From the EQ2 Forums:

PvP / BATTLEGROUNDS

• All pvp rewards have been doubled.
• Balance of Theer will no longer grant victory points while dead.

Because the EQ2 devs don’t want us doing this…

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Balance of Theer [PvP] battleground! A 6v6 deathmatch zone that is set on Roehn Theer’s platform.

GENERAL

• Options to invite a guild member to a party, a raid, or gossip with them via tells about that healer that keeps forgetting to cure detrimentals are now available via the context menu in the Members list of the Guild window.
• Resolved an issue where certain wards did not properly display the amount of damage warded in the effects list of their description tooltips and examine windows.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
The Fabled Deathtoll

• Several minor changes were made to Cruor Alluvium to prevent unexpected damage from the gazer’s damage shield immediately after being teleported by Watery Grave.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings Norrathians,

We’re all charged up and busy after a great time at SOE Live! The team is hunkered down and focused on the expansion, fixes, and updates on the schedule. Here are some details!

When is the EverQuest II: Altar of Malice Beta?

On Oct. 7 we will launch Limited Beta for All Access members. Most of the content will be focused on the Overlands and level increase content. We need your support!

Oct. 14 will be Open Beta for everyone. We’d love you to come check out the content and help us make sure it’s good, clean fun.

When is Altar of Malice Launch?

The expansion launch for All Access members will be on Nov. 11, just a few days after we celebrate our 10th anniversary!

On Nov. 25, the expansion will be available to everyone.

Because sleep is overrated, EQ2 fan Afista spent the weekend meticulously transcribing the two EverQuest II Q&A panels and has posted them on EQ2 ZAM. Also don’t miss the notes from the all-important Mechanics panel posted by Cyliena as linked below. I got a kick out of hanging out with both of them at SOE Live and seeing what they’re doing for the EQ2 community. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a slacker now… 😉

At SOE Live 2014, the community had questions and the devs had answers! ZAM was there to keep track of what everyone wanted to know. Afista has written a full recap of what happened during the Q&A following the EQ2 keynote, as well as the AMAA Sessions Part 1 & Part 2.

Read the entire Q&A recap over on ZAM!

(also check out our Systems & Mechanics panel recap from last week!)

In the EverQuest II: Systems panel, the EverQuest II team talks about the upcoming expansion, specifically class balance, mechanics, some new features, and takes player questions. On the panel: Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer, and Justin “Jamiss” Michael. We recorded this at SOE Live 2014 in Las Vegas and are happy to be able to share it.

On YouTube:

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• The Moonlight Enchantment merchants have new items available! All sorts of trees and shrubbery based on Ethernere foliage can now be purchased. Moonlight Enchantments begin on 8/20!

• With Kerafyrm’s defeat, Freeport and Qeynos have finally broken the Awakened siege, and Luclin – now whole – shines brightly in the skies.

GENERAL

• YouTube integration has been removed due to incompatibilities with Google’s API updates. Options are being explored to return video functionality.

Here are the slides presented by the EverQuest II team specifically the mechanics/systems guys. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer were presenting.

Now it’s time for the EverQuest II Systems panel. Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Robert “Caith” Fouts, Dave “Maevianiu” Kish, and Douglas “Endymion” VanDerveer are presenting. We’re liveblogging this panel as well as recording a video of this panel in 720p HD.

Liveblog begins at 1:00pm PDT and ends at 2:00pm PDT on Saturday August 16th.

Fix for Stealth and AE Abilities

New Spell Qualities

• All spells go to Grandmaster
• Certain spells go to Ancient

Battleground 6v6 Balance of Theer

• Deathmatch
• Penalty for dying
• Tiles to stand on and get buffs/debuffs

From the EQ2 Forums:

This new battleground set on Roehn Theer’s platform is a brand new match type, with an age old premise: slaughter your enemies.

Team size: 6v6
Minimum Team: 3
Time Limit: 10 Minutes
Scoring System: There are two ways to gain points, the first being to kill your opponents. The second is to stand on the deadly order tile, which sounds simple. You may find this more difficult than it sounds.

Dying or cowering for an extended period on your protected spawn area will reduce your team’s score.

From Bunji on the official forums

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Lore and Legend: Awakened Aerakyn is now available.

HOUSE ACTORS

• House Actors will now save changes made to their greeting distances between loading and reloading a house.

