Producer’s Letter: Welcome back to EverQuest II

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

From EverQuest2.com:

Hello, Norrathians!

We’re incredibly glad to have our worlds back online again and we really appreciate you all being so patient with us while we strengthened the castle walls.

It’s been quite odd working on the game without it running. We’re glad you’re back!

So, you’re probably wondering, “What has your Dev Team been doing for the last couple of weeks?”

Here’s a small list of things that happened during that time:

  • Figured out the Fan Faire panel details. The “New Stuff” panel is going to be a heck of a show this year, I think.
  • Continued brainstorming on a major new feature set (which we intend to unveil at Fan Faire.)
  • Detailed out the mechanics change plan for the coming year (we’ll be sharing these plans with you soon and think you will really like what we have in store.)
  • Worked out a very cool set of tradeskilling quest changes to make those more interesting.
  • Made a quick UI change to the AA trees so that unavailable abilities are greyed out. (Kind of a “no duh” change, but it’s nice.)
  • Freeport artwork concepting has been going well and the first architecture changes have started.
  • And of course, there’s a lot more, but details will roll out as we get closer to their release.
   

Kander Asks: What EQ2 Zone Should Get a Heroic Version?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Grouping

If you follow EQ2 devs on Twitter, this is likely old news to you, but Kyle “Kander” Kyle Vallée has posed some questions:

What #EQII zone would you love to see revamped into new heroic content ?

Note, this would be an alternate version perhaps scaled up to level 90 as a “revisit” zone, just as  Nek Castle can be revisited at level 50 and 70. These changes would not affect the original zones. Here are some of his responses:

  • Estate of Unrest: “great the way it is”
  • Obelisk of Lost Souls: “not a bad idea”.
  • Rivervale: “does indeed need some love.”
  • Deathfist Citadel: “I think we need to do something “large” with the orcs!”
  • Overland Zones: “I was thinking more dungeon-y dungeon content, but I have seen a lot of requests for something in the overland style areas.”

During the Downtime: GU60, GU61, and Lower Levels

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization

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.

GU60: Adornments Get More Colorful

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Itemization

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 far enough to make adornments easier to find and stand out among other items? Would you still like to see an Adornment Helper in-game that shows all the adornments and where they are available from?

Dragon Ring and Wizard Spire Event Hits Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Live Events

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 the attacks that happen when the events kick off. When you enter the area you should receive a quest.

When the events kick off the area should be attacked by waves of attackers. Defeating these attackers and minimizing NPC casualties will reward progression. Allowing them to die will slow progression. As the events gets further in progression the difficulty of the waves will increase.

There is no planned tradeskill component to these events, without engaging in combat, there are options to acquire tokens. Gninja again:

The tokens also spawn around each of the areas as ground spawns like in Tinkerfest.

This event may go live with, or after Game Update 60, it’s not clear.

In Testing: Game Update 60 Update Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

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 Western Wastes. The Demi-Gods, Tallon and Vallon Zek, are subjugated within its towers, ignorant of Rallos’ grand scheme. Only Sullon Zek, the Maiden of Rage, is aware of what is to transpire. Trapped within her own tower, she has taken great risks to seek out worthy and daring heroes and guide them into the walls of Drunder.

Now it is up to you to grapple the Minions of Zek and battle your way through events that will gain you amazing allies and set into motion a war that will end all wars!

After the jump the full Game Update 60 Notes as they appear on Test (subject to change between now and May 17th):

Create a Level 90 Character? SmokeJumper Asks ‘What If?’, Opens the Floor for Debate

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Daybreak Cash, DGC Wants Feedback

In a thread from a returning player who demanded a flying mount before he’d commit to coming back to EQ2 as a full-time player, SmokeJumper posited a rather interesting thought regarding flying mounts, Velious content, and the fact that both require level 86+. What would you think about being able to start a character at level 90?

