Feldon
There’s a great writeup at EQ2Players about the new level 45-55 solo content coming to Lavastorm and which is currently on the Test and Test Copy servers. Note that they are patching and fixing things all the time, so some of this content may not yet be doable. When I logged in, faction and rewards were not fully functional.
EQ2
You’ve probably heard a lot about the tanking changes which were put on hiatus. The cancelled Game Update #51 – Lucan’s Art of War was split into a couple of hotfixes and the fighter revamp got put on hold. Currently, fighters hold agro through a combination of taunts, hate transfers from Assassins, Coercers, etc., and by putting out superior DPS. In the current situation Shadowknights are putting out more DPS in multi-target fights than some “DPS” classes. The intention of this well-intentioned fighter revamp is for fighters to be able to hold agro in a fight entirely by taunting...
BROKERS Players should no longer get an erroneous message about vendor slots being full when first opening the broker after a fresh login. ORCISH WASTES The Avatar of War will now cast Furious Axe of War at the start of each combat, rather than waiting. QUESTS / MISSIONS An issue that could prevent some players from getting daily missions if they had completed the previous mission has been fixed.
ArsTechnica.com is reporting that 60 Terabytes of Raw Server Logs from the EverQuest II universe captured over the last 4 years have been provided to a collaborative group of academic researchers — including psychologists to epidemiologists — at a number of institutions. Dmitri Williams introduced the project and described how researchers have been approaching various game developers over the years. He paraphrased the conversation with Sony as: “What do you collect?” “Well, everything—what do you want?” “Can we have it all?” “Sure.” The end result is a log that includes four years of data for over 400,000 players that...
Some odd bugs have been introduced into the TSO Mission system and the Broker system as well. The solution to the TSO Missions is to bring up your Completed Quests and click on any existing missions. They will vanish from the list. The solution to the broker slots refusing to sell items is to send a mail or click Take Coin.
GENERAL The Legends of Norrath Museum is now open for visitors! Talk to Angie Patterson in South Qeynos or Angus McPhergin in West Freeport to gain entry. Once inside you can follow the guided tour given by Mott Muttle. Dispersion, Displacement, and Transposition no longer stack with each other. Additionally, their power increases have been lowered slightly. HALLS OF THE FORSAKEN Hapless prisoners were spawning much too frequently and gating a quest in this zone. They have been sacked. ITEMS The Eye Mounted Ring received an effect that was out of progression for the zone and intended for the...
Don’t you love unannounced tweaks? 🙂 There are some threads on the EQ2 Forums indicating that some graphics were revamped as part of the Feb 5th update. The ice in Everfrost is more translucent and looks really cool. However an inadvertent change was made to the grass in the Antonica Guild Hall. It looks rather black and spotty now. A hotfix is planned.
It is not easy to take a Game Update, remove a significant chunk of it, and release the rest. What was originally planned as Game Update 51 contained the much-maligned Fighter Revamp, as well as changes to Auto Follow, Spells, Items, the introduction of the HEIRLOOM tag, and some other items as well. Most of those improvements went live on February 5th. According to EQ2 Devs, for the remaining components of what was formerly known as GU51 (minus the Fighter Revamp) “We’re aiming for the week of February 16th as early as possible. “ There is no official list...
Looks like the new HEIRLOOM tag was not fully tested for The Proof in the Pudding tradeskill epic updates. The following characteristics have been discovered: Pulling the completed items out of the Shared Bank will not update the quest. You must delete and reacquire the quest “The Proof in the Pudding”. Turning in the quest “The Proof in the Pudding” will consume ANY update items from your personal bags AND the Shared Bank. So if you created more than 1 of each item in the hopes of updating the quest for multiple characters, they will be ALL used up...
Looks like loot, AA, and the enjoyment of doing an x2 raid won’t be the only reasons folks will be packing like sardines into the new x2 raid zone. Posted by fyreflyte here: (The 12 new armor appearances being introduced in GU51) will indeed require some additional void shards (though not a staggering amount), but they won’t be directly purchased off the merchants. You’ll have to complete some of the x2 content to be able to get your hands on them =) Thus far the appearances have only been used on loot that will require some running of the...
Looks like it has been brought to the attention of developers that on the Atrebe’s Lab fight, folks were making sure all their bags were filled so the 200,000 lb stone wouldn’t get deposited in their bags. Might want to comment in this thread if you feel any changes to it will break the fight: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=442572
This was planned to be Game Update #51, but with the Fighter Revamp changes postponed, this is now just a big hotfix. There’s still some great stuff in here: HIGHLIGHTS A new (item tag) has been added: HEIRLOOM. These items are the same as NO-TRADE except that they can be placed into your shared bank. Characters on the same account and server can then pick them up out of the shared bank. Normal shared bank rules apply on PVP servers. Void Shards Proof in the Pudding update items (Master Tradeskiller) Certain Tradeskill Faction Reward items Kunark Faction Tradeskill Recipes...
EQ2Players is now hosting a lore-filled, if vague preview of what is now being called Game Update #51 “Elements of Corruption”. This is the Lavastorm revamp, adding means of travel, teleporters, x2 raid zone, new 45-55 content, new 80 content, etc. The release date for this update is unknown, partly because of the separation of the Fighter Revamp from the old Game Update 51, which is now being released as part of Erollisi Day. Lavastorm Revamp Preview at EQ2Players
As I predicted, the Lavastorm revamp will take a page from the Everfrost revamp last fall. As posted by timetravelling here: Travel around lavastorm will be MUCH MUCH easier. We’ve added more teleporters as well as travel mount paths. None of the old content is slated to be removed, some of the mobs will see slight tweaks and might be moved around a bit, but we don’t plan to actually remove any quests or content. The level 80 content is actually in brand new areas we’re adding to the island, none of the old areas are being overwritten. Lots...