ITEMS

• Colcatoth, Spine of the Leviathan can now be used by all priests

PVP and BATTLEGROUNDS

• Ethereal and Artifact weapons may be obtained via victory daily missions in Battlegrounds.
• Ethereal and Artifact weapons now grant PvP statistics.

EQ2Wire is providing a running transcript of today’s EQ2Insider Developer Q&A with questions posed by players on the EQ2 Forums, Facebook, Twitter, and even Google Plus. Present on the panel are EQ2 Community Manager Margaret “Luperza” Krohn, EQ2 Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EQ2 Game Designer Mike “Xelgad” Ganz, and EQ2 Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee.

Today’s livecast started with a hilarious 2D animation of the Age’s End story thus far.

Announcing the winners of the EQ2 summer contest.

After the jump, the Dev Q&A…

From EQ2 Buildmaster Bunji on the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
The Fabled Deathtoll

• Fabled Deathtoll’s minimum lockout timer has been reduced to 18 hours.
• [eq2u]Secrets of the Doomwing, Volume IV[/eq2u] no longer has a chance to drop from Yitzik the Hurler and Fitzpitzle.

Temple of Veeshan: Dreadscale’s Maw

• Adds in the Telkorenar encounter should now despawn when he is defeated.

ITEMS

• Corrected an issue with Primordial Vengence and Voracity that prevented the effects from stacking.
• Many one-handed weapons have been made usable by more classes.

PVP
Bruiser

• Wild Beating should now correctly trigger Vicious Combination in PvP combat.

Existing Lockouts

In a separate thread on the EQ2 Forums, it was reported that existing lockouts for Fabled Deathtoll will also be reduced from 4 days 20 hours to 18 hours.

Kinya, webmaster of the Polish multi-game fansite Babagra, has posted a summary and notes of the second EQ2 Insider webcast which was held last Wednesday.

What happen recently in EQ2:
– weekly updates;
– dreadscale maw – new raid;
– high keep contested;
– June promotion Gear Up, Level UP;
– heroic characters are on sale;
– discount on expansion if bought in June;
– new Loyalty items added to MarketPlace.

Team is focused mostly on the things which are coming to EQ2:
– fabled Deathtoll (around 20 July);
– big unnamed event in July;
– new challenge duo coming in August;
– lore and legends for Aerakyns (June/ July).

Ethereals and Artifacts – current items will be available until mid of July then comes another set of items: weapons.
Not all the Artifacts were discovered so far on all servers. There is around only 15 of them in game currently (11 servers x 4 artifacts = 44)

June Dev Picks (from 10:30): Magic Kingdom by Sairalindie on Antonia Bayle and Meta’s Enchanted Island Tours by Metamarra on Butcherblock.

Collectors edition ToV winners (selected from ppl watching stream): Psycha, Ladylove4, DonRipper

From Bunji on the Official Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE
The New Tunaria Warzone is now available on the Battlegrounds Server via a portal in Champion’s Respite.

GENERAL

• The Loyalty Merchant and Loyalty Marketplace will now correctly sell adornments that are below maximum level.
• A small bag of platinum coins will now sell for the correct amount of platinum if purchased off of the loyalty section of the marketplace.

Level up, Gear up…discord style!

• For the duration of the “Gear Up! Level Up!” promotion, Havoc Marks and Marks of Devastation will be awarded at twice the rate.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Temple of Veeshan: Dreadscale’s Maw

• Corrected an issue that would potentially cause certain pet classes to get instantly killed upon getting resurrected if they were not protected by Dragonsbane.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Necromancer

• Miragul’s Dark Heart will no longer overwrite more powerful Hearts that are already in your inventory.

ITEMS

• Great Waters now correctly states that it does not stack with itself.
• Shared Dragonsbane now applies to group members within 999 meters from the wearer and persists through death.
• Arced Conductivity should now always apply the potency increase.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GEAR UP, LEVEL UP (June promotional program from June 3 to July 8)
All Access members will receive the following bonuses and discounts:

• Double-Double Etyma in Tears of Veeshan (4x the rewards)!
• 25% XP Bonus
• Tears of Veeshan Expansion discount (15%)
• 25% Off Heroic Characters

Free players receive the following bonuses:

• Double Etyma in Tears of Veeshan (2x the rewards)!
• Also eligible for a Tears of Veeshan expansion discount (15%).

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Loyalty items have been added into the Marketplace to make searching and purchasing them more convenient. These items are still for sale on the merchants.
• [Ed Note:] As seen in the Producer’s Letter, over 100 new Loyalty items are being added.

