From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Thalumbra

• All collectibles within the Glittervein Mines should be reachable now.

Icy Keep Retribution

• The Icy Sledge is no longer Appearance only, and can once again break past the ice barrier.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• Reduced the damage Devastation of War deals to named heroic encounters.

ITEMS

• “Aura of Immolation” no longer resets the ability “Transfer Contagion” or “Divert Breach”.
• Spiked Dragonscale Aegis and Draconic Deflector shields have had block chance added to them.
• Corrected stats on the Dwarven ringmail Tunic.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Our next stream is Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 11AM Pacific Time* and we would like to invite YOU to join us at twitch.tv/everquest2

During this stream, the EQ2 team will share highlights from the spring game update that Holly mentioned in her producer’s letter here.

We look forward to hanging out with you on Tuesday, March 15, 2016, and sharing the details from our big game update with you!

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

US  & EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 7:00AM PST* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention players: we will perform a general maintenance beginning at 5:00AM PST* on Tuesday, March 8th. The amount of downtime may vary, depending on the service. If the downtime extends beyond four hours, we will update this thread.

This maintenance may impact the following Daybreak services across all games:

• Game logins for all Daybreak games
• Forum & Web logins for all Daybreak games
• Commerce and account management for all Daybreak games

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a game-specific maintenance. There will be no update or patch notes.

Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance.

~The Team at Daybreak

From the EQ2 forums:

From EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee on the EQ2 Forums:

Hello everyone,

I wanted to take a moment to tell you exactly what is going on with the TLE servers.

Itemization

We’re done with global adjustments to Kingdom of Sky loot. We know that some items simply do not measure up, and we are absolutely fixing/adjusting these on a case by case basis as we find them (such as the Gnorble earring brought to our attention today).

In this time, we have done a thorough pass on Echoes of Faydwer loot to assure the progression is significantly better than KoS and to make sure raid loot is absolutely better than heroic, heroic is better than quest, etc.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: Forge of Ashes [Raid]

• [eq2u]Signet of Pure Terror[/eq2u] now correctly requires a Stone of Ashenfell Power or Stone of Greybeard Power as a purchase requirement.

ITEMS

• Psionist Crowns can now be upgraded through crafting using either original crowns or newly dropped crowns. Required component is now any crown of that armor type.
• Psionist Helms that were previously upgraded using the Mindstone Crystal can now be crafted into the new version of the crown. The recipe book has had the new recipes added.
• New armor drops* now have a descriptor added to their name for clarity.

Caith added:

ITEMS

• The potency and crit bonus of Echoes of Faydwer dropped and quested rewards have been adjusted to match new progression.

* The new raid and heroic drops added on February 17th are having their names changed slightly so they can be viewed side-by-side in game (and as a side benefit, they will no longer conflict on EQ2U).

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Hail Norrathians!

It’s going to be another great year for EverQuest 2! The team is excited to be working on new content updates as well as already being waist-deep on our next expansion, all coming this year.

We spent January getting our plans nailed down and are busy getting ready for a big content update for members this spring. This update will have new fabled dungeons and places to explore packed with quests (timed ones too!), key chests, adventures, and awesome stories.

For more news and details, join us for a livestream on Tuesday, March 15 at 11AM PST on twitch.tv/everquest2 and we’ll show you what’s in this game update and answer your questions live with the team!

Here’s your first hint of what’s coming in this spring update…

 

Move over old orc, the Scourge is in town!

Like the merges we did for US servers a few months ago, we’ll be moving ahead with the server merges for our European servers this spring. Our goal of combining these servers is to build and foster a vibrant server community. We know there may be questions about the European server merges and we’re working on building out a FAQ so players can know what to expect. Feel free to ask any questions you have now, but know we may need a bit of time before we can provide all the answers. We’re grateful for your patience and support and we’ll continue to keep you updated so our players have plenty of notice on the timing of these upcoming merges.

Continuing a time-honored tradition in EQ2, we’ll have new additions to our upcoming live events, Brew Day and Bristlebane Day. When those events roll around this year, make sure you join the festivities and get your holiday-themed rewards while you can!

Hang on to your class hats… there’s plenty more to come!

