From the EQ2 Forums:

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL [WEEKLY FEATURE – Ed.]

• All Access Members can now access the Broker almost anywhere. In the EQII menu, select the “Broker” option, or use the /start_broker_anywhere command.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested]

• Grulk’s Toxic Submission no longer drains noxious resistance, but instead causes Poisoned Marrow to inflict greater damage.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Summoner

• Minions Translocation can no longer be cast while under the effects of Carnage Shield.

ITEMS

• Totem of the Succulent may now only trigger once a second and has increased damage and healing.

BATTLEGROUNDS
Balance of Theer

• The order logo will now only grant points to your team after you have been on it for three seconds, and every three seconds thereafter.
• Balance of Theer will now grant medals for victorious matches.

EQ2Wire will be liveblogging EQ2 Insider Episode #4, which as it turns out will be Maggie “Luperza” Krohn‘s last episode as she has taken a position at Curse.com. You can watch EverQuest II Insider #4 at Twitch right now.

This was a live blog of today’s EQ2 Insider Episode #4.

• Talking about SOE Live and how positive and fun it was.
• Talking about updates later this year.
• Kander encouraging people to play Altar of Malice beta as players will earn very nice rewards on Live for their efforts on Beta.
• Nathan (Kaitheel) will be talking today about Altar of Malice Lore.
• They’ll be talking about Level Agnostic Dungeons today.
• Grandmasters.
• Nights of the Dead.
• Kaitheel will be going over House Decorating Dev Picks.

As long last we’ve resumed posting videos recorded from SOE Live 2014. After this, we’ve still got the EQ2 Art & Animation panel, as well as three player panels and the Player Studio panel. Oy vey!

This was the last panel at SOE Live 2014 for EverQuest II — Questions & Answers #2. Due to room acoustics, this recording took an inordinate amount of time to edit and normalize. Fortunately, Audio quality improves around the 3 minute mark when questions begin.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrathians,

We’re all charged up and busy after a great time at SOE Live! The team is hunkered down and focused on the expansion, fixes, and updates on the schedule. Here are some details!

When is the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice Beta?

On Oct. 7 we will launch Limited Beta for All Access members. Most of the content will be focused on the Overlands and level increase content. We need your support!

Oct. 14 will be Open Beta for everyone. We’d love you to come check out the content and help us make sure it’s good, clean fun.

When is Altar of Malice Launch?

The expansion launch for All Access members will be on Nov. 11, just a few days after we celebrate our 10th anniversary!

On Nov. 25, the expansion will be available to everyone.

I think these days, most players don’t consider their characters complete, competitive, or at least capable until they have upgraded a significant number of their combat arts or spells to Master level. It was not always so…

Are We Entitled to Masters?

It may be hard to remember, but there was a time before the Research tab and before Research Assistants when the only way to get Master spells was to defeat enemies. At launch, Masters were unbelievably rare and only dropped from Epic names. Over the years, they have trickled down to Epic trash, then to Heroic bosses. At some point, a global loot table was added to any slain non-trivial enemy with something like a 1 in 10,000 chance to drop a level-appropriate Master. Every year, Masters seem to become more widely available.

Because sleep is overrated, EQ2 fan Afista spent the weekend meticulously transcribing the two EverQuest II Q&A panels and has posted them on EQ2 ZAM. Also don’t miss the notes from the all-important Mechanics panel posted by Cyliena as linked below. I got a kick out of hanging out with both of them at SOE Live and seeing what they’re doing for the EQ2 community. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a slacker now… 😉

At SOE Live 2014, the community had questions and the devs had answers! ZAM was there to keep track of what everyone wanted to know. Afista has written a full recap of what happened during the Q&A following the EQ2 keynote, as well as the AMAA Sessions Part 1 & Part 2.

Read the entire Q&A recap over on ZAM!

(also check out our Systems & Mechanics panel recap from last week!)

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Vesspyr Isles: Pinch Aggregate, the Rare Item Procurer, now offers wares in a secluded location.

QUESTS

• Fixed a bug where the Shinies Beneath the Moonlight automatically awarded even if someone didn’t complete the proper collections.
• Blaisy Bookmaker and Unlucky in High Keep Contested, and Dawper in the Fabled Sanctum of the Scaleborn will no longer temporarily disappear after you’ve completed Dawper’s mission, “Blasted Droags!”

ITEMS

• One player cannot trigger both Practiced Tactics and Practiced Tactics II. The effects will stack when applied from multiple casters. [Fixed on 5/16/2014]
• Players may now obtain over 10,000 Draconic Etyma now. Currency caps on all other currencies are unchanged.
• The “Customize” option will now correctly appear for House Actors inside a player dungeon.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• Priests now will be granted Gather Remains at level 80. This spell can be used to pull the corpses of raid members to the priest’s location while out of combat.
• The maximum health impairments caused by Rejection, Change of Engagement and Debilitating Strikes no longer stack from multiple casters.

