Feldon
At SOE Live this year, we found out that of all the internal test servers that the EQ2 team uses to build content, none of them behaves quite like the Live or production servers. EverQuest II’s 10th annivesary is being celebrated with the return of the Heroes’ Festival event and although we understand the event was extensively tested internally, things just did not work as planned when the event was pushed to the live servers. To force the event to run properly, members of the EQ2 team and Customer Service have been empowered to manually start up these events...
Game Updates & Maintenance
Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the release of EverQuest II. To celebrate this, the annual Heroes’ Festival returns with some new events, specifically five open raid encounters which anyone can participate in and earn credit (like a Public Quest, you do not need to be grouped or even the right level to get credit). UPDATE: The Heroes Festival did not appear on Test or Beta, and so players are reporting a number of issues, specifically that the camps have despawned and vendors are unavailable. UPDATE #2: According to a dev update, the mobs have been respawned, but there...
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 4, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PDT. Estimated downtime is 2 hours. It will include additional Database Maintenance. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, November 4, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PDT. (Aprox. 3:00PM London Time on 11/04/2014). Estimated downtime is 2 hours. Time Zone Conversions PST: Nov 4 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am EST: Nov 4 @ 10:00am ~ Noon GMT: Nov 4 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00 CET: Nov 4 @ 16:00 ~ 18:00 Here are the patch notes from the EQ2...
From the EQ2 Forums: Attention players: we will perform an SOE-wide maintenance beginning at 7:00 AM PDT* on Monday, October 27, 2014. We expect this maintenance to take approximately two hours. Game, web, and forum log-ins may be impacted while the maintenance is underway. Thanks for your patience. Time Zone Conversions PDT: October 27 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am EDT: October 27 @ 10:00am ~ Noon GMT: October 27 @ 14:00 ~ 16:00 CET: October 27 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00 AEST: October 28 @ 1:00am ~ 3:00am NOTE: The United States (as per a 2005 law which went into effect in...
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...
If EverQuest II: Altar of Malice were a brand new game coming out today, then a $90 price for the Collector’s Edition would be completely justifiable. We’ve seen this price point with Founder’s Packs in Landmark, and in other highly anticipated new games from Trion and other developers. But Altar of Malice is not a new game. It is an expansion — nee a DLC — for a ten year old MMORPG. Technically, EverQuest II’s last four expansions (ToV, CoE, AoD, and DoV) have carried a sticker price of $89.99. However this price has only gone into effect after a generous...
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...
From Bunji on the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL All Access members can now send and receive mail attachments from almost anywhere. Added an option to default applying Adornments to manual selection. You can find this option under User Interface – Game Options – Manually Select Items to Adorn. Rewards earned in the Altar of Malice Beta may now be obtained via /claim. TRADESKILLS Grandmaster recipe for Winds of Velious IV now requires the correct master component. Corrected several issues with Conjuror Grandmaster recipes above level 80.
From Twitter approximately 30 minutes ago: We're aware of some connectivity issues with our forums & logins. We'll be back online as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience! — EverQuest II (@everquestii) October 15, 2014 UPDATE from Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on twitter: There's a network problem being investigated for all SOE games atm. Sorry if it's affecting any of you. 🙁 #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 15, 2014 Everything should be back online and accessible now. October 15, 2014 Apparently this was a network issue at SOE’s ISP and not something they had control over.
Shortly after the Skyshrine Gu-spansion (a game update that raised the level cap, added a new overland zone, 3 advanced solo zones, 4 heroic zones, and 2 raid zones), a reward was added to the advanced solo versions of the Skyshrine zones — Research Time Reducers. Previously these had only been available as a reward from completing Dungeon Maker zones. Research Time Reducer items reduce the time it takes to research a player Spell or Combat Art to its next quality tier, such as from Adept to Expert or from Expert to Master. They ranged from a savings of 6 hours...
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 the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PDT. Estimated downtime is 1 hour. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at approximately 7:00AM PDT. (3:00PM London Time). Estimated downtime is 2 hours. UPDATE #5: Issues with Valor have been resolved as of 12:30pm PDT. UPDATE #4: Hot off the presses, here are the Update Notes for this morning’s update: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Cut-Me-Own-Tail Ssstibbler will now grant the wrinkled, crumpled note from his merchant inventory to players that...
On September 23rd, a new Adornment UI was added to EQ2 which presents a list of items that adornments can be applied to, rather than allowing you to apply adornments directly to the equipment tab. The new interface has not been universally liked: New Adornment Window Disable New Adornment Window New Adornment System Can we have a toggle option, please? (new adorn window) For those who dislike the new window, we have news from EQ2 Buildmaster Bunji that the new Adornment window will become optional: I’ll add an option that allows you to default back to old manual select style. But...