Update from Roshen:

This won’t be a “campaign” with a price associated with it.

Our spring game update will have new fabled dungeons, and other new zones. You’ll need a membership to access these zones, and the more interesting drops that come from these places will have the prestige tag on those items.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: The Forge of Ashes [Raid]

• Changed the message given when triggering the Forge Golem.

LIVE EVENTS
The Erollisi Day “Lovely Lacquer” achievement can now be updated by crafting the passionate and romantic filigree rugs.

QUESTS

• The Wind of Strife Blows Fickle – The update is now found in the truck at the foot of the bed in Viktor T’Hoth’s room, to better fit the description.
• Restoring the Underfoot Cathedral – Each of the tormented Serilian spirits can now only be seen by players on the appropriate step of the quest, and they no longer can be damaged lower than 3% of their health (thus allowing them to be updated by the “Serilian Spirit Gems”).
• A Mind of My Own – The quest journal now specifies that you can return to Talvrae if you ever lose the kobold pet.
• Mount Stations: Greater Faydark – Triggering the mount station updates will now be much easier, even if the player is mounted.
• Mount Stations: Greater Faydark – The Butcherblock Mountain station now properly updates the quest.
• A Time of Growth – Obtaining another sapling from Arbos is much more intuitive, if you have misplaced it.

ITEMS

• Corrected an issue that reduced ranged auto-attack damage.
• Heroic and raid Terrors of Thalumbra armor rewards have been upgraded [in place], and all new armor rewards will now drop in Terrors of Thalumbra Heroic and raid zones.
• Signature Rewards are no longer Relic, but are instead Prestige.
• Confidence will now grant the correct bonuses when grouped.
• Signet of Pure Terror no longer has an effect, and now grants base stats on the item itself.

Daalilama started a thread on the EQ2 Forums asking what we can expect as far as filling gaps in itemization as a result of the player power growth of the recent Terrors of Thalumbra expansion. Points of specific concern are Cyan Adornments, Quintessences, White Adornments, Food & Drink, and Poisons all of which remain largely untouched since 2015’s Altar of Malice expansion.

EQ2 Lead Designer Kander has had some interesting responses suggesting that we’ll see a content release this spring that addresses many of these issues. From the EQ2 Forums:

We’re saving a lot of this stuff for the content update that is coming soon. [TM] Most of this will be addressed with the new content push.

In response to how tedious it is to acquire Exceptional Jewels (non-War Rune purple cloak adornments which offer a nice set bonus)…

Also in new content coming soon.

on the subject of Fabled zones…

We have a lot coming soon. More info soon.

When the team is authorized to say more, we’ll post it.

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PST | 10:00am~Noon EST | 15:00~17:00 GMT | 16:00~18:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Persistent Instances

• Removed 30 minute lock-out when first entering a persistent instance.
• Killing any NPC in a persistent instance will now commit the lock-out.

Kralet Penumbra: The Master’s Chosen [Heroic]

• The Chosen Curse and the Yothshaval Curse should no longer kill players if it wears off after Golguth is slain.
• Health of bosses have been adjusted.
• Xal’Gilah’s Disrupting Tutor add should no longer disappear during his encounter.

Maldura: Bar Brawl

• Mages disarmed by Dalkuhm can now re-equip their weapons outside of a priest’s cure curse.

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

Some of you may be snowed in or, in my case sleeted in. If you were hoping for some promising news about Norrath, Kander has this brief take on Twitter:

Currently working on new Fabled dungeons for this year. We'll be doing something different this time around.

— Kyle Vallée (@EQII_Kander) January 22, 2016

US Servers: 12:30~1:30pm PST | 3:30pm~4:30pm EST | 20:30~21:30 GMT | 21:30~22:30 CEST

This morning’s Game Update was incomplete, so there will be a second downtime at Noon 12:30 PST. From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums:

We’ve identified additional issues, and EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 around 12:00 12:30PM PST* for maintenance. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour.

Update: Just received an in-game message on Maj’Dul:

Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down for a brief update at 12:30PM PST Wednesday Jan 20, 2016.

Here are the expected (but not confirmed) Update Notes:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Ascent of the Awakened

• Ireth The Cold is now the correct level.

