Feldon
For those of you who don’t have 77 minutes to listen to this week’s SOE Podcast, we’ve listened for you and provide details of the “War of Zek-cast”. First, a few bullet points… Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is still expecting 2 entirely new content updates this year, in addition to a number of Bug Bash updates to fix long-standing bugs with the game. Tiffany “Amnerys” Spence, EQ2 Community Manager, is expecting twins and so will be taking some time off from managing the EQ2 forums. Others will step in to tackle this job. The Beastlords Prelude Event launches with...
Game Updates & Maintenance
From EverQuest2.com: Join us for the Official SOE Podcast #115 – the “War of Zek-Cast!” Your host, Aimee “Ashlanne” Rekoske is joined by your co-host Tiffany “Amnerys” Spence. Listen in as they chat about the War of Zek update coming to EQII and reveal the latest Fan Spot Challenge Winner. We’ll also have two interviews for you this Podcast. Linda “Brasse” Carlson chats with Akil “Lyndro” Hooper (returning EQ2 Lead Designer) and Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson (Executive Producer of the EverQuest franchise) first, and then with Kyle “Kander” Vallée and Paul “Cronyn” Molina. Both interviews will cover EverQuest II’s War...
From the EQ2 Forums: Your host Eric “Piestro” Cleaver will be joined by EQII Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson and Lead Programmer Greg “Rothgar” Spence on Thursday, August 18, 2011, at 4:00 PM Pacific, for this week’s webcast on Stickam. They will be talking about EQII’s Game Update 61, The War of Zek, and the new feature that allows players to capture video in-game and upload it to YouTube! Join us on Thursday, August 18, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time*, as we live stream this webcast on the SOE channel on Stickam! You can also tune in through...
Today’s update is all about taming the difficulty of Zek and other Velious group and raid zones (challenge and normal modes). From the EQ2 Patch Notes: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Sullon’s Spire, Tallon’s Stronghold, and Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zones (NOT challenge mode) Several of the encounters in the zone have been made less powerful so that the challenge from these zones is more in line with the rewards. In particular boss npcs will tend to melee attack for less damage, and many of their aoe spells will also do less damage, as well as be more mitigateable.
As we reach August’s midway point, we are potentially in the “home stretch” on Game Update 61. If internal schedules hold true, we could see the next update pushed to live servers in 2 weeks. This is usually the point where player anxiety levels are highest, as what’s on Test seems incomplete and not ready for prime time. Although it’s a well-worn cycle, the question is always “Will it be ready?” Will 2 weeks of dev crunch time result in a solid Game Update 61? Level 20-80 Reitemization We’d caught hints, but Fan Faire brought confirmation that level 20-80...
From the EQ2 Forums: The Butcherblock server will be offline on Tuesday, August 16, starting at 12:00 AM PDT for an estimated downtime of 24 hours. This maintenance is being completed for server hardware upgrades.
Have you participated in a Plane of War group or raid zone on Test? Care to share some comments/impressions about the zone for inclusion in a future EQ2Wire article? Send us an e-mail or in-game message on Butcherblock.Feldon.
Bunji posted this on August 11th at 5:54pm PDT on the EQ2 Forums: [Everyone having monk AAs] will be fixed tomorrow morning. We couldn’t get the fix in tonight for [because?] the next build includes the house rating system which requires us to update the server databases (needed more time to do the update than normal basically).
Peleş Castle, Sinaia courtesy Harvard.edu From Amnerys on the EQ2 Forums: Are you ready to show off your best house? When the house ratings system launches with Game Update 61, we’d like to have a few outstanding house examples ready to show off in the Hall of Fame, so we’re asking you for some suggestions!
From the EQ2 Forums: The Butcherblock server will be offline on Tuesday, August 16, starting at 12:00 AM PDT* for an estimated downtime of 24 hours. This maintenance is being completed for server hardware upgrades. Time Zone Report: PDT: August 16th 12:00AM-11:59PM EDT: August 16th 03:00AM-August 17th 02:59AM BST: August 16th 08:00AM-August 17th 07:59AM CET: August 16th 09:00AM-August 17th 08:59AM
From Xelgad in a thread about the lack of Troubador tweaks in Game Update 61: Between the massive item revamp, the addition of spell auto-attack as well as the over cap conversions and the AA revamp, we haven’t had much time for class tweaks this GU. I look forward to working on the Troubador class as soon as we get some time to spare, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up with something cooler than an overpowered mythical effect. Some pertinent observations on this from EQ2Flames: From Slippery: If you are a dirge and don’t think a change to the myth is coming...
From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums: We will be allowing these events to continue after GU61 goes live. We had originally planned to take them down with GU61 but in order for some of the less populated servers to complete the event we have decided to keep the event running. The merchant will remain for all servers regardless of completion or not but the ground spawns will stop spawning once the event is completed on each server respectfully (After GU61) The ground spawns will remain for servers that have not completed the event until the event is completed.
