Feldon
When SmokeJumper unveiled Build Your Own Dungeon at Fan Faire, it took the audience about 0.3 seconds to notice that a key item on the announcement Slide: Players would drive Adventurers or avatars through these Player-built Dungeons, rather than playing their own characters. From the look on SmokeJumper‘s face when he read this line, the collective unrest from the audience was not unexpected. Since the announcement, there has been plenty of discussion on the EQ2 Forums foretelling the feature’s doom, using the abandoned Arena system as an example. Players want to play their own characters in DYOD designed dungeons,...
EQ2
From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums: The event will be turned back on Friday at 5pm PDT. That’s 8pm EDT, 01:00 BST, 02:00 CET. As previously stated, the events will be reset back to 50% complete per server if they’d reached that point. We’re hoping that the event will run for a few days at least so that players get a chance to participate. While the event is running, there are different quests and events to acquire tokens. Once the event concludes, I believe the only way to get tokens between then and Game Update 61 will be a...
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: Hmmm…Valor didn’t go off as planned and we got a hitch in our plans for the other US servers. But the upgrades are still coming! Valor should be upgraded next week (in other words, before the end of July). We’re still getting info back from the hardware folks for the remaining US server upgrades, but it shouldn’t be too long after that. More info soon.
Today’s update changs the flag on the new Incandescent Swiftwing (Phoenix Gryphon) to HEIRLOOM, restores the ability to switch accounts without completely closing the EQ2 client (previously ProfitUI users had been using /camp) with a new command /camp login, as well as a couple of other fixes in Zek and Drunder. From the EQ2 Update Notes: GENERAL You can now use “/camp login” to get back to the client login screen. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Temple of Rallos Zek [Challenge] The Idol of Rallos Zek’s falling debris should work normally now. ITEMS The Heirloom tag has been removed from...
Today’s Update includes numerous tweaks to the harder Velious dungeons, further reducing the difficulty of many zones, as well as the aforementioned reduction in the cost of Velium Shard armor (Ry’Gorr armor is now 25 shards per piece, 20 if crafted). A glitch with Leaper or Glider mounts and pets (especially Coercer pets) has also been resolved.
While we don’t have a definite date when the Dragon Ring and Wizard Spire Rebuilding events will be coming back, there have been a series of updates and questions about them which is worth consolidating into one place. Due to the Spires event running every 30 minutes instead of the planned hourly interval, and some underestimation of players’ desire to participate, the event had been nearly completed on several servers less than 18 hours after it began. Perhaps the availability of Velium Shards on the vendor was a stimulating factor. Either way, the event was suspended and the devs...
If you’ve been thinking of plunking down your hard-earned Velium Shards on Ry’Gorr armor, or burning up stacks of Legendary and Fabled gear from Drunder zones to get enough ore to craft Drunder armor, you may want to wait. Wednesday July 13th’s Test Update Notes included an item we initially overlooked: ITEMS The first two tiers of Velium Shard Armor should now require less Velium Shards. The amount of ore obtained from smelting down a piece of Drunder loot has been doubled. Thurgadin shard armor currently costs anywhere from 33 to 90 shards per-piece when purchased from the vendor,...
Here’s our second video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Art and Animation”. New this year are Kilts, Animation Retargeting, a New Outfit, and new flying mounts including a Flying Squirrel. If you’d like to view the Slides from this panel in higher quality, check out the updated EQ2 Panel #2 – Art and Animation writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.
Less than 18 hours after launching a new World Event to help Rebuild the Wizard Spires and Dragon Ring in Velious, the events have been suspended due to a series of issues including exceptionally fast completion rates. On Antonia Bayle, the event had already reached 99% when the event was shut down. Completion rates have been a chronic problem with Live Events in EverQuest 2 in the past 2 years. The lengthy, story-rich prelude quest for The Shadow Odyssey was unavailable to most players due to the time it took to be unlocked. Many players had less than 48...
I’ve posted our first video from SOE Fan Faire 2011 “EverQuest II: Freeport and Beyond” which is an overview of everything we can expect from the EQ2 team until November 2011. If you’d like to view the Slides from this panel in higher quality, check out the updated EQ2 Panel #1 – Freeport and Beyond writeup. We’ll upload an HD version of this video soon.
