Feldon
Tired of getting a swift kick or a punch in the mouth from the surly and unwelcome Thexian and Dreadnaught goons occupying parts of Freeport? Did you know… Killing Thexian and Dreadnaught “guards” in Freeport does not affect your faction with Freeport? If you kill enough Thexians and Dreadnaughts (about 10 of each), they will grow afraid of you and STOP WITH THE BEATINGS ALREADY? Fun Facts from the EQ2 Forums
EQ2
Just prior to Sentinel’s Fate, two different web designers set out to produce an updated AA calculator. We kept our eye on a really smooth one (but which had not been updated for Sentinel’s Fate) by Beetny. We were stoked to find out that Beetny’s AA Calculator has been fully updated for Sentinel’s Fate. This AA Calculator lets you browse, experiment, and spend AA points in all 3 AA trees for your character class without logging into EQ2. Also, you’ll notice there is a URL at the top so you can share your suggested AA setups with other players....
The Underfoot Depths from EQ2Players: Halas Reborn, scheduled to launch at the end of May, brings us two new raid zones. The first of which is the Underfoot Depths, accessed via The Hole. Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert gave EQ2Players a brief interview about this new raid zone. Players have cleared all of Sentinel’s Fate’s normal-mode encounters and all but one of the challenge-mode encounters…just in time for us to add 20 more normal-mode encounters and eight more challenge-mode encounters (which practically doubles the raid content available at level 90). I am very excited at the chance for players to test...
Game Update 56 will contain minor tweaks to Betrayal and changing one’s Citizenship. Changing citizenship is being streamlined, as some cities require more busywork from players than others to switch between cities of the same alignment. Contacting one of the new Ambassadors in each city is your first step. No changes to the actual betrayal quests are being made (changing alignment ) are being as far as we can tell, but an Ambassador NPC is being added in every city who must be contacted prior to deliberating the Betrayal process. You can read more about these Betrayal changes which...
From EQ2Players: One of the exciting features coming with Halas Reborn is the revamp of the travel system. Salim “Silius” Grant has made traveling throughout Norrath smoother and took a few minutes to explain in detail some of the changes that adventurers will see.
Today, we reflect on a dungeon that I had high hopes for when it was first announced, but which underwent dramatic changes within 72 hours of its launch. 3 months later, there are no clear answers on the current intended audience of this zone, whether we’ll see any rollback of those changes, and going into the next expansion — EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious — will these lessons in design and balance be learned from?
It’s hard to believe that in 3 months we will be covering our third Fan Faire event and entering our third year of wheedling news and previews of EverQuest 2 expansions and game updates. We plan to offer the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the 2010 Fan Faire event. It’s challenging to come up with news on a daily basis, especially about a game that works in 3 month cycles. Last month, we officially brought a staff writer, Dethdlr, into the fold, who has so far been posting some great updates. There are a lot of EQ2 fan sites...
Here are your hotfix notes for May 12, 2010: ITEMS Summoning Brace of the Wyrmkind now properly adds Molten Carnage IV to the caster’s pet. THE HOLE The following mobs will no longer attack you if you have faction points equal to or above -39,999 points with them. The faction point requirement should now be consistent with other standard mobs under the same faction. “an animated watcher” “a disheveled refugee” The “Caetaxian dominator” located on the fallen pillar bridge in the Old Paineel section of the zone. Killing “disheveled refugee” should now have an effect on your faction status...
Players were surprised when servers went down at midnight PST last night for a Hotfix. This hotfix is targeted at Performance issues which continue to dog EQ2. From the EQ2 Forums by Rothgar: Tonight’s hotfix introduced a few changes that have been on the test server for a few weeks. I’d like to hear your feedback to see if any of these performance issues have gotten better after tonight. First, we made a change to the zoning processes that should hopefully speed it up. In addition we’ve extended our logging in this area to help us better troubleshoot long...
From EQ2 ZAM: EverQuest II players have long hoped for an expansion returning players to Velious. Scars of Velious, the second expansion in the original EverQuest, was a favorite of long-time players. With the appearance of the the icy Order of Rime last summer many players were sure Velious was coming, and were surprised when Sentinel’s Fate took EQII players to the lost island of Odus. Astute player Vulkoor found some interesting files downloading in April, which included othmir (an otter race from Velious) and Tserrina the near-legendary boss of the original Tower of Frozen Shadow. The appearance of...
This information was part of our Game Update 56 post on May 4th. However considering the importance of its content, we have reprinted it as a separate article and rewritten it for clarity. GU56 Travel Revamp Travel in Norrath has been substantially consolidated. Changes and bugfixes continue to be applied on Test, so this information may change before May 25th. Worldwide Travel Revamp Players may travel from and to nearly every zone in Norrath by using the Worldwide Globe system, which have consolidated all existing bells and gained many unexpected destinations. Flying carpets, boats, and airships are now entirely...
Even as EQ2Wire is trying to find an artist or artists to help us tell humorous, interesting stories about EQ2, the development of MMOs in general, and the sometimes tumultuous relations between game developers and the players, we could not help but notice the “Notable Norrathians” contest currently running on the EQ2 Forums and posted by Kiara. UPDATE: Deadline Extended to May 28th! The New Artists My favorite part of EverQuest II’s fleeting 5th Anniversary “Heroes Festival” (during last year’s American Thanksgiving week) was the 10 Player-Designed In-Game Paintings. Initially, an art conteste, the top 10 winners became available...
