Dethdlr
Here are your update notes for Wednesday, 28 July 2010: UNDERFOOT DEPTHS Energized Taehric Construct (challenge mode): The Construct will try and cast Crippling Judgment on his main target whenever possible, rather than a random fighter. The construct will try and cast Curse of Befuddlement on priests in separate groups, whenever possible, avoiding casting it on two priests in the same group whenever possible. ITEMS The Twisted Alloy Wristlet’s proc, Torturous Paths, has had its damage increased and its proc chance raised. Many mage items within Underfoot Depths have received pet effects. TINKERFEST The Tinkerfest quest “Great Balls of...
EQ2
Feldon
In the aftermath of EverQuest II picking up a Free-to-Play service, count on Massively to land an exclusive interview with EQ2 Senior Producer Dave Georgeson.There, you can find his thoughts about what F2P will mean to EQ2.
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has followed up today’s big news with a blog post over on the Station Blog on what we can expect at Fan Faire, the future of the EverQuest II Extended (F2P) server, and some hints about what’s coming in updates surrounding the Destiny of Velious expansion. You can read his post on the Station Blog here.
The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Servers are now online and ready for Alpha testing. You may immediately start playing EverQuest II on the E2E server here. The EverQuest II Extended (Free-to-Play) Service also has its own independent Support Forums launching today.
There will be a lot of reactions in the coming days in response to the announcement. I’ve been surprised how many have had positive reactions to the speculation here and on EQ2Flames who think F2P on a separate server, or for levels 1-50 are a good idea to bring in new players and then convert them to a Subscription account. And no doubt there are many who feel that any opportunity for people to “buy” progress threatens the moral center of character advancement in this game. We’ve got a survey here on EQ2Wire that you may like to fill...
Where there’s smoke, sometimes there really is a fire. During a Stratics E3 interview in June, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, then-new Senior Producer for EverQuest II was asked point blank: Will EverQuest II would be transitioning to a F2P setup as Lord of the Rings Online did in June? His response has been thoroughly dissected and analyzed: The current subscription model isn’t going to change. The people that are playing the game as it stands right now really like the way it is. They don’t want us to sell items for power in the marketplace. They want to be able...
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, EQ2’s Senior Producer, has brought us a surprising announcement that EverQuest II is adding a totally separate Free-to-Play service. Hi there, Norrathians, As they say, the one thing that’s always true about the world is that it changes. That’s true of the world in general, the game industry, and it’s always been true with “EverQuest II”. The very nature of an MMO is change. We listen, we adapt, and the game grows in features, content, and fun factor as the months and years pass. Now, the expectations of gamers and the industry itself are changing around...
Rothgar has posted some additional thoughts and clarifications about the new User Interface facelift for EQ2 in Game Update 57 on the EQ2 Forums. After the jump…
Early birds trying out Game Update 57 on the Test and Test Copy servers have encountered an intriguing error message when they try to purchase something from the Broker. (don’t be alarmed by my ProfitUI broker window, it’s the message in the lower right that is worth a second look): You must upgrade to at least a Gold membership in order to purchase items from the broker.
Zoltaroth has made some changes to the automated Test Copy scripts so that characters will copy within hours rather than being on a 24-48 hour cycle as they are now. To copy a character to Test Copy, type /testcopy add on any live server. You will then need to choose to login to the Test server when starting up EQ2 with your choice of launcher.
Game Update 57 is now up on the Test and Test Copy Servers and we’ve got the Update Notes. We’ve already taken some new screen shots of the new default interface including the new pictorial tutorials for new players. User Interface – One of the touted features of Game Update 57 is the revamped User Interface. The Persona and Inventory windows have been merged into a Character window. The XP bar has become a sort of “dock” at the bottom of your screen. All buttons and window corners have been rounded off. And for the most part, everything that...
Some very interesting comments on the EQ2 Forums regarding players wanting to transfer off PvP servers from Rothgar: We’ve been discussing our server transfer policies over the past couple of weeks but don’t have anything to announce yet. We’ve commented on this subject in the past and are aware of the desires for people to have more open transfer policies between PvP/PvE and LG/Standard servers. As soon as we have something to tell you, it will be announced. But for now, understand that your voices are heard. This may also have some ramifications for LiveGamer <-> Standard servers, but...
Breaking News from the SOE Block Party. Reporting by Serianna. a big hint about larger item limit in houses, possibly from being able to use a 2nd expander. new zone is going to be a guk zone. possibly going to see a differentation in the lower guild halls (halas to look more like the halas housing etc) but still in way early stages on that. not green lighted but devs pushing for it. new crafting quests in mid teirs. some big announcement coming tuesday from smokejumper. also talk about making BGs more dynamic. traps, levers, movable objects etc. with...
