From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue that prevented voice overs working with socials.

SOEMOTE

• Added a video input device selection dropdown for SOEmote in the Options (Advanced) – SOEmote.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

City of Freeport

• Vhishall, Freeport furniture merchant, now offers a selection of paintings for those that have completed particular quests in the city of Freeport.

Plane of War x4 Raid

• In the general Teku fight warboars have less health and run slower, war wraiths will turn to face attackers sooner than before.

• Eriak the Fetid – Echo of Terror adds will no longer cast demonic flames as soon as they spawn.

When asked about mob-specific war runes (red adornments) from earlier Velious zones being made available in Drunder, Kander had this surprising response:

There is new raid content coming in September. Most of these will make a re-appearance there.

At EQ2Wire, we have been very concerned that there would be no new high level content between April 2012 and late November 2012. Now it looks like we have something to look forward to!

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• An Auto Attack timing window has been implemented into the default UI.  You can enable / disable this feature under User Interface – Game Windows – Show The Autoattack Timing Bar.

• Fixed an issue with the age slider for male / female humans.

• Fixed some customization issues with Darkelves.

• Fixed an issue with skirts on humans and elves.

From the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

• Corrected an issue that caused some buff objects in Dungeon Maker to reduce NPCs hit points by too much.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Withered Lands

• Daerlina and Swampmaw will now return to battle more frequently after a defeat.

Plane of War x4 Raid

• Commander Goreslaughter and Corpsemaul – The diaku war riders will spawn near commander goreslaughter instead of on top of random players. Commander Corpsemaul no longer has Unbridled Fury of the Shadows. Mauler’s Affliction no longer interrupts casting.

QUESTS

• The quest “Etch the Stone” is now properly repeatable.

From the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Plane of War x4 Raid

Commander Goreslaughter and Corpsemaul – The Toll of War curse that each commander casts will not have any variance to its timing.  The curse will show preference to non fighters who are within a reasonable distance of the commander who is casting.  If no non fighter targets are available, fighters may still be cursed.

Withered Lands

Hexapola should now drop more than one item when killed.

From the EQ2 Forums:

DUNGEON MAKER

You can now play as your character in Dungeon Maker dungeons! Furthermore these dungeons are “Level Agnostic” meaning that anyone of any level can group together and do them together! While the dungeons will be a bit more difficult for a lower level character than a higher level character, they will still be able to play together.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Skyshrine: Betrayal in the Underdepths

In the challenge mode Dozekar fight the Magmatic Elemental and infernal assassin adds will not spawn as frequently as before.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Updated Awesomium browser files to fix some compatibility issues.

• Fixed potential crash on exit.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Plane of War x4 Raid

• Commander Goreslaughter and Corpsemaul ? The crystals of death and destruction now have unique appearances and spawn close to the commanders, in 2 sets of 2. There are only 3 diaku war riders per wave and they no longer knockback.

For those preferring a more descriptive rendition of just what we can expect in the upcoming Game Update 64 (previously presented as a bullet point list), Holly “Windstalker” Longdale has posted the July Update Plans for EQ2 which largely mirror what we know about GU64. From the EQ2 Forums:

Summer is finally here and the team is toiling away! We’ve got a few new faces added to the team and we’re going to introduce them with some awesome headshots.  On to what we’re working on…

QEYNOS RISES JULY 24

The new Qeynos is rife with intrigue and conflict as the city, Queen Antonia Bayle, and the Circle of Ten evolve and struggle to oversee the welfare of the goodly folk of Norrath. As is in most places in Norrath, power can tip the scales. The new racial quests, which are available at all levels, offer history and an introduction to your origins as well as a sense of your place within your race while experiencing the Qeynosian struggles. The new class and storyline quests, starting at level 20, drop you amidst the city’s strife with your brethren all the way to the high court.

Buried in the update notes for the forthcoming Game Update 64 (and reiterated in the GU64 Webcast) was an interesting detail:

• Elemental, Noxious, and Arcane Resists would be folded into player-selected Character Traits, but Physical Mitigation would not.

These days, most players select Physical Mitigation as a Character Trait choice rather than Resists. Physical Mitigation usually works out to be a better bang for your buck. Further, a number of players have already reached the hard limit on resists and so don’t benefit from it at all.

So the idea that players would login after Game Update 64 and lose 1,656 mitigation was not the most appealing prospect and spawned a discussion on the EQ2 Forums.

Game Update 64 “Qeynos Rises” has arrived on Test and Test Copy and the Notes for this update have been posted on the EQ2 forums. GU64 is expected to hang around on Test for about a month before going to the Live servers.

