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.

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…

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 far beyond Norrath. In fact, his plans are rumored to reach beyond time and space to all existence! You and your allies will be all that stands in his way.

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 7-year anniversary of being employed at SOE. This job has been a life-changer. The people I’ve met, both co-workers and players from the community have affected me in more ways than I could describe. I’ve learned so much from a professional standpoint and grown to love the community behind our games like family. I’ve made friendships that will last forever and I’ll never be able to give back as much as I’ve taken from these experiences.

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 team’s viewpoint on the different ways that players level in EQ2. This answer has changed over the years and, in my opinion, for the better. With our current lead designer (Kander) we just haven’t seen the type of sweeping XP changes like we did in the past. If players wish to group, raid, or solo their way through 320 AAs and 95 levels, that’s their prerogative. It’s a refreshing viewpoint after all the XP reductions that happened to the once-popular The Hole.

RadarX stepped in to indicate that this was not an intentional change:

As a policy we generally don’t comment on rumors but this one has been going for about a week now. There have been no changes made to Kael or Skyshrine experience. There is no way we could “sneak” such a change by you guys, because you’d notice, so there would be no benefit to not announcing it.

From the EQ2 Forums:

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 that you can check out the new look-and-feel. I hope you will find it instantly familiar, but improved across-the-board.

IMPORTANT! Please report any bugs or issues you find, as well as any feedback you have about the new site at our Contact Form!

NOTE: If you have an EQ2U account, just login again on the Dev site and you’ll see all your characters.

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 an additional 275 Ability Modifier, 26 Focus, Disruption and Subjugation and 2% Doublecast.

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 when you speak to him after getting your epic. On a hunch I went to Lavastorm and sure enough, Epic Repercussions was started with Fiery Jewel of the Underfoot quest.

So…the epic for a class doesn’t need to be done at all now, or so it seems.

This change isn’t completely out of the blue. If you read yesterday’s Heroic Characters article posted by Cyliena on EQ2 ZAM, you may have noticed this passage which hinted at a change:

Digging deeper into some of the quirks of Heroic Characters we found out that, in the time consuming process of backtracking into years-old content to obtain epic weapons, the team has “made a few adjustments, but we don’t want to trivialize those items.”

Apparently, if you are level 90+ (or maybe 85+) you will also receive an in-game mail when logging in which points you to this NPC. Thanks to Serana Masiop for the screenshot…

Summary

With yesterday’s update the Epic Weapon quest has now become optional.

ANY character (level 85+ ?) may speak to Kinloch Skry’mir in Tenebrous Tangle and get “a shattered weapon“, take it to Researcher Sel’Quar in Lavastorm, and then continue on to Sa’ib Waseem in Paineel in The Sundered Frontier, to do the quests A Fiery Jewel of the Underfoot, and later Epic Repercussions.

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
• BST: October 1, 2013 @ 21:00
• CET: October 1, 2013 @ 22:00

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? The exclusive armor set and free flying mount, especially on characters ALL BY THEMSELVES are probably the sorest subject for existing players. I guess I can see that players want to know what their $35 (3,500SC at full price) gets them, but I certainly wouldn’t have featured a Solo character in all 3 screenshots.

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 at the quest itself. I’m not sure To Speak as a Dragon would qualify in my estimation, but it’s something that we can look at.

Q: Does the Heroic Character purchase apply to the character slot, or to the character?

If you unlock a heroic character, and then delete it, it goes away. Whether that character is purchased, or unlocked as your one free, the result is the same. To unlock another heroic character to replace the one you just deleted would require you to purchase it at that point.

The reason we have a try before you buy option is to give people a chance to experiment with classes before unlocking them. Please use some care with which character you want to unlock as your free choice.

and later…

If you delete the free unlock, then no, you do not get another one to replace it.

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 ‘Hero’s Call’ Offer. All existing accounts created prior to Sept. 22, 2013 will have access to 1 free Level 85 Heroic Character! All accounts created after Sept. 22, 2013 will get access to 1 free account per household. These free Heroic Characters will be unlocked permanently!

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 new accounts, to prevent players from signing up dozens of accounts to create dozens of freebie characters.

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 and increase in stats. Today, levels 1-85 still have a great story to tell for those who wish to take things slowly, but for many new and returning players, they stand as a contextless roadblock between them and playing with their friends.

3 years ago, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson publicly floated the idea of Insta-85 characters. He was shouted down, and clearly the EQ2 community wasn’t ready. But in the intervening years, it seems players have come around and recognized that level 1-85 has become a solo tutorial at best which ill-prepares players for playing their characters in any kind of challenging setting, whether that’s advanced solo, grouping OR raiding.

So fast foward to today, and the exact details of Heroic Characters — aka Insta-85 Characters — have been posted on EverQuest2.com for all to read. My impression of the program is positive and, at first blush, SOE has clearly learned from past “Winback” programs.

Heroic Characters are open to all players!

whether you’re…

• an established player who wants to try out your 10th alt
• considering returning to the game after a year or two off and don’t want to spend hours solo questing to catch up with your friends
• a newish player wanting to really try out the game without having to first grind thousands of mobs or solo quests.

That this is open to all players should go a long way towards eliminating the past ill feelings as some players were showered with rewards, while veterans were left out. This isn’t the first such turn, as we’ve seen an increasing appreciation of Subscribers with programs such as “Gold Rush“. Those players who pay $15 month-in and month-out may not splurge for big ticket Marketplace items, but they’re here year-after-year, supporting SOE.

After the jump, Holly’s producer’s letter and the Heroic Characters FAQ…

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 3‘s Auction House was originally designed to provide a place for players to simply trade items. However, the system quickly took on a life of its own, becoming the preferred way to acquire epic and legendary items with the class-specific stats that each of the games’ classes needed to slay more demons. Diablo 3 Game Director Josh Mosqueira noted that the Auction House “short-circuited [the] core reward loop” of Diablo 3, replacing monster drops as the primary way the vast majority of players acquired new gear.

After the jump, Josh’s further thoughts, and I address why SLR is not an all-or-nothing affair…

From the EQ2 Forums: