Feldon
While SOE and by extension EQ2 were offline during the 12 day downtime, what were the devs doing? Scrapbooking? Needlepoint? Actually, they continued work on Game Update 60 (now slated for a May 31st debut according to SmokeJumper) as well as looking ahead to Game Update 61 and beyond. While players were not able to test Game Update 60, the developers have continued to polish it up and add new things while the servers were down, as well as addressing the feedback from players during the short testing period.
EQ2
We’ve been hearing about a new Adornments System in Game Update 60. System is perhaps too strong a word for what we’ve seen on Test. But the changes indeed help to visually distinguish adornments from other items which makes finding them in bags a lot easier. Item Examine windows have seen a change, as adornment text has been replaced by subtle Adornment “badges” for each color the item supports. Adornments themselves have been given bold new icons which are unique, color-coded, and stand out from other items in both recipe books and inventory bags. Your Feedback Does this go...
So it turns out that some Research Assistants took a little vacation while the servers were inaccessible and did not continue dutifully researching upgrades for all players. After thoroughly investigating the issue, SmokeJumper has posted the planned solution: Hi, folks, When we came back online, we intended that Research would have continued to tick along while the outage occurred, so that you all would come back with a fully researched spell. However, that didn’t happen. And there’s no real way to make it automatically happen. So…in next Tuesday’s hotfix (2011.05.24) we will grant you five (5) potions, each of...
If you’ve toured Destiny of Velious, you know of the unused Wizard Spire in the Eastern Wastes and abandoned Dragon Ring in the Great Divide. An upcoming live event, recently pushed to Test and Test Copy by Gninja, seeks to rebuild them. These events will be more like Public Quests than past events. Both events share one currency [tokens] and currency can be obtained in two ways. There are blue collectibles that spawn around the event area. The number of collectibles vary based on the progress of the event. The second way is by defending the respective areas from...
Dethdlr
Here are your update notes for May 9th (17th?), 2011: USER INTERFACE Fixed a bug with dragging currency to the currency list in the Character window. Fixed a bug with the Character window’s location not saving correctly between session. HOUSING Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause stubborn portals to come back after being picked up. Fixed a potential bug with buying a house in a zone that instances. House portals should no longer port you while they are being moved around. Fixed an issue with item placement in the Maj’dul Vacation Suite. QUESTS Hold of Rime: The Ascent...
Now that EQ2 has been resurrected, some players have had issues with the mandatory password resets. Others who have gotten into the game noticed issues with Research Assistants. Some EQ2X players at the Bronze and Silver levels feel there should be compensation. EQ2X players at Gold and Platinum already have a compensation package. Finally, players are curious about when Game Update 60 will hit, since we are just 3 days away from the original announced launch date, and there had only been a couple days of testing. Details after the jump…
Today’s notifications at SOE Facebook and SOE Twitter explain that services will not be restored today. With no indication that we’re any closer to a resolution, the question on everyone’s minds is: When will SOE, and by extension EQ2, become available again? Crossed Wires About Dates Bloomberg.com latched onto a terse quote from a Sony spokesman and published a service restoration date of May 31st, leading many publications to report that the PlayStation Network and SOE networks had little hope of recovery before then. But that’s incorrect, according to Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold. In fact, Sony has yet to...
Between April 17 and April 19, 2011, the PlayStation Network, the online service powering the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles, was compromised. Hackers were able to retrieve the personal/customer information of some 77 million PlayStation Network accounts, including as many as 10 million credit card numbers on file for those customers. This was largely viewed as a retaliatory strike against Sony for their prosecution of George Hotz (GeoHot) who publically posted the PS3 Root Keys allowing owners of PS3 consoles to install their own choice of software, including the much ballyhooed Other OS feature which was prominently featured...
Bloomberg.com posted a story earlier this afternoon suggesting that SOE’s services were down due to a “second attack”: Sony Online Entertainment, a unit that makes role-play games, suspended service after discovering a hacker gained access to its systems in the second such attack on the parent company’s entertainment networks. However in speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Michele Sturdivant, a Sony Online Entertainment spokeswoman denied the claim. Sony Corp. has shut down a second online videogame network amid an expanding investigation of a computer attack that may have compromised the personal information of millions of users. Sony Online Entertainment,...
Although we still have no confirmation or reason to believe that there has been any kind of security breach affecting SOE servers or customer accounts, and we are personally going to just wait and see what is announced, Amnerys has posted on the EQ2 Facebook announcement suggesting that concerned customers can contact SOE Customer Service: Any players that have concerns regarding their account status and security should contact CS at 1-858-537-0898 (10am – 7pm PST, Mon-Fri). and: Please use the following phone numbers for your international area. Remember that these numbers are not toll free and are considered long...
While there’s nothing new to report about SOE games, services, websites, and forums being down since 2AM PDT, there is growing coverage of this issue around the web. Thus far, there has been no additional information posted on any SOE website, SOE Facebook, EQ2 Facebook, or the Twitter pages of any SOE employee or EQ2 team member. News sites around the web: GamesBeat PC IGN BBC News Barron’s And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that EQ2Flames is experiencing record traffic, with some 4,000 members online at times seeking news about the SOE Downtime. Some visitors are experiencing...
