04-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 1 heure.

Update Notes were posted at 7:10pm today…

ITEMS

• Increased the consistency of many Altar of Malice procs.
• Constructed shoulderpads awarded via The Unfinished Journey may now be upgraded with a Purple Malice Gemstone.

The database migrations continue, this time with Antonia Bayle and Everfrost. From the EQ2 Forums:

The Antonia Bayle and Everfrost servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 2:00AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. These servers are estimated to be unavailable for at least 12 hours.

Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

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:

• EQ2 ZAM: Campaigns, Pirates & the Rumpocolyse
• MMORPG: The Rum Cellar Campaign
• MassivelyOP: EVERQUEST II CUTS EXPANSIONS, DEBUTS DLCS WITH RUM CELLAR

TL;DR Summary

• Coming on April 28th, we will see a purchasable “Campaign” or what most people would call DLC/Adventure Pack for $15 ($13.50 for All Access)
• The new DLC introduces a new instance called the “Far Seas Distillery“, with 1 Solo, 1 Event Advanced Solo, 1 Heroic, 2 Event Heroics, and large Raid versions. The new zones have rare loot, collections, achievements, a new drunken monk mercenary, and a dropped Zeppelin flying mount.
• We’ll see another large Campaign this fall around the usual expansion release time. The content released throughout the year in these Campaigns will add up to what we might have traditionally seen in a yearly expansion.
• Cross-Server Dungeon Finder is coming “later this summer”.
• New Deity Revamp this fall with purchasable AA abilities.
• Level cap will remain 100 for the time being.

From EverQuest and EverQuest II Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Good day, Norrath!

This week, we are starting to beta test class changes for scouts, fighters, and summoners. We have wanted to tackle some high priority issues for these classes for a long time and we’ve been working on solutions. This includes improvements like increasing DPS for scouts and fighters, which goes along with a gear revamp for fighters’ defensive armor that makes playing the game more rewarding (i.e. using abilities will matter more). For summoners, we’ve addressed some lingering issues with pets and implemented a whole new pet AI, as well as the long-awaited summoner pet window that will display pet stats. We’ve invited some of our community experts and players to help us test on Beta for release as soon as we are all satisfied which will hopefully be in a larger update at the end of the month (more news on that really soon).

We are also focusing on and continuing to bring improvements to performance. We are aware of the lag concerns and are working hard to address them as quickly as we find them. We found some issues we patched out last week and we’re seeing improvements. Please continue to use /bug and /feedback if you are experiencing severe lag and aren’t using a third-party UI mod (which do tend to bog down clients).

Last, but not least, we wish you the best of the silliest of high holidays with Bristlebane Day events. We will continue to bring you infamous holiday fun throughout the year and, as always, will continue to provide frequent updates and bug fixes.

Spring has sprung and we’re excited to be on this journey with you all! We appreciate you all and the support you’ve shown us.

More news to come!

The Summoner Pet AI/UI has been on test since February. No test/beta notes have been posted for the remainder of the mentioned changes just yet.

Update: This maintenance seems to be complete as Guk and Sebilis players have been able to login for almost an hour now.

Daybreak Games‘ migration of EQ2 servers to EnterpriseDB continues with the Guk, Sebilis, and the StationCash Marketplace servers undergoing their upgrades tomorrow. This is not new hardware, but a substantial software change that will result in better performance and open the door for new functionality such as Cross-Server Dungeon Finder. The new software is also a tremendous cost savings over existing systems which you can read from this article way back in 2007. Good things come to those who wait?

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Guk server, the Sebilis server and the Marketplace for ALL servers will be unavailable for approximately 12 hours, starting at 2:00AM PDT.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 1, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 01.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 01-04-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 1 heure.

and here are your update notes from the EQ2 Forums…

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Guk server, the Sebilis server and the Marketplace for ALL servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 2:00AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. These are estimated to be unavailable for at least 12 hours.

Thursday, April 2: We’ll be taking Antonia Bayle and Everfrost down for server migration and maintenance. We’re looking at the same downtime (offline starting at 2:00AM Pacific* on April 2, 2015 and unavailable for at least 12 hours), and we will update players later next week if this has to change for any reason.

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Freeport server will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 at 2:00AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable for at least 12 hours.

Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Here’s the scoreboard so far:

• Nagafen — migration complete
• Test & Beta — migration complete
• Freeport — tomorrow
• All other EQ2 servers — TBD

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter (at 3:45am PDT I might add!):

Nagafen is looking stable, so Freeport server is up next with extended downtime Tuesday from 2am to 2pm PDT. #eq2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) March 21, 2015

No update notes yet, but… From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 4:00AM London Time on March 20, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 5:00 CET am 20.03.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 5:00 CET le 20-03-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera

This is it boys and girls! EverQuest II has begun migrating to EDB, and the first server up is Nagafen. If all goes well, then presumably we’ll start see the other servers migrate. From the EQ2 Forums:

The Nagafen server will be brought offline on Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 2:00AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable for at least 12 hours.

Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

and from Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on Twitter:

Nagafen server will be our first database conversion tomorrow from 2am to 2pm PDT. Hopefully it will be up sooner! #eq2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) March 19, 2015

All US servers will be down for a short maintenance at 7am PDT tomorrow. International will be in the evening. #eq2

— Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) March 19, 2015

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is one hour.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at approximately 5:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 00:00AM London Time on March 18, 2015). Estimated downtime is two hours.

and from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue causing NPC name plates to flicker when using the Simple(Frames) selection under Name and Chat Bubble.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Corrected an issue that prevented NPC’s Wrath III from activating in many cases.

Ossuary: Cathedral of Bones [Raid]

• Ritual Keeper V’derin’s damage spread and growth has been adjusted.

From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

We’re working hard on database changes for EQ2, and we need your help to make sure they’re awesome! To encourage people to help us, we’ve upgraded the stats on the Blessed Sokokar mount people get as a reward for helping us. This upgrade will go to anyone who has received a Bless Sokokar in the past, and anyone that helps us on the beta server.

Starting today and running until Monday, March 16 at 11:59AM PDT, we could really use your help again on the beta server. You can use our Beta Copy feature by typing /beta on a character you want to copy.

EQ2 Developer Jamiss, who has been trudging the lonely path of migrating a 10 year old MMORPG (EverQuest II) to a new database language, has posted some reflections and updates to this last weekend’s Beta test of the upcoming database changes. If you were able to get into beta and you managed to get 250 updates from killing mobs in overland zones, you got an achievement which awarded a [eq2u]Blessed of Veeshan Reward Bundle[/eq2u] on your live character.

Bugs are expected in any beta test, but many players were unable to even get into the beta due to graphical glitches or extremely rough performance of 1 frame per second. Mid-weekend, a server reboot prevented further updates on the Achievement needed to award the mount. Suffice it to say, a few folks had to step away from their keyboards and let out their frustrations, but we need to remember that this is the first of several beta tests before these changes go live. For players who have limited play time, spending it on beta may not be a good choice. However for those who are able to chip in and test things, their contributions are greatly appreciated. Remember that the goal of these database changes is improved performance and very cool things like cross-server dungeon finder.

From the EQ2 Forums:

The Crushbone server will be brought offline on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 4:00AM Pacific* for server maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable for approximately two hours.

Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.

Today’s ever-so-briefly-tested Harvesting changes (the addition of new rares for Mastercrafted Food/Drink and new Primordial Adornments) needed a little more time in the oven. So in a few minutes, US-based EQ2 servers will be going down for an update. Later, EU servers will receive the same patch.

Update: US Servers seem to be back online!

An addition to the StationCash Marketplace today has the Pay-to-Win spidey senses tingling, so rather than having a knee-jerk reaction, let’s break things down and see just where these new Primordial Adornments fall, talk about how desirable they are, and look at just how costly it is to acquire them through gameplay vs. the marketplace.

With today’s update, new Primordial Adornments have been added at every tier, with their power scaling to the player’s level. They aren’t like Green adornments (ie Spirit or Soulstones) which gain experience from adventuring. What’s unique about these adornments is not that they exist, but they are NO TRADE and require a very special rare component called a ‘primordial fragment’.   The level 95 one is the [eq2u]effulgent primordial fragment[/eq2u].

Qualified adorners can make 10 new adornments:

We saw the introduction of some new harvestables today for the new Primordial level-scaling white adornments, and for new Mastercrafted food and drink recipes. Some of these components are also available from the Marketplace, but they are also harvests from out in the world.

We’re working on a more detailed article, but first, players have been reporting zone crashes since today’s update. From Holly on Twitter:

We are looking into the terrain zone crashes since our update. Seems related to new harvestables. We’ll update you as we learn more. #eq2

Update: For the time being, overland harvest nodes are being removed from Altar of Malice zones until the problem can be resolved. This is being discussed on the EQ2 Forums.

From the EQ2 Forums:

US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 4:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is four hours.

EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at approximately 4:00AM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 11:00AM London Time on March 10, 2015). Estimated downtime is four hours.

Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 12:00 CET am 10.03.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 4 Stunde(n) betragen.

Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 12:00 CET le 10-03-2015 pour une mise à jour du serveur. Le temps d’arrêt sera d’environ 4 heures.

and from the EQ2 Forums, in addition to the usual types of fixes, it looks like a new type of scaling White Adornment is coming out which will be crafted with materials from super-rare nodes or a satchel purchased from the Marketplace. We’re not going to jump to any conclusions until we see the mechanic of how this all works. Not surprisingly, Dethdlr, who just spent weeks redoing his Adornment Calculator, is now having a conniption fit.

Full update notes after the jump…

If the idea of cow, bunny, and duck mounts shatters your idea of “canon” or high fantasy, you might want to look away. However if you’ve been looking for a hilarious break from the recent gloomy news, strap in because the feathers are about to fly!

We don’t want to cause a flap, but a sneak preview of the 3 varieties of upcoming duck mount have been posted to Facebook.