Feldon
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a message about losing 0 coin when looting a treasure chest in certain situations. QUESTS Channeler Prelude: Players will now find some help on the docks of the Danak Shipyards in Jarsath Wastes. It seems someone has placed an animal handler on retainer. Channeler Prelude: Instances are now more group-friendly. MERCENARIES Mindbender Talid should no longer apply “Peaceful Calm” on fighters in the group. BATTLEGROUNDS Fixed an issue with raids not forming correctly when entering a battleground.
EQ2
We’ve gotten a report of SOE Login servers experiencing an outage. More as we have it.. Forums and in-same eCommerce also seem to be affected…
Dethdlr
From the EQ2 Forums: Hello again, Norrathians! We are all getting ready to usher in our next expansion, EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan (ToV)…and not a moment too soon! Open Beta is being prepared now for Oct. 15 and launch is coming on Nov. 12! In ToV, our next epic chapter unfolds! Kerafyrm, the great, evil prismatic dragon, has stolen a powerful artifact known as the Tear of Veeshan and slain Yelinak – Norrath’s wisest and eldest dragon. The New Combine Army that united Norrath’s peoples is fractured and powerless and it is said that Kerafyrm’s plots now reach...
From Ry “Roshen” Schueller on the EQ2 Forums: How will you celebrate the scariest time of year in Norrath? A variety of Player Studio artists came together to create some supernatural additions to the Marketplace for this spooky holiday. Organ of Enchanting Darkness by NEKO ZERO This ancient organ was once used to create haunting tunes during secret ceremonies. What music would you want to hear played on its keys? This impressive piece was the winner of the Player Studio Dawn of the Dark Elf competition!
NOTE: No EQ2 News. A few weeks ago, Joshua “Autenil” Kriegshauser, tweeted that it was his last night at SOE. Josh worked on EverQuest II for many years, dabbling in different SOE games but always contributing to EQ2. He also helped launch Clone Wars Adventures. It’s the night before my last day at @SonyOnline. What am I doing? Working. — Joshua Kriegshauser (@autenil) September 20, 2013 Just 5 days later, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, lead (or one of the chief) programmer for EverQuest Next and EverQuest Next Landmark followed up on Facebook: Today is a special day because it’s my...
At last, the EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan pre-order items have been unveiled. With Beta starting sometime next week, and the expansion falling mid-November, it’s great to get to see these items. From Tony “RadarX“ on the EQ2 Forums and EverQuest2.com: The Tears of Veeshan Pre-Order is now available and for a limited time only. Take this opportunity to pick up the new expansion and its pre-order bonus, the Veeshan Loyalty Cloak! As you can see below, this cloak not only says you have great fashion sense, but tells Kerafyrm that you’d prefer he not destroy the world.
I’m a bit late on this as the bug has already been fixed, but I wanted to get this out there just the same. Shortly before the introduction of Heroic characters, a few players noticed that Experience gained from the contested zones of Skyshrine and Kael Drakkel had dropped by as much as 90%. Conspiracy theories abounded that the EQ2 team was secretly reducing XP rates for these zones to prevent discourage grinding of Heroic characters to 95. However I knew that this was not an intentional change. How? At past SOE Lives, I’ve informally asked for the EQ2...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL The Gold Member buff now gives 10% to flying mounts as well as ground mounts. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Siren’s Grotto: Dissension Psionic Aura no longer interrupts when it does damage.
Over the last year and a half that EQ2U has been in operation, we’ve always kept the functionality and usability of EQ2U at the forefront. However the look-and-feel of EQ2U has been gotten a bit long in the tooth. After seeing Google’s disastrous revamp of Gmail, and Apple’s controversial flattening of iOS7, we’ve thought “Let’s not go drastic, let’s not remove functionality, and let’s not change things for the sake of changing things!” With those thoughts in mind, I’m happy to unveil the new style for EQ2U. We are opening up the EQ2U Dev (beta) site to the public so...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Adjusted group experience gain.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Level range chat channels have been retired; in their place, General, LFG, and High Level chat channels have been added. The High Level channel is available starting at level 80. HEROIC CHARACTERS Heroic Characters that did not receive their heroic gear after logging in should receive it the next time they log in that character. Resolved an issue when trying to create a Heroic Character with a name that is invalid or already taken. ITEMS [eq2u]Superior Metallic Hoop of the Void[/eq2u] should now trigger properly. The [eq2u]Superior Djinn Bracelet of the Sky[/eq2u] now has...
Players have discovered an unexpected change in yesterday’s update which introduced Heroic Characters. From GrouchyMouse on Unrest on the EQ2 Forums: As I was in game tonight, there was chat about the NPC at Tenebrous Tangle who’d normally flag a epic’d toon for ER (talk to him and then go to Lavastorm to get the quest) was handing out a “Shattered Weapon“. The person who’d gotten the item hadn’t done the epic for their non-HC [Heroic Character] toon. I meandered up on my HC toon and also received the item. The dialog, however, was near exact for the dialog...