All attempts to reach SOE websites are redirected to http://maintenance.station.sony.com/ EQ2Wire’s interpretation of this announcement is this: ALL Sony servers are now under security review due to the PlayStation Network breach, and in the course of that investigation, flaws in SOE’s public-facing servers were found. We have no reason to believe there has been an intrusion into SOE services, as they are separate from PSN servers. Of course news could come to light stating otherwise, but at this point, it seems that problems were found *before* they were taken. UPDATE: It appears that SOE’s entire customer database, excluding credit...
We’ve just seen these server messages: Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down for a brief update at 03:30AM PDT Monday, May 02, 2011. Please find a safe place to log out before the server comes down. For more information on scheduled downtimes (link). and: SYSTEM MESSAGE: Greetings Norrath! The server will be coming down immediately for a update. Please plan accordingly to be logged off during this time. Thank you!
As of 11:30am CET (2:30 PDT) it seems the Login servers are down or inaccessible. UPDATE: As of 11:50am CET (2:45 PDT), SOE Login servers are down affecting switching characters or logging in. UPDATE: As of 11:55am CET (2:55 PDT), SOE forums are offline.
A player asked why the Character Sheet (Persona Window) received yet another revamp with yesterday’s update. SmokeJumper had this tidbit: [While players] didn’t ask for a new character sheet, but they *are* asking for something that will be solved after this change is in place. Here’s what got fixed with this change: Your multiple homes are now listed in the “Housing” pane. (Previous to today, you could only own one house, so a list wasn’t necessary. It is now.) It puts us in a much better situation to add more categories in the near future to take care of...
Game Update 60 has finally reached Test and there is a lot of content here, including 3 new heroic dungeons, 3 new x4 raid zones, and a new x2 raid zone, a new Battleground, as well as major changes to PvP. Also look out for several changes and tweaks to classes, as well as a hard-to-miss huge nerf to Dirges, with Chimes/Cacophony of Blades no longer interrupting. “The Children of War” The Fortress of Drunder has emptied of Rallos Zek and his armies as they pass into the Plane of War to prepare for their eventual march on the...
There are going to be a lot of questions about how the new Multi-Housing works in EQ2, so I suggest reading the extensive FAQ posted on EverQuest2.com about it. South Qeynos Prestige Home Access
One concern about the Neriak Opera House prestige house on Test was that the stage did not have any stairs to reach it, requiring feather fall or other floating to reach it. Also, the seats of the theater were oddly shaped, possibly trapping players. Haohmaru has checked in a fix (and provided a screenshot): We have added stairs to each end of the stage. Hopefully we can update your homes before GU60, if possible. We also fixed an odd issue with the lips on each seating rung. You could get stuck under the small overhang for no apparent reason.
Today’s update includes just a couple of bugs caught on Test: HOUSING Prestige Home deeds are now Heirloom. Fixed a bug that would cause a guild to lose refund status when moving guildhalls. Fixed a crash bug.
If you haven’t already heard about the revamped Persona Window coming in Game Update 60, it takes what we got in Velious and polishes it up to a mirror shine. The Velious Persona window seemed half-finished to us and, apparently, to Rothgar. Going live today, the new Personal window is a big improvement over the large paradigm-mixing one we got with Velious. It actually behaves a bit more like 2 separate windows again, with Stats (and all possible traits about your character) in a toggleable sidebar, while your Equipment, Mounts, Faction, and other character progression information now takes up...
From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums: Hey, folks, We left the HEIRLOOM tag off the prestige homes. (It’ll be added to them tomorrow.) So for today, if you were planning to buy a bunch of one type of house and then transfer it to all your different alts, please don’t do it that way. Or if you do, please realize that the HEIRLOOM tag won’t be present until tomorrow. For today, please just realize that each character can only own one of each type of Prestige Home. If you buy more than that, you won’t be able to use...
Fr0m Zoltaroth on Twitter: Servers should start opening shortly just finishing up internal smoke testing. Naturally this would be the first batch of servers which were updated.
SmokeJumper has been providing frequent updates on today’s installation of Multihousing into EQ2: Hi, folks, Today’s housing feature has to do a lot of massaging of the house database elements. This takes a considerable amount of time (a bit like a world merge, actually). This means that when we take servers down, they will be down for 2 or 3 hours while we do that process. We should have all the servers up by mid-afternoon sometime (Pacific time). The servers that are currently running are Antonia Bayle, Barren Sky, Harla Dar, Guk, Everfrost, Unrest, and Crushbone. The next batch...
Here are your update notes for today, April 28, 2011. They include the introduction of Multi-housing. Thanks to Cyliena over at EQ2 ZAM for the formatting: HOUSING UPDATES Each character can now own up to 10 houses of any combination (as long as he or she meets the house prerequisites). House purchases are now based on alignment rather than citizenship. The marketplace house item limit increasers now only apply to a single house. Additionally, the marketplace house item limit increaser will no longer stick with your house as you move from house to house, but it still stacks with...
It is our understanding that Game Update 60 will be hitting Test and Test Copy today. Domino‘s post is not a confirmation, but taken with other posts, strongly suggests it: Most likely early afternoon (PST) but times may vary depending on a variety of factors. There will be an in-game broadcast to warn you.