I am really keeping these non-EQ2 posts to a minimum as per the request of readers during the spring Survey. But there’s a lot of news around the industry and in related games, and since Comic-Con is going on, well, we’re going to step out of EQ2 for a second for a few updates… First-Timer’s Guide to Fan Faire First up, Minerva, Community Relationships Manager for SOE Denver, has posted A First-Timer’s Guide to Fan Faire. It’s really an accounting of her experiences at last year’s Fan Faire event. A travel diary if you will, which may give you...
Although most of what we’ve been hearing from Rothgar over the last year has been closely tied to sorting out Battlegrounds, addressing Server Lag and Performance, and directing Server Upgrades, one of his big passions has been to upgrade the default EQ2 User Interface. So far, the coolest news about Game Update 57 has been that it will include a pretty substantial polishing up of the default UI. Today, Rothgar has posted some tantalizing details of just what we can expect. And if you will be attending the SOE Block Party (if you will be at Comic-Con, there will...
Here are your hotfix notes for July 22, 2010: LON MOUNTS Legends of Norrath mounts have all been upgraded to a standard 65% run speed. PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY Arkatanthis the Destroyer: The Benthic adds that challenge group members will try to challenge players unaffected by benthic freeze wherever possible.
Druidess
On 6/30/10, EQ2 issued a challenge to the talented in game home decorators of Norrath. The contest ran from June 30th – July 14th. Contestants were given the theme of “Bedroom Sanctuary”. Submissions ranged from the New Halas homes all the way to some of the older house models of Qeynos and Freeport. Winners are going to be given an in game trophy, to be placed in the respected homes. Congratulations to the winners. All submissions can be viewed here.
Xelgad has been paying close attention to feedback on his Guardians: Requesting Feedback thread on the EQ2 Forums. His response to this feedback includes some additional tweaks we might see as a result of ideas submitted by players. These changes are expected after Game Update 57. You can read his comments after the jump…
From SOE-Rothgar on EQ2Interface: Rest up because you’re most likely going to have a lot of work to do when GU57 hits test server in just over a week! I can’t go into a lot of detail right now, but we’ve made some pretty big UI changes for 57. The default UI is getting a re-skin and many windows have been modified. We’ll post more when we can. This was posted on July 16th, so that would put Game Update 57 onto Test as early as the end of this week.
Here are your brief Update Notes for July 20th, 2010: ITEMS The Skinbreach Silk Cord should now have resists. Band of the Corrupter should now also proc 75 Agility. Icy Keep: Many of Vrewwx’s Drops from the Challenge Mode have been adjusted to be more in line with the Difficulty. UNDERFOOT DEPTHS Vaclaz and Vaclaz Released: Non-Priests are now given precedence when choosing who will receive keen insight in order to disrupt the roekillik energymaster adds. A priest will only be chosen for this task if there are no other raid members available.
Zraxth’s Unseen Arcanum is a new challenging one group dungeon which will make its first appearance at Fan Faire this August.
This week’s rollup post includes news about Antonia Bayle server upgrades, some out-of-whack procs, and further speculation about Free-to-Play (F2P). After the jump…
Xelgad has taken another measured step towards collecting player feedback. Last month, it was a shoutout for Top End Guilds to post some of their highest parses. Today’s request appears to be some light finally being shone on guardians after nearly 2 years at the lower middle of the “fighter” pack in tanking ability. Greetings Guardians! First off, allow me say that we understand that the class is being outshined at the moment, and we’re working on it. It’s going to take more than just one change to get Guardians back to working as a strong class again. I’m...
CORRECTION: Ikik is still on the Vanguard team. Today we learn from EQ2Flames just who was laid off from the EQ2 team. Timetravelling designed some of the more interesting raid encounters in the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, including Roehn Theer: I wanted to pop in and thank you all for playing EQ2 for the last few years. You helped make it an absolute joy of a job, and I’m sorry to be moving on, but I suppose that thems the breaks. Please keep on keepin’ on, having fun, and kicking the crap out of all of the encounters us poor...
Aidis Darvidas
The most difficult part of a raid encounter can be managing the Adds or additional enemies that come at predefined moments during the fight. EQ2 has a storied history of people trying different methods to manage, crowd control, confuse, or completely reset Adds during challenging fights. Clearly, the desire to beat more difficult enemies is a powerful temptation to cheat. Manipulating the outcome of a fight through timely brawler death feigns or leashing certain mobs by fighting at a distance are tactics which have existed in EQ2 from the very beginning. Such exploits were very publicly documented in Veeshan’s...