A number of players have reported that their Free Heroic Character token (granted for each existing SOE account) is being consumed even while login servers are down, or because a character name they chose was already in use. In addition, the button to upgrade a character seems to be hidden if you are running a UI mod like DrumsUI, ProfitUI, etc. These screenshots by Airos illustrate the issue:
Update from Windstalker on Twitter: Hamsters are slower than we hoped. We’ll give everyone 15-minute notice for the downtime. Should be soon ™. #eq2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) October 1, 2013 From RadarX on the EQ2 Forums: All servers will come down at 1:30 2:00 2:30 Soonish PM PT for a brief update to address an outstanding issue with Heroic Characters. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 30 minutes. In the interim players should avoid completing the Heroic Character quests until this maintenance is completed. Time Zone Conversions PDT: October 1, 2013 @ 2:00pm EDT: October 1, 2013 @ 5:00pm...
And… Tears of Veeshan is now available for Pre-order… $39.95 for the Standard Edition, $59.99 for the Collector’s Edition. 25% less if you are an All Access subscriber. UPDATE: To avoid any confusion, I have removed the screenshot which showed a $29.99 and $44.95 price for Tears of Veeshan expansion. Those prices are only applicable if you have an All Access account. SOE Live UPDATE: If you attended SOE Live, then you get the Standard edition free, and there will be an upgrade option to get the CE. UPDATE: This upgrade will be $20.
Our invite was once again misfiled, but if you are curious to catch all the info about Heroic Characters, including a few quotes from Holly “Windstalker” Longdale and Dave “SmokeJumper” Georegeson, you’ll want to check out the writeups by Cyliena (ZAM) and MJ (Massively) who endured SOE’s PR firm to bring you the scoop! Heroic Characters Come to EverQuest II @ ZAM Interview expounds on today’s Heroic Characters patch in EverQuest II @ Massively And is it just me, or are the 3 screenshots provided by PR kinda the opposite of what you’d expect to see in marketing Heroics?...
In response to a number of questions by players about Heroic Characters on the EQ2 Forums, Caith and RadarX had some answers… Q (by Errrorr): When will Channellers become available as heroic characters? We don’t have a date on when Channelers will become available as a Heroic option. Q (by Errrorr): Is it possible to have certain long and tedious questlines already completed (For example Speak as a dragon)? Heroic characters are not going to have any quests completed for them. If a quest is so tedious as to be off putting, and is also something that cannot be avoided, I would rather look...
UPDATE: The EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on Tuesday, October 1st at 7:00AM Pacific Time* for an update. The expected downtime is approximately 5 hours. From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Memberships have changed! We’ve removed Item restrictions from Free and Silver accounts. Permanent 10% Mount speed and 15% Coin Loot Bonus to Gold membership! Destiny of Velious expansion content is now free for everyone too! HEROIC CHARACTERS & 1 FREE HERO’S CALL OFFER Heroic characters can now be created! Answer the Hero’s Call! From now until Oct. 15, you can take part in our 1 FREE HEROIC CHARACTER...
From the EQ2 Forums: Greetings fellow adventurers! We’ve got more exciting news to talk about today with regard to Age of Discovery expansion as well as a few changes to our membership structure that will launch on Oct. 1. They are pretty simple, so I’ll get right to it!
So there’s been some confusion on the EQ2 forums about this section of Holly’s initial announcement: First, for a limited time, players can create a Heroic Character for free. Oct. 1 until Oct. 15 is our “Hero’s Call” event which invites new players to create one free new Heroic Character per household. Existing accounts can create or upgrade to a Heroic Character for free too! This breaks down into two distinct things: Existing accounts, which will each be entitled to create one Heroic character New accounts will be entitled to create one Heroic character per household Clearly, this only restricts...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Resolved a common issue that would cause Call of Veteran (and other travel methods) to think players were still in combat when they were not. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION The Dreadcutter: The Pirate Kings [Raid] The encounter should no longer occasionally reset when witchdoctors spawn. BATTLEGROUNDS Gears of Klak’Anon Damage from the relic will no longer be attributed to the player holding it.
In a perfect world, SOE would have the vast resources it would take to go back through EverQuest II’s 9 years of content and rework it so that it’s all fresh, challenging, and relevant again. But we live in the real world, and for many new and returning players who want to play with their friends, level 1-85 is now a relic, a reminder of days when heroic bands of gnolls traveled the Antonican countryside flattening all who stood in their way. The meaningful, perilous, and team-building adventure in that challenging content has faded with the passage of time...
It’s a slow EQ2 news week, and an interesting article came up about Diablo III, a game whose Auction house aligns with a desire expressed by a small but vocal group of EverQuest II players: Fully tradeable Fabled/Mythical raid drops, sellable on the broker. So what’s the verdict? Effective March 2014, Blizzard will be phasing out their Gold and Real Money Transaction Auction Houses. The video their lead designers have released (and which I have embedded below) leaves no doubt about how the Auction house was impacting Diablo III… From Ars Technica: The blog post and embedded video note that Diablo...
From the EQ2 Forums: ITEMS When examining a pre-adorned item, the classes that can equip the item should properly display. BATTLEGROUNDS Gears of Klakanon The damage received from holding the relic has been reduced. The relic now gives a toughness debuff that increases in effectiveness over time. The relic now gives a lethality buff that degenerates over time, eventually becoming negative. The amount of points required to win has been reduced to 650.