Feldon
If your guild has been experiencing heavy lag in Palace of the Ancient One and perhaps noticed that you are seeing combat logs from another guild that is in their own instance ‘leaking’ into your combat logs for this zone, you’re not alone. There is an amusing screen snapshot that shows partial combat logs that demonstrate this ‘cross-talk’. It seems likely this is the cause of some of the lag in this zone. There is also another issue with regards to adds continuously spawning, to the point of hundreds of adds appearing if the zone bugs out. It’s being...
EQ2
EMPEROR’S ATHENAEUM The final bosses no longer ambush players. Players should get experience from each location discovery within the zone, instead of just the first. Drago’s Boar’s Eruption does less damage. Added a clue to help decipher the floor-set vault lock. Master of the Embalmers summons adds much less frequently. The Curator teleports less frequently. KURN’S TOWER Ilenee’s Betrayal and Despair no longer heal after they teleport and no longer can teleport to the same room. VOICE CHAT EQ2VoiceService.exe should now run on Windows 2000. Players should no longer show as talking intermittently when their push-to-talk key is not...
GENERAL Players experiencing problems customizing Wood Elf males should no longer have any issues. Persistent instances should no longer boot players out when they were not committed to the previous instance. EMPEROR’S ATHENAEUM The final bosses should no longer despawn if players died next to their spawn locations.
Any software update is going to bring bugs. Laryngitis I just wish SoE hadn’t tried to completely revamp the voice system on the same day as all this new content was added. Last night we spent most of time just fiddling around with voice, trying to get it clear and stable. Mostly it was choppy, stuttery, laggy, and folks had a tough time joining channels. We also had to inform a few folks running Windows Firewall that they would need to allow Eq2VoiceService.exe. This service was spun off from the EQ2 client to allow voice chat outside the game...
From Curse.com. Through a bit of internet sleuthing we’ve discovered that recently, Sony Online Entertainment decided to trademark two new titles, one each for EverQuest and EverQuest II. The trademarks in question took place on June 10th, 2009 and are EverQuest Underfoot, and EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate. While nothing is announced yet, there’s a good chance these two titles are the names of each game’s respective expansions. So why would SOE do this? Well, they have the annual SOE Fanfaire coming up in a week, in which they’ll no doubt continue their recent tradition of announcing expansions for their...
A week without news, some of you might be getting jittery. 🙂 GU52 is still on Test, getting nipped, tucked, and tested out. I believe they are on track to get it onto live servers perhaps as early as June 16th (my estimate, arrived using my advanced degree in EQ2ology). I know they really wanted it to be on Live before Fan Faire. I’ve already documented the broad strokes of Gu52 in my earlier posts. If you haven’t seen a preview of player made Books, upgraded Hex Dolls and Ranged Weapons, or new furniture coming to EQ2, check out...
One of the biggest complaints about the otherwise fantastic Ward of Elements x2 raid zone is that by upgrading a few pieces of armor to T3, fighters and mages lost huge 5-piece bonuses from their T2 armor. An undocumented fix in GU52 is that these bonuses are now distributed over the set bonuses in such a way that 3 pieces of T2 and 3 pieces of T3 will yield a similar bonus to having 5 pieces of T2. This is fantastic news, as it seemed this would be a long-term fix based on the Zam devchat. Glad they could...
For your viewing pleasure if you have not yet been able to make it over to the Test Servers, look what washed up on the northern shores of Fens of Nathsar not 500 yards from our old friend the Tangrin… It is unexpected to see humans, halflings, giants, and ratonga working so closely together. What could their mission be? Note also that this is not just a temporary event, but that it will persist into the next expansion. Whether we should read further into that is a question that I just don’t have enough information to know the answer...