Among a number of other changes, GU64 sees Qeynos rebuilt as two zones. North and South Qeynos become the Capital District, Elddar Grove and Qeynos Harbor become the Provinces. Changes to Battlegrounds, PvP, and Fighters are all headlines, with the curious change that Plane of War has been opened to all.

Xelgad (by way of Ashlanne) has posted some additional information about the upcoming Fighter changes that come with Game Update 64. But first, Piestro has some comments about rushing to judgment:

Obviously this is a change that we knew people would be passionate about. Of course until people see the actual changes any evaluation of their impact is premature. The best way to move forward is to write down your concerns, and then formulate a test plan based on those concerns. That will give you the best possible start to actually testing the changes, and seeing what their actual impacts are.

And now that overview of the Fighter changes in GU63 from the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings everyone, Xelgad here! I’d like to explain some of the changes to our fighter archetype that you will be seeing on the Test Server soon.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The in-game browser files have been updated. If you experience any problems with the in-game browser, help UI, or customer service petition functions please post your details here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=519345

From the SOE Forums:

Changes are coming to PVP and fighters class for EverQuest II. Host Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson (Executive Director of Development) is going to discuss the upcoming changes with Akil “Lyndro” Hooper (Lead Designer), Mike “Xelgad” Ganz (Associate Game Designer), and Brian “Zuglash” Ferguson (Associate Game Designer).  They have lots of details to share about PVP, fighters and more.  EverQuest II fans do not want to miss this webcast.

Join us on Thursday, June 21, 2012, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time* on Twitch TV! The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

For PVP fans and fighters this is a must see webcast!

Time Zone Conversions

Le sigh… Like all SOE Webcasts, it’s 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern, midnight in Western Europe, and 1:00am in Copenhagen.

File this under better late than never, but Game Update 64 will be rolling out much-needed changes to the Itemization of Drunder raid zones. New items are being added throughout the Drunder raid timeline which will more closely resemble what players have come to expect in Skyshrine zones. In addition, some of the items that people still desire out of Drunder, specifically the insanely rare Mythical weapons will become more common.

From Kander on the EQ2 Forums:

Sullon’s Spire [Challenge], Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge] and Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] Raids will have new itemization with GU 64. Item scope will be boosted to be in between Skyshrine normal mode raids and challenge mode raids.

From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the EQ2 Forums:

Another month has zipped by already!

We wanted to wait until after E3 to share a few more details about what we’re up to and what’s coming up this month.

By now you may have heard about the SOE corporate initiative called SOEmote(tm) that will launch in EQII later this month. SOEmote uses a webcam and microphone to project your facial expressions, including talking and voice, onto your character in real time! It’s used in groups and also allows you to broadcast to your guild, almost like a webcast. We’re all excited to see this launch and how you use it. If you want to share your shananigans, the YouTube recording option is now in the EQII Share window.

In today’s update for June 13, 2012, EQ2 finally ditches its ancient Mozilla web browser in favor of the Awesomium browser, powered by Webkit (Safari/Chrome). EVE Online recently adopted this browser. This should resolve numerous problems with viewing complex websites in the in-game browser.

Armor distribution in Skyshrine zones have been rebalanced to match group/raid distribution. Some Skyshrine group mobs will start dropping Primal Velium Shards, while Skyshrine raid encounters will hand out Pure Primal Velium Shards. And finally, today marks the introduction of Quest Target Icons. If you enable this setting, you will be able to see an icon over any enemy which will update quests in your journal if killed.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• The in-game browser files have been updated. This may cause the browser not to function with some custom UIs until they are updated.

• Note: Firewall software will need to allow the file awesomium_process.exe access to run for the browser to function properly.

We didn’t get a Game Update this week, partly due to E3, but we can now look ahead to Test to what’s coming next week. Highlights from the Test Update Notes on the EQ2 Forums:

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Withered Lands

• Named within Withered Lands should all respawn correctly now.

Challenge Mode Raid NPC?s (x4 epic)

• Challenge mode raid NPC’s have had their max health reduced.

While they aren’t glamorous, Content and Itemization are the meat and potatoes of the modern MMO. The thankless job of adding and maintaining these core items may not elicit splashy E3 announcements or garner press attention, but neglect them for a moment, and players will arrive at your gates brandishing pitchforks.