EQ2Players is highlighting another team member, this time Jeff Jonas, player artist for EverQuest II. My role on the EQII team is to create objects that our player characters use, wear, or ride. I am known as a “wearables” guy. A project like this needs thousands of items to make it fun and exciting. Wearables run the gamut from Barbarian helmets, to collector’s capes, and full vampire armor sets, to wieldables such as swords and staffs, to rideables like the hover discs I have created. Other wearables can be backpacks, or armbands. What’s your favourite thing that you’ve done...
The tireless Niami Denmother of EQ2Traders has turned in another great preview, this time New Halas.
Free Item Players logging into EQ2 in the days immediately following the launch of Game Update 56: Halas Reborn (specifically May 25 ~ 28) will receive a free item, a Frostpaw Kitten.
A new website has been added to EQ2Players with the skinny on Game Update 56: Halas Reborn, introducing the player city of Halas, as well as a new character starting area with level 1-20 content. Halas is essentially a neutral-good aligned city, as evil-aligned characters can visit and complete most of the same quests. Game Update 56 includes substantial features and changes: Halas Reborn — new player city with new housing options (2, 4, and 6 room houses) Frostfang Sea — new level 1~20 starting area leading to Halas The Underfoot Depths — A new x4 level 90 raid...
Raid Targets in Sentinel’s Fate continue to receive nips and tucks in their behavior and strategies. Today’s change to the 3 Sages fight is not without controversy. Check out the discussion thread on EQ2 Forums. Here are your Hotfix Notes for May 4th, 2010: THE PALACE OF ROEHN THEER 3 Sage Encounter (Challenge Mode)- If the incorrect character class (according to the Idolic Stone that sage possesses) keeps agro on that sage for more than 3 secs after that sage has lost it’s prismatic sphere, that character will be hit by a bolt of slaying. SANCTUM OF THE SCALEBORN...
The Halas Prelude event is now available on Live servers. Currently, this quest is only available from Guides (a sanctioned group of volunteer players), GMs, CMs, and other SOE staff. Stay tuned to open chat channels! It’s a brief quest, dealing with the rediscovery of Halas. The quest rewards 2 books. We’ll post a link to a writeup of the quest soon. How to Get the Quest From Domino: The Halas Prelude Event will initially be given out by Guides and SOE staff until shortly before the update launch. Although there are no guides on PvP and exchange servers,...
image courtesy Jethal Silverwing Come to the Faire: Freeport @ Kithicor.org The first week of every month sees the arrival of a traveling City Festival. This month, the City Festival wraps its first tour of the five known cities of Norrath by visiting Freeport. Next month, the City Festival will no doubt make its first appearance in the newly-found New Halas. While some players have shared their exasperation with the obviousness of the ‘content delivery system’ feel to these events (repeat a runaround errand-type quest dozens of times, or craft dozens of items, to earn enough tokens to buy...
New Halas Livin’ We are following New Halas (both the level 1-20 starting content, and as a new player city) on Test, and player comments about both the newbie experience, and how Halas works as a full-fledged city. Living up to the expectations and nostalgia of EQ1 veterans was an impossible task, but there has been a raft-load of comments on the EQ2 forums (and presumably through /feedback) and the art team is making some much-appreciated changes. First impressions of New Halas have regarded the buildings (inside and out) as some of the most impressive and realistic in the...
European EQ2 players wanting to experience Battlegrounds have had to deal with a series of compromises. Battlegrounds are divided not only by language (French, German, Russian) but region (UK vs. US). As a result, some servers have had such a small pool of players to choose from, that 24 x 24 Battlegrounds have been impossible, locking players out of acquiring some 40% of the gear and rewards available for Battlegrounds. Rothgar has given us the first bit of concrete good news about solutions to these issues: I just wanted to let you guys know that we’ve been making some...
Cronyn has jumped into the fray again with some further details about why the Isle of Refuge is being removed in GU56: Heya folks. I wanted to clear a couple of things up really fast, if I may. As I said, we’re not abandoning Freeport and Qeynos themselves. The existing content that is there will not be different with this change, and we are planning even more things for the cities going forward. Players with citizenship currently in either city will retain it – we’re not removing housing, guild halls, the suburbs, or the quests that exist there. They...
The notes for upcoming Game Update 56 included this notation: Many rare drops from the heroic Sentinel’s Fate Zones are now available by speaking to Kaliba Des’Sers in Moonfield Hamlet! Once Game Update 56 was patched onto the Test Server, we were provided screen shots of some of this loot: New Fabled Loot Vendor on Test What’s on the Menu? While a similar vendor was available during the Shadow Odyssey expansion, 150 void shards only gave you access to the most common Fabled drops from each zone (with the exception of the Mistmoore Battle Drums). So this time around,...
Dethdlr
On Tuesday, 27 April 2010, this tidbit made it into the update notes for test: Mounts will now be temporarily suspended while in combat. Basically, in outside zones, mounts would disapear as soon as you enter combat and re-appear a few seconds after combat ended. This had a general negative response on the official EQ2 Forums and led to speculation on how this would effect buffs. Gninja responded with some clarification on the matter: You would not lose any stats or anything you would have normally had your character will just no longer be visually mounted during combat the...