From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums: Hey guys, we understand that many of you feel strongly against this change. This is why we put things on test, right? We still have a couple of weeks before GU61 hits live. We’re busy finishing up GU61 and fixing bugs, so don’t expect daily responses from us on these issues, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t discussing them internally. UPDATE: We have added an additional quote from Rothgar.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a crash that could occur when taking screenshots. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Vallon’s Tower Raid Zones All players may now enter the normal, non-challenge Vallon’s Tower x4 raid zone. Players can enter the challenge mode of Vallon’s Tower raid only after someone on the server has defeated Tallon Zek in Challenge mode. Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundation of Stone [Challenge Mode] The greater warboars that spawn during the statue fight now have less health. Their combat madness taunt spell no longer persists through death. Strategist’s Stronghold When Shini-Zon Livia summons the Winds of...
Server Upgrades must be getting sufficiently routine for the EQ2 and Network Operations teams such that posting a Status Report or two completely slipped their minds. Players, however, wanted to know: Was Unrest actually upgraded? According to Rothgar, it was: The upgrades were definitely made so you should be seeing improvements. SmokeJumper elaborated: Unrest is definitely upgraded already. All servers except for Butcherblock and Storms have been upgraded now. Butcherblock will be upgraded on the 16th of August. There isn’t an ETA for Storms yet. I’ll post one when we get the date nailed down. Rothgar had a comment...
After a firestorm of player comment, a line item change in the Test Update Notes indicates that Subclass AAs (Alternate Advancements) will be available to low level characters once more. From the EQ2 Test Update Notes: The Subclass Alternate Advancement Tree once again unlocks at level 10. Game Update 61 is expected to go live in the last week of August.
There are still many unanswered questions about the AA revamp currently on Test, but Summoners, Druids, and Monks so far have gotten one response apiece about specific lines. Xelgad posted to “Focused Minion (and other summoner changes)” on the EQ2 Forums: We decided to scrap the pet Spell Multi-Attack (Doublecast) for several reasons. First, we wanted to move away from pet-specific AAs. As some of you know, scout pets did technically get some benefit from SDA because their attacks are classified as spells, but fighter pets did not really benefit at all. Additionally, in terms of AA versus AA...
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundations of Stone [Challenge] Challenge Mode Statue of Rallos Zek no longer has a Knockback effect associated with his Titanic Swipe AOE.
If I had to summarize Fan Faire in one statement, one consolidated takeaway thought, it would be: We’re gamers too. If we can, let’s give the players what they want. Giving players options and trying new things were the prominent themes throughout Fan Faire’s EQ2 panels. SmokeJumper in particular seemed eager to break away from tradition if it could lead to better gameplay. “Because we’ve always done it that way” must undoubtedly be one of his pet peeves in EQ2 meetings. Yet, it’s been barely three weeks since Fan Faire, and the glossy slides and upbeat pronouncements of flexibility...
Yesterday afternoon at approximately 1:04pm PDT, SOE games and services became inaccessible to a large number of people due to what some observers have described as a routing problem between the San Diego and Dallas, TX routers on the Level 3 backbone. The outage lasted about 10 minutes. Today, at 10:27am PDT, SOE services were again briefly knocked offline, this time for approximately 15 minutes. It’s unclear if this is part of a pattern or a couple of isolated incidents. More as we have it…
Not sure how we missed this, but from EverQuest2.com… The Unrest, Guk and Everfrost servers will be offline on Tuesday, August 2, starting at 2:00 AM PDT for an estimated downtime of 6 hours. This maintenance is being completed for server hardware upgrades. That’s… 2:00~8:00 AM PDT 5:00~11:00 AM EDT 10:00~16:00 BST 11:00~17:00 CET
Hot off the presses, er patcher, here are the Game Update 61: The War of Zek Update Notes from the Test Patcher. Game Update 61 is expected to reach the Live servers near the end of August. Game Update 61: “The War of Zek” PLANE OF WAR The time is near for the great Fortress of Drunder to reveal its true purpose to all. The very bedrock of the Eastern Wastes shudders and rocks as a massive planar portal rips itself open within the fortress walls. The sounds of war echo through its halls as the God of War...
Bunji dropped the news that Game Update 61 is hitting Test today: We plan to push the current GU61 content to Test tomorrow morning. GU61 (or most of it) is scheduled to hit Test around 7-8am PST tomorrow morning, 7/28. What’s in Game Update 61? Dynamic Dungeon: Silent City [60~90] Dynamic Dungeon: Djinn Master’s Prism [60~90] Plane of War: heroic dungeon (normal and challenge) Plane of War: x4 raid (normal and challenge) Reitemize Level 20-90 dropped, quested, and crafted Items Alternate Advancement (AA) Revamp, especially Subclass (Monk, Templar, Paladin, etc.) tree. Tradeskill AAs [25 pts] House Rating System Dungeon...
Despite their having hardly left the drawing board, players have drawn some conclusions about the upcoming Design Your Own Dungeon feature, based on how similar features have been implemented, and how they’ve fared–mostly unsuccessfully–in other games. Speculation, as they say, has been rampant. However Rothgar isn’t willing to yield the “DYOD will be abandoned just like Arenas” ground just yet. From the EQ2 Forums: The arena argument doesn’t work, sorry. You can also play arenas using your normal characters and people don’t do that anymore either. There are several other reasons why arena’s didn’t work, but that’s a discussion...
Here’s our sixth video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Mechanics”. If you’d like to view the transcript from this panel, check out our EQ2 Panel #5 – Mechanics writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.