Players have been unable to ignore the skewed armor distribution of Skyshrine. In particular, the new solo, group, and raid zones all seem to heavily slant towards priests and fighters. Normally we would be able to confirm this data using Zam’s drop information statistics which they periodically receive from SOE, but they are still awaiting their Skyshrine GU63 data dump. Without definitive proof, I have been forced to make a guess at how Skyshrine loot has been distributed.

As we first posted here, at long last, an Autoattack setting is being added to EQ2. This will benefit some Mages (Enchanters in particular) and virtually all Priests (Druids, Clerics, and Shamans) whose Alternate Advancement lines heavily favor Melee autoattacks. With this change, players will now be able to equip either Symbols or the newish Focus Ranged “Wand” items and still prefer Melee combat and its inherent benefits. Oh, and Rangers will now be able to set Ranged attacks at all times without the use of kludgy macros. Yay!

Autoattack Setting available in the Character/Persona window under Options.

Here are your Update Notes for May 24, 2012 from the EQ2 Forums:

COMBAT

Players can now select their preferred method of autoattacking using the /setautoattackmode command (0 for default, 1 for melee, 2 for spell/ranged) or by the drop-down setting in the Character UI options under ?Auto Attack Mode?.

Some exciting news for players who have been wanting a setting for Autoattack during combat in EQ2! On the Test server, a new option has been added to the Character/Persona/Inventory window under the Options panel:

This option should allow Rangers to set “Forced Ranged” and never need to use kludgy macros to ensure they are always doing ranged autoattacks. A ranger never wants to be doing melee autoattacks and we have relied on macros with the command /auto 2 for years.

Further, this will be a sigh of relief to Mages and Priests who will now be able to use their choice of either Focus/Ranged ‘Wand‘ items or traditional Symbol items and still choose whether they want to use the new Spell Weapon Autoattack, or stick to Melee combat. This change will be of particular benefit to Enchanters, Druids, Mystics, and Clerics, all of whom have Alternate Advancement lines that require melee combat for their best effects to apply. This will also allow healers to work around a bug with some cures and buffs which place them into ‘spell combat’.

Here are your updates for May 10, 2012.  The quest All You Need is Time in Withered Lands should now be fixed as well as the ratio of Tier 10 precious metal rares.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Withered Lands

• Hexapola: players outside the raid should no longer cause the raid to reset if they agro raid insects.

Skyshrine x4 raid zones, challenge mode

• Belkreiz Blazeclaw will no longer spam messages about reckless adds unless an add actually spawns due to the Time Vortex Curse.

• Belkreiz Blazeclaw will no longer spawn Ancient Dracurian Seer’s if there are already 3 or more of them present in the zone.

Here are your update notes for 8 May, 2012.  There is a fix for the quest “All You Need is Time” currently on the test server but it hasn’t made it to the live servers yet.  If you are stuck on that quest, Gninja says to /petition it.  He has given customer service steps on how to fix it.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Skyshrine x4 raid zones, challenge mode

• Belkreiz Blazeclaw will no longer spam messages about reckless adds unless an add actually spawns due to the Time Vortex Curse.

• Belkreiz Blazeclaw will no longer spawn Ancient Dracurian Seer’s if there are already 3 or more of them present in the zone.

Skyshrine: the Underdepths

• Sevalor’s Deathless now has a 35 second duration, rather than permanent.

From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a client crash that could happen when trying to examine an item in certain situations.

• Skyshrine: the Claws of Veeshan faction will now be in the Destiny of Velious category along with all other DoV factions.

Today’s update notes exclude any fixes for the top Game Update 63 issues. From the EQ2 Forums:

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where some characters would not be able to use a free respec on the tradeskill tree.

• Fixed a bug where F1 would not toggle between a beastlord player and his summoned warder if he had a different warder selected in his character window.

PLAYER HOUSING

Prestige Home: Storm Tower Isle

• A weather controller has been added to the home (the carving adjacent to the front door). The zone will always default to a thunderstorm, but now you may change it to a light rain or none at all, when you visit.

From the EQ2 Forums:

ITEMS

• Scaling dungeons from The Shadow Odyssey expansion should now be dropping loot if the player is level 91+.

• The charm rewards for “The Path of the Crusaders” should now be in line with comparable quest rewards, and have stats that are more appropriate.

• Fixed a bug where Dozekar’s head would not convert to currency properly.

• Fixed a bug that could cause the focus effect for scout legs to stop working.

QUESTS

Skyshrine: The City of Dracur

• The quests “Disc of Binding Ruined”, “Temporal Gem Hunt”, and “Final Item for Jorlak” should now appropriately reward bruisers and beastlords.