From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Sleeper’s Tomb: The Forgotten Catacombs

• The Eternal Sentinel now only needs to trample the smaller gargoyles once each to knock them over.

Wurmbone Gulch (Crag)

• [Heroic] – Merglok the Slasher gives you more time to move away. He will give a message every time he is going to go into “Clawed Storm”. Clawed Storm has had its damage reduced.
• [Advanced Solo] – Merglok the Slasher will give a message every time he is going to go into “Clawed Storm”. He claws slower now and Clawed Storm has had its damage reduced.

Although we’ve already been advised that the era of “Pre-Adorned Items” isn’t coming to an end any time soon, we can look forward to a new vendor being added next week in Game Update 65.5 which will allow us to purchase some of the more run-of-the-mill Red and Yellow Adornments for [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u] and [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u].

Greater Spirits -> Obols

If you happen to have an abundance of [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u] but are running short on [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u], you’ll be able to trade them in. A [eq2u]Crate of Obols[/eq2u] will also cost 7p and 1 Greater Spirit in exchange for 18 Obols.

NOTE: Greater Spirits drop from heroic zones. Obols drop from any Chains of Eternity zone including overland trash.

Game Update 65.5 Red and Yellow Adornments Vendor

A new NPC named Dulgur Bindmagic is being added next to Drinal’s Steward in the village of Cardin Ward in Obol Plains.

UPDATE from Gninja on February 21, 2013:

From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

If you’ve been flopping, leashing, or feign deathing past the second and third-from-last named encounters in Wurmbone’s End [Advanced Solo] to save time on your way to the boss of the zone, you’ll be seeing a change today. Now, you must kill at least 2 names before the final named will spawn. The popularity of this zone, specifically the last named (Prime Magnate Mrelg), derived from the fact that, when allowed to go into Challenge mode (by not clicking on his smoky “breath”), he drops three loot chests when killed. This was not an unexpected change.

The bigger inconvenience/bummer for me is, you will no longer be able to use the red clicky [eq2u]Celestial Fragment of Subversion[/eq2u] item on him to take off his last 30% of health. I used this item regularly, and only on some occasions was I able to kill him without it. The only “loot” that I cared about from any of the lesser names in any of the Chains of Eternity zones was the red 30% damage clicky. All the other items were pretty much fluff. So with this change, I am even less enthused about the time spent killing the subbosses of each zone.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Scout shields should now drop much less often from Avatars.

Chelsith: The Ancient Vault

• Corrected a bug that was causing items and obols to not drop off trash encounters.

Wurmbone’s End

• You should now be less likely to fall through the world when zoning into any of the Wurmbone’s End zones.

Wurmbone’s End [Advanced Solo]

• [eq2u]Celestial Fragment of Subversion[/eq2u] can no longer be used on Prime Magnate Mrelg once he has become the challenge version.
• All-Blocker Mohngu must now be defeated in order to spawn Necromunger Garrkk.
• Necromunger Garrkk must now be defeated in order to spawn Prime Magnate Mrelg.

Today’s update is all about Itemization, specifically Group and Raid zones in Chains of Eternity.

Heroic Itemization

Players have been clamoring for Chains of Eternity Heroic zones to drop items even as good as some of the powerful items found in Advanced Solo zones, and it looks like those sentiments have been heard. (Don’t worry Soloers, the solo zones still drop a ton of loot).

Sleeper’s Tomb (Contested) has had a bigger problem as players quickly abandoned it when they found that the loot was hardly better than that from the much easier instanced heroic zones.

Pre-Adorned Items

After 3 expansions with Yellow and Red Adornments being sold by vendors, Chains of Eternity tried something new with Pre-Adorned items. The most desirable adornments are now found in dungeons and raid zones already attached to items (often of a different class/spec to the adornment). While this is an intriguing concept, and it has the potential to extend gameplay, it has also led to player confusion and frustration.

But one slice of the EQ2 playerbase who have yet to see the silver lining in this concept of Pre-Adorned loot are Raid Leaders who have been given the unenviable task of deciding whether Pre-Adorned items will go to someone who needs the gear upgrade, or someone who needs the adornment.

While Kander isn’t yet ready to throw in the towel on pre-adorned loot by slapping all the adornments on a vendor, it seems he’s recognized the inherent difficulties and is now providing an alternative to dividing the child:

There will not be a merchant for CoE adornments. We are adding green adornment removers that will remove green adornments without destroying the item, they will be available for plat from a merchant. We are also adding adornment removers that will remove any one adornment without destroying the item. These will be very costly, plat wise from a merchant, but will be rare drops in all CoE heroic and raid zones.

After the jump, the full Update Notes, including the pricey new Adornment Dislodgers which don’t destroy the items…

Even the most jaded player must admit that the EQ2 team have spent a lot of time in the last 18 months tweaking and balancing the classes, both in PvP and PvE situations. Every class in EQ2 now has a role to play, and the tools necessary to play that role, even if that role may not be the most engaging or fun to play.

On Friday, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz, EQ2’s Mechanics Lead, posted threads in each of the Class forums seeking feedback not for further balancing, but what tweaks could be done to make each class less tedious and more enjoyable to actually play. This message was posted on the EQ2 forums under the Priests, Mages, Scouts, and Fighters subforums:

We’re requesting focused feedback on the current state of each class. We’re particularly interested in suggestions on how to make the classes more enjoyable, such as improving tedious abilities to be more user-friendly. Balance issues are always a concern, but numbers tend to spotlight those issues, while it’s easy to overlook problems that simply make the classes less fun than they should be.

We do read your normal forum feedback, but we have had the most success with feedback during betas and in the testing forum. However, it’s difficult to address existing class issues when the focus is on new additions. The idea here is to put the focus on the classes as they exist on live, including everything from the new Prestige Abilities to the spells and combat arts granted at early levels. We’re going to close this thread at the end of next week, but we’ll do more focus feedback threads if they are successful. The goal is to get some improvements to live with the next game update.

Thanks!

Due to some family health issues, things have been slow at the Wire the past couple of weeks short of Update Notes. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a slow resurgence in news on the EQ2 forums as the devs come back from winter break….

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

Ever since the first Massively Multiplayer Online game arrived on the market, players have been seeking the shortest route to fortune, glory, and player experience (XP).

In EverQuest II, Pet classes (Beastlords, Summoners, and Enchanters) have always had an advantage with the TOS-bending concept of unattended gameplay. Druids’ Thorncoat spell is just one of many example abilities that can allow hardy characters to automatically engage and fight enemies without the player being near their keyboard. Now, it’s the much-maligned Dungeon Maker in concert with Chains of Eternity’s Experimentation feature which seem to have set up a perfect storm of shortcuts.

Here are your Update Notes for Tuesday, January 8, 2013 from the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• You can now invite another player to create a raid even if they have a mercenary but you do not.
• You can now fill remaining spaces in your bags from your overflow via /empty_overflow or from right-clicking on the overflowing inventory icon.

GUILD HALL AMENITIES

• The standard bearer should now offer guild markers for use in marking strategic locations within instances. Only those marked as a raid looter can remove these markers.

TRADESKILLS

• The Refine ability icon should now refresh instantly, as the recast time suggests.
• Refining metals will no longer have a chance to return a refined loam.
• Default primary components for the recipe creation page will now default to unrefined components, if available. Changing the quantity will pull any primary components available, including refined.

ITEMS

• Level 90+ spirit stones now start as Legendary.
• Drednever journal pages will now go into the Collectibles container.
• Obols and Greater Spirits for the Steward merchant now drop for everyone that is eligible.
• Obols are no longer flagged as “Ethereal”.
• Fixed a bug that was causing Obols to drop from every kill in the Altar of Abhorrence.

See a Complete List of Drinal’s Steward Heroic Armor (requires [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u]s and [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u])

From the EQ2 Forums:

GUILD HALL AMENITIES

Depots

• The maximum number of different resources that you can store in a Guild Harvest Depot has been increased from 200 to 1000.
• Several new Depots have been added as guild amenities! Check the “Depot” tab in your guildhall amenity list for details.
• The maximum number of items in a single depot stack has been increased from 20,000 to 99,999.
• Set Access now works with storage containers for the purpose of withdrawing items from the containers. Deposit remains open to all.
• Storage containers will now show the minimum level to use an item instead of the item level if there is one specified.
• You can now use the Deposit All button on depots to deposit every valid component from your bags.

