Feldon
After years of anticipation, nail-biting, and player feedback on both sides, the day has finally arrived. With Game Update 66, the way that Platinum is awarded from Group and Raid zones will change to a per-player amount rather than a total that is split between players. In addition, Platinum will be added to current zones in Skyshrine, Chains of Eternity, and Scars of the Awakened. The Protector’s Realm Plat Machine For years, players have been able to complete the Kunark raid zones of the Protector’s Realm and the Shard of Hate, earning upwards of 170 Platinum each. These zones,...
DGC Wants Feedback
On Beta, Protector’s Realm, Shard of Hate, and other Kunark/SF zones are dropping a lot less plat. This has launched a 20 page thread with a lot of rage and arguments. Well, I have just spoken to Kander and there is a lot more to the situation than just nerfing PR and SoH. People should be able to do CURRENT content and get more than enough plat to buy their consumables. People will be able to acquire plat from CURRENT solo, group, or raid zones. Article tomorrow!!
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale‘s twitter: Beta and Test are unlocked! We have turned off character copies for the time being, but in-game email includes a Beta buffer!#EQ2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) April 2, 2013 The house market testing on Beta is currently not available, but the team is working on that! Code gremlins. 🙁 #EQ2 — Holly Longdale (@WindstalkerEQ2) April 2, 2013
Logo Mockup by EQ2Wire In addition to the new content in Game Update 66, which hits Beta today and will go live on April 30th, there are numerous class tweaks. But instead of class balance (although there is some of that), the overriding theme of the class improvements in this update could best be summed up as “What Bugs Your Class Most?” All those things about your class that drive you crazy, like having to be directly behind the mob to use your biggest hits as a Dirge, or having to be exactly 5 meters from the mob to do...
Even the most jaded player must admit that the EQ2 team have spent a lot of time in the last 18 months tweaking and balancing the classes, both in PvP and PvE situations. Every class in EQ2 now has a role to play, and the tools necessary to play that role, even if that role may not be the most engaging or fun to play. On Friday, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz, EQ2’s Mechanics Lead, posted threads in each of the Class forums seeking feedback not for further balancing, but what tweaks could be done to make each class less tedious...
In the weeks or months leading up to a new Game Update or Expansion, players have come to expect the familiar call to Testers to try out new Group or Raid content. Sometimes a specific schedule is posted, with developer chaperones to monitor player reaction to encounters, zone design, and so forth. At other times, testing as at-your-own pace. Either way, Bug Reports are collected and placed in a queue to be fixed at some future date. If any “show stopping” bugs occurred during this Testing, such as a boss that would not spawn or could not be defeated,...
Ok folks, let’s get those bugged Achievements fixed before the next expansion! If you have done all the tasks necessary to complete an Achievement, but it did not register, please visit the link below and post a report on the bugged achievement! From Gninja on the EQ2 Forums: I will be going throguh this list over the next few days in an attempt to get most of these fixed with the expansion release. If you know of any achievements that are not listed in this thread and are not currently updating please just post the name of the achievement...
From Windstalker on the EQ2 Forums: Howdy Norrathians! The team has been brainstorming ideas that would ease the re-entry back into the game and soften the learning curve for returning players as well as creative options for a Refer-a-Friend program. What would float your boat if you are, or were, a returning player at some point? Creative suggestions? And do you have ideas that would make you excited to not just refer a friend, but play with them too? Post your thoughts and ideas here. Answer one or both if you like!
Some players exploring the heroic version of the Sleeper’s Tomb will encounter a chance named “The Overseer”. But instead of dropping armor or weapons, he drops equally valuable Tradeskill Raid materials. As posted by Kander: The Overseer is a bonus named, if you spawn him. He only drops TS components. As to why the Sleeper’s Tomb does not reward white Velious shards, Kander again: This instance is linked to the storylines for Chains of Eternity. It will not have shards from Velious. It is 500 or 600 years in the past. Lots of other instances to run to get...
This month will see the introduction of the Sleeper’s Tomb group and x4 raid zones. So when can players test these zones? Oh, really any time. Some astute players noticed late last week that the EQ2 Beta server was accessible from the Launchpad. We received confirmation last week that the Test Copy server was morphing into the Beta server. That’s great, but there was no clarification or announcement of whether anything was ready to be tested. Until today… From Gninja: Currently the beta server has the next update on it (Prelude). It has been getting some focused testing in...
UPDATE: The hash tag for EQ2 Developer responses has changed from #EQIITweetChat to #EQ2Dev. From EverQuest2.com: On Thursday, August 23, members of the EverQuest II development team will be answering player questions in our first-ever Tweet Chat. Visit Twitter or Tweet Chat and follow the hashtag for your game to see the responses to player questions (#EQ2Dev for EverQuest II). The chat time is: 5:30-6:00 pm PDT* – EverQuest II (#EQ2Dev) Players can submit questions through the EverQuest II Facebook page or by Tweeting to @everquestii through 12:00 pm PDT* on Wednesday, August 22.