US Servers: 7:00~9:00am PST | 10:00am~12:00am EST | 15:00~17:00 GMT | 16:00~18:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

Update from Caith:

Looks like a large part of the patch didn’t make it to the live servers in this morning’s hotfix, so this is still currently bugged. We’re working on getting it out asap.

and from Gninja:

We are working to get the parts of the patch that did not make it to live servers remedied asap. We are working on it as we speak. Thanks…

Here’s what got patched (from the EQ2 Forums), including that frustrating bug affecting the progression of numerous Zones such as Castle Highhold…

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Corrected an issue that prevented interaction with many objects and NPCs.

ITEMS

• Thalumbra fertilizers drop more frequently. [eq2u]bag of gypsum[/eq2u], [eq2u]flask of deep water[/eq2u], [eq2u]gnawed bone[/eq2u]
• Items with the ability “Soulfeast” will now properly upgrade from items with “Soulthirst“.

Like previous expansions, Terrors of Thalumbra includes shiny “collections of collections” or meta-collections. A number of the expansion’s collections reward a piece which is part of a larger collection. When the expansion launched however, some of these pieces were not being rewarded. This week, Caith went through game logs to award the correct items to the players who had completed the quests but didn’t receive the pieces. From Kander:

We have started reimbursing these missed meta collection pieces. If you haven’t been reimbursed for missed metas, Please email me.
KVALLEE@daybreakgames.com

Email me if you have collections you have completed and did not receive the meta reward. We will of course be verifying any claims via logs.

Second, the collection rewards need to be corrected to properly reward the pieces. This is still in progress…

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums yesterday:

Quick update folks, we’re working on the collection issues, they are not yet fully resolved. None of the collections that have been completed are the final collection for the expansion, so you have not yet seen the final reward. We are aiming at having the issues resolved for next hotfix, we’ll let you know if that changes.

Anyone that completed one of the collections that was fixed in December have been granted the collection pieces that they missed out on. The grants were completed today.

As for the Time-Locked Expansion servers, a significant effort was made to go through heroic and raid rewards for the Kingdom of Sky expansion to bring the items up to snuff. After numerous revamps left the raid gear untouched, it had fallen behind even HANDCRAFTED gear. As per Gninja on the EQ2 Forums, the effort to remedy this imbalance continues:

From the EQ2 Forums:

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST

EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

• Stormhold & Deathtoll – Approx downtime three hours for Kingdom of Sky content prep.  We’re estimating that these servers will open at 10AM PST.
• Maj’Dul – Approx downtime three hours for server maintenance

Tonight is the last night of Frostfell until later this year, while tomorrow sees the unlocking of Kingdom of Sky on the Time-Locked Expansion servers. Meanwhile on live servers, in addition to a number of content fixes, we will also see a potentially significant change to AAs. Abilities that used to grant Crit Bonus will now grant Potency instead.

Finally we must say goodbye to a feature that has worked inconsistently at best for many years but must have proven too difficult to fix. With tomorrow’s update, the PvP Arena feature will be disabled in EverQuest II, with the rewards from that content, including unique house pets, being moved to the Loyalty merchant.

From the EQ2 Forums:

TIME-LOCKED EXPANSION SERVERS
General

• All encounters received a global balance update that can be adjusted dynamically by development.
• Level 20+ encounters now mitigate damage based on level and tier.
• All blue stats have been unlocked with the exception of crit bonus.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Hail Norrathians,

The vote to unlock Kingdom of Sky content passed last month. This content is scheduled to unlock to players on BOTH Time-Locked Expansion servers Stormhold (PvE) and Deathtoll (PvP) on Thursday, January 7, 2016. This content is scheduled to unlock at 10:00AM PST

UPDATE: We’ll need some additional time to get KoS set up for TLE servers, and we anticipate these servers will unlock to players at 10AM PST. More info here.

There are a lot of updates coming to Time-Locked Expansion servers after this content unlocks. To give you an idea of what’s coming:

• Adventure, Tradeskill and Guild Level will be raised to 70
• Alternate Advancement Subclass Window will be unlocked with a 50 AA cap
• This launch will include a full balance pass for all TLE content level 30+, including existing encounters.
• All blue stats, with the exception of crit bonus, will be available on the server.
• Cloud Travel will be restored.
• Spire Travel will be restored on Stormhold (PvE) and Deathtoll (PvP), and reverted to its original design, teleporting players every 5 minutes.