In the EverQuest II: Systems panel, the EverQuest II team talks about the upcoming expansion, specifically class balance, mechanics, some new features, and takes player questions. On the panel: Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer, and Justin “Jamiss” Michael. We recorded this at SOE Live 2014 in Las Vegas and are happy to be able to share it.

On YouTube:

We recorded the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote, which included about seven minutes of Q&A at the end. We also recorded the EverQuest II Q&A #1 panel and we’ve assembled it into a single video.

NOTE: Audio quality improves at 8:45 as we started using an external mic at this point.

There were some technical difficulties during the first 10 minutes of the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice keynote which was livestreamed from SOE Live last week.  Instead of clearly hearing the producer and designers of our game hyping their hard work, audiences at home mostly heard frustrated AV techs trying to get things working. Fortunately, we recorded the keynote in person and are now able to provide the complete event for those who missed it!

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• The Moonlight Enchantment merchants have new items available! All sorts of trees and shrubbery based on Ethernere foliage can now be purchased. Moonlight Enchantments begin on 8/20!

• With Kerafyrm’s defeat, Freeport and Qeynos have finally broken the Awakened siege, and Luclin – now whole – shines brightly in the skies.

GENERAL

• YouTube integration has been removed due to incompatibilities with Google’s API updates. Options are being explored to return video functionality.

Here are the slides presented by the EverQuest II team specifically the mechanics/systems guys. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer were presenting.

Now it’s time for the EverQuest II Systems panel. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer are presenting. We’re liveblogging this panel as well as recording a video of this panel in 720p HD.

Liveblog begins at 1:00pm PDT and ends at 2:00pm PDT on Saturday August 16th.

Fix for Stealth and AE Abilities

New Spell Qualities

• All spells go to Grandmaster
• Certain spells go to Ancient

Battleground 6v6 Balance of Theer

• Deathmatch
• Penalty for dying
• Tiles to stand on and get buffs/debuffs

Now it’s time for the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice expansion panel with nearly the entire EQ2 team. We’re liveblogging as well as recording a video of this panel in 720p HD. This panel is also being livecast on Twitch.

Liveblog began at 12:00pm PDT and ended at 1:00pm PDT on Friday August 15th.

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale to the stage. Tim Heydalaar and Dave Brown to the stage.

Showing PlayerStudio items.

Looks like Press gets a healthy headstart on posting expansion news for EverQuest and EverQuest II this year. After their private meetings with Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson and EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on Tuesday, they’ve had time to draft their articles and now, they’re available for all to read. My issue is, people at home have more information than those at SOE Live who may not yet have read these articles. Some Press sites (notably excluding Massively and ZAM) get a full boat ride from SOE, paying for hotel and sometimes even airfare, dinners, etc.). EQ2Wire covers EverQuest II all 365 days a year, and we do it without VIP treatment.

Anyway, enough politics. On to the news! These are the sites we’ve found so far:

• Massively
• ShackNews
• Destructoid
• GameZone
• EQ2 ZAM
• MMORPG
• MMO Attack

The totally kickass key art is at the top of the article. And now the bullet points:

• Level 100 increase for Adventure, Tradeskill, and Guild levels.
• 14 Dungeons
• 6 Raids
• 6 Advanced Solo Zones
• 2 Contested Dungeons
• 2 Massive Overland zones created with the new unbelievable Layout Editor. I’ve heard that the new zones are so stunning that players will hardly believe they are running in the EQ2 engine.
  • Tranquil Sea: composed of the devastated Isle of Refuge, Deathweave Isle, and the Pygmie-and-dinosaur-inhabited Island of Dichen
  • Phantom Sea: composed of the haunted forest of Kithicor, the trading company’s home base Highhold, and Grimshales, an island made from a shard of Luclin
• 4 new Avatars

More after the jump…

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE
The Nexus Core [Challenge Duo]

• Having faced near-destruction at the hands of careless adventurers, The Nexus Core has assembled the ultimate automaton to defend its delicate systems. Great rewards await those strong and cunning enough to defeat him. Certain death awaits all others. Can you outwit the mechanical mind of Mechanoct?

This encounter is balanced for two extremely well-geared players containing at least one tank or one healer.

QUESTS
Age’s End Questline

• Doomscale crystalweavers will no longer spin when attacked while healing their designated crystal.
• The crystals will no longer reset to full health if no one is attacking them within their rooms.
• Returning to Jorlak after destroying the 3 crystals should properly update the entire raid.
• Corrected another issue that could cause some members to not get updates for the quests at certain stages due to lag.