Today’s update notes for EQ2 are on the brief side: GENERAL Fixed a bug where clients could crash when viewing a flythrough.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a bug where you could relinquish your home and cause your guild hall to be relinquished too! MOUNTS Gliding mounts will no longer port up into the air after using certain teleports. Players using leapers and gliders should appear to move smoother when viewed on other player’s clients. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION The normal mode x4 raid zones (Temple, Throne, Kraytoc’s and Drunder zones) require less critical mitigation than before. Players with less critical mitigation should have a better chance for survival.
(left is just the Kilt, right is the entire outfit) If you followed our live blog of the EQ2 Art & Animation panel from Fan Faire 2011, you know that Kilts is something the team has been working on and off for the last 18 months. It’s been a long road to get them done! So it is not a surprise that, at least the first kilts will be on the StationCash Marketplace. The first Kilt choice is the Clan Icereaver set and costs 950SC ($9.50 or $3.17 if you still have Triple SC leftover). When you buy it,...
EQ2 and EQ2X servers are back up after an SOE-wide maintenance window. The window was planned for 7 hours, so 9 hours isn’t too bad. 😉 As for whether there were any changes/patches specific to EQ2, unfortunately EverQuest2.com remains down, so we’re unable to view the EQ2 Patch Notes. we noticed a ~25MB patch before we were were able to login, with most of the patched files being character files, so maybe SmokeJumper‘s suggestion that we’d see Kilts on Tuesday (today) will come to pass. We’re keeping an eye on the Marketplace. More as we have it…
SOE President John Smedley opened the SOE Fan Faire 2011 Welcome Reception with a personal apology. He apologized for the downtime, the hassle of changing passwords, and the service outage that affected all of Sony Online Entertainment this May. He wasted no time in announcing that all Fan Faire attendees would receive a Vasco Security Authenticator key fob. I personally was provided with an EverQuest II-branded security key fob.
This announcement was posted last week, but we knew it would get drowned out by Fan Faire coverage, so here we go… from EverQuest2.com: Beginning July 12, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. US Pacific Time, we’ll be performing maintenance on all games and services. During this maintenance, our forums, websites and games will also be unavailable. The estimated downtime for the maintenance is 7 hours. We apologize for this interruption and will resume the affected services as soon as the maintenance is completed.
Starting Saturday’s EverQuest II Q&A Panel… Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #7 “Q&A #2” added on July 24, 2011.
Starting the EverQuest II: Content and Zone Design panel… Jonathan “Prathun“, Paul “Cronyn” Molina, Nathan “Kaitheel” McCall, Carlos “Gninja” Mora
Starting the EverQuest II: Itemization, Class Balance, Mechanics panel… Salim “Silius“, Carlos “Gninja” Mora, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz
Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Nandy “Zoltaroth” Szots, Alex “GermInUSA“, Josh “Autenil” Kriegshauser
Flying Squirrels (Glider), Fire Gryphons, and… is that Zarrakon? Tom Tobey (and Chris Meyers) are always working on new and more complex mounts. The Flying Squirrel glider was particularly impressive due to how the character is mounted to it, yet the range of motion the squirrel can do. It crawls on all fours, leaps, glides, and all 26 races stick to it like glue. 🙂 UPDATE: Tom corrected us about Chris Meyers animating the Flying Squirrel glider. The Fire Gryphon was no less impressive, with wisps of flames trailing behind it as the entire mount is engulfed in flames....
Starting the EverQuest II: Tradeskills and Housing panel… Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Nandy “Zoltaroth” Szots, Emily “Domino” Taylor, Salim “Silius” Grant Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #3 “Tradeskills and Housing” added on July 24, 2011.
Starting the EverQuest II: Art and Animation panel. Dave Georgeson and David Brown are wearing KILTS!!! Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #2 “Art and Animation” added on July 16, 2011.
Starting the EverQuest II: Freeport and Beyond panel… Pre-panel Buzz: EQ2Players is being replaced with a new site. Sometime this year, it’s a priority, which it hasn’t been before. Dave Georgeson starting the panel. There’s so much info, they’ll be giving that first and then Q&A at the end. Update: This is a video of EverQuest II Panel #1 “Freeport and Beyond” added on July 14, 2011.
Last night we got our first glimpse at the next EQ2 expansion, EverQuest II: Age of Discovery. And believe it or not, it’s coming this fall — November 2011. So much for my predictions that the next EQ2 expansion would be summer or fall 2012. Now you may be saying to yourself, wait a minute didn’t we have an expansion this February? EverQuest II: Age of Discovery, while it will undoubtedly have new content, will be largely a Features expansion. Destiny of Velious content, including overland zones, group dungeons, and raids will continue to be released in content updates...