Feldon
One of the more interesting features teased at the Altar of Malice systems panel at SOE Live 2014 last summer was the concept of Adornment Set Bonuses. As described, players who applied adornments from the same set would receive a lucrative bonus effect or set of stats. However when the Altar of Malice expansion arrived, the set bonuses were found to be relatively limited and even nonsensical, leading most players to ignore them and freely mix-and-match adornments to min/max their characters. Players guessed that an interesting idea on paper hadn’t turned out to be compelling enough to require another...
EQ2
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Phantom Sea Werner Thunderleg can now be found hanging out in Kithicor Forrest in the Phantom Sea. F.S. Distillery: The Rum Cellar [Solo] Fixed a crash in the Rum Cellar solo instance. ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT Scouts Scout Offensive stances will no longer spam requires level 96 when zoning. Warden Dawnstrike Strike, Icefall Strike and Whirl of Permafrost now do more damage. Inquisitor Strike of Flames, Invocation Strike, Strike of Corruption now do more damage. Druid Howling with the Pack will now heal mercs.
Last summer, EQ2 player Errrorr created a thread championing a new type of player mount — ducks. For forty-three pages, hilarity ensued. However the thread was put to bed by lead animator Tom “ttobey” Tobey in January of this year when it became clear from higher ups that we’d likely never get such a mount. Theories were bandied about that sales of the bunny mounts had not been sufficient to justify their development effort. It may have been felt that these more frivolous and genre-bending mounts just didn’t resonate with players. Personally I stick with flying appearance mounts so...
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Phantom Sea T’Kaela should no longer have an incorrect Rum Cellar requirement. F.S. Distillery: The Rum Cellar [Solo] At no time will death result in being stuck in the storeroom. The damage inflicted by Aerial Attack has been slightly increased. F.S. Distillery: Distill or Be Killed [Heroic] The cannon used against The Red Corsair will no longer be stuck in operation by another member of your party when it shouldn’t be. Charanda will no longer be stuck immune in either the normal or challenge mode encounters. Brokenskull Rum Party – No...
Dethdlr
As we reported earlier this week, Daybreak Games President John Smedley recently gave an interview to GamesIndustry.biz which included the following comments: “I firmly believe the days of the WoW-style MMO are over,” Smedley said. “And that means we have to change with the times. Luckily, we were kind of early on that bus as opposed to late. But we’re changing what we’re making. Look at H1Z1. Is it an MMO? Sure, by definition, but I would consider it a session-based online game with a lot of people. And I say that because the average life expectancy in H1Z1...
Here are your update notes for Thursday, 30 April 2015: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION F.S. Distillery: The Rum Cellar [solo] Fixed a crash that would occasionally happen in the rum cellar solo zone. The radius in which some of the guards will see you along the Rum Run and near Kildiun before sending you to jail has been slightly reduced. Portia Rumuffin should no longer be stuck with her secret recipe buff. F.S. Distillery: Distill or Be Killed [Heroic] Any party members still within the sugarcane press will be freed upon defeating Yipnik. ITEMS The Fishbone Earring’s water breathing...
NOTE: No EverQuest II content I’ve been a huge fan and supporter of emulators for years, despite the totally unwarranted slight against them that they somehow constitute “theft”. Developers and players of emulators are typically the most passionate of played who have purchased these games many times and want to play them on a different platform. Some games are long forgotten and hard to acquire, so emulation is the best solution. Recently, MassivelyOP has been extensively covering the popular SWGEmu with several live casts and interviews. Players who miss EverQuest as it existed shortly after launch had no option...
My apologies for this one being a bit late. Here’s the note about today’s downtime: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 30, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour. *Time Zone Converter Along with today’s update notes: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION F.S. Distillery: The Rum Cellar [solo] The zone entry warning message will now...
As of noon Pacific, the Rum Cellar update has launched on US EQ2 servers. Information on the new Downloadable Content (DLC) know as the Rum Cellar can be found on EQ2 Zam and EQ2Traders. Class balance tweaks for Summoners, Scouts, Fighters, and other quality of life features such as spending and un spending AA points are included in Game Update 70 and do not require the purchase of the Rum Cellar. Europe? EU servers unlocked at around 2:45 pm PDT (21:45 GMT). RU servers are apparently up now as well. Rum all around!
Here are the patch notes for 28 April 2015 which include the notes for the new downloadable content (DLC), the Rum Cellar Campaign: RUM CELLAR CAMPAIGN NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE 2 Solo Zones (1 Solo and 1 Advanced Solo) 3 Heroic Zones (1 Heroic, 1 Event Heroic, 1 Event Heroic-Challenge) Raid Zone with 10 Bosses Lots of Loot, including drops of a Rare Elite Mercenary and a Zeppelin Mount New Achievements and Titles New Adornments and a new adornment set bonus tier 30 New Collections Merchant who accepts Far Sea Ferrin (who also sells a Zeppelin Mount!)
Update: “Unlocking US live servers now.” – Bunji Update: Downtime is now expected to extend until Noon Pacific time. However, the link to purchase the Rum Cellar Campaign is now active, so we can pretend that’s the pre-order time window. 🙂 Today marks the launch of the Rum Cellar Campaign which can be purchased here. For those that haven’t been following along, the Rum Cellar Campaign is the first attempt at delivering Downloadable Content (DLC) for a price, rather than through traditional expansions (not counting the old Adventure Packs that were meant to be in addition to expansions, not...
MJ Guthrie over at Massively Overpowered has put together a pretty impressive guide to the dungeons available in Everquest II. It shows the different original story lines as well as the “golden path” and includes level ranges and type of dungeon. Certainly worth checking out.