From the EQ2 Forums:

Attention players: we will perform maintenance beginning at 3:00 AM PDT* on Tuesday, July 29, 2014. We expect this maintenance to take approximately two hours. This will impact the following SOE services:

• Commerce functions, including purchases
• Game, web and forum logins

Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance.

and:

ALL EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on July 29th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Time* for an update. The expected downtime is approximately two hours.

Time Zone Conversions

• PDT: July 29 @ 3:00-5:00am & 7:00-9:00am
• EDT: July 29 @ 6:00-8:00am & 10:00-Noon
• BST: July 29 @ 11:00-13:00 & 15:00-17:00
• CET: July 29 @ 12:00-14:00 & 16:00-18:00
• AEST: July 29 @ 8:00-10:00pm & July 30 @ 12:00am-2:00am

and the actual notes after the jump…

Looks like all servers are coming down today, even though Tinkerfest will not be activated until Friday. From the EQ2 Forums.

ALL EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on July 22nd, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately two hours.

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Tinkerfest begins 7/25!

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Corrected an issue that prevented Aerakyn body drop treasure from dropping if the victim was below level 100.
• Zordakalicus Ragefire – The target lock cast by Ragefire’s adds, Shock, has been changed. It should cast much less often, is no longer a curse or curable, and now has a 3 second duration.

On Monday, EQ2 Mechanics Guru Xelgad teased a new priest ability called “Gather Remains”:

Oh god, why did that mob aggro?! All I did was resurrect after a wipe! Solution coming to #EQ2 priests soon! pic.twitter.com/T5LTnD307P
— Xelgad (@Xelgad) July 14, 2014

At first, we assumed this would be a Prestige ability reserved for this fall’s upcoming Altar of Malice expansion, however during today’s EQ2 Insider webcast, Xelgad clarified that this ability was going to become available to priests “as soon as possible”, after it clears QA, so likely in the next few weeks.

According to a followup tweet, the ability will apparently work Out of Combat only, but not require Line of Sight Feet:

@tyman5333 Works with different systems since it’s out of combat and doesn’t need to run a whole bunch of other checks. Doesn’t need LoS.

— Xelgad (@Xelgad) July 15, 2014

Does this sound like a useful ability despite the 50 meter limit? Will you or your friends use it?

Today’s EQ2 Insider Episode #3 is now available for watching on YouTube. You can read our summary of the webcast here.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Veeshan: Dreadscale’s Maw

• New items in the Dreadscale’s Maw are now correctly usable by all classes.

DUNGEON MAKER

• Fixed an issue related to experience gain.

ITEMS

• Ethereal Scythes have been changed to crushing weapons.
• [eq2u]Scythe of the Sun[/eq2u] is now a crushing weapon.
• [eq2u]Warblister, Scythe of Fury[/eq2u] is now a crushing weapon.
• Corrected a bug that was preventing the Greater and Superior Redemption of Failure from resurrecting allies outside of the targeted group.

QUESTS

• A new shiny collection ? in Vesspyr Isles is no longer obscured by the giant flower blossom.
• Cataloguing Vesspyr: Rage Infused – A Tumultuous Growth in Vesspyr Isles can now be seen by all players, as intended.

EQ2Wire is providing a running transcript of today’s EQ2Insider Developer Q&A with questions posed by players on the EQ2 Forums, Facebook, Twitter, and even Google Plus. Present on the panel are EQ2 Community Manager Margaret “Luperza” Krohn, EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EQ2 Game Designer Mike “Xelgad” Ganz, and EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee.

Today’s livecast started with a hilarious 2D animation of the Age’s End story thus far.

Announcing the winners of the EQ2 summer contest.

After the jump, the Dev Q&A…

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• New Ethereal or Artifact weapons can now be found within Tears of Veeshan mission Crates.

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where dev picks would temporarily disappear from the housing leaderboards.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
The Fabled Deathtoll

• Cruor Alluvium’s Aqueous Attunement spell will now allow players to cast spells and use skills while moving.
• Cruor Alluvium’s Waning Skill debuff will no longer trigger off of pet deaths.

Temple of Veeshan: Dreadscale’s Maw

• Several new accessories have been added to the treasure tables in Dreadscale’s Maw.
• Bosses slain within the zone should now reward status.
• Added map to zone.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Good day Norrathians!

We’re heading into summer and looking ahead to more entertaining updates and the expansion. Below I’m going to list the update plans like I did last month to keep you in the loop on what’s coming up!

For July, including this week:
•Status Point Merchant Updates: New items added
•Summer Ethereal weapons! And we’ll have Artifact versions of these too!
•Aerakyn Lore & Legend Quest
•Tinkerfest!
•Ages End: The Final Chapter (a X2 instance)

And in August:
•New Loyalty items
•Nexus Duo Challenge instance. (Also SOE Live week!)
•Moonlight Enchantments content additions
•Status Point XP Bonus Days