From the EQ2 Forums:

WEEKLY FEATURE

• The first round of Battlegrounds matchmaker fixes is live!
• Teams will now be more fair numbers wise. No more 24 reds against 3 blues!
• NOTE: teams could be a little off if not everyone picked to be on your team accepts the match. However, backfills will go to the lowest team first so as more people queue to fill in the backfills it will work to even up the teams.
• The getting dropped into Champion’s Respite instead of going straight to your match from your home server is still not fixed.
• If you are chronomentoring on your home server when you accept a battlegrounds match, you will have your chronomentor session restored to you when you return at no cost.
• When you enter a battlegrounds match you will get put into your team’s respawn instead of being dropped in the middle of the map.
• Backfilled players will be put on the team with the fewest total number of players.
• Players who queue as a group will all be placed on the same team. However, the order in the group/raid window will not be maintained.

Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted a new Producer’s Letter which can be found on the EQ2 Forums

Highlights include:

• New Matchmaking Code for Battlegrounds
• New PVP Warzone
• Converting old currencies
• House NPCs
• New Loyalty items
• New Deathtoll Fabled Dungeon
• Status Merchant Revamp
• June Promo – Gear Up, Level Up

Here’s the letter…

Dearest Norrathians,

We’re working to bring you a lot more information about what we’re doing, why, and when. To that end, here’s a quick overview on what we’ve done recently and what’s coming soon!

As a quick recap of our larger content releases in April and May so far, we launched:

• High Keep Contested dungeon
• High Keep Guild Halls
• Temple of Veeshan raid zone
• Ethereal/Artifact items (in Tears of Veeshan mission crates for a couple of months)

Servers will be coming down for an update – from the forums:

The US EverQuest 2 Servers will come down on May 13th, 2014 at 7:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time for an update. The expected downtime is approximately one hour.

EU servers will come down beginning at 9:00 PM PT (6:00 AM CET May 14th, 2014) for the same update. Downtime is anticipated to be approximately 2 hours.

Patch notes after the jump.

Lets try this again.  Update notes from the official forums for 7 May 2014:

WEEKLY UPDATE

• Two tiers of the Restored High Keep Guildhall are now available from the Antonica or Commonlands Guild Bell!
• To obtain access to the Restored High Keep your guild must earn the Restored High Keep Guildhall Tier 2 or Tier 3 guild achievements by collecting High Keep Heartstones within High Keep Contested: The Bloodless Incursion.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• The chance for heroic zone bosses to drop Ethertouched Rune Patterns has increased from 8% to 15%.

From EQ2 Build Master Bunji on the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested]

• Ruptured Vein will do significantly less damage.
• Lowered the assist radius of non-boss encounters.
• Undead Army will drop off raid members properly.
• Increments of Undead Army will lower when NPCs are charmed.
• Experience gained will be increased.
• Removed the restriction of all revive points in the zone.
• Tremorax the Unearthed will wait a few extra seconds before surfacing from its sinkholes.
• A guild achievement for defeating Exarch Lorokai the Unliving has been added.

High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Warzone]
This zone mirrors Highkeep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested] with the following exceptions:

• Faction alliances are no protection within this Warzone. Players of any city alignment can attack any player outside of their group or raid.
• Boss encounters have a chance to drop PvP currency writs which can be used to purchase PvP equipment.

Reddit, that last bastion of 1990’s internet look-and-feel, hosted an “Ask Me Almost Anything” with the EQ2 developers and designers this morning and Cyliena of EQ2 ZAM has summarized the most interesting questions which received responses from the team. Here are a few of the more interesting responses:

Q: “Any hints on the next expansion’s theme? Will the level cap finally raise to 100 with it?”

A: “You may want to tune into the next EQ2 Insider livestream on http://www.twitch.tv/everquest2. 😉 It’ll be May 7th, 2014 at 2PM PDT! (We’ll have a YT vod up if you can’t watch it live.)”

A: “We gave you hints last year at SOE Live! We showed pictures!”

Followup: The teaser pictures shown during last year’s SOE Live expansion panel were of dinosaurs(another here from the art panel).

and..

Q: “Hello, can you give an update on the improved Dungeon Finder / Group Builder? Including when it might make its way to the live servers?”