From the EQ2 Forums: On Monday, August 20, there will be threads on the EverQuest and EverQuest II Facebook pages where you can leave your question. We will select a handful of questions, and the developers will answer them during the Tweet Chat! On Thursday, August 23, developers of EverQuest and EverQuest II, as well as Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson, Director of Development, will be taking to Twitter to answer your questions about the game! Stay tuned for more details!
Those Goblin Game Tickets we heard about are now available on the StationCash marketplace on the Test server. It looks like the ticket is only consumed after you succeed at one of the three mini-games and receive one of the prizes. Thus far, the prizes seem to be run-of-the-mill StationCash items. From the EQ2 Test Forums: Now in the Test server marketplace, under the Goblin Games category, you can buy a Gigglegibber Glockenspiel for 100SC which will allow you to play one of three games. You recieve a prize everytime you win, selected at random from the following list:
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...
Although MMO players who desire voice chat have always had the option of third party voice chat services such as TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, their offerings have always stood behind daunting licensing terms and high monthly fees. In mid-2008, SOE sought to give players an in-house option: free in-game voice chat provided by Vivox. The Vivox service has had its ups and downs, but we can only assume that it is widely used. Sometimes, a certain amount of fiddling with firewall or sound card settings has been required, or a cycle of leaving and re-joining channels to force a connection,...
Dungeon Maker “Play as a Character” has arrived on Test for the second time, but with a totally new Level Agnostic mechanic that turns the concept of Mentoring on its ear, by interactively adjusting the damage and heals of grouped characters in real time. The claim is, that a level 30 and level 92 will be able to group together, heal, buff, and do DPS effectively. And careful reading of the June Update indicates that Battlegrounds will soon inherit the same Level Agnostic mechanic, so proper testing of this functionality on Test is a good idea. From Maevianiu on...
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...
From EverQuest2.com: In our last in-game poll, we asked players what they thought of us selling health, power, and self-rez potions for solo, group, and raid players. The results are in! Overall, for all items, there was an average of 65% support for the solo versions in all three categories (and, in fact, there was only a minor variance in the percentages for each item). Group and Raid items averaged at 55%. As we saw with the EQ2X (Freeport) server, where we sold similar items, these types of items help the solo player have fun while adventuring alone. We...
From EQ2Talk.com: Episode #44 – Wind Power recorded on Apr 14 EQ2 Talk is excited to bring you Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EverQuest 2 Producer. We asked her some of the burning questions about mechanics, dungeon finder, the in-game polls, and EQ2 Players. She also gives us a closer look at what the team has in store for players in GU63, offers some insight into the 2-level increase, explains a bit about prestige abilities, and talks about the team’s goals looking ahead. We’ve listened to Episode #44 and here are a few gems: We may get some more detailed information on the...
From the EQ2 Forums comes a recap of what we can expect in April. With the exception of a Double XP weekend over Easter, there’s little new to of note except some vague comments about bug fixes. And no word on DOV Dungeon Timers being Reduced to 90 Minutes, which was promised for March. Here are the April Update Plans for EverQuest II! The Skyshrine update (GU 63) is taking the lion’s share of the team’s focus right now (launching in mid-April), but other things are still happening as we continue to smash bugs, improve systems, and look to...
As we reported last night, Dungeon Maker Avatars (the limited NPCs we’re supposed to ‘drive’ through player-made dungeons) will be getting a new mechanic where combat builds power, which unlocks more powerful abilities, akin to the Savagery and Primal abilities introduced with Beastlords. From Bunji on the EQ2 Forums: Hello Testers! Changes to the Dungeon Maker Avatars are headed to test and we definitely want your feedback! Please feel free to post bug reports and feedback in this thread, though remember that you can also /feedback and /bug. As for the changes, our goal has been to improve the...
After getting called to the carpet for a revised Game Update schedule that won’t see new level 90 content coming to EQ2 until April, nearly 9 months since last year’s Game Update 61, SOE has laid out a gameplan for February events. From EverQuest2.com: February Publish Plans – More to Play, Your Way! February is here already, and the team is hard at work on Game Update 63! We’ll have some “behind the scenes” videos for you in the coming weeks to give you a sneak peek at the art of some of the exciting new zones coming up,...
At last year’s Fan Faire, Leko, champion of PvP balance, stood up after Mercenaries were announced and asked “Will Mercenaries work in PvP?” and then a series of questions about how they would be balanced, tested, etc. Well…better late than never. 🙂 From Gninja: While I can’t really address everything being said in this post right now I can say we have been taking a look and we have a plan on how to make mercs not quite as overpowered in PVP combat as they are currently. Once we get the fix in place and we can accurately test...
In what may go down as the best decision in EQ2 history, or a total overreaction to a problem that could have been solved with a 15-20% reduction across the board, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has announced that in the very near future, the Critical Mitigation stat will be COMPLETELY GOING AWAY. First introduced in The Shadow Odyssey, greatly expanded in Sentinel’s Fate, and then becoming the most important stat within Destiny of Velious as an alternative form of progression to raising the level cap (which is technologically challenging), here’s the announcement of this revelation from the EQ2 Forums: We’ve...