That’s a lot of notes to read, so I will distill some of the key points. Procs If you read Bruce Ferguson’s parting comments, and you generate a good potion of your DPS from gear with effects like Goblin Bane, Void Bane, or Vampire Bane, or if you are an Assassin wearing Soul Lancer armor, you might want to read the relevant section again: We’ve discovered that with the items that we released with The Shadow Odyssey, that proc additional damage, the amount of damage being caused has grown considerably, and we need to adjust it. So, in the...
Here are the notes for GU52 which has now appeared on Test. It is unknown exactly when these changes will go live. FEATURED Charasis: Emperor’s Athenaeum The Order of Rime has managed to re-open this ancient vault of Venril Sathir’s. What secrets lie within? What terrible guardians? Venture in with a single group of adventurers to find out what awaits! Kunark Overland Quests A mysterious army has appeared upon the shores of Kunark and begun pillaging the land and slaughtering those that oppose them. Citizens of Dreg’s Landing in Kylong Plains, Riliss in Fens of Nathsar, the City of...
We’re hearing from EQ2’s new Senior Producer Brenlo that GU52 (Kurn’s Tower BTV, Kurn’s Tower x2, and CEA) will not hit Test and Test Copy until at least Tuesday, May 26th. It is unknown if this will push back the internal estimates of seeing GU52 on Live ‘several weeks’ before Fan Faire.
Check out this preview at EQ2Players which includes additional photos and gives more info on the difficulty of Kurn’s Tower: Breaching the Void (the group zone).
A bit of a bombshell for some of you. Bruce Ferguson has stepped down as Senior Producer of EQ2 (his announcement): Just like any evolving game, things change. Since release, we’ve had an ongoing and heavy interest in game balance. Much of the critical implementation work in the last several years for EverQuest II has been on the shoulders of Aeralik, but the discussion and decisions are shared across the entire team, as we review information that you provide us in various ways. Data comes from the many reports we run against our log files, from the posts you...
Posted by Kander: So there are two percentages that are set on master drops. There is the drop percentage, which means monster X has an X% chance to drop a master spell. Then there is the smartloot percentage, which means aside from the drop rate, if a master drops what percentage chance is it that someone will need it. So a boss mob that has a 10% chance to drop a master and it has 33% smartloot, means that when it drops, there is a 33% chance that its a spell someone in your group needs. If you think...
ITEMS Death Chimes will now work correctly. Ill Will now properly applies the heal to the owner of the item. PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE Pets should now be able to attack the Void Annihilator. QUESTS Boss mobs should now drop multiple keys for early progression in Veksar: The Invasion. Innate spells used by much of the population in Veksar: The Invasion can no longer be used towards other creatures within the zone. YKESHA’S INNER STRONGHOLD The Archmagus now banishes players less frequently than before. Field General Uktap’s Sappers now take longer to set explosive charges, and do not...
On May 14th, there was an EQ2 Dev Chat hosted by Zam. Bruce (Froech) – Producer Jennifer (Kirstie) – Mechanics Supervisor Ryan Favale (ImagoQuem) – Graphics Roger (patherpanchali) – Raid content Nick (GlipSOE) – Associate Producer Brett (timetravelling) – Associate Game Designer Greg (Rothgar) – Sr. Programmer Emily (Domino) – Tradeskills Chris (Aeralik) – Class Balance/Combat Jason (Fyreflyte) – Itemisation Nathan (Kaitheel) – Events and Quests Complete chat logs of that event can be found at EQ2.Zam.com, however some people might like to get the highlights that I think my readers might be most interested in… My question about...
Ok, actually it’s Game Update 52: Monument and Might. GAME FEATURES Player-written books Research Assistants Spell Naming Conventions — As spells upgrade through tiers rather than entirely new names, each subsequent spell will have a roman numeral increment afterwards. For instance Ice Comet and Ice Comet II. Rather than Apprentice I, II, IV, Adept I, Adept III, and Master I, Master II, spells will progress such as Apprentice, Journeyman, Adept, Master, Grandmaster, etc. The end result of this will be spell names such as Ice Comet II (Adept). Level 80 characters currently have their Combat XP converted into Achievement...