From the EQ2 Forums: Attention players: we will perform a general maintenance beginning at 7:00AM PDT* on Monday, April 27th. The current estimated downtime for this maintenance is three to five hours, depending on the service. This maintenance may impact the following Daybreak services across all games: Commerce functions, including purchases, for all games Game logins Web logins for all Daybreak sites, including account creation Forum access (login, posting, and viewing abilities) for all Daybreak games. Thank you for your patience as we complete this maintenance. ~The Team at Daybreak Maybe we’ll finally see Daybreak Games new logo? The company has existed without an...
From Windstalker on the EQ2 Forums: Dear Norrathians, We have launched a poll for players on the Antonia Bayle server asking if they would be interested in a free move to a lower population server. We didn’t add more details than that because we won’t go into planning until we get the community’s vote on the subject overall. This is in part to gauge the interest in a move option for one of our highest population servers and to assess this alternative as a tool to move the populations around to different servers when we see an opportunity. We’ll...
From Roshen on the EQ2 Forums: Earlier this month, the EverQuest II team unveiled plans for campaigns! The first new campaign, Rum Cellar, will be available on Tuesday, April 28, 2015. Rum Cellar comes with six new instances (solo, heroic, and raid content) with lots of loot, collections, and achievements. Here’s a list of the features that are included in the Rum Cellar campaign: 2 Solo Zones (1 Solo and 1 Advanced Solo) 3 Heroic Zones (1 Heroic, 1 Event Heroic, 1 Event Heroic-Challenge) Raid Zone with 10 Bosses Lots of Loot, including drops of a Rare Elite Mercenary and a Zeppelin...
UPDATE: What was supposed to be a one hour downtime this morning has turned into an all day event of stumbling servers, uppity login servers, and unexpected downtime: Server Downtime April 21st Unable to Connect to Login Servers (created by Caith to let players know there’s a problem) General Discussion forum (numerous EQ2 servers have come down and back up) From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Brokenskull Bay: Fury of the Cursed [Raid] Corrected an issue in the Captain Krasnok encounter that allowed the Spirit of Gluttony to be killed when it shouldn’t be. Ssraeshza Temple: Echoes...
Fulfilling a promise to not let 6 months go by between episodes, Dellmon and Osgz have once again taken to the airwaves to record another thrilling episode of the EQ2 Talk podcast! EQ2 Talk in conjunction with Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum – To Life, Love, and Loot – – – is pleased to announce that Episode #79 was recently released and is available for download. “Pack to the Future” is available via iTunes and other RSS download services. Get yours TODAY! Daybreak has announced that its next content release will be a purchaseable campaign called the Rum Cellar. Dellmon...
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 15, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour. Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 15.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen. Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 15-04-2015 pour une mise à jour...
The Permafrost server is next up to migrate from Oracle to EnterpriseDB. From the EQ2 Forums: The Permafrost server will be brought offline on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 3:30AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. This server is estimated to be unavailable until approximately 2PM Pacific. Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.
EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee has posted more details on the upcoming Rum Cellar DLC, as well as a peek at the large fall update which the EQ2 team has been careful not to describe as an expansion, yet will have an overland zone, quest lines, and numerous dungeons. I’m relieved to read some of the details and this paints a better picture overall of what we can expect this year. If I had to ask for “one thing more” in the statement, I’d have liked to see the Echoes of Faydwer Fabled dungeons mentioned by name. They’re...
As visitors to the #EQ2Wire chatroom or the EQ2 Subreddit know — which I have to admit is growing on me — I was “permanently suspended” from the EQ2 Forums two nights ago. To date, the exact reason why I was banned has not been forthcoming. After two days of mayhem, a “Free Feldon” campaign (thanks guys!), and additional suspensions, SOE Community Manager Tony “RadarX” Jones has posted a thread today encouraging players to sidestep the “thou shalt not discuss moderation” rule and confess their sins. Besides a brief statement, at this point I’m choosing to opt out of the discussion...
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale’s twitter, we’ve been told to expect further details about the Rum Cellary update as well as a peek into the content we can expect for the rest of the year: We've got a forum post coming for Rum Cellar tomorrow with more deets! Kander will talk shop. We are focused on fixing lag too. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@TheWindstalker) April 9, 2015
This week’s Rum Cellar preview livecast on Twitch with EQ/EQ2 Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EQ2 designer Chris “Chrol” Garlick, and EQ2 Community Manager Roshen has now been posted on YouTube. Note that it cuts off at the 59 minute mark as they ran up against the 1 hour scheduled timeslot and never came back from it. We are hoping to get a brief summary of the key points from the webcast here on EQ2Wire sometime today.
From the EQ2 Forums: The Butcherblock and Crushbone servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 3:30AM Pacific* for server migration and maintenance. These servers are estimated to be unavailable until approximately 2PM Pacific. Keep an eye on the EverQuest II forums and social media for status updates and for news if additional downtime is needed.
From the EQ2 Forums: US EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 7:00AM PDT* for an update. Estimated downtime is approximately one hour. EU EverQuest II Live Servers will be brought offline on Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 9:00PM PDT* for an update. (Approx. 5:00AM London Time on April 10, 2015). Estimated downtime is one hour. Alle deutschsprachigen Server werden um 6:00 CET am 10.04.2015 zwecks einer Serveraktualisierung heruntergefahren. Die vorgesehene Stillstandszeit wird etwa 1 Stunde(n) betragen. Le serveur de langue française sera arrêté à 6:00 CET le 10-04-2015 pour une mise à jour...