From timetravelling‘s post here: The x2 (new raid zone) is going to be balanced specifically for people who do Not have mythicals. Our aim is that once you get some good TSO gear, such as the tier2 legendary set, you’ll be able to clear–or at least begin clearing–this zone. Mythicals should not be required for any stage of the instance. In fact, I created a brand new buffbot for test-copy so that we can put intrepid testers into legendary-ish gear and test the zone that way, sans-mythical. And, when I said new armor appearances, I didn’t mean recolors. That’s...
Looks like whenever the servers come down to patch in Erollisi Day (which will be sometime between now and February 10th), we will see most of the various patches, fixes, and changes expected to come in Game Update 51, minus the Fighter Revamp. I know some f0lks have been anxiously awaiting the HEIRLOOM tag so they can move Void Shards from one character to another, do updates for Proof in the Pudding (Tradeskill Epic), etc. with alts, and buy faction recipes for alts as well. Erollisi Day will be activated February 10th, but the patch will happen before then....
Selected quotes from EQ2 Forums: Last summer, at Fan Faire, we discussed making some changes to the Fighter classes, in order to bring them back in line with our original vision, where all fighters manage their own aggro, instead of relying on other group members to channel them some hate. We released the first part of these changes last year, and placed the second group of them out on our Test Server several weeks ago. The response has been tremendous, on both sides of the coin. The whole team has been taking feedback from you, both from our in-game...
UPDATE: I have stricken out all parts of the strategy which are no longer applicable as of July 14th hotfix. Venril Sathir, leader of the Sathirians, will challenge us in ways we have not had to deal with before. Venril Sathir is not a DPS fight. Venril Sathir does not hit very hard or require a lot of healing. Venril is just a totally different kind of fight than most of us have ever had to deal with before. What Venril Sathir does is require intense concentration by each and every player on what is going on with your...
This comes to us from EQ2Traders. As we mentioned last week, GU51 is getting a new HEIRLOOM tag. There were theories that this might be applied to The Proof in the Pudding quest combines (Master Sage/Jeweler/Woodworker/Carpenter/Armorer/etc.). We now have confirmation that this will in fact be the case. If you have a level 80 sage and level 80 carpenter and both are on (or have completed) the quest, you’ll be able to make the combine for your alt, put it in the shared bank, log out, log in, claim it, and update your quest. What we did not know...
Today (Jan 27th) at 3pm PST is Aeralik’s GU51 playtest over on the Test Server. This is the second one of these hate/agro playtests with developer involvement. These changes are espected to go live February 3rd according to this missive by Kiara: The estimated date for GU #51, Lucan’s Art of War, to go to the live servers is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009.
Kander slipped an interesting comment into the raging TSO Stinks topic: FYI: Stay tuned for the Shard of the Day solo quest, with some additional solo content. Cannot say more, but keep your eyes peeled for GU52. The current plan is that it will take a time investment similar to that of running an entire instance. So there you have it folks, while people have found a variety of more or less legitimate ways (which not everyone else approved of) to load up on Void Shards, now there is going to be an official way to get 1 shard...
Looks like substantial changes are being made to agro control and hate generation on the Test server in response to the Topic I linked here. Aeralik has hosted one play test and is expected to host a second one tomorrow. Time will tell which classes benefit the most, which ones are the losers in all these changes, and whether this will really rewrite the book on tanking in EQ2.
The complaints about GU51 are rolling in. Even the biggest fanboys who usually cannot find fault with any of the EQ2 team’s well-intentioned changes are not happy with what seems to most to be a rushed, massive change to something that has taken 4 years to develop in its current form. The issue that many are bringing up is not only have fighter stances and taunts been changed dramatically, but most Hate transfer from Swashies, Assassin, Coercers, Rangers, and most other classes have been reduced dramatically or eliminated. It would probably have been wiser to make all the taunt...
Originally posted on EQ2 Forums (Heirloom Flagging) Looks like SoE have been listening to the overwhelming feedback from many gamers feel that the NO TRADE flag has been overused in The Shadow Odyssey. You’ll recall that TSO offers 20 closed (instance) dungeons and no open (contested) dungeons. As a result, all of the LEGENDARY and FABLED items that drop in these popular zones cannot be traded, even amongst character alts of the same account. This also includes the much vaunted Void Shards used to buy special Legendary armor. In a future update, some items will be changing tags from...
I was really surprised to see this item linked in open chat. Bjorn’s Whistle Summons Bjorn, Elder of the Western Wastes FABLED LORE NO TRADE Applies Summon Bjorn when Activated. Summons a mount to ride that increases your speed by 70% If level 80 or higher Increases Heal Crit Bonus of caster by 1.0% Increases Heal Crit Chance of caster by 3.0% Increases Max Power of caster by 350. \aITEM -329826907 573012519:Bjorn’s Whistle\/a DROPPED BY Gynok in Tomb of the Mad Crusader. There is also a Fighter bear whistle that drops from Anasthi Sul in Palace of the Ancient...