Read on…

Hey folks, the OPs comment about not wanting to level up to play in Velious and get a cool mount is a reasonable discussion. At the risk of laying foundation for a flamewar here, I’d like to propose an idea to you and see how you feel about it.

Ready? Try not to judge until you’ve read it all. It’s definitely going to make a few of you think about wearing a troll costume, but if so, please keep in mind that this is just an idea. It’s a discussion. That’s all. I am serious that I’m asking for feedback.

Multiple House Ownership & Prestige Homes FAQ

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

An extensive Multiple House Ownership & Prestige Homes FAQ has been posted on the EQ2 Forums by SmokeJumper yesterday.

In brief, each character can have up to 10 houses. This can be any combination of regular houses within the cities (betrayal  and citizenship quests, which will be streamlined at a future date, will allow simultaneously owning houses in multiple cities), as well as ‘prestige houses’. Some of these prestige houses have been revealed (Freeblood manor, Everfrost summer house) and others have been hinted (Neriak Opera House, Qeynos Dojo, Maj’dul Library, Maj’dul Bottle). Within your 10 house limit, you may have 1 of each house type per character.

Players can now link their regular houses to prestige houses, and port directly to friend’s houses from their own house or even guild hall. This brings us a step closer to Guild Alliances, linking guild halls to facilitate grouping and raiding, but will still require an intermediate step of zoning to a regular or prestige home.

We provide the entire Multi-housing FAQ here for reference purposes:

Multi-housing Coming to Test Today…

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Test and Test Copy will be brought down shortly in order to receive the new Multi-housing code which EQ2 code guru Zoltaroth has been beating on for the last several months. This is a substantial rewrite of the underlying housing code which will allow players to own up to 10 homes in different cities, jump from house to house, and also port to houses where they have been explicitly granted friend or trustee access.

Because there would be no way to reconcile the Live house data vs. the reorganized Test Copy house data, when doing a /testcopy of a character on Live to the Test Copy server, your house will not be copied over. Fortunately, vendors are being added to inexpensively buy houses just to allow testing.

Multihousing Feedback @ EQ2 Forums | Multihousing Bug Reports @ EQ2 Forums

From Zoltaroth:

Test-Copy will get the code the same time as test. However copied characters will not retain their houses from live. You will be free to purchase as many hosues as you want and play with the feature on Test-Copy though.

All of the underlying DB data has changed so there is no way for the houses to copy over when Live and Test are out of sync on the housing code. Once Live is updated the copy script will again copy houses (after some updates).

When exactly?

We are shooting to update test around 3-4pm pacific.

erm…

Some parts of the process are taking longer than anticipated. This will likely cause the update to be closer to 6pm than 4pm.

Test Update Notes Point to PQ Fixes, ToFS x2 Resolution

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

Good news if you play on Test or Test Copy! Several crucial fixes to Public Quests and the Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 raid, as well as the wayward Research button in the Knowledge window  made their way to the Test Servers yesterday.

Normally, we only glance at Test Update Notes to check for new features. No doubt many players on Live will be wishing that this is how the Live Update Notes for yesterday looked. It would have been great to go into the weekend with a lot of these issues tackled.

Here are the Test Update Notes for yesterday, Thursday April 7th. It’s unclear when these will go live, but possibly next Tuesday.

Listening to Forums (the Vocal Minority)?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

I hear this a lot:

Most of the people I know in game never visit the forums, and the “majority” opinions you see here rarely represent their opinions.

It’s often used as a reason to belittle, dismiss, or outright ignore player feedback on the EQ2 forums.

SmokeJumper responded:

And that’s the tricky part for developers also. The loudest voices are always here on these forums, but there are many opinions. That’s one of the reasons that I spend so much time playing the game. Talking to players within the game as I play is always interesting and educational, even moreso when they don’t know it’s me. Most of us on the dev team do this, whether anonymously or known within a guild.

We get *lots* of info about the game from the forums, but no, it’s definitely not our only source of data.

