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, but the EQ2 team have expressed trepidation about balance.

Rothgar went into further detail on Friday with the team’s thinking on why Adventurers, which you will pick up and ‘collect’ via quests, rather than player’s own characters will be used in DYOD:

There are several reasons why we chose to use avatars rather than your actual character. And of course, everyone won’t agree with these ideas.

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 handful of ground spawn harvests.

Those guilds which had participated in epic encounters near the end of this event but couldn’t complete it due to a bug in the encounter got this news from Gninja:

Unfortunately we won’t be able to give retroactive updates. Since the encounter never actually completed we can’t give credit for the kill. We did however roll back the progress on most servers to give ample time for players to take part in the event. The event will not go by as fast as it did before so players should get a chance to participate.

If you happen to not be able to, the event merchants will stick around until GU61 and they will have the teleportation bauble as well as the title on them as purchasable. The only thing you will miss out on is the extra tokens when you completed the last quest.

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 a few crafted Drunder weapons.

• The Incandescent Swiftwing is now flagged as heirloom.

QUESTS
Tower of Tactics

• The Art of War: It should no longer be possible for one of Vallon’s maps to spawn in a ledge in Lady V’uul’s room that is inaccessible.

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 put their heads together on the best way to bring the event back. Domino, new Associate Producer of EQ2, provided this update on Friday:

he current plan is that when the event is resumed, any servers below 50% progress when the event was suspended will resume progress where they left off. However, due to some of the issues that are being addressed currently, some servers had progressed further than intended in the time the event was active. Servers that had over 50% progress will be reset to 50%. This should extend the life of the event and allow more people to participate. This looks to be the following servers: Antonia Bayle, Butcherblock, Crushbone, Everfrost, Freeport, Guk, Permafrost, and Splitpaw.

As mentioned, the event will NOT reactivate this [July 16-17] weekend, so relax and enjoy your weekend doing other things. We’ll announce next week when it will be reactivated, and provide more details at that time. We will be sure to give at least a day’s notice in advance so you can plan appropriately.

Thanks for your patience, watch for more details next week, and we look forward to seeing you at the rebuilding sites!

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, with a reduced cost when crafted. The new prices on Test are a flat 33 shards per piece, and we can assume that the crafted armor will require 25 shards per piece. With the ease of acquiring gems to make Ry’Gorr armor in the Kael Drakkel zones (especially Iceshard Keep) we still consider Thurgadin armor a poor investment, but the pricing is at least a bit more in line with the quality.

Ry’Gorr armor has also gone under the knife, with its vendor cost of 52 shards per piece slashed to just 25 shards per piece plus the required gem. Crafters will be able to make Ry’Gorr armor for just 18 20 shards per piece once this change reaches live. Yellow adornments remain 5 Velium Shards each.

As we documented in our Heroic Velious Armor guide, Drunder armor requires not only 25-45 Velium Shards per piece, but also a handful of Rage-Filled Ore, Warborne Ore, or several Brick of Bloodmetal which can only be acquired by breaking down Legendary or Fabled loot drops from Drunder heroic zones. Currently, Fabled items broken down by a skilled crafter result in 6 ores/bricks while Legendary items produce 3. According to the Test notes, these amounts would double to 12 ores/bricks from Fabled items and 6 ores/bricks from Legendary.

Once these changes make it to Live, I’ll update our EQ2Wire Guide to Heroic Velious Armor & Jewelry.

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 hours to complete it on all of their characters.

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, you get a crate with a whole outfit, although some players will likely choose to just use the kilt and matching cap and further customize with other items.

EverQuest2.com Announcement (once the site is back up)

So which character are you going to put your Kilt on?

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. It’s both a particle system and animated textures.

We also saw the infamous Ratonga riding a T-Rex mount, and finally, a mount which may or may not be headed for the game, a mount that looks to my eyes like Zarrakon, a boss of The Shadow Odyssey.

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 in August, November, and well into 2012 2013. This is a new approach to expansions as usually, once a new expansion has been released, previous expansions have rarely gotten new dungeons or content besides quest revamps, etc.