A: “As I mentioned above, we have Dave Kish working on the matchmaking code now. The first task was to create an environment to adequately test and evaluate the issues that are reported on Live and we have tracked a lot down. We will let the community know anytime we have something to report, like when we’d help to test new code on Beta, etc. This is one of our highest priorities.”

Continue reading EQ2 AMAA on Reddit Notes at EQ2 ZAM for a whopping 7 pages of questions and answers!

Coinciding with today’s transition of all Gold subscribers (either Krono, 30-day Game Cards, or with recurring credit card) to All Access, there are also a number of update notes for EQ2:

HIGH KEEP
High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion [Contested] is now live and offers new challenges for groups of heroes brave enough to explore its halls! This contested version of High Keep can be accessed through the portal on Karak Peak in Vesspyr Isles. This zone is exclusively available to [All Access] members until May 13 2014.

Heritage Quest
Blood lines the hallways of High Keep, much of it the result of one man. Was he a hero or a traitor? Learn the truth and re-acquire a bloody weapon lost to the annals of time in the new heritage quest found within High Keep: The Bloodless Incursion!

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Zordakalicus Ragefire, the Dragon Ancestral Champion, now drops rare items from any current heroic zone boss, in addition to his normal loot.

Accursed Sanctum

• The minimum lockout has been reduced from 5 days to 3 days. The maximum lockout has not been changed.

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• The power damage shield on Kelana in the Fire & Ice dragons encounter should no longer affect fighters.

Chelsith

• Ground mounts can now be used in Chelsith.

Fairly large update notes from the official forums.  Changes to taunts, 350 AAs, PvP updates, and mages say a fond farewell to carrying around a single, special arrow among other things.   Read the full notes after the break.

WEEKLY FEATURE

• Players at level 95 can now level up their Alternate Advancements to level 350!

GENERAL

• Mounted combat pets now retain their illusion form after the player lands with a flying or gliding mount.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Respawn and evacuate locations have been added to The Trembling Lagoon, Dythra’s Lair, and Cleansing of the Cove. Previously, respawning and evacuating within these zones sent you to The Feerrott.
• Level 1-19 human skeletons, found in Commonlands and Antonica, now have a 6% chance to drop “Bloody Robe.”

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
General

• Most taunts and detaunts are four times more effective.
• The effectiveness of taunts and detaunts will improve based on debuffs applied to an NPC’s related resistances. For example, a Scout’s Evade will be more effective when their target’s physical mitigation is debuffed.
• Taunts and detaunts will now benefit from the effects of the hate gain modifier stat.

Channeler

• Mists of Poison, Poison Bolt and Channeled Cleansing now trigger Calm Connection.

Fighters

• Recklessness now grants -150% Hate Gain. Berserkers, Bruisers and Shadowknights now use the same suspension mechanics as Guardians, Monks and Paladins. It now suspends all incoming threat transfers while active.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Temple of Veeshan: Guardian’s Edifice

• Klandicar should no longer cast Chaos Bolt more than intended.

Temple of Veeshan: Halls of the Betrayer

• Corrected an issue that would sometimes cause the doors behind Grendish to not open when they should.

PvP

• Converting a mount to a house item must be done within a house on PvP servers.

 

So this one ALMOST took me, but fortunately I read through the thread further and realized it was not posted by a developer or sourced from any official post. Originally entitled “PvP Update Notes for March 25, 2014“, a player named Xray started a thread laying out an extensive series of changes — some minor, some drastic rule changes — to the PvP-only Nagafen server which would completely change how the server works, and more importantly, make PvP relevant enough that players might come back.

I won’t quote the entire bullet point manifesto, but it’s a captivating read if you are at all interested in Battlegrounds or PvP and have seen the writing on the wall of Nagafen server population. Despite the new Warfronts and Warzones, numbers aren’t looking good. Meanwhile, the Battlegrounds matchmaker has been putting together nonsensical groups since November, yet a fix remains elusive.

Some players took the “update notes” as an April Fool’s joke, while most others saw it as wishful thinking, but it got a lot of positive feedback. Then it was lent credence by none other than Kander who posted this:

There are lots of changes here we can make pretty easily. The copy to Nagafen issue turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, so that is not going to happen anytime soon. We will go ahead and look at the list here and see we can get done soon.

The EQ2 team is likely already turning their attention to November’s colossal expansion which will see new zones, new dungeons, new raids, and, a level cap raise, but hopefully, something can be done for those who like hardcore gameplay.