So while we’re crossing our fingers that EQ2U will get access to Loot Tables someday soon, I wanted to take our new Item Popups for a spin and put together a collaborative loot article. We’ll be covering loot from Advanced Solo, Group, and Raid Zones, and even Collections as I know there are some good reward items out there.

What do I do?

Please post item names below and who the item is from (as well as any adornments that are bundled with the item), which zone, and whether it was the EM or HM version. I’ll be reading through the comments and updating this article.

Surround each item’s name with {eq2u}and {/eq2u} (replacing the { and } with [ and ]) and it will automagically turn into an item popup.

From EQ2’s Twitter:

The US Servers will come down on Thursday, December 6, 2012, at 4:00 pm Pacific* for a hotfix. The expected downtime is one hour. [Dexella]

— EverQuest II (@everquestii) December 6, 2012

Time Zone Conversions

• PST: December 6 @ 4-5:00pm
• EST: December 6 @ 7-8:00pm
• GMT: December 7 @ 0:00-01:00
• CET: December 7 @ 01:00-02:00

Full Update Notes after the jump…

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue with connecting to the 90 – 95 chat channel.
• Mounts and baubles no longer have their usage verbs blocked by your subscription level and can be used regardless.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Boss fights where mobs are summoned and added into an encounter will no longer reset the health of the boss mob.

As awesome as it is that Raiders, Group, and yes Solo players get to experience the entire Drinal Signature Quest line which takes players through the entire Chains of Eternity storyline, the requirement to do this 8-12 hour quest on every Alt character just to gain access to the group zones, as well as loot [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u] and [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u]s was a bridge too far.

From EQ2 Lead Designer Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on the EQ2 Forums:

We’re going to remove the entrance requirements from all of the dungeons and raids in the expansion except for Harrow’s End. For Harrow’s End you’ll be able to get a Heirloom key from Drinal’s Steward that you can give to other characters on your account to gain access to the zone.

UPDATE from Lyndro about [eq2u]Obol[/eq2u] currency and [eq2u]Greater Spirit[/eq2u]s:

We’ve been chatting about this some, and it makes sense to allow your alts to collect the Obol and Spirit drops if you have a character that has completed the signature line. The “Key” for Harrows End will allow for you to start gathering Obols and Spirits (Which are Heirloom). You’ll still need to complete the signature line to see the merchant version of the Steward, but since the Obols and Spirits are Heirloom and the equipment that you buy from the Steward is all heirloom, you should be able to get the benefit on all your characters.

The Thanksgiving holiday falling just after an expansion is always a pain. Just when we need those Tuesday/Thursday updates the most, the fixes start to thin out, or are postponed. But for those who have been waiting patiently (and even if you haven’t), the time is finally here for the post-Chains of Eternity Mega Patch. Tomorrow’s update contains a ton of fixes to issues that have been brought up repeatedly in /bug, here, and on the forums.

The updates include:

• [eq2u]Call of the Veteran[/eq2u] is back working as it was before.
• Jarsath Wastes Sokokar Trainers are back.
• Gathering Goblin produces less rares, particularly roots.
• Trichromatic Adornment Removers that will remove Yellow, Red, and Green adornments have been added as Tinkering recipes. This is in addition to the existing adornment removers which can remove yellow, red, or combinations thereof.
• Spirit Stones (green adornments) now have better in-game display.
• Items made with Refined materials, or which have been Experimented upon can now be linked in channel. Further, they now display correctly (instead of just showing the base item) when listed on the Broker.
• Numerous Fixes to Chains of Eternity Zones and Quests

The complete Update Notes after the jump…

Hark! The EQ2 team have relented and the Meatbeast will once again be tameable by Beastlords! Apparently there are also some other update notes as well. This update will has been announced to take 2 hours instead of the usual one hour downtime.