Character Spell Lists Now Support Grandmasters We’re happy to announce that EQ2U has been updated to fully support Grandmaster spells and combat arts. First up, Character Spell lists now support Grandmaster level for every spell, while still distinguishing between character choices and those spells which must be researched or crafted. NOTE: There are approximately one dozen spells game-wide which will not be offered in Grandmaster quality. Please post here in the comments or e-mail us so we can add them to our Grandmaster exclusion list. EQ2U Recipe Database Updated We have also loaded nearly 5,000 new Recipes into our...
The US-based EQ2 servers are now back up and running with the Grandmaster issues supposedly patched. EU servers will patch early tomorrow morning their time. Original article after the jump…
From the SOE Forums: We will perform account and commerce maintenance beginning at 6:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, October 8, 2014. We expect this maintenance to take less than two hours. Actual downtime for services should only last 15-20 minutes within this maintenance window. This will impact the following SOE services: Account management Commerce functions, including purchases Game, web and forum logins Time Zone Conversions PDT: October 8 @ 6:00am-8:00am EDT: October 8 @ 9:00am-11:00am BST: October 8 @ 14:00-16:00 GMT: October 8 @ 15:00-17:00 AEST: October 8 @ 11:00pm-1:00am
UPDATE: Servers have all been patched and the issues in this article have been resolved. Click through to read the original article…
At 7:00am PDT (15:00 BST / 16:00 CET), players on Storms, Splitpaw, and Valor noticed that their servers had not come down for today’s update. An hour later they still had not come down and Afista provided this update when asked if EU would patch at the same time as US: These are the correct scheduled server down times for each server. I am looking into why there was a delay and will update you all whenever I have the information. Two hours in, Windstalker tweeted this: @BabaGraPL @everquestii we didn’t forget. The patch is taking a longer time...
On/behind/ahead of/who knows schedule, the Altar of Malice beta is now up and running for ALL ACCESS members. How Do I Get to Beta? There is no Non-Disclosure Agreement to accept this year, and no separate Beta launcher to run. To access the Altar of Malice beta, simply close and reopen your EverQuest II Launcher, click on the Version link in the top left corner (US English for US players), switch the region to “Beta“, click Apply, and let the patching begin! Copying characters from live to beta is really easy now. Instead of typing /beta on the live server...
UPDATE from Afista on the EQ2 Forums: These are the correct scheduled server down times for each server. I am looking into why there was a delay and will update you all whenever I have the information. ALL servers are supposed to be patching at the same time. Here’s the announcement from the EQ2 Forums: All US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. Estimated downtime is 1 hour. All EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, October, 2014 at 7:00 AM PDT. (3:00 PM London Time). Estimated downtime is 2...
And here we were making sure that EQ2U was ready for Grandmasters tomorrow… From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Update delayed to Tuesday. 8( We're working hard to make it clean and shiny. We found gnarly bugs today that we don't want to give you. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 1, 2014
The first five level-agnostic dungeons, open to level 20-89 players, as well as the availability of Grandmaster spells at all levels and tiers, is expected this Thursday. Racheal “Afista“ has posted an in-depth preview of what we can expect on the EQ2 Forums: We’re excited about Level Agnostic Dungeons and Grandmaster Spells coming to EverQuest 2 on Thursday, October 2, 2014! So what exactly are these dungeons and why should you check them out? Level Agnostic Dungeons Level Agnostic Dungeons are instances in which characters between levels 20-89 have a chance to group together, regardless of the difference in their...
Over the last couple of days, players have noticed their game client taking screenshots of certain Achievements and other in-game activities. It looks like this was an in-development feature which slipped to live a bit prematurely. From Dave “Maevianiu” Kish on the EQ2 Forums: Oh snap! This one is my fault. It got “pulled along for the ride” with the performance increases. It wasn’t ready for live and I’m personally sorry for this one. This feature isn’t finished yet, so I’ll be turning it off with the next hotfix. I am very sorry for it sneaking out like this,...
From the EQ2 Forums: Attention players: we will perform maintenance beginning at 7:00 AM PDT* on Thursday, September 25, 2014. We expect this maintenance to last about two hours. This will impact the following SOE services: Game servers may sporadically lose connection across all games Commerce functions, including purchases for all games Game, web and forum logins for all games Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance. Time Zone Conversions PDT: September 25 @ 7:00am ~ 9:00am EDT: September 25 @ 9:00am ~ 11:00am BST: September 25 @ 15:00 ~ 17:00 CET: September 25 @ 18:00 ~ 19:00 AEST:...
Performance This Tuesday’s update to EQ2 included quite a few tweaks to the EQ2 game client which have produced a substantial upgrade in framerates and overall performance for many players including myself. I have to give a round of applause to Dave “Maevianiu” Kish and others on the EQ2 code side who have worked the last few months to get these changes done. I was personally able to bump up one quality setting and my framerate still increased from 20’s to a steady 45-50. So… There are a few players who have been hung up on these changes though....