The Time-Locked Expansion (TLE) servers offer a unique EverQuest 2 experience different from our traditional servers. Are you unfamiliar with special servers like Stormhold and Deathtoll? You can get more information about what these servers are in the post here!

And in case you are wondering, a balancing and bugfixing pass has been done to try to ensure that Kingdom of Sky is challenging and interesting.

Daybreak Games, Servers, and Websites are once again under attack this morning as of 7:30am PST. The attack stopped at 8:00am PST and then resumed at 11:00am and has continued unabated as of 3:20pm PST. This sustained attack is being done by a different DDOS crew than the one that targeted SOE President John Smedley, and is directed towards the game H1Z1. EQ and EQ2 (and their forums and websites) being offline is just collateral damage.

NOTE: EU-based EverQuest II servers are co-located in Amsterdam, so gameplay may be possible on these servers.

Original updates after the jump…

Daybreak Games websites and games seem to be intermittently offline starting at 5:15pm PDT.

Update: Players have been reporting that they’re able to login for the last 15 minutes or so. I am logged in and experiencing some lag.

Update from Twitter:

We are aware of current connectivity issues and are working to resolve them. Thanks for your patience.

— Daybreak Games (@DaybreakGames) December 30, 2015

The EQ2 Forums have been updated with this notice from Ops:

Status: 12/29/2015 17:45 PST – We are currently investigating a potential issue with network connectivity to the game.

Enter the EQ2Wire Chatroom

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: Forge of Ashes [Raid]

• The respawn point for Bereth’s Overlook should no longer be an available option for reviving unless Bereth has been defeated.

Maldura: Bar Brawl [All Versions]

• Priest can now cure themselves of Dalkuhm’s “Borrow Weapons” debuff.

Kralet Penumbra: The Hive Mind [Raid]

• The Psionists will now correctly react to those who attempt to drain their well of power.

ITEMS

• Wrist of the Great Forge is now correctly named Ring of the Great Forge.
• Ethereal Onslaught will now correctly reset Sniper Squad.
• Primordial Burnout will now trigger on combat arts and spells.
• Kiss of Life will now heal for the correct amounts.

TRADESKILLS

• “Malduran Mouths to Feed” should now update correctly for moussaka and bibimbap.
• Recipes from the Dhalgar Home Builder’s Kit recipe book are now flagged as building blocks for the purpose of house item count.

QUESTS

• Enemies in the Ever Deep will now award a random infuser or damaged spiritstone.
• The Event Heroic weekly mission, “Trail of Deceit and Death,” can now be completed.

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Qeynos Province District

• Players will no longer get stuck in Frostfell decorations when zoning out of Agnostic Dungeons.

Kralet Penumbra: Uzulu Deep [Event Heroic]

• Urzzra-Uzulu now opens dialog with you during combat through a separate dialog window for greater accessibility.

Kralet Penumbra: The Master’s Chosen [Heroic]

• Xal’Gilah has slightly slowed the rate at which he gains concentration for resurrecting his minions.

Kralet Penumbra: Tepid Depths

• Depths prowlers no longer cast Aberrant Assault.

Maldura: Bar Brawl [Event Heroic]

• Dalkuhm’s “Borrow Weapons” debuff can now be cured by means other than Cure Curse.

US Servers: 7:00~8:00am PST | 10:00am~11:00am EST | 15:00~16:00 GMT | 16:00~17:00 CEST
EU Servers: 9:00~10:00pm PST | 12:00~1:00am EST | 05:00~06:00 GMT | 06:00~07:00 CEST

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The /summon_chest command can no longer be used while on a transport.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Maldura: Palace Foray [Heroic]

• Dragoon Z’Koz will always drop a treasure chest.

Kralet Penumbra: Temple of the Ill-Seen [Advanced Solo]

• Should now spawn shinies properly.

Kralet Penumbra: The Master’s Chosen [Heroic]

• Necromantic Concentration buff can now appropriately be dispelled.