Feedback: PvP to PvE Server Transfer Poll on the EQ2 Forums

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

There have been many reasons in the past not to allow PvP to PvE or PvE to PvP server transfers. Over the years, with itemization changes and server merges, some of those reasons have become less important. From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

We’ve created a poll and asked for feedback related to PvP and PvE transfers over in the PvP forums. Since many players may not watch that forum, I wanted to make a post here because this decision can impact PvE servers as well.

Please feel free to vote and post your feedback/opinions in this thread.

PvP to PvE Server Transfer PLAYER POLL

The question: How do you feel about allowing Marketplace transfers to/from PvP and PvE servers?

Feedback: Crash Fix and Public Quest Performance

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events

SOE is looking for your feedback on two recent changes that went in on Tuesday. From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

Today’s hotfix introduced a couple of fixes and I’d be interested to hear how it has affected you.

First, we’ve made some changes to improve the performance for public quests. We still expect them to contribute towards a higher level of lag than other types of content due to the sheer number of people that participate, and we are working to make them even better. However, you should hopefully notice an improvement after today’s hotfix.

Itemization Changes on Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Itemization

If you just can’t wait for Thursday to see what (if any) changes you’ll see to your gear, you may be interested in these additional Test Update Notes (beyond the notes already posted on Tuesday):

ITEMS

  • Dungeon dropped loot has had its power increased.
  • Dungeon shard armor has had its power increased.
  • Raid items have had their power increased.
  • The gap in power between easy and challenge mode raid items has been increased.
  • The power of a few War Runes has been increased.

Silius brought this to our attention:

Just a heads up that test server should have the biggest chunk of the item increase on it now. If you want to test copy and check it out your feedback is appreciated.

   

Public Quest ‘Participation’ Detector Snags Genuine Effort

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, DGC Wants Feedback, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

Let’s Be Honest…

Public Quests completed even at the highest “x4 raid” level demand neither the coordination nor the discipline of any of the raid content in the last 3 expansions. Storm Gorge requires a little more focus than Ring War, but generally speaking, 24-40 players standing in the right place, killing the right mobs, in the right order, stand to inherit a wagonload of Legendary gear with Yellow adornment slots, all without such challenges as timing AOEs, switching to an Off-Tank, agro-juggling, or any complex strategy. The biggest enemy encountered is usually Server Lag.

Public Quests offer a speedy alternate route to gearing up for players who largely skipped Sentinel’s Fate, are gearing up alts, or just aren’t interested in more solo questing (although as we found, the Othmir questline writing, structure, and payoff are all above average and keep the obvious time sinks to a minimum).

So what’s to stop players from logging in alts, parking them near the scene of a Public Quest, and going to get a coffee while their toon “earns” amazing gear? Apparently not enough. While we have taken issue with certain players who spend an awful lot of time critiquing how others play the game and all the ways in which those methods are unfair or unbalancing, even we would be foolish to defend standing around AFK in a Public Quest all while earning Legendary or Fabled gear. We believe its in everyone’s interest that your favored MMO have a long-term plan besides “More dungeons and more lootz in the next Game Update!” Gameplay that allows leapfrogging most of the content progression is disruptive for the game. Velious has got to last us the next year, and as robust as the Game Updates may end up being, the end of the treadmill should never be visible.

Cross-Faction Communication Coming to PvP?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

From Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

We’re always looking at ways to improve the fun factor on PvP servers and one point that comes up occasionally is how we handle cross-faction communication. Currently each faction has their own language and there’s no way to communicate other thing minor things like pet names, etc.

We are considering opening up public channels to cross-faction chat and wanted to find out how the community would feel about that. We understand that chat in PvP can get pretty heated but also feel that taunting your opponents and being taunted is part of the PvP experience.