GENERAL

• Players in a group of 6 are now capable of getting the solo amount of experience.

MERCENARIES

• Krivix Honorclaw should now be using the correct buffs. Players should see a slight increase to tanking ability and max health.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

Beastlord

• Invalid warder appearances have been re-enabled, but beastlords can now tame bovochs as an exotic warder!

[ Jump to our EQ2Wire Beastlord Warder Guide ]

EQ2Wire answers 20 Frequently Asked Questions about EverQuest II: Chains of Eternity:

• Help! All My AAs Were Reset! Is there a Backup?
• What about my AA Mirror?
• Can I Turn Off the AA Spending Prompt?
• What is this Chains of Eternity: Touch of the Steward item? Can I get 280 AAs for free?
• What is the Level cap for Adventuring, Tradeskills, and Guilds? Did they increase the AA cap?
• Have there been any changes to Adventure XP in this expansion?
• How come I’m not getting Veteran Bonus anymore for having Max Level Characters?
• Help I’m not getting any XP!

From the EQ2 Forums:

Chains of Eternity is EverQuest II’s 9th expansion! In Chains of Eternity, adventurers will travel to the realm known as Ethernere in their quest to stop the siphoning of souls from Norrath. Here, the heroes will fight to save not only the mortals of their world, but prevent the imbalance in Ethernere, as well as meet the God of the afterlife, Drinal, the Silver Reaper. They may yet find the answer lies not in fortunes and portents, but deep in Norrath’s past. Adventurers will also uncover all new areas in the mortal realm of Norrath.

The fate of the living and the dead are in your hands, heroes! Are you up to the challenge before you?

I don’t want to misquote anyone, so I am transcribing the most clear-cut questions and answers. Anything else will be in the transcript video.

Question about tradeskillers making kilts and getting more styles.

Q: Freeport and Qeynos lets anyone do writs. Neriak is more picky. Gorowyn is selective as well. Can this be made more consistent?

Q: A Krono is $17.99. Why is it more than 30 days sub costs at Walmart for $14.99?
A: We don’t endorse the selling of cards in-game, but it’s a completely supported in-game method of trading in-game subs.
Q: Are you going to try to stop selling cards for plat?
A: No.

In the weeks or months leading up to a new Game Update or Expansion, players have come to expect the familiar call to Testers to try out new Group or Raid content. Sometimes a specific schedule is posted, with developer chaperones to monitor player reaction to encounters, zone design, and so forth. At other times, testing as at-your-own pace. Either way, Bug Reports are collected and placed in a queue to be fixed at some future date.

If any “show stopping” bugs occurred during this Testing, such as a boss that would not spawn or could not be defeated, or a door or gateway which would not activate, the testing session would end prematurely with the feeble hope that players would return the next night to make another go of it. Even if many of those players could find time in their schedule to test again, this shortcoming has led to less enthusiasm for testing and a diminishing pool of testers.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed the double-click buying and selling functionality within the merchant windows.

ABILITIES
Paladin

• Paladin Faith Strike I and II will now properly heal the caster rather than the target.

QUESTS

• Holgresh See in Withered Lands now has better rewards for brawlers and scouts.

Have you taken on the group or raid versions of the new Sleeper’s Tomb found in the Eastern Wastes? If so, why not take our Sleeper’s Tomb Survey below. If you have not yet run the zone, please come back and take the poll when you do. Results will be posted in a week or so depending on response rate.

After a small hiccup where Jorlak’s portal had to be activated, players have started exploring the group and raid versions of the Sleeper’s Tomb and nervously eyeing the Avatars of War (Vallon, Sullon, and Tallon Zek) which have popped up in the Eastern Wastes.

From EverQuest2.com:

Outside of the Sleeper’s Tomb in Velious’ Eastern Wastes, an aged Draconian chronomage named Jorlak awaits intrepid adventurers daring enough to begin a perilous quest.

Also throughout Velious, Avatars known as the Hounds of War have returned! These representations of the gods have been sent to the plane of mortals to challenge those willing to fight! The Hounds of War will spawn in Eastern Wastes, Withered Lands, and/or the Great Divide.