ITEMS The Bane Warding line can no longer be stacked by wearing three pieces of two different sets. All Bane Warding spells now deal less damage and cannot trigger more than once per second in PvP combat. The Combat Art damage displayed on the Assassin’s Thirst abilities now matches the bonuses they give. MUNZOK’S MATERIAL BASTION Yzlak Encounter – The clone adds of player priests now have reduced health. Yzlak Encounter – The clones themselves will remain longer before becoming a Yzlak Presence. Yzlak Encounter – Yzlak Presence adds can now be affected by all classes, not just the...
This will be good news for those of you with large guild halls and want to use more of the available guild hall amenities, but not without losing your Hall Guards. In GU52, Hall Guards will no longer take up Amenity slots. Already, mailboxes do not take up amenity slots. Also, as some guilds have used these Hall Guards for other purposes than guarding (indeed they don’t actually have any function and will not ‘defend’ the hall if invaders come in, nor are they agroable), in GU52, they will lose the “Hall Guard” flag under their name. More Info
On May 6th, we were all reassured that the “AA problem” is a figment of our imaginations: In EQII, we allow you to gain achievement experience at a fast rate by questing, discovering new locations, killing named creatures and even by getting certain items without this impacting your adventure leveling. We feel that this ends up being a good overall compromise so players level up in both systems together pretty quickly. So you can imagine my surprise when Aeralik popped into one of dozens of threads discussing the AA Grind with this less than clear comment: Or maybe someone...
A substantial (and undocumented) change which was made to all of the “key mobs” in TSO dungeons was clearly intended to prevent Monks, Bruisers, and Shadowknights from acquiring Void Shards (and Plat in some dungeons). But it now looks like this detrimental effect, called Mandate, may affect groups attempting to clear TSO dungeons. Here’s a thread discussing it. I’ve even got art… Thanks Merriestar: One can assume this is the first half of SoE closing the “Void Shard loopholes” first identified in TSO beta but which got no official attention until just a few weeks ago.
Posted by Kiara: GENERAL Overpaying shard chests in Guk Upper, Guk Lower, Guk Stronghold, Nu’Roga, Veksar and Korsha have had their platinum payouts decreased to be inline with the other zones. ATREBE’S LABORATORY Sannik the Unfinished in Atrebe’s Laboratory has had his damage significantly lowered. PALACE OF THE ANCIENT ONE Players in combat should now be able to harvest energized crystals within Anashti Sul’s room in Palace of the Ancient One. The Void Handlers associated with Pentaclypse and Ultaclypse in Palace of the Ancient One now do slightly less damage. YKESHA’S INNER STRONGHOLD The unstable minions that spawn in...
Lest ye think that the Ward of Elements zone is the only x2 raid zone we will be seeing for a while, Kander has given us an update. Timetraveling and I have no plans to make this zone any easier, we feel that the challenge vs reward is about right. If there is anything you feel that is a flat out bug and needs to be fixed, please feel free to PM either him or me and we’ll look into it ASAP. In other news, we have another x2 coming soon, that will be a tad more… challenging. The Ward of...
This is my 4th posting on Research Assistants. If you have not read all 64 pages of the marathon topic, you may have missed some info. SoE wants to add Research Assistants to EQ2. These will be NPCs which will take one of your existing spells and upgrade its tier after a specified amount of time. That time varies by the tier of the spell. If you have an Adept III version of a Tier 8 spell, then the Master version of that spell might take a month or more to research. What is known about these Research Assistants...
Bravo to those of you who have managed to keep up with the 39 page topic on Spell Naming. That’s almost as remarkable as those who have managed to read every single post in the 64 page Research Assistants thread! For the rest of you who just do not have that kind of time, I present some highlights, which offer some insight into just what direction the game is heading. In particular, Aeralik points out how there are some game mechanics which are complex or only really understood by folks who have an in-depth knowledge of how the game...