Customer Service Webcast on March 24th @ Stickam

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

From EverQuest2.com:

Have you ever wanted to meet the person that’s helped you out in-game? Do you have a question for them? Well now’s your chance! We are going to cover a variety of topics in this week’s webcast,featuring members of the SOE Customer Service team! Join us on Thursday, March 24, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. PST [Friday March 25 @ 0:00 GMT], as we live stream this webcast on the SOE channel on Stickam! You can also tune in through the Stickam tab on our Facebook page. The webcast is expected to last about 20 minutes.

New 18 vs. 18 Battleground in Game Update 60

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

From Olihin on the EQ2 Forums:

Greetings,

With GU60, a new battleground will be added that will allow for a 18 vs. 18 combat setting.

We are currently working on possible additions to the achievements earned while in a battleground and we would like to hear some thoughts on what you may want to see.

We will also evaluate the current achievements and look for ways to reward those that have earned or are in the process of earning them. We believe that someone that can help control all the towers while at the same time having the highest kill streak should be acknowledged, for example.

Feel free to add your ideas and we will do what we can to make your experience while fighting more enjoyable and rewarding and perhaps even humorous at times…

Brewday 2011 Hits Test, Will Run on Live March 10-21

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Live Events

From Kaitheel on the EQ2 Forums:

Brewday 2011 has been activated on both Test and Test Copy.

Grab a stein and celebrate Brewday! The shouts of rowdy patrons located near every player city will lead you to The Bar of Brell where adventures and crafts await those thirsty and foolhardy enough to enter. Meanwhile, the Avatar of Below has returned to Antonica. Help him find the best sampling of drinks from all around. And as you’re crawling through the bars and drinking holes throughout Norrath, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special items of interest to collect!

New features for ’11:

  • “Thurgadin Ice Brew” a new quest is being offered by Oldar Foambeard within the Bar of Brell
  • New Halas is celebrating Brewday Festival!
  • Thurgadin Harbor in Great Divide is also involved in some of the Brewday activities.
  • Balin Copperfoot in the Bar of Brell has some new items for players to buy, including new tradeskill recipes!

Velious: One Week Later

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Now that we’ve seen Tuesday’s Update Notes, we can talk about a few issues we’ve seen which remain unresolved. These may have been fixed today, but they don’t appear in the Update Notes. If you know of a specific bug affecting quest progression, zone progression, etc., please post a comment!

  • Eastern Wastes Flight Discoveries
  • Uncooperative Twins
  • Forgotten Pools Zone In/Zone Out
  • Stat Changes Nerf Level 20-60 Gear
  • Nektropos Castle Door Missing
  • Many Instances Not Spawning Mobs
  • Public Quest Lag
  • Call of the Veteran More Broken Than Ever
  • Disruptive Students in Shadowed Corridors
  • Raid Invites
  • Autoconsume Items in Flight Spam
  • Quest Answers/Replies Have No Background
  • Graphic Artifacts with new Special Effects

What Emotes Would You Like To See?

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback

Tom “ttobey” Tobey is asking for feedback on what emotes players would like to see added to the game.  Head over to the official forums and let him know your ideas.

Pretend I got sitting working…

What 5 emotes would you want to see?

Roleplaying type emotes I mean….

After seeing a few suggestions, he added the following:

i thinking more on the lines of /sit /sleep etc… /read is a good one.

Where Could Lucan D’Lere Server Merge to?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

Rothgar has put forth a possible server merge scenario for folks on the Lucan D’Lere server. This is not a merger that would be taken lightly, as Lucan D’Lere is a Role-play server and there is currently no server that its members could merge to that wouldn’t result in an overpopulated server. It will be interesting to read player reaction to the idea of merging with a non-RP server.

Freeblood: Inner Demon Appearance

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, DGC Wants Feedback

EQ2 developers are trying to track down the exact cause of certain Freeblood characters unable to use (or see) their Inner Demon appearance. Zoltaroth requests feedback here on the EQ2 Forums:

Is anyone still having this issue? We are having trouble reproducing it and would like to see a sample character if possible. If anyone is having this issue still please PM me your character name and server.


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